Double Your Pleasure, Double Your Fun: Playing Triumph and Tragedy and Conquest and Consequence Together

It wasn’t long after publication of Triumph and Tragedy (T&T) that players were asking for a “Pacific version”. Ask and you shall receive: 6 years later Conquest and Consequence (CnC) was born. Shortly after that, players were asking if the two could be played together as a single “world-wide” game. The response was that they had been developed with this in mind, but the system needed to be worked out. As anticipated, this proved to be no easy task.

The project commenced under the working title “Conquest and Tragedy” (C+T). Without getting into the gory details, after the usual false starts and dead ends a workable and accessible system was constructed and refined with the help of Marten Raadsveld. The main (but not only) stumbling block was that T&T is an ETO game where Britain/France is a Faction, with potentially the Eastern USA joining as an Ally, whereas in CnC is a PTO game with the [Western] USA as a Faction, with potentially the British Empire as an Ally. See the problem?

Marten provided the impetus (and the sharp stick) for making the fairly-involved Faction realignment of unifying Britain-BritishEmpire-France as one Faction and the USA (both halves) as another Faction. Logical. But not simple. The sharp stick proved necessary to encourage a reluctant member of the design team (ahem) to move ahead with this ambitious plan.

Once the Faction Realignment was functioning, the next issue was how to handle the teamwork between the “Partner Factions”: the Militarists (Germany-Italy & Japan), the Communists (USSR & Siberia-Red China), and the Capitalists (Britain-BritEmp-France & the USA). Obviously the 3 Partnerships could not be handled in the same way. Obviously, right?

Or not so obvious? OK, to start with ETO T&T has the Soviet Union up to the Urals played as the “USSR” Faction. PTO CnC has Siberia east of the Urals plus Red China played as the “Soviet” Faction. As the Soviet Union is a single polity (albeit connected with a single thin and vulnerable rail line), this is obviously a different partnership than Germany and Japan, who were on the same team but not necessarily on the same page. Then you have the West Europeans and USA whose “partnership” was in question/nonexistent for part of the 1936-45 period and potentially only active in one Theater at a time (if e.g. at war with Germany but not Japan or vice-versa). Plus, what happens if Japan Declares War on the British Empire but not the USA?

Long story short, these and other problems were eventually conquered without too much tragedy (see what I did there?) with the assistance of Marten’s Flying Dutchmen and other playtest groups. In the end, we engineered a rule system where 3, 4, 5 or 6 gamers can sit down for 4-8 hours (longer with fewer) and play “World T&T” using existing game rules with some necessary added layers.

In addition to the thrills and spills of the standalone games, playing them in tandem adds new dimensions of interest and fun:

• Team Play. Team play is a gas. Partners not only scheme strategically, they can ship [limited] Production to their Partner, send units to their aid, and more easily attain Techs that a Partner has. For the Militarists and Communists, the degree of allowed cooperation is pretty generous and constant. For the Capitalists it is limited at first and they must work to increase it via [Diplomatic] gameplay (as in the standalone games).
• Global Perspective: C+T players are seeing, dealing with, and planning for a worldwide strategic arena with new opportunities and new dangers. The edges of a map are no longer “safe”, they now become “live” play areas.
• Social Gaming: group gaming has its own charms. A sympatico group, a few beers and some friendly trash talk make a gaming session all the more enjoyable. As mentioned, C+T rules allow for any group size from 3 to 6.

Feedback so far is that C+T is fun, easy to grok and yielding credible interactions and results. The standalone games are noted for the variety of things that can happen and the narratives they can generate. Just imagine what can happen with both going on at the same time and interacting!

Conquest and Tragedy is coming to a GMT P500 list near you in December 2025.

---