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Introduction to the Weimar Republic: Paths to Victory

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Weimar Germany was a period of political tumult and huge swings in public opinion. The war-torn country, struggling with a polarization that went way deeper than simply class differences and party politics, was as a staging ground for the great ideological battles of the time – the mass ideologies of Communism and Fascism competed not only with each other, but with reform-oriented Social Democracy, moderate Liberalism, and the militaristic brand of Conservatism that defined much of the country’s old elites.

The Weimar Republic allows players to play out this dog-eat-dog political environment, where unholy alliances are necessary but made to be broken, where your enemy’s enemy might be your friend for a year or two until you both betray each other, and where you constantly have to assess which of your opponents constitutes the worst threat to your interests at any given time.

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Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East Design Background and Differences from Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea Part 3: Differences Between ACME and ACIS

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Introduction by Fred Schachter: Part 1 of this series provided General Background regarding GMT’s upcoming Ancient Civilizations of the Middle East (ACME).  Part 2 covered a recommended player attitude when engaged in a game of ACME (to best get into the spirit of the game and have a grand fun time): Playing Your Role.

This Part 3 is intended to address the curiosity of folks who wonder how ACME differs from the first game of the series: Ancient Civilizations of the Inner Sea (ACIS).  

To best appreciate this series of articles, some knowledge of ACIS is helpful.  GMT has a wealth of information regarding ACIS in its site for the game: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-624-ancient-civilizations-of-the-inner-sea.aspx .

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Twilight Struggle’s Cold War Legacy

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Below you will find another fantastic article from Clio’s Board Games, this time discussing Cold War games and the legacy of Twilight Struggle. You can also find this article on Clio’s blog. If you are interested in Clio’s Board Games’ series on InsideGMT discussing the fall of Communism through the lens of GMT’s 1989, you can read that here. Enjoy! -Rachel

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Historic Characters in Banish the Snakes: Ibar

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Along with its three patron saints (Patrick, Columba, and Brigid) Ireland also has four “most sacred” bishops. The list changes with the telling, but most versions include Ibar of Beggerin. Ibar has been linked with Brigid; he was a missionary bishop who was active around the same time and in the same areas where she was founding monastic institutions. Other than this, there is not much that we can be certain about his life.

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Seas of Thunder – Sailing Outside the Edge of the Map

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The following article from Jeff Horger is an introduction to Seas of Thunder, one of the games that will be available for pre-order on the GMT P500 list later this week. Enjoy! -Rachel

What exactly is Seas of Thunder and why did Chuck Maher, Neal Cebulskie, and I feel the need to create it? I cannot speak for Chuck and Neal but first and foremost for me, I have always wanted to experience a moderately compact rules-wise game that let me really see the global difficulties of fighting World War II on the high seas and not limited to a single front by the edge of the map.

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Historic Characters in Banish the Snakes: Finnian

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The Twelve Apostles of Ireland were a group of twelve monastic leaders who spread Christianity far and wide. They led expeditions throughout the island, and then out into the wider world: to return the faith first to the Picts, then the rest of Great Britain, and then onto the continent. The Western Roman Empire had fallen to the barbarians, and with it went the scholarly traditions of the empire. The power and influence of the Pope in Rome had also crumbled with the empire: the great city was reduced to a shell of its former glory, and he was reduced to little more than a pastor for those few struggling to hold onto their faith. But from beyond the edges of the old empire came the Irish monks, bringing literature and all of its civilizing attributes along with their faith. This story is told by Thomas Cahill in his book, How the Irish Saved Civilization.

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November 11th Update from the ETO Development Team

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Armistice, Veterans, and Grognards,

On behalf of the Frank Chadwick’s ETO development team, we are happy to celebrate this day that saw the end of the First World War, when we honor our veterans who stood up and defended America, and to that list we want to add our own nod to wargame grognards who have taken the time the learn (and play) the history which puts November 11th in perspective. Our society of armchair historians, wargamers, and those who design, develop, and devour though play these thoughtful “time machines” is a special year-round gift that is ours to share with all who will partake – we know that you have something to contribute.

To help you with that, we have something very big to share. We have opened the public beta testing of Frank Chadwick’s ETO Volume II: The Middle Sea. If you know how to use vassal (or even if you don’t but need the “right game” to start learning how to use it, as many on our team have), we hope you will join us in this WW2 Mediterranean game which features 14 distinct scenarios and several Campaign Games. TMS also adds the ETO Naval System to this series so veterans of Volume I: Thunder in the East will have some great new “toys” to play with managing their naval communication, transport, battles, etc.

To get the ball rolling, go to the ETO Support Page here: https://www.watchword.biz/eto-support and it is only a short scroll down to the Vassal section. There you will find links for the free Thunder in the East and The Middle Sea (beta) vassal kits, as well the latest ETO Rules and the TMS Scenario documents. With those, you are all set.

To give us feedback, either use that website’s Forums, or post us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/282953878860040/), ConsimWorld (http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX/.1dda3495/1486), or Boardgame Geek (https://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/209951/thunder-east/forums/0).

We have our eyes open at each of these locations and look forward to hearing from you as you explore The Middle Sea with us!

Happy Armistice/Veterans Day from your Frank Chadwick’s ETO development team!

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Frank Chadwick’s ETO Design Philosophy

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OR: Applying Decades of Lessons since Battle for Moscow

ETO Game Designer, Frank Chadwick

The ETO series has four major design goals:

  • GOAL 1: A mechanically smooth system; this means a minimum of rules exceptions and special cases, and a minimum of bookkeeping.
  • GOAL 2: Game units, resources, and systems which are concrete as opposed to abstract.
  • GOAL 3: Recognizing that this is primarily a ground war game series. This means modeling air, naval, strategic warfare, and production as supporting adjuncts to the ground war game, not as competitors to it.
  • GOAL 4: Logistical constraints must, of necessity, drive game strategy, but these should not dominate the game’s mechanics.

At first glance, some of these major design goals seem incompatible. The conventional wisdom of wargame design is that the more concrete (read: detailed) a game is, the more complicated its mechanics must be. If you want a simple game, a lot of the detail has to be “abstracted out.” I don’t think that is necessarily the case (although it is a lot easier to design wargame systems that way).

Let us consider each of those goals in a little more detail.…