[these are no final comments – just space proxie Action Stations! was published in 1990, as a DOS program. At the time I was very interested in naval wargaming as a teaching tool (my next duty station was as Curricular Officer for Operations Research at the Naval Postgraduate School), and also how wargaming was used historically. As a Grad Student I was able to participate in the Beta testing of the Naval War College’s first computerized gaming system. NWC had a very strong wargaming program in the interwar years – understand it, and you can understand naval warfare in the 1922-1945 period. Understand the system, play it. So, I did a computerized version of the game, all 50k lines of code (If you really want to learn a game, write the code!). More geometry programs to have choked my high school math teacher.

                         Urged by some of my students, I put the game out as a commercial product. It was very minimalist – there were no pretty pictures of ships or the like. The main display was patterned off the CIC display on my last ship. There was a top view of the battle area with symbols representing the ships and vectors representing their course and speed. There were LOTS of data screens (one reviewer said it sometimes looked like a spreadsheet). My conviction is that a player cannot react to something in the game unless he had information about it presented in a realistic manner (I hate wargames where things happen as a surprise, like a ship capsizing when the player is not provided a degrees-of-list display).

                         It ended up a roaring success. Action Stations! was nominated “Wargame of the Year, 1990” by Computer Gaming world, incredible for a game without impressive graphics. AS! Is still available – an “Abandonware” web site lists it for download (Hey! I didn’t abandon it! The company that picked up publishing rights, RAW, went sneakers up), and it can be played using DOSBOX. I still occasionally fire it up. The AI is very challenging. I once had a call from Finland, from a fellow who just wanted me to know that he had finally beaten the computer opponent.

                         On my “To-Do” list – I want to do a very high-res game of carrier warfare, 1922-1945 (and, what the heck, including surface warfare, too). But first, I have s bunch of books to write. And, I need to learn Python – my coding skills are somewhat rusty …

Leihigh valley news Sept 1 1991

“The kids who are into the arcade-style simulators are going to get older. Thanks to the games they play now, they’re familiar with computer technology; it doesn’t bother them. When they get a little older, perhaps they’ll want a little more. That’s where we come in; we can give them that.”

“That” refers to offerings like “Action Stations,” a highly lauded simulation of surface naval engagements in World War II. Compared to many of the other viewpoint simulations on the market, “Action Stations” is visually quite spare. At times, it even resembles a business spread sheet.

However, for those with a taste for naval combat it is inexhaustible. Designed to be open-ended, with two build-your-own engagement programs and a huge database to sample, “Action Stations” offers far more than the limited number of set-piece situations which are common to games like “A-10 Tank Killer.” It also features a computer warrior that is almost impossible to beat.

“We could have invested the time in the graphics, but instead we choose to go more for the sheer gaming experience,” said Ingram. “So most of the effort goes into the simulation itself and the artificial intelligence programs. This way you get something that you can’t exhaust for years as opposed to the couple of hours or weeks that’s the case with arcade-style simulations.”

“Action Stations” was designed by a team of naval warfare experts led by Alan Zimm, a naval nuclear engineer and executive officer. Other products which RAW is developing employ similar experts appropriate to the subject matter of the simulation.