Lead Civil Rights Organizations, Rule the Assyrian Empire, Roleplay as Napoleon, and Check Out the 2020 CSR Awards Winners

Lead Civil Rights Organizations, Rule the Assyrian Empire, Roleplay as Napoleon, and Check Out the 2020 CSR Awards Winners
Board Game: Free at Last
• Non-profit publisher The Dietz Foundation is crowdfunding Free at Last on Kickstarter. Free at Last is a card-driven, co-operative and competitive game from designer Ted Torgerson (1989: Dawn of Freedom), where 2-6 players explore the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s.

Here's a high-level overview of Free at Last from the publisher:
Quote:
Free at Last is a game for 2-6 players. Players take on the role of civil rights organizations (SNCC, CORE, etc) as they fight for equal rights and the end of segregation in the Deep South, circa 1960-1964. It is not about Washington, DC, but the efforts of the people on the spot, whether that is Claiborne Parish, Louisiana or Mobile, Alabama.

Free at Last is a card-driven game where each card has a number (used to activate special individuals) and an event, but uniquely, the color of the number also matters and affects the type of project (voting rights, accommodations, school desegregation) that can be attempted.

Multiple-length versions can be played: 3 turns (ending with the Freedom Rides), 6 turns (ending with the March on Washington), or a 9 turn game covering this entire period in American history.
The Dietz Foundation aims to help teachers learn alternative means of education in the classroom by endowing scholarships at high schools for students going into education, endowing scholarships at the collegiate level for students pursuing teaching certificates, and teaching the general public through the play of games.

It's also worth noting that as part of efforts to make people aware of the history of the fight for Civil Rights, Torgerson is contributing his royalties from the game to the Reverend John H Scott Memorial Fund.
Board Game Publisher: Ion Game Design

Ion Game Design is crowdfunding Besime Uyanik's new co-operative game, Sammu-ramat, on Gamefound, along with Bruss Brussco's DerrocAr.

In Sammu-ramat, 1-5 players rule the Assyrian Empire as Queen Sammu-ramat in the 9th century BCE. With an estimated playtime of 60 minutes, here's a bit more detail on Sammu-ramat from the publisher:
Quote:
Sammu-ramat ruled the Assyrian Empire at a time of political uncertainty, which is one of the possible explanations for why Assyrians may have accepted her rule (as normally a woman as ruler would have been unthinkable). Her reign lasted between 811 BC – 808 BC. In this collaborative game you the players are Sammu-ramat, together with advisors surrounding the royal court and vassal states, you try to keep the Empire strong and protected against internal unrest, external threats, natural disasters and much more. All players win or lose together.

Board Game: Sammu-ramat

In this 1-5 player co-op board game, you will be one of the advisors surrounding the Assyrian royal court. Each Advisor has its own abilities and strengths. Players spend actions to play action cards and move from region to region along the paths printed on the board, trying to balance the needs of the regions (Military, Supplies, Health, and Religion). In battle with the enemy units are removed 1:1, i.e. combat is deterministic.

On each Empire card, there is a Scenario, with one or more win conditions. The specific setup of the Scenario is on the back of the Empire card. Multiple victory scenarios increase the game's replayability.
• In DerrocAr, 1-5 players compete as senators and governors to become the President of the República Argentina. In more detail from the publisher:
Quote:
DerrocAr is a game published by Ion Game Design that focuses on a short period of history with political turmoil. Derrocar, designed by a native Argentinian Bruss Brussco, is a card game about the several weeks in which Argentina had five presidents.

