'Amateurs study tactics; professionals study logistics.'
This (or something similar to it) is quite frequently quoted, and there is more than an element of truth in it. As Nathan Bedford Forrest is often (incorrectly*) supposed to have said, 'git thar fustest with the mostest', which requires good logistics, and can be vital to winning a battle.
As the majority of hobby wargamers are ‘amateurs’, logistics tend not to be covered in most sets of wargame rules. My HEXBLITZ rules did include some simple logistic rules, but to be frank, they were probably too simple and certainly incomplete.
I recently decided to revisit and revise HEXBLITZ and writing a proper set of logistics rules was the first task I set myself. After a lot of thinking (and two days of writing later) I had a comprehensive set of logistics rules to include in the revised book ... but on re-reading them, I realised that I had designed a monster that only the most ardent wargaming accountant would have found even mildly interesting.
I had done something that all wargame designers need to be very wary of, and that is trying to write a set of rules or devise a mechanism that is so all-embracing that it ends up being too complex and/or too burdensome on the players and was therefore likely not to have been used.
On reflection, this particular 'horse' fell at the fence of 'Cordery’s Rule of Wargame Design', which states that 'If players consistently ignore a rule because it does not make sense or hinders the flow of the wargame, then the rule should be discarded. If players do not notice that it has gone, then it probably should not have been there in the first place.'
I have therefore gone back to the drawing board, slightly chastened and determined not to make this mistake again ... I hope!
* Bruce Catton, the well-known American Civil War historian, wrote in his book THE CIVIL WAR in 1971 that 'Do not, under any circumstances whatever, quote Forrest as saying 'fustest' and 'mostest'. He did not say it that way, and nobody who knows anything about him imagines that he did.'
I have a rule which is the "Law of Finite Complexity". You have to decide what is important to your game. If you want a really detailed Command and Control system, then the combat system, for example, needs to be simplified. Same for logistics. If you look at the good logistics games - such as Rollbahn, or the early versions of NQM - the combat systems are really simple.
ReplyDeleteTrebian,
DeleteVery true. My problem was that my ‘simple’ logistic rules ended up with some many caveats that they were not only tediously boring but also required a lot of fiddling about.
I’m certainly going to try something simpler.
All the best,
Bob
I think Chris' solution of trucks with log points in the form of airgun pellets in the back that you exchanged for dice to roll was as good an answer as any.
DeleteTrebian,
DeleteI must admit that my rules borrowed part of Chris’s system, but using multiple tracks and counters. Very elegant but intrinsically neither as easy to use or as elegant as Chris’s solution.
All the best,
Bob
Working through ideas and discarding them is still progress! I'll be interested to see how you streamline your ideas. All the best with it.
ReplyDeleteDonjondo,
DeleteOne often learns much more from one’s failures than one’s successes.
All the best,
Bob
It's a wise man wot nose hiself.
ReplyDeleteIf your rules of wargame design were followed by other rulesmiths then you would have more competition and I for one would end up spending more money on rulebooks that in all likelihood I still wouldn't use!
Barry Carter,
DeleteWhen I mentored several students on the Kings College London wargame design module of the post-graduate War Studies course, I always emphasised the importance of my ‘rule’ … along with the request to simply, simply, and simplify again!
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob
ReplyDeleteI think you are very brave to attempt to write logistic rules for other wargamers! I have found it difficult enough to write rules that I can accept and not find too boring.
I think you are quite right that logistics was critical in all campaigns. Wellington is a good example of a general who understood their importance, and consequently went to great pains to supervise them himself. I believe this contributed greatly to his success in the Iberian Peninsula.
However logistics are by their very nature complicated and boring. Even in board games they tend to be abstract. So they are unlikely to appeal to model soldier wargamers, who like the exciting and fast moving aspects of set piece battles.
But for those who want to attempt a campaign they are essential.
When writing such rules it is very easy to try to cover every aspect and difficulty, thus making the end product over complicated and difficult to game.
The important thing is that they must have an effect on the outcome of the campaign, and the general who ignores their importance must suffer the consequences.
But the more that they can be simplified and abstract the better. It is asking too much for the average wargamer to spend more than a brief period worrying about anything other than glory on the wargames table.
