Automating Fire and Fury

This wargaming project came about when I wanted to play Fire and Fury better solo, and to try and help speed the game system up a little. Also I wanted to see what difference and benefit modern tablet and touchscreen computers might give to computer moderated wargames.

The latter motivation came from the poor user experience using keyboard entry for games. It had occurred to me that when one is playing one is always using ones finger on the quick reference sheet (QRS) to find one's place and to help generate an outcome; particularly as one runs one finger down the column on the QRS to check off , for example, morale options. Therefore I mused why not use one's finger on the computer screen to get an even better result!

So far I have automated to some extent or other:

Fire and Fury, and Col Wilbur Gray's derivatives for Seven Years War through to Early WW1
Principles of War
Bloody Picnic
Battlegroup Kursk
Bolt Action
Corps Commander - Bruce Rea Taylor's 1980's Modern Rules
Combat HQ
Cold War Commander
Wargames Research Group WW2

The one big thing I discovered is that using the rules as a computer specification to design a solution around, really helps you understand the rules and whether they are internally coherent or not!!

Computer Specification

The programs are written in VB.net and designed to run on a Window machine. You don't need the internet while the game is running. You don't need a touch scree, but it is certainly a lot, lot easier to do so!

The Basic Fire and Fury Solution

The following are pages from the "Program manual" I created for it. The screen images are from the program. I added into the game sequence a "Game Event" step to cater for reinforcements and other events that might impact the commanders.

Next Step Improve it for Solo Play

Once I had proved the solution for the basic game I then extended it to help me play solo. The key to this next step was to determine possible key actions that commander might take based on their ability and character. I will discuss this in a future post, but the followings screens will give you an idea of what is involved and how it impacts the game.