
The Fall of Avalon Hill (1998) - shawndumas
http://home.earthlink.net/~pdr4455/fah.html
======
hudibras
It's interesting how this article thinks it's inevitable that wargames have
had their day in the sun and will now die away almost completely, when in fact
the wargame world is far stronger and the games far more interesting now than
back in 1998.

Someone with more experience on the business side can explain it better than
me, I'm sure, but the shift from catalog sales to pre-orders saved the
industry. Instead of printing up 10,000 copies of _Spices of the World_ and
hoping they sell out, now the publishers have cash money in hand and know that
they'll (probably) make a profit once the printing presses start up.

~~~
pessimizer
It's definitely true that wargaming is stronger than it was in 1998, but it's
still not a shadow of what it was in the 60s. Wargaming, as far as I know, has
had a greying problem for a long time. Light Weuros are attracting some
crossover boardgamers, but I'm not seeing those people moving into the
historical simulations of actual wargaming.

I love Sakigahara, the COINs and most of the Mark Herman games, but I'm not
moving any farther in that direction.

~~~
panglott
I dunno, I've been reading the book _Playing at the World_ [0], and while in
the 1960s, wargames and miniatures were at the center of hobby gaming, it
seems to have more of a small-but-passionate fanbase. There was one major
company that went bankrupt, and lots of small, transient publishers, gaming
groups, and fanzines, mostly going into and out of business after a couple of
issues.

Wargames got so baroque, I find it hard to believe very many people playing
the 60+ hour campaign of _Terrible Swift Sword_. Although probably thousands
of people have played _Pandemic: Legacy_ , which itself will look strange in
30 years.

[0]
[https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/](https://playingattheworld.blogspot.com/)

------
JoeDaDude
This is, of course, ancient news. If anyone misses the old wargames, I invite
you to come to Board Game Geek (aka BGG) [1] and check out the scene. While
they cover a lot more than wargames, the wargame community tends to be very
active. War games are alive and well, though perhaps a niche hobby. The
companies mentioned in the article are still alive and well, in particular,
Multi Man Publishing continues to publish games for the Advanced Squad Leader
rule set, however irregularly [2]. [1]
[https://www.boardgamegeek.com/wargames](https://www.boardgamegeek.com/wargames)
[2]
[http://www.multimanpublishing.com/Products/tabid/58/Category...](http://www.multimanpublishing.com/Products/tabid/58/CategoryID/4/Default.aspx)

~~~
jldugger
It's kind of interesting how things build on off of others, and yet diverge
wildly. Wargaming minis spawned D&D. And while the spell mechanics of MtG were
inspired by Cosmic Encounter, the combat is familiar to D&D players, and
caught on like wildfire among the RPG community.

And MtG in turn has inspired a number of games, beyond simple CCG clones. MtG
booster pack drafting inspired 7 Wonders and a number of similar games. Deck
customization aspects inspired Dominion and countless other Deck Builder
games. The whole CCG aftermarket trading / tournament scene inspired a game
called Millenium Blades.

~~~
labster
If we have played better games, it is because we stand on the shoulders of
hill giants.

------
StanislavPetrov
>Even wargamers would be hard pressed to name more than a few AH computer
products, and nothing ever came close to impacting the general public like
SimCity or Quake.

I think he is selling Avalon Hill a little short. As a gamer in the 80s I
remember Avalon Hill very fondly. This was especially true in the early 80s
when games were few and far between. I spent many hours tediously loading B-1
Nuclear Bomber on my tape cassette drive. They certainly never had a huge
impact on the general public like SimCity but they were very well-appreciated
and well-regarded in the Gaming community. To this day I still occasionally
load up Guderian on the emulator, which remains an extremely challenging game
even given the limits of AI in 1986.

~~~
Falkon1313
Third Reich PC was one of those games that was years late (due to rewrites and
so forth, came out almost half a decade after Advanced Third Reich and years
after several competing PC games, and seemed archaic when it was released) and
had an annoying UI, but it worked. And considering the complexity level of
that game, it's really amazing that anyone could create a working PC version.

------
rodgerd
RuneQuest was hands-down my favourite pencil-and-paper gaming system ever; one
thing I think it suffered from was that the world of Glorantha, while very
much true to Bronze Age mythos, was a conceptual reach for people used to
thinking of D&D's action-movie worldview.

