Category Archives: Designer Blogs

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“It’s All in the Cards”: A Compendium of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Cards: Chapter One, Part Five – Great Person “Negate” Cards

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Introduction by ACME Game Developer Fred Schachter: The previous parts of this Chapter One introduced readers to the game’s Great Person Investment, Competition, Spy, and “Power, Money (Mina) & VP” cards. This exposition, which concludes Chapter One, proceeds to the game’s Great Person Negate cards.

Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East play testers attest that Negate cards add a fun, dramatic, and exciting dynamic to the game since they can be used with an immediacy that other cards cannot duplicate. They can save your civilization’s day and frustrate your enemy’s evil intent!

But first, to set the mood, a Mark McLaughlin Design Note aside regarding each ACME game card’s biblical quote… 

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Congress of Vienna: Designing Its Solitaire Game

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Introduction by Congress of Vienna (CoV)’s Assistant Designer & Editor, Fred Schachter: This article is a description of efforts made by one of the CoV Teams making fine and appreciated contributions to the game… “Gutt’s Guys”… who’ve come up with a set of rules converting CoV’s 4-player game into 3 and 2-player versions. Furthermore, they’ve created a fun, exciting, and engaging solitaire game for it!

In this first article, designer Frank Esparrago describes, the efforts made to make Congress of Vienna into a completely competitive solitaire game with all the intensity and competitiveness of its Standard multi-player versions. The focus is on the game’s cards and how their ratings influence solitaire play. Later articles will describe CoV’s Two Player version and how CoV’s Bots were created for solo play enjoyment. These articles shall provide descriptions, with examples, of how they work.

Understanding Congress of Vienna’s basic game system(s) should enhance readers’ appreciation of this article and its ensuing follow-ups. To that end, GMT’s site for the game contains a wealth of material: GMT Games – Congress of Vienna 

Enjoy and take it away Frank!

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“It’s All in the Cards”: A Compendium of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Cards: Chapter One, Part Four – Great Person “Power, Money (Mina) & VP” Cards

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Introduction by ACME Game Developer Fred Schachter:  The previous parts of this Chapter One introduced readers to the game’s Great Person Investment, Competition, and Spy cards. This exposition now proceeds to cards with much varied, but never-the-less valuable attributes.  Having additional background regarding this forthcoming GMT P-500 listed game should assist a reader’s appreciation of this article series.  This can be obtained from material resident in GMT’s site for the game: GMT Games – Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East

But first a word from Designer Mark McLaughlin…

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It’s Not Easy to Be the Sultan: Modeling the Collapse of the Delhi Sultanate in Vijayanagara

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Introduction

With Vijayanagara we are seeking to present a detailed look at an epic period of medieval history, and in a region and time which has seen scant attention in the historical gaming community, or in entertainment media, or even in educational domains. We have yet to meet a single person not of Indian descent who has heard of any of the important figures of this era, or even the names of the once-great kingdoms and dynasties that appeared in the time covered by this game. And yet centuries later a nation of over 1.3 billion people has emerged from this turbulent past, with modern perspectives still influenced by an ancient history.

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Factions in Red Dust Rebellion: Earth Government and the Space Battlefield Domain

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The future of our species depends on us becoming a multi-planetary society. And it is to this end that the United Nations of Earth have poured our collective efforts into the Martian project.

And what a project it is, the great of human endeavors, reaching out into the stars to bring life, love, and society to a barren world.

It is an enterprise bigger than any national concern, or bigger than any corporate concern. It is an enterprise founded in the long-term future of us all. For humanity, we must put aside partisan concerns and focus on the real goal.

Our future as a species hangs in the balance. Which is why I ask my fellow council members for more resources to suppress this rebellion. The childish wants of the rebels on Mars must be denied. They seek to pervert this most noble of goals to their own ends. And they seek to deny us the home we have built for humanity.

We must not let this adolescent temper tantrum ruin what is our best hope for survival.

We must bring Mars back into the fold, at all costs.

Ekon Imbrahim, UN Secretary for the Council of Martian affairs
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“It’s All in the Cards”: A Compendium of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Cards: Chapter One, Part Three – Great Person “Spy” Cards

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Introduction by ACME Game Developer Fred Schachter: The previous part 2 of this series examined the game’s Great Person Competition cards. We now proceed to cards whose function is not overt on the game map… the “Spy” cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East whose shadow role occurs before a turn’s first Competition is resolved! 

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Almoravid: A Quick Look at Forces

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Here from the game’s designer with its researcher is an at-a-glance introduction to the units in the soon upcoming second volume of the Levy & Campaign Series, Almoravid—Reconquista and Riposte in Spain, 1085-1086, with comparison to the forces used in volume one, Nevsky.

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Recreating History with Prime Minister’s Scenarios

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Prime Minister already offers a highly thematic gameplay experience in its standard format, but if you want to take that experience to a higher level, you can try one of the twelve scenarios planned for the game. In this fifth InsideGMT article for Prime Minister, we’ll take a closer look at those scenarios, starting with an overview and then delving into some examples.

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“It’s All in the Cards”: A Compendium of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Cards: Chapter One, Part Two – Great Person Competition Cards

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Introduction by ACME Game Developer Fred Schachter: The February 2021 GMT Update contained a wonderful new development as the game proceeds towards production readiness… the first increment of professional graphics by the talented Mark Mahaffey!

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“It’s All in the Cards”: A Compendium of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East’s Cards: Chapter One, Part One – Great Person Investment Cards

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Chapter One: The Great Person Cards of ACME

Part 1: Great Person Investment Cards

Introduction by ACME Game Developer Fred Schachter: The February 2021 GMT Update contained a wonderful new development as the game proceeds towards production readiness: the first increment of professional graphics by the talented Mark Mahaffey! These cards fulfilled my and designers Chris & Mark’s hopes by creating a basic card layout including all play test card elements: each card’s classification, title (color coded by type to ease quick identification), description of what it does, and those captivating biblical quotes from Mark McLaughlin’s research, each appropriate to the card, which can lend such a fun element to play. During play testing, we’d occasionally read that card’s quote, in as “basso-profundo” voice possible, before inflicting it, for good or ill, upon the player receiving its effect(s). Ah the mirth or woe that could entail! This InsideGMT article series presents the cards of Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East as a kind of Compendium. For more regarding this second of GMTâ’ Ancient Civs series, the first being Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea GMT Games – Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS) go to GMT Games – Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME) for a variety of associated material, including Mark Mahaffey’s beautiful rendition of ACME’s mapboard, replays, introductions to the game’s seventeen Civilizations, and other items of readers will hopefully find of interest.
During a turn of ACME, Cards are played in Civilization sequence after disks are deployed on the map, just as with ACIS. Each Civilization can have a maximum of six cards in its hand. These are divided into several different types of cards, their titles color-coded, which is how this article series’ chapters are structured: Great Person, Competition/Trade/Resource cards, various Regular cards (for benefit or to inflict grief, call it “the will of the gods” upon another Civilization: these comprise the bulk of the deck), Religion, Event, and, of course, Deity Cards. ACME, unlike ACIS, does not have Wonders for Civilizations to build. Religion and Deity cards, which add much to this game’s atmosphere, are unique to ACME. With that, let’s commence this review with its Chapter One The “Great Person” Cards of ACME, Part 1: Great Person Investment cards. Each increment of these articles include one or more general Design Notes from Mark & Chris!