Rob Zacny

Episode 339: Ancient Warfare

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Three Moves Ahead 339:

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Ancient Warfare

Spears! Cavalry! Dirt in your sandals! Rob, Bruce, and Troy "Is my pilum showing?" Goodfellow continue with the Winter of Wargaming and their discussion of ancient warfare. Learn more about history than you ever wanted from a video game podcast as the trio discuss their favorite games as well as a new secret project.

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Thanks especially to Troy's comments on this episode. It really cannot be emphasized enough how little we know about ancient warfare (or, really, any pre-modern warfare). One of the most revolutionary articles that I've read in my graduate career is "War and Violence" by Brent D. Shaw, from the edited volume Interpreting Late Antiquity: Essays on the Postclassical World. In it, Shaw argues quite cogently that literally every concrete detail that we have about warfare and battles from 300 to 600 AD in primary sources is either directly borrowed from literary prototypes in classical antiquity or shows the same characteristics as having been borrowed, suggesting lost works. He even makes a moderately compelling case that entire campaigns reported by seemingly reliable authors like Ammianus Marcellinus are structured near-identical to earlier examples from Tacitus and Sallust and therefore might also be the product of literary convention rather than actual history, considering that archaeological evidence is wanting for every battle in that three hundred-year period. The entire article just drives home how hard it is to be sure that any historical battle of that period actually even happened and, if it did, what transpired before, during, and after it.

 

There are even more controversies of basic knowledge in the classical era proper. I remember reading a rousing series of articles pointing out that surviving descriptions of Hellenic warfare of the fourth and fifth century suggest thousands of men equipped with linen cuirasses, even though flax is an unbelievably intensive plant to grow, refine into linen, and glue layer upon layer to make armor. Since space and manpower were at a premium in most city-states, certainly enough that hundreds of acres and thousands of slaves devoted to making armor only mildly effective as protection would be a pointless expenditure, several historians have suggested that maybe the linothorax was made of leather, from the dozens of cattle sacrificed weekly if not daily for religious ceremonies. And it makes perfect sense, except that the primary sources are unequivocal that it was linen or some analogue, unless we have a serious misunderstanding of language in Livy, Strabo, Herodotus, and countless other historians. Stuff like that makes rivet-counting nigh on impossible, not that the rivet-counters won't keep trying.

 

And then there's this one talk that Alan V. Murray gave about how medieval peoples lacked the shipbuilding technology to make a vessel that carried a hundred and fifty horses with fodder enough to feed them, yet it's one of the few instances where the primary sources all agree that horse transports on the crusades did carry a hundred and fifty horses each...

 

Also, when Rob accused Troy of being an Alcibiades, I could only think of this one scene from Deadwood:

 

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Ahh yeah, general absence of knowledge... reminds me about this guy in college telling me how if you try to follow details of this one ancient battle, elephants in it were teleporting all over the place.

 

Also the hoplite, grrr what were the origins of their name?  I vaguely recall my mil prof. asking us that question, with me answering "their shield, hoplon" and him saying that it wasn't but I can't remember the answer or if he was even right (I assume so just cause the guy seemed very bright).

 

And the whole spear under-over hand grip reminds me of intense debates in Rome: Total Realism mod forum (Rome TW mod) cause I for one couldn't comprehend how overhand grip is suppose to work in a dense shoving match.  So... was I wrong? fite me irl (jk).  I mean heck, maybe they all held however they wanted to early on, kinda weird to now think that there was some unified format that ppl knew on weapon handling.  Heck just look at guns, you see ppl holding it 'wrong' even today!

 

And haha Gorm I didn't know about that with medieval ship, something similar I know is that nobody knows how the turtle ship was built cause they built one according to a surviving blueprint and thing wouldn't even float?

