OK everyone, lets keep this civil and mature. If the sum of your comment is "it's just a game" or "you want to ban war games" then you have missed the point of the video. This is an opportunity to have a sound discussion of the merits and values of historic games, what they can do well and where they sometimes fail to do well. I'm a historian, i'm a wargamer, i love both of those things. Which is why i like to think and talk about the subject. Anyone who presents arguments that are well thought out and considered will be engaged with. But this is a conversation for adults to have. Temper tantrums will not be tolerated.
I’m curious, what do you think of scythe campaign? Is a pure what if situation, but it’s beautiful narrated in my opinion. I feel it is a better “big conversations” starter than a pure historical board game, as ease you in without involving directly countries or grievances.
I agree to the extent that there is a ritualistic element to Britannia, that appeals to me as a Brit wanting to connect to my history. The gameplay is very similar from game to game, but with enough room for maneuvre to develop a unique strategy. It does deal with diversity well. As you say, tribes stay atomised and hostile to one another throughout. The only silver lining is the subtext that we are a mongrel race, that each of us has ancestry from these different groups. That is something that you would have to be taught elsewhere. I think I got that message through school, but it was a long time ago. The game certainly does not make that point directly. OTOH It is just a game.
I think war games are fun when the priority is on the game aspect. If the game plays out more like a simulation, and one side will always win, then I don't see the point of playing. I'd rather just watch the documentary. Just my opinion, but I believe games should be games. They should be well balanced. The game can take place in an alternate reality where it's possible for Hilter to win WW2. 😁
The measure of a good historical game or wargame is the degree to which the ludonarativity achieves verisimilitude to the topic being covered. And by that, I don't mean a historical game has to have the same outcome as a historical event, but that each decision in that game needs to accurately reflect the decision that was made by the relevant historical figures (sorry, but the great man theory isn't dead, or else we wouldn't play games). I must say, the critique of historical games could be leveled at history books and documentaries... the historian is telling a story by framing the historical text and focusing through a lens based on his/her assumptions about what was relevant. As a Social Scientist, I think it's what we acknowledge when we say "all models are wrong. Some models are more wrong than others. Some models are useful. And some models are harmful (re: deceptive)." Keeping in mind that on a epistemology level there is both a normative and descriptive claim being made. What happened historically, why it happened, what SHOULD have happened... what should we BELIEVE about what happened? What does this historical insight MEAN about future, similar events? What is the story the historian is trying to tell? Is that story accurate enough to not be propaganda? These same questions can be asked of a historical game. And one person will critique the game based on their prior historical worldview. And another will disagree. But does the game facilitate dialectic between both critics? If so, it wasn't a waste of time to make and play.
For me I enjoy historical games more when I have an understanding of the history behind it. Even if the history in the game is bare bones, I can imagine all the history I know inside the game, and it multiplies my enjoyment for the game merely from having a knowledge of the time and place of the setting.
For me personally I'm okay if a historic game just touches on the ideas of the history it is trying to cover. If it gives me a spark of interest to follow up I can and would be interested in researching it on my own by picking up a book delving deeper into the topic to discover the who's and whys behind it. Great presentation in the video and good thoughts you put out to chew on.
The game that convinced me that historical games can be fun and started my wargame collection was "Fire in the Sky" by Tetsuya Nakamura. The game plays very asymmetrical, with both players having different goals at different times. I saw that victory points could be cleverly used to not make it necessary for both players to need the same board state to win. At first I thought the sea battles were crazy random, until I watched a few videos about how those battles went historically. I agree that the games shouldn't replicate it dictate events in the game, they should rather put the players in the same position to decide. And from then on you can educate yourself further. Also the COIN series does historic events wonderful, looking forward to your addition to the series.
I also like games which teach historical perspective whilst allowing players to tell their own stories. I often think the reason few games are like Twilight Struggle is because few board game designers have the historical expertise to achieve such depth. For example, think about how many historic scenarios lend themselves to a grand two player game such as Rebellion, TI4 or War of the Ring. I can see your point about ethnic jingoism in this game, however I much prefer there are 'sides' to historic games then if there were generic colours. Such as 'the red team just defeated the blues'.
To me, a historical game should be educational as well as fun. History’s full of fascinating intrigue , politics, and struggles! You can do so much with it. It’s why I like Twilight Struggle, even if I’m rubbish at it and no one plays it with me. Britain is a tiny island but has so much history. Europe is made of nations forged from hundreds of tiny countries that traded, fought, died, or combined to become what it is now. Even America, younger than the flintlock rifle, has plenty to create a system from. And if there’s different groups , I want to what advantages or disadvantages they have and why. Give these countries or factions a story. Otherwise I might as well play Risk or Dominion or something.
What Britannia really needed are cards that give context, but I think it is fine that all invasions still happen on the same fields and in the same order, there is still enough room for variety, but a twilight struggle cards system or a coin event card system would have been welcome.
@@3MBG Can I recommend to you a very obscure game that does history right in my opinion?: 1979 Revolution in Iran It has the same card mechanic like twilight struggle (so you have opponents cards you trigger on your hand, too) but it is shorter, which I think is good, because playing a 3 to 5 hours tug of war gets a bit exhausting... and it has a very cool mechanism, where you have active and inactive influence on the board, which is a bit like hidden troops in COIN Series Games. The game gives really a lot of historical context and also embeds the historical theme deep into it's engine.
Very interesting clip! I was window-shopping some Britannia's 2nd hand offers and I have just purchased Twilight Struggle and Pax Pamir: for sure very different games with different 'weights'. Yet, I wouldn't I mind playing something a bit more 'shallow', if it still gives some fun.
Our of interest do you have an issue with Smallworld using genocide as a mechanism? Obviously it’s a fantasy world but it still uses that mechanism and you could argue it also encourages that sort of thinking. Thanks for making me thinking through the background of games and history.
A lot less so, I'm not one who compare cartoon violence and fantasy to real life. Dead elves aren't people after all. I think there is a dramatic difference when we are looking at real events vs fictional ones. To use a pc game example. In Doom, one roams around hell shooting people with abandon, that's quite different to say, a school shooting game in terms of tone.
Love the analysis. Agree or disagree with the conclusions, I think that this type of critique is what we need to see more of within the hobby board game community (alongside those fun short reviews, of course).
I think J has highlighted just how tricky it is to fit a significant amount of history into a game? But it's certainly a good seed sower. I remember reading the Squad Leader designers notes decades ago where they talk about how "this is a board game and has bugger all to do with the realities of a battlefield.. ..and how pretty much everyone present did not want to be there" (paraphrasing). Right there I stopped to think about how my twenty something year old mind had never really got it's self around how all that worked and the inaccuracy of my understanding of that history.
I was just thinking about this question. I kept coming back to twilight struggle and in particular I was thinking about the Nasser and Suez Canal war cards. I'm a history major and I'm in a class about the history of modern Egypt. I look at those cards and the general abstractions they give about how those events benefits the soviet union and fractures the relationship with the USA between France, Great Britain, and Israel but it doesn't quite address all the nuances. Like how Nasser didn't want to be associated on either side of the cold war. But as I study history more I start to understand why generalizations like these come about. The danger with historical games is that at some point you have to simplify. I think Twilight Struggle does a great job at summarizing the cold war and how it panned out. It really is about exploring history and what ifs. It's about understanding the head space of leaders and people and why they occurred. A good adaptation of any other medium or story into a board game should simulate the kind of decisions making the characters in it made. (Oddly enough this reasoning might explain why Dune is popular especially when you consider that the book is written as if it was a historical account.)
Agreed. I guess a good sweet spot for a historic game is to set you up in the historic start point, and then let you decide from there. Without constantly "resetting" you back to a historic framing point.
I appreciate your takes on board games as a medium and ludonarrative consistency. I'm think a lot about these ideas lately. I've hated history with a passion most of my life, since school days. This year I've tried Pax Pamir 2nd edition just as an "area control game", and found it interesting. Then Twilight Struggle just as "that one famous game", and found it extremely frustrating. But somehow those two inspired me to read and watch some introductory materials on their respective themes and soon I started appreciating them much more. I never could have pictured myself watching history documentaries, but here we are. I've since taken interest in a new for me territory like historical wargames and such. I've tried a tutorial for Colonial Twilight as my intro to COIN series. It took watching a documentary and a 5-hour long solo session through playbook, but I found it fascinating, considering I've never ever heard of Algerian War before. I'm still new to these, but from my impressions they are actually good GAMES, not just a history lesson. Card that grants me "Terror in City costs 0 Resources" is not just a game mechanism but is actually me blowing up civilians. Uncanny, scary and thematically consistent. I think those experiences in the past few months opened my eyes to what board games could be. On the other hand I found This War of Mine to be a successful anti-war propaganda, but a very terrible game. It's super fiddly and feels like 90% of the time you are moving components around and reading how awful everything is, but only 10% actually playing. It's hammering horrors of war into your face without breaks, not letting you to take part in events. There is little cause-and-effect happening, and a lot of random events where everything is always bad just because.
I understand your point, but seeing as Britannia cover over 1,000 years of historical events it is a bit harsh to compare it to a game that has a more focused time period to be centred around. 1,000 years is an incredibly long time, if it went into as much detail as you think it should the game would be unplayable due to adding on an extra 6 hours at least, also the game would have to come with a large history book to explain the events, meaning it would have a very large price tag.
That's a small point within much larger points. My core issue with the gameplay of Brittania is it's scripted to the point of being on rails, and that to me isn't a fun game. And as for the time scale, choosing to do something that big poorly was their choice, there's a reason most consims pick tighter periods.
I have fond memories of Britannia (and never got it, but bought the new reprint) ... Yes, it's very scripted. But then ... it has other qualities - like not being too plagued by kill-the-leader. (since you have a hard time seeing who's in the lead). I don't think a game has to teach you the "why" about history. *_It just has to make you curious._* Also ... Sure, a game like a COIN game does tell you a lot more about the actual history due to various flavor text on the cards and notes in the rule book. But then ... my honest opinion about the COIN system is that they feel more like playing musical chairs than like playing a strategy game. - and I like strategy games. So, if I had to chose (which I don't) I would probably keep Britannia and get rid of Falling Sky. But I can have both ... and I can also have games which are a lot less scripted than Britannia and a lot more strategic than Falling Sky and still teaches you a bit about (at least military) history. ...like "Tunisia-II", "Rising Eagles" or "Julius Caesar" or "Pax Pamir" IMHO Britannia has it's niche. I simply don't agree with your metric about what a "historic" game has to do. It doesn't have to "teach" you anything specific. *_It just has to make you curious._* And your idea that the game is "teaching" people something with every single nuance in it might also be the reason why you go overboard with interpreting Britannia as a sinister game. Board games are not the medium to *teach* people about history. They are utterly insufficient to capture the nuances of history. They can make you curious, but if you want to actually *learn* about history. Read a book or watch a documentary. PS: Also ... the US causing a coup in Iran early in the Cold War might be a smart move in Twilight Struggle ... but gee ... all the trouble that has caused since...
Almost all of the historical board games (and miniature games) I played were tactical level instead of strategic level & that will affect my outlook on the matter. I saw the games as a thing of _"How do you playing these people in this situation right here and right now deal with this situation and solve the immediate local problems right in front of them/you here within this situation?"_ Scenario cards would have a few sentences to a paragraph or two about the local situation and perhaps also the context within which it occurred and that satisfied me: I knew how to find material about the larger whys and wherefores if and when I so desired. Often there also was a booklet provided giving some of the larger strategic picture beyond the tactical game. True, there were larger, national, regional, goals, policies, beliefs, strategies, resources, involved in Why we need to take this town today to open that road, and in why the forces available to do so are the available forces instead of other forces which are somewhere else doing something else; but those games weren't designed to cover that, they were designed to be, "Your job today is This town, now, how are you going to deal with it?" I think I can also say that in a lot of cases the individual scenarios provided in a tactical game were selected to give snapshots which could be chained together to give a general sense of the overall campaign. And that was as far as the game designers chose to go with the thing; I suspect because of having a policy of "There is only so much we can do in the box for a given price point & most historical gamers will know how to go find historical references via their own application of brains and elbow grease."
