Tactics is generally credited as being the first board wargame

Board wargame

A board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board, as opposed to being played on a computer, or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The hobby around this type of game got its start in 1954 with the publication of Tactics, and saw its greatest popularity in the...

. It was designed by Charles S. Roberts

Charles S. Roberts

Charles Swann Roberts was a wargame designer, railroad historian, and businessman. He is renowned as "The Father of Board Wargaming", having created the first modern wargame in 1952, and the first wargaming company in 1954...

 in 1952, and self-published in 1954

1950s in games

-Significant games-related events in the 1950s:*Avalon Hill Game Company founded by Charles S. Roberts to publish the first board wargame, Tactics. For many years Avalon Hill was a dominant maker of wargames....

 under the company name of The Avalon Game Company (later changed to Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill

Avalon Hill was a game company that specialized in wargames and strategic board games. Its logo contained its initials "AH", and it was often referred to by this abbreviation. It also published the occasional miniature wargaming rules, role-playing game, and had a popular line of sports simulations...

 in 1958). Roberts designed two maps for the game originally, but the 1954 edition contained only one, which was also used as the basis for the map in Tactics II, a revised version published by Avalon Hill in 1958, then re-released again in 1961 and 1972. In 1983 Avalon Hill released a "25th anniversary" edition of the original Tactics, which did (for the first time) include the second map.

Tactics pioneered many game mechanics which became standard in the board wargame industry, including cardboard counters representing individual military units with separate values for movement and combat; the odds-ratio combat results table

Combat results table

A Combat results table or a CRT is used in wargaming to determine the outcome of a clash between individual units within a larger battle....

; and variable movement costs for entering squares (later hexes) containing different types of terrain. Unlike later board wargames which used a hexagonal grid superimposed on the game map, Tactics used a square grid.