The Habit of Victory reviews

[kzucker]

Here I'll post comments received on OSG's latest. Your posts are also encouraged. All feed back will be appreciated. My brother already gave me one: the problem with these games is, they're too complex.

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The first one is from anonymous, who writes:

"
Hi Kevin,

Don't take this personally, but I wanted to give you some honest feedback. Sorry, but you lost me with the cards. I've purchased every Campaign Series game, but I probably won't get this one because of the cards. IMHO cards seem to be the latest craze and fad, and most games that have them are not quite beer and pretzels, but close. Play seems to devolve into a game of what cards are in your hand rather than focusing on the operational details that a commander would face. I'm disappointed that OSG has gone down this road.

I don't want a game that becomes a game about the cards in your hand, where you are waiting to draw a particular card in order to take advantage of something. I have played a number of card driven games and though they are fun they are more about the luck of getting the right card draws before your opponent.

In the pre-card rules I could spend the AP's to move a force and suffer the consequences of attrition, but that was my decision how hard to march them not the result of a randomly chosen card.

I do have the Four Lost Battles game and was not particularly excited that it too had gone to cards. So I'm not totally making my decision sight unseen.

Thanks anyway for many great games.

(Name withheld)

I wrote back to encourage him to look into it at some point...

Don't even think of them as cards at all - they are just Movement Commands on little pages and include all kinds of special maneuvers that could not be performed previously... enjoy!

[Barrie Pollock]

It seems some gamers have a visceral reaction to any games with cards, perhaps not seeing the difference between a card-assisted game versus a card-driven game.

Personally I think both $LB and HoV work well in providing a more realistic environment whereby the player has less control and foreknowledge of events except as noted below.

My quibbles with HoV cards are two. Most importantly, the results of attrition are known before hand. I'm seeing a lot of detachments being made solely on the basis of "Well, I'm going to lose that point anyway - might as well detach it". Whereas pre cards an attrition-averse general like myself would march more slowly except under pressure, now I just detach troops.

The other thing is that both sides have gone through stretches where they were able to issue orders and wanted to make a full move, but only had lower m.a. cards available or wanted to save good maneuver cards (perhaps this kind of thing was part of the prior correspondent's complaint.)

Overall, though, the cards add flavour and definitely make for a faster game.

[kzucker]

Hi Barrie,

Thanks for your thoughts about the cards. Actually, detaching those troops or losing them outright has the same impact on the next battle: those troops aren't in it! Since battles are when troop strength counts the most, it doesn't matter whether the troops are wandering around on the board or not.

Actually, this might be just as historical, because a lot what is included under the rubric "attrition" is detached troops. Not all attrition is runaway or sick.

Regarding the lack of the proper card: here friction causes everything to move more slowly than you think it should.

[Marshall]

Hello,

I would like to add something about this issue of cards in war games.
I haven't played the game yet but I can already see 2 major positive aspect about cards.

1) It's already been said that cards implies random political events that commanders coudln't control. The fact that player would hope to pick up the right card at the right moment could be translated into a commander hoping that right weather, reinforcements, etc to arrive in time.

2) I've seen many people complaining about the many die rolls for attritio for previou games.
Cards could help speed up the game a lot. And you know what, I want to get opponents that aren't too familiar with wargames and don't want them to feel annoyed for many die rolls. So I'm glad there is a new mechanism that simplifies the process of playing. And if cards are a problem, which I hope is not, well free for you to back to the previous rules of attrition and use that as a basis.

I posted this comment because I wish cards would be made for the previous campaign series. I don't see any valid reason to despise cards.

[colonel ziberman]

Hi Kevin,

I prepare a campaign of Habit of Victory. I've not seen in charts French administratives points for February and March. Is it a mistake or french doesn't have any point during theses months ?

Salut Kevin,
Je prépare une campagne de Habit of Victory. Je n'ai pas vu que le français avait des points administratifs durant les mois de Février et Mars. Est ce que cela constitue une erreur ou pas ?
Merci.

Pascal

[kzucker]

Salut Colonel~

I am sorry about the lack of clarity in the chart. For Feb. and March it is the same as April.

Je suis désolé du manque de clarté dans le graphique. Pour Février et mars c'est le même comme avril.

[colonel ziberman]

Merci pour la réponse en français, votre français est de loin meilleur à mon anglais.

Russian reads on the same line than french in March? I think so but I prefer a confirmation.

[kzucker]

Russian reads on the same line than french in March?

Correct.