Category Archives: Designer Blogs

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Designing Congress of Vienna’s Solitaire Game, Part 2 of 2: The French Bot During the Government & War Phases

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Introduction: We explained in the previous article how CoV’s Solitaire Game’s Initial and Diplomacy Phases utilize Stuka Joe’s marvelous Card Driven Games’ Solo Method (CDGSM) adapted for Congress of Vienna: Designing the Congress of Vienna Solitaire Game, Part 1of 2: Diplomacy and The French Bot | Inside GMT blog.  In this article we continue this exposition with the Government and War Phases.

For a wealth of information and wide-range of InsideGMT articles, including the latest status of this game’s graphics development at the talented hands of Terry Leeds, see: GMT Games – Congress of Vienna     

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Napoleon in Egypt: Dramatis Personae, Part 1

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Article written by Pascal Toupy and Tom Toupy-Durant

The French campaign in Egypt and Syria is probably the most misunderstood of Napoleon’s military epics. And yet it is the foundation of the Napoleonic legend. Indeed, Bonaparte’s seclusion on Egyptian soil gave him the opportunity to test his ability to manage and lead a conquered territory and experiment with a number of military, administrative and social reforms. Of course, the Corsican general was not alone and he had the support of exceptional men, most of whom would follow him throughout his epic journey.

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Order & Opportunity: Cards and Card Play Part #2

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

Following the previous insideGMT article on the cards and card play in Order & Opportunity, in this article we look at some further types of cards included in the game.

Recently, a number of short playthrough videos were posted on YouTube that can be a helpful companion to the present article.

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A Short Story of the French Campaign in Egypt, Part 3 – The Fall

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In this series of articles, we will chronologically discover the epic of Napoleon in Egypt. In our previous article, we saw how, after conquering Egypt, Napoleon had to take his men to Syria to face the Ottoman army. But after failing to conquer the walls of Acre, coupled with a British landing, Bonaparte had to turn back to defend his hard-won territory. What does the future hold for these thousands of French soldiers, trapped between the desert and the enemy? This is what we will see in this final article, which covers the third scenario of Napoleon in Egypt: The Fall.

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Allied Strategy in Battle Command: The Bulge

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This article discusses Allied 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 German strategy.

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A Short Story of the French Campaign in Egypt, Part 2 – The Syrian Anabasis

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In this series of articles, we will chronologically discover the epic of Napoleon in Egypt. In our first article, we followed the French from the moment they left their country throughout the Nile campaign, which allowed them to conquer an immense territory from Alexandria to Thebes via Cairo. The year now turns to 1799, and Bonaparte sets his sights to Syria (now Israel) to complete his conquest. This episode covers the second scenario of Napoleon in Egypt: The Syrian Anabasis.

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Order & Opportunity: Cards and Card Play Part #1

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

In this installment, we turn our attention from the thematic aspects of the game that have preoccupied us in the previous articles and consider now the game’s mechanics. We will review the various types of event cards in the game.

Recently, a number of short playthrough videos were posted on YouTube that can be a helpful companion to the present article at hand.

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The Surreptitious (Yet Enlightening) Plum Island Horror Designer’s Notes

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Hey all! Yes, believe it or not, the amazing Designer’s Notes for The Plum Island Horror game have mysteriously been missing for months. Suddenly vanishing from the possession of the GMT development team, they of course told me not to worry about it, as they had everything under control. Utter gaslighting nonsense! I found out later that they just didn’t want their wonderful “professional” rulebook to be clogged up by my “meaningless jibber-jabber”, as they so un-diplomatically put it. I suspected a Deep State cover up, of course, as this game and its historical research have unveiled one of the most heinous chapters in U.S. history. Alas, I have found my copy of these notes (hidden in my copy of the Funk & Wagnells New Standard Dictionary) and I now bring them to you in all their lyrical glory. I decided to let you read this before I release it to the major news networks and the airing of the special segment on Ancient Aliens that is dedicated to this event. And by the way, Ancient Alien experts say “yes!” when asked if there could be a UFO cause to these catastrophic occurrences on Plum Island. But you didn’t hear that from me.  

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Order & Opportunity: Democracy and Authoritarianism

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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.

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German Strategy in Battle Command: The Bulge

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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.