ElWargameroNovato: Interview

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miércoles, 5 de febrero de 2025

Tsar Interview: Paul Hellyer

Tsar reimagines the reign of Nicholas II, the last Tsar of Russia. Players occupy the center of his regime, advising and influencing him while competing to advance their own factional goals. The game captures the interplay of public opinion, war, diplomacy, culture, internal order, the economy, and the personal traits of Tsarist leaders and the imperial family. Through this simulation, Tsar explores the inner workings of autocratic regimes, with a realistic portrayal of official corruption, the cult of personality surrounding the Tsar, the violence of oppression and resistance, and the conditions that led to revolution.

The images and rules shown here are not final

You can find it in P500

Tell us a little about yourself, why did you decide to make this game?

I’m a law librarian at William & Mary Law School in Williamsburg, Virginia, and I took up board game design as a hobby some years ago. I was fortunate to meet the game designer Volko Ruhnke here in Williamsburg and he got me in touch with Gene Billingsley at GMT Games. That led to the publication of my first commercially published game Prime Minister in 2023. That was a really fun and rewarding experience, so I wanted to keep going.

I started working on Tsar in 2021 as we were wrapping up work on Prime Minister. Prime Minister is a political simulation set in the Victorian-era U.K., and I wanted to try simulating a different type of government that would be more challenging to capture in a game. Measuring public opinion and personal reputations like I did in Prime Minister might be enough to model a democracy, but it’s not going to get you very far in modeling an autocracy. There are many ways an autocratic regime can survive with or without public approval. I wanted to capture all the factors that affected the stability of Nicholas II’s regime, including industry, war, food supplies, foreign relations, the military, intelligence networks, propaganda, and bureaucratic competence. Of course, popular support remains a factor, but now it’s just one factor among many.

Tell us about the mechanics and how the different cards and decks work

Each player controls a different Faction within the Tsarist regime, and the players get their decision-making capacity through the placement of their Faction’s Characters. Characters can control offices in the government (for example, the Minister of Industry), and they can earn Influence cubes used to persuade the Tsar: these cubes can function as action points in some instances, as a bidding mechanism in joint decisions, and as a way of triggering scoring. But it’s not enough to persuade the Tsar—players also need resources and need to meet certain conditions on the game board to execute their choices. For example, if you want to use the regime’s troops to suppress a labor strike, you’ll need to use transport and supplies, and the army’s morale has to be at a certain level.

So there’s a lot of resource management in the game and a lot of different factors tracked by the game board. You need to make projections about how much money, transport, food, and industrial output the regime needs, and that in turn depends on a bunch of other factors like popular support, trade levels, industrialization, and so on. In multiplayer mode, all these resources are shared and all the conditions on the board apply to all players. This is part of the game’s semi-cooperative nature: you’re all in this government together, although your objectives are somewhat different.

There’s also a worker placement mechanic in the game for various units, most significantly for the Tsar himself. The Tsar isn’t a playable character, but he’s very much at the center of the game. You have a wooden token representing the Tsar and various places on the game board where he can go. This token has two orientations so that it can also track his mood, which affects the things he’ll do or not do. He starts each round in Tsarskoye Selo and you can move him to another location once per round. For instance, you can send him to Moscow to bless the troops and improve morale, or put him on the imperial train to tour the empire and shore up popular support, or send him on a state visit to improve foreign relations. To refresh his mood, you can send him on a season-specific vacation: the Livadia Palace in the Crimea in the spring, the imperial yacht in the summer, and his hunting lodge in the fall (in the winter, he can remain near the capital to host a ball). His movements have a political angle, too: for certain goals, he needs to remain near the capital; alternatively, you can hide some problems from him by getting him away from the capital. In his actions and reactions, the personality of Nicholas II will show itself: he’s indecisive, a bit shallow, often frustrated, distracted by his family, and not particularly competent, but in theory he has a lot of power.

In addition to sharing resources, players in a multiplayer game share the cards. There’s just one hand of playable cards for all the players and even the Character cards are usable by all the players—you can, for instance, place another player’s Character in a particular office. The game uses a couple of different decks, most of which are randomly shuffled: an “Era” deck with a mix of “All Era” and Era-specific events, an “Unrest” deck that simulates resistance, and a “Famine” deck that simulates food shortages.

