1914 (game)

1914 (game)

1914 was a board wargame published by the Avalon Hill game company in 1968 and designed by James F. Dunnigan. It was a corps-level simulation of the first few weeks of World War I on the western front. The game came in an 11" × 14" cardboard box, and included a fold-out, cardboard-backed game map (22" × 28"), German and Allied cardboard counters, a set of dice, game variant cards, a mobilization chart pad for secret deployment, and various charts and instructions including a Battle Manual.

The game board map was covered by a hex grid to regulate movement. The game scale was 2 days per turn, with approximately 16 km per hex. The map covered the terrain from Mainz, Germany in the east to Le Havre, France in the west, and from the southern portion of the Netherlands in the north to the northern edge of Switzerland in the south. The terrain included major rivers, ridge lines, rough terrain, forest, and the sea. It also displayed the location of cities, fortifications, economic sites, mobilization squares, and railroads. The hex grid was marked with coordinates: numbers running south-north, and letters west-east.

The various military formations are represented by counters—square pieces of colored cardboard printed with game information. German counters were gray-green (Feldgrau) in hue; the French were light red; British and Dutch pale khaki, and Belgian counters were light blue. Each counter was marked with a standard unit symbol for infantry, cavalry, or artillery. The counter also displayed the unit size (corps, division, brigade, regiment, or battalion), unit designation, and whether it was an active army unit, or reserve, landwehr, etc.