Really good points here. Tactical games, by their nature, aren't really focused on the whys and reasons behind what's going on that much. A game about WWII tanks battles, like the one i reviewed recently, world of tanks, doesn't really need to delve to deep into reasons in the same way. But i guess, it also doesn't attempt to be anything other than a tank battle game. So yeah, it really didnt get under my skin at all. Because its scope was intentionally limited to what it was. A tank game. Perhaps what im flailing inarticulately against is games that claim to be telling history, but that don't measure up to me. Never had an issue with a skirmish historic game for this reason as well. Fascinating, thank you
@@3MBG Huh. Maybe that's what's wrong with Britannia - it's a tactical game approach in a strategic scope with artificial constraints to achieve a predetermined outcome. AKA the worst of tactical (no context) strategic (scope too wide) and simulation (player choices don't matter much) -Trav
What an interesting video. A lot of what you said (the use of games to explore rather than just re-enact historical events, the focus on the underlying dynamics more than on the exterior consequences, the need of the gaming aspect and the resulting freedom of action...), all of them brought me back to Jim Dunnigan's Wargames Handbook, and make complete sense for simulation games theory. As a long time wargamer, military historian and author of books, articles, videos and podcasts about wargaming I can say only one thing to you and your arguments: bravo! :) As Mark Herman said, sometimes we are too much consumed by mere kinetic representation and lose sight of the actual historical dynamics. This is of course more true for strategic-level wargames and composite pol-mil historical simulations (a game about the second day of the battle of Gettysburg might not have much to say about slavery and human rights), but also tactical games can introduce some subtle nuances here and there, at least in the non-kinetic department (collective psychology of the armies, intelligence, reasons of historical and not just arithmetic relevance of victory point sources...). On the last part of the video, yeah, that can ben quite problematic, because as I said not all games are of the right kind to deal with some issues. Of course, the problem is wargames at the tactical and operational value, which do not have to deal with some topics but that sometimes fail spectacularly at dealing even with small glimpses of that topic. I recently read a review of Konigsberg, which is a very good game about the last days of the war for the German Army but which did not include some worthy treatment of the war atrocities perpetrated by the Red Army on the civilian population (which could and should have a game effect, as the reverse should be true for any game about Barbarossa, Fall Blau and such). Here lies a very complex topic, something of a challenge for modern wargames. This does not mean that traditional historical games such as Britannia are horribly flawed (we must be aware of their nature and origins), nor that wargames as a whole are an obsolete genre (there were much more nuanced games published in the same years of original Britannia). For sure, I did not get the impression from your video that you wanted to "ban wargames": just that you stressed out the importance of playing even other types of historical games and, when you want a really good military simulation, just plain better wargames. And this, as a grognard, I can surely understand and support! :)
"sometimes we are too much consumed by mere kinetic representation and lose sight of the actual historical dynamics" Oh, that's nice. And yeah, im actually designing my own wargame now, so asking for them to be banned would be silly. The paradox is of course, that due to my own issues with historic games, i went for a sci-fi setting instead. So i can explore the themes i want, without real repercussions.
I don't know if I've ever played a historical game before, but those are some really interesting points and definitely will make me consider those things if/when I ever play a historical game in the future. Thanks!
Games are necessarily reductionist. Computer power allows more factors to be included but the more comprehensive the heavier, more specialist and slower. Simulations vs games are a spectrum. At one extreme you have engineering, financial or meteorological models, using hundreds of millions of variables: That can be predictive. At the other extreme 'Games' use only a few, perhaps dozens. The lessons from games (if any) are educational within the aims of the game designer. In between there are semipro 'disaster exercises' (in the kriegspiel model). Their serious users recognise value despite limitations: Mentally preparatory, they highlight issues and illustrate their impact. It allow factors to be better grasped and even ranked in a hierarchy. It warns real life actors (police, retail, health, government) to identify traps, rate limiting steps, key factors and consequences in a useful way.
As a Brit, I confess to enjoying Brittania, albeit with full acknowledgement of the gameification elements. One Caledonian holding off the Norwegian hordes in Skye! The Jutes hanging in there in Kent because no one dares take them on & etc. The key here is surely the overall impression presented, the initial Imprint of the Romans (what did they ever do for us?) followed by wave after wave of raids (the nibble) followed by the full scale invasion (the gobble) of these islands. The motives of the invaders are straightforward, I'm not sure they have changed over 2000 years. I'm not a player of GMT games but I really like it when historical context is included in board games which purport to be historically based. For example Concordia, or a game misleadingly named Medieval Conspiracy which is actually about being elected Holy Roman Emperor, or even something where the gameplay is rubbish like Milano. I just hope that a few folk who enjoy playing these types of games might be motivated to read and explore history in much greater depth. Thought provoking video.
So, as for my questions at the end of the video. What historic games have you played that you thought executed their concepts well, and which ones didn't. And why?
Good: "Freedom: The Underground Railroad" has done an excellent job of focussing in on one specific area of North American history Meh: Anything in the "Timeline" series - great for those that memorise dates, but almost as easy to guess the answer as know the answer Haven't played a lot of historical games TBH as most of the time I don't WANT to get involved in humanity's detritus and nonsense - I prefer games that aren't too "real world", which is why I avoid things like "This War of Mine" despite the positive things many folks have said about it's experience, or historic wargames (even given how abstracted most are). -Trav
Executed concept well: as I said earlier, both Pavlov's House and the masterpiece Fire in the Lake. Then there's the video game This War of Mine, of course. Less well: any run-and-gun shooter set in World War II or some other horrible fairly recent conflict. And yes, I've played (and enjoyed) plenty of those myself - it's like how I know eating meat is bad for the environment and unethical towards the animals, but I still eat meat ;) . I still think that if you're going to make a just-for-fun game like Battlefield, don't set it to WWII or Viet Nam.
Lisboa is a great historic game about civil actions in Portugal. Yeap, it is a euro game, so you need to read about events in the rulebook, not in the cards, but when you do, it all starts to make sense. Also, I think that 1812:Invasion of Canada is alright. Not great, but good enough for me to remember some things about USA/Brittany history
We recently got wingspan and although it isn't my favorite in terms of game play, it has certainly been effective at piquing my kids interest in birds. I love history, and think (hope) that board games could have a similar effect. Outside of Paths of Glory/a distant plain (which look amazing), do you have more to answer your own question? You've played a lot more games than I have.
Really, really appreciated your thoughts in minutes 16 and 17 about asking why we're comfortable with certain things and pushing us to engage those ideas in light of our own value systems. I also like your point about what historic games could do and teach. They are an excellent opportunity to consider how we may have been in other situations, other lives, other times...but from the safety of a gameboard instead of a lived experience.
The first game I played in a historical context that made me truly appreciate the synergy between history and game mechanics was COIN Series: Fire In The Lake. The interactivity between each faction and the actions they had available creates this constant push and pull of exerting, losing and re-asserting control/influence over areas. The almost-but-not-quite co-operative nature of the factions on the same side really ties it all together. I felt like the game does a great job of re-telling the Vietnam War with this removed, CIA analyst war-room viewpoint. Military forces are just cubes and cylinders, and the support of the populace has been reduced to single digit values. There are horrors, atrocities, and many losses of life only for a increase in arbitrary 'points' here and there on the board which puts my faction in a better spot. You don't necessarily need to stop and think about the great loss of life because you, the 'analyst', are so far removed from the conflict much like how we as players might never have had this war touch our lives in any way and yet play/simulate it in the comfort of our homes. It's a game that I enjoyed not necessarily because it's fun (although I think it i,s in a mechanically well designed way) but because it made me think, and confront the uncomfortable feeling when it was all over in how we unintentionally or otherwise were repeating history 'because it was the best play at the time'.
I think this is a good point. You need to pick your "scale" or "lens" when you frame up a historic game. FiTL works staggering well from the CIA analyst framework, partly due to that being Volkos pov as well. But it lacks the micro scale obviously.
I may have missed it, but I find it interesting that none (little?) of your disdain for Britannia comes through on the three-minute review. Is that intentional? Keep the three-minute reviews as more of an overview + "you may like this if ...", while the more in-depth critique is reserved for special videos?
Very much so, which is why the extra time series came into being. The 3 minute recaps are really tools for people to see if a game would work for them. Which is why the framing is so frequently "who is this for, who would hate this". I also use my list videos and "games i got rid of" series as well to go into more depth.
The point of historically themed board games is to get folks interested in the history in the game so they research what really happened on their own. They are the entry point for caring about history. I agree 100% that games shouldn’t be limited to what did happen but also include what could have happened. Example: Playing A&A and deciding if you want to green light operation sea lion or follow the history and invade Russia is much better than being unable to build transports as Germany because sea lion was canceled in real life.
Which is fair, but Brittannia, the game that spwned this would have had A&A rules like "Germany gains 10 VPs if they invade UK on turn 4, but only on turn 4." Its so railroady.
I have not played Britannia but I might pick it up now that it’s on Steam so I’ll concede that point. I was more generally talking about the broader topic.
To counterpoint, im not sure i know many folk who get into a history because of the game, its normally the reverse. People play US civil war games because that a historical topic they are interested in. I've had a few cases, like Comancheria, where i've gotten a game without knowing the history well, but that's an exception and i'm a veteran in the hobby.
For me I look for a good game and in order to understand how to win the game better I look up the history. I’m a board gamer not a historical gamer so I play good board games with historical themes instead of good themes attached to board games.
Is Britannia typical of the genre? I recall Tom Vasel having it as one of his great games he'd never play again, precisely because it felt like you were on rails. For me, Twilight Struggle does a great job of maintaining historicity while avoiding the railroading that seems to be in Britannia. Events happen - "events, dear boy, events". The trick is how well you deal with those events.
It really isn't typical, especially these days. Its very much in the old school "axis and allies" model of troops on a map, roll some dice, history games. And i agree, events make for decisions deeper than "risk"
Historic Wargame? I will cheat...what could never be a board game as it is way too massive in scope. Gary Grigsby's "The Pacific War" for MSDOS (1992!!) - Think of it as a computerized board game. Available for free by the current IP owners Matrix games for a few years already. Lessons you learn: - Supply is everything. Without it modern war simply cannot be fought - oil production and supplies are ESSENTIAL for the Japanese - Commanders leadership experience can be game changing - Commanders may be good as an air commander but useless for either ground or naval forces - Japanese and "Allied" leadership structures are REALLY different and dramatically affect how you play the game. You learn how badly fractured the Japanese military structure is and how it hamstrings you at times you don't want it to be - Atoll battles are usually quick, bloody and brutal. - Jungle battles in New Guinea and Burma (or elsewhere) are long drawn out and indecisive, with troops taking a long time to be resupplied after any offensive. - aircraft range is essential. Having great aircraft that can't reach enemy bases many hundreds of miles away is pointless. - Retraining aircrews takes time and you lose combat efficiency when you switch a squadron to a "better" aircraft - US subs really were brutal to the Japanese. Lesson to learn? LOTS of destroyers in your convoy ports - Later in the war US AA is so good that you could almost sail into Tokyo Bay - SeeBees/engineers are ESSENTIAL to expand far flung military bases..and you need supplies to do that too! - Early war the allies, including New Zealand, must RUN AWAY whenever the Japanese player shows up, Their bnacy, commanders and aircraft carriers will tear through you. - Successful island hopping requires good commanders, good supplies, combined forces and requires a lot of planning - As a Japanese player you MUST MUST MUST stop the US capturing islands that are close enough for them to build out to a level that they can stage their big long range bombers at. Once this is done your game is not going to be fun A lot to learn and a large historical supplement to tell you what and why things happened as it did.
