Much of Jon Peterson’s Playing at the World therefore is familiar ground. Familiar, but not extensively known, since I was never all that directly plugged into the events he talks about. However, I have contemplated trying to produce such a book myself. While this isn’t the book I’d write, it is close, and it shows just how insane an undertaking it would be to do my half-formed thoughts right. Jon is obviously a fellow fan, and his viewpoint is shown on the cover, which features a hand-drawn dungeon map on graph paper, a couple of hand-made wargame counters, and a well-worn old-style d10, and on the title page, which is done to look like a copy of an old fanzine cover, complete with staple in the corner, and a rust mark from an old paperclip. In his acknowledgements, he mentions “In keeping with the tradition of self-publishing exemplified by gaming fandom, this work was written, edited, typeset, illustrated and published by the author with the help of some friends.” The lack of professional editing shows on occasion, but given the nature of the project, it’s very well done. It also points up a criminal lack of academic interest in subjects that have had a profound influence on popular culture, and therefore modern culture as a whole; one of the author’s assertions is that early RPGs pioneered systems that can be seen in the vast bulk of current video games, and he later points out that the only histories of the SF&F genre are similarly self-generated without any real scholarly interest.

The bibliography of this massive work is twenty-five pages long, most of it dedicated to various tiny-run fanzines of the period. Jon Peterson went to an amazing amount of effort scouring eBay, and getting access to private collections to be able to reference ‘zines that often had a run of less than a hundred copies per issue. All of this is in pursuit tracking down what people said at the time, rather than relying on what they said about it later. The scope and breadth of his research shows both in the main text, and in copious footnotes that give asides, point out connections, develop an argument further, etc.

There’s two themes in this book. The first, and heavily dominant one, is the history of the birth of Dungeons & Dragons. The first chapter (of five, they’re all massive chapters) covers from the birth of commercial wargaming in the late fifties to the publication of the original box set at the beginning of 1974. The next three chapters are massive essays on just what history and concepts fed into that, before the last chapter picks up the main story again, and covers the next few years, effectively leaving off with the publication of the AD&D Player’s Handbook, by which time the concept of the ‘role-playing game’ had taken root, and other competing systems were coming out at an increasingly furious pace. So furious, in fact, that even Playing at the World‘s normally exhaustive coverage starts breaking down, such as when the company Wee Warriors gets mentioned in a footnote with no explanation of who they were, or what they had been doing, other than picking up the publishing of the product that was the subject of the footnote.

The middle three chapters are deep dives into what Jon Peterson feels are related subjects. The second chapter looks at the origin and history of the fantasy genre, to show how the genre was understood at the time of D&D. He also points out the recurring theme of the ‘visitation story’, where a person from the real world is transported to a fantastic land, and then returns to the real world at the end, which he posits played a part in why the first RPG was a fantasy RPG. The third chapter takes a look at the history trying to simulate events in games, effectively a history of wargaming from early chess variants into dedicated kriegspiel systems, then through more civilian efforts, the rise of miniatures wargamers inside of toy soldier collectors, and thence into commercial wargaming explored at the beginning. This part comes with extra warnings from the author that it really is for the more dedicated reader, though I found it all fascinating. The fourth chapter looks at the idea of ‘role playing’, and notes several powerful instances of shared collaboration in a fictional world. This one is rougher, and doesn’t flow as well, but there’s some interesting groping towards the shape of an instinctual type of ‘group think’ that can have a very powerful impact on people.

The second theme of the book is just how far the concepts pioneered in D&D have carried outside of traditional RPGs. It doesn’t get a lot of space in the book, being mostly confined to the introduction and epilogue, but again, he has some interesting things to say.

It’s a truly massive book (no, really, I was very surprised by the weight of my Christmas present when it showed up), and the result of an undertaking no less massive. But it reads very well, I had problems putting it down every time I picked it up. I can quibble about a few facts, but they’d be at most clarifications of points he raises, can doubt some of his assertions, but they are massively snowed under by the amount of other arguments that are rock-solid. It’s a great, enjoyable book, about a small, critical happening, and why it happened when and how it did, and anyone with an interest in gaming really needs to pick this up.

It’s certainly weighted against the rebels, with 4 cards to 6, and starting very near the base line. However, they’ve got a good line, and have the tools to make it work, if they can avoid being overwhelmed by the three Carthaginian elephant units. Also, new unit time for us, the rebels have a heavy chariot, which should be a good elephant hunter since they ignore the first sword hit, and on the offense will manage four dice to three.

I had the Carthaginians first, and drew what I called the ‘Summer Blockbuster Hand’. All special effects, not much plot. I only had a single ‘order’ card all game (Order Two Units Center), and no Leadership cards. With a Command of six, I decided to lead off with I Am Spartacus and see what it got me (one Hvy, two Med, two Light), and sent in the elephants against the HCH, while advancing an Aux, LC, and hitting a trapped Light with my two MC. The chariots evaded, while we traded one block each on the right, and I got a banner hit on an isolated light to cause a block loss. Patch managed to get one hit on each of my elephant units with archery, so I used Mounted Charge before he could get lucky again. I killed the HCH, a LC and a Light, mostly through banner hits, and also reduced an Aux to one block and a second to two, in return for losing an elephant while another retreated a hex.

Patch reshuffled his left flank and couldn’t do more than a single banner to my elephants, while I Ordered Heavy to move up my two heavies and the remaining elephants. I knocked out the weak Aux, and then forced a Heavy off the line, and forced a LS way out in front to retreat to the base line and lose a block on two banners. Patch put his center in motion and picked off one of the elephants, and I Ordered Light, and put together a left-side line of LC and Light, and Aux, with one of my Heavies anchoring the end. Patch Double Timed his good troops into contact, and killed off the Aux for the price of one block. I Ordered Medium to put my line together in the center, and the MC hit his flank again, but they only managed one hit, while a two banner result sent the fresh unit all the way back to my baseline.

Patch moved his right flank, but failed to pick off my elephants, and I played I Am Spartacus again. I only got two units in action (LC and the remaining elephants on a leader wildcard), and picked off a Aux and Light to end the game. 6-3

Definitely one of the oddest games I’ve had with a lot of meaningful banner results shoving troops around, and causing a lot more block losses than I’ve seen before.

For the second go-round, I was relieved to see more normal cards. I did not want to try to juggle a four-card hand full of various specialty cards. Patch started off on the right, knocking out a Light first thing, and reducing two other units by two blocks for no losses, and then went on the left and caused a couple losses (one to a blocked retreat on a banner…). I killed an elephant unit, and drove off some of his MC, but was still coming to grips with him when Patch played Mounted Charge.

He sent on MC to the extreme right, to kill my LC and weaken an Aux (who then killed the MC), while the other MC and an elephant took on Mathos+Med, who killed both units after taking three losses, and ignoring three banner results (across two attacks, of course). The remaining elephant wiped out the Heavy next to the other leader, and then knocked the leader’s Heavy to two blocks and forced a retreat. His LC cut off my LC and forced a kill on it.

I tried a Coordinated Assault, but he First Striked my attempt to get his elephants, and forced my Aux to retreat. Patch Counter Attacked to drive off my HCH with a loss and kill off my Heavies, forcing the leader to evade off the board.

