“Dominate the world through diplomatic finesse, cultural domination, and military prowess.” -Giant Bomb

By Patrick S. Baker

Introduction

After, shall we say, the mixed critical and commercial reception of 1999’s Civilization II: Test of Time, which has an aggregate of only 66% on Metacritic, famed game developer Sid Meier and his company, Firaxis, immediately set to work on another Civilization game. Originally, the development of the game that would become Civilization III (Civ III) was given to Brian Renyolds, the man behind the highly successful base Civilization II game. However, Renyolds left Firaxis before development really got rolling to start his own company, so the assignment was handed to game designer Jeff Briggs and game programmer Soren Johnson.

Briggs was an experienced game designer, and one of the three founders of Firaxis, along with Reynolds and Meier. Briggs had previously helped design such games as Colonization and Civilization II. He also held a PhD of Music Theory and had written the original music for many of Microprose games.

Johnson had gone to work at Firaxis after an internship at Electronic Arts (EA). He was assigned as the primary game programmer for Civ III under Briggs direction. Johnson joined the development team with just 16 months left to finish the game. Still, he rewrote much of the game’s code, with his main focus was on the its Artificial Intelligence (AI).

By Michael Rafferty

This year marks the 80^th anniversary of Operation Overlord and the Battle for Normandy. To commemorate this my local group, the Nerds of War, wanted to run a D-Day themed mega battle. It’s been a few years since we’ve run a mega battle at our FLGS The Game Room and not at AdeptiCon, so we wanted to start things off with something big and flashy.

We have a logo and a banner, we’re official!

I really enjoy running large games for people and I’ve always enjoyed playing in something larger and more cinematic. It’s a good feeling to be maneuvering whole tank companies about the battlefield instead of a platoon. That’s what got me started running big games a decade or so ago.

If other people weren’t going to run the kind of games I like, I would do it myself. These games also motivate me to complete modeling projects. Setting a date means I need to have things ready by then and I work better with firm, external deadlines. Big games both keep me recharged in the hobby and progressing along my projects, a win-win!

By Michael Rafferty

Recently, AdeptiCon announced that it was moving to the Baird Center in Milwaukee. While Schaumburg and the Greater Chicago area has been great to us, we’ve epically outgrown the Schaumburg convention center. Three years ago, we expanded to the facilities at the Hyatt Regency, moving historicals and a few other events there. By the last convention, even this extra space was full and then some. This doesn’t even factor in all the hassle of being at two hotels. While I’m a big advocate for the Hyatt and our historical space, it was packed this year. AdeptiCon has been pushing at the limits of Schaumburg, and it was time to look at bigger spaces.

The Baird Center at night

By Mitch Reed

I guess I am an old time wargamer, I started with Avalon Hill’s Tactics II in 1978, then Gettysburg by the same company. Soon after I purchased my first game from Simulations Publications Inc (SPI) which was their quad game, Blue and Gray II which contained four great battles of the American Civil War.

This purchase solidified me becoming a grognard, and now forty-plus years later I still wargame. Recently someone posted a picture of some of the quad games and I thought about how much these games probably brought so many people into the hobby such as it did for me. I also thought how much these games meant to our hobby and I wanted to revisit and discuss these great games.

By Paolo Paglianti

Just imagine the scene. It’s Friday morning at the Paglianti household, and we are getting ready to leave for our house on Lake Como. Suddenly, the phone rings: it’s my friend Etienne, one of the best Flames of War players in Europe, calling to tell me that he has a problem with his Lady of the Lake tournament. The tournament is a pairs event, Axis and Allied, and unfortunately, one player had to withdraw at the last minute. Three players might have to drop out if he doesn’t find a substitute.

If I ever needed confirmation of how awesome my wife is, I got it that morning: not only did she understand how much I would enjoy playing over the weekend in what is practically the Swiss Nationals, but she also knew how often I worry about organizing a tournament and facing such issues.

She said, “We’ll go to the lake next week!”. So, I packed my things and joined Stefano Regazzoni, who lives in Italian-speaking Switzerland, and together we headed to Lausanne, passing through the San Gottardo pass, which looked like the Ardennes with all the snow.

By Kreighton Long

Feeling adventurous, I set out to build a pigsty for my rural Bolt Action terrain.  Most of the materials were easy enough to order online.  The wattle fences came from Renedra Ltd; the mother pig from Warlord Games; and the balsa wood, match sticks, coffee stirrers, and green stuff from my hobby cache.

By Tom Gall

The 2023-2024 US competitive season as tracked by Battlerankings has ended for Team Yankee and as such it’s that time of the year for the top players to gather and duke it out to determine who is the best of the best.  A very big thank you to Battlefront for sponsoring this tournament!

As you might recall Battlerankings encourages tournament organizes to turn in the results from Flames of War and Team Yankee tournaments. Your standing in the tournament gives you a certain number of points (more is better). Your top 4 scores for the year are tallied up to determine your overall ranking as compared to all the others that had results turned in. It’s a US/Canada thing and is an added layer of competition.

By Kreighton Long

Slowly but surely I’ve been working on improving my terrain options with the focus on Bolt Action.  My primary army project for this year is overhauling my Soviet forces.  Accordingly, my terrain optics have been focused on the terrain pieces that will best fit the Eastern Front.

By Kreighton Long

During the Case Yellow period the Fallschirmjager typically wore a Luftwaffe blue-grey blouse and German Fieldgrey combat trousers.  Over these was donned the green-grey step-in jump smock.  The Fallschirmjager’s helmet was a modified stahlhelm with the brim removed to prevent sharp edges fraying the parachute lines and to reduce wind resistance that resulted in paratroopers with the stahlhelm being nearly strangled from their helmets lifting from their heads during their descent.

By Paolo Paglianti

The most important event of the year for Flames of War enthusiasts is at the beginning of August when the best players from every European nation (and beyond, including New Zealand and the USA!) will converge on Krakow. This year, Krakow will host the ETC 2024, the Flames of War World Team Championship (we covered how it went last year here, and the 2022 edition here).

To prepare at their best, but the invitation is also open to players who will not participate in the ETC but want to challenge some of the best European players, we are organizing the Italian National GT, which will take place in mid-June in Milan. On June 15-16, at the impressive sports center of Cornaredo, where I organize all ‘my’ wargame tournaments, the tournament will take place over two days, which will also be the final stage of the Italian FOW Championship.