Designing Combat Into German Style Games Is Tricky

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[Shogun] has a lot of "German" elements; bidding for turn order, etc. Definitely a wargame, and definitely diplomacy is important (which I don

It sounds to me that the subject is entirely game balance. Not so much combat vs. non-combat.

I think that people like to have the option to win the game "their way". Whereas in a "wargame" everyone has the same mission at hand, be the best at killing opponents, diplomacy, brute force whatever the means.

Other games (german in particular) often focus on management. Manage your stuff the best, you win.

Now it seems that games often have a hard time to prove the case that combining a strategy of just fighting OR just management could win any game. Which seems inherant to any system to avoid a "best strategy", like the examples cited by others, 2 players attack and always seem to lose, so it

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It sounds to me that the subject is entirely game balance. Not so much combat vs. non-combat.

You are correct, the major issue is, indeed, game balance; however, I am still focusing on combat as I believe it is one of the main culprits of degrading game balance and destroying "recovery elasticity."

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Hmm...it seems, then, that your main beef is not, as I thought, with the random nature of combat in otherwise incredibly player-control-oriented German designs, but rather, that combat sometimes unduly punishes the players who participate. But this isn

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I

Perhaps I can throw a different spin or perspective on your post, but I

About elasticity: It seems to me the "come from behind win" is very much tied to the conditions for winning and how that is designed into the game, AND pacing.

Using Settlers as an example (cuz usually everyone has played this game), I

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About elasticity: It seems to me the "come from behind win" is very much tied to the conditions for winning and how that is designed into the game, AND pacing.

So in order to win in Settlers, it