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GMT's Churchill

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16 Aug 2015 19:36 #208658 by jpat
GMT's Churchill was created by jpat
Thought this might deserve a little more attention that in the "what games have you been playing" thread, and I don't recall this one being discussed before here.

Had a chance this past weekend to play a three-player game of Mark Herman's Churchill, published by GMT. I've classified this thread as wargame related, but it's a game that defies easy description and is probably all the better for being a unique hybrid of a lot of mechanics--everything from hand management to roll-and-move. The gist is that players (three optimally, but the game should also play well solo or with two players owing to pretty simple-to-use bots) take on the roles of Churchill, Roosevelt/Truman, and Stalin as they seek to "win the peace" via a series of wartime "conferences" during World War II. The game consists of three ("training"), five ("tournament"), and ten (full game, "campaign") conferences, though it does seem as though the five-conference tournament setup might be the sweet spot. (It's the version we played, and it seemed to be long enough not to feel truncated but short enough to be manageable in a few hours.)

This one's though to explain, and I'm just going to touch on the highlights. The (mounted) board is divided into two main parts: a conference area and a war theater area. The conference area, overprinted on the image of a conference area, chiefly consists of three "chairs"--one each for Stalin, Roosevelt/Truman, and Churchill--circling a center-of-table space to which each chair is linked by a numbered track. Before the meeting phase, a conference card is drawn that influences the game state, such as by mandating that resources be allocated in certain ways or indicating that the Imperial Japanese Navy will sortie in a particular theater. In the meeting phase, each player in turn plays a numbered "staff" card (one of a hand of six) to "advance" a particular issue ("nominated" via an earlier process) a corresponding number of spaces toward his/her chair from either the center of the table or from another player's track. The other players (only one of whom may opt to do so) have a chance to "debate" the issue (in most cases) and can pull the issue back toward or onto their own track a number of spaces equal to the staff card's numeric value. Each card also has an attribute that must be implemented, such as an increased value ("strength") if the issue being advanced/debated is of a certain type (such as a production issue) or other factors. Each player also has a leader card (the highest-value card in each player's set) that can be used once to advance or debate an issue or to help resolve ties in certain situations; once this powerful leader is used, the leader becomes inactive for the rest of the conference. Someone wins the meeting by having the most issues on his/her track and/or in his/her chair. (Once issues reach the chair, they're considered locked for that conference if they're not debated immediately.)

The decision phase is basically resolving the issues debated and won on the war theater display and takes place over a series of steps, with players alternating turns when it's relevant. Basically, it's at this point where resource allocation occurs for advancing "fronts" toward the defeat of Germany and Japan. (More on this below.)

In the war phase, players have a chance (if they've won particular issues or allocated resources appropriately) to place markers, in area control/influence fashion, on various "countries" and "colonies" on the war theater display. Control of these spaces at the end of the game earns VPs. Think El Grande, Twilight Struggle, or any sort of area control/influence game to get a basic sense of the tug-of-war over these spaces. After that, players must attempt to advance each "front" (basically, an abstraction of the military forces attempting to advance toward Germany and Japan, thus resulting in those nations' surrender) along various "tracks," the style of which will be familiar to anyone who's played a roll-and-move game. Advancing into particular spaces earns VPs under certain conditions and represents the progress or lack of progress of the US, UK, and USSR toward military success. The actual advancing is often resisted by Axis reserve cubes, which sap offensive and naval support counters; if a front has a nonzero strength, the player rolls a d10 and tries to get equal to or under the front's modified strength. (Each front has an inherent strength of 2, modified by 2 for each offensive support marker [purchased or otherwise obtained earlier] and by -2 for each Axis cube opposing it.) In certain cases, if a front is particularly strong, it's also possible many times to "break through" and advance two spaces. Assuming the game-end conditions haven't been met and the tenth (last) conference hasn't been completed, the game continues into another conference.

If this sounds like a hot mess, it's not. This is a remarkably well-tuned political simulation in which mechanics are generally well meshed to the thing being simulated. In the meeting, for example, Stalin may want to nominate and advance the A-bomb issue because the USSR, if the winner of that issue, gets an automatic advance on the A-bomb track (which earns VPs for the USSR, as they're stealing US secrets). The US may well be generally OK with this happening because as long as the issue's won by someone (not left in the table center), the US gets a 50/50 chance of advancing itself (and also earning VPs and potentially moving toward end-of-game conditions that allow for the surrender of Japan without a direct invasion); at the same time, the US player may want to debate the issue simply to get it out of Stalin's track and avoid the freebie for the USSR. The UK has relatively less to gain by the issue advancing at all. Imagine this sort of dynamic played out across a wide range of issues (such as production, which potentially allows one player to poach another's limited resources, or directed offensives, which mandate that the specified player dedicate a particular resource at the winning player's discretion), and you get some sense of how much of a tug-of-war the meeting can be. This same general dynamic plays out in the other phases as well, with each player's move potentially benefiting him/herself and maybe one of the other two partners at the expense of the other. Churchill, for instance, has a VP-based incentive to progress the Mediterannean campaign before the US-led D-Day invasion and so may subtly or not-so-subtly work to starve that theater of resources or the "Second Front" issue that allows D-Day to happen at all. Everyone (more or less) wants the war to end with an Axis military surrender, but each side would prefer, generally, to have its fronts advance further faster.

The VP aspect is the most Euro-y, as there are roughly 25 conditions that score, and comparisons to a Feld-style point salad are not completely unwarranted. However, each condition makes historical sense. A player gets points, for example, for advancing to certain spaces on a front and more for compelling a German or Japanese surrender.

