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Order & Opportunity: A Perspective to the Post-Cold War Period

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Recently, a new game named Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order entered GMT Games’ P500 list. This is the first in a series of articles on the game.

From the profile page: Order & Opportunity is a 2 to 4 player game with a solo variant about the making of the post-Cold War world order covering the first decades of the 21st century. In the game, the United States, Russia, China, and the European Union compete over the control of the agenda and ultimately over victory points in the dimensions of economic, political, cultural, and security power projection. Order & Opportunity combines card-driven, asymmetric game play to produce a topical and thematic historical game on a global scale. The game offers a distinctive and captivating play experience at every one of its player counts.

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How Combat is Resolved in Iron Storm

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The development of Iron Storm has been going smoothly over the past few months, and the game’s core systems are now close to finalised, with only small tweaks being made as our dedicated playtesters continue to push it to its limits. In this article I will give an overview of the game’s combat system, which is something that a few people have been asking about and we don’t expect to change significantly before publication.

Iron Storm is a relatively simple game that uses straightforward mechanics to capture the core aspects of WWI in Europe, and combat is no different. At the beginning of the action round the active player can initiate Offensives in any contested space, usually by playing an Army card that matches one of their armies in the space (there are also some special cards, such as High Command Orders, that can be used to initiate an Offensive in any space).

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Inferno – Replay and Tutorial by Christophe Correia, Part 3

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Below you will find Part 3 in an Inferno Replay and Tutorial series from Cristophe Correia originally published on The Boardgames Chronicle blog. You can read Parts 1 and 2 here and here. Enjoy! -Rachel

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Imperial Eagles: Air War in the Pacific 1941-43 — Allied Aircraft

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Since the Japanese need someone to fight, this second article for Inside GMT will describe the planes with which the Allies oppose them in Imperial Eagles.

The US Army Air Force has aircraft in almost every campaign in the game, and more models than any other service.  These are the planes which held the line in the Pacific for the first two years, showing incremental improvement through the end of 1943 while the more modern types went to Europe first.

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Here I Stand Game Example: Two-Player Variant

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What follows is a detailed, turn-by-turn actual two-player game pitting the Here I Stand game designer Ed Beach as the Papacy player against a collective group of other skilled players playing the Protestant side. This group included several HIS playtesters and a number of ConsimWorld Forum members. The ConsimWorld forum board was used to debate each Protestant move within the group and to reach consensus for the best choice. Play was accomplished by PBEM using Cyberboard. This PBEM game started August 18, 2007 and ended October 22, 2007, going 7 turns before a victor was declared.

It is best to play out this recorded game with an actual game board (or Cyberboard) with the HIS Rules and HIS Two-Player Variant Rules at hand. If you are new to HIS, read the Rules Book and Scenario Book first. Stepping through this game can be helpful in learning the game and rules. The game perspective is from the Protestant players eyes and the Papacy player’s cards are not known ahead of time. Simply pull the appropriate card from the main deck (or diplomacy deck) when the Papacy card played is revealed.

Click the image below to read the full 18-page game example of the Here I Stand Two-Player Variant:

Click image to see full 18-page PDF
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Inferno – Replay and Tutorial by Christophe Correia, Part 2

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Below you will find Part 2 in an Inferno Replay and Tutorial series from Cristophe Correia originally published on The Boardgames Chronicle blog. You can read Part 1 here. Enjoy! -Rachel

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We Built This City: 3-Player Variant for Urban Sprawl

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Urban Sprawl is a master stroke of game design. It’s at the top of my underrated gems list, and one I’ve been singing the praises of to whoever would listen for years now (making new fans in the process). The challenge has always been the play time, particularly for a first play. Because if you are just learning a game with the level of interaction in Urban Sprawl, 3-4 hours can be a lot to ask. So I made a variant called “We Built this City” that can be played in under 3 hours (the one catch being that it is three player only). 

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Rebellion: Britannia, Leaders

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Each faction always has one of two possible leaders that are always available in a set (historical) sequence. But when a faction switches between leaders is determined by the Events deck, and since not all cards from that deck are present in the same game it’s possible these events aren’t triggered and a faction never switches their leader.

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Wonders of the Land of One Thousand and One Nights: Napoleon in Egypt – Full Turn Example of Play (Part 5)

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Note: Art shown is from the game prototype and is not final.

Napoleon is in a tight spot, anxiously waiting to see if the Allied Player can catch up with him for an epic Field Battle which could go either way. Unbeknownst to the French Player though, the Allied Player has a pretty troublesome hand to wrap up the Turn.

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A Fading Star #2: Harakat Al-Shabaab Al-Mujahideen

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Al-Shabaab (from its full name Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, or ‘Mujahideen Youth Movement’) is a very singular case among the movements that have made the headlines since the rise of violent transnational Islamism. From 2007 to 2014, the organization could sway and control a majority of Southern Somalia, including numerous urban centers, despite the presence of conventional forces protecting the transitional federal government in the capital. Still relevant to this day, Al-Shabaab is an important reminder that terrorist and insurgent organizations can endure terrible military hardships and continue fighting until the root social and political problems that seeded their rise are addressed.