Below you will find the second in a series of articles from Clio of Clio’s Board Games. The article is Part 2 in a planned series that looks at the fall of Communism through the lens of GMT’s 1989. You can find Part 1 of this series here. Hope you enjoy the article! -Rachel
Imperial Struggle: The Global Rivalry Between Britain and France, 1697-1789 enjoyed an active social life in the last three months of 2017. With appearances at GMT Weekend in the Warehouse in October, and then at the San Diego Historical Games Convention in November, more and more players have been able to sit down with the game and give their feedback. And one theme recurs: “This game isn’t as much like Twilight Struggle as I had expected!”
It’s true. Twilight Struggle is more older cousin than sibling to Imperial Struggle. They share a dream, scope, and player fantasy; but mechanically they diverge quite a bit. How could they not? Imperial Struggle covers twice Twilight’s length of time, and encompasses four major wars between the two protagonists. More fundamentally, the Cold War mentality – and thus the player’s emotional experience – is not the same as the 18th century dream of glory.
It should come as no surprise that the question I get asked more than any other regarding Apocalypse Road is, “What are the cars like?” or “Can we design our own cars?” I guess I should answer the second question first, and you may not like it. No, the cars that come with Apocalypse Road have been designed by Carla and myself and will be the same for each team. As for what are they like…
All Bridges Burning is a COIN Series system game simulating the political and the military events of the Finnish Civil War of 1918 including a period of build-up to the conflict. It is the first COIN Series volume to have been designed for three players.
In All Bridges Burning, the three factions –the Reds, the white Senate, and the blue, non-violent, Social Democratic faction– compete for getting to define the shape of post-conflict Finland. The game is divided in two phases of pre-war build-up and the war itself. Alongside the player controlled factions, also simple German and Russian non-player sides bring their military force to bear.
Triggered by one of the first socialist revolts of the 20th century, the Finnish Civil War was in part about drawing the borders between the socialist and the democratic world systems, and in part about societal issues internal to Finland itself.
Replicator Tuesdays is an article series appearing on InsideGMT. It features insights into the development of the 2nd expansion for the board wargame Space Empires:4x by Jim Krohn. Here the designer, developer and play testers will share their thoughts and experiences on this upcoming expansion. Since there is much crossover between the Space Empires and Talon development teams, both Space Empires and Talon articles will be featured in this series.
Issue #32 Advanced Ship Development – Part One, the DDX
Below you will find the first in a series of articles from Clio of Clio’s Board Games. The article is Part 1 in a planned series that looks at the fall of Communism through the lens of GMT’s 1989. You can also find this article on Clio’s blog. Hope you enjoy the article! -Rachel
Barg-i-Matal, Nuristan, Aug 2010
I want to introduce you all to Chris Davis, the creator of the Practical Tactical blog. Chris currently serves in the US Army, and is a veteran of Afghanistan. Chris likes to use simulations as teaching tools to train soldiers, but he’s also very interested in how designers create games based on their own experiences and perspectives. This article – hopefully the first of many from Chris – shares some of his reflections on A Distant Plain based on his experiences in Afghanistan. I hope you enjoy the article! – Gene
Below is the first in a series of articles from Mark McLaughlin showcasing the ten civilizations in Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea. Enjoy!
As we are getting near the release date of the game, we are now going to present some of the Event Cards that you will play with in Pendragon – The Fall of Roman Britain. For our first installment of this second series of Chronicles, we are going to focus on a very visible, and sometimes controversial, aspect of the game: the elements it borrows from the Arthurian Legend.
I started wargaming in the 1980s with the first edition of Jim Day’s Panzer. Convincing battle modeling has always been crucial for me. For a long time, I found the “to hit” process and also odds based combat result tables to be the ne plus ultra — along with 10-sided dice (I confess my love of exotic dice sprung from my D&D past!).
Then in the early 2000, my interest shifted to the bucket of dice approach. My experience is that when it is well conceived, its simplicity (1 piece : 1 die) frees the brain, allowing us to focus more on the narrative of the game.
From the very start, I wanted Bayonets & Tomahawks to be devoid of calculations. But I aimed for a battle system that could replicate each and every historical battle outcome of the French and Indian War. Dedicated research and perpetual evolution/streamlining (with many good ideas contributed by expert players) led to a custom dice system that is fun to use and delivers realistic results for that conflict.
Here’s the story of its development.
