Actually I think you do need to define wargame because while I can see that games such as Friedrich and Twilight Struggle could be considered as euro-wargame hybrids, I wouldn’t describe any of the current games mentioned as being remotely coming close to that definition. (I don’t know anything about those listed as on the horizon)

Age of Empires III and End of the Triumvirate both have pure-Euro mechanics. Imperial is much more like a stock market game (or 18xx) than a wargame and Through the Ages totally abstracted the military aspects.

Just because something has something that represents armies does not, in my view, make it a wargame. In the Year of the Dragon has a Mongol invasion. Would that fall into your definition?

Shogun/Wallenstein is what first comes to my mind when I think Euro/Wargame, or Waro, or Weuro.  A Game Of Thrones is another good example with some similar mechanisms as Shogun (simultaneous action selection) and no randomness in combat. Perikles is another example of a Waro but with heavily abstracted area control and some classic wargame elements (dice rolling, CRTs). 

I would also not consider AOE III or Imperial as war games simply for the fact that if you play them as wargames, you’re going to lose.

Kris, I think a better definition of the games you’re talking about may be “German/American” hybrids.  This is the concept that Bruno Faidutti broached years ago, about hybrids of the German ideal and the American ideal in game design (as far as I know, he was the first to talk about those ideals as well).  So games like AoE and Through the Ages feature the strong theming of the American inspired designs, but also include the slick mechanics that Eurogames are known for.  I think this extends the category and also avoids the contentious issue of what exactly constitutes a wargame.

I agree with Michael that a lot of the titles mentioned probably aren’t wargames of any kind.  But I don’t see how you could consider End of the Triumvirate to be anything BUT a wargame.  What else would you call it?  The theme is war and players attack each other’s positions.  Just because a game doesn’t have dice, doesn’t mean it isn’t a wargame.

By avoiding definitions, I was hoping to avoid hairsplitting debates on what constitutes a wargame or Euro-game. I don’t think that Age of Empires III is a wargame by any means, but a player could play the whole game with a war strategy, and the game could feel like a simple wargame to people whose forces are getting gunned down. 

The same is true of Through the Ages.  We now have wargame companies selling wargames that have nothing but decks of cards, so obviously games don’t have to have a board and chits to qualify as wargames.  If I can play Though the Ages with a war strategy (build up my military and pillage my neighbors) then the game may feel like a wargame with an economic engine to me.

I understand why you don’t want to get into an argument about definitions but I do also think that Larry has a point and that there is a distinction to be drawn between what he calls “German/American” hybrids and your notion of a “Euro/wargame” hybrid.  I think that if something is to qualify as a type of “wargame” players need to be using military units to attack each other.  On that basis Through the Ages just about qualifies but Imperial and Confucius do not.

Other games that do are the Warfrog quartet: Struggle of Empires, Byzantium, Perikles and Mordred.  In contrast, the rest of the Warfrog range—Liberté, Age of Steam, Princes of the Renaissance, Brass—together with the first of the Treefrogs (Tinners’ Trail)come into Larry’s category but not into yours.

And that listing brings me to my next quibble, this time with Larry.  In designing games of this sort Martin Wallace seems to me to be following a tradition that goes back to Francis Tresham (1829, Civilization, Spanish Main) through a line that takes in Derek Carver (New World, Warrior Knights, Blood Royale) and the Ragnar Brothers (History of the World, Backpacks & Blisters, Kings & Castles, Viking Fury, Canal Mania).  These are all strongly themed games that have mechanisms that eschew the “probability-based simulation” approach of the American wargame.  That being so, the term “German-American” seems to be a little unfair, as does the assertion that so-called hybrids of this type are some sort of newly developed compromise.  They have been around for thirty years—in Britain if nowhere else—and so all we are seeing now is more of them.

Stuart, I have no problem saying that some of the earlier British designs had some Euro mechanics.  Acquire is pretty much a Eurogame, even though it predated the use of the term by 40 years.  Bruno is talking in general terms and not all the games from the American School are American, nor all German School games European.

I’m not sure I’d call all of the games you list as hybrids, but the point is a valid one.  I think Wallace is consciously designing games that match Euro mechanics to strong themes, while some of the earlier games “just happened”, but it doesn’t really make much difference when you play it.  The geographic labels tend to ruffle some feathers, but I think if they’re viewed as tendencies and not as absolutes, I think they’re pretty accurate and convey their meaning well.

Hybrids? No way. IMHO these are all just signs of the reintroduction of multiplayer economic wargames popular in the 80’s.