How Did War Become a Game?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 มิ.ย. 2024
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In this video we continue to take a look at the history of Kriegsspiel and explore the early days of wargaming that eventually gave rise to modern table top games such as Warhammer and Dungeons & Dragons.
Research: Jon Peterson
Script: Invicta
Narration: Invicta
Artwork: Gabriel Cassata
Editing: Invicta
Bibliography
Playing at the World by Jon Peterson
Debugging Game History: A Critical Lexicon by Henry Lowood
War Games: A History of War on Paper by Philipp von Hilgers
Pluie de Balles - Complex Wargames In the Classroom by Jorit Wintjes and, Steffen Pielstrom
#History
#Gaming
I hope you all enjoy this video! I relied quite heavily on the research of Jon Peterson and his book "Playing at the World". For anyone interested in this topic I highly recommend it as he does a fantastic job making the topic detailed yet accessible. Please use this link: amzn.to/2XlBOil for any purchases as I do see a cut of the sale which helps support the channel. Thanks!
Love the videos
Did you change the title? I saw this video yesterday and it was titled "History of Kriegsspiel and the Birth of Wargaming".
Really interesting, great video idea.
It would be much interesting to confront these wargames with modern ones like warhammer&co
And to think these nerds became the Great Grandfathers of D&D and warhammer 40k now that's f'ing cool.
"No, Franz, you cannot seduce the entire Prussian army."
*rolls 20*
Not even with the Toothbrush Mustache of Enhanced Charisma?
God tier bard 🤣🤣🤣 bet
@@d4n4nable oh ;c
*Takes of shirt Aggressively*
"just like the simulations" - prussian officer, 1871, who played the Kriegsspiel as a student, having his first battle experience.
Leon E. 😂
😂😂
😂
Kriegsapiel V.1.5.2
>Added Dice
>Added Umpire
>Better HD detailed terrain
>New Unit skin
>Unit order UI
I hope the next update has loot boxes!
Mexico ball Have they finally said anything about mod support? I want my Only War mod and Old World Blues mod.
@@IR240474 They arent called lootboxes, they are surprise mechanics
@@kalebfromme6482 hehe, they are... Surprise!
@@kabob0077 I think you can get the mods from Mod DB
I had no idea wargaming was this extensive. I love learning stuff like this.
This was tons of fun to research and I'm glad to hear you appreciated it!
You need to see my game room Metalman200xdamnit...and my collection is small (I started early but left the hobby for awhile returning about 10 years ago).
@@conflictmagazine We all start somewhere. I would love to have a game room.
It all starts with one shelf...maybe a little folding table and then... (-:
My last one was kind of jaw dropping but since a move to a new house it's hard to have a space to get proper in. I was working on a platoon level of the battle of Kursk when we had to move...gonna have to change that scale...
@@conflictmagazine True. It all starts with one.
Moves are always rough on everything. You might have to lower it to squad level for your game.
Kriegsspiel is the OG DnD, only instead of slaying dragons you slay the hapsburgs and french.
Actually Kriegsspiel is the OG of Braunstein which is the OG of D&D (-:
Slaying French and Habsburgs seem more entertained than slaying dragons. I would buy it.
DND came out of an addendum in the back of Chainmail, a simple set of ancients rules from a bunch of guys in Wisconsin. It was a suggestion for a fun change of pace, that led rather quickly to the sacred, original three book boxed set of Dungeons and Dragons.
and the a̶r̶m̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶c̶h̶a̶o̶s̶ Russian army
@@andersonbeck6805 It makes so much sense. The harsh environment, the plague-like winters, the unending masses of infantry, the starvation, the intoxication, the corruption, the perverted equality... Russia is Nurgle's playground!
6:15 "Unable to afford the expensive game of Hellwig, they built their own bootleg version themselves." War never changes.
underated comment XD
@@viraxo5474 indeed
Back then it was wooden crack.
*Fallout theme intensifies*
When playing Kriegspiel through mail correspondance, did anyone ever complain about "lag" being a factor?
It was probably still round based.
@@FactoryofRedstone What if your mail was delayed? If the opponent ended their turn more than 2 years ago and you still haven't gotten their instructions, that's game-ending lag.
No,but if the opponent was drunk,the whole session is rigged😂
Thurn und Taxis was a pretty reliable mail service.
This is how 'lag' was created!
This reminds me of a story I encountered when researching the history of war gaming. During ww2 a war game was created that was meant the simulate the battle going on in the Atlantic in an attempt to counter the German submarine operations. Teams of players on both sides would take charge of the allied and estimated German forces respectively and they would play game after game in an attempt to create real world strategies to save allied lives. During one of these games an allied player came up with an ingenious strategy. He would have his search planes fly over a sector of the map then immediately follow this search with a second flight of naval sea planes armed with depth charges. He reasoned that a German sub had a limited air supply and upon seeing the first airplane the sub would dive to safety only to reemerge once the danger had passed at which point the second plane would arrive and the sub would be unable to dive again having used up its battery and air supplies. The tactic was hugely successful in the game and immediately implemented in the field to the effect of devastating the German wolf packs and helping to turn the tide of the Atlantic theater.