Being down to mostly light units, I was trying to find ways to develop some concentration of force again, while picking off the elephants still in my line. Patch ended with an Order Mounted to envelop my left flank, and kill the HCH for the win. 6-4

The battle is definitely more even than it looks, though the Rebels are certainly vulnerable to being caught with a junk hand. However, both sides are a bit more scattered than usual, which accentuates the importance of banner results. I think if there were no elephants, the Carthaginians would really have their work cut out for them.

Anyway, it is a fairly interesting, if somewhat fiddly, system. We started out with the first scenario, which finished up in time for lunch, and then sorted out the counters to begin a go at the second scenario. The first scenario is tiny, going two turns, with only three Italian units (plus a leader) involved in the historical attack on on Bir Hakeim.

I decided to take the Italians, so Mark set up his defense once he arrived, and we had at it. Approaching a fortification with light tanks when there’s anti-tank guns around is very dangerous, and this was quickly demonstrated, as I tried to keep advancing once the AT position was revealed (to get into my own range) and lost the first unit on an ‘E’ result. The other two lasted through the turn, but took another hit. The second turn didn’t go well either, loosing a second unit outright, with the last survivor ending the game stuck at the gates with infantry barring his way, and two cohesion hits.

The opportunity fire rules can be quite nasty, as everything in range can fire on a moving unit, and the +3 bonus from moving from an in-range hex to another in-range hex makes the longer-range fire zones especially dangerous to be in, especially here, where there’s no obstacles to LOS. In this case Mark’s dice made things worse, and the AT unit made most of its firing opportunities, and he tended to roll the highest possible result that would hit, causing the high losses (an interesting wrinkle of the system—you want to roll the highest number that will hit).

After lunch, we got going on the second scenario, which is the hypothetical set up of if the entire Ariete division had attacked the position in a coordinated attack (which is what Rommel had intended when he ordered the attack), instead of just sending in one battalion. We only got partway through the second turn (of six), but quite a bit happened.

I had the Italians again, and this time had the choice of coming in from three different directions (from NE, E, or SE), and looking at Mark’s set up, decided that the SE looked vulnerable, with two potential AT gun positions, some distance away from each other, and the only route into the fort that was not mined. So I came in from that direction, leaving four independent units to come in later, so that he had to continue covering most of the perimeter, or let them just drive right in.

I was originally thinking of moving the Bersaglieri force in first, advancing on the initial divisional activation, and then moving up further on the free formation activation, while the armor hung back out of AT range. However, I ended up using my Command points to get in touch with my artillery and bring fire on the two AT positions, which blinded them with Heavy Barrages (and getting a hit on a unit that was in the same hex as one of them). This allowed me to race the armor forward, and actually seize the entry hex into the fort, and start fighting the nearest infantry units guarding the area.

His activations came at the end of the turn (in fact, his Direct Command chit was the last in the cup), and his artillery started causing trouble. Thankfully, they’re 4 firepower, one-step units, so they can only lay down Light Barrages (the dice have been much better for me this game, letting me pass some fairly low troop quality checks). We left the day with the Corazzato’s formation activation partly done. I’ve managed to get an armor unit adjacent to his AT position, locking it down (the other turned out to be a Dummy), and we ended the day with a pair of fresh units driving through the light bombardment to assault his nearest infantry unit, which had already taken two cohesion hits. One company ended up taking two cohesion hits itself, but the defender was wiped out in two rounds (and some low rolls).

We’re hoping we might get a chance to continue the fight, so I put our final position into the Vassal module:

While transferring it to Vassal, I discovered an important thing we had gotten wrong amongst all the modifiers. I got the idea that Bir Hakiem was a -1 defensive modifier (like all the other bonuses it gives), instead of a -2. My rolls have been such that it probably doesn’t change too much, but it’s still very important, since there’s just no good odds attacks for the Italians. The annoying thing is that Mark has rolled a ’0′ for his Dispatch points both times, getting 4 in two turns, and allowing a potentially very active defense (he took the artillery unit for this turn, and has already gotten the chit out).

The system is a little fiddly, with three different types of activation chits, points to keep track of, a number of modifiers to a host of different values, but it’s well put together. It’s fun, and feels like it’s got combat at this scale fairly well handled. I think I’d like to see a game bigger than this, but still smaller than the Market-Garden pair though.

It’s Morocco in late ’42, and the Americans are trying to keep the French from getting at the beaches where troops are still off-loading with six squads (mix of 666 and 546), two BAZ, a MTR and a MMG. The French enter in the middle of board 19 with ten squads, all in trucks or on motorcycles and three AMD 50 AM armored cars, and have to get 12 EVP off the middle of board 19 (just under one full board length total) in 6.5 turns (and the three ACs could win it themselves). There’s two overlays to get rid of a couple buildings on the already fairly open board 19.

The Americans can set up on three quarters of the available area, but Patch’s line was fairly far back, with only one stack actually on board 17 at all. After fixing a goof where I forgot about the ACs being radioless during setup, they, and a chunk of motorcycle infantry entered on the east edge, where the main continuous road is, and the rest entered near the center, with the plan of possibly deploying in the grain, and/or continuing towards the east, hopping over to the other road.

My second move blundered right into the MMG’s boresighted hex (19I1), which killed a motorcycle squad on a 1MC break and ’12′ Bail Out roll, while setting up a FL. The AC platoon went down the edge-road, towards the outpost in E3, while Patch panicked (You’re usually not this aggressive!), and I hoped the BAZ was not part of the stack. But, I figured it could only kill one of the three before the other two, and approaching infantry support got him where he couldn’t rout. If he was real…. Sadly, there’s no off-board road on the edge by the rules, and with Platoon Movement, it was all I could do to stop in his hex with the lead AC.

The east motorcycle force detoured around the FL by taking a route through a gap in the tree-line and offloaded, in the hopes of getting the MMG up and in action. I also unloaded one squad in the grain, where it would remain concealed and could advance to the hedgeline and try to keep an eye out for American movements. (Note, all the French trucks are Recalled as soon as they’re no longer carrying infantry).

As it turned out, 19I1 was Dummies, which was a relief… and a disappointment. The line ahead of me was just as solid as it looked, and there was a HIP squad out there somewhere.

Situation, French Turn 1. North is to the left, the American setup area started at 19H, and the eventual goal is to exit off of 17R; Orchards are Olive Groves.

Patch skipped Prep, and started concentrating around DD8. I couldn’t really see anything, and most of my troops were still Riders, so my only fire was a ranging shot at EE6 from the lead AC. He moved a 3x? in there, but at least the MMG was kept off the prime FL real-estate.

Situation, American Turn 1.

The lead AC took a second shot at EE6, hitting for no effect, and leaving the other two ACs to continue on without him. My first move was a motorcycle HS, and Patch decided to fire at him to put down some residual. He got a 2MC which the HS promptly ELRed on, but got HoB on the Bail Out roll to… go Berserk (+3 roll: French, broken, inexperienced). Since they’d only gone one hex, and didn’t have to pay for unloading, they still had 3MF to make it to the wall in front of Patch’s line.

