We're back with another edition of Grapeshot where we fire a bunch of questions at our guest and see what turns up. This time around we are very fortunate to have with us a man whom we all know and love in our own little way. It's hardly necessary to introduce this gentleman as we in the NWC are all familiar with his work. However, in the interests of hospitality let me present to you the man who has taken away life as we know it and replaced it with uncountable fun evenings, afternoons, nights and dawns of wargaming: Mr. John Tiller. John is none other than the designer of the Battleground series of games including the Napoleonic battles, a Battle of the Bulge game and a very large Civil War series. So, let's forgive him for making the ACW series bigger than the Napoleonic one and make him feel as part of the Club.

Hello John, I guess we'll start with the biography so people can get to know you a bit better. Tell us a little about yourself, if you would.

I was born in Arkansas and lived there until I left for graduate school in Canada. At McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario I received a Ph.D. in Mathematics and married a Canadian. After graduation, I taught math and computer science in college and university for over seven years, then went to work for Boeing at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama. For the last few years, I've been a full-time game developer.

You were in Canada and Hamilton no less! Did you go to any Tiger-Cat football games (my favourite CFL team)? How did you like Canada? More to us than snow and Celine Dion, eh?

I didn't attend any Tiger-Cat football games, but I like Canada very much and enjoy visiting there about once a year, either to Ontario or Manitoba. My wife and both of my children are Canadian.

That's great! I'm sure you'd like to move back there...Hmmm it appears that the editor is waving frantically. Ok, enough about Canada.

In your work with NASA, were you involved in any programs that we might be familiar with i.e. Mars probe, the shuttle etc?

When working for NASA, I did mainly Space Shuttle support including ground computer support and mathematical analysis.

How long have you been a wargamer and what types of games did you play. What was the first computer wargame that you played and do you still play any? Your favourites?

I've been a wargamer since I was a teen. Like many other people, I started out on the old Avalon Hill board games like D-Day and Panzerblitz . I also played the SSI games like Terrible Swift Sword and War In Europe . I got interested in computer war games because I got to the point where I just didn't have the space or the time to setup and play board games. I originally started out programming War In Europe for my 286 computer, then decided to try doing a computer version of the Battle of Shiloh on my next computer. I was also doing a lot of development on Unix computers using X-Windows. Later this work became the Battleground Series by TalonSoft . These days, I mainly enjoy playing my own games. I think it is very important that you enjoy playing the games you develop. This really shows in the quality of the game.

Yes, I guess it would be difficult to expect us to enjoy it if you don't like it yourself. Which is the favourite of your personal creations? The more you play do you see things you could have done differently?

Right now Smolensk is my favorite game (although I have some others that I really enjoy that I can't tell you about yet). As I find things I would do differently in games, I tend to go back and make improvements. So each one incorporates a lot of ideas.

When did you start working for Talonsoft? Can you tell us a bit about the working arrangement, I mean you weren't a direct employee of that company, were you? Did you enjoy your time with them?

I originally submitted my computer war games to Avalon Hill where they caught the eye of Jim Rose, who was the Computer Game Director there. When he started, TalonSoft he convinced me and several other people at Avalon Hill to join him. I worked for TalonSoft as an independent contractor on a game by game basis. I continued to live in Alabama and the development relied on the Internet quite a bit to transfer files back and forth. The original development was very, very special with everyone on the team contributing to the effort. Charlie Kibler and I hit it off right away and the two of us came up with many ideas that people now associate with my games. [Charlie Kibler was a playtest coordinator for TalonSoft who recently left to work for Breakaway Games with the other 4 people.]

I'm curious as to why you started with a WWII game (Ardennes), went to a Civil War game and then a Napoleonic game (Waterloo). Why did you not return to the WWII series?

We decided to start the Battleground Series with a World War II game since it looked like that game would be the quickest to develop and have a pretty broad appeal. Since I had much of the Civil War games already done, we then moved on and completed the first of those, Battleground Gettysburg . Since many of us on the team had an interest in Napoleonics, especially people like Joe Hummel, we pursued that as a derivative of the Civil War engine, which worked pretty well. The Civil War and Napoleonic series were doing so well, we didn't turn our attention back to World War II until we started the Campaign Series .

With so much more potential why was the Napoleonic games not extended? Do you regret no doing more of them?

I have an interest in most all areas of wargaming including World War II, Civil War, Napoleonics, and many, many others. I eventually hope to cover every major campaign of several areas. When you depend on selling games through traditional stores, there are market pressures on you to focus on the more popular areas that have an immediate appeal to the average buyer. In the Internet-based commerce that HPS Simulations pursues, there is the opportunity to delve into many more and diverse areas. So I'm pretty optimistic that I can pursue a number of different ideas now.

You have developed an American Revolutionary Wargame called Campaign 1776. Is this the fulfillment of a dream or just another step in your design career?

Like I said I have an interest in lots of different areas. The American Revolution is naturally one of those. In looking at that war, the thing that strikes you is that the battles are so small compared with other situations like the Civil War. You can stand on the hill overlooking the field at Guilford Courthouse and be astounded by the fact that the fate of this country was determined in an area hardly bigger than a football field. The other key design issue about the American Revolution is that the significant events are so dispersed in terms of time. That is, you have singular events like Guilford Courthouse with long periods of inactivity between them. The design I've come up with for Campaign 1776 I think works pretty well. It is a smaller scale than the Civil War or Napoleonics and uses a linked campaign concept that takes care of the long delays.

Could you please tell us exactly what happened with Talonsoft regarding the completion and blocked release of 1776 so we have the matter straight? How was it resolved?

