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.

Fletcher Pratt's Naval War Game

Fletcher Pratt’s Naval War Game was created by Fletcher Pratt and published by Lake Shore Press in 1943. It is widely considered one of the most popular and successful war games of the 20^th century and was even played across entire ballroom floors during its peak in popularity and could be played by as many as sixty people. Traditionally each player would command a single wooden ship – sometimes two – controlling the movement and firing of the vessel with the aim of the game to sink all other ships.  Players must focus on three main factors: the movement of their ship, calculating the range to fire at your target and applying any damage received from hits the enemies have scored on the player. Maneuvers were calculated via a complex mathematical formula and each ship has different capabilities and attributes based on those of real life ships, for example if one ship has a higher top speed than another it can move more fractions of an inch per round. (McAleer, 2012)

War Re-enactment

War re-enactments are a type of war gaming that is physically acted out traditionally using a large group of people re-enacting a famous battle, they are particularly popular in the United States. War re-enactments range and span through different time periods, things more recent such as the American Civil War and World War re-enactments are the most popular, but other re-enactments such as Classical Re-enactments portray the Greco-Roman world. The earliest recorded activity relating to a re-enactment was the recreation of famous battles staged by the Romans within their amphitheatres as a form of public spectacle. Many people pursue war re-enacting as a hobby with the age ranges being incredibly diverse with people of all ages attending events. A lot of people are interested in getting a historical perspective of such events; other participants participate for the escapism that the events offer. Living History is a form of war re-enactment that is meant solely for the purpose of education to the public, they do not always entail a mock battle instead some aim at simply portraying what a soldier’s life was like during the period in which the re-enactment is set. Closed events known as Tactical battles, which are not usually open to the public, are fought like real battles with each side devising strategies and tactics used to defeat their opponents, these traditionally are not recreations of battles and are played competitively. Total immersion events are ‘hard-core’ events that are re-enacted with a higher sense of realism, often featuring extended marches and generally living like an actual soldier to make it feel more authentic. 

Risk

Risk is a popular strategic board game that offered a new dynamic take on board games that revolutionized the industry and is considered a classic. It was invented by French film director Albert Lamorisse and released in 1957 as La Conquête du Monde or The Conquest of the World in English. (Risk: The Game Of Strategic Conquest) It is a turn-based game to be played by two to six players with the primary objective of the game being to ‘occupy every territory on the board and in so doing, eliminate all other players.’ (Parker Brothers, 1963) Players control armies that they use in an attempt to capture enemy territories with the results dependent on dice rolls. Risk is widely known throughout the world and became incredibly popular in France, America and Italy to the point where there have been multiple licensed variations of it including Risk: Star Wars Original Trilogy Edition and released multiple video game adaptions. (How to Win at Risk)

Little Wars

Little Wars is a set of rules used when playing with toy soldiers written by H.G. Wells in 1913. (Belli, 2013) The book was not only a set of rules, it was also ‘an important socio-political work’ (Silvano, 2005) that hints at a few philosophical aspects of war and Well’s belief in pacifism. The book was written in a playful style and illustrated with amusing drawings and photographs offering an insight at the author’s personality. (Little Wars) Little Wars included simple rules for infantry, cavalry and artillery in the form of a 4.7 inch naval gun that launched projectiles commonly in the form of wooden dowels used to knock down enemy soldiers. The development of the game started via a visit by his friend Jerome K. Jerome after he visited, after dinner Jerome began shooting down toy soldiers with a toy cannon which inspired Wells to write Little Wars.

Diplomacy and Gaming-By-Mail

Diplomacy is a strategic board game created by Allan B. Calhamer in 1954 and released commercially in 1959. (Calhamer) It was a wargame focusing on negation and diplomacy, hence the name, with absence of a die or form of randomizer requiring the players to use skill as a means of winning the game. (Parlett, 1999)  Diplomacy was the first commercially published game to be played by mail, a form of gaming played through postal mail – in this scenario - or email, popularized in the 1960s and reaching its peak in the 1980s. Diplomacy differs from the majority of war games in multiple ways including players write down all their moves in secret after a negotiation period and once revealed are put into play simultaneously; social interactions are an essential part of the game. It is played with between two and seven players and comprises of a negotiation phase and a movement phase. In the negotiation phase players may use any verbal means possible to forge alliances or form arrangements with one another, communication is a valuable asset to have during this phase. The movement phase consists of players writing down orders for each of their units in secret, once each player has done so each order will be executed simultaneously. Players must capture each other players supply centres, the winner is declared once each of the other players have been eliminated via lack of supply centres or if one player has over half the supply centres on the board. (Avalon Hill Games, 2000) It was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design Hall of Fame in 1994.