Played on Games by Email
An internet site that had been around for a long time (unfortunately don't think it's active anymore) was Games by Email that had well-implemented clones of a wide variety of strategy games. I've played many different games on there with bunches of great opponents!
Viktory II
This game combines the replayability of having a new map every time in the same manner as Settlers of Catan while having the strategy and interest of an Axis and Allies game with Napoleonic era pieces. While it may not be that well known, it has grown a following across the world so that there is a tournament every year. The first pic is with a long time opponent who has gotten better to the point where he ranked in the most recent tourney! The second is the end of a multiplayer game - the game can be scaled from a few hexes across to many to accomodate up to 8 players. The third pic is one of a smaller board where an interesting map arose with sea hexes going most of the way up through the middle making naval units very important! Many interesting maps come from this system of discovering it anew each game.
Axis and Allies
Axis and Allies is now a series of games, but this implementation is of the classic game covering the whole of WW II. In this game Germany (grey) is still hanging on to the European territories it's invaded, but Japan (yellow) is on the ropes after the US (green) focuses on the Pacific taking most of the Japanese conquests and keeping China a US ally. The US has also made tech breakthroughs (the game allows players to gain tech advances in different weapons systems) gaining Heavy Bombers (akin to nuclear bombing ability). England (brown) has done a good job hanging onto Africa with help from Russian (red) tanks despite Japan's attempt to take more territory from South Africa.
Diplomacy
Diplomacy is actually more of a political strategy game with 7 players starting in 1900 each playing one of the European powers vying to spread their empires by allying with and at the right moment 'stabbing' others. The pic shows the end of a game won by a Turkey/Russia alliance. A player can win solo or with allies as long as all dominent players agree on how things are carved up
History of the World
History of the World is played in seven Epochs of history. In each epoch a player gets a different one of the civilizations active during that time. The player gets victory points depending on how many lasting things achieved - still held territories, monuments, etc. In this game along the way Blue got a couple of key empires - Roman during it's epoch, and British during that epoch - as well as holding all of South America, and ended up winning. Note: my version (Hasbro - Avalon Hill) of the physical game had the little minifigs, but is no longer in print so I just linked an info page for it. But if any want to buy one with cardboard pieces instead, versions with those are available on Amazon.
Acquire
Acquire is an old classic investment strategy game, including founding, buying shares, bidding, mergers, etc. The original game looked much like the pic with tiles layed on a board as the investment properties (hotels) spread out gaining in value. The pic shows a game that's been going for 5 or 6 turns with it looks like all seven hotel chains founded and starting to grow. The players win by holding the right stocks in these hotels usually majority holders in the biggest hotel chains, or some mixture of majority and minority holdings of different chains that equals the biggest value at the end. More modern versions of the game play the same but have 3D hotel figs for each chain (placed on the founding square of its chain's tiles).
Omega Chess
Games by Email as I mentioned had a variety of games on there including abtract strategy games with some versions of chess - regular, hex, and some others, so I thought I'd include a pic of an Omega Chess game I played as I liked that version pretty well. It has a 10x10 squares board vs the regular chess 8x8 board, and two additional pieces, the Champion and the Wizard which actually start in squares outside the regular board. The Champion moves sort of like a combined version of some Asian chess type pieces like the elephant, while the Wizard moves like a long ranged knight with some additional squares it can hit or cover. In the pic, Black is checkmating the White king cutting off escape squares by rook controlling the column on the right side, while the rook on the left side attacking the king directly cannot be taken by the king because the wizard protects that rook.
Axis and Allies
Here is another Axis and Allies game, this time with an Axis win. This was the third game this group played together and as I recall, it went for nearly 1500 turns! The Allies put up a fight for a very long time, but Japan got most of the technologies available, and the Allies eventually lost Russia with Japan taking Moscow and Germany taking Leningrad (Karelia territory).
Played in person
These are games that I've been blessed to play in person with family and friends, and enjoyed many solo games with these as well.
Viktory II
Here's Viktory II in real life! This pic is actually from their site - with the ease of playing on Games by Email, it's just been a long time since I set up the actual game and played. But many good memories such as when my kids and I played a three player game and they gleefully teamed up to beat me.. 8^D
Axis and Allies Guadalcanal
The original Axis and Allies came along about the early 1980s and covered the entire worldwide WW II. Since then different companies have come out with many different variants for it - versions with just the European or Pacific theatre, AA Bulge, AA Normandy, even an AA 1914 for WW I. One of my favorites is AA Guadalcanal as the tight naval and air action in it is really good. The pic is the starting positions with the little cards on the sides as each side's closest major base not on the map where new units will be coming in from. You can see the waterway in the middle is labeled 'The Slot' where constant close range and night fighting occurred including five major naval battles - much of this occurring in the waters close to Guadalcanal which became nicknamed Iron Bottom Sound due to all the wrecked ships sunk to the bottom there.