Are you ready to take a role in some of the most peculiar weeks in political history? Be one of the provincial governors trying to reach the presidency of Argentina in the middle of the political and economic crisis of 2001.
Board Game: DerrocAr: The Five Presidents Week

In this 1-5 player board game you play as the Senators and Governors of the provinces, all seeking to outmaneuver the others and become the next President of the República Argentina. In a country tired of politicians, you need to prove that you are the least bad option, by making sure that the provinces of the other governors are full of conflicts. By making it look like your opponents cannot even manage their own provinces, they will be even less able to manage the country. The game
ends when a player is declared President

The rounds are divided into two phases:
First, you have to choose one of the options on the board (propose a Laws, Decrees, Debt Payment, Embezzlement Fund, etc) and then buy cards from the Market. At the next phase, you play a set of cards from your hand (Make Operations, Lobby, create conflict with the Establishment, create bad campaigns with the press, etc). Meanwhile, you handle your economy, the events (Lootings, Floods, a Bush's call, more) and negotiate short alliances.

To win, you must be the player with the most Support when the game ends because other players are full of conflicts.

The game comes with a modular system that allows the players to choose the complexity level that best suits their tastes.
Board Game Publisher: GMT Games

• Two new and interesting P500 additions were mentioned in the November monthly update newsletter from GMT Games. The first, I, Napoleon, is a solitaire role-playing card game from Paths of Glory designer Ted Raicer, where you can change the course of history playing as Napoleon Buonoparte. Here's a high-level overview from the publisher:
Quote:
I, Napoleon is a solitaire historical role-playing card game in which you step into the boots of Captain Buonoparte (as he still was) in the year 1793. Louis XVI has just gone to the guillotine, the brothers Robespierre control the destiny of France, and all Europe has joined French Royalists to take down France, end the Revolution, and restore peace and safety for the hereditary principles that have underlain society for 1000 years.

As an ambitious but unknown young artillery officer, who speaks French with a Corsican accent, you would seem to be an unlikely agent of destiny. Can you harness a brilliant mind, titanic energies, and a sometimes terrifying charisma to leave your mark on history? Or will you die a minor footnote in the story of France?

Board Game: I, Napoleon
P500 cover image (not finalized)

GAMEPLAY
In I, Napoleon, your fate lies in 220 beautifully illustrated cards, divided into three decks: Commander, First Consul, and Emperor. Overlaying a map of early 19th Century Europe are a series of Card Boxes, where you play out the events of your life and career, along with various tracks and tables to record the yearly passage of time and the events affecting yourself and France. The choices you make with the cards you are dealt will determine success or failure. You will have to manage politics, military campaigns, diplomacy, and the domestic well-being of the French while pursuing the Glory that lures you on. You will also have to manage your family, your wives, your mistresses, and your children, legitimate and otherwise.

Your path may lead you from the Americas to the Near East, from Spain to Russia, from a throne to exile. You will be the target of assassins, coups, and coalitions. You will deal with bad harvests and plague, face Wellington and Nelson, Kutuzov and Blucher. You will rely on—and perhaps be betrayed by—the slippery Talleyrand and unleash the secret policemen Fouche on your opponents. As you progress, your options will increase, along with the stakes.

Lead your men into battle and risk an early end to your life? Sail to Egypt or Ireland? Sell Louisiana or send an army to hold it? Marry a Habsburg or a Romanov? Create the Duchy of Warsaw or revive the Kingdom of Poland? Invade Russia or try to pacify the Tsar? Every choice will affect your legacy.

But there is not one version of a life here, but many. Every game will provide a different narrative, based on both luck of the draw and the decisions you make. In addition, you can start the game as a Commander, as First Consul, or as Emperor, each with its own starting situation and challenges. The story is yours to discover, and the decisions you make may just change the course of history.
• Designer Francisco Gradaille's Plantagenet: Cousins’ War for England, 1459 - 1485, is not only a new GMT P500 addition, but it's also the newest addition to Volko Ruhnke's Levy & Campaign Series.

In Plantagenet, 1-2 players create and maintain a network of allied lords and nobles obtaining money and resources needed to supply and pay their armies in 15th-century England as described below by the publisher:
Quote:
England, 1459. The son of the great Henry V has not lived to fill his father's shoes. England has lost the Hundred Years War, and mighty lords amass lands and wealth rivaling the King’s own. Henry IV left the door open for any such powerful lord with good pedigree to reach for the throne, and the best candidate is Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York.

