@kcdzim:
Would probably still need a top down camera. And the screen itself would need to be pretty massive (even AA42 needs chips sometimes). A computer would not be able to handle chip stacks very easily from ONLY below. There’s an I/1 problem here that will need a sophisticated recognition program, not just a simple touch screen that can possibly differentiate one piece from another.
Like you said, the software/hardware compatibility would be a nightmare. The human brain can quickly make these connections, a touch screen…. not so much. That’s a pretty sophisticated program we’re talking about here, unless there’s quite a bit of input from the user at each phase, and then it’s no longer as simple as moving pieces around on a gameboard.
The surface is actually pretty amazing about detecting the shapes of objects above it. If you made AA units specifically for a Surface game, you could put a bar-code or serial number on the bottom of each of your units, and the table could tell them apart.
Instead of using a stack of chips to represent multiple units, the game could record that for you. Like, it would know that the German tank in Finland is really supposed to be four units, and it could represent that by putting a circle on the game board under the actual physical unit. A simple touch interface would let you add “chips” to a unit or split an army into two separate stacks.