As you have certainly noticed, it has been a month without an update, and the last update came after one month without an update as well.
Quite simply, I was hit by a combination of a change of job and a change of house (well, apartment since I am a Parisian – but now I have a garden!). Β I am also learning to use coding AI for professional and personal reasons.
The next update should have been Kampfgruppe – the AAR is ready, but given the nature of the game, I wanted to deep-dive into the board game PanzerBlitz (Gary Grigsby’s main inspiration), which led me to deep-dive into early SPI & Avalon Hill. To talk about early Avalon Hill, I wanted a short introductory paragraph on the original Kriegsspiel (1824) – really just a few lines because it wasn’t my focus at all – and so I quickly checked the history of this seminal game often called the first wargame.
Then, it’s a blur. I don’t know what happened, but I am now collecting, OCR’ing, machine-translating and reading a good number of 18th-century/Napoleonic-era pre-Krieggspiel rulesets.
The situation should clear up somewhere in July, and I will probably restart with easy (read: Spectrum) wargames to get back on the rails – I am not sure yet whether anyone wants an article on proto-wargames whose rules were written in Fraktur.
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I absolutely want an article on proto-wargames where the rules were written in Fraktur. But I read the original edition of Jon Peterson’s “Playing at the World” cover to cover, so I’m probably a deep outlier.
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But feel free to write on whatever you like, Scribe! And, most importantly, only do that when your more important life priorities are set! Job and home are super important, give them all the attention they need!
“I am not sure yet whether anyone wants an article on proto-wargames whose rules were written in Fraktur.”
Hilariously enough, probably a lot of people. Double-blind Krieggspiel is like some minor forbidden desire for a lot of historical wargamers and I fear they outnumber fans of 80ies digital wargames by a fair amount.
Good luck with your new career and garden! Does this means I can take off my wishlist the furry squad combat game?
“I am not sure yet whether anyone wants an article on proto-wargames whose rules were written in Fraktur.”
I once tried doing what you’re doing with this blog, but with tabletop wargames; starting from Ludus Latrunculorum of all things!
So yeah, I’m quite eager to read your take on proto-wargames.
Glad to hear that things are going well for you. Though I do so hope that your interest in AI isn’t going to also result in a mysterious change in text quality.
A bit of stuff on proto-Wargames might be nice, but it would be a good idea not to go over it too much, an article or two, not the usual depth to it.
Ditto.
Kriegsspiel is more interesting to me than most Spectrum wargames, for certain.
FYI, in the translation of Kriegsspeiel 1812, much of the “War Games of the Ancients and Moderns” section is duplicated.
Thanks – fixed. This is on me, not the AI :). The AI tends to “skip” parts when translating long text so I collate medium-size chunks, and well here I failed.
Hooray! You can visit Napoleon’s Tomb easily now! Lovely to hear you’re still at it. I use machine translation too, and then check it. Or “correct” it.
Proto-wargames sounds like fun. Hope all is going well with the move and settling into new routines.
I am happy to read about all of it – Spectrum pseudo-wargames and 1800s nerd culture alike!
Take care and hope you find yourself with more free time soon!