Monthly Archives: November 2019

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Frank Chadwick’s ETO Design Philosophy

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OR: Applying Decades of Lessons since Battle for Moscow

ETO Game Designer, Frank Chadwick

The ETO series has four major design goals:

  • GOAL 1: A mechanically smooth system; this means a minimum of rules exceptions and special cases, and a minimum of bookkeeping.
  • GOAL 2: Game units, resources, and systems which are concrete as opposed to abstract.
  • GOAL 3: Recognizing that this is primarily a ground war game series. This means modeling air, naval, strategic warfare, and production as supporting adjuncts to the ground war game, not as competitors to it.
  • GOAL 4: Logistical constraints must, of necessity, drive game strategy, but these should not dominate the game’s mechanics.

At first glance, some of these major design goals seem incompatible. The conventional wisdom of wargame design is that the more concrete (read: detailed) a game is, the more complicated its mechanics must be. If you want a simple game, a lot of the detail has to be “abstracted out.” I don’t think that is necessarily the case (although it is a lot easier to design wargame systems that way).

Let us consider each of those goals in a little more detail.…

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The Wall Must Go!: History of the Berlin Wall Explored Through the Lens of 1989

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Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games, this time discussing the history of the Berlin Wall through the lens of GMT’s 1989: Dawn of Freedom. You can also find this article on Clio’s blog. If you are interested in Clio’s Board Games’ other articles in the 20th century German history series, you can find those listed below. Enjoy! -Rachel

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Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Design Background and Differences from Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea Part 2: Playing Your Role

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Introduction by Fred Schachter: Part 1 of this series provided General Background regarding GMT’s upcoming Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME).

Now that the stage has begun being set; how should players’ attitude be when they consider playing ACME? We all assume a role when playing a game and this installment conveys what perspective an ACME player is encouraged to take to fully appreciate this game’s somewhat unusual design perspective.

To best enjoy this series of articles, some knowledge of ACIS is helpful. GMT has a wealth of information regarding ACIS in its site for the game: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-624-ancient-civilizations-of-the-inner-sea.aspx .

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Introduction to The Weimar Republic: Key Mechanics

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Communist Leader Ernst Thälmann marching with the RFK worker militia, 1927

One of the major strengths of historical board games – be they classical wargames, political games or something in between – is that they let players experience the joy of “playing history”, of creating contra-factual situations based on historically accurate premises. Through exploration of the what if?-scenarios that most readers of history delight in, and by allowing for different versions and variants of these scenarios during each play session, historical board games offer a way of understanding and reflecting on history that is, in most cases, both interactive and entertaining.

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Historic Characters in Banish the Snakes: Brigid

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The first set of six characters from Banish the Snakes that we described were contemporaries of Patrick — or even his predecessors. We now begin the first of six characters that rose to prominence in the following century or so, and played prominent roles in completing the conversion of Ireland to Christianity. In a historic game, they begin shuffled into the deck of event cards. Of course, you are not restricted to the historic order: you can choose to start with some of these people instead, and shuffle others into the deck.

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Nevsky: Pleskau 1240 Strategy Discussion

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Last weekend I was at the GMT Weekend at the Warehouse gathering and Gene was kind enough to give me an open copy of Nevsky. To set the stage, I am friends with the designer, so if I did not like the game I would never post anything. If I liked the game I would have tweeted out some happy words. But if I really like the game, I write a strategy analysis.

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The Barracks Emperors: Trick Taking, Weaponized

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At first glance, The Barracks Emperors seems to be a bit of an unusual game to appear on the GMT Games website. It’s not a wargame, although it does feature player conflict. It’s not a historical simulation, although it is historically themed. And it’s not part of a great series, although it does share its setting and some of its material with the light wargame Time of Crisis, and its expansion The Age of Iron and Rust.

To find a game reminiscent of The Barracks Emperors in GMT’s stable, you’d want to think about Battle Line, Reiner Knizia’s card game that put an ancient war theme on three-card poker and took it to a new level of play. Like Battle Line, The Barracks Emperors is a themed card game rooted in traditional card games, with new mechanics that add tactical depth and player competition. It’s a trick-taking game at heart, with a core mechanic that may remind you of games like Spades or Bridge, but this isn’t your grandfather’s card game. It’s not a friendly Euro game either. The Barracks Emperors adds a number of twists that turn a simple trick-taking game into a veritable battle, requiring players to find ways to leverage multiple different aspects of card play to cleverly steal Emperor Cards away from the other players (the “tricks” – representing opportunities to seize the throne of Rome).

One playtester memorably described The Barracks Emperors as “trick taking, weaponized.”

The purpose of this article is to explain some more about how The Barracks Emperors works, focusing on the twists that make it distinctive and take a “simple” trick-taking game to the “weaponized” level.