But for this discussion, I’d like to focus on the “Coded” deck, which is a more unusual feature of the game. This deck has numbered cards that are seeded in response to specific decisions, dates, or conditions. This deck functions together with a series of card slots on the game board that control the timing of the cards. The game is divided into seasonal quarters, each of which is played as one round in the game. So you have a “Q+1” slot holding cards that will be played next quarter, a “Q+2” slot for cards that will be played the quarter after that, etc. Coded Cards in these slots are always viewable, so you can see certain predictable events that are coming up and you can prepare for them. For example, if you take out a loan from France, you’ll seed a Coded Card in the “Q+4” slot that requires an interest payment one year from now, and until you pay off that loan, you’ll reseed the card in the Q+4 slot every time you play it: so you have annual interest payments. Some of the Tsar’s movements that I described above are controlled by Coded Cards that come up at regular intervals, tied to the seasons. So every summer, the Coded Card for the imperial yacht becomes available. You have another Coded Card for the Tsar’s state visits, and after you play it you’ll reseed it in the Q+2 or Q+3 slot. Other Coded Cards are one-time historical events—for instance, the Tsar’s son will be born in the summer of 1904, and Austria-Hungary will declare war on Serbia in 1914. Some Coded Cards are seeded in response to certain conditions: if the navy’s morale falls to zero, the game board will reveal a Card Code for a naval mutiny; if relations with the U.K. fall to zero, the board will reveal a Card Code for a war against the British Empire. The Coded Cards also allow players to create chains of events: if you begin construction on a stage of the Trans-Siberian Railway, you’ll have an opportunity to complete that stage two rounds later; if you send the Tsar on a state visit to France in Era III, you’ll draw a Coded Card that lets you renew the Franco-Russian alliance. So this Coded Card system allows for a more realistic simulation than you would get through shuffled cards alone, and it gives the players more information that they can use to plan their strategies.

Tell us about the importance of the eras

Early in development, I realized that covering 1894 through 1917 in one game would mean either a very long playing time or a stripped-down version that only scratched the surface of Nicholas’ reign. So I decided to break up the game into four eras, each covering several years of his reign, with each era played as a separate game in a legacy style. Each era has different objectives and different historical content, involving both peacetime and wartime situations. I’m also planning to make scenarios that can be played separately in a non-legacy style, with fixed setups for different points in time and different problems, varying playing lengths, and at least one scenario that’s purely cooperative.

Can you recommend bibliography to delve into this complex topic?

Sure! Here are the books I relied on:

Richard Charques, The Twilight of Imperial Russia (1958).
Marc Ferro, Nicholas II: The Last of the Tsars (1990).
John Hanbury-Williams, The Emperor Nicholas II as I Knew Him (1922).
Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, The Last Tsar: The Abdication of Nicholas II and the Fall of the Romanovs (2024).
Maurice Paléologue, An Ambassador’s Memoirs (1923).
John Curtis Perry & Constantine Pleshakov, The Flight of the Romanovs: A Family Saga (1999).
Robert D. Warth, Nicholas II: The Life and Reign of Russia’s Last Monarch (1997).

The Ferro and Warth books were probably the two that were most helpful and relevant to me in making the game, but if you want a good read, my first recommendation would be Flight of the Romanovs. That was a book I read many years ago around the time it first came out and I think it planted the seeds in my mind for this game. I’ll also give a shoutout to some favorite movies about the period:

Knight Without Armour (United Artists 1937).
The Last Command (Paramount Pictures 1928).
Nicholas and Alexandra (Columbia Pictures 1971).

Nicholas and Alexandra is surprisingly accurate for a Hollywood movie. It gives you a pretty good taste of what’s in the game, at least up until the February Revolution (Tsar immediately ends if the regime collapses).

Do you think that the system can be adapted to other regimes?

Yes, as I playtest the game, it often occurs to me how much this regime resembles other autocratic regimes, including Putin’s. Not because I was trying to address any other regimes, but because of the historical parallels. So although the content is specifically tailored to Nicholas’ regime, the broader themes of oppression, corruption, resistance, and violence are all too familiar to us in 2025.

viernes, 3 de enero de 2025

Ermine: Men of Iron Volume VII Interview: Pierre Vagneur-Jones

The death of Duke John III of Brittany in 1341, just 4 years after the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War, would spark a dynastic conflict between Joan de Penthièvre, his niece, and John of Montfort, his nephew. Both sides would be backed by the Kings of France and England, respectively. Charles de Blois, Joan’s husband, was the primary military leader of the French-backed side and would be present in almost all of the battles during the conflict. Meanwhile, the Montfort faction would see numerous different ambitious and capable military leaders, who were regularly outnumbered by the French troops.

The images and rules shown here are not final.

You can find it in P500.

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started in this hobby?

Hi! My name is Pierre Vagneur-Jones. I'm half French, half English, and have spent most of my life in the south of England. My parents live in Brittany, so I visit them often. I co-host the We Intend to Move on Your Works podcast and currently work as a developer on several games for various wargame publishers.

Like many in this hobby, I grew up playing classics like Risk and Stratego, along with other board games.

Later, I got deeply involved in the UK's indie RPG scene, which is surprisingly active and innovative. My passion for modern wargames developed during university. With a background in Ancient and Medieval History (undergraduate) and Medieval Studies (Master’s), I became interested in games that reflectthese eras. In 2018, my course-mates and I discovered the Men of Iron tripack while searching for aboard game focused on medieval combat. That discovery sparked my enthusiasm for wargaming, whichdeepened during the COVID pandemic—and the rest is history!

Why did you decide to make this game?

Men of Iron was my introduction to wargaming, and I’ve played every scenario in the tripack extensively. I’m also a fan of subsequent entries like Arquebus and Norman Conquests. What draws me to the system is its ability to create unique narratives. Each battle feels distinct, and the scale allows for dramatic, historically grounded swings in momentum.

