What If? – The Long Tradition of Alternate History in Wargaming and Beyond (Part IV)

In Part III of this series, we peered into a hypothetical World War III of the 1980s, watching the Cold War burst into open conflict. Now, in Part IV, we turn back the clock to earlier centuries – to an age of muskets, sabers, and smoke – and explore how Wargame Design Studio’s campaign games themselves function as alternate history machines.

Our pre-20th-century titles (from the Crusades to the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution, from the Napoleonic Wars to the American Civil War) include a “Campaign” mode that strings multiple battles together with branching outcomes. This isn’t just a single what-if battle, but an unfolding tapestry of what-ifs: a series of linked scenarios where your decisions and victories (or defeats) dynamically reshape the course of a whole campaign. In short, the WDS campaign engine lets players not only change history but also watch a new timeline play out step by step.

Branching Campaigns: WDS’s Alternate History Engine

What makes these campaign games so special? It starts with how they’re built. Unlike our operational WWII titles (where a “campaign” might be one giant scenario on a huge map), the pre-1900 games use a dedicated Campaign Front End that presents you with choices and then defines the next battle based on those choices. You’re effectively stepping into the shoes of a commander making operational decisions: which road to take, whether to pursue a retreating enemy or fall back, where to make a stand, and so on. Each decision leads to a different scenario, and the result of that battle in turn determines what comes next. It’s a choose-your-own-adventure of military history – except that your skill on the battlefield also influences the story. (Note: the Panzer Battles and Squad Battle series also come with a campaign engine)

Let’s break down the key features of the WDS campaign system that turn it into a rich alternate-history simulator.

Typical branching of a campaign game (from Sword & Siege: Crusades, Volume 1)

Branching paths for every outcome: Each battle in a campaign isn’t isolated – it’s part of a larger tree. Every scenario has five possible outcomes (ranging from Major Victory to Major Defeat for one side), and each outcome can send the campaign down a different branch. For example, if you suffer a major defeat in one engagement, the next battle might be a desperate defensive action; if you win a major victory, you might leap ahead to a scenario where you’re pressing the advantage. In other words, one battle can lead to up to five different next situations. This gives the campaign a huge range of possible narrative arcs.

Operational choices and branching scenarios: At various points, you’re presented with decision screens describing the situation and asking what you want to do next. Sometimes it’s a simple one-option prompt (essentially moving to the next battle), but often you get a choice of two or more paths. These might represent divergent operational plans – for instance, do you flank left or right, chase the enemy, or hold position? Your choice will determine which scenario loads next. In some campaigns, you may even end up fighting on an entirely different battlefield if you choose a different route. This isn’t random; it’s all about plausible alternatives. The campaign designer has effectively built a decision tree of what-ifs: if you go north instead of south, you’ll encounter a different foe or terrain; if you delay a day, maybe the enemy has time to fortify a position, leading to a different battle than if you attacked immediately.

The French are confronted with various options before the Battle of Valmy, 20 September 1792 (from Napoleonic Battles: Republican Bayonets On The Rhine)

Victory levels determine the story: It’s not just win or lose – how decisively you win or lose matters. The campaign engine can check the victory level at the end of a battle and send you to a corresponding branch. Maybe a Minor Victory still pushes the enemy back, but into a prepared rear-guard scenario, whereas a Major Victory routs them completely, changing the strategic situation. Conversely, a Major Defeat might put you on the back foot for the rest of the campaign. Designers script these branches so that each result leads to a logical and plausible next encounter. The mechanism is straightforward: “If outcome = X, go to scenario Y; if outcome = Z, go to scenario W,” and so on for up to five outcomes. For example, in some campaigns, a Major Defeat leads to one battle, while a Major Victory leads to a completely different one down the line. This way, the storyline adapts to your performance – success might open new offensives, while setbacks force you into grim defensive fights.

