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Bear Trap Designer Notes

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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. 

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Inside GMT One: How I Designed a Solo Bot for Twilight Struggle: Red Sea

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Twilight Struggle has long been the game that I most wanted to find a satisfying way to play solo. The game rewards knowing your hand intimately, and guessing what’s in your opponent’s hand as well. Because the game is so tactical in determining the order and timing of card play, it is a difficult game to play solo. So when Jason Matthews asked me if I would help design the Solo Opponent for Twilight Struggle: Red Sea I jumped at the opportunity to solve these really hard problems.

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The 2nd Annual GMT One Holiday Gift: A CDG Solo Playsheet for Empire of the Sun

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As we hit the 2 year mark for GMT One, it’s a good time to reflect and see how far we’ve come. This year, we were truly blessed to see all the session reports, reviews, pictures, videos, and smiles that you shared while playing our solitaire games. So, we wanted to bless you in return and share another Holiday gift! Last year, we shared a print and play solo bot for Mark Herman’s Fort Sumter, and this year we decided to team up with Mark again and bring you a CDG Solo System playsheet for the Empire of the Sun game family.

First, a quick reflection on 2022:

  • Early this year, GMT shipped our CDG Solo System with support for seven of our CDGs, and announced the second pack with support for six more games. Alongside the physical release, we gave a print and play option to the community for free, and it’s been cool to see your creations out in the wild.
  • We also released Fall of Saigon, an expansion for Fire in the Lake, with a bot from Bruce Mansfield based on his popular Jacquard System which he designed for Gandhi.
  • Flashpoint: South China Sea includes a quick and streamlined bot from Jason Carr.
  • And the Fields of Fire team of Ben Hull, Andrew Stead, and Colin Parsons did incredible work to bring you The Bulge Campaign and the Third Edition rules, and is in the late stages of development for Fields of Fire Deluxe Edition.

In light of this great year, let’s celebrate! I asked Ken Kuhn, the CDG Solo System lead, to put together a playsheet for Mark Herman’s classic CDG Empire of the Sun. Not only that, but I asked him to make sure it would work with all the games in the Empire of the Sun family. Ken got to work, and adapted Chris Crane’s community “tweak sheet” to use the latest formatting and terminology consistent with GMT’s other playsheets.

This updated playsheet can be used four different ways:

  • Play any of the scenarios included with Empire of the Sun.
  • Play the “South Pacific” standalone scenario from C3i Nr. 30 (included in the Third and Fourth Printing of Empire of the Sun).
  • Play the “Burma” standalone scenario from C3i Nr. 35
  • Play the Plan Orange standalone game from C3i Nr. 29.
CDG Solo System Playsheet for Empire of the Sun (click image for link to PDF)

We hope this playsheet brings you hours of fun with Empire of the Sun, and that you have a very Happy Holidays and a wonderful start to 2023!

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Cloak-and-dagger Operations: Napoleon in Egypt – Full Turn Example of Play (Part 4)

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

When we last left our belligerents, the French had just suffered a crippling naval defeat that left the Mediterranean Ports to the mercy of the Allied Player.

The Birth of a Legend will have to wait. The French Player has pressing matters to attend to. They want to pin down Murad Bey before he can flee closer to Thebes. They thus play the card they drew off their Sack of Meniet for AP.

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Private Companies in 18EUS

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In last week’s blog post, I discussed the Bank of New York and the strategic flexibility is adds to 18EUS. In this final blog post, let’s talk about one of my favorite parts, the private companies. I had so much fun with the design of the private companies of 18EUS.  The auction mechanism draws from 1822, as does the generality that the private companies hold no intrinsic value, mostly pay a modest income when held by the player, and confer upon the owning company special abilities.  18EUS private companies diverge from there.

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Harry S. Truman Through the Lens of Twilight Struggle

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Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games, this time discussing Harry S. Truman through the lens of GMT’s Twilight Struggle. You can also find this article on Clio’s blog. Enjoy! -Rachel

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“Cat-Herder-in-Chief”: Playing the Mr. President 2017 Hard Scenario (Part 3)

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When last we left our intrepid President, he had spent most of his previous actions to set up what he believes and hopes will be “max odds on both upcoming wars.” And he may well have accomplished that – we’ll see. But the thing about Mr. President is that there always seems to be a new threat axis coming at you – and it can happen quickly. We’re starting the 2nd quarter of Rick’s presidency this time, with the 2nd Activation Phase of the turn, and the first half of the Activation Phase is weighted heavily toward the game opponents’ actions and Rick’s reactions. So we’ll see if or how much Rick’s threat analysis has to change and adapt by the end of the Activation Phase. – GB

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18EUS: The Bank of New York

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In last week’s blog post, I discussed the games and people that inspired me to make 18EUS. As part of that, I mentioned that one of the key new elements of 18EUS is the Bank of New York, which allows players to either take elective personal loans or invest in the Bank if they do not hold loans.  I wanted to explore a space where players had access to more capital in stock rounds, like in 1817 with short-selling, with a different, unique mechanism.  Some have pointed out that the 18EUS “loans,” which both charge interest and increase in principle, do not behave like loans in a technical sense, but rather like stock shorts.  Indeed, the main design inspiration here was to create a “friendlier” method of short-selling that would appeal to a wider audience.  

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WELCOME TO PLUM ISLAND (or … A Brief Tour of a Soon-To-Be Hellscape)!

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Greetings again, ladies and gentlemen, and boys and girls of all ages! After having been flooded by hundreds of thousands of emails and posts requesting more information about this game (well, that’s a rough estimate … maybe it was just Harvey from East Northport who wrote me, but I can’t remember just now), I had to succumb and return from my self-imposed exile and provide another eye-opening and inspiring article to this blog. 

As you may or may not have seen, the big breaking news is that the game board for The Plum Island Horror has been completed. I can attest to its historical accuracy, and I commend Terry Leeds and the team for producing such a wonderfully detailed and realistic depiction of the island just moments before the horrific events on October 24th of a year that we are unable to reveal for legal reasons. 

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18EUS’s Origin Story

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My interest in strategy board games started early when my grandfather taught me chess at six years old. In high school I enjoyed playing on custom-designed Risk maps with my friends, and in college I discovered Settlers of Catan.  Next was enjoying the plethora of modern Euro games.  I moved to Grand Haven, Michigan in 2018 and started attending Thursday-night gaming at a local game store in Zeeland where I was introduced to 18xx in 2019. I was hooked after my first play of 1846.

Favorite titles of our group included 1846, 1862, 1822 and 1822MX. 18USA was polarizing – it was Mark’s favorite title, and everyone liked the randomized setup, but some did not like the shorting mechanic or extended length of the game.  During setup of an 18USA game, Bill remarked, “Someone needs to make a game on the 18USA map without the shorting.”  Around the same time, I listened to an 18xx podcast that had a segment on “Things you wish to see in an 18xx game,” and they talked about personal, elective loans.  It became clear to me that elective loans could easily replace shorting.  I adopted the “Sure, why not?” attitude and went about creating 18EUS.