I’ve been designing games for years—mostly RPGs—but I’ve loved exploring wargame design since university. For me, it’s about studying historical periods and finding innovative ways to portray them through gaming. The War of the Breton Succession, while largely unknown outside Brittany (and even among many Bretons), offers a treasure trove of untapped battles. Existing games typically cover the entire war or focus solely on the Battle of Auray. With Ermine, I wanted to bring lesser-known battles to life, combining historical research with engaging gameplay.

How does this game differ from others in the series?

Ermine uses the same rules as the original Men of Iron because all its battles occur during the first phase of the Hundred Years War, the focus of the original game. Richard Berg’s thesis in Men of Iron—that infantry was supplanting cavalry as the dominant battlefield force—is still central to Ermine. However, the battles in Ermine are fundamentally different, offering varied and unique gameplay compared to famous engagements like Crécy and Agincourt.

Richard Berg’s scenario design ethos greatly influenced me. He prioritized historical accuracy and playability over balance, often showcasing lopsided battles. His special scenario rules, while not always perfect, were consistently creative and insightful. In Ermine, I aim to honour this approach by highlighting the quirky and asymmetrical aspects of medieval battles, bringing history to life in unexpected ways.

What’s your favourite battle in this game?

My favourite is the Battle of La-Roche-Derrien. This nighttime engagement saw a small English force relieve a siege against a much larger French army. The English struck like lightning, capturing Charles de Blois, the French commander, before he could don his armour. This battle exemplifies the chaos and unpredictability of medieval combat. Each playtest has yielded a different outcome, showcasing the system’s dynamism. Interestingly, the favoured French side is the historical loser in this scenario.

Other battles in the game are equally intriguing. Visiting the Mauron battlefield transformed my understanding of its terrain. Unlike the featureless grasslands often depicted in medieval games, Brittany’s landscapes are hilly, forested, and dotted with villages. Mauron, for example, features marshland, steep hills, a castle, and a river—perfect for tactical challenges!

Can you recommend some books for those interested in the historical background?

This period is under-represented in English historiography, especially regarding battles. Here are some key resources:

English Books:

The Crécy War by Alfred Burns: A short, accessible dive into the period, though the maps are flawed.
Princely Power in Late Medieval France: Jeanne de Penthièvre and the War for Brittany. by Erika Graham-Goering: A more academic overview of the political context.
Jonathan Sumption’s Hundred Years War series: The Breton Succession is briefly covered in Trial by Battle.

French Books:

Jean-Christophe Cassard’s La Guerre de Succession de Bretagne: Dix-Huit Études: A deep dive into the military aspects of the war.
Arthur Le Moyne’s Histoire de Bretagne: A comprehensive but dated (19th-century) resource.

Primary Sources:

Robert of Avesbury’s Gestis Mirabilibus Regis Edwardi Tertii: Very useful for specific battles such as Mauron
The True Chronicle of Jean le Bel: an accessible, affordable introduction to primary sources.
Related but subtle in slightly different ways: The Chronicle of Jean Froissart
The Norman Chronicle of the 14th century

Of course, I have many, many more sources I have been working with, usually from individual chapters or lone primary sources. I’ll be sure to add them all to the final product and hopefully annotate them with my insights and how each helped.

lunes, 2 de diciembre de 2024

Microverse Interview: Sam London

Microverse is a fast-playing, card-driven space 4x game. The game features lightning fast turns (sub 5 seconds most of the time) and a short playtime (15 minutes per player) while packing in all the hallmarks of a full 4x game. Players will guide their civilizations from humble beginnings on a single planet to galaxy spanning empires fighting over choice planets.

The images and rules shown here are not final.

You can find it in P500

- Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started in the hobby?

I’ve been playing board games all my life. They started to become my focal hobby in 2007 as I began to fall out of love with video games. Board gaming became even bigger for me as I realized how inherently social it was. All these years later it is still my favorite way to spend my free time.

- Where did you get the idea to make the game?

My process as a game designer usually starts with playing another game and deciding to fix issues I personally had with it. In the case of Microverse there was no single game, but rather the entire 4x genre. I love 4x games, but they have a tendency to be so overwhelming that they are intimidating to new players and take so long to play that they can only be tabled twice a year at best. My design goal for Microverse was to encapsulate the full 4x experience in a much faster play time.

- Tell us about the mechanics

If I was going to make Microverse faster, I needed to make player turns as smooth as possible. To accomplish that I made it so you are only performing one action type per turn, though you can perform as many of those actions as you can afford. Each player has a hand of cards, with each card corresponding to one of the games four action types (Build, Colonize, Explore, and Mobilize). On your turn you play as many cards as you wish of one type. Each card played generates a resource point of that type, which is then increased by the number of matching resource points on your colonized worlds (each planet has action types it grants bonuses towards). This total is the number of resource points you have available to spend on actions during your turn.

You spend Build resource points to build fleets on your colonies, Colonize resource points to build colonies on new worlds, Explore resource points to search for new worlds, and Mobilize resource points to move your fleets around.

