… publish three separate games simultaneously? …
As many of us I liked playing games since I was a kid. I started to really love playing games when I was a teenager. Chess and Risk have the games at this era. Discovering Cosims (historical board games or conflict simulations) at the age of 14 started an incredible journey and an insatiable passion. I simply was addicted to buying new strategy games with a lot of historical information on cardboard in a box. To tear open the shrink wrap and smell the scent of printing ink is a highly stimulating act. If you ever bought a used game and know how to compare that experience to open a factory new game you know what I am talking about. I was eager to unfold the map, take a look the game components and read the designer’s notes.
You might know the phenomenon to get more and more dragged into this niche market and becoming more and more a nerd.
The day that changed my attitude and started a long quest for the ultimate strategy game was the day when I was forced to play “The Settlers of Catan”. Being Co-Owner of a hobby store my buddies ordered 6 copies of that game on the Nuremberg Toyfair in 1995. My partners said we need to play that game in order to be able to sell it. Imagine, first print run of that game was 3000 copies by a publisher that was not focused on board games but on gardening books.
Anyway, we played the game and I loved it and hated it in the same time. I loved the aspect of building a little empire out of two villages. I loved the aspect of interactivity and collecting goods and grow with my color. I hated it because the dice were a huge factor in the game and although there was interactivity there was no way to actually interact in the way to take away something from my opponents. Maybe I was too much a wargamer already.
I loved the game for especially one thing: It opened a completely new market to games: Families and occasional gamers that had a lot of fun with a rather complex board game and many of these people were ready for more. Many publishers have to be very grateful to the Catan family.
At the same time over my gaming career I always liked games about the ancient Mediterranean Sea. This period, the history of the rise and fall of many empires, Rome, the Pharaohs, Alexander the Great, the Greek City States, the Peloponnesian War, Hannibal and so much more give this area of the world an irresistible flavor.
As many of us I loved the fantastic “Civilization” by Charles Tresham. Many more and different CIV games followed but somehow there was always the longing for the perfect ancient Mediterranean game.
While still at university I spent several evenings over many months with a professor of ancient history at his home. He loved to tell stories about the ancients, kings and queens, empires that had risen and were overthrown, generals that became tyrants. He was also interested in gaming and one day he showed me a game design of his. He had no design experience. The design was smart but at the same time cumbersome. The hand-drawn map was huge (about 66 x 44 inches) with small hexagons, hundreds of little cardboard counters, dozens of generals and leaders, 50 different trade goods, a lot of detail and a 60 page rules manuscript. It was a fantastic journey into ancient times. But unplayable. He handed it over to me and said “do something with it”. Karl Hausser will never see his original design getting published. He passed away many years ago. His design inspired me and I had it in my game shelf for many years.
Four years ago I decided to develop and publish his design. I wanted a game that is highly interactive, a game with a huge map and many playing pieces, where my ships need to explore distant shores, where I create a trading network. But also a game where I could lead a military campaign but where losing a province or an island doesn’t mean I lose the game. Building a fleet and invade distant shores. A game of which the outcome is not defined by dice or event cards but by the right decisions of the players. I like to say that the biggest aspect of uncertainty in a game is the mind of your opponent. You never know his plans.
I bought and played many Mediterranean Sea / Civilization games. Many of these games I had high expectations and most of the time I was disappointed. Games with huge maps that had scenarios for two players using only a small part of the map and few playing pieces. Games for up to 6 or even 8 players with no interaction at all between them. I don’t want to name or blame any title here. But I guess many of you fellow gamers know that feeling. You play the two player version of a big game and you think it feels odd, you stare at the rest of map that is not used and you’d wish you could play the big burrito.
We wanted to do something that no one has done before: We decided to develop three individual games. Each individual game of this series is either for 2, for 3 or for 5 players. No wrong compromises. Let’s be honest, most of us have their one gaming buddy or their group of gaming buddies. In the beginning of the development process there was the idea to combine games to allow more players to participate. These trials didn’t work. It felt like putting together a West map with an East map without really connecting. The way the action cycle works, doesn’t work for 4 or 6 players. It could theoretically work for 6 players but then again when testing it we felt that downtime was too much. Playing with 6 players was too difficult to have the level of interaction we wanted. When playing the 5 player version players will note that they interact with all factions on the board. Persia is not that far away from Rome or Carthage as one might think.
The game series is incredibly rich. We will find a way to publish it and we are looking forward to it and all that the series will bring to gamers.
Take care and thanks for your interest in our games! See you in the next blog post,
your Uwe Walentin.
The “History of the Ancient Seas” Kickstarter campaign was successfully funded!
