THINGS THAT MAKE A WARGAME GREAT
by Markus Salo

I´ve been working on my wargame theses: I have been trying to 
think what things make a wargame great.  I came up with this 
list.

1. simplicity of the rules
- easy to learn
2. complexity
- difficult to master
3. repeatibility
- you can play the game over and over again and it is always 
someway different
4. imagination
- the game makes you use your brain and imagination to create 
imaginary worlds.
5. multi-player
- it´s always better to play against another human than a 
computer.  A computer AI can never replace a human brain as 
better opponent. And the more there are players, the better the 
game gets.
6. campaign mode
- several scenarios form a campaign and the outcome of scenarios 
affect the campaign
7. building resources
- winning scenarios allows you to build your force bigger/better
8. no blow-out victories or defeats
- the loser of the scenario still has a chance in the next one
9. characters/units 
- the units, leaders, ships or plane types are created so that 
they become dear to the player and the loss of these units 
causes great grief
10. fog of war
- the player cannot see all enemy units on map
11. player modification of the rules and player created variants
- the games are created for players and the players can make the 
games better
12. the game in campaign mode is loooooong.
- the longer it is, the better it feels
13. PBEM
- that's obvious nowadays


Some things that are not essential:

1. real-time action
- wargame that is won by a player who clicks his mouse fastest? 
Not for me.
2. great pictures
- well, pictures are nice to look at, but most of the games are 
concentrated on grafics alone
3. sound
- as above

One famous hockey coach in Finland that has a principle called 
K.I.S.S, that means "Keep It Simple, Stupid".  This aplies to 
game creation, too.

Simplicity of the rules is essential is gaming.  Good rules are 
easy to learn but the game itself can still be complicated and 
difficult to master.  Such games are f.ex. checkers, chess, go,  
Zulu spears.  Bad examples are almost all Avalon Hill games, the 
most terrible examples are Advanced Third Reich and Advanced 
Squad Leader.  I found it easier to study neurology than ASL 
rules.

If we want warpgames to be warpgames, not Avalon Hill games,  we 
got to keep the rules simple and options clear.  In a good game 
one has to be able to se the next possible moves in a split 
second and then use some minutes to hours to think which one to 
use.  The opponent can also figure out the possible moves the 
player has, but doesn't know which one the player chooses. Even 
if there was fog of war, the opponent can count the used cards in 
his mind and know which cards are left in play.

There are a lot of things and modifiers that can be included in a 
game but those does not necesserily make the game better.  If one 
is creating a game in stead of simulation, one has to offer some 
realism and complexity to get playability.  Realistic, simulation-
like (AH-type) games with no players are no mach to less 
realistic but more playable warpgames, I hope.