a game in which blocks, pins, and flags representing military units and weapons are moved around on maps to simulate war and battles
chess using two separate boards where neither player sees the other board and in which play progresses from limited information given by a referee who tracks the moves on a third board
war games played with pieces on maps, 1811 as a German word in English, from German Kriegsspiel, literally "war game," from Krieg "war," from Middle High German kriec, "combat," mostly "exertion, effort; opposition, enmity, resistance," from Old High German chreg "stubbornness, defiance, obsinancy," perhaps from PIE *gwere- "heavy" (see grave (adj.)) or cognate with Greek hybris "violence" (see hubris; cf. also war (n.)). For second element, see spiel (n.). Introduced 1870s as officer training in British army.