Monthly Archives: June 2019

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Labyrinth: The Forever War – Challenges in Designing a Simulation Game Based on Current Events

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Labyrinth: The Forever War is the second expansion to Labyrinth: The Global War on Terror and follows five years after publication of the first expansion, Labyrinth: The Awakening. Like its predecessors, Forever War adds 120 new event cards to the Labyrinth game system, and like Awakening, covers five years of current events (roughly 2015 through 2019). Forever War achieved its P-500 number in just over 2 days on the market, suggesting there is a demand for inexpensive expansions that add value to a base game, and a desire for games that explore recent political and military events. This brief article will provide some insights and considerations when designing a simulation game based on current events.

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Weak Arms, Deep Pockets, and Big Mountains: British/Piedmont Play in Clash of Sovereigns

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Like his Prussian/Spanish player foe, the British/Piedmont player has a multi-faceted and sometimes schizophrenic role in COS. But unlike the Prussian/Spanish, the British player has growing roles and goals through the campaign. Unfortunately, the same similarities can’t be said for the Prus and Brit armies 🙂 ; the British and “Pieds” vie for having the weakest armies (by numbers) throughout the entire game. Much of the time, the British are holding on and serving as the high quality lion’s share of mixed Pragmatic armies in Flanders. The Piedmontese are usually only a secondary ally to the Austrians in the battle for Italy. Yet in late game, both these forces can make incisive gains on a weakened Bourbon foe. The British player may be nipping at the edges on map, but looms gargantuanly large in overall Pragmatic alliance success.   

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The Arjuna Chronicles #9: Simla Conference Divides India

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Gandhi includes a brand new Solitaire system, called Arjuna, that replaces the flowcharts that have become a staple of the COIN Series. Players who play COIN Solitaire have asked many questions about how the system works – and don’t fear! – COIN Series Developer Jason Carr is here to walk through the design, ergonomics, and play of Arjuna. This installment shows Arjuna in action in the late campaign.

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The Arjuna Chronicles #8:The Salt March

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Gandhi includes a brand new Solitaire system, called Arjuna, that replaces the flowcharts that have become a staple of the COIN Series. Players who play COIN Solitaire have asked many questions about how the system works – and don’t fear! – COIN Series Developer Jason Carr is here to walk through the design, ergonomics, and play of Arjuna. This installment shows Arjuna in action in the mid campaign.

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The Arjuna Chronicles #7: Sarojini Naidu Inspires the Masses

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Gandhi includes a brand new Solitaire system, called Arjuna, that replaces the flowcharts that have become a staple of the COIN Series. Players who play COIN Solitaire have asked many questions about how the system works – and don’t fear! – COIN Series Developer Jason Carr is here to walk through the design, ergonomics, and play of Arjuna. This installment shows Arjuna in action in the mid campaign.

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The Gandhi Chronicles #6: Playing the Muslim League in Gandhi — Operations and Special Activities

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The Muslim League is one of two Nonviolent Factions in Gandhi, alongside Congress. Though they share the same Operations and two of the same Special Activities with Congress, the Muslim League has different victory goals that will eventually pull them away from their Congress allies, perhaps even leading them to work with the British to achieve victory.

Like Congress, the Muslim League seeks to build Opposition to British rule. But unlike the Congress, the Muslim League only gains victory points for Opposition in the ten green-tinged Muslim spaces in northern India. In addition, the Muslim League seeks to establish autonomous regions for Muslim Indians, called Muslim States. For every Muslim State it builds, the Muslim League adds twice the space’s Population to its victory level.

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Secrets of the South Pacific – Part 2

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Strategies for South Pacific: Breaking the Bismarck Barrier Scenario in Empire of the Sun

Welcome back to the 2nd half of this strategic study of the South Pacific Scenario from C3i Magazine #30. For those who haven’t read Part 1, it can be found here on Inside GMT. Remember, I’ll be discussing South Pacific strategy as it is played at a tournament. Meaning, all draw conditions are considered a Japanese victory.

As previously promised, I will start off this article with a look at another, guaranteed-to-succeed, opening move that the Allies can do using #13: Operation Watchtower. It’s called:

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The Barracks Emperors Preview

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For those of you interested in learning more about one of our newer P500 offerings, The Barracks Emperors, here are a some notes from Brad and Wray as well as a few videos for you to enjoy. -Rachel

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The Arjuna Chronicles #6: Great Bengal Famine

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Gandhi includes a brand new Solitaire system, called Arjuna, that replaces the flowcharts that have become a staple of the COIN Series. Players who play COIN Solitaire have asked many questions about how the system works – and don’t fear! – COIN Series Developer Jason Carr is here to walk through the design, ergonomics, and play of Arjuna. This installment shows Arjuna in action in the early-mid campaign.