Merchants of Freeburg is released and For sale

After a year of developement and 6 months of art design, we are pleased to annonce our first fully released title aviable for sale.

Come explore the decisions of medieval merchants in this fledging fictional township of Freeburg. Sell commodities at market, implement policies as Burgermeister, and work to become the richest merchant in a prosperous Freeburg. Together, players have to combat the ailments that a small medieval town faces from War, Famine, Plague, Pestilence and Death.

See if you and your friends have what it takes to both survive and flourish as Merchants of Freeburg.

Soon we'll have Playsthroughs, forrums and more to show off this new game.

First Print Arrives

100 Boxes of Merchants of Freeburg just arrived, and they look amazing. Thanks to The Game Crafter for a fine print and good timing. Check out their site at https://www.thegamecrafter.com/ for other games and maybe make your own.

For more pictures check it out the Google Photo Archive: https://goo.gl/photos/oEMLJ2juffujWoZF6

Artistic Developement of Freeburg

Artistic Development on Merchants of Freeburg started in August. And after determining the best artist for this project, Anna Hollinrake has been diligent with providing Sterritt Strategy with original Art for this new title. She is a digital artist based out of county Kent, Uk. You can see all of her other projects on her website and her deviantart page. Her new talent and millennial generational approach pair perfectly with the youth and drive found in Sterritt Strategy Publishing.

Anna’s last major personal artistic project was Apotheosis, which demonstrates her wide ranging abilities in illustration, 3D digital design and the incorporation of these art forms. This project was in UDK using 3Ds Max, Zbrush, Photoshop and 3D Coat. In this project she conceived, designed and built digitally a whole temple structure. To learn more about Anna’s Apotheosis visit: Her Blog for the project, or Her fly through video.

She has set the artistic style of Freeburg in this rich and lovable storybook-esque fantasy world. While Freeburg is very much its own world, her art and the game will have you feeling a better of medieval township, a Bothers Grim fairy tale or Chaucerian verse. Her attentions to every card and piece allows this game to come to life in every lush wood tone, lavish gold trim and weathered looking parchment. Truly her art adds a tremendous value to a captivating game.

In the rest of the Art Book enjoy the example of several of her completed personal projects, cover art development, game board development, Accounting mat design, Commodity Card designs, and other coming parts and components. Every part of this book is a work in progress on the Merchants of Freeburg project; the most recent prints are literal work as it was before this convention.

You can get your own copy of Merchants of Freeburg in our store at http://www.sterrittstrategy.com/store-1/5rzkw1426d8j11pm1845c9mam91bkr

Where is Freeburg?

This is a question we get a lot. The good thing is people think they know who merchants are, well they at very least want to think they know who merchants are. In truth merchants are very different in their habits, approaches and natures over the course of time, right. You could never expect a street peddler in Rome to accept Credit Cards, or an Ancient Sumerian to understand the coins in your pockets. Yet Romans had banks (look up A for more information, or read the history of banking on Wikipedia) and Sumerians still had objects of value (see B or more history of Banking and Money).

Freeburg is nowhere, and Freeburg is everywhere to every human that ever was or will be. Freeburg is a dilemma and a goal. Freeburg is a balance of many players. It is the big question for all people and peoples. When we declare and defend one’s independence and the independence of our neighbors and our neighbors’ neighbor, this is the discourse that must take place. When we reaffirm our loyalties or seek to expand or limit the powers that be, this is the discourse that must take. When we question the point and efforts of government and the market, this is the discourse that must take place.

Merchants of Freeburg is a tool to talk about the heavier issues that we in our living rooms could never feel we had the know how to talk about with comfort or enough relevant information. Merchants of Freeburg is a Board Game first and foremost! It is about living out the choices and lives of the countless unsung heros of the Merchants in a Storybook Esque Fictional Town. What makes Freeburg a worthwhile experience is unlike any other medium of art, it will let you toy with ideas about government and the market. And it is a board game, so nobody will ever learn of your exploits, no matter how morally questionable, in the game, unless you choose to share them.

A better question for Freeburg is; When is Freeburg? While it is clearly a Western European Settlement, The best players of this game will tell you that is its setting in time. Back before our industry, Back before our Enlightenment, back before our Reformation, Back before our Rebirth, back in “highest of societies” in the late Dark Age of Western Society. Yet in this game players may have a chance to see the light at the end of this period of the shared history of our common language. And while this is a game set in the simple words of our shared language’s common history, the mechanics of this game can be set anywhere in time or cultures.