Tbh that sort of thing was done dozens of times in WW2. Makes me wonder how future wars will go down
@@alyssinclair8598 One funny thing of a recent live wargame training session in Scandinavia. A soldier used distance settings on Tinderfrom different locations to triangulate "enemy" unit locations.
I wish we were speaking German today.
Raygio Vanno i wish Prussia was still here😔
@@relicarcane9878 Keep wishing, dickwad.
"Sir we just lost 5,000 men!"
"Goddamn RNG. Roll the 2D6 again and let's see if we can get an eight or higher...."
Sir we roled double 1...
2 nfantry battalions are destroyed....
Enemy is pushing through river
Any orders?
@@Nothing-1w3 deploy a cohort of missile troops and rain death with our superior longbows
@@kodingkrusader2765 rolls 2d8
11! +3( because of river) 14
3 infantry battalions were destroyed
1 enemy infantry battalion crossed river
Our forces
2 longbowmen 1 peasant militia
@@Nothing-1w3 whew i was worried about a 2 and my guys falling in the river
Legend has it that Georg Von Reiswitz also invented new refreshments to be consumed during his game. The first was a crunchy, salty snack resembling small sections of baked cornmeal dusted with an orange cheese-flavored powder, the second was an invigorating effervescent beverage nicknamed "The Dew of the Mountains", the composition of which has been lost to history.
Wow this comment takes the gateau
Dont forget that many daughters of his friends would also play this game and develop something known as "showing of the flesh" when they score a victory.
😂😂😂
@@ReptilianLepton underrated comment
So basically they drank mountain dew even at that time?
2019: new rts game released
damn this new rts games on pc is soo awesome sooo realistic!
1800: new TTPWG kriegsspiel wtf edition released
this is schooling for war!
RTS slowly declining in strategy genre, GSG where the shit at. If you want to experience something like kriegspiel with dice rolls and such - EU4 is what you looking for.
@@Molon_Labem My favorite computer game is Europa Universalis 4 then second place goes to Hearts of Iron 4.
@@Molon_Labem Though if you plan on buying the game, be ready to give 100€+ even on huge sale, as it is now.
@@Molon_Labem EU4 is really realistic but it doesnt detailed wars like in wargaming, you are just moving your huge armies, your generals are fighting the battles.
@@evrensaygn1017 you don't play EU4 to fight battles, you play EU4 to fight wars.
Imagine a modern army general calling Games Workshop demanding they demonstrate the new edition of Warhammer.
@rat buy your model in REAL SCALE!!!
(Disclaimer: properties only apply for price not model)
@@anhduc0913 we will be buying 100 sets of real life scale mark IV Power armor and a variety of combatible weapons for the system. 3 sets of Terminators and this so called raider of lands. time for field testing
Doesnt modern navy use Command Modern Operations wargame?
Well, actually US Navy ran Wargaming simulations just prior to the 1st Gulf War... In 1990 the commander responsible for these war games (Schwarzkopf Jr) had just ran a scenario that had a local dictator invading a neighboring country... which happened in the following year. Look for "Exercise Internal Look". It's an amazing piece of "simulation meets reality"
You should share it to some gaming communities. This is absolutely mandatory knowledge to everyone who played RPG, tabletop strategies, warhammer, DnD, and more. This is really super relevant to so many people. What is just a game for nerds used to be a tool for training officers for actual war.
I'll try but I also wouldn't mind some help from you all sharing it with the various communities
They still are. Games like this are played by officer candiates at any number of war collages around the world as well as active-duty personell.
Sounds like something any officer worth his/her salt should look into if preforming in combat
What do you mean used to be? Military commanders to this day still Wargame.
@@lordcrowther42 well its simulated wargames by supercomputer now, so not the same
I present a petition for Invicta to sell old war games as merch
Yes
I looked for it on amazon ... could not find it. So if they have this as merch, i will buy it ^^
Player: *rolls dice*
Umpire: "You lose your infantry unit"
Player: "That's not fair, the dice stuck..."
Meanwhile on the WWI battlefield, dying soldier: "Tell my wife.. I love her"
WW1 is where they really needed a dice jail.
The Army museum here in Sweden made it possible to download the old Swedish version of the Kriegspiel. And yes, as a war gamer I did download it.
Still have not read it though.
Det visste jag inte, tack för tipset!
Link please? I would like to download too if possible!
Truely the most wargamer thing to do.
@Sasuke Uchiha Nah man, Murican.
Can't deliver the freedom without the good ol war.
Give us a link maannn
perfect, the origin the arm chair general.
Prussians OG gamers
Who is the person in your profile picture?
Deutsch gamers rise up
@@heathjohnson2698 Make people use this flag
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/cf/Flag_of_the_NSDAP_%281920%E2%80%931945%29.svg/1200px-Flag_of_the_NSDAP_%281920%E2%80%931945%29.svg.png not this
www.elitereaders.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/swastika-unknown-history-1.jpg we want historical accuracy.
