Depends on which one is on sale today: Liberty or Death Game Review

Liberty or Death is a very fun game with an interesting and modern take on the historical purposes and goals of the movers involved with the American Revolution. Liberty or Death is a game with flawed gameplay that represents a ludicrous historical view of the American Revolution.

Now do you see my issue?

Starting with the components is the easiest thing to do in any game review, and its particularly easy in this case because of how phenomenal GMT has done making an extremely attractive and pleasant gaming experience in one big heavy box. I didn’t think the game map of Virgin Queen could be topped by GMT, but Liberty or Death gives it a darned good run for its money. The geography is soft and loving and the city circles are incredibly evocative and historical. Anyone who grew up visiting both Boston and Quebec City (or any of the other cities on the map) easily could fall in love with the portrayal of Revolutionary America. The wooden pieces are wonderful, and even the raid and propaganda markers have reverse sides with historical figures and tribes. Last, but not least, the cards each have colorful artwork and events on them. The player aids are incredible, particularly the “Purpose” section for each action, which allows new players to feel their way independently through strategy by looking at each action available to them.

                The rulebook is one part of the presentation that I take issue with unfortunately. The arrangement of the rules can make looking up some things difficult. The rules lay out most interactions via the faction command and special activities, which is fine; the problem is when some information is laid out in different ways. One particular issue we ran into was stacking villages—it is referenced vaguely on the faction card/in the faction specific area in the rulebook, but in fact the stacking rules for the villages is in a completely different part of the rulebook. Another particular issue involved the West Indies space, which is treated different from other spaces. I would have appreciated a better explanation of that space on the faction cards like most actions, or it to be easier to locate information regarding the space in the rulebook. I won’t pass judgement too harshly on the rulebook, because I try not to in cases where I can’t think of a solution myself to the issue.

                Gameplay-wise, Liberty or Death in many ways is a great success of the COIN format. The tempo of the turn flow-chart with the card faction orders creates always interesting strategic decisions. The Winter Quarters flipping with the card active is such a simple and reasonable solution to gaming the final turn that I would find it difficult to play COIN games any other way. One thing new players to the system have to understand quickly is that commands and special activities can be done in potentially many different spaces at the same time. Maximizing your turns is very important, and the game system really comes alive when you realize moves like Rally and March can be huge moves across the whole map.  Battling, the new introduction to the COIN system is balanced very well as a difficult to set up yet powerful move if successful with the Win the Day ability for the winner; and rebuilding armies lost feels appropriately difficult if a campaign is mismanaged. Each action is a lever that a player can pull to achieve some effect on the game, and setting your faction up for a big move like a Battle or Plunder is very fun.

                The teamwork present in the game also is fun, even if it is questionable in theory. Each player has a team goal and then a personal goal, each which is opposite to the other team or an opposing faction. Teammates work together but are subtly attempting to an independent victory. I was worried about the gamesmanship of this mechanic in theory, as I’ve read about the Patriots suiciding into British positions to ensure they win rather than the French, and that type of play did not seem beyond the pale for my own game groups, cutthroat as we are. I have not found that generally to be the case in play, although the Patriots and French in particular remain vulnerable to a teammate sabotage, which I dislike (The British and Indians are much less prone to this because of the more detached nature of Indian play). I am all for sabotage and betrayal, but in this particular situation, it is extremely gamey and against the spirit of the game, and affects one team more than the other (I suspect). I would almost prefer the Patriots and French to share completely joint victory conditions, since the players are intended to cooperate closely and have to resort to gamey tactics to sabotage each other in any case, unlike the Indians and British, who usually cooperate less at the hip and do have reasonably separate victory conditions.

                Victory Conditions, wrapped up in this team play, do make up the biggest source of frustration with Liberty or Death, both on a gameplay level and on a historical one. The developer, recognizing pre-emptively a source of contention, has laid out an interesting theory of the war as it regarded the interactions with the Patriots and Indians, and it certainly has merit as a modern look at the sweep of American settling and the tragic extinction of Indian civilization as part of the American Revolution. Yet the Patriot/Indian victory conditions are easily the weakest part of the game both as historical commentary and gameplay in action. George Washington and the Continental Army focused on combating the British forces, not Indian tribes on the frontier historically. Some Patriot players I have played with have used the main Patriot army not to combat the British, especially late game, but rather to use as a strike force against the Indians. They aren’t to blame for this—their victory conditions suggest this strategy to be a correct one, and when they play historically (which some do intuitively) they instead help the French win. Playing the game as the Patriots did historically (building up a Continental Army to be a useful fighting force against the British, scoring major wins in Saratoga or Yorktown) in Liberty or Death would lead to British casualties and a conceivable French victory.

