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The very first game (or wargame) we played with dice was METAURUS (Great Battles of the World series). It was late fifties or early sixties I do not recall exactly (and do not care a lot about the exact date… could look at it on the net… but it really does not matter…).
It was a hit.
I keep buying boxes of plastic (quite hard) additional soldiers to increase the basic main box contingents. My rivals grew out of all historical proportion… I do not remember exactly if I got 7 or 11 elphants in the end!… a silly disproportion… but got a lot of Roman Cavalry too!… sadly never found Carthaginian Cavalry (which existed!… but never was lucky with those). Our battles were masive and cramped… I only stoped buying more troops when I run out of space on the “map”… LOL… now I know “those were the days”.
Fifty or Sixty years later my brother has produced a commemorative edition of limited number of copies (got number 33 if you are interested in those details), and I do not intend to break the seal of my copy. In that half century (or more) many things have happened… I still can remember how I teached the basic and crude rules to my (back then) little brother… that he will from there to build a company (with partners) that produces tabletop games was only a dream (his) but by now DEVIR (celebrating this days its 25 anniversary of existence) launches tabletop games expected to sell 140.000 copies in Spain alone… or 2.000.000 copies worldwide…
I must say that Mr. Rojas was strongly Roman biased, the games he produced (MEATURO and ZAMA) were Roman Republic highlights!… curiously enough Hannibal and the “Carthaginians Armies” are probably a lot more inspiring because they lost (mainly at sea as in all wars)… Europe is not “oriental” because the Romans won. Never Mr. Rojas produced a game about Ticino, Trebia, Trasimeno or Cannas… and he was probably right (mind!)… those were the ancient “big scare” of the ancient world.
With hindsight an Empire build with “business and commercial values at its core”… aka the Phoenician heirs of CARTHAGO… with mainly mercenary soldiers and dubious allies payed for their military services… with very few real carthaginian soldiers in their Armies was doomed from the start against the “citizen roman soldier of the republic” (probably half of a Republican Army was also Auxiliary troops… but they fought to became proper “roman citizens as a bonus in the end”)… It is a fascinating History. Got us all hooked when very young… we do understand it now. It is a matter of values… the higher values and sacrifices pay in the end.
I can also reflect that the “agrarian” Romans (Primary economical sector mainly) won over a “business commercial” carthaginians (Tertiary sector mainly)… both using the same technologies available (Second sector)… just mention this for fun of course. When Hannibal asked for more troops and supplies -basically money- the business decison of the Cartagho Senate was the wrong one… and that’s that.
But the “scare” was so big that the Romans had to erase Cartago from the face of the Earth… literally… DELENDA EST CARTHAGO!… raze the city and plant salt on their fields so they will never raise again… because it was a “Near Run Thing”. The languages we speak are mainly derived from greek and latin… no one cares about what “carthaginians” spoke…
We never looked back after that boardgame with 54mm plastic minis… of course more than fifty years later the plastic minis are gone and forgotten… years ago I bought metal minis to use the map with them… actually after several tries with Baccus 6mm correct figures (meaning Gauls, Carthaginian, Elephants, and Republican Romans).
The private edition by my brother is not available commercially if I understood correctly!… will post actualizations once I got my complimentary copy! (After all it was me who introduced my little brother to wargames at a very early age… that he later will transform that passion into a business still puzzles me!).
Enjoy!
