War games offers a united front against the virus

By ERIN O'BRIEN
Posted 4/2/20

On Saturday, March 28, at 11 a.m. eastern standard time, fighting commenced across several time zones. The common enemy was an invisible one, the coronavirus. Online game players of the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War (GCACW),

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War games offers a united front against the virus

Posted

On Saturday, March 28, at 11 a.m. eastern standard time, fighting commenced across several time zones. The common enemy was an invisible one, the coronavirus.

Online game players of the Great Campaigns of the American Civil War (GCACW), published by Multi-Man and licensed by Hasbro, included members from the United States, Spain, Italy, France, and Japan, who logged on in unison for the live event, “GCACW vs. the coronavirus.”

Warwick resident and GCACW game designer, Chris Withers, holed up in his home office Saturday to participate in the campaign, hosted by Ken Lee (good surname for a general) of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.

On Saturday, April 4, Alberto Romero of Madrid, Spain will host the multiplayer game between Spanish and Japanese players, which will include a commentary in Spanish, with an opportunity to comment and ask questions via online chat. “The game has a playful rather than competitive sense,” writes Romero, “and the objective is to unite players from different countries to improve the level of play and promote the GCACW to new players.” The event is available live on Skype for group members, and will be recorded for YouTube.

Several of the players have faced off in person in the past at annual board game conventions in Baltimore and Silver Spring, Maryland, and have maintained their friendly rivalry online.

The complex strategy game is a welcome respite from the fear and uncertainty every country currently faces, where a common enemy has invaded every corner of the world.

Chris became involved in the Avalon Hill strategy games as a teenager in Virginia. In the early 1990s, his brother sent him a large box containing envelopes of their childhood games, renewing Chris’s interest. Having recently purchased his first home computer, he discovered an online forum for GCACW, a new gaming system that was gaining popularity. Originally, he set up a Civil War era map and playing pieces on a drafting table in his garage in California to chart his and his opponent’s moves. The following day he would email the information to his counterpart in Kansas, who had a similar set up at home. The process was arduous, considering the different time zones, and one game might last two weeks. When game-playing software became available, their moves on the computer map became instantaneous.

For a few hours, the online players enter an alternate reality, rewriting the past. “We’re combating coronavirus by playing our Civil War games online,” Withers said, “instead of being face-to-face, and in close proximity.”

This strategy will lead us through this episode in history. Whether by phone, remote instruction, or happy hour via Zoom video conference, the players are safely connected with one another in the battle against this scourge as they shelter in place.

To quote Winston Churchill, “Victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory no matter how hard and long the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”

“Stonewall Jackson’s Way,” “Hood Strikes North,” and other U.S. Civil War board games are sold by Multi-Man Publishing.

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