''Wargame Construction Set III: Age of Rifles 1846-1905'' (or simply ''Age of Rifles'') is a

turn-based In video and other games, the passage of time must be handled in a way that players find fair and easy to understand. This is usually done in one of the two ways: real-time and turn-based. Real-time Real-time games have game time progress cont ...

computer wargame A computer wargame is a wargame played on a digital device. Descended from board wargaming, it simulates military conflict at the tactical, operational or strategic level. Computer wargames are both sold commercially for recreational use an ...

for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

, written by Norm Koger. It was published in 1996 by

Strategic Simulations Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) was a video game developer and video game publisher, publisher with over 100 titles to its credit from its founding in 1979 to its dissolution in 1994. The company was especially noted for its numerous wargames ...

. It is the third game in the ''Wargame Construction Set'' series, following '' Wargame Construction Set'' (1986) and '' Wargame Construction Set II: Tanks!'' (1994).

Scope

''Age of Rifles'' simulates battles throughout the era of percussion rifles, roughly comprising the second half of the 19th century. To this end, several dozen battle scenarios are provided in the game. Most of them are set during the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

, but scenarios from the

Crimean War The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia. Geopolitical causes of the war included the de ...

, the

Anglo-Zulu War The Anglo-Zulu War was fought in 1879 between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom. Following the passing of the British North America Act of 1867 forming a federation in Canada, Lord Carnarvon thought that a similar political effort, coupl ...

, Afghan Wars, the Prusso-Austrian and the Franco-Prussian War, and the

Russo-Japanese War The Russo-Japanese War ( ja, 日露戦争, Nichiro sensō, Japanese-Russian War; russian: Ру́сско-япóнская войнá, Rússko-yapónskaya voyná) was fought between the Empire of Japan and the Russian Empire during 1904 and 1 ...

are also included. Scenarios can be played individually or within the framework of a campaign, where the outcome of earlier battles influences the course of later battles. In addition, random scenarios are available as well. There is also a scenario editor with which users can develop and share their own battles, and thereby extend the scope of the game. Scenarios as early as the

Battle of Hastings The Battle of Hastings nrf, Batâle dé Hastings was fought on 14 October 1066 between the Norman-French army of William the Conqueror, William, the Duke of Normandy, and an English army under the Anglo-Saxons, Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godw ...

have been generated this way.

Gameplay

The game can be played with two human players, or with the computer taking over one or both sides. An option for playing out battles via

e-Mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic ( digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

is also provided.

Current status

There is still a small community of players who develop and publish new scenarios for AoR. Depending on the individual PC configuration, AoR may work as-is under

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct upgrade to its predecessors, Windows 2000 for high-end and ...

and

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, 2009. It is the successor to Windows Vista, released nearly ...

, or may require

DOSBox DOSBox is a free and open-source emulator which runs software for MS-DOS compatible disk operating systems—primarily video games. It was first released in 2002, when DOS technology was becoming obsolete. Its adoption for running DOS games i ...

to run. A

Steam Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...

-Version was released on 19. Dec. 2023.

Reception

The game was a finalist for ''

Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...

''s 1996 "Wargame of the Year" award, which ultimately went to '' Battleground 4: Shiloh''.

References

External links

* {{MobyGames, id=/wargame-construction-set-iii-age-of-rifles-1846-1905
A collection of some 250 scenarios created by AoR fans

Yahoo group for AoR aficionados
1996 video games Computer wargames DOS games DOS-only games Strategic Simulations games Turn-based strategy video games Video games developed in the United States