The World of Wargaming

Just a quick post to note a project started by BoardGameGeek user JoelCFC25. He overlayed various wargame maps, such as Here I Stand over a world map at Google Earth. It's a very cool idea, and I hope he's able to expand it.

Memorial Day Gaming

Over the years, it's become a little bit of a group tradition to play games over Memorial Day Weekend. By far, the biggest Memorial Day Weekend game-fest was 2004, when (in addition to several smaller games) we played Napoleon in Europe on Saturday, Mare Nostrum on Sunday and Joan of Arc on Monday. (St. Joan's feast day is May 30th, so we often try to fit a Hundred Years War game into the mix.) We've already fit two sessions into this weekend, and there's a chance we'll work in one more.

Saturday afternoon and evening we played Here I Stand. Andrew's Hapsburgs scored an autovictory in Turn 3. The Hapsburgs started the game by launching two major attacks into Drew's France. Steve's English also piled on, while Jeff's Ottomans made the usual push into Hungary. Meanwhile my Protestants got off to a good start in the religious struggles in Germany, as Al's Papacy struggled. The Hapsburgs also arranged a marriage that brought the Venetians in as their allies.

In Turn 2, the Ottomans made it to the gates of Vienna, but were stalled as a Janissary revolt near Istanbul cut their supply lines. The Hapsburgs and English worked a truce with the French that yielded Bordeaux to the Hapsburgs. This allowed the Hapsburgs to focus their energies in the New World, where they conquered several native peoples and founded several colonies. They also gained the Genoans as allies. Meanwhile the Reformation largely stalled, despite the Papacy being forced to devote resources to defending against a French army in Florence. Meanwhile Henry VIII moved through three wives before Edward was finally born.

In Turn 3, the Ottomans reached an official peace accord with the Hapsburgs, but Barbarossa's pirates continued to harrass Hapsburg and Papal shipping. As the Reformation came to grinding halt, the Hapsburgs and English launched expeditions to the New World. The Hapsburg victory came when they arranged yet another marriage, bringing the Scotts in as their allies. This gave Andrew enough keys to score the autovictory.

Today (Sunday) Andrew, Al, Drew, Steven and I played Power Grid. The gameboard is a map of the US. Players buy power stations (using an auction mechanic), the resources to power them and connections to US cities. Powering cities provides income that allows the players to buy more and expand. The game is very popular (currently ranked #5) at BoardGameGeek, so I was happy to give it a try. The components are nice (although the map is a little ugly). I was pleasantly surprised that the bookkeeping is fairly easy. And the mechanics introduce a lot of factors without a lot of fiddliness. So I did enjoy the game. I do think that the game would be far less interesting with three or four people, however. I also managed to win, which indicates a serious flaw somewhere in the game design.

2010 was a Looney Year

I hope to make a full "Year in Review" posting later this weekend, but I wanted to post my 2010 stats for games played. BoardGameGeek makes this pretty easy, since you can log all of your plays and then view a summary. If you're curious, you can see the games I played in 2010 by clicking here.

The two incarnations of Looney Labs' Fluxx that I own -- EcoFluxx and Monty Python Fluxx got the most plays this year (25 and 17 respectively). The World Cup 2010 Card Game was third with 14. Our most popular Friday Night game, Long Shot, was next with 12 plays. Two other Looney Labs games, Chrononauts and Early American Chrononauts finished fifth and seventh.

Granted, the Looney Labs games are short, which meant that the boys and I could play five games of EcoFluxx in the time it would take the gang to play three turns of Here I Stand. But, the games deserve their place at the top -- we really played them a lot (especially in the spring and summer). And, since they all run between $12 and $20, we definitely got my money's worth.

All the news that's fit to "print"

A few odds and ends to report:

1. With the World Cup announcements, Patrick and I were in the mood for some World Cup soccer. So, we pulled out the World Cup Card Game last week. As much as it pained me, I managed to lead France to a victory over Patrick's Brazil in the finals. England topped Italy in the 3rd place game.

2. The night after Thanksgiving, Dennis made it to Mom's house for dinner. And, now that Patrick's golf and soccer seasons are over, we were able to play a game of Long Shot. Dennis bought Slow Jenn, who won the race and gave Dennis the victory with $180. Andrew purchased Six Gun, who came in second -- as did Andrew, with $170. Last Chance finished third, giving Patrick a total of $115, and I came in last with $100.

3. I continue to play a number of games online at GamesByEmail. I'm 0-4 in History of the World games, but I'm winning one of the two that I'm playing now. With Epoch V almost over, I'm 15 points ahead of Tom (who has won more than his fair share of these games). I managed to win the one game of Risk we played -- defeating Al, Jeff and Drew. I (playing the UK)also teamed up with Steve (playing the Soviets) and Tom (playing the US) to win a game of Axis and Allies against Al (playing Japan) and Drew (playing Germany).

4. Labyrinth (which I pre-ordered back in February) arrived last week. GMT had a mixup on my credit card, so I didn't get it when everyone else did in early November. But, as usual, the office folks were apologetic and kind, and got it to me two days later. I've skimmed the rules, and I'm eager to give it a shot.

5. Speaking of which, it took a lot of willpower not to order GMT's new game Commands and Colors: Napoleonics. It's Richard Borg's new game using the Commands and Colors system that started with his game Battlecry in 2000. I have to admit that I hated Battlecry the first time I played it with Al, but I enjoyed subsequent games of Battelcry, as well as Memoir '44 and Commands and Colors: Ancients. What stopped me was thinking about the fact that I haven't played any of these games in over a year. So, I pulled out the Commands and Colors: Ancients rulebook last night; Patrick and I plan to play today.

6. Al (taking England and the Protestants), Andrew (taking the French and the Ottomans) and I (taking the Hapsburgs and the Papacy) played three rounds of Here I Stand using Wargameroom the night before Thanksgiving. It only took about two hours -- including the time we spent working out the computer kinks. Compare that to the six hours it normally takes six of us playing in person. The Ottomans were unstoppable, and Vienna fell in the second turn.

7. Finally, there will be a few games under the tree on Christmas, but I need to keep those a secret.

Mid-Year Report

The year is half over, so I thought I'd look back on my most-played games at this point of 2010.

As I looked at the totals, I couldn't miss an obvious conclusion. The year 2010 is the year that I found Looney Labs games. While the games are not universally loved by gamers (largely because of their chaotic nature), they are fun and quick-playing.

In some ways their quick play makes for an unfair comparison. I'll obviously get more plays out of a Looney Labs game that take 15 minutes to play than a GMT or Fantasy Flight game that takes seven hours. Because of this I have to give a special recognition to GMT's Here I Stand, which I've only played once this year (plus once in December 2009). At this point it would win the 2010 best "new-to-me" game.

With that caveat, here's the list (through June 30th).

1. EcoFluxx (which I've only owned for about a month, but I've played 11 times)
2. Chrononauts (another Looney Labs game, which I've played 9 times)
2. Farkel (a traditional dice game that I've also played 9 times)
4. Early American Chrononauts (Looney Labs' retheming of Chronauts, which I've played 8 times)
4. Hive (which I've also played 8 times, although about half of these were on the iPhone app)
6. Killer Bunnies REMIX (which was the Friday night game of choice for much of the winter and was played 6 times)
6. Long Shot (which is moving up fast, with 6 plays, having been the Friday night choice for the last couple of months)
8. Roll Through the Ages: The Bronze Age (which I don't even own a physical copy of, but I've played 4 time as an iPhone app)
9. Descent: Journeys in the Dark (a fun dungeon crawl that I've played 3 times, and I think will be played a lot more this year)
9. Scrabble Slam (which I played 3 times with Gillian's family in Jamaica)
9. World Cup Card Game 2010 (which is lots of fun, but probably will be stuck with 3 plays at the end of the year, since the World Cup is almost over)

Can War be a Game?

An article in Monday's Providence (Rhode Island) Journal describes the anger felt by members of the Nipmuc and Mashpee Wampanoag tribes regarding the forthcoming Multiman Publishing game, King Philip's War. King Philip's War (also known as Metacom's War) was a series of battles between English colonists and a group of Native American tribes during 1675-1676. "King Philip" was the nickname given to the leader of the Native American tribes.

I know that I'm not alone among wargamers in that (more than once) I've been a little embarrassed describing my hobby to non-gamers. Most non-wargamers are used to games being about making money, searching for treasure, building cities or traveling across the globe. In short, any violence (such as that found in Clue or Risk) is very abstract and/or cartoonish.

For most folks, games are either tests of abstract thinking skills with little or no theme (such as in chess) or a thematic means of escape (such as in Monopoly). Wargames are not abstract -- they clearly have a theme. But it's hard for most people to understand how a theme based upon death and destruction might provide escape for anyone other than a psychopath. I don't think that I'm a psychopath, but I do understand the confusion they have.

So, what is the appeal of wargaming? I've met a few wargamers over the years who don't notice the theme -- and view wargames as very complex versions of chess. But 99% of the wargamers I've met (in person and online) have two things in common: (1) they enjoy history, and (2) they enjoy thinking about how different decisions might have caused events to unfold differently. Thus, most wargamers enjoy wargames (such as GMT's Here I Stand) and other games ( such as Fantasy Flight's Twilight Imperium) that combine the battles with diplomacy, research and resource management.

Wars and battles have always made for fascinating turning points in history. So it's natural that history buffs often become wargamers (and visa versa). A good historical boardgame (as some wargamers prefer to call them, in large part, I suppose, because it sounds less violent) can take you back -- or even better, put you in the role of Lincoln, Grant or Lee during the American Civil War; Henry VIII, Charles V or Martin Luther during the Reformation; or Ike, Patton or (yes, even) Hitler during World War II. Facing the decisions they faced doesn't force you to share their beliefs. (I find it amusing that my son Andrew loves his Jesuit high school, yet enjoys playing the Protestants in Here I Stand.)

