Gandhi includes a brand new Solitaire system, called Arjuna, that replaces the flowcharts that have become a staple of the COIN Series. Players who play COIN Solitaire have asked many questions about how the system works – and don’t fear! – COIN Series Developer Jason Carr is here to walk through the design, ergonomics, and play of Arjuna. This installment shows Arjuna in action in the early campaign.

Last week, the Muslim League initiated a Protest in West Bengal, and the Revolutionaries Infiltrated a non-violent Protest to recruit a new Guerrilla. While none of the Arjuna-controlled Factions are close to Victory, neither is my Raj. First up on our next card, Bhagat Singh Frustrates the Empire, is the Congress, so I will have to do with their leftovers.

Bhagat Singh is not a Critical Event for Congress, so they will execute an Operation and Special Activity. This time, we will execute Arjuna card H. First, the card instructs us to check if NV Activists equal or exceed cubes in any spaces without Protest – notice that we’re checking for NV Activists, not Congress Activists. That means that Sind qualifies, and we can stop checking other spaces and follow the green arrow. Next we check if at least 2 Protest markers are Available – meaning that they are in the row to the right of the “Restraint” marker, or above it, in the State of India display. Uh Oh, there are zero Protest markers available. So we follow the red arrow, which leads to an icon that means “flip this Arjuna card over and execute the back instead.”

The back (lettered ‘HH’) continues with more conditions for us to check: is a die roll less than or equal to the number of Congress Activists that are Available plus the number of Congress Activists in Jail? Congress has 2 Activists Available, and 1 in Jail – totalling 3 – and the die comes up with a single pip, so we follow the green arrow to a Rally Operation. Congress can select spaces for Rally where there are Protests, plus the space with Gandhi, plus additional spaces up to Restraint (which is currently 3).

Using the Place Activists column of the Congress Space Selection Priorities, Congress selects from spaces that are not at Active Opposition and have a Protest marker – that narrows us down to United Provinces, Bihar, West Bengal, and Bombay Presidency. The “Raj Control” row eliminates West Bengal, so Congress selects the spaces with the fewest cubes: Bihar and Bombay Presidency. Even though Congress can act in both spaces, they still need to narrow down to a single space as the order in which spaces are selected can influence the outcome of the operation due to factors such as component limits or number of Available Activists. So Congress assigns 1-3 to Bihar and 4-6 to Bombay Presidency and rolls a die, selecting Bihar. Congress can place Activists up to Population in Bihar, and does so, using up both Available Activists in the process. Since Congress is out of Activists, they move to the next instruction, which has a red checkmark. As we’ve seen before, these instructions are only executed if the red condition is met; in our case there is only 1 Congress Activist in Jail so it is skipped in favor of the starred instruction. After moving 1 Congress Activist from Out of Play to Available, Congress is ready to execute their Special Activity. Card HH instructs Congress to Negotiate to remove a Muslim State – there are none – then Persuade, first to Activate Guerrillas, then to Remove Adversaries. There’s plenty of Guerrillas to Activate, and Congress uses the Remove column (as instructed by the card) to select United Provinces and Bombay Presidency, and Activates a Guerrilla in each space. Now the Revolutionaries Base in United Provinces is exposed, and Raj Control has been put denied in Bombay Presidency (not to mention the space is temporarily safe from Unrest.)

Now we return to your humble player: the Raj can choose to pass and play the next card, or choose between the Event and a Limited Operation. Unfortunately the cards are not falling my way and I am last eligible on Great Bengal Famine, so I will choose to act on this card. The Event is actually quite good, as it enables me to activate and remove Guerrillas in a single action; normally I would have to Sweep first, then Assault on a later turn. So, I execute the Event: I activate the 3 Guerrillas in Punjab and then remove one Guerrilla for each cube in the space – I have 4 cubes – so I remove all the Guerrillas! When Guerrillas are removed they return to Available, unlike NV Activists, which are sent to Jail.

While not the most productive turn, slowing down the Revolutionaries is good; a quick peek at Victory tells us that nobody is very close to winning: the Raj are -11, the INC are also -11, the ML is -12, and the Revolutionaries are in the lead at -9. With the preliminaries out of the way, things should heat up soon; in fact, next week the Muslim League will lead off with a Critical Event: Great Bengal Famine.

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