Despite the protestations that the Patriots had a huge chip on their shoulder regarding Indian threats (true protestations), that does not lead to the conclusion that the Indians merited the prime focus of the Patriot victory conditions—because that was not the Patriots’ prime focus in the Revolutionary War. Yes, the Revolutionary War was an important piece in the large tapestry of America’s persecution of Indian tribes, but its role in the Revolution does not merit the strange Patriot victory conditions, and it leads to strange gameplay as well depending on how the Patriot player acts. I am a recent graduate with a history major, I do not state this as an appeal to authority but rather to express that my recent education regarding the revolution in two higher level classes did not lead me to the same conclusions of the importance of Indian affairs for the Patriots as it affected strategic decisions in the war.

Truly, this personal victory condition, and how it affects the potential gamey relationship between the French and Patriots is frustrating, because of how fun and evocative almost every other mechanic is. The designer of Liberty or Death went outside the established COIN box in several areas (battles, French build up, Winter Quarters) and beautifully integrated his new mechanics into the existing structure. It would have been nice if he had gone out of the box regarding the victory mechanics. The teams and factions have diametrically opposing goals that mirror each other’s, yet the teams in reality and on the board are not co-equal opposing forces. I think that more asymmetric victory conditions would have made more historic sense and created more natural gameplay, especially between the Patriots and French, who had different goals, but largely those goals were equally pushed forward by defeating the British. I would either want to see a total team goal on the Patriot/French side encompassing both control and casualties; or more asymentric goals with the French creating strain by sending troops elsewhere rather than to the Colonies to combat the British as a sort of expanded West Indies side theatre. The British/Indian goals on the other hand work fine from both a historical and gameplay stance, and the explanations in the playbook for each are satisfying. As it stands, the Fort/Village/Casualty conditions are not satisfying on the Patriot/French side.

I’ve done a lot of complaining about victory conditions, and on paper, I have a lot of issues with Liberty or Death. Those issues vanish while I’m playing. It is such an attractive package, from the components, to the mechanics, to the addictive gameplay in action. It is a testament to the game that all my personal gripes vanish when I am actually sitting down and playing the game as the hours fly by. My question to the reader at the start of this review (do you see my issue?) remains because the game is such fun even with the flaws that frustrate me greatly.

I suppose I’ll just have to play more. Gladly.

ERRATA:

FLOW CHART MANIA: A shout out to the Indian flow chart, who flew under the radar and beat three humans with beating hearts and apparently faulty brains.

UPPER MASSACHUSETTS: As a Mainer, I am still salty that my state, home to the infamous Quebec Expedition (go read Arundel, it’s a good one), is literally the only inaccessible area in the entire damn Eastern American seaboard.

FRANGLAIS: Nothing better than playing the French and attempting to pronounce the French phrases in terrible French accents. 

Board Game Campaign Disasters

Procrastination is such fun...so I'd thought I'd share the most humorous board game campaigns I've seen in my own games (some of course are my own blunders)!

1) Virgin Queen: The French Invasion

Two new players glared at each other across the English Channel. The French looked at Spain, and decided he was too great a target. Who better to invade than England itself? For two game turns he prepared, building up an army of mercenaries and regulars. His fleets were grouped into one location in Calais. Yet the Englishwoman was not idle either. She too built up her fleets and filled her army with mercenaries. The Spanish and Protestants did little to provoke either, instead watching with enjoyment the cold war buildup.

On Turn 3, the French Armada sailed forth, emptying the entire French countryside to fill their boats and managed to land French troops on the coast of England. Yet that was merely what England wanted. The English fleet sailed out, sinking the French, and the deserted troops were hit with an army mutiny. The remaining French troops were then bottled up by the hordes of English mercenaries defending London. The results were catastrophic, with the rest of the turn devoted to Spain and the Protestants racing against each other to conqure the prostrate France. Spain won a military auto-victory, and with no French keys remaining, we actually had to find out what would happen if the game had gone on to France!

LESSON LEARNED: Never bring everyone along to a sea-bound invasion.

