Below is another article from one of our newer blog contributors, David Waldorf. You can find his previous InsideGMT articles covering Conquest of Paradise here. Enjoy! -Rachel

In this series of articles, I’m looking at how Conquest of Paradise stretches across genre borders in unique ways.  I’ve already shown how it is a historical simulation that has euro elements, but now I’ll look at its wargame aspects.

Various people have called Conquest of Paradise a wargame, including designer Kevin McPartland himself in an InsideGMT article. However, this is a wargame unlike most others that I have seen or played.  While it is a hex-and-counter game in which you can move your counters around the board and conquer enemy forces, it is not a game about combat or even warfare; fighting is simply an option that is available. In a two-player game you could conceivably leave combat out entirely (as me and my wife mostly did when we played) and still have an enjoyable time. But fighting is still an enjoyable if not quite integral part of the game, and though the mechanics are simple and abstract, I think there is a warrant for considering the game as a wargame.

Right up front I’ll state that for a wargame, the combat system in Conquest of Paradise is as simple as it gets—it might even be called simplistic.  But most of the elements that you would associate with a heavier wargame are present: stacks of cardboard counters face off against each other, compare numbers, roll a die, consult a CRT, and assign effects.  There are certain modifiers that can come into play by way of special cards that one player or the other may have purchased.  The thing is, the numbers you compare are simply the piece counts (as in Risk), and the CRT has only four outcomes—half of which are good for you and half of which are not.

The combat system feels like something of an introduction to wargaming tropes, and if this was the only “wargame” aspect of  Conquest of Paradise, the claim that it has a foothold in that genre would be a bit of a stretch.  But there are aspects other than combat that can be considered.  These include troop movement (which requires dedicated vehicles to accomplish), the manufacturing of supply routes to aide in the free passage of both civilian and military traffic, bluffing (using the dummy counters), and strategic retreats (send your war canoes back first, otherwise retreating warrior bands won’t have the transport they need).  When these aspects and the combat system are taken together, I think you could classify this as a light wargame.  One does not have to memorize different strengths and abilities or refer to a bunch of complicated charts.  There are some elements of tactics and strategy here, mainly in the bluffing and hidden information mechanisms, but also in choosing regions to attack, allocating forces, and reinforcing your borders.

Also, unlike many historical hex-and-counter wargames, you have to purchase your military units.  You do not get to start the game with a predetermined ordinance of battle, you have to pay for what you need, and you may get overrun because you simply did not have the funds to purchase significant defenses.  These are mechanics that I am used to seeing in popular “war” games like Risk or Axis and Allies; it is a legitimate mechanic of wargaming that sometimes gets left out.

Finally, let me briefly insert one gameplay variant suggestion that I think makes the game feel a bit more like a wargame.  When you are having a battle, the rules state that the attacker should do all the dice rolling.  Now it may be just me, but I think this makes the defender feel unnecessarily helpless, a mere observer to the action.  But I want some give-and-take, a chance for the defenders to do something in the fight.  So, while the fighting mechanics in Conquest of Paradise are too abstracted to incorporate a defensive phase during combat, my dilemma can be fixed by simply allowing the defender to take turns rolling the die.  This will give him (me?) the illusion of being more involved in the conflict, even though the outcomes will be exactly the same.

Author: David Waldorf