"Would an 18th C. imagi-nations board be useful?" Topic

I know this is a touchy subject lately with all the new boards popping up, but I thought that in this case it might really help.

With many of the 18th C. imagi-nations having very historical sounding names, it might be nice to have a place where they could be discussed that clearly distinguished them from the historical settings.

This may seem like a minor quibble but with all the variation in 18th C. units, nations, armies, etc, it can sometimes be tricky to separate the historical from the imaginary, especially for somebody who likes wargaming the period but isn't exactly up to speed on this period and all it's intricacies.

-Eli

ONLY if the Board is not confined to 18th Century.
There are plenty of other periods with Imaginations. For example, the Peregrine novels by Avram Davidson have plenty of Late Roman Imagi-nations, all perfectly suitable for gaming.

I just figured it might be best to have period specific imagi-nation boards so we're not mixing all the different peanut butters and chocolates.

-Eli

I seriously doubt that there would be the oft-violated criterion for a Board, that it get 10 new topics per month. You increase your survivability with more periods.

I agree with John:

A pre-1945 Fictionalized Settings board would be fine with me. (And including all periods would flesh out the board so it wouldn't end up like some of the rule-specific boards that, I understand, aren't all that active.)

John,

That is certainly a possible issue.

Do it.

I'm for it.

I'm for it too.

The thing about pre-1945 Bongolesia is that no one wants to admit that they were the Colonial Power.
The British blame the French, the French blame the Belgians, the Belgians blame the Burgundians, the Burgundians blame Savoy, and Savoy blames Ruritania.

NO!

NO! Even if some put them in the same (contemptuous) bag, 'Imagi-Nations' and 'Weird Wars' are basically different. WWII deserves a board of its own, using special minis and rules.
Not so for Imagi-Nations: those from different periods have *a lot * in common with their respective contemporary historical countries, firstly miniatures and rules, two major topics on TMP.Will a players intending to develop a 'quasi-Danish' imaginary principality on the Baltic shore have to hide his intention, as if ashamed, when posting queries about Denmark on the 'historical' board corresponding to his chosen period?
Thus, basically almost all entries on such 'apartheided' (that's the intention and motivation of the OP, I suspect) board would be cross-posted on 'period specific' boards. Useless board.

Besides, the frontier between 'historical' and 'imagi-nary' armies and games is fuzzy.
In the 18th C. at least, even hard-boiled 'historicals' sometimes indulge in a little 'creativity': Bill Protz fields a few WAS light troops in his SYW games because of their flamboyant uniforms; Der Alte Fritz created an imaginary unit -Milady de Winter's Black Legion- occasionally moonlighting as an auxiliary to his SYW Prussians.

Where do you draw an impassable rift-like borderline between 'historical' and 'what-if?' campaigns? There may be practically none at the onset, but as the campaign progresses divergence with 'history' increases. 'Defiant Catalonia' what-if-catalonia.blogspot.com is exemplary, so much the more a sits creator insisted that he was not playing an 'Imagi-Nation' but campaigning a 'What-if?' situation, historical at its start: the desperate fight of Catalonia to keeps its independence at the end of the WSS. But during the campaign Catalonia was more successful than in our 'Real World™', and its 'ruler' had to recruit new regiments, and thus to design 'original' flags and uniforms (carefully following historical precedents), as many Imagi-Nation builder (some are content with using historical armies under another name).

'Historical' wargamers are not writing some historical treatise, they are writing *historical fiction*. As thoroughly researched and historically accurate the OOB, initial deployment, uniforms, flags… maybe, as soon as you are *playing* (rather than moving pieces in a didactic dynamic display), as soon as players can takes initiatives and random factors get involved, you can get an 'unhistorical' result. So at best you are playing a 'what-if?' game. Not only the outcome of the battle maybe different, but you can have Alexander killed at Issos, Frederick at Mollwitz, Washington during the FIW or Bonaparte at Arcole. Without consequences if playing an isolated battle game, not very consequential even in a *short* wargame campaign; but think a moment about the *long term consequences*, either in a protracted campaign or in 'Reality'.
As a wargame campaign, imagine Nelson killed and the French Navy victorious at Abukir, Bonaparte's expedition thriving in Egypt. Then if successful, Bonaparte following the steps of Alexander conquering the Ottomans then Persians: after a few campaign years he would be fighting Wellington for the overall control of India. And note that in such protracted campaign under 'unhistorical' skies, players *have* to design original uniforms, since historical ones evolved in the meantime, but under a different climate. After years of campaigning in what is now Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, North-West India… French troops would wear uniforms quite different from those of Iena and Wagram (in this case, probably a development of the uniforms tailored in Egypt) -not to speak of the 'sipahis' recruited locally.
As for the long-term consequences of an 'alternative' outcome in 'Reality', I'm not a great fan of Keith Roberts' Pavane link , but the basic idea -what life in the mid-20th C. could be following the assassination of Queen Elizabeth in 1588- as a thought experiment, is stimulating.Each and every wargame has the potential to be a 'diverging point' from 'our' History, the origin of an 'alternate timeline', and the consequences are more and more drastic as time passes -a 'snowball' effect.
Now, most Imagi-Nations are mere 'What-if?' nations. For some reasons the 'Lace Wars' link seem specially propitious to Imagi-Nations (wonder if the use of Imagi-Nations in the 2 seminal 40 years books, Young's 'Charge!' and Grant's 'The War Game' are causes or consequences of this peculiarity?) TMP link TMP link -the 'What-if?' is merely the addition of one or two statelets to the historical 300+ of the Holy Empire- but 'historical 'What-if?' countries can be set in most periods TMP link
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Such as for recent or contemporary examples 'What-if?' additional banana Republics in South America or post-colonial sub-saharian Africa, and "X-kistan" ones in post SSSR Eastern Europe and Caucasus (note that at least 3 such *do exist*, if recognized only by Russia). AK-47 Republics 'field' the same miniatures and models as 'historical' contemporaries armies of the same area: why should they be restricted to ['apatheided' in] a separate TMP board ghetto?].