Hi, I really enjoyed your discussion. I have been interested in History for a while now, and also happen to be getting into board gaming also. I have been struggling to find an overlap except in war games also. Perhaps Historic non war games is a niche that might be developed. If I could learn more about History through games I would be ecstatic! Thanks for being thought provoking. Heath.
Have you played Sola Fide it's one of my favourites it's a 2 player historical game of the Reformation which has the rulebook give context by explaining the significance of each cards and has the highs and lows of both sides. Watergate also did this well by explaining its history
I think you were a little hard on this old game from 1986 , but you made some very good points. I thought the game was a step up from Risk but still a light 4X type game. I think you may have hit the nail with the issue about local knowledge. The UK has many local dialects which have routes in history of different groups, british/welsh, english/angles, saxon , jutes , danes, norweigian, irish/scots, celts, roman, norman, french amongst others. Maybe the game should be considered more of a geographical aid than a historical aid. It is very light game and has not aged well compared to newer games, but it does show that the UK is made up of a mix of different peoples even if an island.
Yeah, thats probably fair. It's a bit like watching an old western movie about the US Calvary killing the "evil injuns" and thinking "this ain't good history"
You should check out Europe Divided (same designer as Undaunted Normandy). I’d be interested in hearing what you think of that both from a gameplay as well as historic game.
I absolutely agree with you on every point. at the end ,and its my belief, that fun should be prioritized over anything else. But since fun is subjective to every person... its very hard to achieve. One good example for me is combat commander, me and my friend while we understand the context of the war, we played it a lot and its expansions and enjoy it
Great video and comments. Just picking up on your last comments that historical games are mainly focused on war, with some economical.. you actually had Brass in the video. Coming from Manchester and living next to a canal, Brass Lancashire made me rethink and understand why and how the industrial revolution happened. It changed my factual history into a flowing non-deterministic view of what could have happened. Living in Africa now, we should not hide away from colonial games. We need to know that imperialistic history, and learn to change and adapt to a one world viewpoint that we are all equal.
My issue with colonial games has never been the subject matter. Just that its almost always presenting colonialism as one way traffic and that the games are very sterile. A set collection game doesn't need a colonial theme.
When I play my old WW2 (and other historic games) I feel encouraged to look into the history though other sources. It's why I'm +100 hours into AColdWar POD after playing Twilight Struggle ages ago. It's why I have a bunch of history books and hours spent online googling. The game is the catalyst for my interest spike and also many many questions. The context of these history games is nearly always HORRIFIC. But that is the evolution and humanity in general. It's why we love blood bowl (horrific), Gloomhaven (horrific), Eclipse (crush you horrific), StarWars (megga horrific and that aimed at children). We humans are spellbound by subjugation and killing. We should get over it I guess. Wonderfully thought provoking video J.
Cheers Partymeeple. One of the fun things about fiction though is we can explore ideas and concepts without having to worry too much about historic accuracy or totality. Blood Bowl is a violent game, sure. But who cares that a random Halfling from a fictional world just got blocked to death by a chaos warrior called Ugrub the despoiler. Those are really safe settings where we can explore strong and adult content without it being an issue. Or to put it another way. Its far easier to do a game of Star Wars Rebellion where either side can win and everyone can feel good, than it is to do the same about the warsaw uprising of 1944.
@@3MBG I feel, it's the action that's the issue (rather than the situation)? The human psychology of killing and oppression is borne somewhere. It's why some parents do not like their children playing soldiers. The children are just playing a fantasy war (of what ever era, from ancient to space), but the fun they are having is based on winning by violence.. ..and the deontologist in me thinks this is still sketchy. Will I give up playing an old war game from time to time? No way. I'm still super intrigued by them. But the base idea, regardless of if it's historically based or fantasy, still feels a bit irksome to me somewhere deep down. ~shrugs ~
@@partymeeple5633 A friend of mine did a video about decolonizing video games. The core tropes of many games are "get all the things" and "kill all the dudes and take their stuff". So yeah, its one of those notes we hit over and over in gaming. Even if its fantasy. Still, i think there is a lot less harm doing it that way of course.
@@3MBG Yeah totally. "No animals were harmed in this movie (that's celebrating hunting as a sport)". I spent all day feeling like I'd not explained my self very well in my last comment. But I feel you get my gist? Either way, that was a wonderfully thought provoking video. It's had me thinking about it constantly since I watched it (twice).
Historical board games should give you an experience of the relevant history. That's not the same thing as teaching X or Y about history. It's broader and more open. I think expecting a game to "teach" is misguided. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be games that have "teaching" as their goal. But to say that as a rule historical games should "teach" is overly restrictive.
My first historic board game was History of the World. Probably the game that inspired Britannia. The map is the whole world and the parties include pretty much every power there was from the first city states to the morons that stumbled into WW I. There is something to learn from this game. Empires of importance that you have never heard of, their capital, their most prominent leaders. You draw the Arabs in the third epoch, and although you have plenty of units, you do not make it into Italy. Not by ship, because they lack a fleet. Not through Spain, because they always tend to run out of troops in France. When your turn is over, you find that your conquest is so similar to the the course of history.
Kia ora Jarrod, that was a really good video. I really liked hearing your take on the game and then you moving out to a much broader picture. I have been playing Britannia since I bought the Gibson Games version way back in 1988. I have really enjoyed my games of it; but then I *am* really interested in the history of the British Isles. I too was occasionally frustrated with the scripted nature of the game especially things like the Jutes score 4VP for Kent and the Romano British can see this coming and heavily fortify the area in advance. If Kent is protected but Essex is wide open then I feel the Jutes should settle there and score their points in Essex. So we house ruled that sort of thing. Nominate an area adjacent to the scripted target area and score your points there. It didn't seem to break the game. Having said all that, Britannia languishes on the shelf these days. I can't get rid of it for sentimental reasons, but no one much wants to play it over other more recent games. The 'Roll d6 to hit' battles are a bit tedious and the game length is too long for what it is - and this from a group that plays 18xx and Through The Ages. I appreciate your thought-provoking comments on the 'genocidal' trope of the game, but I personally am not offended by it. As for other games I own that paper over past atrocities: Puerto Rico, Mombassa, 1775, Great Western Trail... Imperial is probably the worst one - you literally play as shady Swiss financiers coercing governments into waging war for your own profit. Having said ' worst' it is also the best in that it explicitly tells you who benefits from wars. Keep up the good work!
Great video, as always. The "what-if" aspect of historical boardgames is especially important, because it's a fundamental aspect of history writing. When we investigate the past, and have to chose between the myriad of possible and plausible causes, we have to ask ourselves how things would have unfolded absent this or that factor; this or that decision; this or that historical actor. This is how historians discriminate between minor and major elements of their explanations. Well-made boardgames can help explore and engage with these potential and often competing explanations. It can also show the constraints in which historical actors operated, in ways that are often difficult to grasp from, say, a textbook. I remember a really great game of Wilderness War (another GMT) with my father, which pretty much unfolded as the Seven Years War did in North America. It really made it clear for him how geography and logistics constrained the movement of 18th century armies. It's one thing to "know" it from a book. It's another to "see" it unfolding on a map. One thing that historical boardgames could explore better (to say nothing of the under-representation of certain places and peoples) is perhaps the sort of impersonal forces we all have to contend with. It's not surprising: after all, playing games, we want to have some measure of control, and some way to assess the impact of our decisions. But this can indeed magnify "great men" history, especially in violent (or industrial) conflicts.
I appreciated the insights you had behind what makes a historical event resonate with a person and how that translates to a historical board game. Very cool!
Wow. Mind blown. Going to try and not ramble. Most of my games are world War II mostly tactical a few strategic but in those games for this period I understand from history classes from books from TV from games why that war, or that specific battle happened(Midway). (mostly). You now have me thinking about my other games from say the time of Julius Caesar (Caesar Legions & it's modern upgrade Caesar in Gaul), English Civil War (Cruel Necessity), Warriors of God (Fr.-Eng wars 300 yrs!)1135-1453. Most of my games are: you are here, n we need to go there and someone may try n stop you. Go. Me:I wanted to be a history major I wanted to be a history teacher but parental coercion kept that away from me. But I took history classes for every elective that I could possibly take, I've read hundreds of books and still have most of them, hopefully packed nicely away to go back to sometime. Almost 66 And I have forgotten a lot of what I have learned but your words really opened my eyes and I'm going to go look at all my games, 170, if you include some blah not even beginning/real conflict(like Risk) games, to see for my own edification, is the story complete there, or is it missing details and can I print out a page or two for whomever has these games after I, hopefully, get to Heaven( to play some more canasta with my folks(mom always destroyed me- lots of fun)), so that next person can say oh, wow. I did not know that. My daughter's will sell my collection. I will go through my list that I have on my phone of my games and mark the ones that I think I have to look into. Maybe if the game doesn't have a book list reference I can include some book titles too. I'm retired I got plenty of time I hope.
@@3MBG I have also been looking at games that I know nothing about like I bought Paper Wars compass games the Fall of Siam. Why?got an very 'old' world history book. it was just fantastic reading to learn about the conflicts that have been going on and eventually wanting to know more. Old encyclopedia book copyright 1948. I think I'll need to leave this on my game table and make myself do some reading before I start any new game.
Very very interesting video! I’ll be honest I’ve never played a single historic board game.. but after watching this I’m so interested in Twilight Struggle- the fact that the decisions you make in the game can help teach you why history played out a certain way, because they make good strategic sense, is awesome. Cheers Jarrod :)
How do you feel about games like: Colonialism: the ugliness of how you (probably) win is a feature and exactly what the game is (probably) trying to convey. The Cost: I can't even play it. I remember watching people die from asbestos. Its just too sad for me.
Colonialism in games frequently bugs me, not because colonialism is a dark subject. But because most games present it as either a good thing, or a neutral thing. Glossing over the bad parts to make it about "who can ship the most cotton" wins. They very rarely say "oh yeah, all that cotton and tobacco is slave labour by the way, and the winner is the person who exploited people best". I find a lot of those games could have been something else without hurting the game at all. And by presenting a sterile fantasy version of colonialism they perpetuating myths and misconceptions. So i do think they do a bit of harm, yes.
@@3MBG Are you replying to me or someone else? The themes and settings of the games The Cost and Colonialism are entirely the point. If you changed them the games would be significantly different games. I'm no expert on play in Colonialism, but I'm pretty sure the person who wins is the person who takes the resources most efficiently, regardless of how they get there. The art of brutalness of the game is entirely the point. The Cost is (not entirely) about pricing human life. Which is something every company and every government does, at least to some extent.
@@3MBG no problems. Did you have an opinion on either of them? The other one I'd mention is An Infamous Traffic where winning involves running the opium trade in China most successfully
Thanks. A Great engaging video.I found that really interesting and broadly agree. That leads me to wonder - Why do I actually like Britannia? It is highly ethno-centric if not racist. Also it is over long & really needs exactly 4 players - not an easy combination to achieve. There is one odd element of Britannia that you don't address though. That is the grouping of the different factions Red blur brown & purple. These factions are NOT tied together historically they are purely an artefact of the game. This I think offers a clue as to why game play doesn't seem like Ethnic cleansing - at least no more so than playing Small World. For me it combines two elements of nostalgia. First it has the broad sweep of the traditional English history I was taught in secondary school - Angles Saxons Jutes. It also feels like my early gaming fun playing Risk but without the horror of one players getting knocked one by one, Here I'm there with all my chums having fun right to the last move.
