A Buncha Games

Haubilization Game

by Wally Simon

Fred Haub set up his table-top variation of the computer game by Sid Meier, CIVILIZATION. There were four of us at Bob Hurst's house, and we each took a kingdom. Fred had filled the table with 6-inch paper squares, and each time one of our 'settlers' entered an area, we'd turn the sheet over to find out what type of terrain we'd discovered (water, land, desert).

Each player, on his turn, could perform several functions:

    a. He could collect revenue from his income-producing areas. He could do this several times, but the probability of each collection, starting at 70 percent, decreased by 10 percent each time he did so.
    b. He could move his tokens
    c. He could build armies, ships, etc., with his current treasury
    d. He could attack an enemy force.

The probability of collecting revenue decreased each time the collection phase was invoked, while the probability of performing the other functions always remained at 70 percent.

The computer game is a slow affair one can spend days looking at the screen, exploring, building, battling. Fred tried to speed the sequence up, with the objective of having a game that could be finished in a single afternoon. Almost, but not quite.

Each turn, a player tossed dice to see if his 'technology level' went up. This was the key to the game, for as your level rose, so did the goodies you could buy. For example, at Level #1, all you could purchase for your armies were ancient infantry, while at Level #4, you could acquire tanks and mechanized infantry. There were five levels in all, and the last was the most powerful, wherein you could buy both an atomic bomb and an aircraft in which to deliver it.

My initial dicing was quite successful, and I quickly rose to a Level #4 technology, and was able to acquire an armored division before any of the others. Unfortunately, before I could assault my neighbors, they, too, had risen to Level #4, and my dreams of glory ended rather rapidly. As soon as I reached the 4th level, I purchased an aircraft and bombed my nearest friendly neighbor (he was still around Level #2, and had primitive infantry units the aircraft had a range of 10 squares as opposed to the primitive 4-square range of ancient infantry). This air raid resulted in an appeal to the game host (airplanes should be at Level #5, not #4, because they're too powerful). The appeal won and my plane was taken away from me, replaced with a measly tank.

The game was very interesting, as it combined all the facets of maintaining and increasing your country's status in terms of economy, armed forces, exploration, development, etc.

I tried to set my own level of income at around 300 dollars per turn, thinking that each turn, I'd buy a couple of tanks, and go and bother my neighbors. But both Fred Hubig and Fred Haub out-financed me and out-armed me, and the game was soon lost.

Bob Hurst turned out to be the giant financier in the game, seemingly earning moneys each time he blinked. But, thanks to some lousy dice tossing, he never arose beyond technology Level #3, and so was unable to cash in his money for his armed forces.

More Buncha Games

Back to PW Review May 1998 Table of Contents
Back to PW Review List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List
© Copyright 1998 Wally Simon
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com