The Mapologist

Games as Historiography

2009-09-18T06:40:00.000-07:00

One of the joys of working in the history simulation hobby is the history itself. Too often, good scholarship takes a back seat to gameplay and publishing concerns, but every once in a while, a truly impressive piece of historical synthesis may be found. Here are three quick examples:

Here I Stand (GMT)
(designer Ed Beach)
Most students of the Reformation tend towards the religious struggle to the exclusion of the myriad forces in operation throughout sixteenth-century Europe. Ed's synthesis of each of six key powers' goals and strategic options is remarkable. Managing the complexities through brilliant use of a card-driven system, the game manages to elevate to, at the very least, a catalyst for better understanding of this important period.

War of the Suns (MMP)
(designer Leonard To)
In a front of WWII forgotten by most Westerners, the Chinese held off a Japanese incursion into Russia for nearly a decade. Especially with China emerging on the world stage as it is, understanding this conflict is critical - but even for those interested, the English-language sources are slim. Leonard's synthesis of the Chinese sources into this monster simulation make this game likely the best academic examination of that conflict available in the English language.

Clash of Monarchs (GMT)
(designer Bob Kalinowski)
The detail and complexity of this simulation of the Seven Years' War speak to Bob's long study and toil to bring this to our tables. "Labor of love" has new meaning here, and again a synthesis of the source material into an overview of inestimable value for the historian. It is so easy to get lost in the arcana and esoterica of a subject...

At any rate, hope the Lepanto game I'm working on can come close to any of these in its usefulness...

An Elizabethan Cartogram

2009-08-20T10:12:00.000-07:00

Having enjoyed Ed Beach's superb Here I Stand boardgame on the Wars of the Reformation, I leapt at the chance to work on a playtest map for his upcoming sequel covering the Golden Age of Elizabeth, entitled Virgin Queen. (An altogether fascinating period of history including the French Huguenot Wars of Religion, the battle of Lepanto, the Spanish Armada, and much more.)

Ed's original playtest map was a modification of the Here I Stand map, using 3 insets to add action in the New World, the Netherlands, & Indian/Pacific oceans. For example, we see in Here I Stand, the Netherlands warranted a mere 4 spaces; whereas in Virgin Queen that count expands to 21 spaces to contain the Dutch Revolt and Reformation:

Some brief discussion with Ed led me to suggest we employ a cartogram (a superb discussion of practical cartograms may be found here) for the map, to better reflect the relative importance of the areas during the period. What we needed was a map that would enlarge the Netherlands' surface area greatly (and to some degree, France & England's), as well as include The Indian and Pacific as far out as Australia. The resulting contortion is what Ed aptly describes as "The world inside Philip II's head:"

The content on the map is still in flux, so we'll save a look at that until things settle down a bit. Open PBEM playtesting is beginning soon, and if you're interested in helping you can email Ed to sign up.

Please note that this is in no way endorsed by GMT Games yet; for that matter as far as I know GMT has not technically contracted to publish the game at all.

Wars of the Roses

2009-07-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

After thirty odd drafts, by far the longest project I've yet been involved in, you can now trash the English countryside underfoot, recreating the Wars of the Roses...

Portfolio Update

2009-04-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Added ten new maps to my portfolio today, as well as a link for the redux map for Twilight Struggle which (thanks to the good offices of GMT Games, Jason Matthews, Ananda Gupta, and Daniel McGinty) is now available for purchase...

Of dimension and projections...

2009-04-24T10:41:00.000-07:00

So after an initial focus on antique map styles, then game map forms, then illustrative cartography, I've been moving in more technical directions the past few weeks - doing a lot of work with creating 3D terrain effects for maps, as well as reprojecting NASA's Blue Marble Next Generation (BMNG) RAW data to create hyper-accurate background maps.

The area surrounding Alesia, with 3d terrain and edge displacements...

NASA BMNG data of the Pacific, reprojected on an Albers equal-area cone...

Kind Words

2009-02-16T12:18:00.000-08:00

Phil Fry had some kind words for me regarding the project we just finished, GMT's "1805:Sea of Glory." Timecode 3:44 here... thanks, Phil!

Ludography

2008-10-20T09:32:00.000-07:00

[updated 3/16/09]
So here's a fun (chronological by history) list of games I have or am working on...
[R] indicates a personal redux project rather than published work

Rise of the Ancients

The Civilization Project [R] 8000-300 BC
The God Kings: Warfare at the Dawn of Civilization [R] 1500-1260 BC
The Conquerors: Alexander the Great 336-323 BC
Chandragupta: Great Battles of the Mauryan Empire 319-261 BC
Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage [R] 218-201 BC
Spartacus: Crisis in the Roman Republic 80-71 BC
Alesia 52 BC
Ides of March: The End of the Roman Republic 44–30BC