@@heathjohnson2698 Deutsche gamers were the most oppressed minority!
@@gunarsmiezis9321 It's a famous English Romantic painting (the Romantic painting, I should say). It shows up on Google/Wiki if you type in 'Romantic paintings'. I know this because I'm an English Romantic, somewhat, and love Romantic music and art, and some English Romantic poetry. This is different from and not to be confused with German Idealism, so, ironically, we come back to the Prussians, in the end (though, it's really the Germans in that case). Of course, the 'dark side' of Prussian/German wargaming is that this is why the Germans were so good in WWII: masters of warfare simulation and modern improvements -- far beyond the French; hence, why the Germans crushes the French easily in WWII. They were still using horses when the Germans were busy inventing the modern tank...
This is a fascinating crossover between military history and the history of game design. I cam alway see how the likes of D&D and computer strategy games grew out of these early systems. Almost like looking at a fossil record.
As a long time wargamer, kudos to you. I was really looking forward for this video since previous "maps" video. And i am not dissapointed, this video is truly master piece. Cheers
Well I am so glad I decided to go down this rabbit hole, it has proved fascinating! Please do share around with your wargaming buddies and let me know if you all ever do attempt to play some Kriegsspiel!
What's a good wargame to start as a beginner btw? I like my DND, but I always preferred using large armies XD
@@InvictaHistory i share it in out Historical wargame community. I was taking a look on Kriegspiel long time ago, it could have a good and interesting rules, but present wargaming is more hobby then hard wargame. Rules are just tool for moving detailet figure on board, but trying a KS would be interesting change :)
@@virusguy5611 It depends. But since you are talking about DND i presume you are in fantasy so there is Age of sigmar from GW, Warlords of Erehwon from Warlord games, SAGA from studio tomahawk and for skirmish (small teams) Frostgrave.
If you want wander to scifi or historical wargaming, it will be for really long answer :D
@@virusguy5611 just for fun, check out "Maria" or "Friedrich". You might like it. But it is more a wareuro than a wargame.
Great pronunciation of the German names man
Well ... good enough.
Yes he doesn't even try
Invicta butchers German like the Nazis butchered commies.
@Sasuke Uchiha stfu
@@Gonboo Nazi's were the Prussian Wannabees.
A shame to Germany.
Sex is good and all, but have you ever heard Invicta's german pronounciations?
You use that meme every video. Not very creative.
I must admit, that before Invicta pronunciate my language I never thought it could sound so sexy.
Except for the w's
Ur name
His pronunciations is quite bad, honestly
When I was in the Marines I was in our supply building and found a “war game” on a shelf. It was a supply and logistics game. You played the supply side and not the war side. It was very very detailed
What was the game called? Anything like that still exist on the market?
@@nopulpapple991 I’m not sure. It looked like it was created by the military to train officers. The box was just green. No graphics
@@eshelly4205 Super interesting
@@nopulpapple991 It was really interesting. This was in the 80s I was into board games at the time (Avalon Hill Games) We didn’t take the game but looked it over. Very detailed.
That sounds really cool and pretty vital! An army isn't just soldiers, it's ammo, rations, medicine, fuel, etc.
I always wondered about the origins of wargaming.
Ancient Greece. With moving real unarmed troops in a real field. By young Alexander.
Χαράλαμπος Βεζακιάδης not true. The Germans invented the first war game. The Ancient Greece just had simple war tables, that were used to plan troop stationing. I see that you are Greek and probably feel some patriotism toward Ancient Greece but the Ancient Greeks would be ashamed by modern day Greece. Different religions, different social norms, different languages. I never understood why modern Greeks feel a connection toward the ancient Greeks.
@@mortenkjellreitan1649 first of all did you even read what I commented? Fuck the war tables. I specifically said that ancient Greeks had war games on full scale... No representation no miniatures no nothing. Real troops moving in the theoretically battlefields.
As for the other topic you mentioned it is sound provocative? Are you trying to push the new world order agenta that tries to disconnect modern Greeks with their past?
Ofcourse you can't understand and I can't make you feel or understand. This nation has a continuity through 4 mileniums. Of course it change... Evolving. As any society.
Russians were not Christian orthodox. Roman's were not. Chinese also had different deities than now.
Every nation changes. The longer the history the bigger the changes. Make a living in Greece and you will see that still nothing changed in the base elements. Greeks still fight each other. Not with spears any more... But still divided.
@@champosvezast.v.4355 Ancient China might disagree with you on being 1st.
@@ckhawk00 it's a possibility, though I don't have study them in extend to know if there are any references
As a teenager i loved playing 'Diplomacy' which to me is an offspring of kriegspiel...writing up orders, making alliances, commanding armies and fleets etc...
A niche topic but one of the most detail-rich and informative things I've seen on YT in some time. Wonderfully composed and presented.