I wish you luck with our project and hope you cover its development on the blog.
best regards
Paul
Jan Leniston (Paul),
DeleteYour games show how important logistics are in a campaign setting, and how often going too far, too fast and/or too soon can lead to overstretch and increases the risk of a disaster.
At one point my rules involved moving counters along a number of tracks to and from supply dumps and railheads. I added an extra layer of complication by including transport units with different weight carrying capacities. To make matters worse, I then tried to include manufacturing capabilities to the system, but however simple I made it, it turned the whole thing from a small monster into a big one!
I’ll get there in the end … just not as quickly as I had hoped that I would!
All the best,
Bob
Sometimes these things can only be put to bed by following the path to the deadend.
ReplyDeleteRossMac,
DeleteVery true!
All the best,
Bob
I was telling my boys a story from my time in the army. They had set up a field/command exercise for the officers to practice battlefield...um, practices.
ReplyDeleteThe officers were set up around post in actual command tents and their job was to send orders to move troops and supplies. About 200 of us were working in a varracks, punching keyboards to give those orders to a computer mainframe that did all the number crunching. Most of the time spent by us keyboard jockeys was counting bullets and beans and then moving them somewhere. As far as the battle went, most of the time the enemy won and the commanders had to react. While it was fun being with my buddies it was nowhere near as exciting as the recruitng ads promised.
Mr. Pavone,
DeleteI suspect that I might need the modern equivalent of the mainframe to make my logistic rules work without it being too burdensome on the players.
Recruiting adverts for the military always emphasis the fun bits … and never mention having to stand guard duty in the pouring rain in the middle of winter!
All the best,
Bob
I have always had a great interest in logistics and also believe that most wargamers do not take account of logistics anything like enough to reflect the importance of this subject. I am very pleased you have recognised this and made an attempt to fix this problem. I can however well understand that in doing so you have created a monster. That said the vast majority of most General's time was and is spent on the question of logistics, that is the reality of warfare. If wargamers really want to fight realistic battles they have to spend a lot of time on logistics. There are many examples of battles won and lost on logistical issues. The simple fact is that war is 90% logistics and 10% tactics. I am certainly not clever enough to write a set of rules that adequately incorporate logistics but I strongly encourage you not to give up. There must be way to enhance the impact of logistics in wargaming without detracting too much from the "amateur" side of the game.
ReplyDeleteTony Adams,
DeleteI agree. If you want to fight reasonably realistic battles as part of a campaign, it is important that logistics form part of the processes of running that campaign. Most wargamers seem to have a ‘Hollywood’ view of warfare, where weapons never need to be reloaded and vehicles rarely run out of fuel.
All the best,
Bob
It's a tough call, isn't it Bob. I started simple and got simpler as time went on :-)
ReplyDeleteIf players can play the game without logistics, they will! That means the mechanism has to be an integral part of the sequence rather than a bolt on.
Instead of tracking log at battalion level nowadays I just say that every one on the firing dice attracts an out-of-ammo counter. These are removed when the unit reorganises. Units can only reorganise if their divisional log is intact.
Looking forward to seeing the results.
Regards, Chris
I like the way video games handle supply. Many times your character has special abilities that draw from a "mana pool" for magical abilities or special skills. If a unit spent points from its supply pool to perform an action, it would keep players from going full-bore all the time. So long as a line of supply is maintained the points automatically refill. When a chain of supply is broken, that's when a unit can end up in trouble as its points are no longer refilled automatically.
DeleteIt's an idea, but I'm not sure how easy it would be to implement without trying it first. That's the nice thing about video games, they do all the math for you behind the scenes.
I always liked the logistics bits of the early NQM games. You can never have too many trucks.
DeleteChris,
DeleteThat seems to be a very simple way to do it … and one that I may well ‘borrow’ (which is a polite way of saying plagiarise!).
All the best,
Bob
Mr. Pavone,
DeleteThanks for you suggestion, but I want to develop a logistics system that does place some restraints on a player’s actions, so I don’t think that one where troops fight full out until their logistics are exhausted will fit my requirements. I want their commander to have their supply situation constantly in the back of their mind.
