Introduction

Now that Fort Sumter has entered the gaming universe, I thought it was time to do a few articles on strategy. If you are unfamiliar with this game, please look at my earlier Inside GMT articles or download the Playbook and read the comprehensive example of play.

The Fort Sumter Card Driven Game (hereafter CDG) engine is based on my For the People design (AH 1998, GMT 2000, 2006, 2014) coupled with the new Crisis Track mechanic. It is the combination of cards and how you acquire political cubes that drives the action for the three main rounds of the game. Then, at the game’s conclusion, you go through a special fourth round called the Final Crisis that simulates the last days leading up to the Confederate States bombardment of Fort Sumter in Charleston harbor.

Final Crisis

During each of the three rounds, both players, after playing three of their four card hands, puts aside their fourth card for use in the games’ Final Crisis. This three-card Final Crisis mini-deck is used in a head-to-head confrontation with your opponent that potentially alters the board positions and affects who wins.

Although Fort Sumter is an easy game to learn and teach, different strategies will emerge the more you play the game against different opponents. It is my view that it will take a few more game plays before you have a Eureka moment around how to strategize your card choices for the endgame. In this article, I want to give you some insight into the historical model that drives this portion of the game, some card analytics, and basic insights on strategies you can consider.

Historical Model

Fort Sumter abstracts the historical crisis into four dimensions (Political, Secession, Public Opinion, and Armaments). The first point to note is the Political dimension plays a secondary role in the final crisis. Thematically, political solutions have failed the participants; so if you go into the final crisis with a Political advantage this will follow you into the final scoring. Therefore one important tactic is if you cannot control the Political dimension, force a stalemate (four cubes in Washington). Otherwise, you are a VP down for the close.

Historicallly, as Lincoln and Davis spiraled toward a direct confrontation, Fort Sumter started to take center stage. The game’s historical model handles this by introducing Fort Sumter as a Final Crisis VP, making the Armaments dimension worth 2VP in total versus the other three (Political, Secession and Public Opinion) whose value remains 1VP each. In essence, Fort Sumter becomes the default Objective space for both sides. Since there is no pivotal movement in this fourth and final round, creating stalemates such as getting 4 cubes into Fort Sumter either blocks your opponent from winning the Armaments and the Fort Sumter VPs or you score at least one VP.

Final Crisis Card Distributions

The table above illustrates that half of the deck is focused on the Armaments dimension, making it statistically the default choice. What you will also note is all 3-valued joint events (either side may play them) are Armaments cards, making them less probable choices given their high card value.

Mechanically, the Final Crisis has each player stack their three cards, then reveal them one at a time. Each time the players match their crisis dimension card, tokens are removed. Each time the players do not match their crisis dimension card; tokens can be redistributed to that dimension or added from your token pool. Think of matching as a direct confrontation that causes lost political capital for both sides, but maintains the status quo. Conversely, think of not matching as successful indirect tactics that change the status quo. Therefore, the practical consideration is whether your choices are intended to confront or maneuver around your opponent’s choices.

The model sees inconsistent historical choices based on who was driving the train each round. During the initial secession of states, President Buchanan tried to use suasion (Public Opinion) to reverse the situation. After the initial seven seceding states had delivered a ‘fait accompli,’ the lame duck President was overshadowed by Senator Seward trying to calm troubled waters (Peace Commissioner) and attempting to contain the situation until Lincoln’s inauguration. The third round finds a newly-seated President Lincoln managing an out-of-control crisis with the choice of capitulation or confrontation. The three Unionist cards (one of a kind) represents this inconsistent response to the crisis. Therefore, if all you do is just choose whichever card is last in your hand, you are well within the guidelines of history. Now, armed with this information, what constitutes good strategy in the Final Crisis?

Fort Sumter Math

You will have 9 card plays before experiencing the Final Crisis. In order to win, you need more VPs than your opponent. Fort Sumter is a zero-sum race where at a minimum you want to stay even. Many games revolve around one side winning both Objectives in a round, yielding a crucial 2 VP lead. Therefore the first rule in Fort Sumter math is don’t let your opponent win your hidden objective.

The next consideration is: in most rounds, both players will score one crisis dimension unless they go head to head over the same one. This is usually the case when it comes to the Political and Armaments dimensions. Your goal during each of the three rounds is to either score a crisis dimension (control all three spaces) or block your opponent from doing the same. If you accomplish this and score your objective, you will gain 2 VPs each round. As long as this “tied foot race” continues through the fourth round (Final Crisis) Fort Sumter is the first tiebreak and many games are won this way.

The next consideration is that the Political dimension is not contested in the fourth round, so whoever controls it scores an uncontested last round VP. Then there is the issue of the Fort Sumter VP. Because controlling the Armaments dimension is worth 2 VPs in the Final Crisis, you can equate this as cancelling the loss of Politics. If we combined these two concepts, it’s obvious that controlling the Political and Armaments dimensions for the entire game is a very strong strategy.

Since this cuts both ways, the second rule of Fort Sumter math is do unto others before they do unto you. If a battle royale creates a political-military stalemate, sneaking in a Public Opinion or Secession VP will put you in the lead. There are far more combinations than I have ink to cover, but these basics should give you a strong start.