 

Also something you said while back about TW engine and my own thoughts on mass pathfinding (of beyond like 1000, individual units) this podcast and riot videos made me wonder about some very basic physics based modelling based on water-gelatin-like particle effects to simulate massed melee battle (including modern day riot control)... in that each individual should be treated as a 'particle' with simple weight and momentum.  And everything, from tactics to equipment, should be about that.  So I imagine most range weapons are there to stifle the momentum, with trick being finding the sweetspot of formation depth where you get efficient 'push' (it makes sense that power generated by people behind the front low should diminish with each rank), routing also makes physical sense cause it's about using enemy's own momentum (their troops) against them.

 

And issue of friendly fire is also explored because it is no longer about individual targeting but all about mass movement, so you can accidentally flank your own guys if they happen to push too well ahead of schedule.  Heck that is what beginning of routing would be all about, getting enemies' own troops to 'friendly fire' against each other by pushing against them.

 

Ah just a wild dream...

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Very enlightening. Interesting characterization of an ancient warfare as battle of systems not unlike industrial era search for appliance of new techs.

 

Bruce has described a problem we're all having with wargames. I have better things to do then remember all those tables essential for any planning. Even simplest wargames like Unity of Command insist on hiding results between arcane calculation. Meanwhile polite and transparent games like Wesnoth or Panzer Corps show you everything but have nothing to do with reality. Which is another problem you talk about.

 

Where are the videos? Is there a link to Bruce's youtube?

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Where are the videos? Is there a link to Bruce's youtube?

 

There will be soon!

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Hey Zombie thumbs! The "Hoplite" Shield is called an Aspis, a round convex shield with an armband called a porpax. The term "Hoplite" is a term used to refer to a fully equipped man, meaning a man with full armor weapons and his aspis shield. The debate over the overhand grip in dense formations arises from interpretations of vase paintings and experimental archaeologists. When re-enactors have tried to duplicate dense formations they say the ability to wield the spear underhanded is impaired and when the pressing or Othismos phase of battle is duplicated supposedly the buttspike (called a sauroter) tends to impale the wielder in the thigh or jabs the guy behind you. Indeed most reenactors tell stories and have scars in their right thighs and will tell you all about failed attempts. Personally I think there is a hint in the language the Greeks used of the phases of combat itself, prior to the "Pushing" phase there is a phase referred to as "Doratismos" or spear fencing. My theory is that this phase was a more open formation with underhanded spears with the goal in mind of attritting the opposing formation. When the commander of that formation believed they had the advantage they closed up the formation, brought spears overhead and tried to break the enemy formation by advancing and shoving. An interesting little side note, apparently modern engineers have figured out that during riots and panicked crowd situations it takes 8 human beings pushing forward for the crushing effect to become lethal to those upfront. A typical hoplite formation was exactly 8 ranks deep. One of the theories behind the convex shape of an Aspis shield is to create a cavity to protect a human chest cavity from being fatally collapsed.  

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Not only are ancient wargames uncommon, but the Mediterranean setting dominates the scene. The closest thing I can think of is GMT's Conquest of Paradise, although it is really more of an exploration game with some very light warfare elements. Seems like there are lots of settings ripe with potential though, India springs to mind for me. I imagine access to good English sources for these histories might be somewhat limiting however.

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Not only are ancient wargames uncommon, but the Mediterranean setting dominates the scene. The closest thing I can think of is GMT's Conquest of Paradise, although it is really more of an exploration game with some very light warfare elements. Seems like there are lots of settings ripe with potential though, India springs to mind for me. I imagine access to good English sources for these histories might be somewhat limiting however.

 

Former Creative Assembly man RT Smith will soon release Oriental Empires, a TotalWar-like that promises to cover Chinese war from the Shang to the Ming.

 

I have low expectations, but am curious.

