Editing Wargame (section)

==Types==
===Miniature===
[[File:Bolt Action match.jpg|thumb|right|[[Bolt Action (wargame)|''Bolt Action'']], a miniature wargame set during World War 2]]
{{Main|Miniature wargaming}}[[Miniature wargaming]] is a form of wargaming where units on the battlefield are represented by miniature models, as opposed to abstract pieces such as wooden blocks or plastic counters. Likewise, the battlefield itself is represented by model terrain, as opposed to a flat board or map; naval wargames are often played on a floor because they tend to require more space than a tabletop. Most miniature wargaming is recreational because issues of scale get in the way of realism.

Miniature wargaming can be more expensive and time-consuming than other forms of wargaming.<ref>{{harvp|Peterson|2012}}:<br />"To the avid miniature wargamer, board gaming must have appeared crude, aesthetically dull and confining in the rigidity of its rules; to the unrepentant board wargamer, miniature gaming looked expensive, labor-intensive and contentious in its latitude toward system."</ref> Furthermore, most manufacturers do not sell ready-to-play models, they sell boxes of model parts, which the players are expected to assemble and paint themselves. This requires skill, time, and money, but many players like the opportunity to show off their artistic skills. Miniature wargaming is often as much about artistry as it is about play.

===Board===
{{Main|Board wargame}}
A [[board wargame]] is played on a board that has a more-or-less fixed layout and is supplied by the game's manufacturer. This is in contrast to customizable playing fields made with modular components, such as in [[miniature wargaming]].

===Block===
[[File:Julius Caesar Columbia Games.jpg|thumbnail|right|A game of ''Julius Caesar'' from [[Columbia Games]] shows how a player may only know the strength and unit type of their own forces, creating a fog of war element that does not exist in most tabletop wargames.]]
{{Main|Block wargame}}
In [[Block wargame|block wargaming]], the [[Fog of war#Simulations and games|Fog of War]] is built into the game by representing units with upright wooden blocks that are marked on only one face, which is oriented towards the player who owns the block. The opponent cannot see the markings from his position. The first such block wargame was ''[[Quebec 1759]]'' by [[Columbia Games]] (previously named Gamma Two Games), depicting the campaign surrounding the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.

===Card===
Because of their nature, cards are well suited for abstract games, as opposed to the simulation aspects of wargames. Traditional card games are not considered wargames even when nominally about the same subject (such as the game ''[[War (card game)|War]]'').

An early card wargame was ''[[Nuclear War (card game)|Nuclear War]]'', a 'tongue-in-cheek game of the end of the world', first published in 1966 and still published today by [[Flying Buffalo]]. It does not simulate how any actual nuclear exchange would happen, but it is still structured unlike most card games because of the way it deals with its subject.

In the late 1970s [[Battleline Publications]] (a board wargame company) produced two card games, ''[[Naval War]]'' and ''Armor Supremacy''. The first was fairly popular in wargaming circles, and is a light system of naval combat, though again not depicting any 'real' situation (players may operate ships from opposing navies side-by-side). ''Armor Supremacy'' was not as successful, but is a look at the constant design and development of new types of tanks during World War II.

The most successful card wargame (as a card game and as a wargame) would almost certainly be ''[[Up Front (game)|Up Front]]'', a card game about tactical combat in World War II published by Avalon Hill in 1983. The abstractness is harnessed in the game by having the deck produce random terrain, and chances to fire, and the like, simulating uncertainty as to the local conditions (nature of the terrain, etc.).

Dan Verssen Games is a specialist designer and publisher of card games for several genres, including air combat and World War II and modern land combat.

Also, card driven games (CDGs), first introduced in 1993, use a deck of (custom) cards to drive most elements of the game, such as unit movement (activation) and random events. These are, however, distinctly board games, the deck is merely one of the most important ''elements'' of the game.

=== Solitaire ===
An entire class of wargames have been designed to be played exclusively solitaire. The solitaire genre is a relatively recent development: as wargames became more popular, practical limitations of time and location meant that opponents were often limited (if one wishes to re-fight the German invasion of the USSR in 1941, he/she must find an opponent with similar interest, location, time and availabilty). At the same time, playing "both sides" instead is often seen as less satisfying. <ref>{{Cite web |title=Is Solitaire Real Wargaming? {{!}} Wargames |url=https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/388443/is-solitaire-real-wargaming |access-date=2025-05-19 |website=BoardGameGeek |language=en-US}}</ref>

The solitaire genre encompasses the wide range full-throated boxed games with hundreds of pieces and mounted game boards, to magazine formatted titles, to pure card games.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Solitaire Wargames - An Updated List |url=https://rpggeek.com/geeklist/271232/solitaire-wargames-an-updated-list?itemid=7739702 |access-date=2025-05-19 |website=RPGGeek |language=en-US}}</ref> Additionally, many publishers have "specialized" in the genre or at least offer a significant collection of purely solitaire options, examples being GMT Games, Fortress Games, Victory Point Games among many others. 

Some examples of solitaire wargames by type:

Traditional complete game (boxed, mounted table-top game board, rulebook, all pieces included): [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191790/empires-in-america-the-french-and-indian-war-1754 Empires in America], [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/159692/comancheria-the-rise-and-fall-of-the-comanche-empi Comancheria], [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/349134/save-south-vietnam Save South Vietnam!]