Disaster struck as my MMG force stumbled into the MTR’s boresighted hex in E2. He hit, got a Final ’1′ for a 1KIA, and then I yahtzeed the roll to lose both the squad and my 8-0. Since the idea was to hold down that flank with long-range MG fire while the bulk of my forces headed for the CC2 area, I didn’t really have much of a plan left at that point.

Thankfully, he didn’t do any other damage, and I parked the two mobile ACs where they could start shelling both ends of his line, hopefully forcing him into a more compact area where I could bring force to bear, or go around, more effectively. However, I had walked into both his boresighted hexes for once, and so I started getting convinced that his HIP unit was in BB1—right where I was headed.

Situation, French Turn 2. Light green is the exit of recalled trucks.

Patch pulled back for his turn, fading back from the stone wall into the olive grove and stone building. Again, there wasn’t much fire, about the only thing I did was convert my acquisition to -2 Area acquisition to encourage him to stay out of those hexes.

Situation, American Turn 2.

To my surprise, Patch only fired the targeted squad at the ‘zerkies, and couldn’t get better than a NMC, which they shrugged off. I was hoping they’d chew up a little more fire in return for a better chance of not being tied up in CC. The other HS continued its daring ride around the east flank of Patch’s guys, only to find that the HIP squad was in BB1. Unexpectedly, it was a 546 with no SW, and they managed to miss the motorcyclists. My plan for the MMG was to recover it now that the MTR couldn’t see the hex, and get into FF3 in Advance (this required CX), but the squad blew the recovery roll, forcing the leader to pick it up instead, and the entire move was blown.

By this point, I had decided to switch plans. Now, I wanted to try and hold his main line in place with a couple squads, but switch my main thrust west where I could get onto the exit road, if I could just get him away from it. The lone AC made his TC to start, and the full group joined up on the west side of the board, looking over the gap the road went through and the building the ‘zerkies had charged.

The ‘zerkies, thankfully, managed to pin the squad in DD6, which helped them live through the first CCPh, while I pressed his unit in EE8 aggressively.

Situation, French Turn 3.

Patch pretty much blew part of my plan apart in Prep, breaking both of my west-flank squads, though at least the MTR and MMG weren’t moving as a consequence. I was worried that BB1 could advance and force a surrender of a squad, but instead they chased after the motorcycle HS. Patch shifted his remaining concealed units to cover the road, while pulling back the exposed squad in EE8. I took a chance at firing into the Melee (6 vs 10 morale, and an upcoming 5:2 combat…) and broke his squad, at the cost of his Sniper breaking one of mine. I also malfed an MA while trying to shell the road positions.

Patch Ambushed and eliminated my Steve McQueen wannabes in Y2, while my zerkies eliminated the broken squad in DD6 as it tried to escape.

Situation, American Turn 3.

The only news for my rally was bad, as I rolled a ’12′ to reduce a squad in GG4 for my 1st MMC self-rally, and there was no result on my malfed MA. I took one shot in Prep, and got lucky as the green HS managed to pin a concealed BAZ HS. The problem was that the other BAZ was certainly concealed in AA7, and I didn’t think I’d get lucky a second time.

I had forgotten about the misadventure with the MMG the previous turn, and so had to have the leader drop it so the squad could recover it (thankfully they didn’t blow the roll) as they headed to a separate destination. I started up the AC platoon… and instantly ran into an unexpected wrinkle. Olive Groves are 8 MP to move through with truck-type movement. Both Patch and I were expecting it to be closer to normal Orchards and hadn’t looked at that line. I advanced a hex or two and stopped, which is what I had in mind anyway, but the extra MP kept me from swinging the third AC to the south, where he could get a bead on CC9 and try to force him out of those woods. Meanwhile, the last loaded truck moved up and finally deposited my MTR+8-1 stack about two turns later than I had hoped.

Patch couldn’t do much about all of this, but his MTR did wipe out the broken squad and a half in GG4 on two hits. In advance, I started shelling the woods line, and managed to break the exposed BAZ HS. I pushed my remaining infantry forward aggressively, hoping to be able to do something about CC9.

Situation, French Turn 4.

For his rally, Patch decided to have his leader grab the BAZ from the HS rather than try to rally them while under DM. My 7-0 grabbed the abandoned LMG in GG4, I rallied the squad in GG7, and the MA still got no result.

Patch’s MTR hit the squad in FF2 and broke them on the first shot, despite the lack of Air Burst. The squad in CC9 fired, but missed the adjacent squad in DD8, but then the MMG squad in BB4 fired and broke them. I was happy that he was tying down his troops (I really didn’t want to see the MTR shift over to shelling the main thrust with how effective it was being), but I was still missing every MC Patch sent at me.

Naturally, I didn’t have much opportunity to hurt Patch, but he broke my green HS with Advancing Fire.

Situation, American Turn 4.

The malfunctioned MA still had no result for my turn, but at least I managed to rally the LMG squad in GG7. Patch handed the BAZ from his leader to the squad that had joined him in W6, giving him a nice position for when I would have to go through the area, very likely stuck on the road to make it in time. The MTR squad prepped, hitting the building in Z7 for no result, and pinning the squad in DD8 with inherent FP.

Not liking the looks of the MMG, the infantry edged closer to the gap while the AC platoon moved up two more hexes to start getting free of the Olive Grove. This parked the entire platoon nearly on top of the 666 in DD8, but there was sufficient infantry around to protect from that threat (and the second AC had nothing better to do than keep the rear MG pointed towards him). Patch wasn’t able to do much, but did get a NMC on my stack in FF7, who, for once, managed to pass. He also got a couple hits on the lead AC with the MMG, but couldn’t penetrate (Final TK=5…).

Situation, French Turn 5.

Patch failed his 1st MMC rally attempt, and both of my rallies (under DM) failed, as well as the malfunctioned MA still giving no result. He prepped with the MTR again, breaking my LMG-toting leader, and reducing the broken MMG squad.

Patch pulled the MMG stack out, parking it along the road I was going to need to take, while the BAZ squad that had been in that area moved up the road a little.

Situation, American Turn 5.

This left me two turns in which to exit, with a minimum of thirteen hexes to go. It was already too late for some units to make it, and it would be close for anything else. And Patch had set up a nice gauntlet that I was going to have to go straight through. The good news was that the MA finally repaired, so that if (and boy, was it a big ‘if’) I could get all three ACs through, they would win it for me. I also got my green HS back again, and Patch eliminated his HS in Z5 on a ’12′.

I sent in all the infantry first, hoping to force squad in Z7 to fire, or at least cause target selection limits after the first BAZ shot. However, he broke the first squad that went in on a NMC, the HS took a 1KIA, the second squad reduced and broke on a K/2 (after causing CC9 to break on FPF), and the final squad+leader (headed for Z6, which they could technically exit from next turn) took a K/1 to wound the leader and break the squad.

That left the ACs as the only thing I had left. They made it to the road, and ended in Motion with the RMGs pointed towards the BAZ, hoping to get lucky with some halved MG shots. But even with the +2 for Motion, two hexes from a BAZ was just way too close, and Patch killed the lead AC in DFPh to make a French win impossible.

Situation, French Turn 6, showing all the way to the exit.

