Thread by @BretDevereaux

Just finished playing an odd little computer wargame, "Highfleet" (it's on Steam because of course it is).

Pretty sure I'll end up talking about it on ACOUP because it is different from most commercial wargames in interesting ways.

Mostly, it forces you to play w/ uncertainty.

So the briefest background is that you play as the commander of a retro-futuristic fleet of air-battleships. Your ships can engage with cruise missiles and aircraft outside of visual range or with traditional artillery or short-range missiles in close combat.

Honestly, don't think real hard about the technology here; it isn't supposed to make hard-sci-fi sense.

The thing is, you generally both trying to find and defeat enemy groups but also avoid detection, because the enemy overall is much stronger than you.

Which means signals intelligence (SIGINT) is suddenly hugely important. Visual detect range is pathetic, so you need electronic eyes.

Good news: you have radar. It can search the sky up to 750km out.

But there's also what the game calls (somewhat misleadingly) ELINT, by which it means passive radar detection. Radar can give you a precise fix on a target (but not tell you what it is) at 750km, but it tells every ELINT system in 1500km your general direction and range.

You have ELINT too, of course, but it can't see enemy groups that don't run their radar. You also have IRST, infrared tracking, which can track things out to around 300km. Much shorter range, but works on everything, totally passive.

Finally, you can decode radio intercepts, though the information you get is often fragmentary and requires other information (like knowing enemy callsigns) to interpret. Capturing enemy signals relays helps with filling in which callsigns are convoys and which are strike groups.

All of this forces the player to work under situations of uncertainty. You can't leave the radar on, because strike groups will just lob radar-seeking cruise missiles at unknown radar signals. Enemies that spot you will try to report your location...

...which brings strike groups to try to engage you directly, but also potentially long range missile and air-strikes. Its often best to avoid until you can fight on ground of your choosing, but to avoid you have to know where the enemy is!

So you are left guessing, trying to correlate that ELINT contact with the radio intercepts you are getting, trying to keep a mental map of the intel you have (all of which becomes more dated by the second) to process the intel you are getting.

Every so often you might get some quality human intelligence (HUMINT) from a settlement, but that too begins aging from the second you get it. Worse yet: stick around too long repairing or refueling and the locals will sell you out to the enemy.

In short, the game actually simulates a fog of war.And it's kind of brilliant.
In most games, the 'fog of war' is just a binary: you can see perfectly where your units are and not at all where they aren't.

Highfleet forces you to deal with variable and uncertain information.

Just about the only thing it doesn't do is feed you actively wrong information (though you can do this, for instance, by detaching a fast ship to intentionally get spotted going one way and break contact - the AI will rush after the ghost you just created, while you slip past).

So you are constantly forced to make decisions (do I have time to repair here? refuel? where should I go next?) based on incomplete, fragmentary or dated information.

The limitations of the campaign also make you think in terms of task forces with specific purposes and fuel economy, rather than just bashing around in one big blob as in most 'strategy' games.

Anyway, it's on Steam (store.steampowered.com/app/1434950/Hi…) and not too pricey. Don't let the clunky-looking UI put you off it; it's perfectly functional (and actually part of the charm - all of those buttons and nobs actually do things).