PzC, FWWC and command control

[Sir John Cope]

To practice for PBEM I do hotseat now, which works very nicely.

You meant solitaire, right - playing both sides?

Yes. I'm old enough to forget the exact dispositions of the enemy I've moved myself in the really big battles, where there could be a few days before I come back to the game.  Younger folks would have less FOW when playing themselves though... In any case, if you can pretend to yourself that all these little counters 'mean' something then you can certainly pretend you don't know the exact enemy dispositions, no? I mean it's all an exercise in make-believe... And this way you get to see, and understand, both sides of the coin. For 'excitement' I would normally have a PBEM game going, anyway. But, to be honest, most of the really interesting big battles in the series play out along much the same themes and variations, I think, and even in the Mediterranean titles it usually comes down to a pretty grinding slog, in the end. In a title like Kharkov 42, you might say, there's a lot of excitement wondering precisely where the reserve forces will be committed, and playing myself even I can remember what my decisions on that will be, so I have some little house rules to mitigate that, even throwing a dice for some decisions. I could cheat, but I'd only be cheating myself...

I recall reading somewhere - SPI's Fire & Movement or AH's The General, probably - the estimate that more than half of wargames were played solitaire. This was pre-internet, of course, when you either found opponents in your town or attempted the onerous task of playing by snail mail. The PC game and the 'net changed things: FOW was much easier to implement, and anyone with an email address was a potential opponent. But I think there's still a place for solitaire play, certainly: trying out strategies, studying the game, etc, etc.