Quebec 1759
Through the fog you can see ....
Wargames are fundamentally different from the battles and wars they portray. A general fights each battle once, with limited knowledge of his pieces and with only a vague understanding of all the factors that go into it. But a grognard1 recreating the battle on a table knows the exact rules of the game. He2 might know exactly how the battle turned out, what mistakes both sides made, and might have multiple games (or books) games covering the same events. The wargamer resembles an omniscient deity compared to the tiny cardboard chits that represented his troops, able to survey an entire battle, front or world. All the troops visible for inspection. These armored divisions in this hex, those motorized infantry were two hexes away with a terrain penalty for cover.
Columbia Games changed all that.
Steve Brewster, Tom Dalgliesh and Lance Gutteridge’s Quebec 1759 eschews the hex-and-counter system of earlier wargames with simple wooden blocks (with stickers attached). The blocks serve two purposes: by rotating you can show unit strength (via the number of dots on the “top” of the block. But more importantly, the infantry type and strength can be kept hidden from the opponent … three English blocks may represent 12 units (full strength infantry) or 3 units irregulars. Some block are empty and can only valuable as a bluff.
The blocks provide instant fog of war, “reducing” the omniscient gamer back to a questioning commander. There are three blocks at Saint Foy, but are those units full strength? Half? Are there actually three units? As the game unfolds units will be revealed and information gained. Like a later fictional soldier says, “knowing is half the battle.” The hidden units made Stratego a best seller for children’s games (and a candidate for this list); but the idea works just as well for “serious” wargames. Quebec 1759 has not sold nearly as many copies as Stratego, which would be expected. Wargaming is a smaller niche than “children’s games” but has a dedicated following.
Columbia Games3 (founded by the three designers) released a steady drip of “block wargames” over the next five decades. And while Quebec is a small game covering a small battle, the idea scales to entire theaters or even full wars. The Columbia catalog includes WWII-themed titles such Rommel in the Desert and EastFront, US Civil War games, generic fantasy, and others. Complexity varies, but has tended to slightly increase over time.
But Quebec 1759 was the first. There are other solutions to Fog of War4, but few as enduring as the simple mechanism of hiding the units from the opposing player, without the need for a referee, like the original Kriegsspiele played by German officers in the nineteenth century. For that reason, I believe that Quebec 1759 deserves consideration as one of the 100 Most Influential Games of the 20th Century.
“Wargamer.” Originally French for “grumbler,” a grognard referred to the incessant complaining of soldiers during Napoleon’s times. The term grognard was adopted by wargamers and was one of the earliest wargame sites (and still around, looking un-updated after 30 years).
Of course there are gamers of both genders, but wargames are predominantly bought and played by men.
Originally “Gamma Two Games”
See the article on We the People, for example.