Excellent points and I for one agree with you! An actual historic board game should also teach you about history, otherwise it's just a shallow reenactment.
Amazing vid. I'm a history teacher and a huge board gamer and absolutely loved this video. Very well thought out and explained. I find the GMT games great at capturing the times, events, and history of the era they cover without being controlled by it. The outcomes can come out so different then the actual events while still being influenced by them.
Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, my thoughts exactly on the GMT thing. I trained as a history teacher, but ended up doing other work instead. But its always something i wished i stuck with.
@@3MBG it's a rare place where my passions can be turned into a career. I just barely got started in it but it took me a long time to get here as I had to provide for my family and do school on the side for many years. I honestly really like your channel as it's both informative and has a pleasant candor that sometimes is lacking in other channels. Your passion, appreciation, and deep knowledge for this hobby really shine through. Plus we like a lot of the same games and have similar histories with GW and board games. Board games and the enjoyment and social aspect or them kept me going through a two year recovery from a really bad car wreck some years ago and were one of the few bright spots of my days during those times. Thank you for the content. I look forward to your videos.
In general I would agree with the theme of what you have said, but I am not sure that Britannia is as much a dead duck of a historical game as you propose. With Britannia I would consider it a picture of where the land owners came from, that top 5% of society that did regularly wipe each other out rather than the other 95% of mud digging farmers beneath them, the modern genetic record shows that the peasants were impacted but rarely wiped out by leadership change. Part of the problem is that there is very little in the way of written record of events and what does exist was often written hundreds of years after the events took place. Much of the history of this period is based on stories and the archaeological evidence, not first hand record. Part of the evidence for so many changes in leadership is the record of British place names which old and they trace their roots into a maze of different languages and dialects dependent on who happened to own which bit of land at which time. Britannia may not be great at teaching the why of all these waves of invasions of and power centres growing within Great Britain (as nobody really knows), but it does teach the idea that this was an incredibly unstable period of history for the islands, only to be toned down, but not stopped once William the bastard got the crown. Oh and if you think that mass genocide never happened on the UK mainland then read wiki on the harrying of the north en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrying_of_the_North 75% of the population over a vast area died or moved away.
I've never even played a proper war game I just wanna commend the quality and quantity of content since you went full time. The production on this one looked great as well.
@@mathiasgreyjoy1611 basically you create your own objectives. Rather than being pushed to take certain regions at certain times because it gives you VPs, you say I’m going to be ruler of all Cornwall because *invent story here*, achieve that and you win. Options for multiple people to win if objectives don’t clash, or changing objectives based on narrative story. E.g you become ruler of Cornwall but your character has become too greedy or bloodthirsty and now wants to be king of all England (harder objective but more engaging than just sitting back). I’d be interested in your take on it. ‘‘Twas just an idea for my part
@@RobotShield That's fascinating! After playing it the legal way I would be super down to try that and see how it goes. Are you on Reddit? I've recently started a subreddit for the Britannia board game, r/BritanniaBoardGame. You should check it out, and you could even post about your homebrew style of play! www.reddit.com/r/BritanniaBoardGame/
With light history games, it's also really important to mention the Eurocentrism of the development model - it implies that the way European culture developed is a template that every culture would/should follow. That's not just inaccurate, it's a harmful model for looking at civilisations, and leads to hugely racist perspectives about other cultures. Great video, and touches on some of the ideas I had planned to touch on if I ever did a Sam Has Opinions about historical games. (And in fact, I'm going to gratuitously plug my defunct channel and recommend Sam Has Opinions about politics in games, which I think builds on some of what you talk about at the end of the video t.co/o91TrqUqkx )
I believe that up to about 20 years ago, the history of war was important to learn so that we don't repeat mistakes of past generations. However, within the last 20 years, war isn't so much taking place on a physical battle field anymore. Most international conflicts have turned to cyberspace. Some say that we're in the middle of a second Cold War. So, is learning about past wars still important? What if we replaced 12 years of learning traditional world history, and replace it with teaching kids computer coding and international commerce? 🤔
I think the causes of conflict are more important than the methods by which they are fought. 5th domain warfare (Cyber) happens for the same reasons that 1st, 2nd and 3rd domain warfare has happened (Land, Sea, Air). Perhaps if we are focused on cyber for tactical games that makes sense.
There have been a lot of wars that have not impacted you. The middle east is a mess, with heavy US involvement. The African Congo is a mess. The effects of internal conflict in Syria, Yemen and Mexico is catastrophic.
@@thumper8684 Don't assume things, my friend. I live on the border of Texas and Mexico. I've got the Cartel knocking at my backdoor. I've gone outside and seen the clouds of smoke from grenades in the street. My aunt's funeral was interrupted by the Cartel. Our family owns a private cemetery. But that didn't stop the Cartel from showing up and flexing their muscle. I use to work for Homeland Security. I was part of the first wave of officers dispatched at the end of 2001. One of my officers recovered a baby from a man only to realize that the baby was dead, gutted, and packed full of drugs. These horror stories don't make national news, but it's everyday life for people in South Texas. And honestly, nothing that we learned in history class helped guide our anti-terrorism nor anti-trafficking teams.
@@samueleuresti3 That sounds terrible. I am not a historian, but the relationship between Mexico and the US has not been good. Maybe the US needs to work with their neighbour in dealing with this.
@@thumper8684 Unless the U.S. is going to invade and occupy Mexico, nothing will be resolved. Remember when the war between Crips and Bloods was really bad from the late 70's to the early 90's? Well, now imagine if that gang war had spread and covered the entire U.S. Well, that's basically what has happened in Mexico. There is no political solution. It would take military force to overwhelm and overthrow the various cartels and mafia gangs in Mexico. Then, the U.S. could hit the "Reset" button. Mexico needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt.
Nice vid, but I have to disagree with some of your conclusions. First of all you seem to be comparing games that take an in depth look at a singular event to a game that tries to vaguely sum up the events of a THOUSAND PLUS YEARS. Also your ethical conclusions are... problematic. What about Tzolkin, where human sacrifice is trivialised and boiled down to a point salad exercise? What about Agricola, that makes the story of historic animal oppression and abuse into a cutesy little 'I oppressed more animals successfully'? What about any game that incentivises greed and capitalism? I'm tempted to say the answer is - let's focus on tangible things that exist and actually matter, rather than crude representations.
Hmmm, you almost had a point until you went off the slippery slope with the agricola example. Personally, i think Tzolkin is a bit shady for its theme as well and im personally not a fan of point salad euros that use colonialism and/or human sacrifice in game. The difference between Britannia and Agricola though, and most games in fact, is they don't say they are teaching history. Britannia does, right on the box lid. So i believe it is fair to rip on a game that markets itself as teaching history for its failure to do so.
@@3MBG I don't think the Agricola example is slippery slope at all, I'm sure a lot of fellow vegans and vegetarians will agree with me. The history of farming is a long story of animal oppression and abuse, and farming games gloss over that. But I personally don't have a problem with that, because they are games, and they have to abstract to a degree. Yes, every now and then a game comes along and deals with the subject matter in a lot more of a deep, interesting and sensitive manner that is hard to pull off but praiseworthy. But I don't think that makes games that don't achieve that redundant or morally repulsive; for instance This War of Mine (as I know you also praise it) deals with the topic of war and conflict in a way that puts most other conflict based games to shame. A game that sheds light on the ills of capitalism would put light-hearted 'the greediest player wins' stockmarket and euro games to shame, and that's like most of the industry. I take the approach that its totally fine to simulate all of these oddities as long as it isn''t doing direct harm to a group, or (and I take my hat off to your point here) touts to represent something accurately when it doesn't. I think the problem with the Britannia critique though (open to correction here) is that as I said, it has to gloss over a lot to sum up history. It can only be vague and representative at best. I don't see how it blatantly misrepresents, and is no different than any other board game that takes liberties with history or historical ideas to fit the template of game mechanics (like homogenous races). I haven't played the most recent print of the game but perhaps future prints can fix some of these issues by providing more information in the rulebook (older prints do have some insightful stuff), text about the factions on their faction boards, notes about how and why they decided to represent certain groups independently as they did (its a pretty tough job breaking up all that complex history into arbitrary factions) etc. But I don't think its possible for such a far reaching game (in terms of its scope) to achieve what you seem to hope from it. Perhaps it could do better, sure.
By the way, just want to make clear, love your content, and I think insights such as these and discussions like this, regardless of who disagrees or agrees and if certain viewers don't like it or think its controversial, are important and necessary. So well done mate. Just don't rip on one of my favourite games! lol
Apologies, i assumed you were being facetious with the Agricola example. I think the crux of my issues are what you outline in your middle paragraph. Britannias scope is too wide to teach the history. So conceptually, from idea 1, it would always be a failure as a history game that teaches history. Hence the comparison to civilzation and games that use the trappings of history.
And i think i would have enjoyed it as a game more, if it was less mechanically prescriptive in its approach as well. It was that weird juxtaposition of locked timings and scorings, with an overall lack of reasoning that threw me so much.
I welcome the warped genocidal perspective presented in this game. There are so many options out there (for players looking for a more somber approach) and at the end of the day I am paying/playing for personal entertainment. Keep up the good work.
@@Cloudman572 I posted before watching the whole video and assumed that you have to play the game exactly the same each time.😅 Is it more freedom of choice like Axis & Allies?
@@LeeroyPorkins, you absolutely do not have to play Britannia the same way each time. You can do whatever you want with your forces within the limits of the rules, albeit if you ignore your historically-based victory conditions, you are going to have a difficult chance to win. One of the biggest wild cards in the game is the negotiations that players can conduct with each other, to sway the course of warring and truces over the years. Negotiation is not an integrated part of the rules of Britannia per se, but I think Dr Pulsipher would say that negotiation is the biggest key to victory in the game. If people think Britannia plays the same way over and over -- that is that it is on rails -- then I don't think they have played or watched enough games with different sets of players.
@@LeeroyPorkins , yeah, the reviewer made it sound like the Timeline scripted things rather strictly. While it does dictate when Invasions happen, when boats are available, and when some reinforcements arrive, Nations will also grow based on the territories they control, and this will ebb and flow throughout the years. Your diplomatic and strategic decision making skills can readily alter a particular nation's course through history.
OK everyone, lets keep this civil and mature. If the sum of your comment is "it's just a game" or "you want to ban war games" then you have missed the point of the video. This is an opportunity to have a sound discussion of the merits and values of historic games, what they can do well and where they sometimes fail to do well. I'm a historian, i'm a wargamer, i love both of those things. Which is why i like to think and talk about the subject. Anyone who presents arguments that are well thought out and considered will be engaged with. But this is a conversation for adults to have. Temper tantrums will not be tolerated.
I’m curious, what do you think of scythe campaign?
Is a pure what if situation, but it’s beautiful narrated in my opinion. I feel it is a better “big conversations” starter than a pure historical board game, as ease you in without involving directly countries or grievances.
I agree to the extent that there is a ritualistic element to Britannia, that appeals to me as a Brit wanting to connect to my history. The gameplay is very similar from game to game, but with enough room for maneuvre to develop a unique strategy.
It does deal with diversity well. As you say, tribes stay atomised and hostile to one another throughout. The only silver lining is the subtext that we are a mongrel race, that each of us has ancestry from these different groups. That is something that you would have to be taught elsewhere. I think I got that message through school, but it was a long time ago. The game certainly does not make that point directly.
OTOH It is just a game.
Not played the scythe campaign sorry Davide
I think war games are fun when the priority is on the game aspect.
