Wargaming History Survey

Reviewed by D. MCGOWAN, 2007-02-07

This is a decent book. It gives an excellent history of wargaming through the ages, and covers the 70's period extremely well (taking me for a walk down memory lane). I agree with the other esteemed reviewers on the rest of the book, it's worth a read.

An excellent reference book on wargaming

Reviewed by Hung Cheuk Man, 2004-01-05

The most comprehensive book on the subject Wargaming from an insider -- Dr. Peter Perla. His theoretical approach to the making of this book combines with actual practices make this book an immensely useful and thought-provoking reference as to historical development, principles of designing and analyzing wargames. Mr. Perla is a naval guy and so there is much coverage on the naval game simulation at the start and in the end part of predicting the future use of wargames. If you can pass these rather technical materials drawn from his extensive experience in the Center for naval Analyses since 1977 where he works as a naval operations research analyst, you can find a vibrant, knowledgeable and insightful as to the modern commercial wargames. A lot of these games are covered especially those from SPI, Avalon Hill and Victory Games. You may jump to read Chapter 3 onwards to Chapter 9 if you are a hobbyist yourselves. Perla's book is more scholarlistic and hard to chew on than James Dunnigan's "The Complete Wargame Handbook". But at the same time, this book offers more depth and breadth on the subject. Highly recommended. The book was first published in 1990. Grab a copy of it before it goes out-of-print.

Conceptual and Helpful

Reviewed by Anonymous, 2003-06-20

The first half of the book focuses on the history of wargaming, and is quite informative. The second half deals with concepts pertaining to design and use of wargames in the both the professional and hobby industries. Modern commercial wargame designers could learn a lot from reading this book.

Mostly history, not much on miniature gaming, per se.

Reviewed by Bruce A Laue, 2002-09-26

This book focuses on the history of wargames. It focuses mainly on war games use by the militaries, with only token coverage of the hobby. To say it only discusses board games, though, is inaccurate. It discusses games from a military viewpoint, without discussing much in the way of game mechanics, in a specific manner. Dr. Perla does discuss the abstraction of game design, and the level of details. He discusses the purposes of a particlur game design, and how this is used to explore a particular set of criteria for a military operation. If that sounds complicated, it is. This book is not terribly complex or difficult to read, but the design of military war games, for the professional militaries, is. He does not go into detail for professional designs, but he does discuss the overall concepts well.

This book is aimed at discussing how war games are designed, applied, and used. It discusses what can be learned from such exercises, and what cannot be learned in a simulation. If you are a game designer, you will learn from this book, but perhaps not as much as you would like. He does not discuss details, but rather concepts, and focus level: is this game designed for a tactical level, or strategic level? What do the designers hope to learn from this simulation?

While this book accomplishes its tasks well, if you are looking for a book on the hobby of war games, it may leave you unsatisfied. It is primarily aimed towards professionals, in my opinion, and those who wish to know the history of "professional" war games.

A must read for any wargaming enthusiast.

Reviewed by Anonymous, 1999-08-19

Perla's extensive research into the background and history of wargames, along with the books acceptional chapters on designing and playing wargames make it a comprehensive guide for both the FNG (the NG part stands for new guy, the F yu can figure out) and the professional. A must read for any wargaming enthusiast.