Battle Cry
Battle Cry is a game about American Civil War battles - it uses a kind of command card driven system where players take turns playing cards from their hand that may allow them to do an action on only one part of the board - left, middle or right - or may allow them to do actions on multiple parts of the field. To represent historical differences in commanders of a particular battle, that battle may allow one side to hold more cards in their hand at a time (so more action possibilities to choose from each turn). For example in a battle where one of the best commanders Lee is facing a not so good general, the player with Lee may get 5 cards at a time while the other gets 3 or 4 cards. The pic is the set up for the battle of Fredericksburg where Lee and the Confederates are at the top in grey, and Burnside and the Union troops are in blue at the bottom. Burnside had hesitated taking too long to cross that river into town, so Lee was able to occupy the high ground and best defensive positions looking over the town. Here Lee player gets 5 cards and Burnside player only 3. This is one of 16 battles in the game all using the same base board with the tiles placed in different configurations on the board to represent each battlefield.
Broadside
Broadside came out in the early 1960s as part of Milton Bradley's American Heritage series (Dogfight was another good one in this series). This was my favorite of this series. It was not about a specific historical battle but represented the War of 1812 naval fighting on the Great Lakes. I liked that it played pretty simply but represented well the term broadside and 'crossing the T' in the era of wooden ships naval battles. Broadside meant firing on another ship with the side of your ship facing them to bring to bear most of your guns which would be lined up along the sides of your ship. 'Crossing the T' referred to when you could get a broadside position on your opponent, but one of the ends of his ship was facing yours so that he couldn't return nearly as much fire. In the pic you can see the ships are red for Brits and blue for Americans, and have white sails. Each time a ship takes a hit from another, a white sail is removed sinking on the loss of its last sail. So the Brits start with stronger ships having more sails to start with, but they must get through the blue barriers - shore batteries and bouys which may either cause a hit or sink one of their ships - and defeat the blue ships to get to the back of the port to sink the defensless merchant ships there. The blue ships have to protect the merchant ships and destroy the red ships. In the decades since this game came out, gamers have been known to use the ships and sails to design other games of famous naval battles of the wooden ship era.
Conquest of the Empire
Conquest of the Empire was one of the original games in the GameMaster series with Axis and Allies. A classic game is shown although this set is a newer version that includes an advanced game as well. The basic game can have up to 6 players each trying to unite the Roman Empire under their Caesar. It includes 6 colored sets of Caesars, Centurians, Infantry, Cavalry, Catapults, and War Galleys (ships). It also includes cities, regular and fortified, and roads. The rules were kept simple yet included such 'chrome' as inflation occurring as empires grow to a certain size when the costs for all new units increases.
Screaming Eagles
This was a fun game of 'modern' (1987) air combat between two pairs of jet fighters. The vast range of movement was handled by a kind of wrap around board - since looping is common in air combat, whenever a plane goes off the board, it comes back around the other side in a corresponding numbered space. Each plane has it's peg board to keep track of how many missiles and cannon ammo it has left and what hits it takes with any section of the plane being completely hit bringing the plane down. In this game the yellow planes were getting more hits on the blue planes early on, but the blue player was able to manuever both his planes behind one of the yellow ones and was fortunate to get multiple hits in the same plane section (tail) taking it down.
Fortress America
Second only to Axis and Allies, Fortress America was probably the most popular of the GameMaster series. This was due to popular movies of the era (Red Dawn, etc.), and having futuristic units - hovertanks, lasers, etc. And the game is really fun to play. It works well with 2-4 players, US player vs 1-3 people playing the invaders - Euro-Socialist reds (Russia having conquered Europe like in Red Dawn) hitting the east coast, Central American blues invading from Mexico, and Asian yellows attacking the Pacific coast (US Navy has been destroyed..). The US while badly outnumbered and surrounded get a few fun to play advantages - a number of space satellites that can hit any enemy unit anywhere (add another laser to the number each turn), and my favorite Partisan cards! Each turn the US draws two cards that each have an action taken by partisans behind invader lines (like Wolverines in Red Dawn). These vary in strength and what regions they spring up in, but typically have the potential to do great damage to the invaders. In the pic I took a close up of the western region when the US drew two particularly good cards because they can coordinate to good effect. There's a grouping of partisans - two troops and tank - in the San Juan Mountains that can cut off the Asian forces in the just taken Denver, and the other card has individual partians arising in the nearby mountains to possibly cut off Asian attempts to reinforce Denver. If the invaders lose their line of supply and can't restore it, they lose those forces there!
Lionheart
Lionheart is an interesting combination of a chess-like game with miniatures. It is very customizable to however you want to play it. There are a good variety of units - some bases with many basic infantry, some with a couple of heavy infantry, some with archers, horse knights, peasants with pitchforks, mercenaries, etc. It can be a completely customizable set-up - generally the Kings start on their center back square, but for the rest, the cardboard box top is set between the players as a blind, and both players can set up the rest in secret anywhere on their first two rows. The turns are interesting too in that on your turn you can take any combination of two actions with units (can do this with the same or two separate units) - move in the direction they are currently facing, turn to another direction, and attack.