If the game plays out more like a simulation, and one side will always win, then I don't see the point of playing. I'd rather just watch the documentary.
Just my opinion, but I believe games should be games. They should be well balanced. The game can take place in an alternate reality where it's possible for Hilter to win WW2. 😁
The measure of a good historical game or wargame is the degree to which the ludonarativity achieves verisimilitude to the topic being covered. And by that, I don't mean a historical game has to have the same outcome as a historical event, but that each decision in that game needs to accurately reflect the decision that was made by the relevant historical figures (sorry, but the great man theory isn't dead, or else we wouldn't play games). I must say, the critique of historical games could be leveled at history books and documentaries... the historian is telling a story by framing the historical text and focusing through a lens based on his/her assumptions about what was relevant. As a Social Scientist, I think it's what we acknowledge when we say "all models are wrong. Some models are more wrong than others. Some models are useful. And some models are harmful (re: deceptive)."
Keeping in mind that on a epistemology level there is both a normative and descriptive claim being made. What happened historically, why it happened, what SHOULD have happened... what should we BELIEVE about what happened? What does this historical insight MEAN about future, similar events?
What is the story the historian is trying to tell? Is that story accurate enough to not be propaganda?
These same questions can be asked of a historical game. And one person will critique the game based on their prior historical worldview. And another will disagree. But does the game facilitate dialectic between both critics? If so, it wasn't a waste of time to make and play.
For me I enjoy historical games more when I have an understanding of the history behind it. Even if the history in the game is bare bones, I can imagine all the history I know inside the game, and it multiplies my enjoyment for the game merely from having a knowledge of the time and place of the setting.
For me personally I'm okay if a historic game just touches on the ideas of the history it is trying to cover. If it gives me a spark of interest to follow up I can and would be interested in researching it on my own by picking up a book delving deeper into the topic to discover the who's and whys behind it. Great presentation in the video and good thoughts you put out to chew on.
The game that convinced me that historical games can be fun and started my wargame collection was "Fire in the Sky" by Tetsuya Nakamura. The game plays very asymmetrical, with both players having different goals at different times. I saw that victory points could be cleverly used to not make it necessary for both players to need the same board state to win.
At first I thought the sea battles were crazy random, until I watched a few videos about how those battles went historically.
I agree that the games shouldn't replicate it dictate events in the game, they should rather put the players in the same position to decide. And from then on you can educate yourself further.
Also the COIN series does historic events wonderful, looking forward to your addition to the series.
I also like games which teach historical perspective whilst allowing players to tell their own stories. I often think the reason few games are like Twilight Struggle is because few board game designers have the historical expertise to achieve such depth. For example, think about how many historic scenarios lend themselves to a grand two player game such as Rebellion, TI4 or War of the Ring.
I can see your point about ethnic jingoism in this game, however I much prefer there are 'sides' to historic games then if there were generic colours. Such as 'the red team just defeated the blues'.
To me, a historical game should be educational as well as fun. History’s full of fascinating intrigue , politics, and struggles! You can do so much with it. It’s why I like Twilight Struggle, even if I’m rubbish at it and no one plays it with me.
Britain is a tiny island but has so much history. Europe is made of nations forged from hundreds of tiny countries that traded, fought, died, or combined to become what it is now. Even America, younger than the flintlock rifle, has plenty to create a system from.
And if there’s different groups , I want to what advantages or disadvantages they have and why. Give these countries or factions a story.
Otherwise I might as well play Risk or Dominion or something.
What Britannia really needed are cards that give context, but I think it is fine that all invasions still happen on the same fields and in the same order, there is still enough room for variety, but a twilight struggle cards system or a coin event card system would have been welcome.
Card driven, just to shake it up a smidge would have made a world of difference to me.
@@3MBG Can I recommend to you a very obscure game that does history right in my opinion?:
1979 Revolution in Iran
It has the same card mechanic like twilight struggle (so you have opponents cards you trigger on your hand, too) but it is shorter, which I think is good, because playing a 3 to 5 hours tug of war gets a bit exhausting... and it has a very cool mechanism, where you have active and inactive influence on the board, which is a bit like hidden troops in COIN Series Games.
The game gives really a lot of historical context and also embeds the historical theme deep into it's engine.
Good example. I recently reviewed "the Shores of Tripoli" which i think nails it too/
@@3MBG yeah, it is amazing how much possibilities you can put in a game that has a map with that small amount of areas.
Very interesting clip! I was window-shopping some Britannia's 2nd hand offers and I have just purchased Twilight Struggle and Pax Pamir: for sure very different games with different 'weights'. Yet, I wouldn't I mind playing something a bit more 'shallow', if it still gives some fun.
Our of interest do you have an issue with Smallworld using genocide as a mechanism? Obviously it’s a fantasy world but it still uses that mechanism and you could argue it also encourages that sort of thinking.
Thanks for making me thinking through the background of games and history.
A lot less so, I'm not one who compare cartoon violence and fantasy to real life. Dead elves aren't people after all. I think there is a dramatic difference when we are looking at real events vs fictional ones.
To use a pc game example. In Doom, one roams around hell shooting people with abandon, that's quite different to say, a school shooting game in terms of tone.
Love the analysis. Agree or disagree with the conclusions, I think that this type of critique is what we need to see more of within the hobby board game community (alongside those fun short reviews, of course).
This was one of those vids that was supposed to be about 5 mins long, but once i started talking I had a hard time shutting up :)
I agree J, I would love to see more non-war games that do a good job teaching and exploring history. Great vid!
I think J has highlighted just how tricky it is to fit a significant amount of history into a game? But it's certainly a good seed sower. I remember reading the Squad Leader designers notes decades ago where they talk about how "this is a board game and has bugger all to do with the realities of a battlefield.. ..and how pretty much everyone present did not want to be there" (paraphrasing). Right there I stopped to think about how my twenty something year old mind had never really got it's self around how all that worked and the inaccuracy of my understanding of that history.
I was just thinking about this question. I kept coming back to twilight struggle and in particular I was thinking about the Nasser and Suez Canal war cards. I'm a history major and I'm in a class about the history of modern Egypt. I look at those cards and the general abstractions they give about how those events benefits the soviet union and fractures the relationship with the USA between France, Great Britain, and Israel but it doesn't quite address all the nuances. Like how Nasser didn't want to be associated on either side of the cold war. But as I study history more I start to understand why generalizations like these come about. The danger with historical games is that at some point you have to simplify. I think Twilight Struggle does a great job at summarizing the cold war and how it panned out. It really is about exploring history and what ifs. It's about understanding the head space of leaders and people and why they occurred. A good adaptation of any other medium or story into a board game should simulate the kind of decisions making the characters in it made. (Oddly enough this reasoning might explain why Dune is popular especially when you consider that the book is written as if it was a historical account.)
Agreed. I guess a good sweet spot for a historic game is to set you up in the historic start point, and then let you decide from there. Without constantly "resetting" you back to a historic framing point.
I appreciate your takes on board games as a medium and ludonarrative consistency. I'm think a lot about these ideas lately.
I've hated history with a passion most of my life, since school days. This year I've tried Pax Pamir 2nd edition just as an "area control game", and found it interesting. Then Twilight Struggle just as "that one famous game", and found it extremely frustrating. But somehow those two inspired me to read and watch some introductory materials on their respective themes and soon I started appreciating them much more. I never could have pictured myself watching history documentaries, but here we are. I've since taken interest in a new for me territory like historical wargames and such. I've tried a tutorial for Colonial Twilight as my intro to COIN series. It took watching a documentary and a 5-hour long solo session through playbook, but I found it fascinating, considering I've never ever heard of Algerian War before. I'm still new to these, but from my impressions they are actually good GAMES, not just a history lesson. Card that grants me "Terror in City costs 0 Resources" is not just a game mechanism but is actually me blowing up civilians. Uncanny, scary and thematically consistent. I think those experiences in the past few months opened my eyes to what board games could be.
On the other hand I found This War of Mine to be a successful anti-war propaganda, but a very terrible game. It's super fiddly and feels like 90% of the time you are moving components around and reading how awful everything is, but only 10% actually playing. It's hammering horrors of war into your face without breaks, not letting you to take part in events. There is little cause-and-effect happening, and a lot of random events where everything is always bad just because.
I understand your point, but seeing as Britannia cover over 1,000 years of historical events it is a bit harsh to compare it to a game that has a more focused time period to be centred around. 1,000 years is an incredibly long time, if it went into as much detail as you think it should the game would be unplayable due to adding on an extra 6 hours at least, also the game would have to come with a large history book to explain the events, meaning it would have a very large price tag.
That's a small point within much larger points. My core issue with the gameplay of Brittania is it's scripted to the point of being on rails, and that to me isn't a fun game. And as for the time scale, choosing to do something that big poorly was their choice, there's a reason most consims pick tighter periods.
I have fond memories of Britannia (and never got it, but bought the new reprint) ...
Yes, it's very scripted. But then ... it has other qualities - like not being too plagued by kill-the-leader. (since you have a hard time seeing who's in the lead).
I don't think a game has to teach you the "why" about history. *_It just has to make you curious._*
Also ... Sure, a game like a COIN game does tell you a lot more about the actual history due to various flavor text on the cards and notes in the rule book.
But then ... my honest opinion about the COIN system is that they feel more like playing musical chairs than like playing a strategy game. - and I like strategy games.
So, if I had to chose (which I don't) I would probably keep Britannia and get rid of Falling Sky.
But I can have both ... and I can also have games which are a lot less scripted than Britannia and a lot more strategic than Falling Sky and still teaches you a bit about (at least military) history. ...like "Tunisia-II", "Rising Eagles" or "Julius Caesar" or "Pax Pamir"
IMHO Britannia has it's niche.
I simply don't agree with your metric about what a "historic" game has to do. It doesn't have to "teach" you anything specific. *_It just has to make you curious._*
And your idea that the game is "teaching" people something with every single nuance in it might also be the reason why you go overboard with interpreting Britannia as a sinister game.
Board games are not the medium to *teach* people about history. They are utterly insufficient to capture the nuances of history. They can make you curious, but if you want to actually *learn* about history. Read a book or watch a documentary.
PS: Also ... the US causing a coup in Iran early in the Cold War might be a smart move in Twilight Struggle ... but gee ... all the trouble that has caused since...
Thank you for this great video!
Almost all of the historical board games (and miniature games) I played were tactical level instead of strategic level & that will affect my outlook on the matter. I saw the games as a thing of _"How do you playing these people in this situation right here and right now deal with this situation and solve the immediate local problems right in front of them/you here within this situation?"_ Scenario cards would have a few sentences to a paragraph or two about the local situation and perhaps also the context within which it occurred and that satisfied me: I knew how to find material about the larger whys and wherefores if and when I so desired.
Often there also was a booklet provided giving some of the larger strategic picture beyond the tactical game.
True, there were larger, national, regional, goals, policies, beliefs, strategies, resources, involved in Why we need to take this town today to open that road, and in why the forces available to do so are the available forces instead of other forces which are somewhere else doing something else; but those games weren't designed to cover that, they were designed to be, "Your job today is This town, now, how are you going to deal with it?"
I think I can also say that in a lot of cases the individual scenarios provided in a tactical game were selected to give snapshots which could be chained together to give a general sense of the overall campaign.
And that was as far as the game designers chose to go with the thing; I suspect because of having a policy of "There is only so much we can do in the box for a given price point & most historical gamers will know how to go find historical references via their own application of brains and elbow grease."
Really good points here. Tactical games, by their nature, aren't really focused on the whys and reasons behind what's going on that much. A game about WWII tanks battles, like the one i reviewed recently, world of tanks, doesn't really need to delve to deep into reasons in the same way. But i guess, it also doesn't attempt to be anything other than a tank battle game. So yeah, it really didnt get under my skin at all. Because its scope was intentionally limited to what it was. A tank game.
