Kittredge, Eberle, and Olotka are better known for the superb Cosmic Encounter, but Borderlands is almost as good a game -- and though published in the early 80s, is an uncanny precursor of many features of today's popular Eurogames.
It also became the basis of Lords of Conquest, an Apple II game in the mid-80s which is fondly remembered by many -- and can be played in Java implementation here.
Before playing, players randomly distribute coal, iron, gold, wood, and horse production sites across the board, which is divided into provinces. Then they take control of all provinces, each selecting one in turn and placing a Warrior counter there, until the whole board is owned.
Each province may contain one warrior, one weapon, one city, and one horse, never more. Weapons and cities are produced during the game -- and the winner is the first to control three cities, whether built by him, or conquered from others or, more likely, a combination.
Each turn has five phases; within a phase, each player takes the action of that phase in order around the table, with the "lead player" token changing from turn to turn. During Development, players may build weapons (1 iron + 1 coal, or 2 gold), cities (1 of each resource except for horses), and riverboats (2 wood on the turn first produced, 3 otherwise). During Production, each production site produces 1 of its resource, unless the province already contains one, in which case it does not. Horses work a little differently; if the province contains a horse, the player may place the produced horse in an adjacent province, or at any distance through a connected chain of horse-containing province owned by the same player.
During Trade, each player may make any number of trades with others; each must involve the exchange of at least one resource each way. During shipment, players may move resources around their own empires -- I won't go into the details, but horses and riverboats make moving resources where you need them much easier. Then finally, we have attack.
One of the unique aspects of Borderlands is that while you are allowed to make only two successful attacks in a turn, you can attempt any number. Essentially, the current arrangement of warriors, horses, cities, and weapons. Let's say you are trying to attack a province: you have 1 attack point for warrior and horse in adjacent provinces, plus 3 for each city and weapon; the defender has defense points similarly, for things both in the province and in adjacent provinces. The attacker can also make one "shipment" of attacking weapons and horses from any distance so long as the shipment rules permit it -- and gets "1" from a warrior, which will get placed to signify control if the attack succeeds. Larger value wins, defender on ties.
In other words, unlike conventional wargames, this is purely a function of the strategic disposition of the player's tokens; there's no luck involved. And as in an abstract strategy game, deployment and strategic choices dictate outcomes.
The boardgame version does have flaws; for one thing, it really only works for four players (or more, with the expansion sets). Two players is dull, and three too easily becomes two-against-one (a common problem with three-player games in which players can attack each other directly). But it's worth noting the similarities to Settlers of Catan: random distribution of production sites, construction through resources, trade. And it works very well for four or more. And it is certainly not what most Eurogames are -- "a solitaire game for multiple players." Diplomacy is critical to the game.
The digital version has one major advantage: the board layout is randomly generated, providing greater variability of play. But even though the AI in the Java version linked above is pretty good, it is not as much fun to play as the boardgame, where you are negotiating with the other players. But it can at least give you a taste.
Fantasy Flight Games will supposedly be releasing a new edition of the game sometime in the next year; I'll post when they do, but until then, if you want a copy, you're stuck with eBay, I guess.