2) Napoleonic Wars: Britain v. France

This was incidentally my first wargame ever (not counting Diplomacy of course), and the only two who had played before was the Frenchman and the Brit. The Brit had proved to be a dubious player, despite being the owner of the game. While myself (as Russia) and Austria contented ourselves with forming a massive doom-stack and smashing it repeatedly against Napoleon (with surprising success), Britain focused on spreading his ships across as many sea spaces as possible (apparently his home card gave some sort of advantage when doing this).

The issue was, he did this before destroying any of the French or Spanish ships. His earstwhile allies, new players, instinctively grew worried and politely suggested he might not want to spread his ships piecemeal across the Atlantic. He of course, refused to listen to our advice. France then gleefully pre-emptive, and one turn later, 3/4ths of Britain's fleet was sunk, from Gibraltar to the North Sea. All was not lost yet, as France's main army was still tied up with our doom-stack, but Britain then decided he needed to send a rescue mission with his remaining ships to his (very few) troops in Spain to bring them back home. And then those ended up in the bottom of the ocean as well.

LESSON LEARNED: Sea superiority means nothing to an individual ship.

3) Diplomacy: Proxy War

This particular Diplomacy game involved two bitter enemies in Italy and Russia, whom were prevented from direct conflict by two buffer states, Austria and Turkey. Each believing the other would win unless destroyed, Russia and Italy then engaged in a furious 8 year proxy war, with Italy attempting to coerce two bumbling new players (Austria and Turkey) into destroying Russia. Russia, though outnumbered, had the advantage in tactics (and basic intelligence). From the start the allies bounced each other, made no attempt to coordinate (or supported the wrong armies), and memorably both bounced each other out of the Russian Supply Center Sevastopol.

Compounding the incompetence, every few turns the Austrian would switch sides and outright attack Turkey in the Balkans. The Italian would then spend fifteen minutes cobbling back together the grand alliance, and the two would then resume the bumbling advance. To top it off, a lone German army from the West, escaping from Germany's destruction, manage to play the two sides off each other, reaching as far as Bulgaria in safety over the course of three years. All five involved in the great Italy-Russian War were put out of their misery when Britain casually invaded both Italy and Russia from behind.

LESSON LEARNED: Keep your friends close, and your incompetent friends at arms distance.

4) Empires in Arms: The Spanish Expeditionary Force

The game was an email version of Empires and Arms, and Russia, Turkey, and Spain were all new players. Immediately, France, Austria, and Britain began explaining how to play the game best (which incidentally seemed to favor them as well). From the start, Britain proved an annoyance to the rest of the board (seems a trait most Britains share in Napoleonic themes games) and managed to infuriate the Russians by creating an unusually stout defense in Sweden, playing off the Russian's lack of skill.

The Spanish and Turks meanwhile were being goaded by both sides into fighting each other. Instead, they came up with a bold plan. They would unite their forces to increase their admittedly pathetic presence in Europe. The plan was two fold. With both allied to Britain and France each, they would hopefully have enough time to achieve both goals. First, the Turkish fleet would travel across the Med to group up with the Spanish Fleet, for power in numbers. Second, the Spanish would send an expeditionary force across the other way to group up with a Turkish army. The allied force would then invade the presumably weak Russians.

The Spanish Expeditionary Force departed from Barcelona. Fearful of moving their fleet out of the Cadiz harbor (Britain was a jerk, remember), the Spanish sent a force of one (somehow) full corps aboard a mere 7 ships. The move was a multistage affair, first stopping in Italy, then continuing onto Greece. To be sporting, before departing Italy, the Spanish and the Turks declared war on Russia. Once they arrived in Greece, the fun really began.

First, the Russian, in perhaps the greatest success of the mighty Spanish-Turkish alliance, announced he was dropping out of the game because he was being ganged up on unfairly. Things took a turn for the worse when the replacement Czar was an experienced player whom licked his chops at the Spanish-Turkish army. Things took a further turn for the worse when Turkey 'forgot' to feed the Spanish troops landing in Greece. Waiting for the Spanish, instead of a great feudal horde, was a few paltry Balkan corps. With no supply depots set up on the way to the Russian frontier, it was going to be a rough journey. Starving along the way, the small army somehow managed to set up a siege along the border. Their purpose achieved, the army then achieved immortality by being annihilated by a far bigger and higher morale Russian army. The Spanish Expeditionary Force had indeed done great things.

LESSON LEARNED: If its named "Expeditionary", the chance of annihilation rises 100%.

