I was perusing John's article in Moves #13. In it, he reviews the games created in 1973; the good (Musket and Pike), the bad (Lee Moves North) and the ugly (Scrimmage). The big trouble with reading these, is that I suddenly need to own them all, including the out of print one!
This article he does a very good analysis of the balance between play-ability and realism. I was particular amused by his analysis of the "Fall of Rome". In it, he said "I'm sort of the resident expert on Roman history, mostly because of my Roman Catholic background." I suppose that means you know your legate from your pro-consul.
He concluded the article with a fun description of how games are created. Reading between the lines in his other comments suggest his preference is to be the developer. Certainly you can see from Prestags that a complex topic can be polished down to a playable game with recognizable historicity.
I note that this site comes of page four of a Google Search on John Michael Young, behind a mass murderer, an actor, and R&B artist, and a false hit on John Watts Young, the astronaut. I wonder if anyone might get around to writing a review of "Strategy"?
Posted by: PythonMagus | Wednesday, 28 January 2015 at 11:33 PM
He was of the One True Faith! Awesome.
Posted by: Paul | Wednesday, 28 January 2015 at 10:30 PM