The Notorious Board Game That Takes 1,500 Hours To Complete:
He’ll happily admit that this was an unreasonable game for unreasonable people…
He and his friends played for exactly one session, resolving to get through the first day of the war for a taste of the combat systems and resource management, before quickly moved onto something that wasn’t going to demand of a decade of his time. His reasons were clear: the game is fastidious, non-intuitive, and it forces some seriously awkward fractional equations. But nearly 40 years later he still daydreams about the experience.
As he pored over the rulebook, his curiosity was piqued by the stringent regulations on the treatment of POWs, and how they could defect into their own militia and potentially plunge the campaign into an unwinnable state. Imagine that, the world’s longest board game ending with two losers.
It is ornery and intentionally difficult, its commercial release feels like a grave miscalculation or an ultimate dare issued by a hysterical publisher. But its audacity touched a special few. Finally, the chance to have your courage and resilience challenged by a pile of cardboard.
It’s all way too much. It is drunk and full of hubris.