Shogun
Note: the link will go to a later version called Ikusa/Samurai Swords - same game. Shogun was another popular game in the Game Master series. It was a favorite of some because it has Samurai, Ninja, etc. Due to the fact that it had a lot of hidden information, I tried to get a pic showing the parts to explain how they worked together rather than an in-game pic. But like the other Dudes-on-a-Map games, a game would have plastic minifigs across the map holding territories, doing battles, etc. But while there were smaller individual units on the map the larger armies were represented by their flag-bearers on the board. Each player had three main armies consisting of varieties of numbers and types of pieces. On the pic you can see the three armies for blue on their cards, while their flag-bearers are on their positions on the map, one by the player's castle. You can also see a vital area of hidden information in the screened box to the right. Each turn in the five slots a player would put resource chips according to where they wanted to emphasize - building units, 'taking swords' which is where the players could bid for their turn order (not going first may be preferrable for instance), and bidding to hire the ninja for an assassination attempt, or hiring ronin (professional mercenaries).
Played on Steam and with TripleA
Steam is the well known app/client software for playing video/computer games, and TripleA is a specialized software for playing these D.o.a.M. type of games.
World War I - End of Empires
TripleA was originally designed to play Axis and Allies and its variants on computer. It has many other game maps available now but the basic game mechanics come from the Axis and Allies system, but applies well to many games. Here is an example of one of its WW I versions showing the system applies to the other world war as well.
Red Sun over China
This is an interesting TripleA map in that while it's WW II (well, 1938..) era the subject is not a typical AA one. This covers the actually multi-way struggle for China with Japan invading against the other sides, but the other sides also fighting for control of China when it's all over - the communist Chinese in the north, the nationalist Chinese in the center, and even outsiders such as Indochina and Brits are sides in the game.
Wellington's Victory - Quatre Bras scenario
Meanwhile on Steam some of these I've played recently are pretty old but I've gotten good games out of them. This is one on the battle of Waterloo. It has four scenarios as Waterloo was actually a campaign of four battles. This scenario is Quatre Bras with the French coming from the top edge aiming to overcome the Brits to get across the river below.
270 BC
Back to a TripleA map, this one covers the time of the rise of the Roman and Carthaginian empires amidst the other empires of the Mediterranean. Rome and Cartage were directly across the sea from each other so while they were taking over other states around that sea, they had to keep an eye on each other in anticipation of the three Punic Wars they would eventually wage.
The Great Northern War
Another TripleA map, this is one of my favorite to play because it can really go in many directions. Historically it occurred when Sweden was a dominant power in northeastern Europe, and the others in the area were allying against it. Sweden had a string of victories over these allies until defeated at the battle of Poltava in 1709 by Peter the Great. This ended with the loss of both Sweden's main army and it's main commander as well as territories ceded to Russia, thus leaving Russia the dominant power in the area. Peter was well known for modernizing a number of areas of Russia (military, etc) and gaining access from this battle to ports on the Baltic with which to become much more involved in European affairs and trade.
Star Wars Galaxy War
TripleA also has some science fiction and fantasy world maps. This one is Star Wars Galaxy Map with a map of the various star systems involved in the series. There is also a Star Wars map of the planet Tatooine and its moons for a closer up single system game.
Fire and Fury - English Civil War
Another Steam game, this one is on battles from the English Civil War with Parliamentarians versus Royals. The scenario in play in the pic is the battle of Powick bridge where both sides were scrambling to gather allies and forces for their cause. The Parliamentarians coming from the bottom were able to initially cross the bridge and push the Royals back, but then the Royals were able to gather themselves and turn back on the Parliamentarians doing them too much damage for them to have a clear victory.
Feudal Japan
Another TripleA map that takes from one of series of the games Axis and Allies was part of - The GameMaster series - this one is as the title states on feudal era Japan and is very similar to the GameMaster game Shogun. There are a couple of TripleA maps on this subject. It involves shogunates, Samurai, ships, castles, and sometimes even gun firepower units!
Caribbean Trade War
This TripleA map has very interesting subject matter - Pirates! Well, the various colonial powers and various pirate factions who were all vying for the wealth of the 'West Indies'. This may be the most fun of at least the actual historical maps having strong economic incentives as well as territorial.
Cyber Tanks
Another science fiction TripleA map, it derives from an old classic science fiction war game called Ogre. An Ogre was a futuristic super tank that would fight against a force of futuristic regular sized armored vehicles and troops. This was a small boxed game in the 1970s that was popular among gamers for being easy to take to school and sneak a game on your desk during class.
Sid Meiers Ace Patrol
Another old Steam game, this one is on WW I fighter planes. In each mission a player can choose which maneuvers to use step by step to win the engagement. Over time and by completing more and more missions, the player can gain in the character's rank and better planes to fly. The pic shown is actually not the usual plane vs plane combat, but a balloon buster mission that seemed to make a good pic to me.
Camp David
This TripleA map of the Middle East has four scenarios, one for each of the Arab-Israeli Wars. The scenario shown is for the 1973 Yom Kippur War. This plays well as asymmetrical warfare with the Israelis having the edge in technical and tactical capabilities, while the Arabs have seemingly endless forces to throw at them.
Lord of the Rings
There are a number of Lord of the Rings maps on TripleA, so I actually forget which one this is, but it is one of them! I think it is the Middle Earth one with the Fords, but there are a couple of versions of that so.. The main faction HQs are in the bigger circle regions there.