This is the game in the minds of every protester, every armchair thinker and every armchair tinker in the realms of all parts of society. The real question of any interest is Why Merchants and Why Freeburg.

Merchants are the feet of the world. Without them ideas would never move between cities. Without them Government have no revenue. Without their acceptance world leaders are just talking heads. Historical change is up to them. In our Game Merchants of Freeburg, we use a very wide definition of the word Merchant. In general, in the game a merchant are all people who choose to do things without being the sovereign of a total group of people. So in English my merchants aren’t just salesmen and women, but independent farmers, righteous thieves, outspoken clergy, union leaders, protest leaders, dissenters, envelope pushers, visionary inventors and the millions of the unsung heroes of history.

Freeburg is the choice every merchant needs to make. Remain “Free” to do as they please, or build a little bit of the “Burg” to remain safe to live to next big profit. This is the ultimate change of statecraft as noted by state crafters throughout Humanity. From Benjamin Franklin’s “They who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety” (see part C for more) to the very different challenges of Tecumseh “Let us form one body, one heart and defend to the last warrior our country, our homes, our liberty and the graves of our fathers” (see part D for more). This is the central tradeoff between all individuals within all societies. When to act freely and When to act in our common good. The challenge in our game is to play the game from the perspectives of merchants and work together and apart to see who can win that particular game. The uniqueness of our design and mechanics is in the fact that never will you have a game that will be similar to the ones you had before, and all the times you play this game the trusted mechanics are as much or as little as you and your group feels it can handle.

Stay informed about the continued development cycle of this game and others we design by reading this Blog. Coming Sunday is a Blog about the current state of our Illustration and a more indepth look about our selected artist, Anna Hollinrake. You can see more about her previous work from her website, here http://anna-hollinrake.tumblr.com/.

This is of course, all in good fun, but it would be great if there was more of world around our “town” of Freeburg. There is clearly a need to explore this hypothetical world of merchants, mercenaries, and the very little that keeps them safe. 

Links for your idea surfing pleasure:

1. H Temporini, W Haase. Principat, Volume 8. Walter de Gruyter, 1977. ISBN 3110073374.

2. http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/neareast/ss/052909Mesopotamia_2.htm#step-heading

3. More Quotes on Liberty http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/liberty.html

4. More Quotes on Security http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/security.html

Welcome to the Sterritt Strategy Publishing, Ltd. Official Blog!

Ever have a curiosity on what could be done better, why is the world the way it is, or looking up how to get something done right. This Blog is dedicated to these topics and more is the expanding field of Strategic Thinking, the means to create value. Yes, this has applications in gaming to come up with the winning methodology; Yes, this is about small business ideas and getting into the flow of how we can create value in our livelihood; and Yes, this is about how to find value in our personal paths. 

Our approach is more than just a lecture on Game Theory, Military Strategy or an MBA class; this is about having and building a community around advancing game design, small business acceleration and productivity for high level of discourse, precision and quality in our mutual understanding. Our topics will range from analyzing other games to real world History; from Creative Writing samples, to sharing Business Ideas; from Game Design,to plans to Meet, Change and Engage in the real world before us. This is our shared journal of ideas about these topics.

We are a group of designers and artists focused on development of games, accessories and livelihood products that seek to aid in this important life skill. Strategic thinking is one that all must develop in order to live and engage in our new world of new media, the personal brand and life beyond the one-company career. More importantly we are a company with products ready for sale, shipping to all 50 states and territories with plans to expand.

As of November 2022, we have 1 published game, 3 accessories, and 2 games in open beta. This is about getting involved and getting feedback early, both in the game design perspective and in manufacturing perspective.This is about getting product to customers, not selling empty promises on projects that will never ship to all customers. This is about expanding options in the market, in our lives, and in the world around us.

Sterritt Strategy Publishing is creating an open and critical environment within our company and within how it interacts with our fellow authors, gamers, designers, artists and this community as a whole. And fostering this skill of Strategic Thinking, over the many equally fun and valid forms of interactive design. This is about just getting Strategic depth back into the games we enjoy to play!

Come and help develop this blogging endeavor! Sterritt Strategy is a publishing company that assists entrepreneurs, startups, and innovators through media initiatives. We here at Sterritt Strategy are looking to expand our content base to include a wide range of non-gaming life and business strategy content, if you think you have a great article like this one contact James R Sterritt at james@sterrittstrategy.com. All views presented in this post are solely the opinions of the writer. Neither Sterritt Strategy Publishing, Ltd. nor its owners and operators are in any way represented by this content. Sterritt Strategy Publishing Ltd. is acting solely as a host and editor.