HISTAGONY
A Bizarre Variant Combining Avalon Hill's Hexagony and History of the World
by John Boylan
From Declination, 1, #3, pp 5-6

Ed. Note: The irrepressible John "Bizarro" Boylan has come up with another of his weird game combinations. I would like to go on record as disavowing any connection with or approval of Boylan's efforts at constructing deviant game variants. But there's no stopping him. I can only promise that I will publish his efforts as infrequently as possible. At any rate, the following abomination is offered by Declination without comment. Play Histagony at your own risk!

I like Avalon Hill's Hexagony, but I always thought it would be better to play it on a "real" map. Enough with the triangles, already! Anyway, when History of the World came out with its beautiful map of planet Earth, I thought, "Perfect! “ After about forty-five minutes of hard work (the maximum I am capable of), I had invented Histagony, which is really just Hexagony transferred to History of the World's map.
To conveniently play Histagony, you will need a copy of both Hexagony and History of the World. However, for those of you who only have History of the World, I've also provided some guidelines for playing with just the rules to Hexagony.

Rules for Histagony

The rules that follow are written as changes to the standard rules of Hexagony. They progress through the Hexagony rules section by section making the necessary changes. If no change is made, the standard rules of Hexagony apply. Sometimes a rule is indicated as an "Addition." Such a rule consists of necessary additions that could not be specified simply as changes to Hexagony. The terms Land. Area, Difficult Terrain, Strait, Sea, Ocean, and Barren Lands are taken from the History of the World rules. Refer to the HOW rule book if clarification is necessary. Histagony is for 4, 5, or 6 players, although the rules can be easily adapted for 2 or 3 (see Section X.A of the Hexagony rules).

I. GAME COMPONENTS
The mapboard from History of the World. (Only the mapboard is used. All other components come from Hexagony. )
The mapboard from Hexagony (only the supply track is used).

II. PREPARE FOR PLAY
1. Delete.
2. Delete.
3. For four players, remove the blue and red armies from the game. For five players, remove the blue armies. For six players use all the armies. Place one unit of each of the "in-play" armies in a container. Each player then blindly draws one unit; this is the color of his army.
6. Beginning with the player with the most supplies (and proceeding clockwise around the board), each player places all of his units on the History of the World board in any Lands of his start Area. (Start Areas are listed in II.7 below). No more than three units may be placed in the same Land.
7. (Addition) The following start Areas are assigned to players based on the color of the army drawn in step II.3 above: Red: Northern Europe; Blue: Southern Europe; Yellow: India; Orange: Middle East; Green: China; Purple: Eurasia.

III. No changes.

IV. No changes.

V. MOVEMENT
Change all instances of the words "battle board" to "History of the World board."
Change all instances of the word "triangle" to "Land.
4. Units may freely cross Difficult Terrain during movement. However, see VI and VII below for restrictions on crossing Difficult Terrain relative to Capture and Retreating.
7. (Addition) Units may move from Land to Land across Straits. Units may only enter Lands that are part of the original start Areas of the game (see II.7 above). Units may not enter Seas, Oceans, or barren Lands (except the Plateau of Tibet). The Plateau of Tibet is considered a "standard" Land (open with no Difficult Terrain) for the purposes of Histagony.

VI. CAPTURE
Change all instances of the word "triangle" to "Land.
2.c.1. Difficult Terrain. (Difficult Terrain contributes to surroundment regardless of what side of the border the Difficult Terrain is located on.)
2.c.4. Unplayable areas. Unplayable areas are: Seas, Oceans, Barren Lands (except the Plateau of Tibet), and Lands that are not part of the original start Areas of the game (see II.7 above).

VII. ADVANCING AND RETREATING
Change all instances of the word "triangle" to "Land”.
6. (Addition) Units may advance across Difficult Terrain.

Playing Histagony without Hexagony

Although I recommend playing Histagony using a copy of Hexagony (Hexagony is a good game to have in its own right), it is possible to play it using only the rules to Hexagony. The rules are separately available directly from Avalon Hill.
If you don't have Hexagony, use the counters from History of the World. You will have to substitute the black HOW counters for the yellow ones provided in Hexagony. Use any other convenient counters as a substitute for Supply Counters and Supply Markers. Use the supply track provided (below) in place of the supply track printed on the Hexagony board. I suggest making a copy enlargement of the track so you will have more room for markers. Supply Markers (per the Hexagony rules) move from left to right and from top to bottom following the arrows. When a marker passes the lowermost, right-hand box of the track, continue by moving it back to the top row. On the supply track, B=blue, P=purple, R=red, G=green, O=orange, and Bk=black. The circle in the center space of each row represents the army symbol mentioned in section IV of the Hexagony rules.

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