The neglected time period - 1870-1920...

[Perturabo]

I have to say that I'm starting to be fascinated with WWI and wars of the late XIX century. I have a distinct impression that that period is rather neglected. There's lots of fascination with Napolenic period, with American Civil war and WWII but that period becomes relatively obscure.
Stuff like Boxer Rebellion, Spanish-American war, Russo-Japanese war, World War I...
My fascination began with watching a scene from a movie about the battle of the Rourke's Drift. I just saw these rifles and I have found them fascinating.

There's lots of fascinating Weird Tech stuff in that period of time.

I'm reading a lot about WWI and this war is really fascinating. There's that common picture of WWI being all about people charging machine gun nests in mass and getting slaughtered. I think it's the main reason why that war isn't as popular as WWII.

[gunny]

Indeed. The Franco Prussian war is a fascinating study as well. The French with their new chassepot rifles, and Prussians with their deadly Krupp Field guns. Also the coming industrial age brough innovation to warfare. There was a game in 97, Imperialism, which captured the feel of the era in an abstract way. But I wouldn't mind knowing of a modern game that covers this era for the tactical aspects.

[Perturabo]

Generally the whole era of rifle before the 1920s is fascinatingly weird. Hey, wasn't there a game called "Age of Rifles"? Maybe it's about that period...

[redcoat]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

I have to say that I'm starting to be fascinated with WWI and wars of the late XIX century. I have a distinct impression that that period is rather neglected. There's lots of fascination with Napolenic period, with American Civil war and WWII but that period becomes relatively obscure.
Stuff like Boxer Rebellion, Spanish-American war, Russo-Japanese war, World War I...

Yes. There are several decades from the 19th Century which have been neglected when it comes to post-Age of Rifles tactical-level games - although the same century has been covered by games at a Grand Strategic level: Vicky, Vainglory.

ORIGINAL: gunny

Indeed. The Franco Prussian war is a fascinating study as well. The French with their new chassepot rifles, and Prussians with their deadly Krupp Field guns. Also the coming industrial age brough innovation to warfare. There was a game in 97, Imperialism, which captured the feel of the era in an abstract way. But I wouldn't mind knowing of a modern game that covers this era for the tactical aspects.

Indeedo. I’d definitely buy a tactical-level Franco-Prussian War game. Or a game which covered one of the other neglected wars: such as the Seven Weeks War, Crimean War, Zulu War, Mahdist Sudan, Boer wars, Adowa, Afghan wars, Sikh wars, Indian Mutiny, Wars of Italian Unification, Russo-Turkish War, Boxer Rebellion, Russo-Japanese War …

Perhaps John Tiller will get around to this period eventually - with a new campaign series. Or perhaps Slitherine could follow up Field of Glory with a game based upon a set of miniatures rules for the ‘Age of Rifles’. [:D]

ORIGINAL: Perturabo

My fascination began with watching a scene from a movie about the battle of the Rourke's Drift. I just saw these rifles and I have found them fascinating.

Ah, ZULU. A grand film.

[Perturabo]

I started working on an age of rifle fantasy mod for Armored Brigade. I find playing without indirect-fire artillery and machine guns in every squad, with masses of infantry with rifles on a small map fascinating.

http://www.armoredbrigade.com/forums/vi ... =12&p=1922

[Alan Sharif]

Love the idea of a 'Field Of Glory' type game for this period. I would be buying every add on in the blink of an eye.

[Perturabo]

I would love a game like Peter Turcan's Waterloo in this period. Too bad that he limited himself to 3 Napoleonic games instead of going for other time periods.

[Zorch]

<Applause>

Let's hear it for games about obscure periods!

How about the South American wars of Chile vs Peru and Bolivia, Bolivia vs Paraguay, and Paraguay vs Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay?

[ilovestrategy]

This is one huge reason I loved Age of Rifles

[Hexagon]

I like on AOR the scens covering Cuba War in 1898 and 1866-1870 wars... is rare see games covering this period and this is why AOR is today a great game, you can find battles from ancient to WWI.

[jomni]

Lots of fun stuff during this period.  It's the time when battles lines are becoming less and less rigid.  Skirmishing is the name of the game. Would be a nice FPS don't you think?

