Francis Tresham - RIP

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Jeff V
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Francis Tresham - RIP

Post by Jeff V »

Francis Tresham, founder of the board game company Hartland Trefoil and designer of the original board game Civilization and the 18xx series of railroad building games, passed away yesterday. He was old.

After college, I settled in with a younger gaming group, inherited from a friend who went off and joined the army. Diplomacy was a little too abstract and required soft skills many in the group lacked, but the AH publication of Civilization became a staple played probably 100 times or more in the ensuing years. We also played 1830...I enjoyed the group dynamics in that game as well, but record keeping bogged things down and games were longer than they should have been.

The later Advanced Civilization and 1830 both were ported to the PC in the old DOS days. I seem to recall Advance Civ having a nasty bug that was usually a show-stopper, but 1830 was terrific, and difficult! With the automated record keeping, games went from a 6 hour board game to a 20-30 minute computer game. The AI shamelessly colluded among itself, making it difficult for a single player to win. I don't know if either of these games resurfaced in playable form in modern times, but I'd like to play them again.
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Hrdina
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Re: Francis Tresham - RIP

Post by Hrdina »

Thanks for posting this.

I played a lot of both Advanced Civilization and 1830 (as well as some of the other 18xx games) during my teens and 20s, back when we could meet at a friends house and devote most of a weekend to one or two games.
Jeff V wrote: Thu Oct 24, 2019 1:05 pmI seem to recall Advance Civ having a nasty bug that was usually a show-stopper, but 1830 was terrific, and difficult! With the automated record keeping, games went from a 6 hour board game to a 20-30 minute computer game. The AI shamelessly colluded among itself, making it difficult for a single player to win. I don't know if either of these games resurfaced in playable form in modern times, but I'd like to play them again.
My name shows up in the Advanced Civ manual as one of the volunteer testers, so sorry about that bug I guess. :oops:

The 1830 PC game was indeed fantastic.
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Jeff V
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Re: Francis Tresham - RIP

Post by Jeff V »

Hrdina wrote: Sun Oct 27, 2019 7:03 pm My name shows up in the Advanced Civ manual as one of the volunteer testers, so sorry about that bug I guess. :oops:
I did some beta testing for AH as well (not that game) and I'm pretty sure they disregarded any critical comments we had; our role was just to tell them how awesome they were.
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Gato
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Re: Francis Tresham - RIP

Post by Gato »

Guess we pretty much had the same experience . Was in high school when the original civilization game came out.
At that time i was part of a wargamming group that played games every Saturday.
When that game hit the tables it became an instant classic, to be played every Saturday for months.
Probably played around 30-40 times and i won once.

A few month back i was browsing BGG market place to see if could get my hand on it, naturally the prices were just too much.
Then i stumbled upon this game released today (weird coincidence)https://www.westernempires.com/product/western-empires/

They don't hide the fact that the game rules are based on Tresham original design with improvements.
The game is only available online from Europe, i know i will never be able to gather enough peoples to play it but for nostalgia sake I am like this close to pulling the trigger on it.

Here's their promo video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkmadlVm_Ak
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Moat_Man
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Re: Francis Tresham - RIP

Post by Moat_Man »

RIP



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