Its a bad name, hang in there: Virgin Queen Review

Here I Stand, when I finally managed to get a real game going, proved to be one of the most unique, rich game I have played. I had rated it high and expected it to stay high. Unfortunately, I had to lower its ratings slightly. Why? Because Virgin Queen is even better than its epic predecessor. Game-play, strategy, accessibility, and components are all steps up from Here I Stand.

COMPONENTS: The Components are mostly top notch. The game board is probably the best I've seen in terms of uniqueness and balance of looks and playability. The rich colors and distorted map hooks everyone in, and little additions such as the signatures of the leaders help even more. The one draw back with the map is it has less space on it for side tables compared to Here I Stand. This puts more emphasis on side cards. I don't mind that, but I would've liked at least the Victory Track on the main board.

The many little chits in the game seem slightly higher quality this time around. My Here I Stand chits sometimes frayed and split slightly, I haven't had any cases like that yet with about as much play time between the two. The cards are high quality, with the exception of the marriage cards. For some reason, they tend to bend easier than the regular deck.

The rulebook cannot be commented on fully, since a lot of it is taken from Here I Stand. Its clear, and mostly easy to follow, though the New World stuff is a bit harder to grasp than other stuff in it.

Gameplay: If you've played Here I Stand, gameplay is similar, but smooooother. In particular, the religious aspect is so much better integrated, and really improves gameplay. Almost everyone is in some way involved this time around, and the conversion process is fast and easy to understand. This makes religious struggles easier to understand and to follow for even people with little direct interaction with it. The game also gets into the swing of things far faster, without late events such as the Barbary Pirates or the Schekamakshgdebksjdh League holding players back.

The one potential area of clumsiness is the end turn resolutions. In Here I Stand, exploration and colonization was a definite sideshow. In VQ, science, arts, marriage, and colonies all must be resolved, and so much dice rolling on tables at the same time can get numbing and slows the game. I like all of those systems and they work well, but its the one area of the game that doesn't feel smooth, especially the marriages, which are arranged first but not resolved until the end of a turn.

Strategy: If HIS said "Here's your narrative in this epic story," VQ says "Heres the epic story, write your own narrative." Almost everyone can do almost anything, and everyone is much more connected and interactive than HIS. In most cases, you can feel like you can do anything you want, and you usually can. The generally bigger hands of cards mean you are less likely to get a hand of only stinkers, and the events are all good, with the return of fan favorites such as Treachery!. You can therefore plan out long term strategies fairly confidently, while your card draw can alter tactical decisions you may make during each turn.

From my experience so far, each power seems to be fairly balanced. Players do need to self balance the game as well, as France especially is a VP powerhouse if it has no pressure. The Protestants are much more fun this time around for my group, as they are able to hit the ground running if they wish. The Ottomans as well seem much more fun, with more flexibility in action, and more reasons to negotiate and interact with every other player. Spain will have his or her hands full, but is sure to have fun even if attacked by nearly everyone due to its power and fun events such as the Armada. The one almost stinker seems to be the Holy Roman Empire. They work well, but it feels like they were put into the game out of necessity, and I sense almost a lack of inspiration with them compared to the other powers. That isn't to say they aren't fun or balanced, far from it (Their home cards create huge negotiation fun), but they don't feel as powerful in any aspect of the game as other powers--they don't have a specialty in any area (not a bad thing!).

I've read a lot of talk about military strategy in VQ and the supposed lack of return it brings. I have not found VQ to be an especially peaceful game in my own group. In fact, the more options available to each power means that more powers are threatening and interacting with each other. Warfare is not usually going to win a game by itself, but its a very reasonable strategy for any player depending on the circumstances. We've had a military auto-win by England as a result of smart decisive play, and most of our other victors have done their share of smart maneuvers. This aspect of the game is almost certainly dependent on the group however. With another set of less vicious players, the military was much less relevant. England played through 3 turns without fighting a single battle, while France played as not militaristic as possible, chugging out VPs instead.

It seems to me that when push comes to shove, a military player can ruin another power's position regardless of VP gains. A good example would be a game where the HRE, content to churn out VPs, found his army outmaneuvered and destroyed. The results were devastating, and a stack of VPs won't win the game if you have no way to get any more. One game saw the Ottoman player balance war, patronage, and clever diplomacy for a win. A balanced game is perhaps the best idea, although non-military strategy and military strategy can be effective as well, especially if it is a mixed group and the military oriented players are pitted off against each other.