Persistent forces and carryover effects: Many of these campaigns occur in a tight time window (say, a few days), so some are designed as “continuous” campaigns. This means your army’s losses and fatigue can carry over to the next battle, making it truly feel like an ongoing operation. For instance, Campaign Eckmühl (which covers a whirlwind week in April 1809) features linked battles where casualties in the morning fight will shrink your regiments in the afternoon fight, and exhausted units won’t magically be fresh the next day. (In cases where battles are further apart in time, designers usually reset forces to historical strengths for the next scenario but still take into account who would realistically be available.) This carryover capability means your decisions have lasting consequences – squander your elite guards in one battle, and you won’t have them later. It adds continuity and weight to the campaign’s alternate history narrative.

AI decision logic: You can play these campaigns solo against the AI, and interestingly, the AI itself can make operational choices. When starting a campaign, you typically have two options for AI behavior: “AI (Conservative)” or “AI (Reckless).” In conservative mode, the computer opponent will choose the more cautious or historically optimal path at each decision point. In reckless mode, the AI will pick more unpredictable or random options – potentially leading you into scenarios you might not otherwise see, though not necessarily the smartest moves from a strategic standpoint. This is a neat feature because it means even against the AI, the branching isn’t predetermined. A conservative AI might consistently retreat to strong defensive positions (mirroring what a prudent general might do), whereas a reckless AI might aggressively counterattack or take an ahistorical gamble, throwing you a curveball. Either way, it keeps the campaign replayable and dynamic. You never quite know which branch the computer might steer the war toward on a given play-through.

“Expected Outcome” auto-resolution: What if you don’t want to fight every battle in detail and just want to see the alternate history story unfold? The campaign engine has a feature for that too. There’s an option often called “Use Expected Values” which essentially auto-resolves the battles based on average or likely results. If you toggle this, the game will assume a middling outcome for each scenario and immediately jump you to the next decision point without manual play. In effect, you become more of a spectator choosing strategy at the high level, and letting the computer simulate the tactics. This is useful if you’re short on time or want to explore the narrative tree quickly – you can run through an entire campaign in minutes, watching how the campaign would likely progress if neither side achieved an overwhelming victory. Of course, most of the time you’ll want to play out the battles yourself for the full experience, but it’s a great option for experimentation. The key point is that the system supports both in-depth play and a high-level overview mode.

All these elements combined make the WDS campaign system a powerful storytelling device. It’s not a scripted story in the traditional sense – it’s more like a story generator with built-in historical plausibility. The campaigns are carefully designed so that each branch and outcome is reasonable for that period and situation. The what-ifs here are not randomised sandboxes or point-buy force pools – they’re curated branches in a decision tree the designer has built in advance. You’re always operating with historically plausible orders of battle and within the same period, just following different plans and outcomes than the ones that happened. Within that scripted framework there’s still a lot of room to explore “roads not taken”: a corps that historically arrived late might show up on time, a near-run thing might turn into a rout, or a checked offensive might snowball into a pursuit. The result is a mode of play that lets you reshape history at the operational level and then watch those deliberate design choices ripple forward from battle to battle.

To illustrate just how this works, let’s dive into a concrete example – IMHO, one of the most fascinating applications of the campaign engine in our catalog.

The 1809 Grand Campaign: From Eckmühl to Wagram

Napoleon’s 1809 war against Austria (the War of the Fifth Coalition) is a perfect showcase for the campaign system – it’s a dynamic, see-sawing campaign full of dramatic possibilities. In fact, WDS has not one but two games covering this conflict: Campaign Eckmühl and Campaign Wagram. They split the historical campaign into two halves: Eckmühl covers the opening moves in April 1809 (from Austria’s invasion of Bavaria through Napoleon’s counter-offensive and the capture of Vienna), while Wagram covers the climactic battles around Vienna in May–July 1809 (including the battles of Aspern-Essling and Wagram itself). What’s really exciting is that these two titles can be linked together via the campaign system. In Campaign Eckmühl, one of the branching campaign paths doesn’t just end when Napoleon reaches Vienna – it can continue seamlessly into the battles in the Wagram game, effectively creating one grand campaign spanning the entire war. If you own both games, the campaign engine will hand off from one to the other at the appropriate point, carrying over the situation. This is a prime example of using the system as an alternate history sandbox: you get to re-fight the 1809 war as a whole, with your actions in the early battles influencing the later ones in another title.

