Wooden Ships, Iron Men! Old School Avalon Hill love!

[Piratecat]

Rodrigo, got a link?

I have a deep and abiding love for Circus Maximus, the game of chariot racing. What a hoot.

 

[diaglo]

We'd also keep a ship's log, writing down our plans and thoughts each turn. We'd re-hash it after the battle, and laugh when we saw how badly we'd misread the situation or how overconfident someone had gotten.

*Woot -- 400th post *

ditto. we did the exact same thing.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Rodrigo, got a link?

I have a deep and abiding love for Circus Maximus, the game of chariot racing. What a hoot.

I'll see if I can find the link. If not, it's pretty small. I could .zip it and email it to you.

I loved Circus Maximus, and Gladiator, too. When my best friend and I got them, we burned through the entire pad of character sheets in one weekend.

Circus Maximus is also where I earned the hatred of horses that plagues every RPG character I've had since.

Here's the link: Colossus (Titan clone)

 

[Piratecat]

Thank you!

 

[WizarDru]

Are these old titles easy to find on Ebay?

Has anyone played this WizKids game? Is it the good?
-George

I have played Pirates of the Spanish Main, and it IS good....but it is a completely different kind of game from Wooden Ships, Iron Men. PotSM is a rules-light little romp, meant to play out in 10-15 minutes. You select a fleet to match a point total (limited by the number of cards you have to choose from). The fleets consist of ships and their crew. Ships are rated based on their various attributes (number of masts being the most visible indicator of power). The goal of the game is to plunder treasure on islands and take them to your home island.

Combat and movement are amazingly simplfied, but lots of fun. But it's nothing like an old school Avalon Hill game. Quite the opposite, in fact.

The Original Titan is something of a Holy Grail to old school AH folks. It's complicated and has some serious design weaknesses...but it's a classic, all the same. All those colorful pieces, the clean icons by Dave Trampier...and most of all, the terrain battlefields and clashing fantasy armies. Of course, you could just play Colossus, the Java-based open-source tribute to Titan, instead.

Advanced Squad Leader and it's expansion packs are the king of tactical war games, IMHO (and every bit as complicated as you might think). The subtle beauty of Naval War keeps us playing it decades later.

Dark Emperor was fun, even if the rules were a bit...unclear. I loved Dragonhunt which combined a simple wargame with some good boardgame elements. My favorite aspect was that that dragon continually moved around at the whim of a different player each round, laying waste to any unfortunate town in his path like a force of nature. Great game, that.

 

[MonsterMash]

Advanced Squad Leader and it's expansion packs are the king of tactical war games, IMHO (and every bit as complicated as you might think).

Got to admit I've been a bit scared of ASL even though I bought the first two expansions for Squad Leader because its looked to be more of a way of life rather than a game. I see there is now a small introductory set for ASL which I might pick up.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

I think at one point my best friend and I had every 'real wargame' (not the beer'n'pretzels games) that AH published but 'The Longest Day'. We could just never convice ourselves to spend $65 (in 1983 dollars) on a game we'd probably not play very often.

I must say I never cared for Squad Leader. I found it absurdly cumbersome in its detail in some places while ridiculously abstract in others, and *way* too much random stuff for a wargame. A buddy of mine loved it and still collects all the stuff that Multiman Publishing puts out for it. (Trivia note: at one point (if not still) most of the new SL stuff was being bankrolled by Kurt Schilling of the Red Sox. Pull that one out next time someone gives you crap for playing games ).

When my friend moved away, we split the collection. I still have Freedom in the Galaxy, Richtofens War, Gladiator, Circus Maximus, Starship Troopers, Down with the King, and several others. Don't play them much, except for CM, but I still pull them off the shelves and reminisce.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

The Original Titan is something of a Holy Grail to old school AH folks. It's complicated and has some serious design weaknesses...but it's a classic, all the same. All those colorful pieces, the clean icons by Dave Trampier...and most of all, the terrain battlefields and clashing fantasy armies. Of course, you could just play Colossus, the Java-based open-source tribute to Titan, instead.

Lol.. I don't think the true 'old school' AH folks would have cared for Titan. They'd have still been playing Tactics or Panzer Leader and looking down on us whippersnappers. Maybe they'd pick Bismarck or Caeser Alesia if they were feeling particularly avant garde

The biggest problem with Titan is that a game with experienced players could take days to finish. That really sucked for the person that got knocked out early and had to sit there all night while you played. We finally pretty much abandoned it in favor of stuff like Gladiator, CM, and Gunslinger where you could play a game fast enough that no one had to be a spectator for long.

 

[LostWorldsMike]

Avalon Hill games I've known and loved...

Civilization. Not to be confused with Sid Whassname's version. Hours and hours of fun. And it's almost impossible to get knocked totally out of (unless, of course, people have a deep and abiding grudge against you). Calamities are a "wonderful" leveller of playing fields.

Diplomacy. If you've never played this game, you're doing yourself a horrible disservice.

Dune. Another of my favorite games of ALL time. Captures the feel of Herbert's universe well, and plays out fairly quickly. Variable victory conditions (based on faction/house) almost guarantee a different game every time. And traitors are a beautiful thing.

I'm sure there are more, but those are the one's that spring immediately to mind.

 

[WizarDru]

Lol.. I don't think the true 'old school' AH folks would have cared for Titan. They'd have still been playing Tactics or Panzer Leader and looking down on us whippersnappers. Maybe they'd pick Bismarck or Caeser Alesia if they were feeling particularly avant garde

The biggest problem with Titan is that a game with experienced players could take days to finish. That really sucked for the person that got knocked out early and had to sit there all night while you played. We finally pretty much abandoned it in favor of stuff like Gladiator, CM, and Gunslinger where you could play a game fast enough that no one had to be a spectator for long.

Heh. I suppose I should have divided the true grognards from folks like me who are just plain OLD. You refer to exactly the problems that I was thinking of. I love Titan in concept, but I'm not sure I could bring myself to play it, any more than I could sit through another marathon Talisman extravaganza with all the expansions. It sounded good in theory, but after 8 hours, we surrenedered.

I'll admit that while I think ASL looked really cool, it was too much time and effort for me. I know friends who considered it worth the time, but there was an old Apple II game that played just like it, without my having to do all the number crunching...and I loved that more.

These days, I play games that are fast, simple or both. I prefer stuff like Ticket to Ride, Lunch Money, Pirate's Cove or Formula De. The days of trying to figure out a game like D-Day are long since past.

Hell, these days I can't even find anyone to play Titan: The Arena, let alone the real Titan.