Thanks! Glad you appreciated me spending the time going down the rabbit hole.
Such Nerds!!!
Every Warhammer gamer would wish to look like this :D
This would be a dream in Warhammer, these rules.would work perfect in Armageddon campaigns and etc
True
@Monarchy is the best! status?
1700's Wargame-We shall smite the foeman in the name of the king!
2010's Wargame- We's gonna smash da humies!!! WAAAAAGGGHHH!!!!!
You filthy greenskin. KHAZUKAN KHAZUKIT HA!
Speak for yourself freebirth!
Exterminatus now
This would be one hell of a segway into becoming a wargaming channel
Hehehe
Lol
@@InvictaHistory oh boy
Funny you should say that. Did you know, before invicta was a history channel, it was a channel for the total war series?
I've never really played a tabletop wargame, but as a tabletop RPG player, I am so fascinated by stuff like this, since you can draw a direct line between these wargames to dungeons & dragons and all the other great games I love.
I started war gaming around 1972. I read Charles Grant , Donald Featherstone. and Peter Young. The hobby expanded into historical books, politics, maps and all periods of warfare. I have built terrain ,tables ,miniatures in multiple scales. Wargaming is a life style for me. It opened the door to learning a scale model building. I work on something almost every day. Thanks for the video.
Wat era you like the most?
@@nfldend501 I would say the Napoleonic era. My problem is I like all eras. I have 3 Napoleonic armies. WW2 Germans and Americans. 5 40 k armies. I put a cap on starting any more. I just work on the models I have. What era do you prefer?
This is deep, a rabbit hole long forgotten. Supposedly this is reflection on how far we're come when it comes to games.
Yo who else wanna bring these kind of board games back into popularity. This shit sounds really awesome
They are popular still
A spirit of this is still found in mamy RTS games (Warhammer series, Starcraft, etc.)
Total War series is very like kriegspiel
@@madensmith7014 he wasnt talking about computer games. he was talking about boardgames like boltaction/warhammer or blackpowder
there are table tops like warhammer 40.000 and warhammer age of sigmar and they are popular
As a teen, I loved to play Avalon Hill war games. Gettysburg , Battle of the Bulge, and Waterloo were my favorites. I enjoyed Bismarck, but it was too complicated to play very often. 1914 was unplayable since it was impossible to keep from getting mired down just like the real war. One I bought, but never played had the funniest instruction manual. That was Origins of WWII. The rule was that, “breaking alliances, lying, and back stabbing are allowed, but no cheating because this is a game, not real life.”
_1914_ was almost unplayable not because the campaign bogged down---as you say, that is what really happened---but because you couldn't touch the counters without messing up the facings of all the nearby units. The problem with _Origins_ was that some players might take all the breaking alliances, lying, and back stabbing personally. Otherwise, it was a very interesting game.
This is actually my favorite episode of yours yet. Prussia *and* wargaming? Hell yes!
11:20 In the 1886 Prussian Championship Finals, both participants must repel the invading Giant Pewter Candelabra
With the Advent of gunpowder seeing the explosion of complexity, I see what you did there!
I see what u did there durr hurr
Thanks for the history lesson. I have been playing war games for 20 years in various forms. I started out playing the fantasy based table top miniature games, but moved into historical conflicts as I got older. Recently I have been playing Commands & Colors Ancients and Napoleonics which is a hybrid miniatures/board game system. The games use a hex grid game board with movable terrain based on the battle scenario. Units are wooden blocks with unit labels attached.
As someone who has been wargaming for over 30 years, it is nice to see the history of the hobby shown in detail. There is a captivating charm to the wooden blocks, even in todays age of fantastic plastic kits.
I don't only war-game but also extensively study military history. This is very good, and that's by my increased standards!
Yay! So happy to hear you've enjoyed it. Hope others from the wargaming community take the time to learn more about the fascinating past history of their hobby
@@InvictaHistory I started with the history, then went to gaming...so I'm not that cool after all...!
Same
I thought Umpire was spelt Dungeon Master (or Keeper) but now i know.
I'd love to do a history of Dungeons and Dragons as a continuation of this video
@@InvictaHistory There's definitely some more to talk about there...
Yeah, we need H.G. Wells covered (inventor of the commercial tabletop wargame), then Charles S. Roberts, Dungeon Master Zero (see how many know the OG), Avalon Hill, SPI, then we start getting to TSR and the boys in Wisconsin.
@@InvictaHistory doing that justice would probably take over your whole channel though ;)
I thought Umpire was spelt Computer
Very interesting. It's something we often see in movies but I never knew if it really existed and that there were official rules that evolved over the years.
At timemark 10-ish: so, basically the Unpire is the GM and they were playing a present-day tabletop campaign at this point
Very few modern-day hobbyist wargamers go through the trouble of setting up a proper three-table game with only the referee team able to see where all the units actually are, but yeah.
