Much space is consumed in these pages expressing concern over what will happen if a certain rule is added or modified within the Europa system. Limiting the options of players is often justified on the basis of "avoiding ahistoric results." As I see it, the problem is twofold:

1. While playing a game, players are able to look at their current situation with perfect knowledge of how things actually turned out (20/20 hindsight). This may (will?) influence the decisions they make. How does the game designer allow a player to make a decision, yet not allow that player to benefit from current-day omniscience? If you give a player the opportunity to produce Me-262s in 1943, what do you expect he will do?

2. Most players feel that allowing a low-probability event to completely change the character of a game is a design problem. They can usually live with a situation where a series of exceptional die rolls markedly affects a game's outcome, but what about one die roll which completely twists the way a game develops? Most gainers cry foul, yet such events take place in history (and thus are "historic") and are never given a second thought by players. In WW II, for example, Weaver's early death meant that any impetus for developing a German strategic bomber force ended.

The first concern/problem can be dealt with only "ahistorically," by allowing results which did not occur historically. A prime example would be to vary the rate of a nation's evolution from a peacetime economy to a wartime economy. Limits would obviously have to be established, yet the variability would create a mind-set in players that would be much more historic. By not knowing what and how much their opponents are planning to build, their situation would be much closer to that of the actual historical leaders than when using production rates that conform strictly to historical data.

Another example of this type arises in the "Groza" scenario. A spoiling attack by the Soviets makes perfect sense in game terms when a Soviet player fully anticipates a German sneak attack against the USSR.

Only by allowing players the freedom to make decisions which cannot be anticipated by their opponents can the players experience the challenges faced by their historical counterparts. This requires that the game must allow for ahistoric actions to make the experience realistic. If you limit Grand Europa so that the German player does not control at the level of Hitler, how do you provide grand strategic direction to the German war effort? You can do this and this, but not that. This leads to such rules as "When you attack France you must allow the British army an opportunity to escape by sea evacuation." You might say this is foolish and I agree, but Hitler did interfere at this level, so where do you draw the line?

One way to deal with this would be to require each Grand Europa campaign to have an additional player, an umpire, who would monitor the game. Players would have the latitude to make historically reasonable decisions, and the umpire would determine the consequences. Opponents would remain in the dark about the enemy's strategic intent until the results were unveiled.

The second concern/problem is more perplexing. A chance occurrence can actually have a major influence on subsequent events. History is full of examples of how a seemingly minor event changed the whole flow of history. During the Battle of Midway, Japanese fighters were drawn down to sea level to deal with U.S. torpedo plane attacks, leaving the U.S. dive bombers free to sink three aircraft carriers. What would have happened if the dive bombers had arrived first and the torpedo planes had come in later without as much interference from the Japanese fighters? Considering the quality of U.S. torpedoes at that time, it is reasonable to imagine that fewer, or even no, Japanese carriers would have been sunk. The United States would likely still have won the war, but at what cost and how soon?

Readers might argue that the type of bomber to attack is well within the decision-making power of the players. Yet how different is that from allowing players the option of trying to deploy the Me-262 at an earlier date, particularly a date distinctly possible? The key is that players should not know precisely what result such a decision will have. Realistically, one would make a choice which might result in the early deployment of Me-262s or might result in the deployment of other aircraft of lesser quality.

I suggest that using an umpire in a campaign-level Grand Europa game would allow for the inclusion of some random low-probability events affecting how the game developed. The umpire would have an independent set of rules upon which to act, making die rolls for various events and announcing the outcomes to the players only at the appropriate times.

Is this reasonable? Some people will probably think not, but I see no alternative.