There were some very unfortunate misunderstandings about my development of Campaign 1776 that resulted in me having to stop production while things got sorted out. I was able to work with Jamie Leece of Take-Two over the Fall and clear up several issues to our mutual satisfaction. Jamie and I have developed a very good working relationship that has allowed us to discuss issues in a reasonable way and come to understandings about several matters. With some look-and-feel issues addressed, Campaign 1776 is being re-released by HPS .

So, the big issue was that Campaign 1776 looked too much like the Battleground games?

I agreed to make look-and-feel changes to Campaign 1776 which allowed me to resubmit it for publication. That is the only difference between the game now and how it was before.

How about a short overview of "1776" and what would make it so appealing that gamers would buy it.

Campaign 1776 is an interesting game for several reasons:
a. It covers most every battle of the American Revolution from the smaller ones such as Cowpens up to the larger battles such as Saratoga. The scale makes it possible to include a lot of detail.
b. The game has a linked campaign concept that allows individual battles to be played resulting in a campaign outcome, either against the computer or via Play-By-E-Mail.
c. The game includes some very nice graphics done by Joe Amoral including detailed uniforms. [Examples of Joe Amoral's work can be found at http://www.brightok.net/~gameart/enter.html]
d. Background music of the period performed by Tom Hook plays during the game.

Is the ARW covered in it's entirety or will there be some related releases?

Campaign 1776 pretty much covers the entire Revolutionary War and so I don't have any plans to add anything additional for this war, but I do intend to pursue the game concept in related areas.

Could you expound on that a bit more?

The scale of Campaign 1776 is such that it lends itself to situations where the scale is smaller than say the Civil War or Napoleonics. There are several situations where the battles were smaller and perhaps the situation less complicated than the Civil War or Napoleonics. My overall goal is to do a game on just about every war in history, so it isn't hard to think of possibilities here.

John, you have obviously been involved with the gameplay versus realism debate. Tell us briefly your point of view and then give us some indication about in which direction games will be moving.

I definitely feel that gameplay is the goal when designing games. The realism should be there to support the gameplay, not dominate it. I've found that it is possible to add more and more detail to games without sacrificing gameplay, but you have to be continually careful and watch for situations that seem interesting, but that can open a can of worms.

Any "Easter Eggs" in the game you care to drop a hint about?

Unless Joe did something I'm not aware of, there aren't any graphical "Easter Eggs" in the game. But people should take particular notice of the cover painting done by Andy Thomas of Washington at Monmouth. Andy is a very talented artist living in Carthage, Missouri who has done paintings on a number of different areas, including the Civil War. I'm hoping that using Andy's paintings in my games will bring some attention to his efforts.

We'll keep a watch for them for sure.

You've also just released a new WWII game "Smolensk". Why did you pick this battle? What makes this game different from the others? What's coming down the pipes in terms of future WWII games?

The Smolensk game is the result of some brainstorming that Greg Smith of HPS (http://www.hpssims.com) and I did last year. We started out talking about games that we enjoyed, Atlantic Wall , Highway to the Reich , and so forth and naturally started focusing on the 1 kilometer scale for a new game. After deciding that this would work well with the old Panzergruppe Guderian game setting, we began specific development. We've included some other people to look at the western front and things are really rolling.

Will you ever return to designing Napoleonic wargames? Any future plans?

Oh yes, I plan on doing several Napoleonic games as well as more Civil War games and also other games from other periods. In the HPS production environment, there is almost no idea that can't be pursued. This is for two reasons. First, HPS is a small efficient organization with low overhead. But second, and most important, HPS is lead by Scott Hamilton, who is a very encouraging person and allows people to pursue ideas in an independent manner.

Is it true that Bill Peters has wanted to do some of the programming on location in Austria? What about rumours that he wants to hire an Austrian Oompah band to do the soundtrack? Hmmm, the Editor is once again waving frantically. I guess we'll shelve that one.

Are you aware of the people who are doing the additions to the Battleground games (both Napoleonic and Civil War)? Have you seen Greg Gorsuch's "Eylau"

I've heard of other freelance developments associated with the older Battleground games but haven't had the time to look at them. I'm actually developing my own new game engine which I'll use for some new games. My schedule for this was disrupted by the problems I had with TalonSoft , but now that those are resolved, I hope to be able to continue this work.

Will your new games feature the same flexibility as the Battleground games in the way people could modify the graphics and OOB's and just about everything else?

Do you think Talonsoft should release the Battleground Series to the public domain given the fact that there is so much interest by wargamers in making their own scenarios and large games? Also, interest has been expressed by a number of players of the Napoleonic Battleground games to tweak the engine. Would you like to see some public creations based on the Battleground engine?

Frankly what I'd like to see is my new games being published! I've got some very talented and enthusiastic people working for me who have done just a ton of work on some new games. In the near future, I should be able to publish a series of new games based on this work, but right now it's just a matter of scheduling.

We'd love to see more of your games published too! John Tiller, thank you so much for your time and patience. It was a terrific experience to interview you and I'm sure the readers were intrigued by what you had to say. We'll revisit you again when there are some more developments with your games. Good luck.

Well, that was, I think, another successful edition of Grapeshot . The column is starting to rack up as many wins as Stefan Reuter! I sincerely hope that you found the interesting and worthwhile. I realize I could have asked John a million questions that you feel are burning issues, but he's a busy man and I have to keep this article of reasonable length. However, as compensation for those who feel I may have missed the mark, send in your comments and perhaps we can get John to return for another load of Grapeshot. Thanks to John for participating and thank you for reading.

Robert Hamper

Updated: 1-2-00