CIRCVS MAXIMVS
I haven't thought this through (most of you know I never think anything through) but, would it be possible to use this system with an AH's CIRCVS MAXIMVS type game. Probably using one card at a time?.
If this could be possible I'd be glad to be a big KS supporter.
It would probably work quite well
Chariots of Glory?
I can picture the different types and colors of the chariots already. Horses sold separately. And the race mats.
This is something I would back as well. If it is doable, I think it would make for a very fun game. I can envision recruiting friends quite easily.
Sounds great.Originally Posted by Coog
I hope Ares sees this thread.
Dissenting Opinion: _Circus Maximus_ -- heck, for that matter, _Renegade Legion: Circus Imperium_ -- is a perfectly-good game; why have another one?
And I guess Keith would have to start a site for it. Chariots of Glory Circus Maximus? As Circus Maximus was the location where the races occurred.
Scroll down to the two photos of this AH modified Circus Maximus game:
http://supergalacticdreadnought.blog...on-friday.html
This isn't a game of free flowing movement in all directions. I'm just not seeing the cards adding anything but complication and slowing it down.
If it did take hold, I could picture Keith holding his head in his hands fighting off a migraine.
But there are a lot of underhanded things you can do to knock out opponents to stay in the lead. The more players, the nastier it gets.
I had Circus Imperium once upon a time. I still have a metal miniature or three for the game sitting on my game shelf. It's been 20 years or more since I played, but I remember liking it.
Wheels of glory... motor racing
I want the Danica Patrick model!
Thanks Bob, I think I'll frame this one.
I don't -- I actually want to win races.
>;)
As to car-racing or car-combat games using cards: They're out there -- and I've yet to see one which improves on original _Car Wars_.
Whatever turns you on.
My friends and I converted Car Wars into a miniature game using Hot Wheels type cars. Rather easy to do using bases and turn templates made out of matte board.
There is a scale slightly smaller than Hot Wheels I used to do that with for a convention game. We decided to take a cue from Nascar and put sponsor stickers all over the cars and went with a Simpsons theme for the arena. There's a huge Duffman beer cut-out and one for the donut shop too. The first car to die got to come back in as the Vagisil VW Bug and got to keep his car.
I love Nascar Sprint Cup (not to mention Danica), but you can get painted models anywhere, and they do look good.
But for sheer beauty, you can't beat the looks of chariots drawn by two or four horses racing in the coliseum. 15 to 28mm?
When my son was young, I got him some sets that had micro-sized vehicles, not Micro-machines, and have now probably been out of production for a long time. A while back, then quite older, he was going to throw them away as he was cleaning out old toys and things he had outgrown. I rescued the ones he had trashed and collected as many of them as I could when he came across them. They are quite nice looking, better looking than the better known Micro-machine line and I believe somewhat smaller. I am hoping to be able to use them for Car Wars if I ever get the chance to play again.
You've been unintentionally insinuating dangerous suggestions in my mind. I'm now seriously thinking I'll pull out the Car Wars to run at Mag-Con, as well as Sails of Glory.
Last edited by Andy Blozinski; 01-05-2014 at 11:35.
<sigh, remembers Car Wars campaign weekends during the school holidays> Happy days indeed
I may have to bring back my Boudreaux Brothers Autodueling Team, straight from the swamps of the Free Oil State of Louisiana, with their variety of vehicles designed to fit the different classes.
Since I can't find the 1/200 architortural minis I converted to use with _Car Wars_ (the actual CW scale is 1/176, so 1/200 works best), I may need to get a few more and restock the barn.
Pity SJG is bound-and-determined to repeat the MCF which was CW5 with CW6 -- perhaps when it fails, we can convince them to REPRINT ACTUAL _CAR WARS_....
(Proudest Moment In CW: A tie between seeing the guy in the NOVA newsletter who wrote "Who is this '[my name]' guy, anyway?", and being the guy who wrote most of "The Weasel"'s letter to Steal-ey which appeared in _ADQ_. >:) )
Here's some photos of the cars in Car Wars' Midville.
All the vehicles together, Including emergency vehicles.
Vehicles next to the Car Wars counters.
