Order & Opportunity: Democracy and Authoritarianism

Recently, a new game named Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order entered GMT Games’ P500 list. This is the fourth in a series of articles talking about different aspects of the game.

In this installment, we focus on the dimensions of the post-Cold War contest between Authoritarianism and Democracy.

From the profile page: Order & Opportunity is a 2 to 4 player game with a dedicated solitaire system about the making of the post-Cold War world order covering the first decades of the 21st century. In the game, the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union compete over the control of the agenda and ultimately over victory points in the dimensions of economic, political, cultural, and security power projection. Order & Opportunity combines card-driven, asymmetric game play to produce a topical and thematic historical game on a global scale. The game offers a distinctive and captivating play experience at every one of its player counts.

German Strategy in Battle Command: The Bulge

This article discusses German strategy in the forthcoming design, Battle Command: The Bulge. For an overview of the game, and the battle it represents, see the first article in the series: An Introduction to Battle Command: The Bulge. We also have an article on Allied strategy.

Tabletop Simulator image showing a close-up of victory spaces (with yellow outlines) at the start of the game.

A Short Story of the French Campaign in Egypt, Part 1 – The Conquest

In this new series of articles, we will discover chronologically the epic of Napoleon in Egypt. We will divide this expedition into three parts, which correspond to the three shorter scenarios you’ll find in the actual game. Let’s start with THE CONQUEST!

The year is 1797. Napoleon Bonaparte returns from a year of campaigning in Italy, covered in glory. The French Directory, which then ruled Republican France, finds this general far too popular and begins to fear him. It is thus decided to send him to conquer Egypt! But why this adventure over 3,000 kilometers away from the homeland?

Order & Opportunity: From Post-Ideological to Ideological Again

Recently, a new game named Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order entered GMT Games’ P500 list. This is the third in a series of articles about the game.

In this third article we’ll look at how to turn the post-ideological control of the media and other agendas, or Agenda Points, into a lasting legacy of Victory Points.

From the profile page: Order & Opportunity is a 2 to 4 player game with a dedicated solitaire system about the making of the post-Cold War world order covering the first decades of the 21st century. In the game, the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union compete over the control of the agenda and ultimately over victory points in the dimensions of economic, political, cultural, and security power projection. Order & Opportunity combines card-driven, asymmetric game play to produce a topical and thematic historical game on a global scale. The game offers a distinctive and captivating play experience at every one of its player counts.

An Introduction to Battle Command: The Bulge

Tabletop Simulator image of the map board for BC: Bulge

Returning to The Bulge

You probably don’t have to be around our hobby long to know there are a lot of “Bulge” games. However, for those who haven’t seen or heard this – Bulge games depict a specific German counteroffensive fought on the Western Front in the winter of 1944, towards the end of WW2. The campaign was named the Battle of the Bulge because it produced a serious bend in Allied lines. It was fought in and around the same Ardennes region the Germans launched their famous blitzkrieg through in 1940, leading to the fall of France. As one of the major confrontations between the US and German Armies in WW2, it has attracted a lot of attention from designers.

The campaign began with the Germans on the strategic offensive, and the Allies sent reeling. The Germans aimed to knock out Allied supply dumps in Belgium, and dislocate Allied advances towards the Rhine river, and the industrial Rhineland – heart of Germany’s war effort – beyond. They were hampered by the weather (they began the attack on 16 December), unrealistic expectations from high command (particularly Hitler), and fierce resistance from the Americans. The offensive stalled, and then the British and Americans counterattacked, driving the Germans back.

Order & Opportunity: Victory

Recently, a new game named Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order entered GMT Games’ P500 list. This is the second in a series of articles about the game. The first article discussed the game’s perspective to the post-Cold War period.

In this second article we’ll look at the game’s concept of victory.

From the profile page: Order & Opportunity is a 2 to 4 player game with a dedicated solitaire system about the making of the post-Cold War world order covering the first decades of the 21st century. In the game, the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union compete over the control of the agenda and ultimately over victory points in the dimensions of economic, political, cultural, and security power projection. Order & Opportunity combines card-driven, asymmetric game play to produce a topical and thematic historical game on a global scale. The game offers a distinctive and captivating play experience at every one of its player counts.

Order & Opportunity: A Perspective to the Post-Cold War Period

Recently, a new game named Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order entered GMT Games’ P500 list. This is the first in a series of articles on the game.

From the profile page: Order & Opportunity is a 2 to 4 player game with a solo variant about the making of the post-Cold War world order covering the first decades of the 21st century. In the game, the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union compete over the control of the agenda and ultimately over victory points in the dimensions of economic, political, cultural, and security power projection. Order & Opportunity combines card-driven, asymmetric game play to produce a topical and thematic historical game on a global scale. The game offers a distinctive and captivating play experience at every one of its player counts.

How Combat is Resolved in Iron Storm

The development of Iron Storm has been going smoothly over the past few months, and the game’s core systems are now close to finalised, with only small tweaks being made as our dedicated playtesters continue to push it to its limits. In this article I will give an overview of the game’s combat system, which is something that a few people have been asking about and we don’t expect to change significantly before publication.

Iron Storm is a relatively simple game that uses straightforward mechanics to capture the core aspects of WWI in Europe, and combat is no different. At the beginning of the action round the active player can initiate Offensives in any contested space, usually by playing an Army card that matches one of their armies in the space (there are also some special cards, such as High Command Orders, that can be used to initiate an Offensive in any space).

Imperial Eagles: Air War in the Pacific 1941-43 — Allied Aircraft

Since the Japanese need someone to fight, this second article for Inside GMT will describe the planes with which the Allies oppose them in Imperial Eagles.

The US Army Air Force has aircraft in almost every campaign in the game, and more models than any other service.  These are the planes which held the line in the Pacific for the first two years, showing incremental improvement through the end of 1943 while the more modern types went to Europe first.

Here I Stand Game Example: Two-Player Variant

What follows is a detailed, turn-by-turn actual two-player game pitting the Here I Stand game designer Ed Beach as the Papacy player against a collective group of other skilled players playing the Protestant side. This group included several HIS playtesters and a number of ConsimWorld Forum members. The ConsimWorld forum board was used to debate each Protestant move within the group and to reach consensus for the best choice. Play was accomplished by PBEM using Cyberboard. This PBEM game started August 18, 2007 and ended October 22, 2007, going 7 turns before a victor was declared.

It is best to play out this recorded game with an actual game board (or Cyberboard) with the HIS Rules and HIS Two-Player Variant Rules at hand. If you are new to HIS, read the Rules Book and Scenario Book first. Stepping through this game can be helpful in learning the game and rules. The game perspective is from the Protestant players eyes and the Papacy player’s cards are not known ahead of time. Simply pull the appropriate card from the main deck (or diplomacy deck) when the Papacy card played is revealed.

Click the image below to read the full 18-page game example of the Here I Stand Two-Player Variant: