Peter F Model - Kriegspiel Root Web Site

This Site lists a number of documents and simulations of interest to persons interested in war gaming (kriegspiel)

peter.f.model@gmail.com

Root URL : http://kriegspiel.yolasite.com/

1. Game Design History and Theory

Anyone who has ever put a large effort in playing boardgames will always, at some point in time, think of designing his (or her) own game. I am not unusual in this respect and this strange desire has often come over me. I find the concept of designing a game an interesting mental exercise, which has the additional benefit of helping me to forget the work that pays my bills. Recently, I have been thinking a bit beyond designing games. Instead, I have been pondering the eternal boardgaming designer's question, what is the perfect game system.

While pondering these eternal truths, I realised there was one large and scientific attempt to create, if not perfect, a better game system. SPI devoted a great deal of energy in professionally analysing the problem of game system design. The visible examples of this were the so-called game system families. These were a series of games that shared most of the same rules and game systems. The theory behind this was that if a game system works well with game A, why not use it for game B.

This "trend" is most obvious when looking at Operational Level games of the Second World War. I single out Operation Level games of the Second World War only because so many games exist. It's hard to find a "trend" in a historic period with only two games. A good example of what I mean would be the Spanish American War. My game shelves are not exactly busting with games from this period. On the other hand I would possess twenty or more Operation Level games of the Second World War. With this large sample it becomes easier to ascertain any trends and game system development.

Any search for the perfect game system must start with a historic look at the period during which SPI was predominant. I wanted to know what occurred, why and what net effect did it have on the science of game design. If I could find this out, then I had a good chance of taking that trend farther and coming up with a better game system than even SPI. As you can expect the search I am undertaking needs to start at the beginning.

Back in the early days if someone wanted to design a game, they normally developed a whole new game system for it. Perhaps they borrowed ideas from other games, but basically each game was very different from any other. An example of this is the difference between Avalon Hills Stalingrad and Jedko's Russian Campaign. Both games deal with the same period and use a similar scale, but utilised very different game systems. This occurred because games had different designers. This person normally designed the entire game by himself (or herself), with minimal contact or co-operation with any other game designer. A series of games with a similar Game System could never occur in this environment.

This all changed when SPI started putting games in S&T magazine’s. One of the early significant acts of SPI was the regimentation of game rules. Creating the rules was normally the most horrible and unpleasant job of game design. When you are by yourself, you have little alternative but to create your rules from scratch. Initially, this copying of game rules may have not been done on purpose. However, it does not take much brain power to realise that if the guy before you had already created a set of rules, why not copy what you can of it. This trend developed rapidly at SPI, resulting in game designers being told to use a particular Game System for their game.

This standardisation of game rules indicated a high level professionalism at SPI. You can probably compare this with the car industry. When the car industry moved from hand making all components to mass production of those components, automation was the desired objective. This left the designers with more time to spend on R&D and refining the car, rather than working out how to hand make a door handle. This trend is especially evident in the computer industry today and is the bedrock of a concept called "Open Systems". What SPI did was set standards which most people followed, allowing those people to worry about the historic aspects of the game rather than what movement system to use. As long as SPI was dominant, most game designers followed these standards. What has occurred is that the standards fell apart when SPI went under, leaving us with the mess we now have.

We need to look at history. If we do not study history, we will repeat the mistakes of the past. This is never truer than in the area of game design. Many game designers have accidentally re-developed rules and game systems. In an attempt to avoid this dreadful waste of energy we need to look at the history of game design, which is of course the whole point of this article.

2. The Second Punic War, 218 BC to 202 BC

The Second Punic War must rank as Ancient version of a World War. From the straits of Gibraltar to the coast of Asia the armies and fleets of the two mighty alliances fought each other. History was to prove that the victor of this war would become the master of the known world. 

The sizes of the forces involved was immense. Rome at one stage mobilized twenty five legions, supported by an equal number of Latin allies, over 200 quinqueremes, and with an unknown number of mercenaries and other allies. Add to this the forces of Carthage and Macedonia and we have over one million soldiers fighting for one side or the other. This war probably was the largest war of the ancient world to date.

The length of the war was also impressive. From 218 BC to 202 BC the two powers fought each other. An impressive total of sixteen years. Yet even though this was a war of massive numbers and great length one man stands out from the multitude, Hannibal. Hannibal started the war, fought in one of the two major theatres for the length of the war, and ended the war. For the bulk of his military career during the second Punic war he was outnumbered and had inferior troops, yet he managed to hold off the forces of Rome with seeming ease. If anyone was forced to think of a new name to the second Punic war the only possible answer would be "The Hanniballic War" .