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I asked some grognards on the internet a few weeks ago for old wargames recommendations. The one most mentioned was Wargame Construction Set III Age of Rifles (Norm Koger, SSI, 1996). After finding some old reviews I decided it looked like a game I would almost certainly enjoy, so I ordered a used copy from someone on eBay. While waiting for it to arrive I downloaded the free demo and spent a few late nights playing the two small demo scenarios. Typing this just as I have installed the full version of the game in dosbox and managed to patch it to version 1.4 that is supposedly the latest official patch. It looks fantastic and I am happy to have it, for real, in a box, with a printed manual.
There was a thriving community around this game for several years after its release, and a fairly active Yahoo Group. The latter is of course gone now since Yahoo killed all groups a few years ago, but I managed to get an archive of it. The old fan websites are mostly gone, but several are on archive.org, including hundreds of fan-made scenarios. The only thing missing is the official expansion CDROM. I will probably have to find that as well eventually. But maybe slow down a bit and see if the game is as good as I think it is before spending even more money.
the designer's Age of Rifles page
Rock Paper Shotgun review from 2016
Computer Gaming World issue 148 review
archive of official home page in late 1996
tags: #games #dos