Strategy I uses over 1000 counters and two large abstract hex grid maps to allow the players to recreate any battle in recorded history from Alexander the Great to the present day.

[2] Critic Nicky Palmer suggested that due to the extreme complexity of the rules, battles would be more manageable with teams of players on each side.

Jim Dunnigan, who worked for Avalon Hill, left to co-found SPI in 1969, with the idea of selling a lot of titles per year.

In 1969 and 1970, the fledgling company published a "Test Series" of fifteen cheap wargames that featured photocopied rules, counters and maps, mailed to buyers in manila envelopes.

These sold relatively well, supporting Dunnigan's business model, and the company turned to more professionally produced products called their "Simulation Series".

The company had announced their intention to publish this game in December 1969, but as co-designer John Young admitted, "Strategy I has been likened to an unwanted orphan child with leprosy.

Palmer warned, "The complex production rules of the modern scenarios are very alluring to the hard-core, but even the simpler wars of earlier periods are quite a handful."