User:Rindis/Sandbox
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A page for me to hammer out some thoughts, ideas, and articles that are taking me a while to write. I'm proud to say I've stolen this idea from other users.
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[edit] Board wargame
A board wargame is an intersection of two different ways of classifying games: they are board games that fall into the genre of wargames. This type of game got its start in 1954 with the publication of Tactics, and saw its greatest popularity in the mid- to late 1970s. Despite the decline in popularity, there are still a number of game publishers and gaming conventions dedicated to the hobby today.
In the United States, board wargames were popularized in the early 1970s and is often what is meant when 'wargaming' is mentioned. Elsewhere, notably Great Britain, which arguably originated the miniatures wargaming hobby, they never gained as much traction and have remained a minor part of the larger hobby. The genre is still known for a number of common conventions (or game mechanics) that were developed early on, but are not part of the definition of a wargame, and other styles have gained popularity since.
The early history of board wargaming was dominated by Avalon Hill, even though other companies, such as SPI, have left their own permanent marks on the industry. With the purchase of Avalon Hill by Hasbro in 1998, many wargamers long for 'the old Avalon Hill', and no one company is identified with the hobby as a whole.
[edit] Overview
Like all games, wargames exist in a range of complexities. Some are fundamentally simple (often called "beer-and-pretzel games") whereas others attempt to simulate a high level of historical realism ("consim"—short for 'conflict simulation'). These two trends are also at the heart of long-running debates about "realism vs. playability." Because of the subject matter, games considered 'simple' by wargamers can be considered 'complex' to non-wargamers, especially if they have never run into some of the concepts that most wargames share, and often assume some familiarity with.
Wargames are generally a representational art form. Generally, this is of a fairly concrete historical subject (such as the Battle of Gettysburg, one of several popular topics in the genre), but it can also be extended to non-historical ones as well. The Cold War provided fuel for many games that attempted to show what a non-nuclear (or, in a very few cases, nuclear) World War III would be like, moving from a re-creation to a predictive model in the process. Fantasy and science fiction subjects are sometimes not considered wargames because there is nothing in the real world to model, however, conflict in a self-consistent fictional world lends itself to exactly the same types of games and game designs as does military history.
While there is no direct correlation, the more serious wargames tend towards more complex rules with possibilities for more math, more exceptions (generally to reproduce unique historical circumstances), more available courses of action, and more detail. The extreme end of this tendency are considered "monster games", which typically consist of a large subject represented on small scale. A good example of this would be Terrible Swift Sword, which tracks individual regiments in the Battle of Gettysburg, instead of the more common scale of battalions. These games typically have a combined playing surface (using several map sheets) well beyond that of any normal table, and thousands of counters.
Wargames tend to have a few fundamental problems. Notably, both player knowledge, and player action are much less limited than what would be available to the player's real-life counterparts. Some games have rules for command and control and fog of war, using various methods. These mechanisms can be cumbersome and onerous, and often increase player frustration. However, block wargames, which hide unit information in a manner comparable to the game of Stratego, can simulate fog of war conditions in a relatively playable way.
[edit] History
The first modern mass-market wargame, presented as a board game, was designed by Charles S. Roberts in 1952. The game, Tactics, was published by Roberts as "The Avalon Game Company" in 1954 and broke even, selling around 2,000 copies. These sales convinced Roberts that there was a market for intelligent, thoughtful, games for adults. Four years later, he decided to make a serious effort at a game company. Finding a conflict with another local company, he changed the name of the company to The Avalon Hill Game Company.[1]
[edit] Avalon Hill
The beginning of the board wargaming industry is generally tied to the name "Avalon Hill" and the publication of Tactics II in 1958, along with Gettysburg, the first board game designed to simulate a historical battle.
Roberts did not have sufficient business acumen, and quickly ended up with a large debt. In 1962 Avalon Hill was sold to the Monarch Avalon Printing company to settle the debts. The new owners resolved to let the company continue to do what it had been doing, and while Roberts left, his friend, Tom Shaw, who already worked at the company took over.[2] This turned out to be an advantage, as being owned by a printing company helped insure that Avalon Hill games had access to superior physical components.
Roberts had been considering producing a newsletter for his new company. Under the new management, this became the Avalon Hill General in 1964, a house organ that ran for 32 years.
Avalon Hill had a very conservative publishing schedule, typically about two titles a year, and wargames were only about half their line.
This led to some developments which, in light of the present state of the hobby, now seem almost unfathomable. The best examples of which were the D-Day and Stalingrad cults. Hundreds of wargamers, this writer being one of them, strained, sweated, argued and meditated over those two games, devising strategies, set-ups and variants almost ad infinitum. Both games were simultaneously unhistoric and unbalanced, yet we played them (brother, did we play them!), simply because they were the only simulations widely available on the two 'classic' campaigns of World War II.[3]
[edit] Serious competition: SPI & GDW
This type of situation indicated a large amount of pent-up demand, and a situation that could not remain static for long. By the end of the 1960s, a number of small magazines dedicated to the hobby were springing up, along with new game companies. Many of these were not available in any store, being spread by 'word of mouth' and advertisements in other magazines.
The eventual "break-out" into a larger public was accomplished by the magazine Strategy & Tactics.[4] It was started in 1966, as a typical "hobby zine", and despite some popularity soon threated to go under. However, Jim Dunnigan bought the ailing magazine, and restructured his own company (then known as Poultron Press) to publish it, creating Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI). An aggressive advertising campaign, and a new policy of including a new game in every issue, allowed S&T to find a much larger market, and SPI to become a company known to all wargamers as having a line of games that surpassed Avalon Hill's (at least, in numbers—arguments about quality raged).