More wars during this period... Philippine Revolution against Spain and the Philippine-American War, US pacification of the West, also put in some Cowboys and Indians and Mexicans!!!

[redcoat]

ORIGINAL: Zorch

<Applause>

Let's hear it for games about obscure periods!

How about the South American wars of Chile vs Peru and Bolivia, Bolivia vs Paraguay, and Paraguay vs Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay?

Some wars are more obscure than others. [:D]

It is also a matter of perspective. The Crimean War, Zulu War and colonial wars in India and Sudan are not obscure to me. The Boer wars are not obscure to South Africans and the wars in the Philippines probably aren't obscure to Filipinos.

[Alan Sharif]

Anyone who doubts this would make a good topic try reading the excellent 'Liberators' by Robert Harvey, a fantastic book that explains why this part of history would make a great game.

[redcoat]

There are several Age of Rifles scenarios for the South American wars of Independence although they occurred before the period the game originally covered: 1846-1905. But then there are lots of scenarios for periods outside the timescale of the original game – from ancient times to WW1. Including my Battle of Hastings 1066 scenario. Linky. Age of Rifles also covers the War of the Pacific. I don’t remember seeing any scenarios for the Paraguayan War though. Strange – because it was an interesting war in its own right. The Chaco War was much later on. I remember seeing a TOAW scenario for it somewhere.

[MPHopcroft1]

Who holds the current rights to Age of Rifles? As I understand it SSI is pretty much no more and the game might not even run on Windows 7 -- if you can even find it on a CD-R (IIRC it was still in the age of floppy disks that it came out).

[Arctic Blast]

ORIGINAL: MPHopcroft

Who holds the current rights to Age of Rifles? As I understand it SSI is pretty much no more and the game might not even run on Windows 7 -- if you can even find it on a CD-R (IIRC it was still in the age of floppy disks that it came out).

Ubisoft owns the rights to the SSI catalog. A few of the games in the Panzer General series have shown up on GOG, so maybe we'll see more SSI stuff in the future.

[redcoat]

Ubisoft purchased some, but not all SSI titles. They do not have a licence for Age of Rifles. AFAIK Norm Koger is the owner of the source code.

It is difficult to run Age of Rifles with XP, Vista or Windows 7, but it can be done. There are some Win 7 users in the Age of Rifles Yahoo! group that are playing AoR using DOSBox and D-Fend. The version of the game that Digital Ostrich have been selling on e-bay is said to be easy to install and play on a Windows 7 PC – according to Jim Cobb.

[gunny]

And once again we are reduced to playing 15 year old games on our Quad core processors. Is there really no demand for a remake I wonder?

[Perturabo]

ORIGINAL: gunny

And once again we are reduced to playing 15 year old games on our Quad core processors. Is there really no demand for a remake I wonder?

I guess it's because that period of time isn't spoken of often as it's mostly for connoisseurs.

There's always the war on terror thing going on and the WWII stuff - both of which are like some really crazy comic book which attracts lots of attention. Then there was the cold war thing which is probably just after these two.
Then there's stuff like Napoleon and Civil War which is still famous.
And finally WWI. But never on tactical level because everyone knows that WWI on tactical level is all about running at a machine gun and getting killed.

But the Age of Rifles? The period itself is mentioned way too rarely for games to be made in it. To be honest, until about a year ago, I didn't even have know that such a period existed and I was interested in history since I was a kid.

[Perturabo]

I have noticed that 19th century rifles have pretty crazy effective ranges - like in over 1km without optics. In 20th century effective ranges drop to ~500 metres despite higher muzzle velocities and more aerodynamic projectiles.

Then I have read an article about Chassepot rifle and it wrote that:

Dossiers at the French Army Archives at Vincennes (the S.H.A.T-Service Historique de l'Armée de Terre) seem to bear out this published account. According to trials carried out in May 1867 by the Chasseurs batallion of the 1st Division and the Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard, two-rank fires for three minutes under less than ideal conditions resulted in 25.4% hits at 600 meters on a target 50 meters long and 2 meters high;

Does it mean that 19th century rifles had longer effective range because they were aimed at crowds, not on point targets?