1809 Danube Campaign, Situation Midnight 21-22 April and Movements Since 19 April 1809 near Regensburg (Ratisbon)

To set the stage: Historically, the 1809 campaign was full of twists. Austria’s Archduke Charles launched a surprise offensive into Bavaria while many of Napoleon’s troops were scattered. In the first days of the campaign, one of Napoleon’s best marshals, Louis-Nicolas Davout, found himself isolated near Regensburg (Ratisbon) with a single corps, facing the brunt of the Austrian army. Charles’s plan was to crush Davout’s III Corps before Napoleon could intervene – a potentially war-winning move if it succeeded. On April 19, at the battle of Teugn-Hausen (near Ratisbon), Charles nearly got his wish: he had several corps maneuvering against Davout’s outnumbered forces. In reality, Davout skillfully escaped the trap and even defeated an Austrian corps that day, buying time and later linking up with Napoleon’s arriving forces. Napoleon then seized the initiative, won a string of battles (Abensberg, Eckmühl, and so on), and eventually forced the Austrians to retreat behind the Danube. The French took Vienna in May. However, Napoleon’s first attempt to cross the Danube at Aspern led to a serious check – the Battle of Aspern-Essling, May 21–22, 1809, where Archduke Charles handed Napoleon his first major field defeat. Napoleon had to regroup for six weeks before finally crossing again and winning the decisive Battle of Wagram in early July. That victory led to an armistice and peace. That’s the actual history – one path through the campaign. But it’s easy to imagine how things could have gone differently at several key junctures.

Now, imagine an alternate 1809 unfolding through the WDS campaign engine. You start a campaign in Campaign Eckmühl as the French player. The initial situation: Davout’s corps at Ratisbon, April 1809, facing overwhelming odds. This time, however, fate is not so kind to the French. In our what-if scenario, Archduke Charles’s plan comes off perfectly. Davout is defeated – not a fighting withdrawal, but a true major defeat. Perhaps in this timeline, heavy rain delays Napoleon’s other columns from coming to Davout’s aid, or a reckless decision by Davout to stand his ground results in his corps being nearly encircled. The outcome is a shattered French III Corps falling back toward the Danube in disarray. In game terms, you (as the French) see a “Major Defeat” screen at Teugn-Hausen. The campaign engine now consults the branch logic: a French Major Defeat at Ratisbon means the next scenario is X instead of the historical Y. Instead of moving on to the Battle of Abensberg as Napoleon did historically after a victory, the campaign might branch to a scenario where Napoleon has to rally a defense north of the Danube, or perhaps fight a delaying action to rescue Davout’s survivors.

A new situation brief pops up. It’s now late April 1809, and the narrative has diverged sharply from reality. The Austrians, buoyed by their success against Davout, are pressing forward aggressively. As the French player, you’re given a choice on how to respond (reflecting Napoleon’s possible strategies). Do you fall back toward Ingolstadt to cover your lines of communication and await reinforcements, conceding Bavaria to the enemy? Or do you counterattack immediately with what forces you can scrape together, hoping to shock Archduke Charles before he consolidates? Let’s say you choose to counterattack (Napoleon was never one to shy from offense). The campaign now launches a hypothetical battle scenario that never happened in real history – perhaps an engagement along the Isar or a stand near the city of Regensburg itself, with Napoleon attempting to stabilize the front. The troops involved are drawn from the order of battle in a plausible way: maybe some of Davout’s retreating units, elements of Lannes’ corps arriving, and so on, while the Austrians have their forward detachments. The outcome of this battle will further direct the story. Suppose you achieve a Minor Victory here – you bloodied the Austrians enough to stall their advance, but not a crushing blow. In the campaign’s logic, a French minor victory might lead to a scenario where Charles pauses to regroup, giving Napoleon time to unite more forces. Next, you could face yet another branch: perhaps a decision on where to force a decisive battle – do you try to cross the Danube at a different point to flank the Austrians, or do you lure Charles into attacking you on the south bank?