Microverse is essentially a racing game, with each player trying to be the first to achieve one of the game’s four victory conditions. A player wins an Expanse Victory if they have any of their pieces in 10 or more sectors (hexes) at the start of their turn. They win an Empire Victory if they begin their turn with all 6 of their colonies in play. They win a Conquest Victory immediately if they destroy any opponent’s home colony. Finally, as players explore the galaxy they will find ancient alien ruins (the Monoliths). Once enough of these have been found (2 per player) it triggers an apocalyptic end game within 3 rounds. If the game hasn’t ended otherwise at the end of those 3 rounds, the player who controls the most of the Monoliths wins a Transcendence Victory.

There are a few other things going on like diceless card based combat, trading, and a political Senate round, but that should give you an idea of the game’s base mechanics.

- Can you tell us about the factions?

One of the major design choices I made with Microverse was to make the base mechanics as simple as possible. I decided I would pack in all the fun chrome into the game’s factions, and let the players choose how simple or complicated they wanted their game to be. As such, each faction is rated on a complexity scale that indicates how much they alter the game’s core rules for themselves and for other players.

There will be 21 factions in the core game. Each faction is entirely unique in Microverse, and has its own strength, weakness, and scalable research ability. There are certain planets that, as they are colonized, increase the potency of the controlling faction’s research ability. Each faction also fits into 4 different classes, Administrators, Conquerors, Diplomats, and Wayfinders. Administrators generally focus on empire building and fleet production. Conquerors do exactly what they sound like they do. Diplomats have more of a metagame focus and tend to have mechanics that interact with trading and the Senate. Wayfinders are exploration experts who have a lot of mechanics that interact with the Monoliths.

With 21 factions in the core box, there is a good fit in there for everyone. The Human Diaspora are the game’s tutorial faction. They add no special rules to the game at all, and their research ability simply increases their hand size (which is very powerful). Also noteworthy, if you are playing solitaire the bot always plays as the Human Diaspora. The Nallaht Syndicate can set aside cards to form a marketplace that anyone at the table can use, but in doing so the Nallaht get to draw cards and cycle their hand. The Eye of Osiris have super dreadnaughts that can blow up entire planets (no obvious inspiration there). The Yarzai Flood have organic ships that can simply reproduce in space and break into smaller ships when destroyed. The Saurvid Crusade obsessively search the galaxy for the Monoliths, and every time they find one their fleets get permanently stronger. These are just some examples of the variety each faction brings to the table.

- According to the product description it announces that more factions will be coming. Can we expect future expansions for the game?

Thankfully, the game is already doing very well on the P500, so it is likely we will be making expansions. As I said the game has 21 playable factions, but I have designed 80 so far, and am trying to push past 100 total factions. The first expansion would be a second core box, with 20 new factions (the Human Diaspora must be in both boxes), which when combined with the original core box let you play with up to 8 players. From there I have enough factions left over to do many faction expansions in the future.

domingo, 24 de noviembre de 2024

The World Crisis Interview: Bruce Harper

The World Crisis is a grand strategy game which uses many of the gaming systems developed for A World at War and its prequel games Gathering Storm and Storm Over Asia. It simulates the military, economic, political, diplomatic, research, and production aspects of the First World War and lets the players find out for themselves what might have happened

The rules and images shown here are not final.

You can find it in P500

Tell us a little about yourself. How did you get started in the hobby?

I always played board games as a child, and one year my brother and I got Avalon Hill’s Blitzkrieg for Christmas. After that, I alternated between strategy games and tournament chess.

In between, I became a lawyer and worked as a prosecutor.

In 1980, I wrote a long letter with many questions about the original Rise and Decline of the Third Reich, and one of my suggestions was incorporated into the game. It was downhill from there… A year or two later, I was asked by Avalon Hill to take charge of Q&A for Third Reich, and this led to writing much-needed rule clarifications, then rule changes, then Advanced Third Reich, Empire of the Rising Sun, and finally, with GMT, A World at War.

The prequel games Gathering Storm and Storm Over Asia followed in 2015 and 2020, respectively.

Where did you get the idea to make the game?

I think the challenge came from others, but also from myself, because designing an interesting game about World War I is, on the face of it, nearly impossible. After all, the war seems, in retrospect, largely senseless.

However, I also thought Storm Over Asia couldn’t work, while others were equally skeptical of Gathering Storm.

I used to play Avalon Hill’s Guns of August and, before that, 1914, and while neither game really succeeded, I felt that if a strategic World War I game worked, it could be very interesting.

Will the mechanics be the same as in previous games? What changes can we expect?

Some of the mechanics are the same, but in more refined forms. For example, the economics of World Crisis are entirely based on activity counters, a concept introduced in Gathering Storm and also used in Storm Over Asia. But in those games, tile points were spent to use activity counters; in World Crisis, you just use them – they are the currency of the game.

This approach has a big benefit – there is no bookkeeping, other than for research. For A World at War players, who are used to tracking Basic Resource Points, this will come as a shock, but probably a welcome one. It certainly makes the game simpler.