Mounting tension over the Crown leads to armed clashes, under the excuse of freeing the king from his evil counsellors, and finally ignites the Wars of the Roses that William Shakespeare would immortalize in his plays:

---• A Yorkist rebellion that succeeds in placing Edward IV on the throne and exiling the Lancastrians to Scotland and France.
---• A civil war pitting Warwick the Kingmaker and King Edward’s brother Clarence against the King and his other brother Richard Gloucester.
---• The reinstatement for a few months of Henry VI and the invasion from France by his son and wife leading to a final contest between Richard III and Henry Tudor (later known as Henry VII) and the Battle of Bosworth that ends the Plantagenet dynasty.

Treason, bravery, political maneuver, and a cast of memorable characters mark one of the most intense and divided periods of English history.

From gallery of candidrum
P500 cover image (not finalized)

In Plantagenet—the newest volume in Volko Ruhnke's Levy & Campaign Series—players lead one of the two factions across the three main periods of war, as individual scenarios or the entire Wars of the Roses.

Designer Francisco Gradaille adds overall and local political influence to Volko’s medieval operation system to reflect the ever-changing loyalties of the time while keeping play familiar to fans of the Series. Players will create and maintain a network of allied lords and nobles in order to obtain the provender and coin needed to supply and pay their armies. As ravaging and looting will damage each side’s reputation, each faction will strive to convince cites to join its side. Great battles will seek to kill or capture enemy lords—perhaps even a king. Two kinds of operational moves will be in play: the military and the political.

In the end, when the dust settles and all arrows have flown, one rose will sit on the throne. White or Red, York or Lancaster, gather your troops and banners and join the fight.
Board Game: Verdun 1916: Steel Inferno
• Lastly, the 2020 Charles S. Roberts Awards winners were announced in November 2021. You can check out all of the nominees and winners on the official announcement video posted below from No Ememies Here, or on the CSR Awards web site.

Congratulations to all of the winners, including the new Clausewitz Hall of Fame recipient Walter Vejdovsky! Vejdovsky's 2-player, card-driven WWI game Verdun 1916: Steel Inferno, from French publisher Fellowship of Simulations, won Wargame of the Year and WWI Board Wargame categories, as well as the Dunnigan Award for Design Excellence.

Verdun 1916: Steel Inferno has been on my "shelf of opportunity" for a couple months now, and I'm really looking forward to playing it soon!

Related

In 2022, KOSMOS Offers Narrative Adventures Galore and a City Made of Dice

In 2022, KOSMOS Offers Narrative Adventures Galore and a City Made of Dice

Nov 25, 2021

As is becoming its custom, German publisher KOSMOS is teasing upcoming releases on its game-focused Instagram channel, with almost all of the titles announced as of November 23, 2021 for release...

Behind the Scenes with Big Potato

Behind the Scenes with Big Potato

Nov 24, 2021

In a departure from what I normally do in this space, I'm sharing a bit of the experience of a media person in the game industry, someone who receives sample games from publishers in the hope...

Designer Diary: Mindbug, or Four Minds, Eight Hands

Designer Diary: Mindbug, or Four Minds, Eight Hands

Nov 23, 2021

Christian's StoryIn January 2020, I listened to a bunch of podcasts about game design. One I especially enjoyed was Nerdlab. Unlike many other such podcasts, it was quite focused on card games,...

Game Overview: Floriferous, or Flowers Are More Than Their Parts

Game Overview: Floriferous, or Flowers Are More Than Their Parts

Nov 22, 2021

Floriferous — a design by Steve Finn and Eduardo Baraf from Pencil First Games for 1-4 players — features a lot of design elements that you might recognize from other games:• Over three...

AMIGO Puts Its Cards on the Table for 2022

AMIGO Puts Its Cards on the Table for 2022

Nov 21, 2021

Almost as soon as SPIEL '21 ended in October, German publishers started teasing their early 2022 releases, with AMIGO sending out this teaser image ahead of more details at the start of January...

ads