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Troy´s comment on bows and archers remind of one thing - people often, maybe due years of bad discovery channel-esque shows/documentaries (specially those deadly warrior stuff...) put too much weight in how "amazing" certain weapons and armor would be, and much like Troy said, they ignore the human aspect behind it (or at least they assume that is the most awesome and manly person ever, instead of people that might be afraid, tired, hungry or don´t have a single idea why they are there). Also they often ignore other aspects, such as economic costs, simbolic or culture meanings that this objects might or how in older period and stuff was made by artisans and craftsmans that might have different levels of skill and resources (by that I mean, that object might have different levels of quality, while many people think that everything was the same level) this kind affect the interpretation how those objects where used (because they exagerate them) or not (because in truth they would be impratical or maybe given the kind of warfare this people fight the object might not be useful) and how we think ancient conflicts.

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Troy´s comment on bows and archers remind of one thing - people often, maybe due years of bad discovery channel-esque shows/documentaries (specially those deadly warrior stuff...) put too much weight in how "amazing" certain weapons and armor would be, and much like Troy said, they ignore the human aspect behind it (or at least they assume that is the most awesome and manly person ever, instead of people that might be afraid, tired, hungry or don´t have a single idea why they are there). Also they often ignore other aspects, such as economic costs, simbolic or culture meanings that this objects might or how in older period and stuff was made by artisans and craftsmans that might have different levels of skill and resources (by that I mean, that object might have different levels of quality, while many people think that everything was the same level) this kind affect the interpretation how those objects where used (because they exagerate them) or not (because in truth they would be impratical or maybe given the kind of warfare this people fight the object might not be useful) and how we think ancient conflicts.

 

God I hate those shows. There's one on Netflix called ANCIENT BLACK OPS and I know that if I ever decide to open this scotch and go nuts one night, I will hatewatch that for hours until my twitter feed is nothing but a foaming mouth of gibberish.

 

I am totally fine - in a game - with abstracting a lot of the quality issues. I mean, you have to, right? You can reflect the general level of skill or equipment by assigning higher values (the Great Battles of History games give bonuses to Cretan Archers and Balearic Slingers over their more amateur equivalents, for example). But you are right that ancient war was such an amateur operation most of the time. Even the celebrated Persian immortals, often held up as some elite infantry unit, were probably just elite relative to the mass of Persian levies - they were the permanent core unit of the army, used for bodyguard or capital protection most of the time. As armies became more professional, the idea of what an "elite" unit was changed and the Immortals take on this veneer of being as tough as a well-trained hoplite phalanx, when they probably weren't.

 

(You see this odd nature of eliteness trickle down to the Praetorian Guard in Rome, which was never considered an elite military unit. They were politically and socially elite, simply the bodyguard to the Imperial family and its interests. But a lot of games want to use the name Praetorian to signify some type of super legion, instead of just the one that happened to be around Rome and so could toss politics on its ear.)

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(You see this odd nature of eliteness trickle down to the Praetorian Guard in Rome, which was never considered an elite military unit. They were politically and socially elite, simply the bodyguard to the Imperial family and its interests. But a lot of games want to use the name Praetorian to signify some type of super legion, instead of just the one that happened to be around Rome and so could toss politics on its ear.)

 

 

Yup. I find it depressing how little effort goes into accuracy into most games. Why contradict what little we do know, when there are huge gaps that could imaginatively be filed in

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But a lot of games want to use the name Praetorian to signify some type of super legion

 

So, you're sure they didn't have X-ray vision or laser eyes, or anything?

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God I hate those shows. There's one on Netflix called ANCIENT BLACK OPS and I know that if I ever decide to open this scotch and go nuts one night, I will hatewatch that for hours until my twitter feed is nothing but a foaming mouth of gibberish.

 

I am totally fine - in a game - with abstracting a lot of the quality issues. I mean, you have to, right? You can reflect the general level of skill or equipment by assigning higher values (the Great Battles of History games give bonuses to Cretan Archers and Balearic Slingers over their more amateur equivalents, for example). But you are right that ancient war was such an amateur operation most of the time. Even the celebrated Persian immortals, often held up as some elite infantry unit, were probably just elite relative to the mass of Persian levies - they were the permanent core unit of the army, used for bodyguard or capital protection most of the time. As armies became more professional, the idea of what an "elite" unit was changed and the Immortals take on this veneer of being as tough as a well-trained hoplite phalanx, when they probably weren't.

