Wargaming Timeline

Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers

Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers is a political, economical and military strategic board wargame published in 1984 by Supremacy Games and design by Robert J. Simpson. Supremacy pits conventional superpowers against each other for control of the earth similar to a modern warfare Risk with an integrated supply and demand economic system. Warfare comes in multiple forms of conventional, biological, chemical and nuclear. (Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers) The players represent the superpowers of the world; the United States, the Soviet Union, the League of European Nations, the People's Republic of China, the Confederacy of South America and the Federation of African States. The goal is to conquer the world either through military or economic strength. Players can build army and naval units and to do so requires resources. There are three types of resources in the game; oil, wheat and minerals. Once the units are built they require a continual input of resources in the form of maintenance. Armies require grain to move and navies require oil. In addition, salaries must be paid for each army and naval unit. Each country on the board is capable of producing certain types of resources. Players can gain access to those resources by capturing the country in question and playing the appropriate resource card. Alternatively, players can buy or sell resources on the global market. The game also spawned a great number of supplements to expand the game further. (Supremacy: The Game of the Superpowers)

Nuclear War

Nuclear War is a multiplayer card game designed by Douglas Malewicki and originally published in 1965. It is a satirical game in which each player represents a ‘major world power’ and attempts to gain global domination or annihilation through the strategic use of propaganda or nuclear weapons. (Nuclear War) If you choose do, players can choose to use one of the joke countries that come with the game or you could choose an existing country. Each country has its own traits for example Bagmad, the terrorist state, can send 10 and 20 megaton bombs up the track to attack enemies without inciting nuclear war. Bananaland, also known as Cuba, can give population to opponents to make them lose turns. Players can use propaganda cards to destroy thier enemies. If you wipe out your enemy through propaganda their game will end, however, if they are wiped out through secrets or bombs they get what's called a final retaliation. That is the equivalent of pressing a self-destruct button and attempting to destroy everyone. (Gronli, 2009) The game and its multiple expansions have won multiple awards such as the Charles Roberts Award for Best Science Fiction Boardgame of 1983 (List of Winners) and has been inducted into the Origins Adventure Gaming Hall of Fame.

Axis & Allies

                Axis & Allies is a series of World War 2 strategy board games created by game designer Larry Harris Jr. and published by Nova Game Designs in 1981 and reprinted in 1984 by the Milton Bradley Company. It is intended to be played by two to five players over the age of twelve with games lasting anywhere between and around two to ten hours. The game is incredibly popular within the board gaming community printing two million copies since its release. Players play as members of the Axis – Japan and Germany - or Allies – UK, US and Soviet Union – with the Axis players teaming up against the Allied powers in an attempt to conquer key territories represented by regions on the board. This was done in earlier models by capturing and holding certain territories until the end of a round after each player has moved according to a specific order. (General M. Bradley, 1991) Players have at their disposal infantry, armour, fighters, bombers, battleships, aircraft carriers, submarines, troop transports, anti-air guns, and factories. All of the units perform differently and many have special functions. Players have to work together with their team mates in order to coordinate offences and decide how best to utilize their production points. (Axis & Allies)

Warhammer 40,000

Warhammer 40,000 or informally named Warhammer 40K is a tabletop wargame played using miniature figurines first designed by Rick Priestley and produced by Games Workshop in 1987 as Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader – which is considered to be the best of collection because of its diverse universe and free-form rules. (Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, 2013)The gameplay of Rogue Trader is heavily influenced by role-playing and can and is considered by many people a role-playing game with a few elements of the game can be seen in earlier wargaming rules called Laserburn. There have been a number of expansions to the universe and Warhammer is currently in its 6^th edition, outside companies started providing additional material such as rules for new units and models, one such company was White Dwarf magazine. Warhammer has gone on to become the setting of several video games and works of fiction including work publish by Black Library, a subsidiary of Games Workshop. The playing time varies upon game with some games lasting half an hour and some an entire weekend and can be played by two or more people.  Play is turn-based and played in skirmishes acted out using plots created by a third player known as the game master – similar to Dungeons and Dragons - with various outcomes determined by tables and the roll of dice. Individual models are placed across a table creating armies for each player who once ready carry out the skirmishes with the distance between each model on the table plays a large role in the outcome of combat. (Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader) Warhammer is particularly popular in game and hobby shops, with some ever hosting tournaments. 

Stratego

Stratego is a strategy board game to be played by two players with fairly simplistic rules. Trademarked in 1947 by Dutchman Jacques Johan Mogendorff and originally manufactured distributed by Jumbo, the Milton Bradley Company bought the rights to it and distributed it across America to commercial success leading to future releases of licensed variants of the game. However the original idea for the game was patented by a French women named M. Hermance Eden in 1908 as ‘jue de bataille avec pieces mobiles sur damier’ which translates to ‘ a battle game with mobile pieces on a game board’. The game soon sold as L’Attaque is generally considered an ancestor and the inspiration for Stratego and was very popular all over Europe especially throughout World War 2 due to the common theme of war that engulfed this during this period. Although first advertised and catered towards an adult audience, Stratego quickly became a family favourite and today has amassed a large fan base reaching across the world and has even been adapted to be played as a computer game and over the internet. (History) The objective of the game is to find and capture the opponents flag or capture so many enemy pieces they are unable to move, this is achieved through players landing on their enemies pieces and both player’s piece subsequently being revealed with the weaker of the two pieces being removed from the board.

Dungeon and Dragons

Dungeons and Dragons is a fantasy, role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and first published in 1974. (Dungeons and Dragons FAQ) Dungeons and Dragons derived from wargames but departs from traditional wargaming assigning each player a specific character rather than an army or group of units. It is widely considered as the beginning of modern role-playing games and amassed a fan base of 3.5 million players around the world 7 years after release and a total of twenty million players in total overall. It is the most widely recognised and played role-playing game and has been sold is 50 countries and translated into a dozen languages and has released multiple editions over the course of the last 39 years. The game focuses on players grouping together and creating ‘parties’  of adventurers, during the course of the game each player directs the actions of their character and their interactions with other characters which is performed via verbal impersonations of their characters. The rules and events of the game are depicted by the Dungeon Master who selects various NPCs , party encounters and the settings in which these events occur with the outcome of these encounters based upon the player’s choices and actions. Each individual character has multiple different attributes that are determined at the beginning of the game by each player with more recent versions of the game determining the attribute values using a points system.