Perhaps what im flailing inarticulately against is games that claim to be telling history, but that don't measure up to me. Never had an issue with a skirmish historic game for this reason as well. Fascinating, thank you
@@3MBG Huh. Maybe that's what's wrong with Britannia - it's a tactical game approach in a strategic scope with artificial constraints to achieve a predetermined outcome. AKA the worst of tactical (no context) strategic (scope too wide) and simulation (player choices don't matter much)
-Trav
Yeah Trav, could well be that's the issue. Tactical thinking across 1000 year scope. Or perhaps 1000 years is just too much to cover?
What an interesting video. A lot of what you said (the use of games to explore rather than just re-enact historical events, the focus on the underlying dynamics more than on the exterior consequences, the need of the gaming aspect and the resulting freedom of action...), all of them brought me back to Jim Dunnigan's Wargames Handbook, and make complete sense for simulation games theory. As a long time wargamer, military historian and author of books, articles, videos and podcasts about wargaming I can say only one thing to you and your arguments: bravo! :) As Mark Herman said, sometimes we are too much consumed by mere kinetic representation and lose sight of the actual historical dynamics. This is of course more true for strategic-level wargames and composite pol-mil historical simulations (a game about the second day of the battle of Gettysburg might not have much to say about slavery and human rights), but also tactical games can introduce some subtle nuances here and there, at least in the non-kinetic department (collective psychology of the armies, intelligence, reasons of historical and not just arithmetic relevance of victory point sources...).
On the last part of the video, yeah, that can ben quite problematic, because as I said not all games are of the right kind to deal with some issues. Of course, the problem is wargames at the tactical and operational value, which do not have to deal with some topics but that sometimes fail spectacularly at dealing even with small glimpses of that topic. I recently read a review of Konigsberg, which is a very good game about the last days of the war for the German Army but which did not include some worthy treatment of the war atrocities perpetrated by the Red Army on the civilian population (which could and should have a game effect, as the reverse should be true for any game about Barbarossa, Fall Blau and such).
Here lies a very complex topic, something of a challenge for modern wargames. This does not mean that traditional historical games such as Britannia are horribly flawed (we must be aware of their nature and origins), nor that wargames as a whole are an obsolete genre (there were much more nuanced games published in the same years of original Britannia). For sure, I did not get the impression from your video that you wanted to "ban wargames": just that you stressed out the importance of playing even other types of historical games and, when you want a really good military simulation, just plain better wargames.
And this, as a grognard, I can surely understand and support! :)
"sometimes we are too much consumed by mere kinetic representation and lose sight of the actual historical dynamics" Oh, that's nice.
And yeah, im actually designing my own wargame now, so asking for them to be banned would be silly. The paradox is of course, that due to my own issues with historic games, i went for a sci-fi setting instead. So i can explore the themes i want, without real repercussions.
I don't know if I've ever played a historical game before, but those are some really interesting points and definitely will make me consider those things if/when I ever play a historical game in the future. Thanks!
Games are necessarily reductionist. Computer power allows more factors to be included but the more comprehensive the heavier, more specialist and slower. Simulations vs games are a spectrum. At one extreme you have engineering, financial or meteorological models, using hundreds of millions of variables: That can be predictive. At the other extreme 'Games' use only a few, perhaps dozens. The lessons from games (if any) are educational within the aims of the game designer. In between there are semipro 'disaster exercises' (in the kriegspiel model). Their serious users recognise value despite limitations: Mentally preparatory, they highlight issues and illustrate their impact. It allow factors to be better grasped and even ranked in a hierarchy. It warns real life actors (police, retail, health, government) to identify traps, rate limiting steps, key factors and consequences in a useful way.
As a Brit, I confess to enjoying Brittania, albeit with full acknowledgement of the gameification elements. One Caledonian holding off the Norwegian hordes in Skye! The Jutes hanging in there in Kent because no one dares take them on & etc. The key here is surely the overall impression presented, the initial Imprint of the Romans (what did they ever do for us?) followed by wave after wave of raids (the nibble) followed by the full scale invasion (the gobble) of these islands. The motives of the invaders are straightforward, I'm not sure they have changed over 2000 years. I'm not a player of GMT games but I really like it when historical context is included in board games which purport to be historically based. For example Concordia, or a game misleadingly named Medieval Conspiracy which is actually about being elected Holy Roman Emperor, or even something where the gameplay is rubbish like Milano. I just hope that a few folk who enjoy playing these types of games might be motivated to read and explore history in much greater depth. Thought provoking video.
So, as for my questions at the end of the video. What historic games have you played that you thought executed their concepts well, and which ones didn't. And why?
Good: "Freedom: The Underground Railroad" has done an excellent job of focussing in on one specific area of North American history
Meh: Anything in the "Timeline" series - great for those that memorise dates, but almost as easy to guess the answer as know the answer
Haven't played a lot of historical games TBH as most of the time I don't WANT to get involved in humanity's detritus and nonsense - I prefer games that aren't too "real world", which is why I avoid things like "This War of Mine" despite the positive things many folks have said about it's experience, or historic wargames (even given how abstracted most are).
-Trav
Executed concept well: as I said earlier, both Pavlov's House and the masterpiece Fire in the Lake. Then there's the video game This War of Mine, of course.
Less well: any run-and-gun shooter set in World War II or some other horrible fairly recent conflict. And yes, I've played (and enjoyed) plenty of those myself - it's like how I know eating meat is bad for the environment and unethical towards the animals, but I still eat meat ;) . I still think that if you're going to make a just-for-fun game like Battlefield, don't set it to WWII or Viet Nam.
Yeah, i personally enjoyed Team Fortress 2 WAY more than any of the modern shooters for sure. And battlefield WWI was cringe.
Lisboa is a great historic game about civil actions in Portugal. Yeap, it is a euro game, so you need to read about events in the rulebook, not in the cards, but when you do, it all starts to make sense.
Also, I think that 1812:Invasion of Canada is alright. Not great, but good enough for me to remember some things about USA/Brittany history
We recently got wingspan and although it isn't my favorite in terms of game play, it has certainly been effective at piquing my kids interest in birds. I love history, and think (hope) that board games could have a similar effect. Outside of Paths of Glory/a distant plain (which look amazing), do you have more to answer your own question? You've played a lot more games than I have.
Really, really appreciated your thoughts in minutes 16 and 17 about asking why we're comfortable with certain things and pushing us to engage those ideas in light of our own value systems.
I also like your point about what historic games could do and teach. They are an excellent opportunity to consider how we may have been in other situations, other lives, other times...but from the safety of a gameboard instead of a lived experience.
The first game I played in a historical context that made me truly appreciate the synergy between history and game mechanics was COIN Series: Fire In The Lake. The interactivity between each faction and the actions they had available creates this constant push and pull of exerting, losing and re-asserting control/influence over areas. The almost-but-not-quite co-operative nature of the factions on the same side really ties it all together.
I felt like the game does a great job of re-telling the Vietnam War with this removed, CIA analyst war-room viewpoint. Military forces are just cubes and cylinders, and the support of the populace has been reduced to single digit values. There are horrors, atrocities, and many losses of life only for a increase in arbitrary 'points' here and there on the board which puts my faction in a better spot. You don't necessarily need to stop and think about the great loss of life because you, the 'analyst', are so far removed from the conflict much like how we as players might never have had this war touch our lives in any way and yet play/simulate it in the comfort of our homes.
It's a game that I enjoyed not necessarily because it's fun (although I think it i,s in a mechanically well designed way) but because it made me think, and confront the uncomfortable feeling when it was all over in how we unintentionally or otherwise were repeating history 'because it was the best play at the time'.
I think this is a good point. You need to pick your "scale" or "lens" when you frame up a historic game. FiTL works staggering well from the CIA analyst framework, partly due to that being Volkos pov as well. But it lacks the micro scale obviously.
I may have missed it, but I find it interesting that none (little?) of your disdain for Britannia comes through on the three-minute review. Is that intentional? Keep the three-minute reviews as more of an overview + "you may like this if ...", while the more in-depth critique is reserved for special videos?
Very much so, which is why the extra time series came into being. The 3 minute recaps are really tools for people to see if a game would work for them. Which is why the framing is so frequently "who is this for, who would hate this". I also use my list videos and "games i got rid of" series as well to go into more depth.
The point of historically themed board games is to get folks interested in the history in the game so they research what really happened on their own. They are the entry point for caring about history.
I agree 100% that games shouldn’t be limited to what did happen but also include what could have happened.
Example: Playing A&A and deciding if you want to green light operation sea lion or follow the history and invade Russia is much better than being unable to build transports as Germany because sea lion was canceled in real life.
Which is fair, but Brittannia, the game that spwned this would have had A&A rules like "Germany gains 10 VPs if they invade UK on turn 4, but only on turn 4."
Its so railroady.
I have not played Britannia but I might pick it up now that it’s on Steam so I’ll concede that point.
I was more generally talking about the broader topic.
To counterpoint, im not sure i know many folk who get into a history because of the game, its normally the reverse. People play US civil war games because that a historical topic they are interested in. I've had a few cases, like Comancheria, where i've gotten a game without knowing the history well, but that's an exception and i'm a veteran in the hobby.
For me I look for a good game and in order to understand how to win the game better I look up the history. I’m a board gamer not a historical gamer so I play good board games with historical themes instead of good themes attached to board games.
Is Britannia typical of the genre? I recall Tom Vasel having it as one of his great games he'd never play again, precisely because it felt like you were on rails. For me, Twilight Struggle does a great job of maintaining historicity while avoiding the railroading that seems to be in Britannia. Events happen - "events, dear boy, events". The trick is how well you deal with those events.
It really isn't typical, especially these days. Its very much in the old school "axis and allies" model of troops on a map, roll some dice, history games. And i agree, events make for decisions deeper than "risk"
Great video. I feel the exact same way - I've love to see more games inspired by real-world history and systems. Thanks for sharing!
Historic Wargame? I will cheat...what could never be a board game as it is way too massive in scope. Gary Grigsby's "The Pacific War" for MSDOS (1992!!) - Think of it as a computerized board game. Available for free by the current IP owners Matrix games for a few years already.
Lessons you learn:
- Supply is everything. Without it modern war simply cannot be fought
- oil production and supplies are ESSENTIAL for the Japanese
- Commanders leadership experience can be game changing
- Commanders may be good as an air commander but useless for either ground or naval forces
- Japanese and "Allied" leadership structures are REALLY different and dramatically affect how you play the game. You learn how badly fractured the Japanese military structure is and how it hamstrings you at times you don't want it to be
- Atoll battles are usually quick, bloody and brutal.
- Jungle battles in New Guinea and Burma (or elsewhere) are long drawn out and indecisive, with troops taking a long time to be resupplied after any offensive.
- aircraft range is essential. Having great aircraft that can't reach enemy bases many hundreds of miles away is pointless.
- Retraining aircrews takes time and you lose combat efficiency when you switch a squadron to a "better" aircraft
- US subs really were brutal to the Japanese. Lesson to learn? LOTS of destroyers in your convoy ports
- Later in the war US AA is so good that you could almost sail into Tokyo Bay
- SeeBees/engineers are ESSENTIAL to expand far flung military bases..and you need supplies to do that too!
- Early war the allies, including New Zealand, must RUN AWAY whenever the Japanese player shows up, Their bnacy, commanders and aircraft carriers will tear through you.
- Successful island hopping requires good commanders, good supplies, combined forces and requires a lot of planning
- As a Japanese player you MUST MUST MUST stop the US capturing islands that are close enough for them to build out to a level that they can stage their big long range bombers at. Once this is done your game is not going to be fun
A lot to learn and a large historical supplement to tell you what and why things happened as it did.
