The purpose of this article is not to compare two similar game situations, but rather, two similar game-publishing magazines. Issue number 35 of Strategy and Tactics magazine and issue number 6 of Conflict magazine have been selected because they both cover the same historical subject, the war in South-East Asia. An objective look at the finished product of each company will show similarities and differences well as providing a base from which one can draw conclusions.

Issue number 35 of S & T is the elder of the two magazines, having been out since November, 1972. It contains a rather controversial article entitled "Year of the Rat, Vietnam 1972" that serves as historical notes for the game of the same name. The second major article is "The 1812 Campaign, Napoleon in Russia." It is well supported by maps and interesting modules, presenting most of the historical data for the SPI 1812 game. Outgoing Mail, Sackson on Games, Pass in Review, and Feedback round out the contents of this issue, which subsequently earned a rating of 6.92 on an S&T survey.

The game itself is of usual SPI quality. The mapboard is a hex-version of South Vietnam, including a few border hexes of Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. Coloring is good, with dark blue for the different provinces and countries. A basic road net connecting the various cities plus supply centers, rivers, swamps, and rough terrain make up the physical features represented. Additional aids found on the playing surface include two combat results tables, a bombardment results table, a supply effects chart, a victory point index, initial forces setup and a time record/ reinforcement table.

Counters are of the usual S&T high quality, including 200 units colored in tints of green for the US, ARVN, and ROK forces and mustard/yellow or black for the NVA and NLF. About a third of the counters are for bookkeeping purposes; representing supply, dummy, pinned, disruption and air/naval bombardment.

The rules are the typical S&T accordian style: eight pages of fine print. They are detailed, but straightforward after the second reading. There are another 20 paragraphs of rules and explanations printed on the mapboard, which gives the game a rather complex appearance.

S&T's own game evaluation system rates "The Year of the Rat" as an intermediate operational game with a complexity level of 5.13 and an acceptability of 6.05 (average acceptablility is 6.01). Playing time should be 2-3 hours.

On the whole, "Year of the Rat" is pretty much an average game. One thing the numerical figures fail to indicate is the name's ability to hold interest. Not unlike a few of the current SPI releases, this game tends to become boring after only a few playing sessions. Once the situation has been learned, players will find the powerful NVA/NLF able to push the ARVN forces around quite easily.

On the other hand, the allied player will soon come to depend upon heavily defended strongpoints and air/naval bombardment. The deployment variants included add little additional excitement, and there's not enough extra counters to attempt any scenario other than the 1972 situation. Another problem is that the game cannot really be played solo, as much of the excitement depends upon dummy units and inverted counters for the communist forces.

Issue number six of CONFLICT magazine is the latest effort of the Simulations Design Corporation, a group that has come a long way since being officially "kissed off" in S&T #36 back in January, 1973. It has taken, as a CONFLICT editorial admits, "Seventeen months to publish one volume" (six issues). But the quality of CONFLICT magazine has never suffered. Quite the contrary it has improved to the state where it is now superior to S&T in every category on the chart except number of advertisements.

The war in Indochina issue contains two lengthy articles, "Siege at Dien Bien Phu" and "Tet Offensive, 1968" which serve as historical notes for the two games included with the magazine, DIEN BIEN PHU and BATTLE FOR HUE. Other articles appearing in this issue of CONFLICT include a two-page Viet Nam bibliography, a book review, a State of the Art column, a movie review, the Game Review, which covered three of the latest Desert War games, a variant of an earlier game, NORAD, a letters section and a one-page editorial.

The two games in CONFLICT #6 differ in both size and style. The featured game is DIEN BIEN PHU, an area movement game of the French-Viet Minh fighting in the early 1950's. BATTLE FOR HUE, a "bonus" game, is a hexagon style, tactical battlegame designed by John Hill.

DIEN BIEN PHU has a rather small 10 1/2 x 16 inch mapboard which depicts the provinces of North Viet Nam, Laos, and southern China. Also on the board is the time record/reinforcement chart. The scale of the game is, of course, strategic on a simple to intermediate level of complexity. Each turn represents 1/3 of a year and a normal game runs four years or 12 turns.

The rules are six pages of small print that explain and set forth examples of the area and simultaneous movement systems used in the game. DIEN BIEN PHU has a rather novel combat results system that uses a matrix to resolve 1-1 situations and has automatic results for other odds.. Two charts for writing down simultaneous moves are included with the game.

Also, an appealing feature for the hobbyist/designer, the entire back of the map is printed with blank hexes that are very suitable for photocopying.

Counters are a bit on the thin side, but well done, and colorful, with red for the Viet Minh and blue for the French. Conflict uses a different symbols; system for its counters; with quite original symbols for the various division, regular, irregular, supply, and battle groups. All units have a standard movement and combat factor which is not printed on the counters (nor is it needed) which makes DIEN BIEN PHU much less of a numbers game than the standard format of most current simulations.

