Want to Create Your Own Computer Wargames - These Books May Help?

How do you create your own Computer Wargame? Good question. Learning computer progamming is the simple and not so simple answer. But other than that there are a couple of books that I have found that walk the reader through the process. They're not particularly recent though, but if you have the patience for it and have a yearning to do it - or are disatisfied with what's currently available, then these titles might help you:

Going to War: Creating Computer Wargames Paperback – 9 Apr 2009

by Jason Darby

Learn how to create your very own wargames, games that simulate or represent military operations. This book shows readers everything they need to know to create wargames on the PC using the drag-and-drop game engine Multimedia Fusion 2. No previous game creation or programming experience is necessary and when they finish the book, readers will have all the tools they need to create their own wargames. Coverage includes the history of wargames, how to design a wargame, movement, terrain and weather effects, attack and defense, and more.

Buy it from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

Designing Wargames - Introduction (Studies in Game Design Book 5) [Kindle Edition]

George Phillies 

Designing Wargames introduces the play and design of classic hex-and-counter board wargames. Written as a textbook, Designing Wargames should appeal to board and computer game designers, board game players, and designers of serious war games for historical and military study. 

Phillies opens with a discussion of the basic elements combined to create strategic games, including representation, theme, style, mechanisms, voice, shape, and content. To introduce non-players to board wargames, he describes in detail the play of four classic board wargames, namely Stalingrad, 1914, Panzerblitz, and Fall of Manjukuo. A path to designing a game, stressing the central importance of iterative development and playtesting, is advanced. Several fundamental mechanisms and their variations, including the zone of control and command and control rules, are examined in detail. A case study contrasts a half-dozen games on a single historic campaign, comparing how different designers have created radically different games that represent the same historic outcomes. A paragraph by paragraph analysis of the written rules of one game is given. Issues related to luck and technology are examined. An extensive set of homework problems, many in the form of development projects, support the material in the text. 
Phillies' lectures on the material in the text may be seen on YouTube on the GeorgePhillies channel. 


Buy it from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk


The following title seems to be unavailable now - maybe worth trying Abebooks perhaps for second hand copy?

Engines of War: Developing Computer Wargames Paperback – 15 Nov 2007

by John Lundy (Author), Ben Sawyer (Author)

Computer wargames are one of the oldest and most popular genres of computer games available. The community of wargame players (known as Grognards) are one of the most fervent in all of gaming and include fans of both computer and pen-and-paper wargames. The object of any wargame is to achieve a series of victory conditions which can include eradicating their opponent's forces or capturing key positions on a map. Many games often recreate a specific historical event and these games are used often in history classes around the world where students can explore what might have been if the player decides to do things differently.

In Engines of War: Developing Computer Wargames, game programmer John Lundy (WWII Online) and producer Ben Sawyer (SeriousGames.org) take readers through all the intricacies of developing computer wargames. An original, flexible, open-source wargames engine and editor are provided by the authors to give programmers and designers the foundation they need to design and customize their own unique wargames. Developing wargames requires very specialized knowledge and this book really delivers. It features a number of hands-on chapters that cover designer insights, production techniques, programming code, several major map systems, ideas on how to incorporate world factors, strategic determination for AI, and path finding techniques. The book includes advanced topics including programming techniques for creating real-time wargames, and online play, and much more. Also included is a network code subsystem that allows for two player games. The network code will even allow computer versus computer play (local or remote) so that the beginning developer can validate his or her game code by watching the computer play itself.

Wargames for Sale in Steam's Weeklong deals

There's some wargames going cheap this week in Steam Weeklong deals.

Firstly if you like medieval wargames there are the games from developer Unicorn Games Studio: XIII Century and the two Real Warfare games. These are basically like Medieval Total War 2 but without the campaigns - you also get much more in the way of actual historical battles than Medieval Total War 2 and in my opinion the games are better wargames than Medieval Total War 2 as well.

Check them out here:

XIII Century

Real Warfare: 1242

Real Warfare: Northern Crusades

Another one on sale is Pride of Nations from Ageod and Slitherine - a grand strategy 19th game. I haven't played it so don't have an opinion on it, but have had a go at a couple of Ageod's other games, so I suspect it will be good but a bit tricky to learn initially.

There are also some other games that I know nothing about:

Graviteam Tactics: Operation Star

Panzer Elite Action

Iron Warriors: T-72 Tank Command (just like being in Ukraine?)

Panzer Tactics HD

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France 1940 Allied Strategy

I have played a couple of wargames now playing as the allies to see if I can stop the German blitzkrieg through the Low Countries and France in the summer of 1940. In both cases I found that it was fairly easy to prevent the Germans from steamrolling through.

The basic strategy for success is to not follow the allied Dyle plan and flood the BEF and best French troops into Belgium to defend their frontier. That strategy as in real life makes the attack through the Ardennes a lot more effective for the Germans.

Instead playing the France 1940 scenario in TOAW and also Commander Europe at War: Grand Strategy, I hold the best defensive positions and hold the Germans back. Sure they do some damage to my forces and take some territory, but they never break through or encircle my armies.

The Germans actually started their invasion in CEAW above in November 1939 - so I've been holding them for over half a year already in this exam

So what is happening here? Is there something that these games are not simulating about the German attack? Perhaps the Germans should be stronger and the Allies weaker? Or simply was the Allied strategy badly flawed. In which case the German blitzkrieg can be countered easily by a solid well maintained and supported defence?

One thing I realized though is that in both games I was using hindsight - I effectively followed the same defensive line as the Dyle plan - but I made sure the Ardennes region was well defended so that I couldn't be outflanked by the Germans.

In both games the Western Front ends up looking more like late 1914 than summer 1940.