The Swashbuckling Approach to the History of the World

History of the World is a fun game, with little pretentions. In its original version (which I once owned) it had cardboard counters and a cloth map, but the later Avalon Hill version has got a mass of plastic dudes and a proper reinforced mapboard. 

Opening stages of our game before Christmas

The game is driven by the repeated appearance of new peoples on the map. In each of the 7 ages (from the Bronze age to the Industrial), as many new peoples enter the map as there are players. As there are ample peoples per age, not every civilization will show up, so you can have a game without the Romans making their mark.

Every time your civilization appears, you place an army in its starting area (eg Nile Delta for the Egyptians) and then try to conquer neighbouring areas in a combat system reminiscent of Risk. You go on until you run out of armies and collect points for that civilization, but also for your earlier civilizations still on the board.

As the eras change, so does the value of areas. While the Middle East areas score high early on, China is worth a lot in the middle of the game, and Europe by the end.

Halfway through the game. My high point, with the Romans (purple) hanging on for some time.

The Sung dynasty doesn’t come with as many armies as the Persians, and the Dutch come with a pathetic few. So which civilization you get determines your combat power. 

The mechanism that balances this out is the fact that the player with the fewest points draws first from the deck of civilizations for the next era, and decides to keep it or to give it away. If you get a good one you keep it, if you draw a bad one you hand it to a front runner.

On the other hand, the French come before the Germans in the turn and thus get to score points before them as well. If you’ve just made a big splash at the end of last turn, even a weak civilization can help you to score big again if it occurs before others can destroy the old civilization.

So the allocation of civilizations is the central issue of the game, and because you can’t know which civilizations will be picked, you sometimes get it wrong. You pass on the Greeks because the Romans are still in the deck and someone else might hand them to you, but instead you end up with the Celts.

Late in the game. The map has filled up, even towards Australia.
Red has done well despite being almost taken out at the end

There’s some influence you have over results through event cards, and in this game a +1 on the dice roll can significantly improve your success. A few extra armies as well. So use them for the best possible effect. There’s also a few minor civilizations that allow you a few extra points, or even a lot when you can set them up in the right position.

The game is mostly about combat, although some culture has been injected by the monuments you can build for every two resource areas your people control.

With all the dice rolling, direct conflict, asymmetric capabilities of the different peoples and possibility of kingmaking and runaway leaders it is an Ameritrash classic. However, it has remained in the shadow of its contemporary rival Civilization, although I imagine that in terms of sales and games actually played it might have done better. In many a sense World Conquerors, which I played in Essen, is similar in concept and complexity.

The benefit of the game is that it can be played in an evening, but the drawback is that it hasn’t got much strategic choices. The situation on the board changes rapidly, which means you have to think before each new civilization and this causes some analysis paralysis and downtime. A game you can draw out once in a while, but won’t play to death.

Keeping a Napoleonic Empire in Arms

Indicative of the joy of reading Dominic Lieven's Russia against Napoleon is that I've started thinking of classic Avalon Hill boardgame Empires in Arms again.

I hadn't realised it was published in 1983, neigh 30 years ago!

Lieven describes the limits to expanding the Russian army, the quality of the light cavalry horses and the trouble of acquiring enough horses for the heavy cavalry. While the light cavalry horses were plentily available from the steppes and easily maintained, the heavy cavalry horses had to be bred specifically for this purpose and as a result were scarce and expensive. This meant that Russian commanders were very careful with their heavy cavalry. You don't see this reflected in most wargames (board or miniatures), which is a pity.

But it made me look at Empires in Arms again and check whether it reflected the above. It doesn't, of course. On the other hand, it is probably not a decisive factor and only adds colour.

It is a long held dream of mine to play in an EiA campaign again. I did two years of game time of it in a couple of months when I was 18 or so. I've been harking to get back since.

Infantry and cavalry corps counters as well as a leader

The great thing about EiA is that it combines operations with geo-politics and diplomacy with long term choices in building up your army. Creating a pool of untrained troops at home that can be used to replace losses is smart, while cavalry is expensive and takes a long time before it's ready. Careful planning is therefor required.

The cool thing is also that reparations can be imposed on defeated opponents in peace treaties. This hampers their ability to rebuild their army, which was exactly what happened historically as Lieven shows.

The game is a bit of rough diamond. I've seen a few online campaigns of EiA get bogged down in rules arguments and player drop outs, so I'm not too eager to join in. I have thought about buying the computer game, but never got round (and probably shouldn't, considering my inability to withstand the temptation of playing the heck out of computer games). So if you've got a copy lying around unused, DON'T get in touch!

Probably a post-retirement plan, then. I'd better live healthy and keep an eye on the longevity of potential opponents...