All the best,
Bob
Trebian,
DeleteI agree! It had a certain elegance and simplicity.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob, I think you could do a lot worse than going back to Tim's Megablitz logistics rules (especially if you plan to revise Hexblitz). It was a simple system and had a simple outcome if you failed to use it. I usually use Megablitz to fill in the gaps in Hexblitz. Hope you're keeping well.
ReplyDeleteTake Care,
Tony.
Unknown (Tony),
DeleteThat is certainly one of the options I am considering.
All the best,
Bob
PS. I am feeling fine at the moment. I’ve had my booster jab, and hope to have my flu and shingles jabs soon.
The Megablitz log rules also have a few holes in them (there is nothing to stop wily players trucking up unlimited amounts of supplies and dumping them). I kept the concept of mobile supply bases, but I added in a road capacity limit on how many Log points can move up a road. For Panzergruppe I just simplified it to how many divisions a road can support, which seems to work OK.
DeleteAs Trebian says, if you are going to have a more complex Log system, everything else needs to be simpler.
Martin Rapier,
DeleteThanks for the very helpful suggestions.
In the original rules vehicles had different levels of carrying capacity, but your road capacity solution seems to be a good alternative.
It’s certainly given me lots to think about.
All the best,
Bob
Hi Bob -
ReplyDeleteI think the problem with the logistics side of things is that most of it happens 'off stage', as far as figure wargames are concerned. Robert Louis Stevenson's attic wars with his stepson was fought over a country, and so did contain a logistic element concerning the supply of ammunition to be brought up from the respective nations arsenals. Most of the time we don't fight over more than a battlefield sized piece of country.
Map campaigns might add a more detailed logistic component, but if the thing is really designed to create a continuity between battle episodes (such as my Blacklands War, or the 'Long Live the Revolution' campaign), the logistics become a 'given'.
Apart from logistics being more an issue of war games campaigning (in my opinion), one might add a 'token' logistics component, say, the presence of transport elements on the table, with consequent effects upon the army's 'fightability' if they are lost (Blacklands War).
Cheers,
Ion
Archduke Piccolo (Ion),
DeleteBecause HEXBLITZ is more of an operational-level wargame, I think that logistics need to be represented in some way on the tabletop. The problem is dividing mechanisms that don’t end up running the game rather than being part of it.
I have now rejected the use of counters on supply tracks (amongst other things, I was never quite sure if I had nudged the tracks and moved counters in doing so) and the spreadsheet I developed. The spreadsheet was good in that it did all the calculations for you, but you had to remember to input the data at the right time in order for it to work properly … and in the heat of (tabletop) battle, this was sometimes neglected.
I am gradually coming around to the idea of having a physical system that is on the tabletop (rather like Chris Kemp’s NQM system). All I have to do now is to experiment with what suits me best … and doesn’t cost the Earth to implement!
All the best,
Bob
My sympathies Bob, I had a flu jab on Tuesday and because of my heart medication the bruising is quite incredible.
ReplyDeleteTake Care,
Tony.
Unknown (Tony),
DeleteI must admit to a degree of frustration that I get messages from my doctor to have my flu and shingles jabs, but then can’t book an appointment!
I hope that your bruising goes quickly. Luckily that is not a problem that I suffer from although my wife does.
All the best,
Bob
I suggest checking out the ideas in 'A Billion Suns' for the game's use of a game mechanic that makes the player a CEO of a corporation trying to make a profit.
ReplyDeleteSo they can allocate more resources to achieve their missions, but if they fail to make a profit they're replaced (effectively lose), which makes for an interesting conundrum. So logistics by the back door.
Ashley,
DeleteThanks for the suggestion. It’s not a game that I have come across before, so I’ll be doing some online research later tonight.
All the best,
Bob
Bob,
ReplyDeletea late comment - because I couldn't remember where I had 'stolen' my logistics rules to bolt on to OP14..
Take a look at the rules in PanzerGruppe as discussed in https://balagan.info/deep-battle-design-notes-4-musing-on-logistics-and-supply-rules
Bill Barker,
DeleteNo helpful comment is ever too late!
Thanks for the suggested link. I will follow it later today.
All the best,
Bob