Chessboard
Board games have been known since ancient history, with the oldest records being paintings in mastabas of the First and Third Dynasties of Egypt (3100-2700 BC). The first known version of chess appeared around the 6th century in India and was called Chaturanga, played on a board of the game Ashtapada. This board was monochromatic and divided into eight columns by eight rows, with special marks called "castles" in the first, fourth, fifth, and eighth squares of the "a", "d", "e", and "h" columns, which served a function in Ashtapada, but not in Chaturanga.
Real-time strategy
In the United Kingdom, the earliest real-time strategy games are "Stonkers" by John Gibson, published in 1983 by Imagine Software for the ZX Spectrum, and "Nether Earth" for ZX Spectrum in 1987. In North America, the oldest game retrospectively classified as real-time strategy by several sources is "The Ancient Art of War" (1984), designed by Evryware's Dave and Barry Murry, followed by "The Ancient Art of War at Sea" in 1987.