HAH! This is fantastic - thank you! I was digging around for an answer to a bug I am having so saw your post immediately, I could not resist responding back ASAP.
Firstly, I COMPLETELY agree with you on most of your points re: the game functions, etc. Like I said, this is my first attempt at creating with Stencyl and time is a factor for me as I don't get to sit around making games all day.. too bad for me.
So - from a historical perspective, this is not so much a wargame, as a simulation to
quickly understand the major differences in the 'war machine' capabilities of the south vs. the north. Clearly the north had huge advantages in troop levels, arms, comprehensive railroad lines, communications, etc. (for example the US Army had a 32:1 - literally - firearms advantage to the CSA, hundreds of thousands of more troops in every year of the war, etc. - hence the dominant advantage of the US Army in almost every battle... yet Lee COULD win at Gettysburg if his dice roll well...) THAT is the goal of the learning here... BUT:
I completely agree with you regarding the lack of interaction. One of my goals in the next couple of weeks (though my 200 8th graders will play this early next week...) is to take the three attack advantages (supplies, rail, arms) and allow the player to choose WHEN to apply them to the ten battles. While it is not monumental change - it should allow for SOME strategy in the game play.
At this point, I don't want to walk down the path of the infinitely complex wargame... but rather am looking for QUICK games that could be played 2-4 times in ONE class period (50 or some mins) for the repetitive nature of the learning process as this is paired with an Excel Spreadsheet to crunch some aggregate numbers between all the students playing, all my classes, etc. so that is an aspect of the game as well...
If you have any thoughts on how else I could build in a couple of simple strategy components without getting overtly complex I am all ears!Thanks for the input - I am absolutely going to try to fit the "The War Between the States" into my title page ASAP!