Postscript:
I have a hard enough time winning when I manage to completely upset Patch’s defense by going the wrong way. Considering I blundered into his Boresighted hexes, this result shouldn’t be too surprising.

Certainly, loosing two squads and a leader that early on did not help. The MTR then went on to kill another two squads, making it one surprisingly effective. I was struggling to sort out my movement, what with all the trucks for the first half of the game, and while I dropped off several squads right where and when I wanted them, the 8-1 and MTR was delayed a couple turns, and I really wanted my MTR in action to return the favor.

I also have to blame the dice. Sticking with MCs generated from enemy fire (i.e., discounting the Bail Out and rallies), I passed three MCs all game. Now, Patch was generating a lot of 1MC and 2MCs, but I expect 7ML units to show a little more backbone. That said, the HoB on Bail Out really paid off, and helped me crack a potentially nasty position.

In all, I think I really needed to push a bit harder and take a chance on turn 5, before a lot of the final defense moved into position. However, the Olive Grove movement cost effectively prevented that, and Patch did a great reshuffle at the end to make an even nastier line than I had thought possible.

The four-player game is notably different from the three-player version, because of the reduction in deep space encounters, which leads to a reduction in exploration losses. The game went pretty fast; there wasn’t lots of action, and no truly large fleet actions, but everyone was fairly well developed and trying to feel their way to expand without overreaching.

Dave concentrated on building a large fleet and turtleing early (he figured that was safest while he learned the game), which looked very impressive, and certainly kept me from wanting to mess with him, but it ended up technologically outmoded, and chewing up much of his economy in maintenance. It probably would not have been hard to take him apart, once this was realized.

Mark got adventurous first, and paid the price with constant border squabbles with me and Patch for the rest of the game. This kept him confined to his original ‘safe’ area, and he had troubles keeping that developed.

I ended up pursuing my quality fleet path again, mass producing DDs with Attack and Defense +1 (one of those I got from a Space Wreck), and not having much of a navy until that point. I managed to make do with those until I could get +2/+2 CAs out the door, which served me fairly well, though of course I never had enough. I ended up being the only one to get Movement 2, which helped more than I had thought. I managed to get most of my systems colonized early (and took terraforming early, because my home area barren world was adjacent to my homeworld), and got a couple barrens on my borders colonized and going fairly early. This lead to me having an economic advantage until the end, when Mark got one of my systems and Patch got two others just before we broke up for the day.

Patch had a decent start, but was the main victim of Mark’s first raiding foray. He recovered from that, and actually had quietly colonized three worlds in the center by the end. I only came to that realization late, and did not have anything within one turn’s travel of his worlds (five hexes…). So he ended with the strongest economy as of the ninth economic turn.

Patch had gotten out one BC at the end (used against Dave), while I had built three to try and stop the raiding on my Mark-side border. They caught both Mark and Patch’s forces, and all promptly died to a string of ’1′s and ’2′s. (There’s something wrong with our bloody ships today!)

Anyway, everyone enjoyed the game, and had a good time with it. There were some comments on the difficulty of keeping all the hidden information straight, which is a definite problem, but it seems the game is fun enough that everyone is willing to put up with it as the price of entry.

After Hearts of Iron, Paradox turned its attention to the nineteenth century, releasing the empire management game Victoria in 2003. It was not nearly the success that the previous games had been for Paradox, and beyond their usual long-term patch support, there seemed to be little future for the game.

However, in 2006 Paradox announced an expansion that would be primarily available through their new online game store, GamersGate. Victoria: Revolutions took fans by surprise, and revised many parts of the original game, and proved to be a surprise hit for GamersGate, and doubtless helped ensure the future of titles other than Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron at Paradox. I’ve played both versions, and while the review will mostly talk about the revised version of Revolutions, it will also mention where some changes were made.

As with Hearts of Iron, Victoria is largely the same kind of game as Paradox’s other titles. It is a grand-strategy empire management game with an area-based map of the world, and done in a pausable real-time format. In this case, the focus is largely on internal politics and infrastructure development, with the original game covering from 1836 to 1920, while Revolutions adds 15 years to cover 1920-35, and introduces a number of changes to the basic system.

One important change was an addition to the UI. A number of different notification symbols would appear in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. These alerts warn of budget deficits, production problems, remind you when no research is going on, and so forth. This system was introduced in Revolutions, but became a standard part of the UI in all further Paradox games.

With Great Prestige Comes…

The nations in Victoria are divided into three categories: Great Powers, Independent Nations, and Uncivilized. The former get various benefits, including extra diplomatic ability, while the latter are easily picked on, since their territories are considered ‘colonies’ by civilized powers, and are easier to take by conquest.

Victoria is a little more goal-oriented than previous Paradox games, as there is a score calculated off of a country’s military power, industrial capacity, and prestige. The leading eight countries are the Great Powers, and there is plenty of room for changeover during the game. Prestige is something of a currency in the game, it is gained for events, discoveries, and successful prosecution of a war. Declaring war costs prestige, as well as dishonoring an alliance, and other such activities. Finally, prestige helps the chances of diplomatic deals being accepted.

Uncivilized nations can become civilized by simultaneously hitting benchmarks in military and industrial power, and prestige. Japan can, and often will (aided by events), transition from an uncivilized nation to a Great Power by the end of the game.

Technology

Technological progress is important in Victoria, and is detailed much as it was in HoI. However, this time the entire system is very regularized: There are five basic technological fields (Army, Navy, Commerce, Culture, and Industry), each of which has five sub-fields, and then there are five levels of advances in each of those (with a sixth level added in Revolutions). Only one technology can be researched at a time, and it generally takes a year to get each one.

However, there are three different types of effects that can come from each technology. First, some technologies require other ones be researched first, so research makes those available. Second, there are immediate effects, which can be an increase in army organization, or allowing a new level of province infrastructure to be built. Third, some effects come as events, which will fire at a random time after getting the technology (most events have a time around which they should fire, so if you get a technology late, you may get a bunch of events almost immediately, but if you manage to get it ‘early’, the events will dribble out over a longer period of time).

A little math will show that it is impossible to get all the techs without getting some from other countries (one/year; 5x5x5 = 125 in an 85-year game, or 150 in 100 years for Revolutions…). However, research takes both time and research points to accomplish. If you trade for new technology with a foreign nation, you get it immediately, but still need to spend the research points (to properly integrate it with your infrastructure/culture). If you don’t have the extra research points, your current research halts until the deficit is taken care of.

Research points are generated by your funding, modified by the country’s literacy rate. As funding research also causes the literacy rate to climb, research points slowly go from being insufficient to supply your own needs to generating an excess to use in trading with other nations. In addition, all these points are generated by the population, depending on what type they are. Since one of the primary population types for research is also used in factories (clerks), as your industrialization expands, your research generation will speed up.

Economy

Victoria features a new system of interrelated goods and products as the foundation of the game’s economy. In a sense, this is close to the trade system of EU II, where every province had a product for trade. However, here all such products are raw materials, and then there are factories that turn them into finished (or at least intermediate) products. These products can be traded internationally, like in HoI, though instead of constant offers of trade in kind, countries buy and sell what they want and produce in a singular world market with a cash economy.

