Tactics (game)

Tactics (English for tactics ) is a tactical board game that was published in 1954 by Charles S. Roberts. The game is generally regarded as the first commercially published military simulation game.

Formation

Tactics was developed in the early 1950s by the American cadets of the National Guard Charles S. Roberts for the training of tactical skills as an alternative to the traditional and expensive military simulations and sandbox games. The great success of the game with his comrades led him to his development to have it printed by the small publisher Stackpole Company in 1954 as a board game and distribute branded Avalon Hill Game Company. In subsequent years, the game sold so well that Roberts refined the gameplay and 1958, along with other games, the slightly modified version of Tactics II brought by the newly founded by him game publisher Avalon Hill on the market.

Tactics II was produced from 1958 to 1998 in almost unchanged form and distributed worldwide. Except for the Portuguese -speaking world, where the game was distributed by the Brazilian manufacturer Grow Jogos e Brinquedos, there was the American original game for a small fee game guides in various languages ​​, including German. In 1983, the original Tactics appeared once as an anniversary edition for collectors. With the acquisition of Avalon Hill by Hasbro in 1998, the production was stopped.

Game play

The aim of the game is to conquer on a game plan, which is an island with two countries, all cities in the enemy territory and occupy at least one round, or completely destroy the opposing army. To this end, both players at the start of the game each have a large number of Pappkärtchen, the so-called Counter representing military units. The counters can be dragged into playing and some fixed rules across the board and fight directly adjacent enemy units at the end of each turn.

Battles are carried out with the help of a cube and a results table for battles. Here, the dice, luck plays only a minor role, much more dependent the results shown in the table on the position and the numerical superiority or inferiority of warring units from. Consequences of a battle can be forced retreats or destruction of one or more units.

Games Historical Significance

Tactics is considered a milestone in the development of games, because on the one hand the hitherto known only in military circles military simulations were now available in more manageable for individuals size, were introduced to the other but also more innovative game - Mechnismen that are still reused up today. These include primarily the counter, which allow a flexible assembly and management of various properties of game characters. But the realistic and less dependent on luck results tables are an innovation that make the game more of a tactical challenge than a gamble. Make up today the rationale for most military strategy games dar.

Tactics solved, especially in the United States of America in the second half of the 20th century a boom for military simulation games from holding in varying intensity until today. In this case, however, the computer strategy games have now clearly superseded the board games in their popularity.