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A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a realistic simulation of an armed conflict. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to study the nature of potential conflicts. Many wargames recreate specific historic battles, and can cover either whole wars, or any campaigns, battles, or lower-level engagements within them. Many simulate land combat, but there are wargames for naval and air combat as well.
Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming in which military units are represented by miniature physical models on a model battlefield. The use of physical models to represent military units is in contrast to other tabletop wargames that use abstract pieces such as counters or blocks, or computer wargames which use virtual models. The primary benefit of using models is aesthetics, though in certain wargames the size and shape of the models can have practical consequences on how the match plays out.
Columbia Games is one of the oldest manufacturers of board wargames, and has also produced the Hârn role-playing game as well as various card games and collectible card games. Their wargames are notable for using small wooden or plastic blocks instead of the more conventional cardboard counters. The company, originally titled Gamma Two Games, started in Vancouver, Canada, but after ten years changed its name to Columbia Games, and eventually moved to Blaine, Washington. It is currently run by founder Tom Dalgliesh and his son Grant.
The Charles S. Roberts Awards is an annual award for excellence in the historical wargaming hobby. It was named in honor of Charles S. Roberts the "Father of Wargaming" who founded Avalon Hill. The award is informally called a "Charlie" and officially called a "Charles S. Roberts Award". The Wargamer magazine called it "very prestigious". The Award is managed by the Charles S. Roberts Award Committee which has no commercial sponsorship, made up of designers, writers and hobbyists. It is a "people's award" with winners chosen through votes submitted by fans.
This page lists board and card games, wargames, miniatures games, and tabletop role-playing games published in 1979. For video games, see 1979 in video gaming.
Origins of World War II is a board game published by Avalon Hill in 1971 that combines a wargame with international diplomacy to simulate the diplomatic conditions that led to the outbreak of World War II.
D-Day is a board wargame published by Avalon Hill in 1961 that simulates the six months of the European Campaign of World War II from the Normandy Invasion to the crossing of the Rhine. It was the first wargame to feature the now ubiquitous hex grid map and cardboard counters, and was revised and re-released in 1962, 1965, 1971, 1977 and 1991.
The history of role-playing games begins with an earlier tradition of role-playing, which combined with the rulesets of fantasy wargames in the 1970s to give rise to the modern role-playing game. A role-playing game (RPG) is a type of game in which the participants assume the roles of characters and collaboratively create stories. Traditionally all the participants but one take on characters and determine the actions of their characters based on their characterization and the actions succeed or fail according to a system of rules and guidelines, and one of the participants takes on the role of game master who narrates the story, plays all the non-player characters and determine the challenge rating and the outcome of various actions. Within the rules, the participants may improvise freely; their choices shape the direction and outcome of the games.
Tactical wargames are a type of wargame that models military conflict at a tactical level, i.e. units range from individual vehicles and squads to platoons or companies. These units are rated based on types and ranges of individual weaponry. The first tactical wargames were played as miniatures, extended to board games, and they are now also enjoyed as video games.
Jeux Descartes was a French publisher of roleplaying games and board games. Their most popular lines included: Eurogames, a set of serious board games, previously published by Duccio Vitale's independent company; Blue Games, small card games for larger groups; and Games for Two.
Operational Studies Group, also known as OSG, is a publisher of board wargames.
Ian Marsh is a British writer, magazine editor, and entrepreneur.
A board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board, as opposed to being played on a computer or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The modern, commercial wargaming hobby developed in 1954 following the publication and commercial success of Tactics. The board wargaming hobby continues to enjoy a sizeable following, with a number of game publishers and gaming conventions dedicated to the hobby both in the English-speaking world and further afield.
Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in the United States in 1959. Its main distinctions from most board wargames are its negotiation phases and the absence of dice and other game elements that produce random effects. Set in Europe in the years leading to the First World War, Diplomacy is played by two to seven players, each controlling the armed forces of a major European power. Each player aims to move their few starting units and defeat those of others to win possession of a majority of strategic cities and provinces marked as "supply centers" on the map; these supply centers allow players who control them to produce more units. Following each round of player negotiations, each player can issue attack and support orders, which are then executed during the movement phase. A player takes control of a province when the number of provinces that are given orders to support the attacking province exceeds the number of provinces given orders to support the defending province.
Zargo's Lords, released in 1979, was one of the most popular wargames released by the Italian company International Team (IT). Designed by Marco Donadoni, the chief game designer at IT, Zargo's Lords was the first fantasy wargame to be produced in Italy, and was well received both in Italy and abroad. It sold well into the early 1980s and in some countries it was instrumental in letting wargames be known to a larger audience. Due to the success of the game, IT later released an expansion set; moreover, the fantasy setting created by IT for Zargo's Lords was later used in other, independent games. After Zargo's Lords, IT published several other fantasy wargames, including Wohrom and Idro.
Kroll & Prumni was the first wargame to be released by the Italian company International Team, in 1979. It is a hex map-based, science fiction-themed wargame, designed by Marco Donadoni, IT's chief designer, who also authored such IT best-sellers as Zargo's Lords. After IT went bankrupt in the late 1980s, the game was republished by Eurogames under title Colonisator. As with other IT titles, Kroll & Prumni is characterized by an attractive graphic design, probably due to Enea Riboldi (uncredited).
Marco Alberto Donadoni is an Italian game designer. He designed his first, self-produced wargame, Iliad, in 1977; he then joined the Italian company International Team (IT), that at the time was mainly a jigsaw puzzle producer. IT published Iliad and changed its core business, focusing on the wargame market, with Donadoni being its main game designer. Between the late 1970s and the early 1980s, Donadoni created a number of games for IT, some of which, like Zargo's Lords and Kroll & Prumni, were very successful and largely contributed to popularize wargaming in Italy and other European countries, such as France. Angelo Porazzi, designer of Warangel has often cited Donadoni's work as one of his major sources of inspiration. Donadoni remained as IT's main game designer until the company went bankrupt in the late 1980s, designing more than a hundred games. After that, he collaborated with several other major Italian game companies such as Editrice Piccoli, Editrice Giochi and others.
Austerlitz is a turn-based strategy video game developed by Personal Software Services and published by Mirrorsoft. It was released in the United Kingdom and Germany for the Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS home computers in 1989. It was also re-released in France for Amiga home computers by Mirror Image in 1991. The game is set during the Battle of Austerlitz of the Napoleonic Wars and revolves around Napoleon's forces defending the Austrian village of Austerlitz from the invading army of Alexander I of Russia.
A wargame is a strategy game that realistically simulates warfare. Wargames were invented for the purpose of training military officers, but they eventually caught on in civilian circles, played recreationally.
References
- ↑ Zargo's Lords review
- ↑ Review of Zargo's Lord at Boardgamegeek
- ↑ List of games by IT, with brief descriptions
- ↑ International Teams dans le magazine Jeux et Stratégie (in French)
- ↑ The International Team games simulation games serie
- ↑ "Review of "Kroll & Prumni"". Archived from the original on 2011-07-19. Retrieved 2010-12-22.
- ↑ International Team successors