So what do I think of the unhappy Native American tribes? I think much of their confusion sits in the convential use of the word "game." In normal usage, a "game" is trivial. A game depicting King Philip's War might be understood to trivialize an important time in their histories. My guess is, however, that the "game" will introduce several hundred people to that important time, and (far from trivilizing their tribes) it will generate new-found respect. But I understand their confusion -- I sometimes feel it myself.

Not Bad in the Abstract

Patrick beat me at Hive this afternoon. He's getting very good at the game, and I'm surprised how much I like it, given that it's an abstract strategy game.

In game theory, an abstract strategy game is a game with no chance and perfect information. No chance eliminates any games with suffled cards or dice. Perfect information means that nothing is hidden -- both (all) players know where all of the pieces are. Examples of games with no chance but hidden information would be Battleship and Stratego. Chess, checkers and Go would be good examples of abstract strategy games -- having no chance and perfect information.

Why don't I like abstract strategy games? I think that the main reason is that I have a really bad memory, which seems to be a requirement for being a strong player. First, good players need to memorize standard openings and defenses. I probably could do this, but that wouldn't solve the mid-game problem. At some point in the middle of any abstract strategy game, players need to start analyzing potential moves. Anyone who's played chess knows the process: "If I move my knight here, he could move his queen there, in which case I could move my pawn forward. Or if he moves his bishop over there, I could counter with my bishop taking his knight." I suppose that I could "train" my brain to be better, but I'm generally lost after three levels of recursion, and can rarely remember which move I started the analysis with. The Wikipedia entry on Abstract Strategy Games suggests that chess has 10^123 possible board situations. Checkers is much easier, only having on the order of 10^31 possibilities. I am proud of the fact that at least I'm willing to admit that it's my mental shortcomings that sour me on these games, unlike many who want to write off the games themselves as being uninteresting. Since Hive only has 20 pieces (10 on each side), the mid game seems more managable to me. I still lose, but at least I don't have a headache at the end of the game.

A secondary reason is that most abstract strategy games lack a theme. (As a side note, Steve Krebs argues at BoardGameGeek that when gamers use the term "theme," what they really mean is "setting." I think he's right.) I enjoy learning something about a topic I'm interested in when I play a game. If I'm playing something from the Ticket to Ride series, I won't really learn anything about running a train network, but I do learn some geography from the mapboard. On the opposite end, I've learned a lot of history from the GMT card driven games, such as The Napoleonic Wars and Here I Stand. I remember that I wasn't through my very first turn playing Japan in a game of Axis and Allies (in 1985) when I understood the strategic importance of the Solomon Islands (and thus Guadalcanal). Checkers and Go have no pretense of a theme, and it would be a real stretch to argue that chess in any way teaches about military tactics. As it is, Hive has no real theme; that is players learn nothing about insects.

So, who is Hive good for? It's good if you want an abstract strategy game with fairly nice pieces, a short playing time and few enough pieces that someone with a bad memory can enjoy it.

Diplomacy Deck for Here I Stand Arrived

The Here I Stand 2-player Diplomacy Deck arrived in the mail on Monday. (See my January 31, 2010 posting.) I finally had a chance to thumb through it today. It looks like it will make for a fun two-player version of the game.

What is That Game Worth?

I found a cool web site today. The creator (known as Spielboy) wrote an Adobe Flash program that searches the BoardGameGeek sales database and presents a time series plot of prices for any game.

The image to the right, for example, shows the results from a search for Avalon Hill's Kingmaker. Each dot represents a Kingmaker sale at the BoardGameGeek martketplace, with the dot's color indicating the game's condition. Based upon this plot, for example, most of the sales during 2009 were of copies that were in "very good" condition, and they sold for between $20 and $50. One new copy apparently sold last year for $80.

Regarding the trade I'm finishing, acceptable copies of LeMans sell for between $25 and $35, while new copies of the Here I Stand 2-Player Diplomacy Deck sell for about $20. So, I guess, in theory, I'm getting the short end. But I'm still happy with the trade.

January 24, 2010

I continue to read the book Defenders of the Faith, by James Reston. It's a highly-readable history book that covers the same time period as Here I Stand-- which is to say that it's definitely not a footnote-heavy book that came out of someone's dissertation. There are upsides and downsides to that. On the one hand it means that he's often describing historical events with details that can't possibly be known -- such as a person's facial expressions, or what someone was thinking. Yet, having plowed through many boring books on Medieval England, I appreciate something that reads a little more like an historical novel.

Further down the reality chart, I'm also watching the first season of "The Tudor's" on Netflix. The liberties taken with history are well-documented, and I was worried that they would get in the way of my enjoying the show. But, I've yet to be bothered by anything important. I agree with those who argue that any positives that come out of people learning about the time period outweigh the negatives associated with having to "unlearn" a few facts.

January 18, 2010

Over the years, Martin Luther King Day has become a sort of gaming tradition in our group, since many of us have the day off of work. Two years ago we were able to play Sword of Rome for the first (and only) time.

This year we were able to play Here I Stand for the second time. Andrew managed to pull out a victory at the end. I posted a session report at Boardgamegeek.

Here I Stand is quickly moving up my list of favorite games. I'm hoping to be able to get a few folks online soon at Wargameroom.