The Battle of Aspern-Essling, Oil on canvas painting by Fernand Cormon

Fast forward to late May 1809 in this alternate timeline. The French campaign has not gone nearly as smoothly as in reality. Davout’s corps is a remnant of itself, and the French have suffered higher casualties overall. Still, Napoleon has managed to regroup around Vienna (which he captured, but later than historically, and with more fighting). Archduke Charles, having tasted victory early on, is cautious but determined, entrenching a strong defensive line on the north bank of the Danube. Now we arrive at the famous Battle of Aspern-Essling – but it might not be the Aspern we know. In the real world, Napoleon attempted a hasty crossing of the Danube and was caught mid-river, leading to a bloody two-day battle that he lost. In our alternate scenario, perhaps Napoleon, aware of his weakened state, tries a different approach. Or conversely, feeling pressured, he still attempts the river crossing at Aspern – and it goes even worse this time because the Austrians are in a stronger position (thanks to that earlier French setback). The campaign engine would branch accordingly. If earlier battles put the French in a tough spot, the Aspern-Essling scenario you get might start with, say, larger Austrian forces or the French having fewer artillery batteries (reflecting lost guns from Davout’s defeat). As the player, you now fight Aspern-Essling, and maybe you can barely salvage a draw, or you suffer another defeat. Let’s say it’s a Minor Defeat for you at Aspern – you manage to extricate part of the army back across the Danube, but at high cost (perhaps Marshal Lannes is killed, as happened historically, and more). The campaign’s narrative branches yet again: a French defeat at Aspern means the next scenario will not be the historical Wagram immediately, but something else. Maybe the next “situation” in the campaign is Napoleon on the strategic defensive, with Charles considering an offensive south of the Danube.

By early July 1809, the alternate campaign reached its climax. In the real timeline, this was the Battle of Wagram, where Napoleon, reinforced and prepared, crossed the Danube in force and won a hard-fought victory against the Austrians – effectively ending the war. In our timeline, the stage and balance might be quite different. The campaign engine might bring both players to a final battle scenario that’s analogous to Wagram but with a twist: perhaps it’s fought on different terms. For instance, one plausible branch: because the French are weaker now, Archduke Charles decides to preemptively attack Napoleon’s army on the south bank of the Danube before he can attempt another crossing. The “Wagram” of this timeline might actually take place in late June on the plains south of Vienna, with the Austrians on the offensive – a complete inversion of the historical battle. You, as Napoleon, would be fighting to survive and protect your supply lines back to France. Alternatively, if you somehow won big at Aspern in the previous scenario (imagine you managed a victory despite the odds), maybe the final battle is a French pursuit of a broken Austrian army – a very different flavor of Wagram where the French are trying to deliver a knockout blow to an enemy in flight. The campaign system can accommodate either storyline by mapping the outcomes to different “final battle” scenarios. It’s even possible the campaign could end early – for example, if you had achieved a Major Victory in a mid-campaign battle, you might have forced the Austrians to capitulate without needing a Wagram at all. But in our tougher playthrough, we end up with a last grand showdown.