Hi, I really enjoyed your discussion. I have been interested in History for a while now, and also happen to be getting into board gaming also. I have been struggling to find an overlap except in war games also. Perhaps Historic non war games is a niche that might be developed. If I could learn more about History through games I would be ecstatic! Thanks for being thought provoking. Heath.
Have you played Sola Fide it's one of my favourites it's a 2 player historical game of the Reformation which has the rulebook give context by explaining the significance of each cards and has the highs and lows of both sides. Watergate also did this well by explaining its history
No, i have not. Have still to play watergate as well, which i keep hearing good things about
I think you were a little hard on this old game from 1986 , but you made some very good points. I thought the game was a step up from Risk but still a light 4X type game. I think you may have hit the nail with the issue about local knowledge. The UK has many local dialects which have routes in history of different groups, british/welsh, english/angles, saxon , jutes , danes, norweigian, irish/scots, celts, roman, norman, french amongst others. Maybe the game should be considered more of a geographical aid than a historical aid.
It is very light game and has not aged well compared to newer games, but it does show that the UK is made up of a mix of different peoples even if an island.
Yeah, thats probably fair. It's a bit like watching an old western movie about the US Calvary killing the "evil injuns" and thinking "this ain't good history"
Kneecapper, i'm gonna assume you didn't watch the video, or you would know the answer to that question already. As i spent a lot of time on it.
You should check out Europe Divided (same designer as Undaunted Normandy). I’d be interested in hearing what you think of that both from a gameplay as well as historic game.
I have requested that one from the publisher. David came on my radar because of Pavlovs house, which i gave my solo game award to last year.
I absolutely agree with you on every point. at the end ,and its my belief, that fun should be prioritized over anything else. But since fun is subjective to every person... its very hard to achieve. One good example for me is combat commander, me and my friend while we understand the context of the war, we played it a lot and its expansions and enjoy it
Great video and comments. Just picking up on your last comments that historical games are mainly focused on war, with some economical.. you actually had Brass in the video. Coming from Manchester and living next to a canal, Brass Lancashire made me rethink and understand why and how the industrial revolution happened. It changed my factual history into a flowing non-deterministic view of what could have happened.
Living in Africa now, we should not hide away from colonial games. We need to know that imperialistic history, and learn to change and adapt to a one world viewpoint that we are all equal.
My issue with colonial games has never been the subject matter. Just that its almost always presenting colonialism as one way traffic and that the games are very sterile. A set collection game doesn't need a colonial theme.
Great analysis. That’s why I’m a Patreon supporter of this channel.
Cheers Vadim
When I play my old WW2 (and other historic games) I feel encouraged to look into the history though other sources. It's why I'm +100 hours into AColdWar POD after playing Twilight Struggle ages ago. It's why I have a bunch of history books and hours spent online googling. The game is the catalyst for my interest spike and also many many questions.
The context of these history games is nearly always HORRIFIC.
But that is the evolution and humanity in general. It's why we love blood bowl (horrific), Gloomhaven (horrific), Eclipse (crush you horrific), StarWars (megga horrific and that aimed at children).
We humans are spellbound by subjugation and killing. We should get over it I guess.
Wonderfully thought provoking video J.
Cheers Partymeeple. One of the fun things about fiction though is we can explore ideas and concepts without having to worry too much about historic accuracy or totality. Blood Bowl is a violent game, sure. But who cares that a random Halfling from a fictional world just got blocked to death by a chaos warrior called Ugrub the despoiler. Those are really safe settings where we can explore strong and adult content without it being an issue.
Or to put it another way. Its far easier to do a game of Star Wars Rebellion where either side can win and everyone can feel good, than it is to do the same about the warsaw uprising of 1944.
@@3MBG I feel, it's the action that's the issue (rather than the situation)? The human psychology of killing and oppression is borne somewhere. It's why some parents do not like their children playing soldiers. The children are just playing a fantasy war (of what ever era, from ancient to space), but the fun they are having is based on winning by violence.. ..and the deontologist in me thinks this is still sketchy.
Will I give up playing an old war game from time to time? No way. I'm still super intrigued by them. But the base idea, regardless of if it's historically based or fantasy, still feels a bit irksome to me somewhere deep down.
~shrugs ~
@@partymeeple5633 A friend of mine did a video about decolonizing video games. The core tropes of many games are "get all the things" and "kill all the dudes and take their stuff". So yeah, its one of those notes we hit over and over in gaming. Even if its fantasy. Still, i think there is a lot less harm doing it that way of course.
@@3MBG Yeah totally. "No animals were harmed in this movie (that's celebrating hunting as a sport)".
I spent all day feeling like I'd not explained my self very well in my last comment. But I feel you get my gist?
Either way, that was a wonderfully thought provoking video. It's had me thinking about it constantly since I watched it (twice).
Historical board games should give you an experience of the relevant history. That's not the same thing as teaching X or Y about history. It's broader and more open. I think expecting a game to "teach" is misguided.
I'm not saying that there shouldn't be games that have "teaching" as their goal. But to say that as a rule historical games should "teach" is overly restrictive.
Would you agree that historic games should not "misteach" though. For the sake of the gameplay, they shouldn't present history inaccurately.
Couldn't agree more. Now go and iron your shirt. :-)
Hahahaha, i haven't ironed a shirt since my civil union :)
My first historic board game was History of the World. Probably the game that inspired Britannia.
The map is the whole world and the parties include pretty much every power there was from the first city states to the morons that stumbled into WW I.
There is something to learn from this game.
Empires of importance that you have never heard of, their capital, their most prominent leaders.
You draw the Arabs in the third epoch, and although you have plenty of units, you do not make it into Italy. Not by ship, because they lack a fleet. Not through Spain, because they always tend to run out of troops in France. When your turn is over, you find that your conquest is so similar to the the course of history.
Kia ora Jarrod, that was a really good video. I really liked hearing your take on the game and then you moving out to a much broader picture.
I have been playing Britannia since I bought the Gibson Games version way back in 1988. I have really enjoyed my games of it; but then I *am* really interested in the history of the British Isles. I too was occasionally frustrated with the scripted nature of the game especially things like the Jutes score 4VP for Kent and the Romano British can see this coming and heavily fortify the area in advance. If Kent is protected but Essex is wide open then I feel the Jutes should settle there and score their points in Essex. So we house ruled that sort of thing. Nominate an area adjacent to the scripted target area and score your points there. It didn't seem to break the game.
Having said all that, Britannia languishes on the shelf these days. I can't get rid of it for sentimental reasons, but no one much wants to play it over other more recent games. The 'Roll d6 to hit' battles are a bit tedious and the game length is too long for what it is - and this from a group that plays 18xx and Through The Ages. I appreciate your thought-provoking comments on the 'genocidal' trope of the game, but I personally am not offended by it.
As for other games I own that paper over past atrocities: Puerto Rico, Mombassa, 1775, Great Western Trail... Imperial is probably the worst one - you literally play as shady Swiss financiers coercing governments into waging war for your own profit. Having said ' worst' it is also the best in that it explicitly tells you who benefits from wars. Keep up the good work!
Great video, as always. The "what-if" aspect of historical boardgames is especially important, because it's a fundamental aspect of history writing. When we investigate the past, and have to chose between the myriad of possible and plausible causes, we have to ask ourselves how things would have unfolded absent this or that factor; this or that decision; this or that historical actor. This is how historians discriminate between minor and major elements of their explanations. Well-made boardgames can help explore and engage with these potential and often competing explanations. It can also show the constraints in which historical actors operated, in ways that are often difficult to grasp from, say, a textbook. I remember a really great game of Wilderness War (another GMT) with my father, which pretty much unfolded as the Seven Years War did in North America. It really made it clear for him how geography and logistics constrained the movement of 18th century armies. It's one thing to "know" it from a book. It's another to "see" it unfolding on a map.
One thing that historical boardgames could explore better (to say nothing of the under-representation of certain places and peoples) is perhaps the sort of impersonal forces we all have to contend with. It's not surprising: after all, playing games, we want to have some measure of control, and some way to assess the impact of our decisions. But this can indeed magnify "great men" history, especially in violent (or industrial) conflicts.
I appreciated the insights you had behind what makes a historical event resonate with a person and how that translates to a historical board game. Very cool!
Wow. Mind blown. Going to try and not ramble. Most of my games are world War II mostly tactical a few strategic but in those
games for this period I understand from history classes from books from TV from games why that war, or that specific battle happened(Midway). (mostly). You now have me thinking about my other games from say the time of Julius Caesar (Caesar Legions & it's modern upgrade Caesar in Gaul), English Civil War (Cruel Necessity), Warriors of God (Fr.-Eng wars 300 yrs!)1135-1453. Most of my games are: you are here, n we need to go there and someone may try n stop you. Go.
Me:I wanted to be a history major I wanted to be a history teacher but parental coercion kept that away from me. But I took history classes for every elective that I could possibly take, I've read hundreds of books and still have most of them, hopefully packed nicely away to go back to sometime.
Almost 66 And I have forgotten a lot of what I have learned but your words really opened my eyes and I'm going to go look at all my games, 170, if you include some blah not even beginning/real conflict(like Risk) games, to see for my own edification, is the story complete there, or is it missing details and can I print out a page or two for whomever has these games after I, hopefully, get to Heaven( to play some more canasta with my folks(mom always destroyed me- lots of fun)), so that next person can say oh, wow. I did not know that.
My daughter's will sell my collection.
I will go through my list that I have on my phone of my games and mark the ones that I think I have to look into. Maybe if the game doesn't have a book list reference I can include some book titles too.
I'm retired I got plenty of time I hope.
Cheers Charles, glad it was thought provoking
@@3MBG I have also been looking at games that I know nothing about like I bought Paper Wars compass games the Fall of Siam. Why?got an very 'old' world history book. it was just fantastic reading to learn about the conflicts that have been going on and eventually wanting to know more.
Old encyclopedia book copyright 1948. I think I'll need to leave this on my game table and make myself do some reading before I start any new game.
Very very interesting video! I’ll be honest I’ve never played a single historic board game.. but after watching this I’m so interested in Twilight Struggle- the fact that the decisions you make in the game can help teach you why history played out a certain way, because they make good strategic sense, is awesome. Cheers Jarrod :)
How do you feel about games like:
Colonialism: the ugliness of how you (probably) win is a feature and exactly what the game is (probably) trying to convey.
The Cost: I can't even play it. I remember watching people die from asbestos. Its just too sad for me.
Colonialism in games frequently bugs me, not because colonialism is a dark subject. But because most games present it as either a good thing, or a neutral thing. Glossing over the bad parts to make it about "who can ship the most cotton" wins. They very rarely say "oh yeah, all that cotton and tobacco is slave labour by the way, and the winner is the person who exploited people best".
I find a lot of those games could have been something else without hurting the game at all. And by presenting a sterile fantasy version of colonialism they perpetuating myths and misconceptions. So i do think they do a bit of harm, yes.
@@3MBG Are you replying to me or someone else? The themes and settings of the games The Cost and Colonialism are entirely the point. If you changed them the games would be significantly different games.
I'm no expert on play in Colonialism, but I'm pretty sure the person who wins is the person who takes the resources most efficiently, regardless of how they get there. The art of brutalness of the game is entirely the point.
The Cost is (not entirely) about pricing human life. Which is something every company and every government does, at least to some extent.
Sorry, i thought you meant colonialism as a general theme. Not a specific game. Apologies.
@@3MBG no problems. Did you have an opinion on either of them? The other one I'd mention is An Infamous Traffic where winning involves running the opium trade in China most successfully
Can't say i've played either of them sorry
Thanks. A Great engaging video.I found that really interesting and broadly agree. That leads me to wonder - Why do I actually like Britannia? It is highly ethno-centric if not racist. Also it is over long & really needs exactly 4 players - not an easy combination to achieve.