In fact, it is much like the trade and production system in Imperialism, and I would like to know if it was inspired by that game, or is just convergent evolution. However, while Imperialism had 18 commodities, Victoria has 47, and they do not all break down into a few separate areas, the way Imperialism‘s did. Moreover, the world market is just a big pool of available items, and there is no option for trade embargoes, preferred trading partners, or the like. On the other hand, the money does not go straight to the treasury (as, after all, the state is not producing or selling the items), but goes to the population, who is then taxed by the government.

Twenty of the 47 goods come straight from the provinces (though oil only becomes available later in the game), and the rest become available by processing suitable materials in factories (one commodity, dye, can come from the provinces, or a factory). Many of these goods are needed for other purposes, like building military units, factories, railroads, and keeping your population satisfied. Unused goods go into a kind of national storehouse, where you can set buy and sell orders (‘buy if I don’t have enough’, ‘sell if I have too much’) at the world market, which acts as a general strategic reserve policy.

Industrialization

A new map concept in Victoria is the state, which is a collection of provinces. There is an easy listing of all the states within your country, and you generally get state information first when clicking on the map (and then province information after clicking again), but the UI for this level is not very good, as it can be hard to perceive the shading of the group of provinces in a state in several map views; also, you cannot easily see which foreign provinces would be part of states that already exist in your country, if the same country owned them.

Factories are of course the primary sign of industrialization in Victoria, and are managed at the state level, instead of the province level. Infrastructure is the other component, and its bonuses for a factory are determined by the average of the level of infrastructure across the state. Also, factories make use of population from all the provinces in the state, unlike the resources, which merely use the population of the local province.

The early sticking point of industrialization is machine parts, which are needed to build all factories, but the only source at the beginning of the game is a single machine part factory in England, so competition for the parts is fierce. However, several industrial technologies give ‘free’ machine parts as well (answering the question of where the first factory came from…). As the middle game starts, more machine parts factories start opening, and industrialization starts taking off.

The other component of industrialization is railroads. Railroads are the primary infrastructure of the province, and improving them will improve the efficiency of resource production and factories, and speed up military movement. Constructing them also (at least in Revolutions) consumes machine parts.

Revolutions takes the unusual step of removing a fair amount of player control from this part of the game. Governments do not generally go about meddling in production and companies directly, so most of the time, you do not get to build factories (state-run economies in socialist or fascist states are an exception). Instead, there is a class of capitalists in each country who save up money (depending on the tax and tariff policies), and when they have enough they build factories and railroads themselves.

The problem with that is you are letting the AI run the supply-side of the economy, and there will be mis-steps along the way. But the AI does judge what is ‘in demand’ (at least partially going off your market orders), and in the long run it ends up doing a pretty good job generating what is needed. Quite possibly, it is no worse than real-life ventures. The other side-effect of this is that the largest money sink in the player’s budget (new factories) is gone, leaving room for the more traditional state-funded province improvements of fortifications and naval bases.

Population

EU II gave the population of each province as part of its taxation model (with wars lowering the population, and peaceful times making it expand faster), while HoI largely ignored population in its production model, other than a manpower pool for recruiting new units. Victoria goes much deeper into the internal demographics of 19th century countries, breaking the populations down by ethnicity, politics, religion and social status, with each block of these called a “POP”. These POPs then have a job (for the working class ones), cash reserves, ‘issues’ (their political agenda), consciousness, and militancy.

At the government level, there is also plurality, which is a measure how much demand there is for democratic and social reforms. There are technologies that cause events that will boost plurality, setting the ball in motion, and a very few that will lower it again. Plurality generally drives up the consciousness rating of POPs, which is a feedback loop, as high consciousness drives up plurality.

Consciousness is a measure of how aware a POP is of politics. A POP with zero consciousness may have a political agenda (issues) at odds with the current power structure, but it doesn’t care. As consciousness rises, it will start wanting the government to address its issues, and will vote (if allowed) in accordance its desires, whereas it will generally vote for the current government at low consciousness.

Depending on the type of government in power, plurality and consciousness have an effect on militancy. Militancy is an expression of ‘unhappiness’ with the POP’s current situation. Militant POPs will either revolt, or emigrate to somewhere better (the game is set up so that POPs will generally want to immigrate from Europe to America).

Politics

Again, Victoria goes into detail not seen in previous games. EU II had policy sliders that made different countries act differently, but the method of government stayed the same. HoI has ideologies that determine what alliance countries end up aligning with. Victoria has a number of governmental forms, and political reforms, along with a political system to determine who is in power.

Government types range from Monarchies and Dictatorships to Democracy. Each country has a number of political parties, with their own agendas on things like citizenship and economic policies (originally, just the historical parties were included, but Revolutions introduced parties for all ideologies in every country). The more autocratic governments can install the party they want, but militancy rises across the country every time it is done. More commonly, an election is held every few years, and during the election season (nine months), there will be a stream of events that will sway opinions of the population of a state towards various political ideals.

There are three main ideologies in Victoria: Conservative, Liberal and Socialist. In the beginning, most countries are deeply conservative, but as consciousness rises, many classes will embrace liberalism. Partway through the game, socialism becomes available, and craftsmen, laborers and soldiers will start converting to it instead. POPs who find their needs are not being met may convert to the extreme version of their ideology: Reactionary, Anarcho-Liberal, and Communist. Revolutions adds a fourth extreme ideology, Fascism, and soldiers who have gone Communist will tend to convert over to it after 1905.

The steady creep of consciousness and plurality can be a ticking time bomb that tears a country apart in a cascade of high-militancy revolts between competing factions. This is a common fate for beginning players, as the beginning symptoms are hard to see (this, too, seems somewhat true to life…).

Military Theory

One of the first things that should happen to most powers in the game is an event caused by the army technology “Post-Napoleonic Thought”. This asks you to choose between following Jomini or Clausewitz for military theory. Many following events will be different depending on the choice made, with Jomini causing advances to emphasize morale and Clausewitz emphasizing organization.

Antoine-Henri Jomini and Carl von Clausewitz were the two most influential writers on military theory in the 19th century, are used here as a somewhat simplified representation of some of the themes of 19th century warfare. Many militaries, including the French, believed that what was needed to win a war was superior élan (ardor or verve), which would hold the army together under the stress of combat until the enemy formation fell apart and broke. Other militaries paid more attention to the details of organization and logistics, though I don’t know if there were any quick summing up of their theory (and equating it to Clausewitzian theory is certainly over-simplifying).

In-game, morale (which stands in for élan) will cause a unit to retreat when it runs out. Organization equates to ‘efficiency’, so that it helps a unit (along with a host of other modifiers) do damage in combat, and it controls the speed at which morale is recovered, and how fast a unit ‘digs in’ while it is standing in a province. In the early going, armies are vulnerable to being forced to retreat from morale loss (especially against cavalry, whose shock attack values can quickly collapse morale), but even Clausewitzian armies will pick up some morale boosts, and as the firepower of infantry increases during the game, defensive bonuses from fortifications and digging in become more and more important, and morale is not enough to win a war. (Personally, while I’ve seen forum complaints about not being constantly forced to retreat as a Clausewitzian army, I’ve never seen it be a problem, even in the very early game.)

