In this blog post, I’d like to introduce you to the economic system found in Fields of Despair: France 1914-1918. Its development over the years has been one of my most enjoyable design tasks and one that receives a lot of positive feedback. Simple enough not to get in the way game play while important enough to have a direct impact on the outcome of the game.

Point of Reference
Each turn begins with a Production Phase. Two action phases follow each including: reconnaissance, movement, combat, breakouts and possibly more combat. Finally, strategic movement is completed before a turn ends and the next production phase begins. Point being, you have to live with your decisions in the production phase for a long time. They better be good.

As the Allied or Central Powers, you track your economy on a play aid set aside from the map and hidden by a screen. All of your artillery and air counters are kept here when not in play on the map. You also maintain, in secret, your commitment to artillery, airpower, and supply, as well as advancements in technology and cache of Logistic Points.

Key Concept: The State of Decline
In Fields of Despair, your assets of war are in a constant state of decline. Counters on your player board represent the artillery and aircraft ready for war. The value on the table is the number you can actually use and that value drops by one at the start of every turn! Think of it this way. The artillery counter is the heavy gun. The table represents, shell production and maintenance. It’s not enough to have the gun; you have to keep producing shells for it. Similarly, the air counters are the physical planes. The table represents trained pilots, crews and the spare parts that keep them flying.

Your ability to supply your troops also declines. The value on the Supply Capacity table is the number of hexes you can get supplies to. This decreases by one every turn. If you don’t manage your economy well, you’ll have guns without shells, planes without pilots and no means of getting supplies to the front.

Economic Points
In FoD you collect “Economic Points” (EP) to spend at your discretion. The production version of the game will use cubes for EP as those will hold up better than counters to long-term play. The number of EP each power collects on a given turn is determined by a table, built to strike a balance between historical production levels and playability.

The Naval War
Before EP can be spent, naval warfare must first be resolved. The British blockade or German U-boat campaign might have something to say about how many EP you actually have left to spend.

The naval war is abstracted by placing blue and black cubes into a draw bag at set up. Blue is a blockade success, black a U-boat success. Each scenario begins with a predetermined amount of each.

Why a draw bag? This keeps the amount of each color a secret. As a part of the production phase, players may add their cubes to the bag in secret.

Naval warfare resolution is simple. Draw 3 cubes. Every blue cube drawn reduces the Central Powers economy by one. Each black cube drawn reduces the Allied economy by one. But wait, there’s more.

Anytime a blue cube is drawn the strength of the naval blockade increases. The Central Powers lose additional EP based upon the strength of the blockade. As you can imagine, late in the war, the blockade is rocking and the Central Powers are hurting. But don’t feel bad for them just yet.

The Central Powers have the option to wage either Prize Regulations or Unrestricted Submarine Warfare (USW). Unrestricted warfare comes with an added benefit and risk. Here’s how it works. Prior to drawing cubes, the Central player declares he is going to initiate USW. If any black cubes are pulled he rolls against the USW table. The result reduces blocks in England. This is meant to abstract the sinking of colonial troops in route to England or munitions lost at sea thus reducing the troops Britain can send to France.

So what’s the downside? Every time the USW is successful, the Central Powers risk the USA entering into the war earlier. More detail in a future post. Let’s just state the obvious for now. You want to delay USA entry as long as possible.

The Production Phase
It’s time to spend your EP. Throughout development we have yet to uncover one strategy that works here better than any other. It’s all about player preference. Do you buy air counters to reveal more enemy blocks, making your movement more effective? Do you focus on artillery to inflict more damage in combat? There are long term vs. short term strategies. It’s all up to you.

So what are Your Options?
Without going too deep into the rules here’s an overview of what you can spend your EP on and how they help.

As a general rule, one EP buys a single artillery, air, or tank counter with a value of one or increases the value of a current counter by one. The counters are stored on your player board, used on the map during the appropriate phase of play, then returned to your player board.

Artillery Counter: The artillery counter represents the larger artillery pieces employed by both powers. They can be used during the artillery fire step of combat to weaken the enemy before the infantry and cavalry engage each other. Each counter has a value that determines how many dice are rolled during artillery fire. Artillery counters have a corresponding technology that allows them to deploy poison gas.

