Barbarossa, the Legend (The Life & Games of Frederick Barbarossa, #3)

Welcome back to the third and last part of the Barbarossa miniseries! Now that we’ve looked at Barbarossa’s earlier and later life until his death, one would think we’re done with him. Far from it! Barbarossa had an active afterlife in the memory and myth of those who lived after him.

Four Princes / Here I Stand (Book & Game, #2)

Back to the book & game pairings to educate and entertain about a certain historical topic! After our kickoff with the Eastern Front of World War II, we’ll go a little bit further back in time, landing in the early 16^th century: The Reformation is shaking up Europe, and powerful rulers try to make the most of these turbulent times… both in Four Princes (John Julius Norwich) and Here I Stand (Ed Beach, GMT Games).

The Leipzig Debate

What is the most exciting part about gaming history? – Doing what the historical agents might have done („Let’s see how an alliance with Imperial Germany would have worked out for Victorian Britain“) or see how what they did would translate into the game („John Shore was made a baron after his time with the East India Company, which is like scoring a prize after leaving the office of chairman.“
In short: Nothing is better than taking the perspective and agency of a historical agent. Card-Driven Games (CDGs) are reputed to have trouble with that. They can include all kinds of historical events on the cards, but the downsides to that are

1. that the exact agency of the player in bringing about those events is a bit fuzzy (how exactly am I responsible for that storm which wrecked the opponent fleet?) and the player might feel „like an overworked Time Lord, delaying discoveries, accelerating accidents“
2. and that the „standard“ moves to be conducted with the action points can be rather abstracted and generic („spread influence“).

One way out of this dilemma is employing standard events for each player which return to their hand – like the Home Cards for each power in Here I Stand (Ed Beach/GMT Games), which can be played once per turn and perfectly mesh with the respective power’s play style.
Today, we’ll look how that plays out in regard to the Leipzig Debate, one of the defining events of the early Reformation. After a quick look at the budding Reformation, we’ll go straight to the contestants of the debate and then the theological contest itself – and how it shaped events to come. All the while, Here I Stand will be our companion.

Farewell 2017!

My dear readers,
The year is coming to its close. I’ll have a look back on its contents in history and gaming from a strictly personal perspective – what I enjoyed this year. Since I tend to be a bit behind the times (as befits the historian) there are not a lot of new releases (in any category) here, but maybe you’ll find some older gems. So, without further ado, here are some good historical board games, non-historical board games, historical non-fiction books, and historical novels. As a bonus, there are three of my favorite posts from this blog in 2017 as well. I’ll highlight one of them as the winner in each category.

Reformation 500 – Part 2

In the first part of this article, we’ve looked at the amazing life of Martin Luther and the games that commemorate it. Now we’re going a step deeper – both with in the history and the games.

Reformation 500: Part 1

On this day 500 years ago, Oct 31, 1517, an unlikely man created a spark of history. When this spark fell on the tinder of renaissance Europe, the conflagration changed the world like few other events before or after. The man was the Augustine monk Martin Luther, and the spark he made were his “95 theses” that began the Reformation and led the fundament for the Protestant faith. Since this breathtaking event merits some broader inspection, I’ll examine it in two parts.