"My friends, we’ve come home" – Kirk, Star Trek IV
(upon seeing the new USS Enterprise)
As we now know Matrix Games is going to re-package and re-release Norm Koger’s operational tour-de-force, The Operational Art of War: A Century of Warfare. If this news caused you to fall off your chair, I share the sentiment – I actually broke my chair as it slipped out from my under me! If you were a bit under-whelmed by the news, I invite you to read on a bit further before writing this off. A great wargame is about to become even better, and this article will help outline some of the areas of possible improvement, based on what we know about the original and its strengths and weaknesses.
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Some may scoff at the idea of doing a review of a game that first hit the scene in 1998, was updated a few times over the years, then largely abandoned to corporate ebb and flow ever since. However, this game system is important for a variety of reasons. Above all, the fans of the game have been unflinching in their support in recent years, making it a desirable property to whatever entity owned the rights to it. These dedicated gamers (both players and designers) have always dreamt of the day when it could return to some semblance of profitability for ANYONE, just so the system could get some much needed updating. That time has finally come…
The game system also represents a dying breed (perhaps a dead breed) of how games are designed, packaged, and published in the modern era. The Operational Art of War (TOAW) included all the tools you could ever need to design almost any scenario, with scales ranging from a small battle in World War I all the way up to the ENTIRE six years of World War II in Europe. This put amazing power in the hands of freelance designers, and gave the system unprecedented versatility and longevity. The notion of selling an "engine" that is compatible across any type of vehicle is contrary to most games today, which are set in stone once you drive them out of the dealership. There is no definitive answer as to which approach is correct, and there are pros and cons to each side of this dichotomy, although fiscally speaking, most agree the latter is the only way for publishers to survive.
This game system is a gold mine for the players who, after buying the game, have access to literally hundreds of FREE scenarios which, in and of themselves, are as complicated and detailed as many standalone game products on the market. Do you want to play Barbarossa, Overlord, Sealion, WWI, WWII, WWIII, Vietnam, Yom Kippur, Korea, Iran-Iraq, or anything else in the 20th century? It is all there. But what of the designers and the publisher who sold you this great engine? Once the game is out the door, how can they make the money needed to continually update and support the product X years into the future? This is part of the dilemma TOAW has faced over the years, and why this game system remains fairly unique in its open approach to scenario creation, map editors, and so on. However, it is a tribute to its design, playability, and versatility that the game is still considered a viable and worthy system for a publisher such as Matrix Games to pick up. Long time players and designers using this system will be the first in line to say this engine still has a LOT of miles left on it.
A retrospective review of this game is necessary both to refresh the memory of those who may have relegated this title to the dustbin of history, as well as to provide a jumping-off point for what appears to be a series of new improvements to the game, its scenarios, and its future. Just how extensive those tweaks may be is beyond the scope of this overview, as we have yet to learn the full extent of what may be changed going forward. However, we can easily see some of the areas where potential changes may be most beneficial to this system, and we can shine the spotlight on its flaws in the hopes some of those issues will get future attention.
It is with these things in mind that we begin a journey down memory lane…
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