Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

Bill Chriss · Centurion Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1000 Location: Texas

This is in response to the anecdote John Garlic posted under Historicon Reminder. I think the problem he reports with attracting his son Dmitri's contemporaries to miniatures is one that all of us with kids have dealt with. John's comment caused me to think again about what could be done in this regard. It seems that one-on-one, John and Mark and I and others, can be successful at father-son teaching. It is the peer group of the kids that seems to be much more difficult to reach. As if you guys at FHE don't have enough to do, perhaps it would be productive to begin thinking of ways to create a computer interface to dovetail with WARRIOR. An example would be to create a strategic or operational level computer game designed to have tactical battle results deferred to the WARRIOR miniature game system. Frank's bound to have thought about this, with his background. Maybe it's a totally silly idea, but there must be some way to entice new players onto the tabletop (or sand table as they used to say at Sandhurst) through a digital portal. Then again, maybe not. One obvious problem is that one main attraction of computer games is the AI component obviating the need for a human opponent, something hard to imagine in a tabletop context.

Peter Celella · Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 11:09 am Post subject:

One of the problem's of attracting youngsters to Warrior is its inherent complexity (although that is certainly one of its attractions to more 'mature' players). I think Jon's approach using Warrior Battles as an introductory form of Warrior will be more successful (btw Jon - how is that coming?)

I think that Warrior Battles also needs to be aimed primarily at using the 80mm basing scheme. This would allow kids with a Warhammer background to more easily give the game a whirl (an advantage that Warhammer Ancient Battles has when it comes to recruiting younger players).

Peter

Frank Gilson · Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2007 4:08 pm Post subject: physical games - computer games

In general we notice a softness in the physical games market as youth play their games on Nintendo DS, PSP, PCs, consoles, and mobile phones. It's true across all games...board games, minis, RPGs, etc.

There are typically three levels of computer program derived from a physical game.

1) A helper software that contains the rules but does not enforce them, allows you to roll dice and position objects. No computer opponents...requires humans who know the rules to some extent and use this software as a way to play, a virtual tabletop.

2) A moderator software that does all that the helper did, AND enforces the rules between human players.

3) A full game that does all the moderator did, plus has computer opponents.

I'd argue that 3 is unnecessary...but to overcome the issue of new players learning the game, and youth and their interest in computer games, 2 is the right level.

For Warrior, with a top down view and attractive but simple 2D graphics, that would take about a year and just under $500,000 in development cost. CHEAP as far as computer software creation goes.

Do we have a rich Warrior enthusiast out there?

John Murphy · Legate Joined: 12 Apr 2006 Posts: 1625

What ever happened to "Little Cyber Wars" and the ilk?
What was the development cost of the "DBAOnline"? - given that is already done can some of that be leveraged on a conceptual level in a new way?

I think that there are several "side-levels" of computer support products...

1. Army building (list) software, or support files for use with existing army builder systems.
2. Campaign software for generating table-top battles. Wide open since there are many ways of running a campaign.