The Designer of Lincoln's War (Poniske) is starting up a blog where he's talking about the design goals of the game and its general workings. He's a big We The People fan and I'm seeing a bit of that in the card-driven aspect of this one. I'm also smelling a bit of Twilight Struggle in the ways the cards play.

If anyone wants to tune in, me and Jeb have questions open to him in one of his blog entries here -- Lincoln's War Blog, Multifaceted Cards



This looks like it's going to be a pretty complex critter, with a need to keep political issues in hand while managing the war on the ground as well. He envisions the play as being from Lincoln's and Davis' points of view where managing public opinion is as critical as landing hits on your opponent. Dice in the combat, but you have the ability to expend political capital to move along the CRT in your favor. I'm still trying to get him to explain some of the more nuanced parts of the play and he did me the "favor" of displaying the 17-action phase stack! Cards seem to hold the key, serving at least four purposes as far as I can tell.

Map by Mahaffey and is plush as you'd expect, this version is still in draft:



Notice that the blog is on BGG instead of CSW, which I recommended to him due to this game's broader appeal. With ACW coming up on its anniversary and this game seeming more TS-esque I told him he should publish on BGG, MMP, and CSW simultaneously to see which one would generate the most interest. I think he's only gone after BGG to date.

S.

I think it's a potentially very interesting approach to ACW. I'm just trying to limit my game preorders otherwise this would tempt me more.

Dude -- it's Multiman. You have no worries.

S.

Ha, good point.

I do think this may be the most fruitful way of explaining many of the ACW events and activities, with an integrated political component. Otherwise there's always that "why was HE commander?" hindsight by the players. So many militarily inefficient decisions litter the ACW due to personalities and politics.

Gary Sax wrote:


While I have more faith in the designer than some others, doesn't that sounds like there's a danger of turning into "Triumph of Chaos: US Edition," which would severely limit both the audience and the playability

Curtis! Now there's an underrated Civil War general that didn't get his due and should have been given greater command after Pea Ridge. Anyone who had to command Franz Sigel and actually not lose the battle (and get him to accomplish one of the few positive spots on his record) is amazing. Of course, that the idiot Sigel was the one to get great command points precisely to the politics of generalship that Lincoln, in particular, was faced with.

I'm intrigued.

I was kind of watching this one with one eye until somebody in one of the BGG threads essentially asked, "why do we need game #753 about the ACW?" and Poniske answered with a solid does of engineer-ese describing how the game is played. It took a bit of deciphering, but at that point it appeared this thing was much more complex and interesting. So I sat up and took notice.

Not moving very quickly on MMP's preorder list which presents them with a dilemma. We're days away from the 150th anniversary of South Carolina seceding. It would make sense to call this one based on gut feel instead of preorders, but that's walking more than a bit out the length of the branch.

S.

Dogmatix wrote:


Potentially. But there's an opportunity to, perhaps, take some of the attention off the military game a little bit and go into a fleshed out political game. The problem with Triumph of Chaos is that it tried to be a fully fledged hardcore wargame and then add a complex political game on top.

But then I liked Triumph of Chaos, despite its sins.