Magazine game (comes in magazine or booklet form, played by writing action results on specialized pages, no or very limited pieces): [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/352963/waterloo-solitaire Waterloo Solitaire], [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/99969/great-war-salvo-solitaire-tactical-world-war-i-nav Great War Salvo!]

Card game (game mechanism is primarily or entirely driven by drawing and playing cards from a deck or decks of specialized cards): [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/268864/undaunted-normandy Undaunted Normandy], [https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/149951/warfighter-the-tactical-special-forces-card-game Warfighter]

===Computer===
{{Main|Wargame (video games)|Wargame (hacking)}}
<!-- Deleted image removed: [[File:Sm gettysburg 1997 screenshot.gif|thumb|right|''[[Sid Meier's Gettysburg!]]'' (1997, for [[Microsoft Windows]])]] -->
The term "wargame" is rarely used in the video gaming hobby; the term "strategy game" is preferred.{{citation needed|date=November 2020}} "Computer wargame" distinguishes a game from a "tabletop wargame".

Computer wargames have many advantages over traditional wargames. In a computer game, all the routine procedures and calculations are automated. The player needs only to make strategic and tactical decisions. The learning curve for the player is smaller, as the game can be played without mastering all its mechanics. The gameplay is faster, as a computer can process calculations much faster than a human. Computer wargames often have more sophisticated mechanics than traditional wargames thanks to automation. Computer games tend to be cheaper than traditional wargames because, being software, they can be copied and distributed very efficiently. It's easier for a player to find opponents with a computer game: a computer game can use artificial intelligence to provide a virtual opponent, or connect him to another human player over the Internet. For these reasons, computers are now the dominant medium for wargaming.

===Computer-assisted===
[[File:NWC_wargame_1958.jpg|right|thumb|The US Navy Electronic Warfare Simulator (1958)]]
[[File:152nd Virtual Flag 141029-F-QU230-937.jpg|right|thumb|A computer-assisted wargame sponsored by the US Air National Guard (February 2015)]]
{{Main|Computer-assisted gaming}}
In the recent years, programs have been developed for [[computer-assisted gaming]] as regards to wargaming. Two different categories can be distinguished: local computer assisted wargames and remote computer assisted wargames.

Local computer assisted wargames are mostly not designed toward recreating the battlefield inside computer memory, but employing the computer to play the role of game master by storing game rules and unit characteristics, tracking unit status and positions or distances, animating the game with sounds and voice and resolving combat. Flow of play is simple: each turn, the units come up in a random order. Therefore, the more units an opponent has, the more chance he will be selected for the next turn. When a unit comes up, the commander specifies an order and if offensive action is being taken, a target, along with details about distance. The results of the order, base move distance and effect to target, are reported, and the unit is moved on the tabletop. All distance relationships are tracked on the tabletop. All record-keeping is tracked by the computer.

Remote computer assisted wargames can be considered as extensions to the concept of play-by-email gaming, however the presentation and actual capabilities are completely different. They have been designed to replicate the look and feel of existing board or miniatures wargames on the computer. The map and counters are presented to the user who can then manipulate these, more-or-less as if he were playing the physical game, and send a saved file off to his opponent, who can review what has been done without having to duplicate everything on his physical set-up of the game, and respond. Some allow for both players to get on-line and see each other's moves in real-time.

These systems are generally set up so that while one can play the game, the program has no knowledge of the rules, and cannot enforce them. The human players must have a knowledge of the rules themselves. The idea is to promote the playing of the games (by making play against a remote opponent easier), while supporting the industry (and reducing [[copyright]] issues) by ensuring that the players have access to the actual physical game.

The four main programs that can be used to play a number of games each are ''Aide de Camp'', ''Cyberboard'', ''[[VASSAL Engine|Vassal]]'' and ''[[ZunTzu]]''. ''Aide de Camp'' is available for purchase, while the other three are offered free. ''Vassal'' is in turn an outgrowth of the ''VASL'' (Virtual ''ASL'') project, and uses [[Java (programming language)|Java]], making it accessible to any computer that can run a modern [[JVM]], while the other three are [[Microsoft Windows]] programs.

=== Play-by-mail (PBM) ===
{{Main|Play-by-mail game}}
Wargames were played remotely through the mail, with players sending lists of moves, or orders, to each other through the mail.

In some early PBM systems, six sided dice rolling was simulated by designating a specific stock and a future date and once that date passed, the players would determine an action's outcome using the sales in hundreds value for specific stocks on a specific date and then dividing the NYSE published sales in hundreds by six, using the remainder as the dice result.

''[[Nuclear Destruction]]'', by the [[Flying Buffalo]], was an early PBM game in 1970. [[Origins Award]] Hall-of-Fame member ''[[Middle-Earth Play-By-Mail]]'' is still active today.

Reality Simulations, Inc. still runs a number of PBM games, such as Duel2 (formerly known as Duelmasters), [[Hyborian War]], and Forgotten Realms: War of the Avatars.

===Email and traditional===
Since email is faster than the standard postal service, the rise of the [[Internet]] saw a shift of people playing board wargames from play-by-mail (PBM) to play-by-email (PBEM) or play-by-web (PBW). The mechanics were the same, merely the medium was faster.

At this time, [[turn-based strategy]] computer games still had a decent amount of popularity, and many started explicitly supporting the sending of saved-game files through email (instead of needing to find the file to send to the opponent by hand). As with all types of video games, the rise in home networking solutions and Internet access has also meant that networked games are now common and easy to set up.