Indeed Imagi-Nations set in different periods *do* share a few common features (map making, characters and genealogies generation…) but far less than they share with historical countries of their respective periods, making cross-posting compulsory most of the time and an Imagi-Nation board redundant.

As was suggested in the initial thread TMP link , 'Imagi-Nation' in the title would allow 'historicals' allergic to such to avoid / skip the thread, and would ensure an easily exhaustive search for relevant posts on all boards.
And for those who are really "not interested" (read: who think that Imagi-Nations "muddy up History" \\ depreciate / disgrace / dishonour the hobby in the same way as GWshopping and toy wargaming à la H.G. Wells), ask our Venerated Editor for a possibility to 'stifle' keywords in threads titles.

Our hobby is one -among the hundreds of 18th C. so-called 'Imagi-Nations' you'll find the whole range from 200% historical countries under another name to an imaginary continent. Union gives strength, division weakens.

I am with J-L on this..

Seems like a good idea, whether period-specific or inclusive.
JL may have valid arguments against it somewhere in his text, but just looking at it gives me a headache, sorry.

for those who didn't get that far in J-L's treatise ,from wikipedia
"Pavane soon found an important place in the "alternative history" sub-genre of science fiction and the work's high reputation continues, with the authoritative The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction assessing it as "now credited as the finest of all 'alternate histories' ". Algis Budrys found the novel to be "a tapestry of a book; a marvel of storytelling", and concluded that, despite an unnecessary Coda, it was "a truly wonderful work"."

Like many others here I'm bulding both historical and imagi-nation armies, partly using the same units with alternate flags, but I can see how those only interested in the historical side of our hobby would prefer niot to wade through 'fantasy' stuff.

As for where to draw the line, I thought the OP was quite clear in his implications: Fictitious countries, units and geography should go to a separate board – not a made-up scenario opposing Prussian and Austrian troops in the context of, say, the Leuthen campaign.

The recent flurry of 18th C imagi-nations may have made the desire to distinguish between fact- and fiction-based gaming most pressing in that period. Yet other periods of history do lend themselves to alternative timelines, and 18th C. imagi-nations (including mine) may eventually develop their own past and future declinations. So on balance, I'd tend towards an inclusive board for alternative timeline gaming of different shades.

A form of ostracism / racism….
To keep it short I think Timurilank's proposal TMP link :
"Set "Imagination" in your topic-title and that should more than suffice as an alert; such as "spoilers". Your choice." makes an Imagi-Nation board redundant. Besides, it would ensure -using 'Imagi-Nation' as keyword- an easy exhaustive retrieval of relevant posts across all boards.

And for those who are really "not interested" (read: who think that Imagi-Nations depreciate / disgrace / dishonour the hobby in the same way as GWshopping and toy wargaming à la H.G. Wells), ask our Venerated Editor for a possibility to 'stifle' keywords in threads titles.

J-L, you took the words out off my mouth.

I would like to add, life is too short for such complexities. Besides, a blonde girlfriend will fill that "vacancy".

As a footnote, I usually log on to TMP in the morning with a coffee and further reading will determine if I will add a croissant with that cup. I can proudly say, I am loosing weight.

salut,

…ask our Venerated Editor for a possibility to 'stifle' keywords in threads titles.

Sure, he has nothing better to do.
Look at how well the Bleep-o-matic catches Naughty Words. It's not very good at misspelled naughty words.
Or in a title.
Or with a Capital letter.
Or…

Dear Editor has better things to do than create even more ways for cranky readers to turn off what they do not like.

I could fill an 18C imagination board all on my own

Like having one more Zulu at Isand', does it really make any difference by now? Why not?

Because that would add a new board to check, just in case someone forgot cross-posting to other relevant board(s).
And how much I appreciate reading TMP, the time I can devote to it is not infinite.

Already discussed several month ago TMP link

Remember that words in the initial posts / threads titles, used as keyword for 'search', work exactly as 'labels' of blogs posts. 'Coding' titles would make a lot of 'minor' boards redundant.