After the War of Stuart Succession, I had thought to do some ancients wargaming. I had the Roman invasion of Britain in mind, and mined my books for some ideas. As logged here, a couple of test games were conducted. But something did not feel quite right. I could not put my finger on it.
The ancients have always been a bit of a sideline to my wargaming activities. I have, as I have said before, mostly been an early modern wargamer. The variety is fascinating, and the world was just becoming global. There are lots of opportunities from near-stone-age civilisations to those which look roughly like modern states. So I struggled with the ancients setup; it was too vague, too abstract, and, as the Estimable Mrs P said, my heart was not really in it.
Heck, this is supposed to be a hobby. The decision was not that hard. The ancients are abandoned. If anyone would like a collection of 6 mm Baccus ancient armies, or part thereof, make a comment to this post with your email address in it. I’ll not publish it, but I will reply, and we can discuss the options. I’d prefer UK-based wargamers, having had enough of tangling with HMRC for the moment. For the record, there are Greeks, Persians (both early and late), Macedonians and Successors, Indians, Pontic, Late Republican Romans, Early Imperial Romans, Celts, Dacians, Germans, Parthians, Moors, and Sarmatians. There is also a fleet of 1:3000th triremes and similar, and some Celtic roundhouses. Quite enough for someone augmenting their collections, or starting ancients from nowhere.
Now, for the new idea, which is actually something that has been floating around in my consciousness for years, nay decades, but has come a little more to the fore recently. Many years ago, in the early days of the Internet, I ran a play-by-email game set in 1618, which covered, initially, the whole of Europe and expanded to cover the Eurasian land mass. Ambitious, and it did work, but it got a bit oversized and eventually collapsed, not least because I couldn’t keep up with the administration, and because few people sent in orders.
I am not proposing to revive that game, but I am creating something that looks like a bit of a solo version of it. Firstly, of course, I needed a map. This took some drawing, given I wanted to go from Norway to North Africa and Portugal to the Urals, but I got there. Naturally, it had to be simplified quite a lot. Real maps of the period show a lot of detail in Germany, which bewildered most contemporaries, let alone modern wargamers who expect nice, neat boundaries. I used a couple or three boardgame maps I have around (Holy Roman Empire, Thirty Years War, and Machiavelli) to include some of the relationships between states and geography, and my previously developed (for the WoSS) ideas for land areas (mysteriously named ‘provinces’ in this game) and sea areas. Again, I have simplified significantly, but there is still a daunting quantity of detail there, and more could be added.
After a bit of thought, I did add some extra detail. Some more German states were added, such as Cleve, Mark, and Berg, which caused the 1610 crisis, as well as the Basque Country and Catalonia, given that they were much fought over in the Seventeenth Century. I could not quite find it in my heart to add in the Val Telline, vital though it was for the Spanish Road. There has to be some sort of a limit, doesn’t there?
Well, I am a wargamer, so I suppose the answer to the rhetorical question is ‘no’. But the whole idea of a wargame campaign is to have an excuse for some linked-up wargames, even if they are at opposite ends of the continent. I did, this time, draw the line at including India and the Far East. Firstly, I have just run campaigns in these areas – A Very Mogul Civil War, the Japanese Invasion of Korea, and the Burmese campaign – so I do not feel a particular need to include them at the moment. Secondly, these more easterly areas are conveniently buffered to the rest of the map via Persia, so they can be added on as I see fit, if I do so.
The final result, with some initial dispositions on it, is shown above, together with my scrawl down the left corner, which indicates which coloured pin refers to which country. The map is actually that of Summer 1600. You can see that some states have increased their military force, most notably the Swedes, who have created a fleet to augment their army in Gothland (white pins), and a rebellion in Catalonia (shorter green pin), which the Spanish fleet, originally based in Leon, is about to put down (by negotiation).
The running of the campaign is supposed to be simple and straightforward. I have built in some complexity, however, in that each major player has a set of strategic aims, such as keeping open the Spanish Road, or expanding at the expense of minor states, and so on. I have also introduced budgets, although it has to be admitted that sticking to a budget was not a hallmark of the early modern political entity. The threat of bankruptcy could keep rulers on their toes, however.
The above shows the paraphernalia needed to run the game. The map, my diplomatic table, notebook (campaign journal), rules, assorted dice and playing cards, and, somewhere off to the left, the treasury reports. Each player is controlled by their initiative dice; those who pass draw a card to determine their action.
As was more or less the case from a Europe exhausted by the previous set of wars, not much happened in 1600 (OK, the Spanish-Dutch war was very much ongoing in reality), the first two turns (spring and summer 1600) were quiet. Then, in autumn, the Muscovites launched a diplomatic initiative, which led to a lot of re-rolling on the diplomatic table. There must have been some factional infighting at court, however, as the Muscovite internal score slumped to one, and a civil war broke out.
So, the first excuse for a wargame, and it is two armies of Muscovites facing off against each other.
