The Right Game for the History of Asiago, Italy

My wife is involved in establishing our small Illinois town as a sister city with Asiago, Italy. As my part in this, my company is considering developing a game about that region of northern Italy. Our initial choice was a basic war game about the World War One battle that occurred there between the Italians and the Austrians. However, as we did more research we discovered that there might be a better way to promote education about the region then through a war game about a single moment in time - especially a place with as much history as Asiago.

In the early 1980's a board game came out called Britannia. It was what is called a "sweep-of-history" game where players play the parts of a variety of people groups that invaded and settled a region - in the case of Britannia it was about the period of British history between the Roman invasion and the Norman Conquest. The game can be played with two players but needs at least three to be played well and can handle up to five participants. The game is not very complicated, but because it is trying to re-create 1000 years of history as closely as possible, it can be rather detailed in places and is not a "beer & pretzels" game by any stretch of the term.

The upside of such a game is that it can introduce people to the history of a region and connect them with their ancestry through entertainment and anyone, even those that don't normally play board games and definitely don't play war games, can enjoy and gain something from the experience. It is also a great history teaching device - as long as it's kept simple. It can simulate war but only very abstractly and they tend to focus heavily the non-combat aspects of civilization building.

The downside is that it really requires about four players, which can be hard to wrangle-up on any given evening, and it can take four to six hours to play through a game. Players also never find themselves becoming attached emotionally to their "side" precisely because there is no "side" to take. Each player plays the part of a variety of civilizations/tribes/people groups as they appear and then disappear in sequence from history. The objective is to acquire points through combat and holding onto territory. The various tribes under one's control can even attack one other simply to gather points. Unlike a traditional game, one does not become identified with one's "side".

We are therefore considering both the World War One game or the sweep-of-history game as the vehicle to present the history of northeastern Italy to those that have ancestry there or are merely curious.