Many consider Labyrinth a transition game from Twilight Struggle to the COIN series that followed. In several ways, the Labyrinth II: The Awakening 2010-? expansion takes us back to its Twilight Struggle roots. This article will highlight the similarities between the Labyrinth II expansion and TS.
When I first introduced the idea of designing an Arab Spring simulation based on his Labyrinth game, Volko and I both agreed that there needed to be markers that would represent the peoples of the various Muslim countries as they “took to the streets” so to speak to demand better governance, and we needed to represent the various reactionary elements to these movements. The concept that came from this conversation was to have event cards place Awakening and Reaction makers into the country holding boxes. The Awakening markers would grant a positive die roll modifier to War of Idea rolls and a contradictory modifier to Jihad rolls. Reaction modifiers would do just the opposite, with the net effect that one marker of each type in a country would cancel out each other’s modifiers, but would not cause either marker to be removed, as their presence there could influence other events.
This dynamic is similar to the way influence markers are played in Twilight Struggle, though in that game the influence makers are numerical markers showing the current value, while in Labyrinth II they are stacked on top of each showing relative strengths in sort of a “bar chart” fashion. The picture below shows the US play of the Tahrir Square event in Egypt to capitalize on a single Awakening marker it already had there, followed up with the expansion of that initial play with a Popular Support card. Both card plays show spillover into Libya, which previously did not have any markers.
At this moment, the US players has a net +3 modifier for WOI and Jihad rolls in Egypt, and a +2 in Libya…a very strong position!
The next comparison between the Labyrinth II expansion and TS comes in scoring. Twilight Struggle has the near every-turn tension of trying to finish-up progress in one or more regions of the world before scoring cards are tabulated at the end of the turn. I have recreated that tension in Labyrinth II through a census process conducted at the end of each turn called Polarization. The concept is that if one faction of a country is significantly stronger than its opposition, as represented by the difference in Awakening and Reaction markers there, then that side will be rewarded at the end of the turn through an additional support marker of its side if the difference is 2, or an adjustment in Alignment or Governance towards its side if the difference is 3 or greater. In the preceding example, Egypt at +3 would have its alignment improved from Neutral to Ally, while Libya would gain another Awakening marker (now 3).
Additional comparisons could be made with Military Operations (Coup attempts and War Event cards) within Twilight Struggle and the Civil War rules introduced in Labyrinth II. Countries fall into Civil War by event play, and their Awakening and Reaction markers are replaced with Local Security Forces Cubes and Cells. Continuing our example from above, at the beginning of the next turn the Jihadist plays the Muslim Brotherhood card, and places 3 Reaction markers in Egypt; both sides now have 4 support markers each. With Egypt becoming a US Ally during the previous Polarization Phase, the Jihadist player fears that the US player might deploy troops to Egypt, and decides to use his second card to play the unassociated event Revolution and trigger a Civil War in Egypt. This replaces the 4 Awakening markers with 4 Cubes and 4 Reaction markers with 4 Cells, and makes Egypt Neutral again, thus preventing a US possible deployment for the time being. The Civil War marker also allows the Jihadist player to Auto-Recruit in Egypt, and in future card plays he places 3 more cells there, now with a total of 4 Cubes and 7 Cells, as shown in the photo below.
The turn ends and during the Polarization phase, both payers calculate Civil War Attrition. The general rule is that each player rolls one die for each group of 6 pieces that he has and causes one “hit” for each die roll less than or equal to the number of pieces rolling. If you have more than 6 pieces, then each group of 6 causes and automatic hit, only the fraction remaining must roll the die to see if there is a result. 1 “hit” removes 1 Cube or 2 Cells. If your opponent does not have enough forces to absorb the hits generated, then the country trends towards your desired Alignment then Governance for each hit not taken by forces. Similar to the Polarization rule described previously, this end-of-turn Civil War Attrition dynamic tends to cause players to want to reinforce Civil Wars ASAP, or bring the CW to an end through event play if possible, especially if it is going badly for them.
So there you have it, three examples of dynamics in Labyrinth II that resemble the style of play many of us enjoy so much in Twilight Struggle. Additionally, several of the event cards in Labyrinth II have a “Cold War” flare to them as we see both the US and Russia backing factions in the Civil Wars that followed the Arab Spring, and as we see the French exert a neocolonial presence back into their former colonies in Africa, including the newly added countries in this expansion of Mali and Nigeria.