~~~
eikenberry
+1 .. RuneQuest was great. The only rival for my affections at the time were
Chaosium games.

~~~
qohen
Then this [0] (from 6/15) might interest you:

 _We have pressed the reset button...

In 1975 Chaosium started out as a quirky boutique game company. We were all
about creativity, artistry and craftsmanship. With every game we provided you
with new realms of imagination and entertainment. Over the last few years we
forgot that, and lost our way.

The Great Old Ones have Returned…

Greg Stafford, founder of Chaosium and creative force during its heyday, is
now President. Sandy Petersen, world renowned game designer who brought
Cthulhu into the light three decades ago, has rejoined the team as well.

Greg says: "Chaosium is part of my legacy. My intent is to restore it to its
rightful place in the world of gaming. Something we can all take pride in, and
something that fans will look forward to.Where 'what’s next?' is answered with
'I can’t wait'."

The Stars are Right…

Sandy says: "I am excited to return to active participation in the Call of
Cthulhu line, and I’m eagerly looking forward to working directly with Greg
again. We are Chaosium's original team from the 1980s. My first focus is going
to be the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition Kickstarter campaign."

Our main plan is simple (but will be a lot of work):

Quickly sift and sort through the current company problems

Immediately ship the remaining Horror on the Orient Express backer rewards

Focus on the Call of Cthulhu 7th edition Kickstarter backer rewards

Return to regularly making awesome new games.

We offer new hope, and ask only for your patience."

Please visit Chaosium.com for regular news and updates. Contact us with
questions, kudos, curses, or kindness. We are listening, and we will respond.

Greg Stafford, President and CEO of Chaosium Inc.

I’m puttin' the band back together._

[https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?757863-The-Great-Old-
On...](https://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?757863-The-Great-Old-Ones-have-
Returned-Chaosium)

~~~
qohen
And, if you really like RuneQuest's world of Glorantha, you might enjoy this
[0] Kickstarter (active for 18 more days) for a boardgame w/great minis a la
Cthulhu Wars (by the same guy):

 _Designed by Sandy Petersen and based on the mythic cult universe of
Glorantha, The Gods War is a fast moving strategy game set in a universe on
the brink of disaster. In The Gods War, you take the part of powerful
elemental factions, battling to determine the fate of the cosmos. The Gods War
has been in development for more than three years. It is highly asymmetric
featuring wildly different factions. You’ll fight over territory, perform
miracles, and command monsters and gods. You can storm the gates of heaven
itself, or watch the world collapse into the Chaos Rift._

[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1816687860/the-gods-
war...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1816687860/the-gods-war/)

~~~
kriro
As someone who owns everything Cthulhu Wars (CW) I can support that
suggestion. I know nothing about the Glorantha universe and will back it for
the 450$ tier. CW is gorgeous (amazing production those miniatures are the
best board game pieces I have ever used) and the game play is great while
keeping the game time reasonable (if you're experienced you can pump out a 4-5
player game in 90 minutes). I also met Sandy at the Spiel in Essen and he's a
very cool dude :)

------
miiiiiike
I've been reading the fantastic "Zones of Control: Perspectives on Wargaming"
([https://mitpress.mit.edu/zones-control](https://mitpress.mit.edu/zones-
control)) recently.

Good stuff on everything from modeling counter-insurgencies in games to a
history of Amarillo Design Bureau, who acquired the rights to Star Trek TOS in
1981. When nobody cared.. In perpetuity.. And have been creating an alternate
canon for one of the world's most popular franchises since.

------
kabdib
I had a few Avalon Hill games when I was growing up, but none of my friends
wanted to play them, and I was terrible at finding new friends.

So I read the rulebooks for Panzer Blitz and various other WWII games. That
might have been more fun than playing the games :-)

~~~
gedy
> So I read the rulebooks for Panzer Blitz and various other WWII games. That
> might have been more fun than playing the games :-)

