Remaining with the non-arcade idea, the next book is Creating Political And Military Simulation Games On Your Micro. Bit of a mouthful, eh? The book is written by Mike Rose and published by Interface.

The book is split into two sections. The first explains how to turn the initial idea into a computer program, and the second contains ten programs, illustrating the first section. Although the title only mentions political and military games, the book covers military, political and economic games. Perhaps there wasn't enough room on the front page to fit the whole title in! Military games come in two types. True military, which is the 'wargaming' as above, and then the strategic military. This is the type used in the book.

The reader is taken through step-by-step, starting with the planning of the game, and progressing till a complete model of the game is present. All aspects of the game are mentined in the book and examples for each different group are given at each stage. This simplifies the idea, as it is much easier to learn something with three examples instead of one. By the end of the first section, one should have a complete flow chart showing the structure of the game.

My first niggle comes at this point. In the introduction, we are told that the book 'requires only a relatively elementary knowledge of computing - only enough to put logical flowcharts into Basic'. Why then is it necessary to flowchart the structure Yes/No question? This should appear pretty obvious to anyone with the slightest of programming knowledge.

Another chapter which is also not very useful is the debugging and trouble-shooter. The only thing this would be helpful for is *not* committing suicide. It says *not* to jump out of the window if an error occurs!

The remainder of the book consists of ten programs, from a naval battle in Elizabethan Times to being a Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street (much the same I suppose?). These programs are well written and quite interesting to play, but nothing spectacular. I did like Nuclear Crisis, where the aim is to persuade the other countries to give you land.

In general, the book is ideal for anyone with a knowledge of Basic and who wants more out of their computer than space invaders. I did feel that at times the book expects you to know a lot more than at other times. But still, an interesting book, though perhaps slightly overpriced at £7.95.