On War

Apart from the different tracks that armies can follow, and the separation of morale and organization into two different values, military units work much as they did in HoI. There are three main types of land units, that are recruited as separate divisions: infantry, cavalry, and dragoons (mounted infantry), each of which can have a specialist brigade attached that boosts the statistics and maximum strength.

Most army inventions will improve one or more statistics of a few different types of units, and in all such cases will increase the supply cost for those unit types, so as army units become more capable, they also become more expensive to maintain, and keeping a strong military can become ruinously expensive.

One of the POP types are soldiers, and army units are drawn from these POPs. This also limits how many units can be recruited, as there must be sufficient soldier POPs to support new units. And yes, casualties reduce the size of these POPs, directly impacting the population of the country.

An extra concept to go along with this is mobilization. You can establish a mobilization pool (of four infantry divisions each time it is increased), and when a major war breaks out you can mobilize, which will give you a force of fresh divisions three months later, by converting a number of clerk, craftsmen, laborer and farmer POPs into soldier POPs until you demobilize. This can, of course, severely disrupt an economy as resources and factories go empty to support the war effort (not to mention that these POPs will probably be smaller after the war…).

Like in HoI, these units can be grouped together into armies, and leaders assigned. However, in Victoria there is not one big list of historical leaders, but rather they must be created by using leadership points (which are also needed for some unit recruitment). Leaders will have two different traits, which will determine their actual bonuses for combat. Many leaders will have mostly negative bonuses, but since the ‘default’ leader has penalties in all areas, some leader is almost always better than no leader at all.

Naval units work mostly the same as land units, except that they represent individual capital ships (starting with frigates and men-of-war and working up to cruisers and dreadnoughts and carriers) that can have smaller ships attached to them for stat bonuses. They can be lead by admirals, but do not need to be supported by individual POPs because of the comparatively low manpower requirements.

Finally, occupying a province takes time, instead of being instant as in HoI. It does not use a drawn-out, random siege mechanic, complete with assaults seen in EU II either. Instead, there is just a steady progress of occupying the province which is dependent on the number of occupying troops.

Colonization

The nineteenth century was the last great period of imperial expansionism, and Victoria has a system that ties into the state system, and works very differently from EU IIs. Instead of sending settlers to a colony until the settlement promotes to a city, and turns into a regular province, you stake claims. These are in the form of different colonial buildings that can be built with slightly different effects. Once you have one of each type of building in a state, or all the provinces in a state have one of your buildings, you can claim the colony, and make it an official part of your empire, which grants a high amount of prestige.

It is of course possible to have multiple nations claiming parts of the same state, which can lead to deadlock if no one can claim it through building types. Parts of US territory that were still in dispute are nicely represented by this system at the beginning of the game. However, the diplomatic model allows the buying and selling of territory, so it can be worked out, though the AI is subject to being ‘gamed’ without too much effort.

Revolutions refined the system in several aspects, introducing naval bases to limit where colonies can be founded (as there must be a base in range), and restricting colonization by the habitability index of the province (with various technologies lowering the minimum rating needed to colonize).

History

The event system from previous games is present in Victoria as well, and serves to keep several things on track during the game. It comes across as heavy-handed in a few places where it forces wars that may not agree with the in-game politics.

Worse, while Victoria models much of Europe fairly well, it has many more problems with the United States. Texas is as war with Mexico as the game begins, and almost always loses. The Mexican-American war tends to be out of the scope of the warfare model, so there is an event to enforce the actual treaty borders (in the event that there is such a war and the US wins…). The Civil War is also treated somewhat ham-handedly, with the historical Confederacy generally appearing all at once, and no real treatment of the border states. Similarly, there’s no option for a single war to allow the complete conquest of any but the smallest of nations, so that must be forced as well (and the AI has trouble with this).

The world market is a handy abstraction, but doesn’t account for wars, trade embargoes, or similar things, so much of nineteenth century economic policy is abstracted down to the tariffs in the budget. This makes the trade system much simpler than Imperialism‘s, despite being an otherwise complicated game.

But, many aspects of the game engine seems to do fairly well with the politics of the time, especially in Europe, where the main focus is. The system of event tie-ins to technological progress allow for a number of small essays on the creators of 19th century economic and political thought, helping the usual electronic time-machine feel (though susceptible to the usual ‘click-through-the-flavor-text’ syndrome). More importantly, the map of Europe tends to be fairly stable in Victoria, as in the nineteenth century, though wars are generally more common.

Conclusion

Victoria would be a climax in the development of Paradox’s games, being noticeably more complex than the preceding titles. In turn, it is also a thesis on the forces that drove the 19th century, and has some very interesting things so say. Despite overall poor sales and the release of Victoria II, Victoria still has some die-hard players today, and I think the exceptional ‘historical thesis’ nature of the game is part of what keeps people at it. Sadly, the general fan community has generally died off, leaving the VikiWiki unfinished, and in need of updates for Revolutions, and the main community-developed mod, the Victoria Improvement Project (VIP) was never completely updated for Revolutions either (though I understand it will generally work with it).

I consider it a title I’m very happy that Paradox produced. It has plenty of problems, entire systems that aren’t needed (like the corruption system that I haven’t mentioned because it does so little), and it isn’t necessarily very good at what it tries to model. However, the attempt to show the internal stresses on a government is worthwhile for being so rare, and despite the missteps, and complications, it still makes for a good game that I enjoy.

As you may have noticed, I really like Paradox’s grand strategy titles. I mean, I’ve even started writing a series of reviews of them, that I hope will manage to note just where certain ideas crop up, and trace them through later games. (The Victoria review should be up in just a few days.)

Late last year, Paradox announced the latest game in the series that launched it all: Europa Universalis IV. Right now, they’re launching a ‘spread the word’ campaign, where you get bonuses for getting people to sign up to their newsletter, where they announce upcoming games, and have occasional special deals (I’ve gotten a couple free games through it, though that has dropped off.) Since I’m a sucker for special forum icons, I’ve decided to take part.

So, if you’re one of the 0.375 people who actually read this blog, and have any interest in computer strategy games, go here, and sign up for their monthly newsletter.

It’s a large, expansive, book, covering from prehistory to the current day (2010). Abulafia purposefully tries to limit the scope of his book by sticking to subjects that impinge directly on the Mediterranean as a whole; the communities on it’s shores, the trade that crosses its surface, the rivalries and the piracy. It is a general history, and doesn’t really have any defining thesis, other than perhaps the one his book is organized around. The book is split into five parts (titled ‘The First Mediterranean’, ‘The Second Mediterranean’, and so on), with each part being about a single economic complex in the Mediterranean.

Many parts are familiar to those familiar with history, but along the way there are plenty of new things to see. I had not known of the ancient ruins on Malta, nor the entire nature of Allied frustrations dealing with French North Africa. The third and second-to-last chapters are depressing, as they cover the destruction of several multicultural communities in the lead up to WWI through the aftermath of WWII. The final chapter takes a quick look at how mid-20th century emigration spread southern Italian cuisine to the rest of the world, and then talks of the impact of tourism on the Mediterranean.

In all, it is a broad book that manages a surprising amount of depth, and an enjoyable read.

