As discussed in the first part of this series, the framing for play in Solitaire TacOps: Ortona, both for standard scenarios and the open campaign, revolves around expanding allied control to clear the individual maps. In the last part of the series we saw this play out through an example using elements of the Loyal Edmonton Regiment to gain control of the first block on the Edge of Town map. While the playthrough visually showed and narratively told how this happened, some of the key mechanics involved were glossed over, specifically as it relates to the German opposition. In this article we will look at the game’s Contact markers, and how they dictate the behavior of the German forces to contest player control (see this article if you are interested in how the player actions work).

A quick note about the playtest art that I use for these articles. As designs move into the prototype and playtesting phase I tend to do the art myself with some level of detail that may seem complete. I do this to clarify the concepts that need to be captured by the art. This is so that I can visually communicate these concepts in a shorthand which is not reflective of what the final art will look like. Once we start moving toward final art we have lined up some wonderful historical consultants to ensure we get all of the details correct.

In the previous installment of this series we talked about some of the influences that went into the framing of the Solitaire TacOps campaign system. This connects operational planning with tactical decision making. The impacts at both scales directly affect the player’s ability to win or lose the campaign. This article will use an actual play session to show how this plays out on a single map of the campaign.

Historically the first urban map was reached on the evening of December 20, 1943, 14 days into the campaign. Solitaire TacOps as a system is less about recreating that history, and more about giving players the historical conditions to make their own decisions. As such, in the open campaign a player can arrive at the edge of Ortona earlier or later depending upon their performance through the regional maps. Those prior decisions and the results from them will determine which formation will be the first to arrive, which itself can have a huge impact on the outcome.

In the previous articles in this series, I discussed the high-level concepts behind the Solitaire TacOps system and how they are represented in the components of the game. In this article, I will walk through how players interact with those components to play out their own strategic approaches to historical engagements.

As promised at the end of my last blog post, today we are diving into the way that the maps and components in Solitaire TacOps: Ortona impact the game play.  As discussed in the second part of this series, the system builds off of the ideas from classic hex and counter games, but it does not fit directly in the “traditional” line, instead adapting those ideas in ways that better convey the dynamics it intends to model.

Last week, we started off with by talking about the design principles and scale behind Solitaire TacOps: Ortona. This week we will be talking about the design behind the series system.

The Solitaire TacOps system, as a design idea, entered the formative stage while considering the map of the 1977 SPI game Cityfight by Joe Balkoski and Stephen Donaldson. It is clearly the work of Redmond Simonsen.  A cluttered Simonsen but a Simonsen nonetheless. Standard white for clear terrain, gray roads, multiple greens for different clusters of trees and even some water features. The buildings are mostly nondescript rectangles in a range of colors, which the map key explains refers to height. A standard hex grid is overlaid to manage movement, with the hexes grouped into megahexes (a central hex and its six surrounding hexes). Small triangles dot the map providing directional cues. Each of these details building a language that unfolds the physicality that gives its fictional city a real shape. Seen through this lens one begins to appreciate the complexities the urban landscape offers. 

At first blush, the connection between my first GMT game, Cross Bronx Expressway, and my next, Solitaire TacOps: Ortona, might seem tenuous. However, the connection is quite simple – I have an affinity for urban settings and how they serve as representations of human modernity.  Cross Bronx Expressway explores this through the social, political, and economic domains. Solitaire TacOps: Ortona explores it almost exclusively through the force domain. 

Urban warfare is a very small niche of wargaming which shows up mostly as either scenarios within tactical systems, or stand-alone operational games. Both of these scales offer views into the nature of urban conflict, but each, removed from the other, loses the context to make those views complete. In order to model the dynamic impacts of urban warfare, Solitaire TacOps explores both tactical and operational considerations.