As an update on the development of Labyrinth II, we just finished the first round of blind playtests, and have rewritten the rules and updated 35 cards to make them clearer. We have also added rules that allow the Jihadist player to declare a Caliphate, with its commensurate benefits and risks. My next article for this series will focus on why and when a Jihadist player would consider declaring a Caliphate and how this changes the game.
I am also pleased to report that play-balance looks good, as we have had an exactly equal number of Jihadist and US victories. Equally important, the play-test feedback shows that the feel of the game is right on in terms of recreating the major events and pressures of the Arab Spring. With the rapid rise of support of the Labyrinth II expansion on the P500 list (at 650+ preorders after 4 weeks), I suspect we will do two more one month play test sessions and updates, and then if all goes well, present the case to Gene that we are ready to go into final Artwork and Rules layout. If you have been considering a pre-order of this little nugget, I hope the above examples and the comparisons to the constant tension of Twilight Struggle will convince you to place an order and help us get to that next milestone of 750 preorders!
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Author: Trevor Bender
You might consider bringing in rules for coalition war efforts. America is not alone in fighting Jihadists and IMHO this should be reflected in the game. In the same vein, Russia is not the only country trying to influence local developments. Countries like Turkey, Iran and the Gulf States have plans of their own for shaping up events – which do not always coincide with those of others, including the US.
Lastly, are there special rules for air power? Military intervention is not just about sending boots on the ground. Instead, using air power is often the preferred option. Can this be reflected in the game as well?
This being said, what LabII proposes to implement is very interesting.
Great comments Edouard, and in fact many if your ideas and suggestions do make a presence in the game. A few examples below:
In addition to the standard 15 US Troops, there are 15 Local Security Forces cubes which are brought into play by event cards and represent the military and police forces of Muslim countries as they combat Jihadists in their home or in neighboring countries. NATO is represented by an expanded event card that allows its 2 Troops to deploy into Civil War countries in addition to Regime Change countries. The French can deploy a Troop and a local ally Cube to Africa by event card.
The tools of Persistent Aerial Counterinsurgency are further enhanced with the deployment of the Reaper UAV Card, which is significantly better than the previous Predator card in terms of game affects, allowing the removal of 2 Cells in one country or the removal of a card from the Jihadist player’s hand, representing a strike on senior Jihadist leadership. Additionally, UNSCR 1973 allows UN Air Intervention in a Civil War similar to what happened historically in Libya, by providing the equivalent of a Troop on the ground, except being air-power, it is immune to prestige loss from Plots.
Although this is of course a two player game, several events cards represent other state actors from countries in or around the Middle East as triggered by card play. The event card titles and flavor text and player association below will give a sampling of these other “actors” in the game expansion:
Russian Aid: Soviet era equipment keeps regime alive (US)
Cross Border Support: Local allies/mercenaries stabilize regime/insurgency (Unassociated)
Siege of “Kobanigrad”: ISIL takes on the YPG (Unassociated)
Quds Force: Republican Guard Special Forces (Jihadist)
Gulf Union: MENA security alliance (US)
Operation Serval: French neocolonial show of strength (Unassociated)
Erdoğan Effect: Turkish President walks a fine line between East and West (Unassociated)
Great job. It seems my comments were pretty well taken care of.
One other point. France’s intervention in Mali is described as ” a neocolonial show of strengh”. This expression implies that France went into Mali to regain its previously lost political dominance through means of military oppression. I would not agree there. France went into Mali to prevent it from falling into Djihadist hands. It did so with the consent of Mali, and with the help of the US, Algeria and other African countries, such as Tchad whose forces were very effective on the ground and which are now fighting Boko Haram. The fact that Mali is a former colony of France does not make France’s intervention any less legitimate or valuable.
I suppose one may qualify France’s intervention in Mali, or the US’ intervention in Afghanistan or Irak for that matter, as one wishes. The fact is that doing so is a matter of opinion, as was Donald Rumsfeld taunting ‘old Europe”. I believe, however, that in the brilliant and serious game which Lab II promises to be, it best to just present the facts and leave opinions on the side. Let the gamers form their opinions on the countries presented in the game, if they so wish. After all, there could be people with Djihadist sympathies finding the game interesting to play.