After Europa Universalis II, Paradox Interactive stuck with what they had proven that they do well, and started work on more empire management games. WWII is apparently Johan Anderson’s favorite historical period, which became the subject of Paradox’s third title, with Hearts of Iron covering the years 1936 to 1948. It is generally regarded as using the same ‘engine’ as EU II, but very little actual code survived the transition. It was released for Windows and Mac OS X in 2002, and did not have any expansions, but an version updated to the last patch (HoI Platinum) was released in 2004 with more events, re-done AI, a new scenario, and a revised manual. I’ve only played the Platinum version, so this review will only reference it.

At first look, HoI is very much the same thing as EU II: it is a pauseable real-time game where you take control of a country (any country), and manage its military, diplomatic, and economic development. (In fact, other than the real-time part, that’s what I mean by ‘empire management game’.) It has an area-based map of the world, where military units can move about and fight in a battle that can take some time, but the only outside decision in the combat, once joined, is whether to retreat from a losing fight. So… change the date, put in tanks for cavalry and call it a day?

However, past the most superficial overview, there are major differences: Religion does not appear in the game. Since the scope of the game has contracted from four centuries to twelve years, hours tick by, instead of days (and the day/night cycle sweeps across the world, and can be seen in the minimap, and affects combat). Diplomacy is greatly simplified, and governments now have internal ministers that can provide various bonuses.

Economy

The trade and money system of the EU series is absent here, replaced by a resource system more common to various conquest-style games. The general resources are industrial capacity, coal, steel, oil, rubber and supplies.

Any sort of production (including research) consumes industrial capacity, which is the pool of industry available in all of your controlled provinces. In addition to the normal production of new units, it is used to generate consumer goods (if you don’t satisfy the demand the civilian population gets restless), and supplies, which exist in a pool which is consumed by military units (at a constant rate, higher on the move and in combat, and then there are surcharges for reinforcing a unit).

Steel, coal, oil and rubber come from specific provinces on the world map, and if you don’t have all of them, you need to trade what you do have for what you need. Instead of the wide variety of commodities generating money through trade as in EU, the economic system focuses on just these few. Trading with a foreign power is accomplished largely by making an offer in kind on the world market. If no one wants it, it’ll be marked in red, and you can sweeten the pot by offering more of what you have per unit of what you’re trading for.

Rubber is by far the most uncommon commodity, but this is the era where artificial rubber was starting to be produced, so you will automatically turn oil into rubber if you have one and not the other (at a fairly poor rate, but there is technology that improves this). Similarly, coal is the most abundant resource, and some will automatically be turned into oil if your oil stocks run out.

Shipping is also important, and if you have overseas territories that produce resources, convoys will have to be set up to ship them home so they can be used. These do not appear on the map, but are subject to being intercepted by enemy ships (that are on the map) during wartime.

Finally, there are improvements that can be made to the provinces themselves. Industrial capacity can be built, AA batteries can be built to defend against air attacks, fortifications can be build to defend against land or amphibious attacks, and the infrastructure can be improved to both increase resource output and increase movement speed in the province, but all these take some of the existing industrial capacity in the province out of action.

Politics and War

Instead of every country working out alliances out of practicality or for protection, HoI has a tripartite power struggle. Each country falls within a triangular space of political ideology with the points being democracy, socialism or fascism. There is one alliance for each of these ideologies, with the Axis permanently led by Germany and the Allies permanently led by Britain. (The Soviet Union is the leader of the Comintern, but can dissolve that alliance to join either the Axis or the Allies.)

Peace settlements are also much simpler than in EU. You can annex a country, or you can make it a satellite nation (both requiring that you hold significant parts of the victim), or you can return to the statis quo antebellum; there is no negotiating a peace in return for a couple of provinces, it’s all or nothing, unless you have specific territorial demands on a country, in which case you can diplomatically demand the territory, or go to war over it, in which case the other country can surrender the territory.

You can spend diplomatic influence with other nations to try to influence their governments towards your political ideology. A country that shares your ideology can then join your ideological alliance. In general, the game tries to enforce a tri- or bipartite power structure, as most wars will force one or both parties into the alliances, if they aren’t already in one.

However, the main democratic nations try to keep out of wars at the beginning. They have an extra rating of what percentage of the population supports going to war. This starts off low, and generally goes up about 1% a month. Aggressive actions from Fascist or Communist nations will tend to speed this up (though fighting within a faction will slow it down). Once at 100%, a declaration of war, or joining the already at-war Allies usually follows (this apparently will often target Germany, so playing a peaceful Germany is difficult to do).

To counterbalance the simplified external relations of the country, the internal power structure is more detailed. There are eight ministers that can be appointed out of a pool of historically appropriate people (in some cases the entire pool is one person…). In addition, there are two are special cases: the head of state (who can only be ousted by a coup or election) who determines the general ideological leaning of the nation, and the head of government, which is effectively the player, and determines the AI behavior of a non-player country. Each minister has a personality which provides bonuses or penalties to things like construction efficiency or dissent.

That last, dissent, is effectively the stability replacement of HoI. Dissent causes loss of production, guerrilla armies to crop up, and erodes the loyalty of the ministers, which is one of the few hidden statistics in the game. Ministers with very low loyalty can end up deliberately sabotaging government projects, but this is hard to see.

Military

Unlike in EU, military units are indeed units in this game. Instead of recruiting 1000 infantry which is slowly attritioned away and eventually disbanded or supplemented with fresh recruits, you organize a division (or air wing, or ship), which exists as a discrete organization. Every unit has a strength and a organization rating. The latter is effectively morale, and the usefulness of a unit is effectively its applicable combat statistic times strength times organization. A unit at zero organization is making no contribution to the battle (though it is continuing to absorb damage), and when all units in a force are at zero organization, it must retreat.

Organization slowly comes back to its maximum when the unit is sitting still and doing nothing. Strength can only be replenished by user intervention, and reinforcing a unit will drop its organization value while the new troops are properly integrated into the formation, forcing the unit to stop and reorganize for a while (at least, if there was any appreciable amount of strength to replace). Moving around in bad weather/climate can also reduce organization, making attacks in extreme climates harder to manage.

When moving into a province that currently has enemy units, a little clock dialog appears, where you set exactly when your units show up. This allows coordinated attacks from different provinces (which provides a bonus), air attacks to go in right before hand, infantry to engage the enemy right before the tanks show up and try to break through, etc.

Unlike the three basic troop types of EU II, there are a bunch of possibilities in HoI. Just in ground divisions, there is regular infantry, motorized and mechanized divisions, armor, mountain troops, paratroopers, marines and militia. All of these have different abilities, and most can have brigades (anti-armor, anti-air, artillery, or engineers) attached to them (as a permanent part of the unit) to enhance the normal stats. Units can be grouped together into larger structures as needed, and leaders can be assigned to them. These are rated by skill, which improves performance in combat, and rank, which determines how many units they can command without penalty. However, managing the units, and their parent organizations is one of the pain points of the interface, as most of the information you want isn’t present when managing the units. You can (for instance) separate a weakened unit from a force so it can stay behind and rest, but the display to do it only displays the unit names, so you need to work out which ones need to be culled first, and then remember their names.