@@Darwinist Never played War game specifically, but our Tabletop campaigns always have two maps: GM and players. And even if we do PvP, it's always without NPCs and only rarely groups fighting each other so there's no need for multiple maps
@@nikki607 Yeah thats the tradition in RPGs, but in wargames such as the Warhammer games, you just put your units on the board and everyone knows everyone else's stats.
The oldschool military way of doing things is difficult and complicated, but probably a very cool experience. When you are blind to enemy positioning until you make contact(and then you might have only a vague idea of how big a force or what type you encountered), the amount of strategic thinking and second-guessing the opponent you need to do goes up exponentially.
I liked this before I even finished the ad.
Literally answered a question I was just researching! And thank you for linking the literature. definitely checking that out. You are amazing. Thank you so much
I've got a small bibliography in the description which may be of use to you.
Is you saying the Prussians are responsible for dungeons and dragons.
max hendrickson More like they're responsible for Warhammer Fantasy, 40K, and Age of Sigmar.
+Not DnD, more like Warhammer, Bolt Action, Hail Caesar and games like that
Well, they did love lots of complex rules...
not only DnD has complex rules
Lawofimprobability th-cam.com/video/OCapveFed9U/w-d-xo.html
Oh man! I'd love to see a part 2 going from where this left off to the modern day.
Could yall please start the videos on units of classical antiquity again? We need more after the Praetorian Guard video
It hasn't even been up long enough for you to have watched it
Kings and generals made a video about the praetorian guard
@Sasuke Uchiha "you all."
Pretty common way to say "you" (either singular or plural) in the US, particularly in the southern states.
@Commander Pinochetwhile it is not as good kings and generals, wouldn't called it a disgrace
"Playing at the World" is a fantastic book and this video is also fantastic. I just want to say, though: "dice", plural; "die", singular.
In the grim darkness of the past, present, future, and far future there are only war games
Fantastic video! You always make these videos that on the start that seems a bit odd and boring but actually are way too interesting!
WHAT A BUNCH OF NERDS!
God I envy them
Its funny that earlier forms of Kreigspiel, especially that latest edition with an umpire and dice more directly represents RTS games then it does modern table top games.
Never really thought of chess as war games. It seems so regimented. I play total war Rome and it’s good to see the parallels between the two.
Kinda nice 👍 for the Prussian king to beat imaginary Napoleon in a game while he loses half his kingdom in the real life 😀😀
Excellent video! Having played wargames for years, both tabletop and computerized, the history behind it was something I never cared to look up. Thanks a lot. It's also fun to note how umpires have been replaced by computers in recent years.
This was a fascinating episode! I just started reading about tabletop wargaming but I was unaware of how far back it went. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about wargaming history and I hope you will do more tutorials on the subject. Thanks for sharing this.
I love the idea of commanders issuing orders and the imperfect implementation. Wargaming needs less control.
I have always agreed that two factions don’t need to be evenly matched because that never happens on the battlefield. Just win the scenario. Hell, even in real life you play your hand perfectly and lose. That’s war. That’s life.
This video Simply had to be done. Thank you so much
This video made me realize the failing of my curiosity. I had never wondered where modern wargaming has it's origins. Now I know the answer to a question I was foolish never to ask. This was a very enlightening and well made video.
I once heard an anecdote-most likely on Matt Colville's channel-that the best Kriegspiel umpires were the ones that rolled the dice and then secretly ignored the result based on what made the game more sensical and fun.
As a huge fan of Warhammer 40k this is really neat!!! Now I know the history a bit better
Here's some information that I took from a wonderful thread about the topic at Reddit:
In Classical Greece, battlefield maps weren't a thing.
Map making goes back at least to the Late Archaic Greeks, but these maps were only rough visualisations of geographical knowledge. It took many centuries for trigonometry and other relevant fields of mathematics to develop to the point where accurate representations of 3-dimensional space on a 2-dimensional plane were even feasible.
Now, you might say that this is irrelevant because there's no need for an accurate map when planning broad strategical manoeuvres. An outline of the country and its cities and geographical features will do. But that's putting the cart before the horse. The point is that it wasn't until militaries realised their need of good maps that they started making such maps. This is what drove the development of detailed map making in the first place. The reason people in Antiquity didn't have maps like ours is because their commanders did not see the need for such maps.
It can be hard for us to wrap our heads around this. We modern people learn to think of space in terms of maps. We visualise everything from countries to transportation networks to buildings in a top-down, schematic manner. We are accustomed to situating ourselves in space by coordinates on a flat grid. We learn to understand notions like compass points, scale, and legend. When we play strategy games, we take it for granted that there will be a geographical map and a strategic map and a battle minimap and whatever else - visual aides that allow us to understand where we are and what's going on. But this is because in our day, such maps are widely available. Universal digital maps have replaced partial physical maps; we are the first generation of humans that can see exactly where we are on the globe anywhere at any time. People in Antiquity did not have such tools. Unsurprisingly, they thought of space very differently.
