Tag: Strategic

07/18/15

Why I Love Diplomacy

The venerable classic timelessly soldiers on.

by Brant Guillory

The original Diplomacy board game has a huge following, even among non-wargamers, despite being sold as a wargamer for its thirty-year lifespan. Why?

Well, it’s a wargame that abstracts battlefield prowess to the point that it’s almost irrelevant. Tactical ability is nothing – I repeat, nothing – in this game. It matters not how well you can anticipate the moment for the cavalry charge, plan the artillery bombardment, or outflank your enemy with your panzer corps. In this game, all armies, and generals, are created equal, and numerical superiority is the only relevant statistic.

In fact, the only ability of note is your ability to successfully negotiate your way through the intrigue of the game as the leader of a country. In this respect, Diplomacy has succeeded, and continues to succeed, in a class all it’s own.

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07/9/15

Prosciutto – Hamming it up with the di Parmas, Part 34

In Part 33 we saw Benvenuto consolidate his power in Sicily, view the task ahead to create a united Italy under one crown, become aware of his impotence against the HRE and finally succumb to dementia. In this part, funerals, marshals, vile nepotism and a Holy war.

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Slight administration error on the picture taking. Behind Oberto’s clearly distraught message about how rich he has become is the notice of his father’s passing. It is with genuine sadness that Benvenuto goes to a better place. However, he lasted long enough for me not to be able to control a few things with Oberto and my first concern is his two sons. Despite being King of Sicily, Oberto must bend to the will of the HRE’s laws until independent. This means we still can’t introduce the law of Primogenture and hand the whole lot over to the eldest son – the realm will be split on Oberto’s death – I need to rectify this somehow

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Oberto not only inherited his father’s stubborn refusal to be involved in diplomacy, he also inherited his prowess on the battlefield – almost immediately the Emperor comes knocking for a new Martial.

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06/26/15

GrogHeads Advanced Research on Projects Advisory #71

GARPA goes all over the map for this edition

Freeblades: Creatures of Faelon (DGS Games)
$2800 of $8500, ends 21 July 2015

The guys from DGS Games are back with some new toys for their Freeblades minis collection.  These are wilder creatures that sport all manner of fangs, scales, claws, and… well, bark.  Their last Kickstarter campaign dropped some jaws with their final sculpts, and their fantasy world is high fantasy with nice interesting twists.  Hit their campaign page and drop your coin to get these minis funded.

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06/21/15

GrogHeads Reviews Quartermaster General

Euro wargame?  Card-driven Diplomacy?  The first fun game of logistics?  Michael reveals all.

Review by Michael Eckenfels, 20 June 2015

Click images to enlarge

Quartermaster General is a board game focused on World War II. “Oh great,” you’re probably thinking, “another World War II board game.” The issue with thinking like that, though, is that you might think that for just about any game coming out about World War II, especially one named “Quartermaster General.” It’s not exactly a name that inspires fascination or even interest. For me, the title itself might be somewhat uninspired, but this is precisely why it caught my eye.

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The name alone indicates there’s much more to this game than what its title is letting on to. It sounds like it’s more a game about supply and logistics, which is not something that’s covered solely in any board game I’ve ever heard of (feel free, though, to correct me in the forum’s Feedback page for this review, as I’d love to learn more about them). To me, though, the idea of a game solely revolving around logistics sounds incomprehensibly boring, compared with pushing minis or cardboard counters about a map in a struggle for supremacy!

And that’s precisely what this game says it is about, though – supply. As a player in this game, you are one (or more) of six countries involved in the planet-engulfing conflict that was World War II, and the game’s system revolves around spreading your control via Armies and Navies and trying to keep intact lines of supply to keep them operating. The six countries are divided evenly between the Axis and Allies – Germany, Italy, and Japan on one side, and the United States, United Kingdom, and Soviet Union on the other. The game is for two to six players, with players doubling up on countries if there’s less than six.

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05/14/15

Prosciutto – Hamming it up with the di Parmas, Part 33

We’re back and porking our way through the ages.

In Part 32 Benvenuto finally realised his Father’s ambitions and took Sicily, becoming King Benvenuto. In this part, new strategies, planning and Alzheimers.

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Our mission, should we choose to accept it. It occurs to us that concentrating in the southlands has bagged us little of the territory needed to claim Italy itself, only Sicily. Essentially were almost at ‘Square 1’, but Sicily was necessary to grant us enough prestige to take on the Holy Roman Empire when the time comes.

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