In keeping with the mobile warfare, and continuous fronts, of twentieth century warfare, there is no need to besiege a province. It passes to the control of the invading country as soon as the enemy is driven out, and the fortifications that can be built in a province instead directly help the defending force in combat. Supply is very important in HoI, so a chain of provinces leading back to the home country is needed, or the cut-off forces will slowly become less and less combat ready (if invading overseas, a supply convoy must be set up to supply units, in the opposite pattern as convoying resources from overseas home).

Technology

WWII has sometimes been called ‘the wizard’s war’, with technological progress driving many of the turns the war took. This shows up in a number of WWII games, from the equipment upgrades of Panzer General, to the research projects of Axis and Allies.

HoI has one of the most extensive technology systems there is for a WWII game. There are fourteen different subject areas, each with theoretical and applied projects to research. The theoretical ones need to be researched in order to get the next batch of applied projects, but have no prerequisites other than the previous theoretical project. The applied projects are all grouped under various theoretical projects, and often have other prerequisites, either from within the subject area, or from another subject area.

The effects of the practical applications vary quite a bit. There are Land, Air, and Sea Doctrine subjects that mostly increase the maximum organization rating of the appropriate units, and therefore make them more effective in combat. Electronics research is often needed in other fields, and includes advances that make surprise more likely (when attacking) or less likely (when defending), mostly to do with encryption and radar technologies, and also includes the early computers developed in the period as an aid to further research. Rocket and Nuclear research needs a lot of work to pay off, but eventually allows new unit types. Infantry and Artillery research enhance the abilities of existing units. Armor, Aircraft and Naval research all allow new vehicle types, and units must either be upgraded to them or built fresh.

This last combines with several of the unit types, where they are assigned a particular vehicle type, and if you want to re-equip your armor division from Panzer IIs to Panzer IVs, you have to select it, and re-equip it, and it will then spend time off the map in the industry production queue. This only applies to tanks and planes however; with naval units there are upgrades to their basic stats that require you to refit the ship in the production queue, but you do not change the actual class of ship.

History

As usual, Paradox has provided a very good electronic time machine with HoI. It does concentrate on trying to bring forward many of the most important aspects of the period, the ideologies/politics, rapid evolution of technology, and a sweeping total global war.

HoI uses an event system similar to EU II‘s, scripting in major events such as the Spanish Civil War, and Lend-Lease shipments. There are several of these dealing with the start of WWII, which has the effect of scripting parts of the setup of the conflict—which certainly helps keep the AI on-script. In general though, there is much less use of events than in EU II.

For all the details about vehicle types, they don’t feel well served. All the interdependencies tend to be overly detailed (taking several otherwise useless steps to get a new model), and very logical and linear. Logical and linear in ways that don’t follow how actual vehicle development worked. Most egregious is tanks, where you must research light tanks, and then improved light tanks, and then move on to medium tanks. The game completely ignores that light, medium and heavy tanks all had different roles, and were generally developed in parallel. Concepts like the infantry tank (slow, heavily armored tanks with light guns) are effectively ignored to fit into the straitjacket of the progression. On the other hand, the development of things like tank destroyers is presented in a slightly parallel track, and just add bonuses to units, abstractly representing the integration of these specialist vehicles into the main organization.

Important themes like the strategic bombing campaigns, the struggle over shipping, the evolution of equipment and doctrine are all given attention, and handled well. Subjects like combined arms don’t work out as well (partially because things like paratroops are hard to use), but effort was put into it, and the ideas are sound.

AI

HoI is a complicated game, but the AI generally seems to know how to play it well, and what it lacks in smarts is made up by the ability to handle several subjects in detail at once.

Much of the point of ground combat is preserving supply lines, so units do not take lack of supply penalties, and can rest to regain organization when needed. The AI understands this, and generally maintains fronts well, which means that fronts with two AI players facing off tend to devolve into limited shoving matches, with the occasional breakthrough that is usually cut off, but more often turning into a staring contest between high stacks of units in rough terrain.

In naval affairs, the AI seems to have more trouble, with fleets in the Pacific in particular tending to get cut off far from home and supply, and vulnerable to defeat in detail. However, it does understand the convoy system well, and will effectively disrupt shipping if critical areas are not protected.

Conclusion

I have found that HoI is my least favorite of the initial Paradox empire management games. Part of this is because I find it overly fiddly, and concentrates too much on lower-level items that clash with what I expect to see in a grand-strategy title. Also, there are some real problems with the shift from the exploration and limited war model of EU II to the total war presented in HoI. You can end up needing to coordinate military operations in widely separated areas at the same time, and that is never a good fit with a real-time title, pauseable or not.

However, I think the real problem lies elsewhere. One of the things I enjoy about Paradox’s games is a certain sense of discovery. I like history, and I know something about any period they have, or will, tackle. However, these games always show me something new, there’s a lot of world out there, and just scrolling around the map will show you something that you hadn’t heard of. On the other hand, the world of 1936-48 is much more familiar to me, so I am not really finding new facets of history in it. Furthermore, I have a lot more experience with WWII from a game perspective, so I am also bringing more concrete expectations to it.

There are also some definite poor fits scale-wise. Using divisions as the basic unit of armies, which most major countries fielded well over a hundred of, and then (in Europe) fitting all these divisions (plus air units) into a front that’s maybe ten provinces wide causes all sorts of pain in trying to manage it all, that the UI just has no hope of dealing with.

All that said, it is a good game, and in representing many of the primary concerns of the period, shows a good amount of flexibility of approach from Paradox. For anyone who plays it, I recommend getting familiar with the game, and then looking at the Undocumented Features List thread on Paradox’s forum.

There’s some very good info in there, once you have some context for it. Item numbers 9, 27 and 7 are helpful to get around some of the problems with the UI.

The day kind of snuck up on me, and I didn’t have any real plans set. Dave brought out some of his games as possibilities, and I leaped on Circus Maximus. We had four, which was nice and evenly divisible by the standard field of eight. It had been long enough that everyone had to go over the rules again, which meant it went most of the day.

Jason had a winning combination of a fast team and good driver, who ended up with a top speed of 24, and he just stuck to the 24 speed lane for the corners and with few exceptions just cruised there, slowly pulling ahead of everyone, and had no real competition. I think one of my teams probably had the best chance of trying to do something about it, but I wasted too much time dealing with other teams (such as Dave’s second place team). Patch and I both lost chariots late in the race due to flipping while trying to take a corner hard, and the only truly successful attack of the game was when Patch forced Jason’s second team into the inner wall while coming out of the second turn.

It’d be nice to actually play it again within a time frame where I haven’t forgotten everything I learned the last time.

We had a little time left, and played a quick round of Red Empire to finish off the day. We actually got through without the government falling, though we failed two crises, and a third would have finished us off. We failed the big one when there just wasn’t enough points available, and the second one came up while Dave and Jason were both off on Junkets, and Patch and I couldn’t do it by ourselves. However, that turned out to be the last crisis in the deck, so it was actually clear sailing. I managed to get my hand clogged with Government cards, and past the beginning of the game, never had a shot at being President (barely lost out on it at the opening). However, I did manage to snipe a couple of purges, and had strong contributions to all of the crises that were resolved, so I ended up in second place just behind Jason.