You guys are killing me. Just at a point when I am ready to draw down my game collection, you have me on ebay looking up Car Wars stuff. While I'm going to resist (at least attempt to), I will look for someone around here you runs it. It looks quite fun.
If we're going to travel down memory lane with Car Wars, I'll brag a bit that I'm listed as a playtester in the Car Wars Compendium (albeit with my name mis-spelled). I spent way too much of my youth on the SJG BBS (I believe everyone here is old enough to remember BBS's). I was in the autoduel club Lex Talionis, and Car Wars remains my favorite game of the 80's (followed closely by Advanced Civilzation).
To bring this back to the present day, chances are fairly high that SJG will be running a Car Wars Kickstarter sometime in 2014. Phil Reed, who is Steve Jackson's designated successor, has been completely wrapped up in all things OGRE of late, but he has stated that re-launching CW is the next "big" project for SJG.
I would agree. I have a 15mm CM set up for up to 10 chariots. I used Gallic chariots modified for 4 horses for the lights and Persian chariots for the heavies. I used a bunch of wedding cake decorations to make the central columns and lap counters. I often see 25mm games and even 54mm plastic chariots used at conventions. There is also a simplified version called "Circus Minimus" that you can use with 6mm figures. (I think that game is on BGG).
I heard a rumor of a Car Wars KS simiar to the Ogre KS.
I believe Car Wars will be restarted this year with a KS.
Although it looks like Steve Jackson games may have changed their minds.
As to the KS or a reprint altogether?
Do you have a source for that? Looking at the SJGames website, all seems to be on track for them to focus on Car Wars in 2014, although Phil Reed was clear that this will not be a quick project - with reference to the fact that OGRE Designer's Edition was five years in the making. They are completely overhauling the game to streamline gameplay, although they were also equally clear that they will keep a deep vehicle design process for those who like to tinker with their own cars (this is in contrast to CW 5th edition, which only had pre-designed vehicles). The scale is also likely to change to 1.5" or even 2" per 15 feet (old CW was 1" per 15 feet).
I wonder if SJG are thinking of adding their own miniatures to the game and making more colorful playing surfaces.
Phil Reed was very clear that they don't anticipate having miniatures in the base game - they will have die cut counters (better than the old cardstock counters from the 80's, at least). The goal was to set the core game at a price point where it could be sold in Target and other mass-merchandisers, and miniatures are too costly. Another staffer (Andrew Hackard) was quick to state that they reserve the right to change their mind on this goal, though.
Having said that, they left the door wide open that they might produce miniatures separately or perhaps later in time. I would bet a very large sum of money that if the CW re-launch is successful, they will produce minis, and lots of them.
No word (that I'm aware of) on what kind of playing surfaces they will provide (if any), but I suspect that SJG is very aware that consumer tastes have changed a LOT in the 30+ years since CW was first published, and component quality will have to go up significantly to keep customer interest high. This will probably be one of those decisions that comes much later in the design process, though. They have a LOT of work they want to accomplish with the core game itself before they even get to the issue of components.
No source but they are publishing a fair amount of new Car Wars right now.
I am wondering if Car Wars will appeal to younger generations used to video games, card games, and the miniature intensive games.
Damn -- need to find out who made those; except for the limos (naturally), they are *perfect*....
As to the _CW_ Reboot: Reed's already established it's going to be 2" scale -- which means zero backward compatibility with any previous edition, and no connection except the name to the game which ended up winning all those awards back-when. Reed has made exactly one decision so far, and has botched it. At this point, all which remains to be seen is how many more idiotic decisions they will make (if I see one more reference to "dice pools", "exploding dice", or any of the rest of the pseudo-video-game abominations infesting gaming these days...).
It says something that one can take an _OGRE_ player from 1977, time-warp him forward to 2014, put him in front of a gaming table with _OGRE Designer's Edition_ on it, and he will be playing within two minutes. Same applies to a _BattleTech_ player (the SL Tech may befuddle him a bit, but the basic rules remain the same). A _Car Wars_ player, tho'....
(I may not be able to call him on his idiocy on the SJG forum, but theirs is not the only forum.... >:) )
No more or less than Sails of Glory or any other miniatures game. Considering the huge number of new Minis games on KS, and how successful they are (all the largest KS game projects are miniature-heavy), it doesn't seem to be a problem. This is a golden age of gaming, really. Indeed, my bigger concern is that the glut of new games is going to lead to a serious shakeout of the boardgame/minis-game industry at some point. The boardgame community is growing, but not nearly the rate at which new games are being published these days.
