# Strategic Studies Group

Strategic Studies Group (SSG) is an Australian software development company that makes primarily strategy wargames.
The company was founded by strategy game enthusiasts Ian Trout and Roger Keating. Trout was proprietor of a military books store and Keating had had several of his games published by Strategic Simulations. The game that launched the company was Reach for the Stars (1983). It is credited for having "effectively launched the genre of 4-X space games - explore, expand, exploit, exterminate". Its success was followed by a string of other, mostly historical military games published throughout the 1980s for Apple II, Atari 8-bit computers, Commodore 64, and IBM PC compatibles.
SSG games include Reach for the Stars, Battlefront, Battles in Normandy, Halls of Montezuma: A Battle History of the U.S. Marine Corps, Europe Ablaze, MacArthur's War: Battles for Korea, Carriers at War, (in three volumes), Rommel, Gold of the Americas, and Decisive Battles of the American Civil War (in three volumes, with the first being Bull Run to Chancellorsville). Several of these titles were also released for 16-bit platforms including the Amiga, Atari ST, Apple IIGS and Macintosh during the late 1980s.
For a time SSG published a tie-in magazine, Run 5, that included articles on historical background to the games, game design, game play and data for setting up new or variant scenarios. Subscribers received a disk with the scenario files already created. Published mostly quarterly it ran for 25 issues.
In 1989, SSG published Fire King an action role-playing game developed by Micro Forté, another Australian games developer.
SSG also produced the Warlords series of fantasy turn-based games. In a mutually friendly decision in 2003, Warlords designer Steve Fawkner broke away from Strategic Studies Group and started Infinite Interactive to publish further Warlords games.
Co-founder Ian Trout died of cancer on 3 August 2011, which left Roger Keating as CEO of the company.
On 19 and 20 June 2014 Roger Keating and Gregor Whiley of SSG attended the Born Digital and Cultural Heritage Conference in Melbourne. Two academic papers were presented at the conference, outlining the contribution of SSG to video gaming history in Australia. Helen Stuckey examined the contribution of the Run 5 magazine to the gaming community, while Dr Fiona Chatteur outlined the development of computer graphics through the lens of Strategic Studies Group.

## Games

| Year | Title | Developer | Genre | Platform(s) |
| 1983 | Reach for the Stars: The Conquest of the Galaxy | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | 4X | Apple II, Amiga, C64, MS-DOS, Mac OS |
| 1984 | Carriers at War 1941-1945: Fleet Carrier Operations in the Pacific | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | Wargame | Apple II, C64, MS-DOS |
| 1985 | Europe Ablaze | Roger Keating, Ian Trout, Eric Baker | Wargame | Apple II, C64 |
| Canceled | The Road to Appotmattox | SSG | Grand Strategy | Apple II, C64 |
| 1986 | Battlefront | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | Wargame | Apple II, C64 |
| 1988 | Decisive Battles of the American Civil War: Volume I | SSG | Wargame | Apple II, C64, MS-DOS |
| 1987 | Russia: The Great War in the East 1941-1945 | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | Wargame | Apple II, C64 |
| 1988 | Halls of Montezuma | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | Wargame | Apple II, Amiga, C64, MS-DOS |
| 1987 | Battles in Normandy | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | Wargame | Apple II, C64 |
| 1988 | Rommel: Battles for North Africa | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | Wargame | Apple II, C64, MS-DOS |
| 1988 | MacArthur's War: Battles for Korea | SSG | Wargame | Apple II, C64, MS-DOS |
| 1989 | Decisive Battles of the American Civil War: Volume II | Roger Keating, Ian Trout, Malcolm Power | Wargame | Apple II, MS-DOS, C64 |
| 1988 | Decisive Battles of the American Civil War: Volume III | SSG | Wargame | Apple II, C64, MS-DOS |
| 1989 | Panzer Battles | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | Wargame | Apple II, C64, MS-DOS |
| 1989 | Gold of the Americas | SSG | Wargame | Amiga, MS-DOS, Atari ST |
| 1989 | Fire King | Micro Forté | RPG | C64, MS-DOS |
| 1990 | Warlords | SSG | Turn-based Strategy | Amiga, MS-DOS, Mac |
| 1992 | Carriers at War | SSG | Wargame | MS-DOS |
| 1992 | Carriers at War II | Roger Keating, Ian Trout | Wargame | MS-DOS, Mac |
| 1993 | Carriers at War: Construction Kit | SSG | Wargame | MS-DOS |
| 1993 | Warlords II | SSG | Turn-based Strategy | MS-DOS, Mac, Windows Mobile |
| 1994 | Warlords II Scenario Builder | SSG | Turn-based Strategy | MS-DOS |
| 1995 | Warlords II Deluxe | SSG | Turn-based Strategy | MS-DOS, Mac |
| 1996 | The Complete Carriers at War: Fleet Carrier Operations in World War II | SSG | Wargame | MS-DOS |
| 1997 | Ardennes Offensive | SSG | Wargame | Windows |
| 1997 | Warlords III: Reign of Heroes | SSG | Turn-based Strategy | Windows |
| 1998 | Warlords III: Darklords Rising | SSG | Turn-based Strategy | Windows |
| 2000 | Reach for the Stars | SSG | 4X | Windows |
| 2000 | Warlords: Battlecry | SSG | RTS | Windows |
| Canceled | Dungeon | SSG | | Windows |
| 2002 | Warlords: Battlecry II | SSG | RTS | Windows |
| 2003 | Korsun Pocket | SSG | Wargame | Windows |
| 2003 | Korsun Pocket: Across the Dnepr | SSG | Wargame | Windows |
| 2004 | Battles in Normandy | SSG | Wargame | Windows |
| 2005 | Battles in Italy | SSG | Wargame | Windows |
| 2007 | Battlefront | SSG | Wargame | Windows |
| 2008 | Kharkov: Disaster on the Donets | SSG | Wargame | Windows |
| 2010 | Across the Dnepr 2 | SSG | Wargame | Windows |