Play of the game is quite smooth once you catch on to the new movement and combat systems. Actually its not unlike the systems used in DIPLOMACY, only upgraded to reflect conflict a bit more realistically. All-in-all, a challenging, balanced game that has all that's needed for lasting play value.

Battle for Hue

The "bonus game" in CONFLICT #6 is BATTLE FOR HUE, a tactical simulation of that 1968 fight. The hexagon mapboard portrays the walled city of Hue and the surrounding countryside. Also on the board are the NVA and Allied set-up and reinforcement charts, combat results table and time record/reinforcement column. Terrain features on the playing surface include clear, road, airfield, moats and bridges, river (three hexes wide), park and jungle, city, bunker, walls, and fortified areas. the mapboard is printed in four colors, red, blue, green, and grey along with black on white paper.

The rules consist of four pages of very concise information. The introduction warns that they have been "designed to make as much use of common-sense game mechanics as possible." They are readily understandable to most veterans of simulation play, but could be a problem for the complete novice.

Anyone who has played PANZERBLITZ will catch on very quickly. The Major differences are that the terrain determines the defensive value of units and all units have a standard movement factor. Firepower and range are the only two numbers found on the pieces.

There is quite a variety of units to be found in BATTLE FOR HUE, including infantry, weapons, administrative, police, airborne, black panther, Viet Cong, headquarters, armor, mechanized, armored recon, artillery and rocket units. Most of the pieces are company size and are organized into the various battalions, regiments, and divisions that took part in the actual battle.

This game contains plenty of hard-hitting action. Small ARVN and USMC positions are attacked by larger NVA and VC forces which are in turn attacked as Allied reinforcements enter the battle. Play ballance is fairly even in the early stages of the battle, gradually shifting to the Allied side as the superior US firepower begins to take effect. But that doesn't mean it's impossible for the Communist commander to win; BATTLE FOR HUE is a fair test of skill for the player on either side.

Magazines

The big, sixty-eight page CONFLICT is physically more impressive than S&T. The cover is thicker and the pages are of a distinctly higher quality paper. The color of the month for S&T was brown in various tints. CONFLICT uses bright yellow, red, and blue quite liberally throughout the magazine. There is a substantially higher number of pictures and drawings used in CONFLICT. The article mix in CONFLICT, with history, reviews, philosophy, variants, and letters, is much more varied than the usual S&T fare of two main historical articles and two or three smaller departments.

As for the games, the two in CONFLICT are easier to learn and play than the one found in S&T. The rules for the CONFLICT games are shorter than the S&T accordian, which helps out both in the initial reading and in the inevitable playing time referals. Counters for the two CONFLICT games, while well done and very serviceable, are thinner than the normal high quality pieces found in S&T games. An excellent four-color printing job is found on the CONFLICT mapsheets, while the S&T mapboard is done in three colors. All in all the products of both publishing companies meet very high standards of physical quality.

High quality does have its price and when it comes down to dollars and cents, the subscription price of these magazines is equal at $10.00 apiece. Which means that subscribers are getting a very good deal: six games for less than $2.00 each. But when it comes to picking up back issues, CONFLICT is way ahead at $3.00 per issue, while back copies of S&T games go for the same price as all other SPI products; $8.00 per copy.

In all fairness to S&T it must be noted that while issue #6 was the best release to date for CONFLICT magazine, the issue of S&T used in this comparison was not an example of the best that has come from SRI. It should also be noted that it has taken CONFLICT about a year and a half to publish six magazines and one board game. In that same period of time SPI has maintained a more regular schedule of production and has achieved a far greater output of games and magazines.

What this comparison indicates is that it is possible to publish magazines of higher quality and lower price than the current leaders of gamedom would have one believe. A large production is good but only when it does not leave real quality and playablity out of the picture. Hopefully those at SRI will take note and see what has been coming from CONFLICT magazine and the Simulations Design Corporation.

In the final analysis, it all goes towards giving the gamer greater enjoyment and a better variety of materials from which to choose.

Item	Conflict($3)	S&T ($8 boxed)
PAGES	68	48
NUMBER OF ARTICLES/DEPARTMENTS	9	6
NUMBER OF PICTURES	29	6
NUMBER OF DRAWINGS	19	7
NUMBER OF ADVERTISEMENTS	7	15
NUMBER OF MAPS/CHARTS	18	12
GAMES	2	1
MAPBOARD	20 1/2 x 32 1/4 10 1/2 x 16	22x34
NUMBER OF UNITS	242	200
RULES	4 pages 6 pages	8 pages