When you read accounts of Greek military campaigns, and accounts of Greek generals debating strategy and tactics, you'll never find a single reference to a map. Instead, space is conceptualised as a number of known routes from one location to another; as a succession of conjoined territories occupied by different peoples; as a number of days' marching or sailing; as the area around notable features, like mountains, rivers, cities or sanctuaries; and as ground where an army can or cannot pass or deploy for battle. In other words, space is not defined in terms of abstract schematics, but in terms of observed reality and relevant knowledge. If a Greek general needed information about terrain, he would seek out a local guide. If he needed to plan a campaign, he would rely on common knowledge about the distance to the target and the roads one took to get there.
Here's how it works: Herodotus describes how the tyrant Aristagoras tried to convince the Spartan king Kleomenes to support his rebellion against Persia in 499 BCE. This scene is the only time in Greek history that a map is used to support war planning. But it doesn't go as we'd expect:
- “The lands in which they dwell lie next to each other: next to the Ionians are the Lydians, who inhabit a good land and have great store of silver." This he said, pointing to the map of the earth which he had brought engraved on the tablet. "Next to the Lydians," said Aristagoras, "you see the Phrygians to the east, men that of all known to me are the richest in flocks and in the fruits of the earth...
- Kleomenes asked Aristagoras how many days' journey it was from the Ionian sea to the king of Persia. Until now, Aristagoras had been cunning and fooled the Spartan well, but here he made a false step. If he desired to take the Spartans away into Asia he should never have told the truth. But he did tell it, and said that it was a three months' journey inland.
- At that, Kleomenes cut short Aristagoras' account of the prospective journey. He then bade his Milesian guest depart from Sparta before sunset, for never, he said, would the Lakedaimonians listen to the plan, if Aristagoras desired to lead them a three months' journey from the sea.
- Hdt. 5.49 - 50
First, Kleomenes clearly struggles with the concept of a map, and Aristagoras effectively translates the image into ethnographical information that will make sense to him. Second, Kleomenes does not independently grasp the scale of what he's seeing, and needs that translated as well. Once he is told what the map really means - once it is reduced to the key information on which he would base his own war planning - he immediately dismisses Aristagoras and abandons the Greeks of Asia to their fate.
We can speculate how useful detailed maps would have been to the Greeks in their many wars, and how much easier a well-informed strategist and tactician would have found it to wage their campaigns. But the point is that, to them, it was not needed. They knew the land, and if they didn't they would explore it on the spot or simply ask someone about it. All they needed to know was easily conveyed by word of mouth and didn't need to be complicated by abstraction and projection. Why would they develop sophisticated map making techniques, or ponder large map tables as they considered their plan for the next campaign?
Most commanders throughout premodern history will have agreed with Herodotus that maps, in all their abstraction and distortion, can decieve as easily as they can inform. They would argue that maps may be useful in navigation, and in the visualisation of ideal geographies or past events, but that they are not the most efficient way to convey the critical information needed to wage war. So where does the notion of the big tactical and strategic map come from?
This may be only a partial explanation, but a key driver of military map making in Europe was the sense of Napoleon's enemies that they had been beaten by superior knowledge, and that the only way to prevent such humiliation was to take preparation for future wars seriously. This had never been done at any scale on an institutional level. In Prussia, the establishment of the Great General Staff in 1824 triggered the first wave of government-sanctioned mapping for the use of the military; in the course of the 19th century, Prussian map makers became leaders in the production of high-quality, accurate maps for both tactical and strategic purposes. As other European powers followed their lead, all of Europe was mapped out in meticulous detail for the first time. Most of the maps used today are still built on the results of this military initiative.
The war exercises of the Great General Staff focused heavily on the use of maps for the gathering of information, the weighing of possibilities and the giving of orders. The first thing you did as a participant of such exercises was receive and take stock of your maps. At the same time, efforts to train officers in different ways also spurred the development of war games more similar to modern board games like “Risk”, with tokens in different colours moved around stylised maps and encounters resolved by dice rolls. As the Prussian victories of 1864 - 1871 cemented the status of their staff as the most effective military organisation in the world (deserved or otherwise), other powers made it their business to learn from Prussian ways, and this probably did a lot to solidify the idea that proper military training involved abstracting tactical problems into maps and tokens, and proper military planning was done around big, detailed, carefully compiled tactical and strategic maps.
The large map has become such a fixture of battle planning scenes in war movies that we now expect maps and tokens to be there, even if the story is set as far back as Antiquity. We struggle to imagine another way for a council of commanders to survey the situation and decide on a plan. It gives a delightful visualisation of the setup as it is explained to the viewer, and it allows characters to pore over maps brooding, which is how we imagine the tactical mastermind. Game of Thrones is a particularly serious offender, with large strategic maps appearing as decorative furniture in Dragonstone, as a floor painting in King's Landing, and as a tabletop game in Winterfell.
But none of this is even slightly historical. The peoples of the time period that inspired Game of Thrones did not have such maps, or the way of thinking about tactics and strategy that would have produced them. We are just projecting what we've come to think of as normal into an imagined past.