So with this as preamble, how should you think about the Final Crisis?

End Game Strategy

At its simplest, there are three combinations possible with your Final Crisis cards. All three cards are the same dimension, one from each dimension, and an asymmetrical two of one and one of another dimension. The table summarizes these with commentary, but note that the board position has a significant influence on how these resolve.

The simple way to think of these combinations is whether you want to match (defensive move) or not match (offensive move for both sides). Within the bounds of uncertainty, right out of the gate in Round 1 you should go in with a basic idea of how you would like to shape the end of the game. The basic choice comes down to this: If you are thinking offensively; ignore one dimension during the three rounds of play, while reserving that dimension for an endgame Policy Hammer. If you are thinking defensively, focus two or three cards on your chosen dimension to prevent your opponent from altering its status quo in the final scoring. I often see the side with a strong Armaments focus naturally choosing three of this kind to maintain the status quo and score 2 VPs. Obviously, if both sides go this route the player in the lead will be advantaged.

Each side has the exact same distribution of values on their event cards, but if we examine the event bonuses they are asymmetrical. Both sides are essentially even on the Political and Armaments dimensions. The Unionists possesses a natural advantage in Public Opinion events (major Newspapers were all in NYC), while not surprisingly, the Secessionists have an advantage in Secession events. For example, Union player can decide to avoid the Secession dimension during the three rounds of play, while reserving three Secession Final Crisis cards. The Union playing three Secession cards in a row will almost guarantee that the Secessionist will not score this VP. The flip side is what does the Unionist lose in return? Conversely, the Secessionists can follow a similar tact regarding Public Opinion. Therefore, when you follow this strategy you need to have a large number of cubes on the dimensions that are undefended, else you are likely just trading VPs.

As previously discussed, a strategy focused on a Political-Military strategy is looking to score 3 VPs in the fourth round. In this narrative you have won a Political advantage that will transfer into the final scoring supported by having chosen three Armaments cards. This strategy ensures that the Armaments status quo is locked. This is a 3 VP play in a game where VPs are scarce. An obvious drawback to this approach is that your opponent is likely to perceive and block your efforts, forcing the game onto secondary VP paths in other dimensions.

Another variant is to center your strategy on Fort Sumter and either always control the space or guarantee a stalemate with a four-cube placement. In this narrative, you have stalemated your opponent for both Armaments VPs, allowing you to score or maintain the status quo in another dimension, but here Federal Arsenal control can undo your plan. There are many other ways this can play out, but the main vector is to attempt to have a guiding strategy within the limits of what your cards offer.

What is the payoff for a strong endgame strategy? Short answer, a 1 VP payoff, with luck sometimes a 2 VP swing in score. In a game usually decided by 1VP or the Fort Sumter tiebreak, this is significant. Consider that a typical game’s score is 15 VPs (plus or minus 2) going into the fourth round. If you are in the lead, your earlier focused choices are likely to maintain that lead for the win. If you are the side that is down by 1VP, you have a better-than-even chance of tying the score, with the tiebreak determining the winner. If you are down by 2 VPs, it all depends on the choices made and the cards literally falling in your favor.

Once Upon a Time

So, here is a story on how this may play out, but it’s a story that does not necessarily have a happy ending. For this story, we will assume that both players always score their hidden objective (so a net zero effect). The Secessionist player plays to control the Armaments and Secession dimensions. As a Union, player I decide before I see even one card that I am going to go for what I labeled a Policy Hammer (three of a kind) aimed at the Secession crisis dimension. To support this strategy, I direct most if not all of my efforts toward controlling the Political and Public Opinion dimensions, supported by blocking Secessionist control of the Federal Arsenals Pivotal space.

In this story the Unionist usually controls Public Opinion and the Secessionist controls Secession. The battle will revolve around who prevails in the Political and Armaments dimensions. Let’s assume that in the third round the Unionist manages to win the Political and Public Opinion dimensions, and the Secessionist scores the Armaments and Secession VPs, sending us into the fourth round tied at 7-7.

My Policy Hammer strategy focuses on placing 6 cubes to block and potentially win the Secession VP. Meanwhile, the Secessionists are doing the same in the Armaments dimension. The way this is playing out is the Union is playing offense and the Secessionist is playing defense. My endgame goal is to score Political, Public Opinion, and Secession (3VP) for a total score of 10. If the Secessionist scores 2VPs for Armaments and Fort Sumter (9 VP total), the Unionists win. If my policy hammer did not score the Secession VP, the score is still tied (9-9) with Fort Sumter sending me to defeat. As I said, this story did not necessarily have a happy ending. However, this story does illustrate how I was playing from first card to last for a 1 VP advantage out of the Final Crisis.

Conclusion

The notion that the Final Crisis is a random walk is true if you ignore it during play and go in with whatever you saved, hoping that chaos will work in your favor. As it turns out, this is what happened historically, because each round was dominated by a different personality. This is certainly a viable strategy in your early contests and leads to some very exciting finishes. However, if you think of the Final Crisis as representing a 1 VP swing in score, then my experience says that the side with a plan is likely to come out on top by the VP won during the Final Crisis. In the land of the strategically blind, the one-eyed planner is king.

Good hunting,

Mark Herman

Sitting on a beach in CA

July 2018

---