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Europa is a series of board wargames planned to cover combat over the entire European Theater of World War II at a scale that represents units as divisions and game turns that represent two weeks of time. The series was launched in 1973, and is still in production as of 2005, with over a dozen titles published and several more still in production or planning. Most of the titles qualify as "monster games", a sub-genre of wargames featuring extensive orders of battle, complex rules, and usually large game maps with detailed representation of the terrain they cover.

Publishers and related publications

The Europa series has been produced by four different publishers, as follows:

Game Designers Workshop (GDW), 1973-1987
Game Research/Design
(GRD), 1989-2000
Mill Creek Ventures, 2001-2003
Historical Military Services (HMS), 2004-present

GRD began publishing play aids for Europa under a license from GDW while GDW was still publishing the games. In 1989 they acquired use of the Europa trademark and began publishing the games, both new titles and "Deluxe Edition" revisions of previously published titles.

When GRD's Winston Hamilton died in 2000, Mill Creek Ventures bought his estate and took over production of Europa. They continued using the terms "Game Research/Design", "GRD", and "GRD Games" alongside "Mill Creek Ventures" in their publications. They never published an actual Europa game, but they continued with the development for future releases and released several issues of The Europa Magazine.

In mid-2004 HMS bought the assests that formerly belonged to GRD, and thus took over production of the Europa series. HMS published Wavell's War in November 2005 and has released two issues of The Europa Magazine.

Under the terms of the agreement whereby GRD had obtained use of the Europa trademark the intellectual property reverted to Rich Banner when Winston Hamilton died, so all Europa production by Mill Creek Ventures and Historical Military services has been done under a license from Banner.

The changes in publishers has interfered with continuity in terms of publication schedules — only one new title has appeared since 1998 — but there has been a great deal of continuity in terms of the people actually doing the development. For example, John Astell took over from Frank Chadwick as game designer for the series back when GDW was still publishing the series, designed or co-designed several of the titles released by GRD, and appears to still be involved in the titles now under development by HMS. Current HMS owners Gar Olmsted, Cory Manka, and Arthur Goodwin are also familiar names to long-time followers of the series, previously appearing in the credits of various games and/or as authors in the official magazine of the series and fanzine publications. Cory Manka has announced that he is negotiating with the other owners to withdraw from an ownership position.

GRD, Mill Creek, and HMS have also worked on newer game series covering the War in the Pacific (the Glory series) and World War I (the Great War series), which are somewhat similar to the Europa series, though not part of it.

Magazines and accessories

During 1976-1977 GDW published four issues of a flier called The Europa Newsletter. The fifth issue became a full-fledged magazine called The Grenadier, and expanded its coverage to GDW's other, non-Europa offerings as well.

In 1988 GRD revived The Europa Newsletter. Issue #5 saw the title changed to The Europa News (TEN), a somewhat more substantial magazine with a stiff glossy cover. Starting with issue No. 11 the name was changed to simply Europa, and it has continued under that name since then. (As of December 2005, the most recent issue is #87, published in 2004. The repeated changes in publishers since 2000 have made the appearance of new issues somewhat erratic, but the magazine is still in existence.)

The Europa magazine sometimes refers to itself as The Europa Magazine (TEM), but it is just Europa on the cover and title page. Various subtitles have been in use over time as well, such as "The Europa Systems Magazine from GRD" (TESM) on the cover of #86 (with "HMS" substituted for "GRD" on the title page).

The magazine subscription is also a membership in The Europa Association, whose members also receive discounts on game orders and free copies of some of the "refit kit" materials. As with The Grenadier before it, The Europa Magazine has come to cover the publisher's other, non-Europa offerings, but unlike The Grenadier it has not strayed far afield, and still focuses primarily on Europa.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Europa (wargame) ]

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