Bonus: By some accounts, Napoleon was the first general to use anything like this. For instance, Napoleon’s valet Louis Constant Wairy says: “During the three or four hours preceding an engagement, the Emperor spent most of the time with large maps spread out before him, the places on which he marked with pins with heads of different colored wax”.
In the early 19th century, European general staffs dedicated huge amounts of time to surveying and cartography. The Prussians were the masters of this kind of stuff, having vowed never to suffer the kinds of defeats they did in the early days of the War of the Fourth Coalition.
It was around this time that Baron Georg Leopold von Reiswitz created Kriegsspiel which was a huge novelty at the time, soon, everyone in the Prussian court was playing it. The early Kriegsspiel was refined by Reiswitz's son, and then came to be played on actual terrain maps. (The earlier Kriegsspiel was played on terrain pieces that could move around each game. The Kriegsspiel system then started to get used a planning and strategy map for actual wars.
Very pretty and lengthy, but the Spanish Empire was doing superb modern maps in 1731, like those done by professors Carlos Martínez and Claudio de la Vega from the Imperial College of Madrid.
Thanks for the video to go along with all my reading of early wargames. I have been a gamer for almost 40 years and love the history, both real military history and games history. In John Currys book 'Over Open Sites' on early Naval Wargaming, early naval games focused on maneuvering, only later to come to naval combat. Its interesting that many comments of the time had some ship Captains encouraging his officers to learn maneuver in case something should happen to the Captain. It was observed that officers might serve many years without the opportunity to command a ship and have to maneuver in combat.
Great video dude! I've been watching for my love of history but I'm a wargaming youtuber making videos about Warhammer 40,000 so this particular video really hit my sweet spot so thanks for creating and sharing it!
It's amazing that just because a TV show that didn't have good strategy or tactics (which is quite common) we now have a video about a topic I didn't think I was interested in.
This channel just digs deep into a topic and is damn great at it.
I really like being able to remain flexible with my content and these tangents have been quite fun!
This unique content is great! Never even heard of Kriegspiel before this video
When you wanted to join the army and didn't want to get killed at the same time
*GAME*
Great content! I just came across this channel and will continue watching this sober information. I would love to see some more about this topic. The convergence of technologies, war, and games, its great stuff. Cheers!!
This was actually extremely interesting and so enlightening. I had never even heard of this before, and am now very thankful to you that I have.Certainly earnt a new subscriber, thanks for the awesome content.
For anyone interested by this, a channel called Lindybeige has a great video about naval wargaming during WWII
Lindybeige? I thought the channel was called "Spandau".
You're spot on Erik, that Lindybeige vid is truly excellent, most recommended
Because it's a Hell of a lot cheaper than spending men and money on 'what if' training exercises.
Strategists game out the the possible scenarios and then train the troops on the most likely based on the results.
Meh. It's also that there have always been nerds who like that kind of stuff. They ultimately used its supposed paedagogical military benefit as an excuse to play games.
Great job putting the video together and very interesting! Thx Bro.
1:32 its fascinating seeing the elaborate autism through the ages. I need some more of these game history docu-books.
Strictly speaking though, it's octogonal not circular. different boarder shapes to approximate an even "distance to destination" as if the board were spherical and had 360 zeniths to plot from. On the plus side, this enables XCOM style rules where you can have directional offensive and defensive capabilities around each unit.
What about wargaming in the modern times? How extensively is it still used?
Its used a lot to train officers, review former battle situations and create battleplans for upcoming wars. The allies wargamed during the cold war to prepare for the russian invasion.
A more specific example would be a british wargaming department during ww2 that wargamed u-boat and convoy tactics during the war. They were quite succesfully able to learn almost any new german tactic and counter it within days or weeks. Can't remember the name of the department but with some googling you should be able to find it here on youtube.
batbat4 Now that you talk about it i remember hearing about every brittish navy officer having to go trough wargame training.
It was and is a regular feature at officer training units and academies. We held Tactical Exercise Without Troops (TEWTs) with designated OCs of Bn, Coy, Pl and specialist units such as Armd, Arty, Asslt Pio, Mrtrs, Sigs etc in separate rooms.
@@aukusti3761 It went deeper than that - because naval engagements play out often over several days, the Western Approaches Tactical Units would play out scenarios AS THEY WERE HAPPENING out in the Atlantic and advice convoy leaders on possible maneuvers.
Warhammer is a pretty popular tabletop war game.
Is the Reiswitz junior version of Kriegsspiel still sold today?
Severan Guardsman I think two fat lardies have a rulebook. But you don’t need to buy anything other than a d10, a map, some painted rectangles, notecards and pencils, and friends enthusiastically interested.
I have a PDF of a rule book I made to do an introductory kreigsspiel.
I started war gaming in the old early Avalon Hill era. Have never really gotten in to the modern single player computer games. Great video.
I love how you turned a question about sand tables into an Invicta quality look into wargaming!
I'm a proud member of the Invicta community! Great work man!
