Category Archives: Solitaire Systems

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An Illustrated SpaceCorp: Ventures Solo Session Report: Introduction and Competition HQ

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While sheltering-in-place during our present global circumstances, I had the privilege to playtest the upcoming expansion to SpaceCorp, titled SpaceCorp: Ventures. One of my favorite parts of the new game is the updated solo play options, especially the custom competition HQ! Over several articles, I’ll be playing the new player HQ New Nomads against the competition HQ D.P. Roberts Ltd.         

 Note that all images in this article are near final art and subject to change. While very nicely printed, the final components will be printed on cards and thick cardstock, while my copy was made at a local printshop.

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Looking at the Solo System of Time of Crisis from the Perspective of an Admiring Bystander

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The solo rules (”SR”) pit the human player against three Bots. Each Bot has a distinct personality induced by its preferred area of influence: military influence (red), political influence on the Senate (blue) or influence on the populace through bribery or other means (yellow). The SR recommend, but do not require, that the military Bot be the red player, the political Bot the blue player, and the populace Bot the yellow player, thus matching each Bot’s color with the color of its preferred area of influence. The human player becomes by default the green player. Note that human players can appoint one or several Bots to replace their missing human counterparts. For the sake of simplicity, the remainder of this note will discuss games with one human player facing three Bots. I will also assume that the optional emperor rules are in effect and that the fixed set up providing for all cards to be played has been adopted.

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All Bridges Burning: Solitaire System Part 1

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As we speak, All Bridges Burning is all finished and the components have been sent to the printer. The wait is almost over!

In a range of previous InsideGMT articles we spent a great deal of time looking at the game’s treatment of the Finnish Civil War. Alongside that, a series of event card spoilers were published in the Player’s Aid blog (links to the event card spoilers can be found here).

In the present article, we will look in detail at the solitaire system for All Bridges Burning. We do so by continuing the non-player example of play to be contained in the Playbook of the game. Once you have received your copy of the game, this article can serve as a further learning resource when using the game’s solitaire system. I plan to continue to play through this example of play in a series of future posts.

However, before we get on with the example of play, let’s talk a little bit about the solitaire system.

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Design Diary: How and Why We Are Evolving the Fire in the Lake Bot System

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I remember cracking the seal on my first COIN game – Colonial Twilight – and seeing that bot chart in the box. I was a relatively new wargamer, and Colonial Twilight was not only my first COIN game but also my first P500 (much to my wallet’s chagrin, it was not my last!). After playing a learning game I quickly took out the bot and began to play a Solitaire game. I was floored by the ability of the bot to play better than I could, teaching me the nuances of the game. While I recognized the limitations of the bot, I was quite enamored of the experience and satisfied with the playability, usability, and skill shown in the design of the bot.

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A Sneak Peek at Tru’ng: The New Fire in the Lake Bot System

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This month’s P500 announcement of a new Fire in the Lake bot system has prompted much excitement from Fire in the Lake fans, and several questions which I will answer in this article. This article is a Q&A format, but keep reading to the bottom to get a sneak peek at the new Trưng Solitaire system (the u is pronounced like the ‘oo’ in ‘food’).

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Peloponnesian War: What Was Old is New Again! (Part 1)

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As I write this, my solitaire Peloponnesian War design, published in 1991 under the Victory Games label, has made a successful P500 debut as an enhanced version with GMT. To all those who supported bringing this one back from the past, thank you.

I was contemplating what to write for an article about the game, so I went into my Victory Games copy of the Peloponnesian War and found that my old habit of putting all reviews and articles about a game into the box turned this simple act into a walk down memory lane. Everyone who wrote or corresponded with me about the original published game was in the box, to include my articles in The General Vol. 28 #1.

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Red Storm – Solitaire Development

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One of the aspects making the Downtown series great is its intense fog-of-war.  The combination of dummy flights, hidden AAA/SAMs, generic flights, and unconfirmed bombing results add up to a lot of uncertainty for both players in most scenarios, a situation that is both realistic and fun, since neither player knows the full picture.

As cool as the system is, the extensive fog-of-war adds a lot of rules, an issue for some players with limited time, while also making the game less appealing as a solo experience.  To address both issues, early in the development of Red Storm, Gene gave me the task of working in some solo rules.  I examined as many different solo systems I could find, while also reviewing some draft solo rules that Lee Brimmicombe-Wood and Antonio Peña worked on for Downtown but never published formally.  After that research and some tinkering with various options, I settled on a “two tier” system of solo rules for Red Storm.

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Solitaire Play of Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea – Greeks vs Persians: An AAR (Part 1)

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Introduction by Fred Schachter, Game Developer: There’s material within GMT’s site for Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS); which could be read as background, but this piece is being placed here in hopes it will engender a bit more “back & forth” with readers as follow-up to Chris’ last InsideGMT article (Parts 1, 2, and 3) concerning his experience with ACIS’ The God Kings of Egypt solitaire scenario. You are encouraged to contact the ACIS Team with any and all comments and questions.

Please note this is an After Action Report of one of many ACIS Solitaire Scenarios being play tested.  Some are finished and some still in need of various degrees of development and play-balance “tweaking”.

Of course we’re also play testing the “live” versions of the game and having a blast doing so.

So with no further ado, here’s ACIS Co-Designer Chris Vorder Bruegge’s report of his experiences fending off the mighty Persian Empire with his plucky and stalwart Greeks.  Ah, after reading this I’m planning another viewing of “300”.