2022 Summit Award

In the summer of 2022, the Summit Award judges rolled out the award information to the public and  began accepting nominations for games that fit that criteria. Additionally, the award candidate must: 

  • be a manual tabletop game
  • have a closed-system rules set that does not rely on role-play or referee
  • simulate an historical setting through specific game mechanics rather than historical themes as an afterthought to game mechanics
  • concern political, social, cultural, scientific, economic, military, or any other human affairs

The judges — which include the SDHistCon board, the SDHistCon advisory committee and any honorary members as agreed to by the SDHistCon board — met in September to discuss and narrow down the game nominations. These are the four finalists they selected: 

  • Red Flag Over Paris 
  • Atlantic Chase
  • Nicaea
  • No Motherland Without

Red Flag over Paris, designed by Fred Serval and published by GMT Games, is the spiritual successor to Mark Herman’s Fort Sumter. It is a short, yet challenging, two-player card-driven game depicting the two months of intense confrontation between the Communards and the government in Versailles during the 1871 Paris Commune.

Atlantic Chase, designed by Jeremy White and published by GMT Games, simulates the naval campaigns fought in the North Atlantic between the surface fleets of the Royal Navy and the Kriegsmarine between 1939 and 1942.

Nicaea, designed by Amabel Holland and published by Hollandspiele, is a tableau-building game set in the year 325 when Christian bishops convenened in Nicaea on orders by the Roman Emperor Constantine, a pivotal time in the history of the Catholic Church. 

No Motherland Without: North Korea in Crisis and Cold War, designed by Dan Bullock and published by Compass Games, is a card-driven strategy game for two players. The game depicts the struggles of the Kim Regime from 1953 to present day North Korea against the West.

These games were taught and demonstrated at SDHistCon 2022 in November. Following that, members of the SD HistCon Board and SD HistCon Advisory Board met to determine the winner of the 2022 Summit Award, selecting Red Flag Over Paris . The judges praised Red Flag Over Paris for its ease of teaching and play, novelty of topic, and effectiveness as a historical game.

Red Flag Over Paris is designed by Fred Serval, with art from Donal Hegarty, development from Luke Billingsley, Jason Carr, and Joe Dewhurst, and solitaire mode design by Jason Carr. It is published by GMT Games.

For full disclosure, games designed, developed or otherwise affiliated with someone on the SDHistCon Board or advisory committee are evaluated under a special set of considerations to ensure propriety. The following rules are presented to address those considerations.

An affiliated person may not nominate a game which they are affiliated with (affiliated game for the Summit Award). If an affiliated game is nominated, the affiliated person is responsible for bringing that game to the attention of the SDHistCon Board. The SDHistCon Board will vote on the recusal of the Affiliated Person from the process of selecting a winner for the Summit Award.