 

(You see this odd nature of eliteness trickle down to the Praetorian Guard in Rome, which was never considered an elite military unit. They were politically and socially elite, simply the bodyguard to the Imperial family and its interests. But a lot of games want to use the name Praetorian to signify some type of super legion, instead of just the one that happened to be around Rome and so could toss politics on its ear.)

 

I kind still have nightmares with a documentery (can´t remember the channel, I think I saw it on youtube) about Alexander the Great, where they tried to make all the reencament in a 300 style but with no budget at all, the result, aside from the lack of horses (and even sarrisas too), as just guys weaving swords in dramatic motion with some blood effects.

 

I do agree that a certain level reflection on equipment can be key to add flavor and reflect or represent a certain aspect of a conflict, my only fear is when pushed too far can as it also can lead to balance problems.

 

Per exemple, I remember that in Caesar II, while you could have Heavy Infantry, Light Infantry, Slingers and Auxilia, truth was, that you don´t need anything except the Heavy Infantry, I mean I win the game several times using nothing but them, because they simple win against everything, even the Huns, I only need to change formation a bit. Which was strange, because the game did feature lots of sprites for different units of different regions, but chances where that you are never ever going to see them. Because unless you let yourself begin invaded (or very late in the game or beyond the game ending) you are going to beat all enemies around your city which often had only a single type of light unit.

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Easy way to get me listening to 3MA again - just start doing stuff on Ancients.

 

I really like the characterization of the Ancient period as a battle of systems. To me, that is one of the things I feel are lacking in most existing ancient wargame offerings - the right balance of systems (pikes should not just be heavy infantry that are better against horse), morale (frequently ignored, letting units fight to the death) and leadership (also often ignored). Probably there is no balance that will satisfy everyone given the openness to interpretation of the period. I just know that the balance that will satisfy me hasn't been created yet.

 

One aspect of ancient wargaming that I feel is totally forgotten in contemporary games, is the advance to contact. Games always start you with deploying your troops, but if one reads the historical accounts (as well as the various tactical manuals), it quickly becomes apparent that the advance to contact - securing a positional advantage, forage, water - was some of the most important aspects of an ancient battle, and furthermore one in which the quality of the General had a huge impact (arguably, several of the decisive battles of the classical period were won in the maneuver phase of the battle, when one side or the other placed their opponent at a disadvantage). I think one could make a pretty interesting game based on that aspect of a battle, in addition to - or perhaps as the main part - of an ancient warfare game. In terms of the various systems present on the Ancient battlefield, this was also were some of the units that are frequently useless in the pitched battle itself become important - Peltasts, Light Lancers, Numidians, etc., were prized not so much because of their battlefield prowess, but because they allowed the General to pick the time and place of the battle (and could be used to weaken the enemy prior to the battle).

 

Praetorians annoy me too.  :P

 

Perhaps it's just that I've read way too much on Ancient warfare for my own good health, but I do feel the "we know nothing" point podcast might have been a bit overstated. I mean - certainly there are many holes in what we do know, and there will no doubt keep on coming up new theories on how ancient combat actually worked - but I feel this is true of almost every sort of warfare prior to the 20th century (or at least pre the Civil War era). Playing Napoleonics, for instance, I've experienced the prevailing theory about what made the English infantry so effective swing from being that the English were able to fire more shots per minute, to a theory that the English effectiveness was in fact all about single volley + a ferocious charge (a similar evolution has occured in thoughts about the American Revolution). Despite possessing enormeous amounts of information - diaries, eyewitness accounts, tactical manuals, etc. - key aspects of what actually happened in battles no more than 200 years ago remain hotly contested. Which makes sense - just like for the Ancient world, there really isn't anyone alive today who has first-hand knowledge of what it's like to stand on a muddy field, blanketed in acrid black powder smoke, eyes stinging, surrounded by other miserable humans prepared to charge forward against an enemy they can hardly see. Considering that more than 2000 years have passed since the events of Cannae, etc., I think we actually have a surprisingly large amount of knowledge about ancient warfare.