Honestly, they should actually teach about this in History courses, I had no idea about the depth of Wargaming history, and did not know entirely of its origins, only that after a certain point in history, I noticed in military pictures these pieces and their employment on maps to signify troop movements. I did not know it was this complex, and if I could ever get to do this on a higher level, I would be thrilled to explain this sort of thing to students. Also, in the case of contemporary War gaming, do governments ever bring in civilians to act as “rebel” or “unconventional” fighting force leaders for simulations or do they strictly rely on their officers? Purely curious.
this is so good. I grew up on ASL. none of my friends played or knew I did anything like that. it was just me and a cousin. I served in the 82nd for ten years and multiple Iraq deploys. 11B btw. so many times over that tens years at bragg and in Iraq I would have moments, that I know for sure, I can trace back to what I learned on table top games. ASL, third reich, tac-air, and the fleet games were my favorite. this really is one of the best things ive seen about these games origins. so good, thanks man.
Recently, I started designing some of my own war games, assembling the parts, maps, boards, rules, etc from various games. After I get an idea and the parts, I then work out the rules and then play test, and tweak them. Its really interesting to write out the idea, and then play test, because so many things can happen that you don"t anticipate! Then its back to working out the details. It is in a way, a creative endeavor, and very cerebral. So, having no one to discuss the process with, I am so glad I found this video, as I really connected with it. Thanks!
I'm also homebrewing a trading card game, and it's actually very interesting how from a simple set of rules, you can make very, very intricate gameplay.
One of my personal core philosophies is that games should be "Easy to learn, but hard to master."
@@DonVigaDeFierro thats really great. Im still working on an advanced risk type game but set in ancient times. I have many ancient games now...great boards, great rules, but not the pieces! Its been a challenge. I can use meeples, and I have play tested some ideas. But I have always some element missing because the games Im drawing from are all approaching things differently, so the various parts dont mix well. However, just yesterday I discovered risk Godstorm. This should help a lot, looks like a cool game anyway. I like card games as well
@@gowensbach2998 Playing a lot of games is always good. And not just playing them, but trying to "Improve" or "Break" them also helps.
But yeah... I know what that's like. I have the mechanics of my own game all figured out... Now I have to think in a couple hundred cards with different attributes and print all of them... Anyways. Good luck dude!
Off the edge of the map, was the first book I downloaded from audible years ago. It's funny that it was your recommendation. Great video man, I love your work.
I play Risk.
Finally, counted every minute
Epic work, my man! Please make more episodes on wargaming as well as geography! :D
This video is quite a beautiful documentation of an important history. Thank you.
The soldiers at the beginning were Virginia National Guard. Proudly served the 29th for nine years.
Thank you for your service from Hampton Roads.
Everyone: this is so realistic! This is schooling for war!
Paradox Dev studio: Introduce HOI, Europa universalis, etc
Everyone: oh, my!
@@calo-kg2cy still better realistic simulation than any other RTS game. Also, no turn. So, you need to think better than any of your opponent.
Paradox's models for medieval and modern warfare (pre-Napoleon) are really miserable. JUST point number one: it is faaaaar too easy to force battle on your enemy. For larger armies, battle was very close to optional in the medieval to pre-Napoleonic era. Though there were exceptions for ambushes and EXTREMELY ambitious generals fighting against lazy ones. IN Paradox games, just march to contact and boom. Smaller army is destroyed.
@@mindbomb9341 unless you have Prussian Space Marines and can stack wipe a army 2x your size.
@@deeznutz3712 no they aint, ugly.
Paradox is even at its best (Vic2, HOI3) still nothing but a casual, if interesting, game (don't get me started on mobile tier games like HOI$). Try playing Grigsby games or indeed any more complex hex and chit. Even AGEOD games are better
This is by far the most interesting video I have seen in a long while! Amazing!
I have been war gaming for 50 or more years. This video was very informative about the history of what I do. Now there are things like GIS that I use to make my maps which the Army also uses. Great video.
*Obligatory Cadia stands comment*
Abaddon finds your lack of information disturbing...
Your Ultramarines plot armor almost ran out on Vigilus... Be prepared, for WE ARE RETURNED!
kono_ dio_ga FORWARD, FOR THE EMPEROR!
WAAAGGGHHH !!!!!!!!!
I hate for you to hear it like this...
...Cadia fell a while ago.
What is next Stratego?
New favorite TH-cam channel. Video was incredible.
I'm now in love with this game concept. Great video, mate.
CADIA STANDS!
Really interesting! Could you do a follow-up episode covering little wars by HG Wells?
:-)
This video is outstandingly well done. Superb.
Fascinating summary. Thank you very much.
The first gamers
This is literally D&D but for loyalty and kings
manio sito It is literally Warhammer but for kings.
Its not DnD, Its warhammer. No Idea how people can make that connection.
This was one of the most amazing videos I’ve seen in a long time thank you
You could also have mentioned Go, which is an even older strategy game then chess. There's a reason these abstract games still fascinate millions of people.