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Whether your taste is for the American Civil War, battles of ancient Rome, or modern warfare, all wargame buffs should be delighted with this one. As the title indicates, this superbly designed package lets you purpose-build your own battlemaps and scenarios.

There are two programs: The editor and the game. The editor allows you to design your own wargame from scratch or alter an existing one and offers a wide range of options and parameters.

You can construct your battleground map, filling with a variety of features, such as roads, trees, rivers, buildings, minefields, hills and woods. The map colours can be edited to your own tastes.

Up to 31 friendly and 31 enemy units can be selected and placed in position. An individual unit can be chosen up of infantry, tanks, engineers, mortars, guns, special units, boats, helicopters or trucks.

Each can be assigned its own attributes (power) - assault, firepower, defence, movement, strength, range and fire type.

Having designed your scenario, you select the scale, set artillery to on or off and print out the map if you wish. All compelted scenarioos can be saved and reloaded from disc.

The game program lets you play through any scenario, whether of your own creation or one of the eight ready-to-play battles supplied with the package.

A game can be for one or two and consists of a series of phases. The phases for a one-player game (the enemy is controlled by the computer) have to be played in strict order.

They follow the usual traditions of wargames and are: Observation, friendly fire, friendly move, enemy fire, friendly fire, enemy move, enemy fire, victory and save game. Each complete set of phases is one game turn.

Points are awarded at the victory phase while the save game phase gives you a chance to save the game state to disc. The two-player game has more phases.

The package is attractively boxed and includes two discs and an excellent 30-page manual. A disc contains the editor program on one side and the game program on the other. The second disc has predesigned scenarios on both sides.

Graphics and sound are fairly simple but the program's variety, flexibility and design are marvellous. Although the editor program has a multitude of options and features, it is simple to use and the player is guided at every step.

Wargame Construction Set is an impressive and unusual (possibly unique) product. It has been superbly designed and, though sophisticated, is extremely easy to use. If you've never given wargames a try, now's your chance.

With this product, you could be hooked for life!