The mapboard and units in World Crisis will be recognized by A World at War players, and the concealment of ground units by army counters closely resembles the use of task force counters in A World at War. But the combat system is quite different.

Similarly, Storm Over Asia players will feel comfortable tracking cohesion levels for each major power in World Crisis, but there are also important differences in how cohesion is modified.

There are also random events, as in Gathering Storm and Storm Over Asia. Making the most of these is definitely an acquired skill.

So there are many things that will be familiar to people who played the other games, but also many things that will be different. World Crisis is simpler than the other games, but not because it is less challenging – it’s more than the concepts from the other games are being used in a purer form, without exceptions that aren’t worth including in a World War I game.

It’s hard to estimate the playing time at this point, but I would think maybe a day or two.

Can you give us some clues about the "alternative lines" that may arise during the game?

This is very difficult to assess at this point. Unlike in some other World War I games, World Crisis players are free to try whatever they want, with the main constraint being that it might not work. Just as in the related games, you can try something different, but don’t blame the designer if you get crushed.

Germany can try to go after Russia first, while Austria-Hungary can avoid its historical mistakes from 1914 (while probably making different ones). Is it better to attack, increasing cohesion, or to defend, to reduce casualties? Which front should Germany emphasize? How important are the secondary fronts? I really don’t know the answers to these questions. I never do a game intending it to be a puzzle to be solved (although some players take that approach), and ideally there is no “solution” as such. The “best” strategy will depend on what you are good at, what your opponent does, and chance.

sábado, 2 de noviembre de 2024

Labyrinth: The Rise of Al-Qaeda, 1993-2001Interview: Peters Evans

The Rise of Al-Qaeda takes the series back in time to cover the period following the World Trade Center bombing, mere weeks into Bill Clinton’s first term, and invites players to compare the dynamics of this earlier period. Despite some obvious differences in how the US fought against Islamist terrorism in the 1990s, the Labyrinth series mechanics are a perfect fit for the era given their strategic, geopolitical scope.

The rules and images shown here are not final.

You can find it in P500

-Tell us a little about yourself, how did you get started in this hobby?

I’ve always been interested in games. When I was young my older brother and I used to play the classic board games like Risk. Even then I would enjoy imagining designing it into something different, and more realistic (such as I could understand back then).

We also used to play games like Magic: The Gathering and the Lord of the Rings CCG. I only got into strategy and politically themed board games much later. For most of my life I’ve been a console, and PC gamer. One of my earliest memories is from when I was 4, and my dad ran straight into the first Goomba on Mario 3 on the NES, because he thought he’d be able to talk to it! Come to think of it, I’ve always been interested in diplomacy, too…

The first board games I bought as an adult were Labyrinth and Twilight Struggle. That was back when I was a grad student – in 2010, I think. I remember considering the purchase long and hard before committing to buy them through the bgg market! I’ve been hooked on the hobby since. I still play TS on the app fairly often (although my rating isn’t terribly impressive), and I’ve obviously just launched an expansion for Labyrinth on P500.

Regarding how I got into design – I’m fascinated by the potential and challenges of representing history with the medium, and started dabbling in design after graduating from a PhD in History in 2014. My first idea was to produce a game on the Cold War (one day…). Design scratches the itch the PhD used to – research, learning, and creating outputs.

I then got involved in playtesting for GMT a couple of years before Covid-19, working on The Weimar Republic (which, crazy to say, will ship soon!). After that, things accelerated during the pandemic. I got closely involved with Congress of Vienna, and then The British Way, and made a circle of designer and developer friends through the COIN Discord server. It’s fantastic being part of a small group who support one another’s efforts.

The experience, confidence, and contacts I gained playtesting eventually led to my being hired for a time as a Staff Developer for GMT, which filled a day per week when I went down to a 4-day week in my main line of work. Then, after about 15 months working at GMT I decided I wanted to try my hand at working for myself, and driving my own projects forward instead of supporting others’ so I left to pursue freelance opportunities. Game design is a component of that, alongside a little bit of development here and there. I’m still the Develop for GMT’s 1848: The Springtime of Revolutions, and Firefight Tactical because both are such great designs (as someone with a background in the history of 19^th century political philosophy, I really kicked myself for not thinking to apply 1989’s system to 1848!).

Anyway – hopefully including a little of my bio will be of interest to anyone considering going down the path of board game design / development!

-How did the idea of creating this expansion come about?

The project grew out of the question "Would Labyrinth work well enough to cover the 1990s, and what would need to change from the base game for it to do a reasonable job?". I initially approached this as a design exercise, however, when I gave it a go I was surprised to learn that the answer was “not a lot”. So, I just kept going with it.

The game covers the Clinton years, and Bush Jr. up to 9/11, starting in 1993 right after the WTC Bombing. This frames the expansion between the two WTC attacks and allows for the major conflicts of the period to have started already. I did consider going from 1988, but that meant a lot of events needed to go towards setting up the big conflicts of the 1990s, namely: the civil wars in Algeria and Afghanistan, the wars in Chechnya, and the UN/NATO interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo.

