WARGAMES CAMPAIGNS - ON A DIME

The late Tony Bath's book on wargames campaigning, "Setting Up a Wargames Campaign", remains the seminal text for anyone interested in the origins of 'wargames campaigning', or the best known and longest running campaign in wargames history ("Hyboria"), or setting up "Imagi-Nations" from scratch (and what is the Ecclesiarchy of Ludlow, or the Social Democratic Republic of Bromyard, or the like, if not a kind of Imagi-Nation?), or just practical campaign mechanics:

For those (and this should really only be temporary state of affairs) missing a copy from their wargames library, this encyclopaedic set of links, courtesy of the "Tiny Tin Men" Blog HERE, will provide more than a flavour of Tony Bath's approach, plus lots of Hyborian related material. A great collection! [note 1] As much of the material comes from the old "Battle" magazine, it's also an excuse for us to engage in a little tongue-in-cheek "late 1970s nostalgia":

Wargaming (and fashion) in January 1978. Bleached denim jackets, long hair, V necks
and huge shirt collars. We mean HUGE. Still, magazine cover price - 35p.

A month later. Grammar school speccy loses out to an
extra from "Starsky and Hutch". Said speccy is probably
someone very serious in the City by now - and probably
still painting knights in his spare time. 1970s inflation
appears to have been running just below 15%, for the
cover price has increased by 5 pence in one month.

Another cover, another tape-measure shot. Possibly the height of
wargames sophistication in March 1978 - who knows? Whether he should
escape prosecution for that jumper, though....and as ever, the size of
 the shirt collar alone must count as at least 'medium range'.

 

Anyway, abandoning 1970s nostalgia and hideous fashion crimes, it appears that the modern American army have an acronym (of course they do) for the four essential elements of successful campaigns, known as the "DIME" principle, i.e. 

Diplomatic

Intelligence

Military

Economics

Here in the Hereford VBCW, we manage the Military side with glee. The Diplomatic and Intelligence sides, notwithstanding occasional encouragements to the regular players (hostage swaps, anyone?), are usually dealt with only by the Umpires (see HERE for Ludlow's "foreign affairs expert", the Rev. Duff-Postin, aka "The Talleyrand of the Three Counties", and "Big X", head of the much-feared Ecclesiastical Intelligence Service, or EIS), while "Economics" has generally been reduced to a footnote as "involving too much book-keeping". Mind you, that hasn't stopped the Great British Pound crashing, and the occasional tabletop use of poker chips as currency [note 2]...

Notes

[1]. Rudi Guedens also has some interesting material on Tony Bath and the Hyborian campaign. See HERE

[2]. Just as well, really. Without at least some attempt at economics, the relevant campaign acronym would (perhaps appropriately) be reduced to "DIM".

[3]. The "Library" label on this blog (see below or in the column to the right) has lots of links to other free wargames reading materials....