Air Squadron Counter: An air squadron counter represents a group of air planes used for aerial reconnaissance or dogfighting. Each counter has a value that determines how many dice are rolled in a dogfight and how many blocks are revealed during aerial reconnaissance. Air squadron counters have a corresponding technology that represents the design of new aircraft and thus improves the values of counters available for play.

Tank Counter: The tank counter represents tanks and improved tactics used to make breakthroughs once trench warfare begins. Tank counters have a corresponding technology that must attain a minimum level before they can be purchased.

Convert Infantry into Cavalry: A very limited number of blocks can be converted into cavalry. A few extra cavalry are especially nice in the early game when you want to exploit a breakout.

Eastern Front: The Central Powers have the option to spend EP specifically towards efforts in the East. The eastern front is abstracted though play. The outcome in the East directly affects the number of reinforcements the Central Player receives in the late war.

Fortress Repair: Each fortress has a combat rating of 1-5 corresponding to the armament and manpower defending it. If this rating has decreased as a result of combat, the owning player may spend one EP to increase the rating by one representing reinforcement and repair.

Initiative Bid: Each player may secretly set aside any number of EP to bid on initiative for the turn. I’ve seen an unexpected change in initiative swing many a game.

Naval Blockade/U-boat Offensive: EP cubes may be secretly placed in the naval warfare draw bag. Cubes placed here are permanent and affect the outcome of all future naval war resolutions as described earlier.

Logistics Points

As play evolved over the years, it became clear that the Logistic Point (LP) was king. Its timing and use is so important to play, that experienced players would plan well ahead for their use and while new players would quickly learn their value once they ran out.

Here’s how they work. During production you may buy up to 3. You keep them until spent and may never have more than 5. Each LP you later spend during play will allow you to take an action not otherwise allowed such as: reinforce or retreat before combat, supply and out of supply hex, use strategic movement mid-turn, or use a rail gun against a fortress.

Side Note: I have to admit, the LP popularity surprised me. In early games, when playing the Central Powers, I might have used one to make sure the Belgian forts fell quickly (love me some Big Bertha). The rest of my economy I poured into artillery or U-boats. It wasn’t until I watched how others played that their use really hit me. I remember the first time I played a Central player who did nothing but rail troops behind his advancing blocks. He caught me off guard. Why didn’t I think of that? I have also watched the exact opposite where a defensive game was played, timing reinforcements and retreats to slow an advance.

Technology
The final use of EP is the advancement of four technologies of the First World War: aircraft design, poison gas, gas masks and tanks. Each may only be advanced one level per turn. So while it is possible to obtain a technology slightly ahead of its historical use, it is not possible to be flying Spad XIII’s in 1914.

Aircraft Improvements: For example purposes, let’s say you have 4 air squadron counters on your player board.  Each counter begins in 1914 at a value of one.  If you advance this tech one space, one of your counters is upgraded to a value 2.  All the rest remain at one.   The higher the value of the counter, the better at dogfighting and recon the unit is.  Every game there is almost certain to be an arms race in the skies.

Gas Shells:  Artillery attacks score hits (d6) on 5’s and 6’s.  Once you reach chlorine gas and subsequently mustard gas, your artillery attacks become deadlier also hitting on 4’s and 3’s.

Gas Masks:  The counter tech to gas shells, gas mask research cannot begin until the turn after either player has used gas shells.  This assures that the introduction of gas will have an impact for at least one turn.  Advancement along the gas mask track allows the cancelation of a set number of hits scored with 4’s or 3’s.

Tanks: Tanks represent the advancement in tactics and technology used to break the stalemate of the trenches.  Once a space marked with a number is reached, tank counters may be purchased.  The counters are later played to allow a limited breakout move from a hex cleared during combat.  As the value of the tech increases so too does the size of the breakout.

Notably Absent:  The machine gun is an assumed advancement for both players and is included in the trench warfare rules.

Conclusion

All in all it’s a very simple, quick system.  Collect EP, resolve naval warfare, and spend what’s left.  Tough choices between fighting an economic war (naval), adding sheer firepower (artillery), gaining information (air) or having flexibility (Logistic Points).   All while making sure the East Front doesn’t collapse or the enemy doesn’t surpass you in technology.  The choices are yours.