Wargamology - Card Driven Wargames Analysis

[@backburnersareon6481]

I love this video. As a fan of statistical analysis, I love how you are using your professional skills to analyze your hobby. As a Wargamer myself, I would love to see if the drop in sales can be explained by the aging of the player-base and have crossover games (for example: Root leading to COIN type games) caused a transition towards trying Wargames. I mean, is War-gaming a fortress, that we all know how to leave to try other games, whilst most casual Gamers are too scared to enter. The question is, will producing Wargames even be a real viable industry in the future or is it just driven by an aging player-base with too much disposable income.

[@captainnolan5062]

He didn't say there was a drop in sales; for all we know, with the higher price of wargames now, sales (in dollars/euros) may have increased. What he said was wargame production has been declining. It also may be that with the explosion in game production, peoples disposable income is spread over many more game categories, and thus any one category will appear to be in decline.

[@petercollins5861]

Paths of Glory is the game that finally won me over to CDG, but my favorite is Triumph of Chaos, 2nd ed.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Triumph of Chaos is an amazing experience, but you really need to learn the game with someone who already knows it.

[@deemarx]

Interesting analysis! 2 other elements that I always look at: how many people want to sell there game, and, how big is the loss or win they want to take by selling their copy.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Wow! That is an excellent idea, I haven't thought about that. I'll keep it in mind if I make such an analysis in the future.

[@rosmith606]

As a relative beginner to the world of wargaming, it was an interesting video nonetheless! I can appreciate how card-driven wargamers from a high level standpoint can be a lot more accessible for many players - the decision making tree is narrowed for you, and instead you rely more upon doing what you can with the hand you're dealt. Open-ended games can often cause analysis paralysis in many, especially for beginners who might not understand the intricacies and the consequences of their actions. As such, it's a shame that CDGs are on a decline. Anyway, enjoyed the video! Thanks for the nerdy stats.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Thanks Rob, happy the you liked it. You make a good point about CDGs narrowing the decision tree, but I'm not sure that it is true for heavier CDGs. For example: in Paths of Glory, you can use your cards for 4 things: Ops, Strategic redeployment, Event or Replacements. Already a lot of choices, and if you choose any of the first two, then choosing on which stack you're going to apply your choice is another cornelian dilemma. In that sense, I feel like the best mechanic to simplify decision making is definitely the chit-pull.

[@Obalcan]

Decline in the last 5 years!? Just the opposite of what I thought - everyone is speaking about the great ressurgence of boardwargames. Interesting 5 year delay of subjective believes to the peak of wargames. Guess I went into the board gaming with a big delay - was for most of my life and still am a PC gamer but when I switched to physically moving the tokens around, oh my, it was a love on first sight. Columbia Games Julius Caesar was the first wargame that started my love affair 2 years ago and now my shelve is full of GMT games with almost 20 more in preorder and mny more whishlisted. :D

[@HomoLudens1871]

It would be interesting the refresh this analysis at the end of this year, there were a lot of new publishers releasing a lot of stuff in the last 3 years.

[@NiceOneChameleon]

Why was the data incomplete from 2018 onwards? What do you mean by qualitative board games? 8:00

[@HomoLudens1871]

It's so long ago not sure I remember. Regarding the data I would like expect a significant delay in Wargames between date of release and the potential of volume of reviews a game can get. So I think that was the idea, games released less than 12 months ago don't have enough reviews yet to be compared to others that have been a longer time ago.

[@frederictaton4495]

Très intéressant. Si j'ai bien compris, la différenciation entre CDG et non-CDG est seulement basée sur le paramètre (Campaign/Battle Card Driven) de BGG dans la rubrique Mechanisms?

[@HomoLudens1871]

Oui + Hand Management (aussi répondu sur Strategikon).

[@WargamerFr]

Bravo, très intéressant, continuez !

[@HomoLudens1871]

Merci pour l'encouragement. Si vous avez des suggestions sur des sujets à traiter à l'avenir je suis preneur.

[@WargamerFr]

@@HomoLudens1871 envoyez moi un mail, par là www.wargamer.fr/contact/ , ce sera plus simple pour en parler.

[@BrutusBelton]

zajebi*ty film! aweso*e movie!

[@MichaelCorryFilms]

How much would you let that copy of Napoleon's Triumph go for?

[@HomoLudens1871]

Sorry, not planning on selling this one!

[@MichaelCorryFilms]

@@HomoLudens1871 This makes me very sad... :( Guns of Gettysburg does not stack up.

[@laurentherzog8915]

Bonjour. Savez vous ou trouver les règles traduites en français de liberty or death american révolution ?

[@rhoheta5243]

This type of game depends too much on people memorizing the decks, which is so boring and so much rewarding the wrong thing. Someone invent one that doesn't have this problem.

[@HomoLudens1871]

Hi, well I agree that those games require you to know the cards, as it's the case for a lot of card games (Magic, Hearthstone etc.) giving the game a steeper learning curve to master them. But if you invest time in them it is very rewarding (such as the other card games mentioned). Major part of the wargame production is non-CDG, so if cards are not your thing there are a lot of alternatives.

[@aagornnonth]

While not necessarily a wargame, you could try some of the Pax Games. They have cards, but for the most part, you get better at Pax games by improving your board reading/tableau construction skills as opposed to memorizing the cards in the deck(s).

[@rhoheta5243]

@@aagornnonth Yes, greatly prefer those games. Goooood suggestion.