Welcome to Arcadia

What is Arcadia?


It's my fantasy game world, specifically designed for solitaire fantasy wargames.

Why?

I've been a gamer since my pre-teens. It's one of those hobbies that periodically grabs hold of my brain and refuses to let go! I started off being playing historical miniatures games. I had no opponents, but fortunately came across Programmed Wargames Scenarios by Charles Grant. I generalized his system so that I could use it for any battle in any period, bought some figures and off I went. Over the next 10 years or so I used this system to play games in the ancient, Napoleonic and World War 2 periods.

Later, I did make some gamer friends at school, university and after. One thing I discovered was that I frequently didn't like playing games against other people. The gamers I met tended to be very competitive - finding a dominant strategy and pounding their opponents into the ground. I play games to have fun and to see what happens.

When gaming with other people, I preferred to run games rather than play in them. I ran two long-term games successfully. One was a fantasy role-playing game which had emphasis on role-playing rather than combat. The other was a sci-fi military and economic campaign game.

After the last campaign finished, I had no game to run and no group to run a game with anyway. I had gotten bored of the solo wargames system I had been playing since my teens. I dropped out of gaming for around 12 years.

About 3 years ago I was reintroduced to gaming by the realization that there were a lot of boardgames out there - many of them well produced and which either played solo straight out of the box or had solo variants that could be found on Boardgamegeek. As is my wont, I have immersed myself in the hobby once more. Combining my love of solo gaming, miniatures games and large-scale games, I came up with the idea for Arcadia.

And this blog?

Arcadia is still very much in the development stage, but is now starting to take shape. I want to keep a record of how this world develops, and also keep a narrative record of the campaign itself once it is up and running.