What would make an ideal board game?

[Lufbery]

All,

Not knowing too much about WWI air combat board games, but being greatly interested, I'm wondering what you guys and gals would consider an ideal WWI board game. What features would it have?

Curiously yours,

[Kirk]

Ooh, good question. I've thought about that many times myself. Not that I'm any kind of expert, but here's my list of requirements; 1) Simultaneous movement. In real air combat all the airplanes are moving all the time. Having a boardgame where one player moves and shoots, then the other moves and shoots is not very accurate. Even games that have "pseudo" simultaneous movement where players move one after the other but shooting takes place at the end of the game turn isn't all that realistic either. The player lucky enough to get to move last always has a HUGE advantage. Of course for a boardgame, it's hard to get away from something like that. I don't know of a really good way to have true simultaneous movement in a boardgame without making the game very cumbersome to play. This is one aspect where computer games have a decided advantage.
2) A multitude of options. A really good game should have large numbers of aircraft, scenarios, etc. After a while you get tired of flying the same old Albatros's and Sopwith Camel's in dogfight scenarios. 3) Accurate flying characteristics. The planes in the game should act and "feel" like real aircraft. 4) Solitaire capability. The biggest problem with boardgames is finding opponents. A WWI aviation buff needs to be able to play his game even when he can't find opponents. This is another area where computers have it all over boardgames. 5) Playability. The game needs to play fast enough so that a decent sized engagement (3 on 3?) can be played in a reasonable (a couple hours) timeframe. 6) Support. It's not really a characteristic of a game per se, but finding other people out there that play your favorite game can really enhance your enjoyment of it. A game like Dawn Patrol has a large following on the 'net while others may not have as many people playing them.
I'm sure there are other criteria, but these are the only ones I can think of right off the top of my head.
Maybe somebody should create a small "WWI Boardgame" database showing peoples ratings for different games in different areas. Then if somebody is wondering about a game they can come here to see how Aerodrome forum readers rate them. Here's how I'd rate the three games I'm familiar with (Richthofen's War, Dawn Patrol, Canvas Falcons) in the six categories above, 1 being great and 5 being terrible. 1) Simutaneous movement: RW-5, DP-3, CF-2. 2) Options: RW-2, DP-1, CF-3. 3) Accurate Flying: RW-4, DP-3, CF-1. 4) Solitaire capability: RW-3, DP-3, CF-4. 5) Playability: RW-1, DP-2, CF-3. 6) Support: RW-5, DP-2, CF-3. One thing to remember is that Canvas Falcons is still in development, so a couple of the ratings could change.
Can anybody else think of any other categories, or games they'd like to rate?

[Lufbery]

What about what the game simulates? Do you prefer operational simulations (big picture -- squadrons, wings, etc.), or tactical (little picture -- individual planes)? What about some mixture of both?

Regards,

[Kirk]

Good point. All the games I mentioned are tactical in nature in that each counter represents a single aircraft fighting performing a single mission. Canvas Falcons has a strategic level game that can be used to set up the tactical level game. In it I believe (someone please correct my errors) counters represent groups of aircraft performing missions. The tactical and strategic games can be played in conjunction, or separately depending on the players preference.
Another thread mentions a game called Wings Over France, by Lambourne games. It was designed with the solitaire player in mind and addresses aspects of air fighting not covered by most other games. Things such as weather, fuel supply, etc., play a part in determining the outcome of the game. The games primary scenario follows an Allied squadron during "Bloody April", 1917. The reviews for this game are terrific and I may have to pick up a copy.
Does anybody know of any other games of this type?

Hi, I just mentioned on another thread that the Wings over France designer was working on a similar game for Black September 1918.
All Gamers should try checking out www.consimworld.com. It is a forum like this just for wargaming and I know they have both WW1 and aviation threads.

[Lufbery]

BJD,

Thanks for the pointer to that site. I found their forums' layout to be a bit distracting, though.

Kirk,

I'm beginning to understand a bit more about board games. It seems that many of them seek to model a specific period of time; like a two-minute dogfight (in Blue Max) or Bloody April (in Wings over France). What do Dawn Patrol and Canvas Falcons seek to model?

Regards,

Greetings!
Canvas Falcon's goal is to cover any period of the air war, and has aircraft of 1915 and 1916 available. The flight simulation module doesn't favor any particular period either, which is a good plus. Playtesting concentrated on the period of 1916 to 1918 so even that is not favoring a particular period, but 1917 and early 1918 seem to be favorites.
Canvas Falcons is working from a "unified air-gaming system" where from a single basic rules set and a series of war-specific rules you can fight any air battle from any time period, period! And this basic approach to design was good insurance to keep it from favoring a period.
I know that FITS/Dawn Patrol has trouble with early 1917 aircraft, and really doesn't do 1916 stuff well at all (ultimately all the aircraft would have almost identical specifications with only 4 altitude brackets and speeds rounded off to the nearest 10 mph). It works best in 1918.

Joe

[Kirk]

Lufbery - At their core both Dawn Patrol and Canvas Falcons simulate dogfighting, with each counter representing a single aircraft and each player controlling a single aircraft. But as we all know pure dogfighting doesn't encompass a large part of what went on in the air during WWI. In that light each game has rules for bombing, strafing, balloon busting, etc. to allow almost unlimited variability. It's essentially left up to the player to design scenarios that use all these rules.
Dawn Patrol has an added twist in that it is part role playing game. In each game you play you assign a particular pilot who has a name, rank, etc. Then as you use him and he gains experience his abilities grow. Depending on the results of a particular mission or series of missions you may roll to see if you've earned a medal. In this way your pilots take on a life of their own. It can also have a large impact on how you play the game. In a normal game you may be perfectly willing to dive your SE-5 into a group of Fokker DVIIs thinking "it's just a game", but if you're flying with a pilot you have some time invested in, you're not as willing to throw his "life" away. You start thinking a little bit more like a real pilot would. All of a sudden that counter on the board has some added significance not seen in other games. It's a fun aspect that adds a whole new dimension to WWI airplane games.

Canvas Falcons has the capabilities to have a pilot progress with experiance through sorties and kills, which is half of the FITS role-playing mechanism (though it lacks the intense detail of FITS), but what Canvas Falcons lacks, and what in my opinion is FITS most crowning achievement, is a Random Scenario Generator. Through a very few rolls, players can get together and instantly set up a scenario. The scenario is invariably Air to Air (though balloons and ground targets can get thrown in the mix fairly easily, it is a more deliberate decsion).
Canvas Falcon's closest approximation of a Random Scenario Generator is it's TAC system, which can cause battles to happen based on simulating the situation that historically caused them to happen during the war. The battles are thus more similar to the actual events that would occur, but are more involved and less spontaneous because the TAC system is more like a game unto itself. Being able to just sit down and randomly generate an aerial battle just isn't within its capabilities.
But the FITS scenario set-up system is usable for any WW-I air game that has the aircraft types, so there's no reason that you can't dust off your old copy of FITS and use the scenario set-up system to make your battles. :

Joe

[Kirk]

Note to Lufbery: In case you're confused, FITS and Dawn Patrol are essentially the same game. I've never seen a copy of FITS, but from what I understand it came out in the 70's. Then (correct me if I'm wrong) TSR bought it, changed the name to Dawn Patrol and started selling it again. The game in either form has been out of print for some 20 years but can still be had on Ebay for a very reasonable price. I got my copy of Dawn Patrol off of Ebay for $9.