What makes an ancients wargame a GOOD Ancients wargame?

[Leftblank]

My short essay about the plausible tactics that a ruleset should promote to judge it as a 'good' Ancients ruleset.

The Amsterdam Acid Test for Wargames, part IX: Realism vs Gaming.
What makes an ancients wargame a good Ancients wargame?

I’m going to review and compare at least 5 Ancients wargames, I think I have a good topic list, but the question is, how can I as a 21st century wargamer judge the ‘historical realism’ of an Ancients ruleset?

I read Sabin (‘Lost Battles’) but was enlightened by the July/August 2021 issue of Slingshot, with an interview with Simon Hall and and essay about ‘Game Mechanics and Realism’ by Anthony Clipsom.

Clipsom: historical plausibility is the key (...)
More:
https://amsterdamwar.game.blog/2022/04/01/tactical-concepts-to-include-in-ancients-wargaming/

[Shahbahraz]

A good ancients wargame has to have:
1. A good game. It must entertain and have sufficient decisions and tension to keep a player engaged. It must have replaybility in that each game is different.
2.Plausible. Does the game look and feel like our (admittedly limited) concepts about how armies should operate..   do Assyrian Chariots swoop like wolves on the fold, do Romans remorselessly grind down their opponents, do wild barbarian charges threaten to break through. (All of which may be wrong of course..)
3. Variety - with one of the appeals of ancients gaming being the huge variety of troop types, do we get to play with scythed chariots, or elephants or hoplites. And each of them unique in their representation.
4. No 'super-armies' and no 'super-tactics'. What.. Patrician Roman or Lithuanian, or Aztec... again!

For each of those I can name at least one set of Ancients rules that fails.

[Happy Wanderer]

I would agree with the list that Shahbahraz has come up with.

I also agree and have settled on ‘historically plausible’ as the standard…the outcome of a game should be a narrative that reads like the history presented to us in the written texts…rules should deliver that experience. Even the (sometime maligned as a not serious wargame) Commands & Colors often delivers historically plausible results, though at times, somewhat abstracted…the game however is fast and fun.

I would also agree with Simon MacDowell’s list.

I would encourage you to try out Simon Miller’s To the Strongest on your list of rules…on all counts, it delivers what Simon MacDowell’s list lays out…and his game is fast, elegant, engaging and fun. The perfect ancients rules set IMO.

Nothing really is outside ‘the plausible’ in my games of TtS!

My recent battle report on the Battle of Stolos shows just how a plausible narrative is driven - here’s the link if interested.

https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=136114.0


Recommended

[FierceKitty]

1)   Winners lose about 10%, losers 30-50%. Cannaes are not the norm.
2)   Troops commit to attacks and don't suddenly change direction in the last 50 yards of a charge for an opportunistic flank attack that would never happen in reality.
3)   Players know that Aztecs, Lancastrians, and Sung are not ancient armies. Also that if Assurbanipal is fighting Attila, that's fantasy borrowing big brother's clothes, not ancients.
4)   Impetuous troop types and disciplined ones have clear advantages, but neither assures victory.
5)   There are large numbers of figures on the table.
6)   Legionaries look like legionaries, not like copies of Asterix comics. Mail and oval shields were very much more usual for much of history.
7)   About halfway through a battle, players realise they have only limited control of their armies. Winning is more fun if there were a few "By Zeus, we're in trouble now" moments.
8 )  One or two major decisions are critically important; the battle should not depend on dozens of sergeant-level decisions made by the player if he's a general.
9)   Painting has made a bona fide attempt to look like ancient colours. It can't be perfect, but shouldn't be Hollywood or Warhammer.
10) Numidians aren't negroid, Chinese aren't yellow ochre, Celts aren't bright pink.

[FierceKitty]

Good topic, by the way; needs to be repeated for medieval, pike and shot, horse and musket, and moderns.

[WuZhuiQiu]

A certain, currently popular ruleset would seem to be missing the "deploy in depth" criterion...

[williamb]

1)   Winners lose about 10%, losers 30-50%. Cannaes are not the norm.

10% losses were considered excessive.   See Pyrrhus victories against the Romans.   Alexanders battles and others had about 1% casualties for the victors.

[FierceKitty]

10% losses were considered excessive.   See Pyrrhus' victories against the Romans.   Alexander's battles and others had about 1% casualties for the victors.

Phew! By "casualties" I do also mean the wounded and the seriously demoralised (thus temporarily neutralised), if that helps. Anyway, my point is battles of annihilation are a great rarity, which the rules should reflect.

Alexander had quality in his favour against most opponents, of course. Losses seem to have been higher at Hydaspes.

[Codsticker]

1)   Winners lose about 10%, losers 30-50%. Cannaes are not the norm.
2)   Troops commit to attacks and don't suddenly change direction in the last 50 yards of a charge for an opportunistic flank attack that would never happen in reality.
3)   Players know that Aztecs, Lancastrians, and Sung are not ancient armies. Also that if Assurbanipal if fighting Attila, that's fantasy borrowing big brother's clothes, not ancients.
4)   Impetuous troop types and disciplined ones have clear advantages, but neither assures victory.
5)   There are large numbers of figures on the table.
6)   Legionaries look like legionaries, not like copies of Asterix comics. Mail and oval shields were very much more usual for much of history.
7)   About halfway through a battle, players realise they have only limited control of their armies. Winning is more fun if there were a few "By Zeus, we're in trouble now" moments.
8 )  One or two major decisions are critically important; the battle should not depend on dozens of sergeant-level decisions made by the player if he's a general.
9)   Painting has made a bona fide attempt to look like ancient colours. It can't be perfect, but shouldn't be Hollywood or Warhammer.
10) Numidians aren't negroid, Chinese aren't yellow ochre, Celts aren't bright pink.

