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 mid campaign.

The Salt March is one of the most famous moments in the Indian Independence Movement. Also known as the Dandi March, after its destination, the march stretched over 240 miles and lasted for 24 days. At the end of the march, on April 5, 1930, Gandhi made his own salt by boiling seawater in contravention of a British law requiring a tax to be paid on all salt. Gandhi was arrested for his actions, along with nearly 60,000 other Indians who disobeyed the British salt laws. This march is depicted on Gandhi’s Box Cover and Rulebook, and is a critical moment in Indian History.

As the Raj, I have been waiting half the Campaign to take a big splashy turn that is typical of Government Factions in COIN. It is fitting that The Salt March would be the trigger for such a turn. The Event text is quite good if Gandhi is in a Protest space with many Activists, but Gandhi is not, and I need the Special Activity too much to take the Event anyway. So I execute a Sweep + Imperialism, hoping to generate Control and Support.

First, I Sweep. I pay 1 Resource per destination space if I move Sepoys into that space or use them to Sweep in place (since Restraint is at 1). Since Control is part of my Victory Condition, I want to create as much Control as possible; since Troops will go back to Britain unless paid for during each Campaign round, I want to use Sepoys to maintain Control where possible. Thanks to the Unrest and Non-Cooperation Operations in the last two turns, I have a very free hand. So I execute the following movements:

• Sweep into Coastal Andhra with 1 Sepoy from Madras.
• Sweep into Bombay Presidency with 1 Sepoy from Bombay.
• Sweep into West Bengal with 2 Sepoys from Calcutta.
• Sweep into Bihar with 1 Sepoy from East Bengal and 1 Sepoy from Calcutta (via the Railway running between West Bengal and Orissa).
• Sweep into Sind with 1 Sepoy from Karachi.

Phew. All of this sweeping costs only 5 Resources! My forces are stretched rather thin; still, I have made significant progress towards my Victory Condition: I now Control every Controllable space in India! Now my Victory margin is -3. As you can see, Control is not sufficient to win as the Raj. So I turn to Govern, my Special Activity that creates Support. Govern allows me to buy Imperialism in any 2 spaces with cubes, as long as there are no Active Adversaries in the space. I still have 30 Resources, and like a teenager at the mall, they’re burning a hole in my pocket. Let’s spend them.

I use 9 Resources in Punjab to remove the Unrest marker (3 resources) and shift the space 2 levels towards Active Support (6 resources; 2 levels is the maximum shift). Then I use 6 more Resources to shift Madras Presidency 2 levels towards Active Support. That leaves me with 15 Resources for the rest of the Campaign, but with a +5 Victory margin. I gained 16 Victory margin in a single turn! Of course, it won’t last, but hopefully I have insulated myself from the other Factions to some degree.

The second Eligible Faction is the Muslim League; looking ahead a card to Simla Conference Divides India, the Muslim League passes so it can execute the Critical Event on the next card. Note that they only pass when they can guarantee that they can execute it (barring a Campaign Card) due to being first Eligible. When the Muslim League passes, they move an Activist to Available. Finally, the Revolutionaries act; The Salt March has a light border around the Revolutionaries Faction Icon, meaning they consider the unshaded Event text. Of course, they will only execute the Event if it is Effective, otherwise they will execute a Limited Operation.

The Revolutionaries consider any Event that removes Adversary Pieces to be Effective, so they execute the event text, arrest the Congress and Muslim League Activists in Gandhi’s space (East Bengal; the Event text just says ‘Activists’), and shift the space to Neutral. That ends the round, and since the newly revealed card is not a Campaign Card, we will continue next week with Simla Conference Divides India.

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Next Article in this Series: The Arjuna Chronicles #9: Simla Conference Divides India