From Byzantium to Britain

The Constantinople Trilogy 530-1460
Kingdom of Heaven: The Crusader States 1097-1291
Crusader Rex [R] 1189-92
Samurai Lords: Wars of Feudal Japan 1100-1600
Warriors of God: Wars of England & France 1135-1453
Wars of the Roses 1455-87

The Calamitous Sixteenth Century

Here I Stand: Wars of the Reformation [R] 1517-55
Virgin Queen 1559-1599
The Inmost Sea: The Battle of Lepanto 1571
A Most Dangerous Time: Japan in Chaos 1570-84
Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan 1600

From the New World to Nelson

Conquistador: The Exploration and Exploitation of the New World 1495-1700
King Philip's War 1675-76
Blackbeard: The Golden Age of Piracy 1685-1725
No Peace Without Spain: War of the Spanish Succession 1702-13
Clash of Monarchs: The Seven Years’ War in Europe 1756-63
Warriors of America 1755-83
We the People [R] 1775-83
1805 Sea of Glory 1805

Brother Against Brother

Lincoln’s War: The American Civil War 1861-64
Barren Victory II: The Battle of Chickamauga 1863
For the People [R] 1861-65
Rebel Raiders on the High Seas 1861-65

A Century of Change

Hoka Hey: The Sioux Indian Wars 1862-77
Age of Bismarck: The Unifications of Germany & Italy 1859-71
1866: The Struggle for Supremacy in Germany 1866
Zulu! The Engagement at Rorke's Drift 1879
The Wild West: The Range Wars of 19th Century America c.1880
North West Frontier: An Adventure Across Colonial India c.1900

The World at War

The Proud Tower: World War I in Europe 1914-18
War of the Suns: The Chinese War of Resistance 1937-45
The War: Europe 1939-45
Europe at War 1939-45
Black Cross/Blue Sky: The Battle of Britain 1940
Codeword Cromwell: The German Invasion of England 1940
Blood & Sand: The Campaign for North Africa 1941-42
Red Star Rising: The War in Russia 1941-44
Frontline General: San Pietro Infine 1943
A Blood Red Snow: The Battle for the Kamenets-Podolsky Pocket 1944
The Devil’s Cauldron: The Battles for Arnhem and Nijmegen 1944
Frontline General: Italian Campaign 1943-45
Mark Herman’s Pacific Campaign 1941-45

The Modern Era

Twilight Struggle [R] 1945-89
Where There Is Discord: War in the South Atlantic 1982
For Greed or Glory 2000

Custom GMT maps!

2008-09-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

Through the good offices of GMT Games, Ed Beach, and Mark Herman I'm now able to offer copies of my custom Here I Stand and For the People maps for sale: click here to order!

Cocreating

2008-06-16T08:12:00.000-07:00

I don't remember exactly when Bobby Ward, the kid down the street, introduced my brother and I to Francis Tresham's Civilization, but I caught the boardgaming bug that day and never looked back. By the age of fourteen I had published my first article (a rather presumptuous piece on opening strategies for Civilization) in the Avalon Hill in-house magazine, The General. We'd founded MGC, The Mahaffey Game Company, which failed to produce a single finished game - but saw myriad ideas and components built and thousands of cardboard chits and counters scattered through salvaged post-office paper- boxes in our closet. Our pastor’s son Rob was our only customer, and we his. We faithfully exchanged catalogs of each other’s works, modeled after those gorgeous Avalon Hill flyers, pregnant with possibilities.

There was only one game company in my eyes in those days - Avalon Hill - and I adored it. To this day The General is the only periodical to which I've been a paying subscriber. I purchased or dreamed of purchasing dozens of games. I hauled copies of Mark Herman's Peloponnesian War to show-and-tell to no avail, and spent endless evenings ogling maps and articles. By high school I was bringing Stonewall Jackson's Way to our American Civil War Studies class for everyone to play.

I had an image of what Avalon Hill was. The sacred address at 4517 Hanford Road in Baltimore housed a creative think-tank, a buzzing studio where those great designers and artists gathered together to revel in the joys of collective craftsmanship, days and weeks spent co-creating…

So on a family trip to Washington way back when, I pleaded with my parents to make the 45-minute detour to Baltimore, and giddily anticipated a walk into those hallowed halls. When they acquiesced, what I found was a sparse front-office desk and little else. I suppose this sounds a little silly, but it was one of the disappointments of my life.

I know of nothing I can do anything like creating games save creating films. These are arts that require collaboration and creativity in deep measure. And both industries are strange combinations of plain old commercialism and shocking volunteerism.

To this day I long to work in that kind of environment, where like-minded people come together in a room to create. What greater joy is there? Maybe one day the naïve image I had in my head will be a reality again.

Come 1998, Avalon Hill was sucked up, digested, and excreted from the corporate monstrosity of Hasbro, and an era ended. I’m not bitter, ten years later…

But if you had told me then I would one day be colleagues with some of the colossuses of my childhood, familiar names like Mark Simonitch and Richard Berg, Charlie Kibler and Ed Beach - I would have laughed you out of the room. What a privilege it's been so far.