There is one odd element of Britannia that you don't address though. That is the grouping of the different factions Red blur brown & purple. These factions are NOT tied together historically they are purely an artefact of the game. This I think offers a clue as to why game play doesn't seem like Ethnic cleansing - at least no more so than playing Small World.
For me it combines two elements of nostalgia. First it has the broad sweep of the traditional English history I was taught in secondary school - Angles Saxons Jutes. It also feels like my early gaming fun playing Risk but without the horror of one players getting knocked one by one, Here I'm there with all my chums having fun right to the last move.
Excellent points and I for one agree with you! An actual historic board game should also teach you about history, otherwise it's just a shallow reenactment.
Amazing vid. I'm a history teacher and a huge board gamer and absolutely loved this video. Very well thought out and explained.
I find the GMT games great at capturing the times, events, and history of the era they cover without being controlled by it. The outcomes can come out so different then the actual events while still being influenced by them.
Glad you enjoyed it! Yeah, my thoughts exactly on the GMT thing. I trained as a history teacher, but ended up doing other work instead. But its always something i wished i stuck with.
@@3MBG it's a rare place where my passions can be turned into a career. I just barely got started in it but it took me a long time to get here as I had to provide for my family and do school on the side for many years.
I honestly really like your channel as it's both informative and has a pleasant candor that sometimes is lacking in other channels. Your passion, appreciation, and deep knowledge for this hobby really shine through.
Plus we like a lot of the same games and have similar histories with GW and board games. Board games and the enjoyment and social aspect or them kept me going through a two year recovery from a really bad car wreck some years ago and were one of the few bright spots of my days during those times.
Thank you for the content. I look forward to your videos.
In general I would agree with the theme of what you have said, but I am not sure that Britannia is as much a dead duck of a historical game as you propose.
With Britannia I would consider it a picture of where the land owners came from, that top 5% of society that did regularly wipe each other out rather than the other 95% of mud digging farmers beneath them, the modern genetic record shows that the peasants were impacted but rarely wiped out by leadership change. Part of the problem is that there is very little in the way of written record of events and what does exist was often written hundreds of years after the events took place. Much of the history of this period is based on stories and the archaeological evidence, not first hand record.
Part of the evidence for so many changes in leadership is the record of British place names which old and they trace their roots into a maze of different languages and dialects dependent on who happened to own which bit of land at which time.
Britannia may not be great at teaching the why of all these waves of invasions of and power centres growing within Great Britain (as nobody really knows), but it does teach the idea that this was an incredibly unstable period of history for the islands, only to be toned down, but not stopped once William the bastard got the crown.
Oh and if you think that mass genocide never happened on the UK mainland then read wiki on the harrying of the north en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrying_of_the_North 75% of the population over a vast area died or moved away.
I've never even played a proper war game I just wanna commend the quality and quantity of content since you went full time. The production on this one looked great as well.
Man I've fallen in love whith some crap games, and this is one of them , might get the reprint, on
Hey, no one can really tell us how to have fun, fill your boots mate ;)
House rule: VPs don’t matter, you win by saying and playing your turn based on motivations
For Britannia ofc
Can you elaborate what you mean? This intrigues me.
@@mathiasgreyjoy1611 basically you create your own objectives. Rather than being pushed to take certain regions at certain times because it gives you VPs, you say I’m going to be ruler of all Cornwall because *invent story here*, achieve that and you win. Options for multiple people to win if objectives don’t clash, or changing objectives based on narrative story. E.g you become ruler of Cornwall but your character has become too greedy or bloodthirsty and now wants to be king of all England (harder objective but more engaging than just sitting back).
I’d be interested in your take on it. ‘‘Twas just an idea for my part
@@RobotShield That's fascinating! After playing it the legal way I would be super down to try that and see how it goes. Are you on Reddit? I've recently started a subreddit for the Britannia board game, r/BritanniaBoardGame. You should check it out, and you could even post about your homebrew style of play!
www.reddit.com/r/BritanniaBoardGame/
@@mathiasgreyjoy1611 thanks! I don’t use Reddit sadly but let me know how it goes if you try it
With light history games, it's also really important to mention the Eurocentrism of the development model - it implies that the way European culture developed is a template that every culture would/should follow. That's not just inaccurate, it's a harmful model for looking at civilisations, and leads to hugely racist perspectives about other cultures.
Great video, and touches on some of the ideas I had planned to touch on if I ever did a Sam Has Opinions about historical games.
(And in fact, I'm going to gratuitously plug my defunct channel and recommend Sam Has Opinions about politics in games, which I think builds on some of what you talk about at the end of the video t.co/o91TrqUqkx )
I believe that up to about 20 years ago, the history of war was important to learn so that we don't repeat mistakes of past generations.
However, within the last 20 years, war isn't so much taking place on a physical battle field anymore.
Most international conflicts have turned to cyberspace. Some say that we're in the middle of a second Cold War.
So, is learning about past wars still important?
What if we replaced 12 years of learning traditional world history, and replace it with teaching kids computer coding and international commerce?
🤔
I think the causes of conflict are more important than the methods by which they are fought. 5th domain warfare (Cyber) happens for the same reasons that 1st, 2nd and 3rd domain warfare has happened (Land, Sea, Air). Perhaps if we are focused on cyber for tactical games that makes sense.
There have been a lot of wars that have not impacted you. The middle east is a mess, with heavy US involvement. The African Congo is a mess.
The effects of internal conflict in Syria, Yemen and Mexico is catastrophic.
@@thumper8684
Don't assume things, my friend.
I live on the border of Texas and Mexico.
I've got the Cartel knocking at my backdoor.
I've gone outside and seen the clouds of smoke from grenades in the street.
My aunt's funeral was interrupted by the Cartel. Our family owns a private cemetery. But that didn't stop the Cartel from showing up and flexing their muscle.
I use to work for Homeland Security. I was part of the first wave of officers dispatched at the end of 2001.
One of my officers recovered a baby from a man only to realize that the baby was dead, gutted, and packed full of drugs.
These horror stories don't make national news, but it's everyday life for people in South Texas.
And honestly, nothing that we learned in history class helped guide our anti-terrorism nor anti-trafficking teams.
@@samueleuresti3 That sounds terrible. I am not a historian, but the relationship between Mexico and the US has not been good. Maybe the US needs to work with their neighbour in dealing with this.
@@thumper8684
Unless the U.S. is going to invade and occupy Mexico, nothing will be resolved.
Remember when the war between Crips and Bloods was really bad from the late 70's to the early 90's? Well, now imagine if that gang war had spread and covered the entire U.S.
Well, that's basically what has happened in Mexico. There is no political solution. It would take military force to overwhelm and overthrow the various cartels and mafia gangs in Mexico.
Then, the U.S. could hit the "Reset" button.
Mexico needs to be completely torn down and rebuilt.
Nice vid, but I have to disagree with some of your conclusions. First of all you seem to be comparing games that take an in depth look at a singular event to a game that tries to vaguely sum up the events of a THOUSAND PLUS YEARS.
Also your ethical conclusions are... problematic. What about Tzolkin, where human sacrifice is trivialised and boiled down to a point salad exercise? What about Agricola, that makes the story of historic animal oppression and abuse into a cutesy little 'I oppressed more animals successfully'? What about any game that incentivises greed and capitalism?
I'm tempted to say the answer is - let's focus on tangible things that exist and actually matter, rather than crude representations.
Hmmm, you almost had a point until you went off the slippery slope with the agricola example. Personally, i think Tzolkin is a bit shady for its theme as well and im personally not a fan of point salad euros that use colonialism and/or human sacrifice in game. The difference between Britannia and Agricola though, and most games in fact, is they don't say they are teaching history. Britannia does, right on the box lid.
So i believe it is fair to rip on a game that markets itself as teaching history for its failure to do so.
@@3MBG I don't think the Agricola example is slippery slope at all, I'm sure a lot of fellow vegans and vegetarians will agree with me. The history of farming is a long story of animal oppression and abuse, and farming games gloss over that. But I personally don't have a problem with that, because they are games, and they have to abstract to a degree. Yes, every now and then a game comes along and deals with the subject matter in a lot more of a deep, interesting and sensitive manner that is hard to pull off but praiseworthy.
But I don't think that makes games that don't achieve that redundant or morally repulsive; for instance This War of Mine (as I know you also praise it) deals with the topic of war and conflict in a way that puts most other conflict based games to shame. A game that sheds light on the ills of capitalism would put light-hearted 'the greediest player wins' stockmarket and euro games to shame, and that's like most of the industry.
I take the approach that its totally fine to simulate all of these oddities as long as it isn''t doing direct harm to a group, or (and I take my hat off to your point here) touts to represent something accurately when it doesn't. I think the problem with the Britannia critique though (open to correction here) is that as I said, it has to gloss over a lot to sum up history. It can only be vague and representative at best. I don't see how it blatantly misrepresents, and is no different than any other board game that takes liberties with history or historical ideas to fit the template of game mechanics (like homogenous races).
I haven't played the most recent print of the game but perhaps future prints can fix some of these issues by providing more information in the rulebook (older prints do have some insightful stuff), text about the factions on their faction boards, notes about how and why they decided to represent certain groups independently as they did (its a pretty tough job breaking up all that complex history into arbitrary factions) etc. But I don't think its possible for such a far reaching game (in terms of its scope) to achieve what you seem to hope from it. Perhaps it could do better, sure.
By the way, just want to make clear, love your content, and I think insights such as these and discussions like this, regardless of who disagrees or agrees and if certain viewers don't like it or think its controversial, are important and necessary. So well done mate.
Just don't rip on one of my favourite games! lol
Apologies, i assumed you were being facetious with the Agricola example. I think the crux of my issues are what you outline in your middle paragraph. Britannias scope is too wide to teach the history. So conceptually, from idea 1, it would always be a failure as a history game that teaches history. Hence the comparison to civilzation and games that use the trappings of history.
And i think i would have enjoyed it as a game more, if it was less mechanically prescriptive in its approach as well. It was that weird juxtaposition of locked timings and scorings, with an overall lack of reasoning that threw me so much.
I welcome the warped genocidal perspective presented in this game. There are so many options out there (for players looking for a more somber approach) and at the end of the day I am paying/playing for personal entertainment. Keep up the good work.
Brittania, a beautiful game ruined by an arbitrary narrative.
@@Cloudman572 I posted before watching the whole video and assumed that you have to play the game exactly the same each time.😅 Is it more freedom of choice like Axis & Allies?
@@LeeroyPorkins, you absolutely do not have to play Britannia the same way each time. You can do whatever you want with your forces within the limits of the rules, albeit if you ignore your historically-based victory conditions, you are going to have a difficult chance to win. One of the biggest wild cards in the game is the negotiations that players can conduct with each other, to sway the course of warring and truces over the years. Negotiation is not an integrated part of the rules of Britannia per se, but I think Dr Pulsipher would say that negotiation is the biggest key to victory in the game. If people think Britannia plays the same way over and over -- that is that it is on rails -- then I don't think they have played or watched enough games with different sets of players.
@@MeanderingMikesManCave My mistake 😅 I thought the game was scripted to play a certain way each time.
@@LeeroyPorkins , yeah, the reviewer made it sound like the Timeline scripted things rather strictly. While it does dictate when Invasions happen, when boats are available, and when some reinforcements arrive, Nations will also grow based on the territories they control, and this will ebb and flow throughout the years. Your diplomatic and strategic decision making skills can readily alter a particular nation's course through history.
@@MeanderingMikesManCave Good to know.