That's a good list FK.

[FierceKitty]

Purrrrrrrrrrr.

[VonAkers]

Leftbank
Bravo a very good thought provoking question.
Fierce Kitty , great list well thought through.
Happy Wanderer I agree I like TTS and dont mind C&C for what it is  ( miniature version)
Shahbahraz i I lreally like your Ideas .

There is perhaps one thing I could add that maybe hasnt been mentioned.
I quite like the way that Hail Caesar has Themed Books/ Army lists  for each Period.
Lets face it no rules can cover all the periods and keep all the specific Flavour .
Better I think to do a Punic War Module / a Successor Module , just to flesh out special rules and flavour for each period .
Obviously we are not talking Competitions or Aztecs Vs Picts  as well.
Cheers

[Easy E]

If I wrote it or not!  /S

Ultimately, to me the biggest criteria to consider is..... was the game fun? 

Of course, what the hell does that mean?  It varies a lot.  To me, there needs to be the right amount of choice where the consequences have important downstream impacts.  I think of it as an equation:

(Positive Outcomes / Negative Impacts) + Downstream Impacts to the Game = Meaningful Choice

Of course, choice alone is not enough.  The game also needs a certain.... soul to it.  Of course, I also have a rough equation for that too:

(Mechanics + Decision Points) = Outcomes
(Concept+ Game Play Experience) = Emotional Investment
Outcomes + Emotional Investment = Fun!

Those two elements are the key to fun. 

The question you are posing is more about what makes an ancient game and ancient game?  That is also a difficult question to answer since so much of ancient battles we just know nothing about!  For example, everyone knows what a Triplex Acies is and Polybius describes it very well.  However, we still really have no idea how it actually functions on the battlefield..... we just have guesses.  We also have no idea what the point of contact in ancient battles was like either, as historians are still debating whether it is small units engaging across the front, one big battle line, something else entirely?  Sadly, we really do not know.  Therefore, there really is no "uniform" way to think about Ancient battles. 

Therefore, an ancient battle game is more about what YOU as the player want to play and find fun more than any "simulationist" elements.  Since we know so little about ancient battles, there IS no simulationist elements in ancient battle games, we are all just making it up as we go along. 

The articles you site, all have major differences in how they approach an Ancient battle and are in many ways contradictory.  Therefore, play what you find fun instead and leave the theory to the pro/am historians. 


 

[mellis1644]

Generally a decent list of point but a couple of comments to add on the above items.

* 'Casualties' in ancient battles are not necessarily killed troops. Even up to fairly modern times this was the case and most casualties are in the rout/after battle phase we believe. It's more 'morale failure' and loss of 'fighting will' which then breaks a unit in combat. So the figure removal style for large scale battles just does not really work model reality well IMO. Better a unit level morale and have that able to rally and change. Also, a commander should never be able to 100% trust the status of a unit. Keep figure removal and such to skirmish games.

* There should be multiple important decision points per turn for players to make. A few may be critical but those would only be seen after the battle is over.  But during the game these big decisions should not be absolutely clear cut as to what they are/whether they are key or not.

* Deployment and terrain should be very important and can't overlooked. But it should not overpower the game - or that becomes a/the game in itself. Games which avoid this completely are much poorer/missing a huge aspect of ancient warfare. Balancing that with playability is a key factor though and difficult to do. This is very important if a game is to be competitive vs. just scenario's run by a GM.

[Shahbahraz]

Do historical tactics work in the game? Or at least, does it make sense to use historical tactics.

Add in - aesthetics, I want a big battle game that 'looks' like I Imagine a battle to look like (not a skirmish), and doesn't require hundreds of coloured markers. I dislike 'special dice' - after all it's still a 1 in 6, whether it shows a 1, a skull or a badgers tadger. No record keeping, no millimetric measuring, no written orders, has to have the Fog of War, to limit the players omniscience.

Finally, can you do a historical refight and get it approximately believable without having to add in a load of special rules or reclassifications. The reports from the SoA Battle Day are always interesting in this regard.

[FierceKitty]

Do historical tactics work in the game? Or at least, does it make sense to use historical tactics.

Add in - aesthetics, I want a big battle game that 'looks' like what I imagine a battle to look like (not a skirmish), and doesn't require hundreds of coloured markers. I dislike 'special dice' - after all it's still a 1 in 6, whether it shows a 1, a skull or a badger's tadger. No record keeping, no millimetric measuring, no written orders, has to have the Fog of War, to limit the players' omniscience.

Finally, can you do a historical refight and get it approximately believable without having to add in a load of special rules or reclassifications? The reports from the SoA Battle Day are always interesting in this regard.

Good points. But does ANYONE ever really use the Roman triple line? You're sure to be outflanked if you do that. Legionaries are not the cheapest troops in the shop as it is.