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Perhaps it's just that I've read way too much on Ancient warfare for my own good health, but I do feel the "we know nothing" point podcast might have been a bit overstated. I mean - certainly there are many holes in what we do know, and there will no doubt keep on coming up new theories on how ancient combat actually worked - but I feel this is true of almost every sort of warfare prior to the 20th century (or at least pre the Civil War era). Playing Napoleonics, for instance, I've experienced the prevailing theory about what made the English infantry so effective swing from being that the English were able to fire more shots per minute, to a theory that the English effectiveness was in fact all about single volley + a ferocious charge (a similar evolution has occured in thoughts about the American Revolution). Despite possessing enormeous amounts of information - diaries, eyewitness accounts, tactical manuals, etc. - key aspects of what actually happened in battles no more than 200 years ago remain hotly contested. Which makes sense - just like for the Ancient world, there really isn't anyone alive today who has first-hand knowledge of what it's like to stand on a muddy field, blanketed in acrid black powder smoke, eyes stinging, surrounded by other miserable humans prepared to charge forward against an enemy they can hardly see. Considering that more than 2000 years have passed since the events of Cannae, etc., I think we actually have a surprisingly large amount of knowledge about ancient warfare.

 

I get what you mean, history is guesswork built on guesswork for almost any era, but I honestly don't don't think that the podcast overstated their specific point at all. Between the questionable reliability of the historical record (did you know that we don't have a single artifact that corroborates the Celtic invasion of the Balkans and Anatolia in 279 BC? We know that it happened because the primary sources are unanimous, even those that weren't in dialogue with each other, and because Galatian artifacts start appearing later in the third century, but otherwise Delphi could have sacked itself for all we know) and the extremely partial nature of the half-dozen primary sources that can be brought to bear on any event before the fall of Rome (Grandazzi and others have made compelling arguments that Livy was extremely partisan in his use of Quintus Fabius Pictor, not to mention his aggressive revisions of Polybius' extant narrative of the the Macedonian Wars, and let's not even start with Caesar's careful but extensive "neatening" of events in the bulletins meant to justify his one-man campaign of genocide and conquest), it's virtually impossible to know anything for sure about ancient warfare... and that's not even getting into scholarly arguments that literary tropes probably dictated the structure of historical accounts more than actual events (the Greeks rename everyone to be either Greeks, Persians, Scythians, or Celts in their histories, even when it makes no sense, but we assume that everything else was a reasonable reflection of reality, mostly because we have no other choice; this has begun to bother me a lot with my own research on medieval studies, since a series of critical works on Geoffrey of Villehardouin's narrative of the Fourth Crusade have shown much of it either to be inconsistent with earlier statements or consistent with prior literary exemplars, meaning that we really have to face how much we've disregarded details from Robert of Clari and the Devastatio Constantinopolitana because they conflict with what we know from the "better" historian that we thought Villehardouin was).

 

Overall, the modern historical process of finding the most plausible consensus in the primary sources is a dangerous thing when dealing with a wholly foreign culture with a different set of societal expectations and literary traditions. The example that Victor Davis Hanson uses (what a disappointment that man has become, I wish his history of the Peloponnesian War wasn't the equal of Kagan) is that Greek accounts of hoplite battles before the fourth century BC always dwell on the bloody nature of those battles, especially for the loser, and yet archaeology is fairly conclusive that casualties for almost any battle were in the five- to ten-percent range for both sides, maybe fifteen if it was an especially one-sided loss after a protracted fight. Ancient authors have lied to us, even though their values wouldn't have led them to agree, because they were authors first and historians second (or not at all, if their patron or their audience didn't want them to be).