One of the most intriguing aspects, though, is the fact that (in details too fine to address in full here) if one player runs away with the VPs, the second-place player wins instead. This is meant to simulate the fact that the runaway leader has fatally fractured the wartime alliance, leading to the other two parties to "gang up" on him. So you want to win, but win close. VP tracking in-game is actually optional per RAW, and you can see why given the number of micro transactions that can occur throughout the game. It's also more suspenseful not to know where everyone stands and to have to guess at relative position and how far away the supposed leader is from the second-place player.

I've written a lot and feel like I've just scratched the surface. I haven't mentioned, for example, that Roosevelt can die after an activation, leaving a weaker Truman in charge for the US, or that Churchill can suffer a heart attack, or that Stalin might so intimate his staff members as to weaken the value of each of their cards. Herman describes the game as a blend of cooperation and competitiveness, and that comes through very clearly throughout the design and game play. GMT has bizarrely labeled this game a 2 out of 9 on the complexity scale; I'd say it's more accurately a 4 or 5 given that there's so much to think about (and that the rules come to a fairly dense 17 or so pages).

My provisional rating is 9/10. I think it's a definite game-of-the-year contender, if I were to make such a rash prediction on such limited play. Around here, we often think of theme implementation in terms of Ameritrash-style games, but clearly the best "wargames" do this as well, and this is, whatever genre it is, one of the good ones.

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17 Aug 2015 18:57 #208708 by KingPut
Replied by KingPut on topic GMT's Churchill
Thanks for posting. Nice write up. I'm looking forward to trying it out. Unfortunately, nobody in my game group ordered it and I've been sticking to my play first before buying rule.

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20 Aug 2015 15:13 #208903 by ThirstyMan
Replied by ThirstyMan on topic GMT's Churchill
I am definitely up for this. I would have picked it up at WBC but it sold out in like 10 minutes.

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20 Aug 2015 17:23 #208912 by Msample
Replied by Msample on topic GMT's Churchill
Yeah it was by far the most popular game in open gaming even before the vendor room opened up Friday. There were about 30 people in line as soon as they opened the GMT booth and Churchill was clutched under the arms of just about every person in line.

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29 Aug 2015 11:02 #209552 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic GMT's Churchill
Mark Herman is one of those (rare) CSW personalities that I actually enjoy. He can be a bit abrasive but he usually just lets other people sound stupid and leaves it at that.

boardgamegeek.com/thread/1402755/d-day-c...hill-strategy-primer

I quite enjoyed this:

Churchill
I predict that the initial impression will be the British are overpowered because of their Imperial Staff characteristic. Churchill’s power in this game resides in his political acumen and ability to drive the discussion, my personal view of the man. The British advantage is they can usually go last in a conference and if taken to an extreme with consistent plays of a 5 value card can potentially win every agenda segment for a particular game. This means that the Prime minister gets the last word in every conference.

One feature of the current game market is many people play a game once and if something occurs that they did not foresee, they share on social media their ire. I look at these situations as fascinating strategic puzzles to be solved, but that’s me. So, if Churchill decides to block D-Day by using the last card play to win the issue every conference, which is possible, the British should lose the game, but only if the other two players respond correctly. If they do so, the behavior is neutered, Churchill behaves and it stops or that player loses the game. I am not a fan of special rules to resolve poor player execution. In my designs you need to play well, if you are not a fan of playing well, then please do not play my games.
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29 Aug 2015 14:52 - 29 Aug 2015 14:57 #209564 by KingPut
Replied by KingPut on topic GMT's Churchill
I played a learning game of Churchill Wednesday night and I was traveling Thursday and Friday so I've been reading a lot of Mark Harman over the last couple of day including the classic passage Gary Sax included in his post. I love reading the all the history, designer note etc. for games like Churchill.
Last edit: 29 Aug 2015 14:57 by KingPut.

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30 Aug 2015 20:57 #209625 by ratpfink
Replied by ratpfink on topic GMT's Churchill
Ok, played a learning game of the full campaign scenario tonight. It is kind of a hot mess... We played a few rules wrong, so I'm not sure how much that would have changed things, since at least the things we did wrong we did them consistently wrong. But some of the graphic design choices left me feeling really flat about the game.

Why are there pointless 1VP markers for Germany surrendering, but not VP markers for any of the other "conditional" awards? The ones that can't be determined by board state(first to Normandy or Central Italy) aren't in the game. I think I'm going to start handing out the Germany scientists 1 VP awards to the player who earns those, just so it's visible and not forgotten.

The Italy track should not curve TOWARDS Germany and end 1/4" away from the Germany box. At a glance, it looks like you can invade Germany through Italy. Yes, obviously a clear reading of the rules would prevent that.

Imagine a track with 3 spaces, each with an increasing VP award:

3 VP, 7 VP, 8 VP

When you get to the 3rd space, how many VPs do you have? If you answer 18VP or if you answer 8 VP you are right, it just depends on if you're earning VPs in Germany or in Japan. But you have to read the player aid or rules to know this. And then sometimes the 3VP spot isn't VPs that are awarded when you enter the space, instead they are VPs awarded to other powers until you enter the space.

Again, these are things you would know if you carefully read the rules, but here the design of the board should serve to clearly illustrate things, not confuse things. I don't know that I've ever felt so annoyed by this type of thing before. I'm just looking for some consistency. If a board space has a big red "x VP" award, I don't want it to work 3 different ways when the color and font are identical.

Anyway, I'll probably play again in the next couple of weeks, but I'm pretty lukewarm about this now.
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31 Aug 2015 07:09 #209634 by KingPut
Replied by KingPut on topic GMT's Churchill
Rarpfink, good point about the scoring and the board design. Churchill is a pretty simple game. The only complicated parts are the scoring and figuring out what front the German and Japanese are going to fight on. It seems like both parts could have been intigrated into the board design to make that part more streamlined.

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