This caused a tremendous rise in the popularity of wargaming in the early 1970s. The market grew at a fast pace, and if anything the number of wargaming companies grew at an even faster pace. As with any business, most of these were created, produced a few products, and quietly failed, leaving little more than a footnote in the history of the industry. Two of these new companies would each last for about two decades and became well known in just a few years: Game Designers' Workshop (GDW), and Tactical Studies Rules (TSR).
GDW was started in 1973 by Frank Chadwick, Rich Banner, Marc Miller, and Loren Wiseman. Their original game, Drang Nach Osten! immediately garnered attention and led to the Europa series. They quickly followed this with other games, which also got favorable reviews. It has been estimated that GDW published one new product every 22 days for the 22 year life of the company (to be fair, this would include magazines and supplements, not just complete games).[5]
TSR started in 1973 as a way to publish the miniature rules developed by the Tactical Studies wargaming club (thus, Tactical Studies Rules). While TSR produced several sets of miniature rules, and a few boardgames, it became much better known as the publisher of Dungeons & Dragons in 1974. The first role-playing game, it sparked a new phenomenon that would later grow much bigger than its parent hobby.
[edit] Boom: Task Force Games, Steve Jackson, et al....
The period 1975-1980 can be considered the 'Golden Age of Wargaming', with a large number of new companies publishing an even larger number of games throughout, powered by an explosive rise in the number of people playing wargames. Wargames also diversified in subject, with the first science-fiction wargame appearing in 1974; and in size with both microgames and monster games first appearing during the decade.
The list of wargame companies started in the late '70s with some claim to notability could go on for quite some time, as would a list of notable games. With less than a decade as an industry with more than one major source on content, wargames were starting to find their feet in terms of design and business.
Designer Steve Jackson produced several celebrated games for Metagaming Concepts and then founded his own company, Steve Jackson Games in 1980, which is still active today (albeit mostly as an RPG company). Task Force Games was founded in 1979 by former staff of JagdPanther and lived into the 1990s, and its most popular game, Star Fleet Battles is still in print. Squad Leader, often cited as the highest selling wargame ever, was published in 1977.
- (Crash - death of SPI)
The boom came to an end, and was followed by the usual bust, at the beginning of the 1980s, most markedly with the acquisition of SPI by TSR in 1982. The hobby has never truly recovered from this bust, and is today much smaller than it was in 1980. There are a number of theories given for this extended slump, and all probably identify some of the actual causes.
- (Life continues - GMT, et al)
[edit] Deadly nineties
The popularity of role-playing games, computer games, and, finally, collectible card games ensured that there were other, less involved hobbies to get involved in, and continued marginal sales of wargames took its toll on the older companies. Game Designers' Workshop went out of business in 1996. Task Force Games went bankrupt in 1999.
Finally, in 1998 Avalon Hill itself was sold to Hasbro. While it might have been possible for Hasbro to revitalize the company and wargaming with its distribution chain and marketing clout, it was shown that Hasbro had no interest in this with the immediate laying off of the entire AH staff and the closure of its web site. Combined with Wizards of the Coast's acquisition of TSR the year before, and their acquisition by Hasbro the year after, things looked bleak for the college and older gaming market.
[edit] Subject matter
[edit] Styles
The actual subject matter of wargames is broad, and many approaches have been taken over the years towards the goals of simulating wars on a grand or personal scale. Some of the more popular movements constitute established sub-genres of their own that most wargamers will recognize.
[edit] Hex-and-counter
The oldest of the sub-genres, and the one that still retains "iconic" status for board wargaming as a whole. It got its start with the first board wargame, Tactics, (which, ironically, used a square grid, hexes were a slightly later innovation), and is still used in many wargames today.
In it's most typical form, a hex-and-counter wargame has a map with a hexagonal grid imposed over it, units are represented with cardboard counters that commonly have a unit type and designation as well as numerical combat and movement factors. Players take turns moving and conducting attacks. Combat is typically resolved with an odd-based combat results table (CRT) using a six sided die.
[edit] Block game
This sub-genre was created in the early 1970s, when Gamma Two Games produced the three initial games of this type. It has long been the province of Gama Two and it's successor, Columbia Games, but recently other companies have been putting out games of the same type.
The defining aspect of this type of game is the use of wooden blocks for the units. These are tilted on their side normally, and then put down for combat. Until combat occurs, the opponent can see how many units are where, but not what type and what strength, introducing fog of war aspects. The blocks are also rotated to show different strength values in a step-reduction system.
[edit] Card-driven
The most recent of the major types of board wargame, it was created by the game We the People published by Avalon Hill in 1994. In most aspects it is much like a typical board wargame (on the simpler side of the spectrum), but play is drive by a deck of cards that both players draw from. These cards control activation points, which allow the use of troops, as well as events that represent things outside the normal scope of the game.
[edit] Gameplay and dynamics
Various techniques are used to simulate real battlefield conditions.
[edit] Opportunity fire
For example, some games allow units to utitlize oipportunity fire. this means that when an enemy unit moves a certain distance, other units are assumed to have an opportunity to fire upon it.
[edit] Design
[edit] References
- ^ Charles Roberts: In His Own Words - retrieved January 2007
- ^ About Avalon Hill - retrieved January 2007
- ^ "Victory Conditions, Neutrality & Capitalist Imperialism", Tyrone Bomba, Panzerfaust #65
- ^ "A Farewell to Hexes", Greg Costikyan, 1996 - retrieved January 2007
- ^ Far Future Enterprises page on GDW - retrieved October 2006
