Search Results for: people power

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Factions in Red Dust Rebellion: The Corporations

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The bombing of Maglev-77 was an act of supreme cowardice, directed against hard-working commuters whose only crime was heading to work to make this world a better place. If this was supposed to send a message, it has been heard and understood. We now know who you are.

You are weak, you have failed, and you stand in the way of human progress.

We will rebuild the maglev line, and we will continue our work to terraform this planet. As we battle to bring Earth climate under control, we must also shape Mars into a new Earth. A new future for our people, for all people. Because we must remember that there are no real Martians and no Earthers, we are all one people, we are human.

And as human beings we must grieve for those who lost their lives here today, and we must persevere. We must keep pushing forward and onwards. We must build a future together, on Earth, here and out there, among the stars.

Silveria Kidlat, Mars Corporate council chairperson.
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Factions in Red Dust Rebellion: The Red Dust Movement

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Today, tunnel 64a in south Shenzou collapsed. Today, 22 miners from our community are lost in the rubble. We don’t know if anyone is alive down there. But we will dig until we find them. And while we don’t know whether they will live, we already know the reason for this tragedy. For months our members have been complaining about long hours, poor conditions and shortcuts from management. Of basic safety measures being relaxed or ignored to save a few bucks — The Blue Bloods, they don’t care about Martian workers, they don’t care about our people. They care about lines on a spreadsheet.

We are not just organic assets to be itemized on a corporate balance sheet. We are humans, we are Martians, and we are strong.

-Aroha Thompson, Red Dust spokesperson and Mining Union organizer.  

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The Hubris Histories – Book 2: Leaders

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As we have seen in the general historical overview in Book 1, individual leaders, first and foremost, but not exclusively, kings, drove the historical narrative in Ancient times. Accordingly, Hubris – Twilight of the Hellenistic World has been built around these leaders, their strengths and weaknesses, unique abilities and relationships. Who can you trust to get the job done? Who can you trust with an army? These will be essential questions when you play Hubris…

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The Hubris Histories – Book 1

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Hubris – Twilight of the Hellenistic World takes one to three players twenty-two centuries back in time to the Ancient Eastern Mediterranean. This period is often little known, obscured by the great epopees of Alexander the Great (that preceded it), Hannibal (that took place simultaneously) or Julius Caesar (that followed it). It was nonetheless pivotal to world history.
Let’s explore it a little bit…

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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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Historic Characters in Banish the Snakes: Neil of the Nine Hostages

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In previous installments, I have described the “main characters” in Banish the Snakes: the historic people that players represent in their attempts to convert Ireland. But now I’m moving on to the “supporting cast” of historic characters, people who were notable in the history of the time and show up in the game on Event cards. First up is the most famous High King of Ireland, Niall Noígíallach- translated into English as Neil of the Nine Hostages.

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The Barracks Emperors: Examining the Influence Cards Part 3 — Populace Cards

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This is part three of a three-part series of articles examining all the influence cards in The Barracks Emperors, one suit at a time. If you would like to read the previous two parts of this series, they can be found here and here. In this final article, we look at the features of the cards in the Yellow suit. Just as in Time of Crisis, Yellow represents power and influence with the people of Rome. The special abilities provided by the Populace cards vary a little more among themselves than the Senate and Military cards do, but there is some emphasis on affecting how Emperor tricks are resolved and on affecting other Yellow cards.

(Note:  All art shown in this article is playtest art only.  It is not final.)

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The Barracks Emperors: Examining the Influence Cards Part 2 — Senate Cards

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This is part two in a series of articles examining all the influence cards in The Barracks Emperors, one suit at a time. Part one, which can be found here, discussed Military cards. In this article, we look some of the uses and subtleties of the cards in the Blue suit. Just as in Time of Crisis, Blue represents power and influence with the Senate of Rome. All the special abilities tied to these cards represent things the Senate or the Emperor might rule on, including “peaceful” ways to deal with barbarians and different ways to draw cards, with one notable exception. Read on!

(Note: All art shown in this article is playtest art only. It is not final.)

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Inside the History of Twilight Struggle: Red Sea — Conflict in the Horn of Africa (Part 2)

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The Context in the Middle East

Part two of a three part series: The Middle East in the 1970s.

With the support of Twilight Struggle fans around the world, Twilight Struggle: Red Sea moved to “made the cut” status after just a few days on the P500. TS: Red Sea is a free-standing, two player card-driven game that builds on the Twilight Struggle system. The game covers the period between the mid-1970s to the conclusion of the Cold War. It emphasizes the many proxy wars and revolutions in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa during this portion of the Cold War.

With a more limited scope and much shorter playtime, TS Red Sea is the perfect way to introduce new players to Twilight Struggle. Yet this new game maintains all the tension, decision making, and theme of the original classic.

This is the second of a three article series, introducing players to the history reflected in the game, and providing some example events that illustrate the ties between the history and game play.   

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Mío Cid: Almoravid Testers’ Replay – Part II

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Welcome back—we return to the pageantry of medieval Spain! In this second of three parts drawn from a live Levy & Campaign playtest, Phil Dreher reports on his Muslims’ climactic year against John Campbell’s Christians in the 1085-1086

scenario of Almoravid, via Vassal magic by Miguel Ángel Sánchez Galán and Peter Wagner.

Who will break the stalemate of the Zaragoza border war? Is Rodrigo El Cid Campeador—back in King Alfonso’s grace—bound for great deeds or merely the menace of Muslim shepherds? Will León, Castilla, and Aragón develop the military pressure to extract tribute gold in Parias dinars? Or will the emirs bow to call in to the Almoravids of Africa? And then what great clash of arms might smash or reset the Taifa mosaic of al-Andalus?

Phil’s thoughts mainly relevant to playtest rather than narrative appear in italics. [Volko adds explanatory and design-related comments in brackets.] All art is playtest only and all game details provisional not authoritative. In Part III to come, we will sample the testers’ observations and reactions to the gameplay.