Sprachspiele und Kriegspiele

I like to approach learning and playing games in the same way I'd approach learning a new language. After all, games and languages are remarkably similar. A language is a set of rules governing behaviours: when you say “Schnee ist weiss,” you are acting Germanish, as opposed to acting Englishish when you say “Snow is white.” You also have to be able to do more than simply memorize the rules of the language. Simply knowing the inflection of the verb sein and every other German verb doesn't mean that you know German. You have to be able to use the language well. You must practice reading the language, speaking the language, writing the language. This will reinforce your knowledge of the grammar but also develop your fluency. In the same way, reading the rulebook and memorizing all possible DRMs and so on isn't, by itself, going to make you a good player of a game. It is necessary to apply your propositional knowledge of the rules and practice playing in order to develop fluency.

Therefore, I think some techniques from language study can apply to learning ASL and other wargames. Some activities in language study (and I've studied “dead” languages more than “living ones”) are doing things like conjugating verbs over and over again or doing verb synopses—verb synopses are really good practice because they force you to think about many different forms of a verb. Here's an example: say I have to, or want to, write out a synopsis of the Latin amō, amāre, “to love,” in the third person singular (an easy verb). This means I will write out the third person singular form of the verb in every tense and mood of the system—usually, when a student is learning verbs, they learn them by tense, or mood. Thus, the present indicative is learned first, and the student memorizes, by rote, the sequence amō, amās, amat, amāmus, amātis, amant. Then the imperfect indicative is learned: amābam, amābās, amābat, amābāmus, amābātis, amābant. And so on. But students need to make further connections to help develop fluency with the language. Doing a verb synopsis does just that by forcing you to think about all the tenses and moods apart from their individual sequences. Thus:

amat

amābat

amābit

amāvit

amāverat

amāverit

amet

amāret

amāverit

amāvisset

And so on...(yeah, I'm not going to write out the whole thing or explain it, this is an ASL blog not a Latin pedagogy blog....thus I need to get to my point!)

So, what are some similar 'drills' or exercises we can do to help reinforce our ASL rules-learning? Well, I came up with one thing. Not a big deal but something, and in my spare time I've been doing it. I call if Vehicle quizzes.

Vehicle counters are packed with information, and it can take some getting used to decoding them: what does the red mean? Or that circle there? Is it fully-tracked or what? I figure the best way to get good at reading counters is to repeatedly practice. But this can get you more than just decoding, because in some cases there are further rules implications: if the ID is circled, for instance, you have +2 to any bog check, etc. Here's some examples of what I've done with this 'exercise:'

Pz VG is a rickety ol' thing. It can move 15 MP but stalls on a 12 whenever it makes a motion attempt or starts to move. It has a slow traverse turret and normal ground pressure, so it get +1 on bog checks. Its front armour is 18, with an inferior turret: thus the front of the turret has an AF of 14. Its side/rear AF is 6. Also, this tank was big: it is a large target. Its main armament, a very long-barreled 75mm gun, has a rate of fire of 1. It also has three machine guns: a bow MG of 3 FP, a coaxial MG of 5 FP, and an AA MG of 2 FP. It also sports the awesome Nahverteidigungswaffe, depleting on a 7 in '44 or an 8 in '45. Crew survival is 6.

Pz IIF has 14 MP and is fully tracked. A small target, it has 3 AF on the front and 1 AF on the side/rear., and low ground pressure. Its MA has a restricted slow traverse turret, so it suffers +2 to hit if it changes its CA to fire if it changes its hexside, and an additional +1 for each additional hexside change. Plus, it can only fire when the crew is buttoned-up, so the gun will always have +1 to hit. The MA is a 20mm long-barreled gun, which has a ROF of 2 and an IFE of 4. However, it has a breakdown number of 11. It lacks a bow MG, but does have a coaxial one, which fires 5 FP. Finally, it does have a smoke dispenser which depletes on 7 and the crew will hardly survive: CS of 3.

No doubt doing these can be tedious and simplistic, but the point is to become fluent: to get to a point where I don't have to think about counters at all. The point is not to memorize all the facts about the vehicles. I'm not trying to be able to know off the top of my head what sort of turret a given tank has. (That would be nuts!) One thing I learned from studying languages is that it usually doesn't actually take much mental effort, just practice, and that it is important to drill and reiterate the simple, boring details so that they become second nature. Doing a 'vehicle quiz' every now and then is like writing out a verb synopsis.

I could probably write out more about each vehicle than I am doing, and probably will with time. I have to look things up, and figure if I can write more, and more obscure things, then more facts will become second nature. You should try this out as well! Here's an Italian guy. What's his bog check mod?