Last edited by GreenLaborMike; 01-06-2014 at 16:40.
That's just it - it's a re-boot, not a re-print. This is neither a good thing or a bad thing, it just reflects the market reality. The tiny number of players who want old school Car Wars to be reprinted as-is is the main reason they are re-vamping the entire game.
SJG is hoping to expand the universe of Car Wars players way beyond those of us who remember the game fondly from the 80's. I don't mind that the scale has been increased (I wasn't aware that 2" had been settled on - just that it would be larger than 1" and less than 3", and 1.5" is the micro-machine scale that many old CW players had adapted the game to use) and to be fair, the decision was the result of fan voting in the CW Forum. It's also the case that all the new gamers they hope will play the game will have no loyalty to the old system.
And let's be clear, the tedium of actual gameplay in CW meant that a 30 second battle often took 3-4 hours to play. That's the part they want to streamline, and I whole-heartedly support that endeavor. If you like the current CW - great! There is so much classic (not to be confused with "Classic") CW material in the aftermarket to keep players happy for years and years. But I think the majority of CW fans agree that streamlining the game is an excellent idea - even if its impossible to get two CW fans to agree on exactly how the new CW should look.
The theme (car combat) is one that I am extremely surprised is not more popular in the game world. It's iconic and enduring (demolition derbies, Mad Max and Death Race movies, Car Wars and Interstate 76 computer games, etc.), and I don't understand why another company hasn't come along to fill the void that CW left when SJG stopped publishing it. SJG must be thinking the same thing if they plan to invest so heavily in re-launching CW. They wouldn't do it unless they felt it would be profitable to do so. They already had their "vanity" project (OGRE Designer's Edition), and now it's time for them to launch a new game line to complement Munchkin (SJG gets over half their revenue - maybe 75%? - from Munchkin alone) as a money-making game system.
As for the desirability of re-vamping the rules while capitalizing on the "name," the best comparison I can think of is the various iterations of D&D. Third Edition had little or nothing substantive in common with old school AD&D, but it was a wild critical and commercial success, even though there were countless screams and howls of protest that, whatever it was, it was NOT D&D.
In contrast, the equally draconian (pun intended) revision to Fourth Edition was a comparative disaster. It's the main reason that Pathfinder (aka "D&D 3.75") has now become (one of) the largest RPG's on the market today, and WOTC/Hasbro is scrambling to recapture market share with yet another edition of D&D.
Obviously, SJG is hoping for a "Third Edition" type of success. But it will be impossible for them to please everyone. I just hope that it becomes a commercial success so I can keep playing a game where I get to shoot machine guns at other cars.
SWEET! That photo of the cars with the Simpsons stuff I posted...that's 2" scale. 2" scale fit the cars and was the easiest to upscale and keep the math direct and simple.
If they wanted to reflect "market reality" they'd have gone with either 1" or 3" -- in the discussions leading up to the vote on the topic, absolutely no one mentioned 2" as a option... yet somehow, it "won". Personally, I see Chicago-levels of Vote Fraud to ensure if the minis are produced, they will have to be bought through SJG.
You mean "the version which won all the awards, and helped put SJG on the map in the first place"? Can't imagine why they wouldn't want to reprint that, like they did with _OGRE_....
See above re the decision to use 2" scale -- clearly the vote was rigged to support lock-in over "hey -- I can buy a used edition off eBay, and have it work".
The longest turn of _CW_ I ever saw was ten minutes, and most of that was trying to find the actual wording of the rule in a copy of _CW Compendium_ where the index was badly off (the black-and-green edition -- *PTOOI*!). Even with people shooting, a turn typically took no more than 3-4 minutes. If no one was shooting, a turn could be whipped off in about 30 seconds.
Two reasons:
1) Something like 50% of modern teenagers don't have driver's licenses -- and that number is increasing, between car costs, gas costs, and "Insurance: The White Man's Burden".
2) Computer gaming means kids who want to race cars can race them at 1:1 time-scale.
