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The Pendragon Chronicles – Vol. 9 – The Fall

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Now that we have surveyed a range of individual aspects of Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain, we would like to see how they interact to transport us into the final travails of the Roman presence in Britain. As we discussed in the previous Chronicle on Imperium, Pendragon for the first time in the COIN Series not only provides a dynamic simulation of Britannia, it models the transformation of the island’s political-military-economic affairs from one system to another. While Andean Abyss enables you to enact the relations among diverse factions in modern Colombia to varying outcomes, the system of insurgency and counterinsurgency represented functions essentially the same at the end of the game as at the beginning. In Pendragon, we can begin in a diocese of the Roman Empire and end amidst warring kingdoms of the Dark Ages. To see how, we must view the behavior of Pendragon’s elements as a complex and interlocked whole.

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Solitaire Play of The God-King of Egypt (Part 1)

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Introduction by Game Developer Fred Schachter: A previous two-part InsideGMT article pitted one of the Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS) designers, Mark McLaughlin, solitaire against the trials and tribulations of this exciting, quick-to-play, and fun game. Links to Parts 1 and 2 of the article can be found here and here.

To best appreciate this article, the reader may wish to reference InsideGMT’s other content regarding ACIS for better context and reading enjoyment.  This is not necessary, but it could help enhance your appreciation of the game action. Furthermore, this article provides more detail than its predecessors regarding ACIS’ game mechanics… and there’s more to come with future pieces as the game’s development continues.

This is a replay of Mark’s co-designer Chris Vorder Brugge’s experience with another of the game’s solitaire contests: The God King of Egypt.

Can Chris fare better than his good friend Mark’s InsideGMT ACIS solitaire game experience (or the historical “Land of the Pharaohs” for that matter)?  Read on!!!

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Unleashing Hell: Redeployment Rules in Pericles

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“At my signal…unleash Hell…”

One of the interesting things that occurs when a new game is released is that members of our tribe try to push the rules to the extreme, then immediately conclude that there is a problem. The purpose of this strategy piece concerns the redeployment rules. Redeployment in Pericles is very broad and allows for very aggressive force concentrations that, when first seen, can surprise the other side with thoughts like, ‘you can do that?’ For today, let’s consider not that you can do this, but rather what should you do about it when someone, like in Texas holdem, goes ‘all in’.

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Hitler’s Reich: A “Bot” Driving Toward Moscow (Volume II of VPJ Arponen’s Bot series)

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The following article is the 2nd volume of a two volume series (Volume 1 is here), written by VPJ Arponen, originally appearing on The Players’ Aid blog earlier this week. To make sure that all of our GMT customers get to see this excellent article, we’re including it here in InsideGMT as well, with the permission and agreement of our friends at The Player’s Aid. We hope you enjoy the article!

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Multi-Player Variant for “Illusions of Glory”

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When I first suggested that “Illusions of Glory” be published as a game for two to four players, I also proposed additional strategy cards.  The powers-that-be objected that it would increase the game’s production costs.  After the game went into production, I arrived at a solution that doesn’t require more strategy cards. Now, here is my variant for up to two players on a side:

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The Science of the COIN Bot: Volume I

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The following article, written by VPJ Arponen, originally appeared on The Players’ Aid blog earlier this week. To make sure that all of our GMT customers get to see this excellent article, we’re including it here in InsideGMT as well, with the permission and agreement of our friends at The Player’s Aid. We hope you enjoy the article!

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New Features in Under the Southern Cross Part II

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Part I in this series can be found here.

Last time, we looked at how Under the Southern Cross (USC) deals with shoals and sandbars in the various river battles included among the almost two-dozen scenarios of the game. In this installment, we’ll see how river and tidal currents are modeled and how the rules for gunboats have been refined, and in so doing, try to give interested gamers an insight into the design process.

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The Pendragon Chronicles – Vol. 8 – Imperium (Part 1)

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Where previous games in the COIN series cover a few years, or at most a couple decades, of history, Pendragon: The Fall of Roman Britain spans more than a century of the history of Britain, from the waning years of the Western Roman Empire (c. 360 AD) to the thorough fragmentation of the island into warring proto-kingdoms of various cultural and ethnic backgrounds (c. 500 AD). Naturally, such drastic political, institutional, and cultural changes over such a long period mean that conditions and objectives underwent significant evolutions during that span of time. In game terms, this translates into the necessity of the evolution of the very rules and victory conditions during the course of the game! This is captured in Pendragon’s Imperium Track. Now, this evolution was not necessarily preordained, but to a large extent the product of the actions and aspirations of the involved historical players, and so it will be in a game of Pendragon…