It’s been a whole year of GMT One, and to say thank you to our customers and supporters, we have a Holiday Gift for you: a free print-and-play Solo Opponent for Mark Herman’s Fort Sumter. 

During the pandemic, I spent many nights working on the Solo Opponent for Fred Serval’s Red Flag Over Paris, which uses the same game system as Fort Sumter. As we were wrapping up, I realized that the underlying approach could easily be ported to Fort Sumter, so I asked Gene if we could do the Solo Opponent as a free giveaway. He was quite enthusiastic, so I got to work. It turned out to be a bit more work than I expected – as most Solitaire rulesets seem to be – but it was also a lot of fun to dissect Mark’s game. 

There is a subtle but important asymmetry to Fort Sumter. As the Unionist, you have an advantage in Public Opinion spaces, while the Secessionist player has an edge in, you guessed it, Secession spaces. Armaments spaces are also very important as controlling Fort Sumter is worth an extra VP at the end of the game. The Solo Opponent prioritizes playing where it is strongest, although timely Event play may surprise you. Even with emphasizing this asymmetry, I needed to add a small advantage for the Solo Opponent to be competitive. Because it often executes Events that a competent player would not (a concession to ease-of-use), the Solo Opponent is granted a free removal of a player Token after each Event played. This simple extra action balances the Opponent nicely and provides a competitive experience. Of course, no pen and paper AI will best a human in a fair fight, so for stronger players, a VP handicap provides a sliding difficulty and the option to make life more difficult for yourself.

The Solo Opponent uses a short ruleset – 2 pages – and a single-player aid per side. It uses concepts from Bruce Mansfield’s Arjuna and Tru’ng bots for COIN games, but in a much-simplified form. The heart and soul of the bot are the space selection priorities, which at as a way to narrow down potential placement or removal of tokens until only a single space remains. These are powerful and flexible, but easy to work with for players. I find that a game against the Solo Opponent lasts only 20 minutes on average.

If you enjoy my Solo Opponent for Fort Sumter, I encourage you to check out Red Flag Over Paris – while the games share some DNA, Fred has evolved and adapted Mark’s system into something with a completely different feel. Plus, it has great Solitaire play – if I do say so myself! Thanks so much for your support of GMT One and – enjoy the games!

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Here is a Brief Example of Play for the Fort Sumter Solo Opponent, demonstrating the use of the Space Selection Tables:

It’s the beginning of the game. Jason (playing as the Unionist) draws four Strategy Cards: New York Press, Republican Party, Stephen Douglas and Plantation Class. He also draws two Objective Cards, Border States and Federal Arsenals. Jason keeps Federal Arsenals as his Objective Card and places Border States face up next to the game board as the Secessionist Objective Card. The Solo Opponent does not use a hand of cards.

Since the player always goes first when playing Solo, Jason plays New York Press and places two Tokens in Federal Arsenals. Then the Solo Opponent takes it’s turn:

• First, reveal the top card of the Strategy Deck. It is Frederick Douglas. Since it is not a Friendly card (one with only the Solo Opponent’s color behind the Operations Value), the Solo Opponent cannot play the Event.
• Next, check if the Solo Opponent plays the top card of the discard pile. New York Press is not a Friendly card, so the Solo Opponent will use Frederick Douglas to place a Token.
• To determine where to place the Token, consult the “Where to Place Tokens” table on the Secessionist Solo Opponent Aid. A brief explanation of this table: each row on this table will eliminate any spaces that do not meet the condition specified in that row. If any row eliminates all possible spaces, skip that row and apply the next row instead. Once there is only a single space remaining that meets the applied criteria, place a Token in that space. Then, start the process again at the top of the table again for each remaining Token to be placed. (The process for removal is the same, but using the Remove Table.)
• Let’s walk through that process with this Token placement: check if any spaces do not have room for Secessionist Tokens (see the definition of “Spaces with Room” in the Solo Rules). All spaces have Room, so go to the next row and select the Secessionist Objective Space, Border States and place a Secessionist Token there. We will see these tables in action again in a moment.

Now it is Jason’s turn again, and he plays Republican Party for the Event, and places two Tokens in Washington and one in Northern State Houses. The Solo Opponent reveals Charleston, and because it is a Friendly card, the Solo Opponent resolves the first effect on the card that would place or remove tokens. That means they place two Secessionist Tokens in the Fort Sumter space. Then, because they executed the Event, the Solo Opponent removes a Unionist Token, using the “Remove Tokens” table on the Secessionist Solo Opponent Aid. Since no spaces have both Unionist and Secessionist Tokens, that row is skipped and the Solo Opponent removes a Token from a Pivotal Space. Both Washington and Federal Arsenals have Unionist Tokens, so the Solo Opponent uses the next row to break the tie: Federal Arsenals is an Objective space, so that is where the Token is removed from.

Jason is a little nervous about the safety of his Objective space, so he plays his last card of the round, Plantation Class, and places a Token in Federal Arsenals from his Token Pool. He reserves Stephen Douglas for the Final Crisis. The Solo Opponent reveals Pensacola as their final card for the Round, and again will resolve the Event. After adding two Tokens to the Fort Pickens space, the Solo Opponent again removes a Token from Federal Arsenals – good thing Jason shored that up.

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