EBro Software Products
Viking Siege brings
back a board game that was immensely
popular across northern Europe in the
dark ages, but was lost for many
centuries. Long before chess came to
Europe, this game was played in
Scandinavia, Iceland, England, Wales and
Ireland. Wherever Scandinavian explorers
and settlers went, they took the game
with them - to the Scottish Islands, to
newly settled Greenland and to Kiev. It
was eventually supplanted by chess at a
time when anything associated with
Christian Europe was considered superior,
and it disappears from the historical
record, though it persisted in isolated
places, such as Wales and Lappland, for
several more centuries. It was
rediscovered by H.J.R. Murray, the great
historian of board games, who put
together an account of the rules of a
game played by Lapps in 1732 with
references to the game in the ancient
Icelandic sagas. It is often mentioned in
ancient texts, especially the Icelandic
and Irish sagas and was known as 'tafl'
or 'hnefatafl' in Scandinavia, 'taefl' in
England, 'tawlbwrdd' in Wales and
'brandubh' in Ireland.
It is a great game of strategy - one
of the classics in the history of board
games - and as such it was an important
part of a good education in its time.
Like chess, planning and tactical
considerations are required, though the
rules are simpler. However, the
objectives of the two sides are unequal
and this gives the game a certain dynamic
tension and intensity. The premise is
dramatic: a Viking band with their leader
are besieged by a larger opposing force.
Their object is to help their 'king'
escape to the periphery of the field,
while the besiegers try to surround him
and bring him down.
Viking Siege has
unique built in software which allows you
to communicate directly with Asgard, the
other world where the heros of Icelandic
literature went after death to await the
final great battle of the gods. One of
their amusements while they wait is to
play at 'hnefatafl' and we put you into
direct contact with them through the
moves on the board. A host of characters
are there to play against you, including
many who played the game in the Icelandic
sagas, and some from the Irish sagas who
passed to the Celtic other world. You can
also choose to watch as two
Asgard-players play each other, or you
can play against a friend from this world
(Midgard in the sagas).
Requirements:
Operating system: Viking Siege
is a DOS-based program and
should run under any DOS or Windows computer. It has been
tested under DOS (5.0 and 6.2), Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT,
2000 and XP. Occasional problems have been
reported for XP, most likely due to graphics
incompatibilities, but it appears to run on most
XP systems.
One user (thanks for the tip Eric!) reports that it runs
fine under "Dosbox" version 0.65, which is an
opensource DOS emulator for MacOS, Linux and Windows(dosbox.sourceforge.net).
He also reported it didn't run under a lower version of
Dosbox.
Processor speed:
While there is no real minimum required
processor speed, you will get a better
game on faster processors. It can be
enjoyably played on anything from a 50
MHz 486 up.
Other: Memory
requirements are minimal -- we suggest
600 KB of free RAM. Mouse recommended but
the program is fully functional by
keyboard.
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