Ha, this was my experience with D&D as well

~~~
thaumasiotes
This was also my experience with D&D. Reading the books is great. Playing the
game doesn't work so well.

I wasn't a big fan of the 4th edition pivot to "if we have one goal in
printing these, it's that _nobody_ will ever read one of our books for
pleasure".

------
DavidAdams
I worked at a game store in high school, around 1987 to 1989. This was before
Magic: The Gathering was released, which really up-ended the game world. We
carried the full contingent of Avalon Hill games, including a big war game
selection with a whole library's worth of ASL books. You could always tell the
guys who were coming in for Squad Leader stuff. They stood apart from the D&D
nerds.

At some point in my tenure there, I traveled up to Baltimore to go to Avalon
Hill with my boss. They had some sort of distribution center there, with a lot
of miniatures, and I went to pick through their bins of random stuff and
select the things that I thought would sell well. It's a great memory.

For any 40-something folks from the Washington DC suburbs out there, the store
was Dream Wizards, in Rockville.

~~~
Dotnaught
I travelled often from D.C. to Dream Wizards in the mid-1980s on the T4 and T6
buses, before I got my driver's license. There was Chimera Books too, just
down the road, off Rockville Pike.

------
wrigby
I have tons of memories of playing Civilization with my brothers. We would
leave the game board set up for weeks at a time and play it for a couple hours
every day. It's frustrating to know that such a great board game was killed
off by a naming conflict.

~~~
JoshTriplett
I'd really love to track down a copy of Advanced Civilizations. I played the
computer version many times.

~~~
pessimizer
You have two options other than ebay:

[https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/880022/civilization-
total-g...](https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/880022/civilization-total-
graphic-redesign)

A completely recreated version of Advanced Civilization w/fantastic all new
art. There are people such as printplayproductions.com [1] who will make one-
off copies of prototype games on request from sets of files, but will probably
run you in the $150 to $200 range. This is the copy I have.

[https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/184424/mega-
civilization](https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/184424/mega-civilization)

Currently available in retail boardgaming outlets, very deluxe and very huge.
Extreme boardgaming. Retails around $250.

\-----

Both of these versions come with all of the expansions and supplementary
material, and Mega-Civilization comes with a lot more, driving the maximum
player count up to 18(!). Both options are cheaper than trying to accumulate
all of the original material on ebay, and the components are nicer.

Just trying to be helpful...

[1]
[http://www.printplaygames.com/prototypes](http://www.printplaygames.com/prototypes)

~~~
JoshTriplett
Does Mega Civilization change the rules at all other than adding enough
materials for more players? Or can you take a subset of the materials and play
a game of Advanced Civilization with them?

As much as I enjoy Advanced Civilization, it does take a long time to play;
lengthening it even further and getting more people together doesn't really
help.

~~~
pessimizer
From the photos, it looks like the board is sectional, and you can remove the
East in pieces as you reduce the player count. I'm guessing you can play
straight Civ and Adv. Civ without any additions with it.

I'm a partisan towards the redesign, probably because I have it (had it made
at printplayproductions.) It's really gorgeous and the components are very
high quality, and there are no differences in play from the original, other
than the errata are fixed. He makes a lot of them, so the turnaround time will
probably be negligible. This is how the redesign looks.

[https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1598294/advanced-
civilizatio...](https://boardgamegeek.com/image/1598294/advanced-civilization)

~~~
JoshTriplett
I don't see it on the printplayproductions site. Has the setup work already
been done, or would someone interested in a copy need to re-make the
arrangements?

~~~
pessimizer
Email the address at the top of the prototypes page. He can only do it by
request as a service to you. He doesn't market any game without an arrangement
with the author. He'll probably respond with options. I haven't ordered from
him in years, so I don't know how it works of late.

edit: this is how it used to work...

[https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/52127/item/2549854#item25...](https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/52127/item/2549854#item2549854)

------
Zardoz84
I know the name of Avalon Hill thanks to Advanced Civilizations for MSDOS.
Sometimes I keep playing against the AI of this game. Very impressive for a
DOS game, as it's hard to win it.

------
afterburner
GMT Games has definitely come a long way. And there are many others.

------
ddp
FYI, SPI lives on still in [https://www.hexwar.net/](https://www.hexwar.net/)