Let’s conclude our fictional narrative: The armies clash one more time in the outskirts of Vienna. After two days of intense fighting under the July sun, the alternate Battle of Wagram ends with a stalemate – say, a draw or a minor victory for either side. The French are bloodied and can’t destroy the Austrian army, but the Austrians, having halted Napoleon, also can’t drive him completely out. Both sides are exhausted. The campaign engine presents the campaign conclusion screen, describing how this indecisive outcome leads to a truce. In this alternate timeline, Napoleon doesn’t get the emphatic victory he wanted; Austria, though battered, holds enough of its army intact to negotiate better peace terms. The what-if scenario might conclude with a narrative about how Europe faces a prolonged war of attrition or a diplomatic settlement far different from the historic Schönbrunn Treaty. As a player, you sit back and marvel at the story that just unfolded – none of it happened in reality, but every step of it felt authentic to the logic of 1809.

A defeated Napoleon in an alternate Battle of Wagram

From Davout’s annihilation near Ratisbon all the way to a changed outcome at Wagram, the WDS campaign system let us rewrite a chapter of the Napoleonic Wars and see how things might have played out. Crucially, it didn’t feel arbitrary. Each branch flowed from the decisions and results that preceded it, much like a good alternate-history novel where one divergence cascades into many changes. We experienced not just a single hypothetical battle, but a whole alternative campaign – a sequence of interlocked what-ifs.

Exploring “What-Ifs” on a Grand Scale

This example highlights what makes the campaign engine a true alternate history machine. It allows us to go beyond one-off scenarios (like “what if D-Day had failed?” or “what if the Battle of Gettysburg had gone the other way?”) and instead explore extended timelines: What if an entire campaign or war took a different course? The design of these campaign trees encourages replayability and exploration. You can go back and try different choices: What if you had chosen to retreat instead of counterattacking after Davout’s defeat – would the branch lead to an easier final battle? What if you managed a win at Aspern in the alt timeline – could you then crush Charles at a hypothetical Wagram and completely change European history? The campaign game invites you to find out.

"The Northern Post" from an alternate June 7, 1944

Many of our pre-20th-century titles include similar campaign structures. Civil War Battles games, for example, let you refight campaigns like Gettysburg, Shiloh or Atlanta with branching what-ifs (imagine seeing how a determined defense could turn Sherman’s Atlanta Campaign). The Sword & Siege and Musket & Pike series likewise have multi-battle campaigns where, say, a premature death of a general or an avoided skirmish could send you to a totally different battle than occurred historically. In each case, the campaign system provides the scaffolding to systematically explore alternate outcomes. It’s like having a time machine and a war planning room rolled into one – you set the initial deviation, then follow the course of history as it veers onto a new track, guided by your leadership and a bit of luck.

What would have happened if Grant hadn't taken Vicksburg?

For Wargame Design Studio, building these campaigns is both a design challenge and a joy. The goal is always to maintain historical plausibility. We research: What plans did each side have that they never got to execute? Where could reinforcements have come from if things had gone better or worse? Which battles were close calls that could have been victories or defeats with slight changes? The campaign scenarios are our answers to those questions, crafted with the same attention to order of battle and terrain detail as our historical scenarios. The reward is a game mode where history feels alive – not fixed in stone, but ready to diverge at your command.

As we wrap up this four-part journey through “What If? – The Long Tradition of Alternate History in Wargaming and Beyond”, it’s clear that alternate history isn’t just an academic exercise or fanciful fiction for us at WDS – it’s deeply embedded in how our games work and why we design them. From the speculative invasions and battles that never were, to the branching campaigns that let you pen your own history books, the spirit of “What if?” drives us to create wargames that are not only educational and historically grounded, but also endlessly rich in possibility. The WDS campaign game engine epitomizes that spirit: it gives you, the player, the freedom to rewrite history within a believable framework and to see the consequences unfold across an entire war. So go ahead – take up your marshal’s baton or general’s reins, and step into the alternate timeline of your making. The course of history is in your hands, and there are countless new histories waiting to be discovered. After all, the most exciting question in both gaming and history remains: “What if…?”