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You give some excellent examples but  - in my opinion (and obviously YMMV) - this is no different from any other period of history but the most recent (and some might argue that even current events are not exempted). Historical records are - by their very nature - guaranteed to be questionable in their reliability. Consider something like Waterloo - one of the most well-known battles in Western history. The obfuscation of what actually happened at the battle started almost immediately the battle had concluded, and historians were arguing over critical details scant years after the event. Arguments that Wellington himself famously refused to participate in, with his (somewhat) famous quote:  "The history of a battle, is not unlike the history of a ball. Some individuals may recollect all the little events of which the great result is the battle won or lost, but no individual can recollect the order in which, or the exact moment at which, they occurred, which makes all the difference as to their value or importance."

 

Everyone have their axe to grind in the "Waterloo Industry". The Prussians had their angle. Wellington - heavily involved in politics - had his own interests. The French - anti-Napoleonic and Napoleonic alike - needed to vindicate their actions.  Was it the leadership made the difference? The thin red line (which was neither red, nor thin, in this case)? Napoleon's illness? The Prussians? Arguments can - and have - been made for all of them and tons of other theories. The points of contention for historians to argue are innumerable, and - absent a time machine - we just won't ever know the truth.

 

Or more succinctly, to me the difference is one of degree, and not of kind; at least in the context of the discussion that was being had in the podcast.

 

And now I really want to get back to doing that Waterloo campaign game that I was designing at one time. Right after the ancient battle game. So much to do, so little time...  ^_^

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I think the difference is of degree, but it's of such a degree that it becomes a difference in kind, especially in the context of historical wargames.  We just really have no idea how ancient warfare worked.  We know how Napoleonic warfare worked.  We don't really know the make-up of the ancient armies or their deployments for battle.  We do know the makeup of Napoleonic armies and their deployments. Etc. The difference of degree is such that instead of arguing over the details, we are arguing over the basics.  

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One key point is how ancient armies supply the themselves. Ancient armies supply themselves by rivers and boats. 'By Martin van Creveld - Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton:2nd (Second) edition'. Unless you had a highly mobilized Mongolian Army that lived off the land, but the army is raping in killing all the way. Makes it tough to conquer. In ancient times, the vast majority of battles fought around the Mediterranean, because the armies can reach and cannot be resupplied. The Roman roads help in Garrison situation, but they couldn't sustain large forces. The civil war battles were almost always fought around rail lines. The games don't channel the forces based on these very necessary lines of movement.

I like the old gary gabsy* War in Russia. it forces you to fight along lines of supply. Rivers were absolutely critical until napoléon's time.

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Tdoggs thanks for that, it's very insightful.  Now the whole living off the land concept is stuck in my head, with imagination of 4x games where units must pillage the terrain in order to recuperate movement points~ ah so fascinating possibilities that are probably way too frustration for most gaming but still, the concept is just so fascinating.

 

I suppose all the Koei games handle this to an extent and... yeah they are actually quite a blast to play with.  Also heard something similar from Hegemony games I should really look into them~

 

Perhaps a game of snake with supply chain that has to be cut off... could be very gamified too mmmmm

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Even in WW II, Japan couldn't put down China between 1938 and 1942 because they could supply their armies into the interior.  They were able to take the entire coast of china, but they weren't able to garrison and supply the central area. 

The armies could move away from the river, but they couldn't garrison or conquer.  The mongols had to repeatedly re-conquer parts of China and the middle east when their vassals rose up (garrisoned and supplied from different areas).  You mainly only see a major battle in ancient times when one or both armies are cut off from their supply river.  A supply boat could move 8 to 9 knots per hour (~10 mph).  An army could only move about 15 miles a day with notable exceptions of the Mongols and Zulu.  

The Romans were fighting or controlling small tribes every 7-9 miles.  It was easier for them to control southern England than the Swiss alps.     

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I got confused about the names of the games discussed.  Did anyone compile a list of the games mentioned?

 

Specifically, Bruce mentioned the Slitherine Games brothers and a game based on DBM/DBA.  What was that game?

 

Thanks.

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