COMMANDS & COLORS: ANCIENTS VS GAME OF THE GENERALS

Commands & Colors: Ancients is a board wargame designed by Richard Borg, Pat Kurivial, and Roy Grider, and published by GMT Games in 2006. It is based on Borg's Commands & Colors system using some elements similar to his other games such as Commands & Colours: Napoleonics, The Great War, Memoir '44 and Battle Cry designed to simulate the "fog of war" and uncertainty encountered on real battlefields. Commands & Colors: Ancients focuses on the historic period of 3000 BC - 400 AD. The core game includes several hundred wood blocks in two colors for the Roman/Syracusan armies and Carthaginian army. Sheets of stickers representing different unit types must be affixed to the blocks prior to initial play. 16 small wooden blocks representing "victory banners" and 7 larger plastic dice must also have stickers applied. Extra stickers are included for use as replacements. The game also contains a full-color rule book, color scenario book, and two color two-page double-sided "cheat sheets" for players to reference during play for dice results and unit statistics. The board is folded card stock laid flat for play. Hexagonal terrain pieces are laid on the board when called for by a scenario. A deck of command cards is included. Units are arranged on the board according to maps and scenario descriptions in the scenario book. Players are dealt a number of command cards equal to their "command value" for the chosen scenario. Often players have different command values and therefore different numbers of cards. Players take turns playing their cards to "order" units, generally allowing the ordered units to move and conduct combat. Cards often refer to a section of the battlefield, either left, center, or right, or some combination of these. There are also many special cards that allow very specific actions. Play continues until one player earns the requisite number of victory banners for the scenario. Victory banners are earned each time a player completely eliminates an enemy unit or leader.

See statistics

The Game of the Generals, also called GG or GOG as it is most fondly called, or simply The Generals, is an educational war game invented in the Philippines by Sofronio H. Pasola Jr. in 1970. Its Filipino name is "Salpakan." It can be played within twenty to thirty minutes. It is designed for two players, each controlling an army, and a neutral arbiter (sometimes called a referee or an adjutant) to decide the results of "challenges" between opposing playing pieces, that like playing cards, have their identities hidden from the opponent. The game simulates armies at war trying to overpower, misinform, outflank, outmaneuver, and destroy each other. It optimizes the use of logic, memory, and spatial skills. It simulates the "fog of war" because the identities of the opposing pieces are hidden from each player and can only be guessed at by their location, movements, or from the results of challenges. The game allows only one side's plan to succeed, although a player may change plans during the course of the game. In addition, there are two different ways of winning the game (see below). Certain strategies and tactics, however, allow both sides the chance of securing a better idea of the other's plan as the game progresses. Players can also speak or gesture to their opponents during matches, hoping to create a false impression about the identity of their pieces or their overall strategy. This game was invented by Sofronio H. Pasola, Jr. with the inspiration of his son Ronnie Pasola. The Pasolas first tried the Game of the Generals on a chessboard. Even then, the pieces had no particular arrangement. There were no spies in the experimental game; but after Ronnie Pasola remembered the James Bond movies and Mata Hari, he added the Spies. Making the pieces hidden was the idea of the Pasolas after remembering card games. The Game of the Generals' public introduction was on February 28, 1973. After the game was made, it angered many Filipino chess players thinking that Pasola was trying to denigrate or supplant chess.

See statistics