I have three central arguments or "theses" that have informed my design decisions:

First, that the conflict represented in Labyrinth didn't start with 9/11 for the Jihadists. For them, the fight with America and its allies began with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the USSR. After all, Osama Bin Laden had declared Jihad on the US in 1996, and Al-Qaeda launched a series of attacks on US targets which started in 1998.[1] The “War on Terror” was a phase in a much longer period of Western engagement with the Middle East. Within this, 9/11 and the military operations which followed it were events of huge significance, but nonetheless events that that occurred within a broader pattern of conflict, and one that predated them. The prequel therefore allows us to put 9/11 in the broader context of US engagement with the Muslim world, and even to reframe the "War on Terror" as a specific phase within that.

Third, before 9/11 the Jihadist movement was split between "nationalist" and "internationalist" tendencies. Al-Qaeda's "internationalist" perspective became ascendent in the latter half of the period, but this was in response to the failure of the "nationalist" insurgencies in Algeria and Egypt. I have to emphasise that this isn’t an original argument – inf act it’s just the conventional historiography – but it is the major design challenge the prequel needed to meet.

In my view, Labyrinth is very well suited to telling these stories. Indeed, the base game's Victory Conditions and mechanics already facilitate this.

-This game starts before the war on terror, how did this affect the two factions?

As mentioned above, Labyrinth’s systems are well suited to the era given the geostrategic scope of the game. The Victory Conditions in War on Terror for example already provide what the prequel needs. There are some oddities porting a system designed to model the post-2001 period, of course, but Volko always designed the game in terms of the US and its supporting Coalition battling a diverse array of Jihadist insurgents. One example oddity is the name of the “Global War on Terror” track – that needs a little suspension of disbelief!

But there are differences, of course. For example, in the 1990s the American role was much more indirect. Dig into the history, though and you’ll find they were always active in the region – not only supporting existing allies like Egypt against the insurgency of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Al-Jama'a al-Islamiyya, for example, but also doing things like promoting democracy and good governance in Algeria in response to the civil war there.[2]

Then, the US was also very active militarily as part of UN and/or NATO missions in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo. UN observers were also dispatched to Tajikistan in the early 1990s, and later, the possibility of the US putting “boots on the ground” in Afghanistan was even debated by the National Security Council as a possible response to Bin Laden (it was rejected on the basis the US public wouldn’t understand or support such a mission).

The expansion is therefore offered with this framing in mind: that the Labyrinth series is fundamentally about the engagement of the US led West with the Middle East, and their conflict with attempts by various Jihadists (mostly Salafists) to overthrow local regimes.

In terms of changes to the factions, the main impact is on the Jihadist side. At the start of the era depicted in the prequel (1993-2001), what we call the “Jihadist” movement was an international network, but one focused on overthrowing regimes in Muslim countries that they felt were acting against the interests of Islam and the Muslim community (Ummah). So, while Salafi insurgents were spread across the Middle East, and people, ideas, and resources were moving through international networks in increasing volumes, the movement was dominated by a “nationalist” outlook. Jihadists were strategically focused on fighting the “near enemy”, an approach was characterized by movements like the Taliban, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria.

Proponents of the approach of attacking the “far enemy” – the United States and the West, meanwhile, were in the minority. It wasn’t until Al-Qaeda began successfully hitting American targets that the moral leadership of the movement shifted to Bin Laden and the “internationalists” – most spectacularly after 9/11, after which groups began affiliating to the organisation and seeing themselves as local branches of the larger whole.

This is represented in Rise of Al-Qaeda in several ways, but the most obvious mechanical innovation is the introduction of a new unit type, the guerrilla. These new green cylinder pieces operate as the Jihadist counterpart to the militia introduced in Awakening. They can be used to count as cells during Jihad ops and towards Attrition rolls during Civil Wars, but are unable to Travel or place Plots. They represent locally rooted insurgencies which are allied to the more mobile terror groups represented by Labyrinth’s cells. The Jihadist player has less control over the movement as a whole, and also has fewer cells to play with.

-What new mechanics can we find?

Plenty! Also, most them can be used as “modules” in the later games as well! (And yes, there is the option to play through all the games in the series as part of one campaign).

I’ve already mentioned guerrillas. Another major innovation is another new unit type: Russian Troops. This was the era of Russia’s wars in Chechnya, but also the Tajikistan Civil War, in which Russian forces played a role (hence the UN observers mentioned above). The expansion needed a way to address this, and playtesting showed me that it wasn’t going to be appropriate to just do this through event cards. So, I added a new system, integrated with event cards, to allow the Russians some limited scope to move and fight.

Alongside this, there’s a new system of Russian Influence. This helps the Coalition player by allowing the placement of Russian Troops, but it can also potentially hamper them – Russian Influence also block War of Idea attempts if Russia’s posture is Hard, as the Kremlin is in no mood to allow the US-led West to step in and take over their role.

This means keeping Russia’s posture Soft can become quite important for the Coalition, and may also introduce a tension for the Coalition player. I like that this system can naturally create situations where the Coalition may want the world to generally adopt a Hard posture, but still feel the need to take Russia to task for using a military approach. That said, most of the time in Rise the Coalition will want to adopt a Soft posture. This is the pre-9/11 world, after all, so the appetite for military intervention is much lower.