Bah -- _CW6_ is just another vanity project; the company can survive on _Munchkin_ alone (it's configured so that it can be sold to a player multiple times, like a CCG or CMG; whereas _CW_ was designed such that it could only be sold to a player once). As stated above: A scale was selected whose only obvious selling-point is, well, selling -- it allows minis to be cranked out in a scale which means "you can only buy from us".
The smart gaming companies -- GW most obviously -- have learned the "razor-blade" sales model is the only way for a gaming company to remain viable long-term. SJG is just following suit.
There's a lot of conspiracy in that theory. I'm not going to get into the speculation game - I can't get into Steve and Phil's heads. But it seems to discount the fact that Phil point blank said that minis will NOT be part of the core game. IF the game is successful in its own right, then they will consider adding miniatures. But they want a price point on the core game that allows sales in mass merchandisers like Target and Wal-Mart. This is the exact opposite of how Games Workshop operates, IMHO.
The fact also remains that sales of Car Wars dropped off precipitously in the 90's. Yes, SJG made a lot of mistakes that hastened its downfall (Scott Haring's departure was devastating for CW), but with all due respect, consumer tastes changed too. To be blunt, I'm very aware of how fast a turn in CW *can* go, but I'm also very familiar with how long an overall session usually takes - especially with four or more cars - and how little actually happened in the game during that span of time. And I played with a group of VERY experienced players. But it's not just my anecdotal experience - this has been the universal complaint about CW from day one. Yes, it's fun, but it's also S-L-O-W. If your games are sprint fests, that's awesome, but that is the very rare exception, not the rule.
Contrary to your theory about "kids" being sucked away by computer games, the fact is that board games and miniatures games are selling at record levels, and not just to old farts like us. The difference is that tastes have changed in the last 30 years. Successful games today tend to last 90 minutes or less, and have very little "downtime" between player turns. Of course there are exceptions, but this is the trend. If SJG can revise the CW rules to speed up gameplay so that a duel will *regularly* take 90 minutes (preferably 60) or less to complete, then I am all in favor of that.
Of course, YMMV. If and when SJG launches the Car Wars Kickstarter, I expect you will not support it, and that's your prerogative. Cheers!
Why is it only the white man's burden?
Actually nothing you've stated above has anything to do with the large scale decrease in teenage interest in cars. Technology is the reason. Ever see two kids in a room texting each other? They socialize so much via the internet and phones that cars aren't that important to them any more. My kid is one of the few that was enthusiastic to drive. She has lots of friends with money for which driving just isn't important to them. Some of them are white and some aren't. When her boyfriend isn't driving her around in his Porsche 911, she's taxi driving them around. Sometimes they jam a few in his back seat.
Excellent!
My kids quite like the idea. Whilst we've not talked specifically about car Wars they've seen sone still from Mad Max 2 and pictures from one of the large scale parti games that was run in the UK recently and thought it looked fun.
Of course, my kids aren't entirely representative......
1:1000 vs 1:1200 anybody?Personally, I see Chicago-levels of Vote Fraud to ensure if the minis are produced, they will have to be bought through SJG.
Look at how many times the various Flames of War scenario and background books get reprinted. And I got a slagging on another wargame forum when I dared to mention that in the 70s and 80s it was possible to get all the background, uniform and rules you needed for the Napoleonic Wars in a single volume whereas now apparently you need a new background book with theatre specific additional rules for what seems like every year and campaign of the warsThe smart gaming companies -- GW most obviously -- have learned the "razor-blade" sales model is the only way for a gaming company to remain viable long-term.
Actually, as an aside, it is aspects such as this which are revolutionising the design of modern naval and land based command systems. Something I'm quite pleased to be pushing, with my professional hat on
Voting fraud in Chicago? Never. In the early '80s, I worked for the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners, and I can tell you that there was no voting fraud. Everyone, and I mean everyone, knew that dead people still voted, that all of the voting machines were programed to give "Democrat" on any ballot, that ballots would be lost and found as needed. None of this was fraudulent. It was simply the Chicago way.
Why does the game Pathfinder come to mind? Disclaimer, I thoroughly enjoy Pathfinder, a lot.
You folks are making me interest in Car Wars. Stop it.
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