[Consim-l] Iliad (was Re: Craonne)

[Dave Kohr]

On Dec 5, 2007 8:18 PM, John Best <jlbest at advancenet.net> wrote:
> And Dave Kohr kindly responded:
> > For what it's worth, back in undergrad when I was a classics major
>
> Wow, you were actually a classics major?

Yes, normally I try to stay in the closet but a chance to discuss
translations of the Iliad lured me out. :-)

> Obligatory wargame reference:  I think there are games about The Iliad, or
> the Trojan War more generally, but I'm really not sure how they would work.
> One of the things that's interesting is that the actual troops (of which
> Homer says there were 100,000) are curiously nonconspicuous in the epic
> poem, which would mean that a wargame with "units" and what not would be a
> real fudge from the poem.

Back in the day, I played a bit of Metagaming's "Trojan War". It goes
beyond the scope of the Iliad, and portrays many of the major battles
that were described in various different sources (as an example, IIRC
the Amazon queen Penthesilea makes an appearance in one or more
scenarios, and she isn't mentioned anywhere in the Iliad). It uses
fairly conventional wargame mechanics, with each "unit" being a named
character. I imagine this approach could lead to an interesting
tactical wargame, given the right base mechanics and scenarios and
chrome rules, but "Trojan War" wasn't that game. It was quite bland
and unmemorable (except for its topic).

On the other hand, to depict a work of literature like the Iliad, I
think a game needs to represent plots that are about much more than
just battles, and also relationships between characters that are about
more than just trying to kill each other. The best games I know of
along these lines are Euros. In particular, I'm thinking of Reiner
Knizia's cooperative game Lord of the Rings (which BTW sold over a
million copies), and also his non-cooperative game Beowulf. Maybe
(hopefully) he'll eventually tackle the Iliad. If the past is any
guide, somebody will first have to start making a decent film version
of the Iliad to motivate him.

Dave