Wargaming Scribe

The history of computer wargames, one game at a time starting in 1973 !

Also on a Bluer Sky.

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@vitusss_ That’s exaggerated. Evariste Gallois was a late bloomer, discovering Maths at 14 and only reading Lagrange at 15. He failed Polytechnique because he basically conveyed “this part is left as an exercice for the examiner” during the exam.
His big break was doing prison.

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

Surprisingly, the ruleset is MUCH closer to modern wargaming than the 1824 game - no umpire to start with! Except for the lack of dice (fully deterministic!) it could “pass” today. The intro is worth reading, as the “first wargame” mentions…the many wargame it was inspired by!

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

Kriegsspiel (1824) considered to be the first modern wargame, by convention more than by consensus - scholarly works at least as far back as 1966 mention earlier wargames, with the consensus being distributed between Holwig’s game (1780), Vinturinus’ (1795) and Opiz (1806) [1/6]

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

Well, well, well. In late 2024, the Berlin “Digital staatsbibliothek” digitalized it, an event that seems to have escaped everyone attention (at least in the French/English] world. I took the scan, OCR’ed it and machine-translated it. Voilà:

https://t.co/2t93DIIsVf

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@aaron_renn When I started at BNP-P in France in 2009 [Leverage Finance], I once came with a pink shirt. My manager took me apart immediately « Here it’s banking, not insurance - so it’s white or blue. »
Later I moved to video games and with colourful shirts I am considered an overdresser!

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@LeDocToe @AurelLevasseur La légalité du régime de Vichy [“de l’autorité de fait appelé régime de Vichy”] et de ses actes. Pour bcp simplifier, ils sont [+ ou -] nuls en droit public mais légaux en droit privé, dans ce dernier cas pour des raisons de stabilité des contrats.

Mon jury ne le savait pas.

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@AurelLevasseur Quand je passais l’ENA, la legende raconte que deux ou trois ans plus tôt un malheureux avait eu “l’équilibre des puissances en Micronésie” à l’oral de Questions Internationales. Ca se traite, mais c’est enlevé.

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@jfFxjfgLrmKRr @JucheAffirmer Check manual page 343: free road but also an unspecified flat bonus. In my experience, if a major has a resource in sufficient quantity and is not surrounded (or mostly so), it won’t have supply issues (exception: Oceania maps). You need to cut the sources, not the routes.

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@jfFxjfgLrmKRr @JucheAffirmer I absolutely love Shadow Empire (best 4X I have ever played) but the AI only seems impressive because you have to tackle an incredibly demanding, confusing and obfuscated logistic system while the AI really doesn’t.

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@Azathels @roborat315 @JucheAffirmer AGEOD games come to me, esp. Revolution Under Siege (RUS)

Before playing RUS, I had nothing to anchor my readings on the RCW. Now, I can put every city on the map, tell you why Tsaritsyn was so strategic and discuss the political philosophy of the Tambovites.

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@Chishiki27 Cette video est connue (et existe) parce que le nom du Lieutenant est Charles Péguy.

Compréhensible qu’on ait oublié ses oeuvres, mais triste que le nom ne résonne même pas.

“De Jean Coste” est un essai de 60 pages encore génial à lire. Côté poème: “Les 7 contre Thèbes”

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@ExLibrisCelaeno @LandsknechtPike Something I like with Nicolescu’s historical movies is how the Ottomans are noble enemies who respect the Wallachians and only fight them due to mutually well-understood historical determinism! Meanwhile, the Hungarians are simply backstabbing bastards with no honor!

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@ExLibrisCelaeno @LandsknechtPike Great movie (it’s on YouTube), but the battles, as massive as they are, are ridiculous: soldiers holding “pinging” their spears high in melee without formation. His later Mircea was better. His earlier “Dacii” mediocre, but had the only Roman decimation scene in cinema!

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@_Darthsoldier_ It’s not only East Europe. There are a lot of non-American movies with great battle scenes. Hollywood converged toward short cuts, individual heroics, zoom on individual deathes so it looks off, other countries didn’t. Eg French movie on the WW1 Balkan front:

[Wargaming Scribe @ScribeWargaming]

@exQUIZitely One of my commenters and another blogger created 5 extra scenarios if you want some more fun (Polish Deluge, Napoleon in Spain, Gladiator, the 7 Samurai and Stirling Bridge). I think most are better than the official scenarios.
My coverage of this game:
https://t.co/x5EKLWaz0o