We intend to offer up our design notes regarding our simulation of the 2nd Russo-Ukrainian War, Defiance, beginning with Volume 1: Miracle on Dnipro: Kyiv & Chernihiv Campaign, from time to time. Given that we are designing a simulation regarding an ongoing conflict, it’s a first draft of history. Consequently, at least you’ll get some insight into why we got some items wrong 🙂
In our third article in this series, we discuss how we model combat during the initial six weeks of the 2nd Russo-Ukrainian War. We’ll begin with a brief review of the Charles S Roberts classic CRT. Then, we take a look at CRTs in France 1944 and Flashpoint Golan, examining the combat resolution system lineage of Defiance. For a deeper dive into CRTs, check out Issue 36 of C3i: Mark Herman’s Clio’s Corner, Nr. 13 – “Wargame CRTs or How to Resolve Chaos”.
As usual, we ramble on. So, feel free to break out a beverage of your choice. We always include a recipe for a cocktail, mocktail or appetizer at the end of each of our Defiance Design Happy Hour articles. This time, we go with the surprise early hit of 2024: the Shagroni (a shake on the classic Negroni).
In the first two InsideGMT articles on The Guerrilla Generation I covered the conflicts in South America, featuring an urban insurgency (Uruguay) and one of the most violent insurgencies in the region’s history (Peru). In this InsideGMT article we move on to the first of the two conflicts set in Central America. The Central American civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua during the 1980s also combine in the “Resisting Reagan” Campaign scenario, which will be featured in the fifth InsideGMT article in this series. Unlike the two previously covered games, which include only minor references to United States involvement, the US played a major role in the two remaining conflicts. This article, on The Guerrilla Generation: El Salvador, covers the most complex multipack game yet designed. With a larger number of pieces, Pivotal Events, and new special decks, the game introduces several mechanical changes to cover the complexity of this conflict. Given the use of mechanics such as Pivotal Events in several previous COIN volumes, El Salvador serves as a good stepping stone to more complex multiplayer COIN games, such as Fire in the Lake, Liberty or Death, or Pendragon.
The Guerrilla Generation: El Salvador covers the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN)’s insurgency against the government of El Salvador. The FMLN is attributed with possessing the strongest military capabilities of any insurgent group in Latin American history, including the use of special forces, spectacular raids on military bases, and two major offensives analogous to the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The FMLN player will often be able to match the military capabilities of their Government opponent, unlike many of the other insurgents in this multipack. However, unlike Castro’s far militarily weaker July 26th Movement featured in Cuba Libre, the FMLN did not succeed in overthrowing the government of El Salvador and had to settle for a negotiated settlement in 1992. Unlike the Batista Government in Cuba Libre, which faces drastic US aid cuts leaving them barely able to operate by the end of the game, the Government player in El Salvador will receive vast amounts of US assistance, particularly if they pursue reforms, enabling them to often beat back the best efforts of the FMLN insurgency.
One of the biggest differences, and most important additions, that 1848: The Springtime of Nations (1848) makes to the classic Twilight Struggle/1989: The Dawn of Freedom system is the addition of armies which can be placed on the board. Like in many wargames, these pieces can be moved across the different spaces of the map, and engage in combat. However, in 1848 they are not the main focus of the attention but rather just an important part of the game of political influence that 1848 and its illustrious predecessors portray.
In Europe, the year 1848 was defined by a series of revolutions that swept the continent from west to east, from France to the eastern borders of the Austrian Empire and Romania. Obviously, therefore, a game about this series of events must make an effort to simulate the multiple revolutions of the era as core part of the game, and in a CDG based on the system originating with Twilight Struggle this means revolutions need to arise from the players’ efforts – from gameplay – rather than just the “deus ex machina” of event cards.
Fortunately, there is an existing model to draw from. Players familiar with 1989: Dawn of Freedom (henceforth 1989) will quickly understand that Revolutions in 1848: The Springtime of Nations (henceforth 1848) are very similar to the Power Struggles in that game. In 1848, Revolutions are the most prevalent source of VPs, and most of the actions players take are aimed at setting up an advantageous position for these showdowns that take place across the nations and empires depicted in the game.
The Somali Civil War is an ongoing, now three-decades-long outburst of violence that has displaced millions and killed thousands. The international public knows about this conflict primarily through news headlines generated by the 1993 “Black Hawk Down” incident and its eponymous 2001 Hollywood movie depiction. However, the global media otherwise paid little attention to the state of affairs following the 1995 UN withdrawal from a still war-torn Somalia. A Fading Star explores the real climax of the conflict from 2007 to 2014, which foreshadowed many aspects of modern counterinsurgencies, including the rise of the Islamic State, the importance of regional state and non-state actors, and the increasing use of social media as a recruitment tool. This series of articles will provide an overview of the game and its four factions, beginning here with the background context that led to the birth of the infamous Al-Shabaab jihadist group in South-Central Somalia.
The core design of Bear Trap is now done, and the two-player game is polished. So, in today’s article I thought I’d share some comments on my experience designing Bear Trap.
Ideation
I first thought of creating a game about the Soviet-Afghan War while teaching Military Ethics at university in 2013. I was drawn to the topic because of my interest in the Cold War. But there’s a lot of other interesting things going on in this conflict, beyond being a feature of the Cold War.
The Soviets used a fighting force designed for an anticipated European conflict. The Soviets had visions of a quick war which didn’t align with the realities they would face over the decade long struggle. They weren’t up for the task they would face in Afghanistan. They were ill-suited to deal with under-trained freedom fighters wanting to repel foreign invaders through a widespread insurgency. As the war dragged on, in many ways, the Soviets effectively committed a sunken cost fallacy. While these might be oversimplifications here, these factors—and the narratives around Soviet tanks streaming across the border, the desertions, and the terror wrought by Soviet airstrikes—pulled me in and engaged my interest. But even for those not explicitly interested in the Soviet-Afghan War, Bear Trap—as a learning tool—can act as a lens through which they can learn more about aspects of history that have helped shape, or have been informed by, other things that that they are interested in.
This article from Alan Ray is Part 3 in a 3 part guide to playing SPQR. If you would like to read Parts 1 and 2 first, you can find those here and here.
In this InsideGMT article, I want to quickly mention a few other things that make Bear Trap a complete package: two additional short scenarios, and tournament rules.
When I began developing Bear Trap, it was already a tight and competitive two-player game, much like its spiritual ancestor Sekigahara. However, the designer P.R. Daniels had ambitions to go beyond this and include a solitaire mode that would allow a single player to enjoy the game by themself. Bear Trap is a block game with a lot of hidden information, which makes designing a solitaire mode quite challenging, but Paul has come up with some clever systems to facilitate this. In this article, I want to look closely at just one aspect of Bear Trap’s solitaire mode: how combat is resolved, which highlights several of the core design principles that underlie it. For an introduction to the combat system inBear Trap, you can read Paul’s earlier InsideGMT article here.