You’ll find Russian Influence counters in all of Russia’s traditional allies across the region – Serbia, Libya, Syria, and India – and also in their sphere of influence (the Caucasus and Central Asia). There’s also a solitary Chinese Influence counter in Pakistan, a longstanding ally of the People’s Republic.

In terms of the game’s map, there are several changes. There’s a brand new space Bosnia/Kosovo, and three changes to existing spaces, added to the board as tiles. Caucasus is now a Muslim Country (representing Chechnya and Azerbaijan), Iraq has become a special case like Iran (and has a new WMD mechanic), and there’s a brand new type of space that’s both a Non-Muslim and Muslim at the same time (Israel/Palestine).

Starting with Israel/Palestine, this is treated as a Muslim Country which also has a Fixed “Hard” Posture. However, that Posture can be negated if the space becomes an Ally, and that situation also blocks some nasty Jihadist-aligned events. This represents Israel changing its policy if peace can be secured with Palestine. That, may end up a pipe dream, but the game needed to include a mechanic to made Clinton’s efforts to support the Palestinian peace process relevant – and this creates the needed incentive.

The Israel/Palestine space is also a special case in another way, though. It’s now also always treated as if it has US Troops there. On the plus side for the Coalition, this means they can always Disrupt there. On the negative, Plots now harm US Prestige. I introduced this because whilst Palestine is a causes célèbres for Jihadists, there has always been little to no incentive in the Labyrinth series for the Jihadist player to act there. This mechanic again redresses this by providing an incentive for Jihadist Plots.

Iraq, meanwhile, is no longer a Muslim country the Jihadist might try to take over. Instead, it’s like Iran. Saddam is still secure in his rule, and three WMD markers are placed there at the start of the 1993 scenario. A number of event cards then reference these counters. They give opportunities for players to gain or lose Funding/ Prestige, and can be removed.

Another change has also been made to WMDs. As in Awakening, they now reside in countries that have stockpiles of them: Libya, Syria, one in Pakistan, and yes, Iraq (note: in the 1990s Iraq did have WMDs – in 2003 they didn’t!). But anyway, I wanted WMDs to have a more realistic role in the game in two senses. First, I wanted to change the traditional dynamic of player strategy in Labyrinth away from Pakistan being a no-brainer Major Jihad. I think history shows us that the idea of Pakistan falling to insurgents who then use its nuclear stockpile in terror plots was far-fetched. Second, I wanted them to provide some protection to the regimes that have them. I’m not 100% sold on this implementation just yet, but since the main purpose of WMDs is deterrence, for now they block Regime Change in a space. Since their other main use is for protection in extreme circumstances, they also add +1 to the number of cells necessary for a Major Jihad to take place. As they stack with Russian/Chinese influence, this means pulling off a coup in these spaces in now really hard, which I think befits the reward for the Jihadist being game-winning WMDs. However, these spaces are now trickier for the Coalition player to work with.

One impact of these changes which I wanted to design into the prequel is that the Jihadists are much less likely to attack regimes which historically aided and abetted them. But it also means the Jihadist player doesn’t get a free ride in Muslim Countries at Adversary, in conditions where it’s really difficult for the Coalition player to respond!

Overall, these changes – and the design of the card deck – means Rise of Al-Qaeda has much more of a cat-and-mouse feel to it. I have found through testing that these changes add more tension and direct conflict to the game, even though the overall tempo has been reduced (e.g. there are fewer 3-Op cards, making it harder for the US to change Posture and launch Regime Change, though not impossible).

That covers the big changes. There are others in how the card deck works, but this answer has gotten very long already and I want to save something for InsideGMT!

-Can you recommend some bibliography to help us get into the scene?

I’ve published a list of recommended sources on the bgg forum for the game (5^th post).

[1] That group was also deeply connected with the group which carried out the 1993 WTC bombing, to the extent that some frame that as an Al-Qaeda attack as well.

[2] See e.g. 'Algeria and U.S. interests: Containing radical Islamism and promoting democracy' (2002), or 'American Policy in the Maghreb: The Conquest of a New Region?' (2006)

miércoles, 30 de octubre de 2024

Echo from the dark Interview: Adam Blinkinsop

Echo from the Dark is the fourth game in the Irregular Conflicts Series, depicting an interstellar struggle between divergent factions after humanity discovers a material that allows for faster-than-light travel and communication. Players will use this material to deploy unique technologies that shape their faction identity across the course of the game, meaning that every playthrough is a unique experience. As they expand across the galaxy, the human population will follow, providing new incentives and opportunities. Eventually, their visions for the future will prove to be irreconcilable: only one player will be able to determine the fate of humanity.

The rules and images shown here are not final.

You can find it in P500

- Tell us a little about yourself and how you got into this hobby.

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest corner of the United States (near Seattle) before the internet was widely available. With wet weather and the occasional power outage, I spent a lot of time indoors reading books and playing board games.

