About The electronic Brigadier
Welcome to the Electronic Brigadier! Electronic brigadier is a cloud-based computer-moderated wargaming system for historical miniature wargames in the black powder period.
I've been playing wargames with board game tokens, miniatures, and computers for more than 35 years. Each system has its pros and cons. Miniatures games have unparalleled aesthetic beauty, board games allow for massive quantities of units, and computer games can track the many variables that control the game while retaining the ability to reveal some information only when it is appropriate for the player to know it. This last feature allows for 'fog of war' realism to be added to the game.
Augmenting tabletop miniatures games with computer moderation allows you to combine the best of all three worlds. Until the availability and affordability of mobile computing platforms such as smartphones and tablets, the only way to integrate computers into a miniatures game was to require the game master to enter all of the appropriate information for each turn into a single computer. Using this method requires each player to wait their turn to move their troops and interact with the game master. Using networked mobile devices to allow players from the opposing side to simultaneously participate in the data entry process removes these problems while also keeping the non-moving players fully engaged in the game. The data entry load is spread across all players and works just as well for a ten-player game as it does for a two-player game.
The Electronic Brigadier has been created primarily as a tabletop miniatures game. At every step of its design I've held this to be the first and most important design factor. I wanted to insure that adding computers to the mix didn't detract from what I consider are the most important factors in a good tabletop wargame. These are in approximate order of importance:
- It must be fun to play.
- It must not hinder the social interaction and engagement between the players.
- It must maintain as much historical accuracy as is practicable in regards to:
- outcomes of battles and engagements
- tabletop representation of the historical units, tactics, terrain, and formations
- casualty rates
- It must allow battles to be played to conclusion in a reasonable amount of time.
Each of the significant design decisions that were made while making The Electronic Brigadier were made in support of this goal: the computers should add value and enjoyment to the miniatures game, not get in the way of it.
Documentation
Scenario Creation Guide (PDF) - Coming Soon
Contact Us
Email: allanwright.aj@gmail.com
Phone: 1-603-312-2738
The Electronic Brigadier Facebook Page
The Electronic Brigadier YouTube Video Page