At that time, I played the widely-available classics -- the night before I got married I played Clue and Risk with the wedding party -- but by the early 2000s my wife and I had found Catan and Tikal and Power Grid. BoardGameGeek led us to Twilight Struggle, and now I have a bookshelf practically dedicated to GMT Games.

A 2023, two-player playtest with a hand-drawn prototype and COIN forces

- How did the idea of creating this game come about?

Around 2010 I started a game design group with Gary Kacmarcik. While we both had been noodling with designs before then, having a group of folks interested in designing and playing added accountability and a built-in playtesting group. For several years we did monthly game jams -- one of the quickest ways to get to humility that I've found.

My goal in that group was to make things to play with my friends, the same as when I was making games as a kid. Some of the other folks in the group were aiming at publication. When Ken Kuhn joined the group, he was almost angry that we weren't working harder at getting some of these games into the market.

Since then, Ken published 1822PNW with All-Aboard Games in 2023, Rigoler put out Gary's pick-up-and-deliver game Shinjuku in Japan this year (2024), and I started officially working with GMT Games to develop Red Dust Rebellion (2024).

During the development of RDR, I kept thinking back to one of the earliest designs I was working on with the group: "Ozymandias" (after the Percy Bysshe Shelley poem), which I threw on BGG at one point as "The Rise and Fall of Galactic Empires." The group's in-joke is that I designed half-a-dozen complete games of Ozymandias and kept throwing them away when they didn't quite do what I wanted. As we pushed RDR towards the finish line, the idea of doing Ozymandias as a COIN game took shape.

-Tell us more about the modular map

While there were a few versions of this game that didn't use a modular map, they all felt wrong to me -- how can you sit in a genre next to Twilight Imperium and Space Empires: 4x and Eclipse without a modular map?

Long story short, the two main problems with modular maps are variance and oatmeal.

Variance: When there are a bunch of different ways to set up a game, or lay out a map, or choose starting locations, I find it tempting to just randomize. Wargamers have seen randomized setup before: think starting with Pearl Harbor in Empire of the Sun, or playing through the Normandy beach landings. At the extremes, your game can be half over before it's even begun.

Oatmeal: In the field of procedural generation, Kate Compton describes the "10,000 bowls of oatmeal problem" like this:

"I can easily generate 10,000 bowls of plain oatmeal, with each oat being in a different position and different orientation, and mathematically speaking they will all be completely unique. But the user will likely just see a lot of oatmeal. Perceptual uniqueness is the real metric, and it’s darn tough". https://galaxykate0.tumblr.com/post/139774965871/so-you-want-to-build-a-generator

Just because you lay a map out randomly every time doesn't mean the experience of each game is meaningfully different. I needed to design the map and a setup procedure that would ensure players had a fun time in store, and I needed the complexity there to pull its own weight in terms of replayability. In the end, I'm pretty happy with how the map system turned out.

-Tell us about the different factions we can play with.

I've built a bunch! Got to save something for the future, so I'll talk about the four that are in the introductory scenario:

1. The Stellar Empire. The Trantor of Echo's universe, inspired historically by Rome at its peak. This faction wants a core sector living in decadence supported by vast imperial holdings.

2. Swords of the Metallic Star. Cultists of the warp. An insurgent faction that wants the old world to die and is prepared to help it along. Feeds on conflict between the other factions and un-supported overpopulation.

3. The Asteria Collective. Technocrats, augmenting population with cybernetics, hoping to reach a new ascendancy. Starts a little slow but shows the power of the technology system.

4. The Guild of Seekers. Trading guild that wants to connect humanity and skim off the top. Built around surviving in dangerous areas and pushing expansion into the edges of the map. Speaking of which ...

-The galaxy is dangerous, what threats await the human factions?

The biggest threat is humanity itself! In a four-player game, the primary way you'll feel danger is through your opposition and their abilities.

For the ever-growing population, sectors can only support so many people without significant faction investment. As players explore the map they will also place the occasional "anomaly" that reduces a sector's overall capacity for population. Anomalies also make conflict more dangerous and enable the research of weirder technology.

In a game with fewer than four players, the non-player system enters the game through these anomalies as well. Non-player factions are aliens, artificial intelligence, disasters, and diseases -- they don't use the same actions as the players, even though they'll work with the same components and through the same sequence of play.

Imperial Fever: Great Power Competition in the Late 19th Century is a deckbuilding game for three to four players that recreates great power competition in the period between 1881 and 1915. Players will vie for world dominance as they take on the roles of the United Kingdom, France, the Central Empires (Germany and Austria-Hungary), and the Emergent Powers (the USA and Japan). These powers compete across several interlinked domains, including the naval arms race, military expansion and diplomacy in Europe, power projection in key international theaters, and colonial expansion. This was an era in which the race for hegemony became an end in itself, with entire peoples and national industries consumed by petty competition, eventually resulting in colonial exploitation and the outbreak of WW1. This game does not excuse or glorify the behavior of the player factions but rather seeks to present and understand the perverse incentives that drove them to act in this way.

The rules and images shown here are not final.

You can find it in P500