Overall: Virgin Queen is a far superior game to HIS. It expands on the great theme of HIS and then makes the gameplay less scripted and more open. The negotiations of HIS become much better and more intense in a game system where all powers can effectively strike at each other. It has a lot of moving pieces, but they all work together in a great way. An excellent game that is really a civilization game considering the sum of its parts.

ERRATA: 

VIRGIN QUEEN: Seriously, a terrible name. Here I Stand evokes a strong image of strength, righteousness, and perseverance. Virgin Queen evokes nothing but a curled lip or raised eyebrow. Its difficult to draw young guys (or girls for that matter) into a game with such an awkward name. I mean, yes, the Queen of the Virgins joke during the game is pretty funny. But is it worth such a bad name choice? We told a guy it was called Age of the Armada to get him to show up to play in a session.

SULEIMAN: Don't leave! We'll miss you!

DEFAULT: We've taken to calling default leaders "Bob." I suspect other groups have done the same.

REBELLIONS: Its strangely worse to lose to a rebellion than to get a city sacked by an opposing army. Theres something psychological in that I'm sure.

Hurt by its own good ideas: Unhappy King Charles

Unhappy King Charles is another one of GMT's CDGs, and as such, I was bound to give it a shot eventually. I played it a while ago, and then study in the English Tudor-Stuart period rekindled my interest in the subject matter. I've had the chance to play it more, and it certainly matches the English Civil War in feel. Its a fun game, and very thematic. But the very mechanics that make it so evocative of the time period also prevent it from being a perfect game.

Components: Fairly good. The map is splendid, with one exception. The names of the provinces are printed inside the province. With the list of point to point games with province names outside them for easy reading nearly all encompassing, its surprising there was an exception made for this game--especially since it involves covering nearly all the spaces with PC markers. Luckily most events don't involve place names, and even luckier I have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the English countryside. The cards are decent, the backs of them are very fun. The rulebook is good, and the references are easy to find. The little historical tie-ins throughout are fun as well. 

Gameplay: Very much like a marathon wrestling match, in which each side in the struggle gets more and more weary, and in weariness becomes more and more desperate. The game-play ties in extremely well with the theme. The escalating PC control requirements as the game goes on, the rise of desertion and lessening recruitment, and the permanent loss of combat casualties fit in with the English Civil War, especially considering the trouble Charles had towards the end in cobbling together armies.

However, the excellent thematic tie-in results in a less exciting game in many ways. The rulebook is fairly long and involved, yet the actual options available for players are fairly narrow. I wouldn't call the rule book filled with chrome to choke the players, rather it sets up a system that inherently is difficult to move around in. From the small number of troops, the limited chances to activate armies, and the few other options available to use cards for means that players may have little to do depending on their hand. 

The board mechanics are evocative of the time, with dispersal in particular being a fun way to show the slippery nature of the ECW combat. Raiding with local notables is an interesting idea, and the siege mechanics are implemented well. The gameplay definitely feels like 17th century manpower and resource poor England, and while thats a good thing, its also a bad thing. The lack of ability to march across England endlessly, throwing men into a endless meat-grinder turn after turn is good for both a historical and a gameplay basis, but it means two things--it limits player options and increases the impact luck has on the game.

The deck is shared and has very limited campaign and big OPs cards. This is good for a historically grounded game, and makes players think more about when to engage with the enemy, it also makes it more likely that players will have disparate hands. In one game, my opponent drew every single major and minor campaign card. Sure, its great theres only a few of them to simulate a lack of constant campaigning, but it sure sucked that he could slap them down turn after turn while my men had to play hide and seek for almost half the game. That also plays into dice rolls. Due to permanent combat losses, and abilities such as evasion and dispersal, decisive combat is rare. Only a few battles may take place at all during a game between players who understand the danger of constant battling. That means only a few dice rolls may drastically influence the outcome of the entire game. In Here I Stand or Nappy Wars, the buckets of dice seem to mitigate luck slightly better, and in Paths of Glory, so many attacks are made that the single dice rolls feel less significant. Coupled with the deck that can substantially swing in different directions due to the inability to use opponent's events for big action and you have a game that can be extremely influenced by Lady Luck.


Strategy: I have been surprised to be honest at the differences and the lack of differences between the Royalists and the Parliamentary forces. Part of this may come down to a combination of my study in the ECW era and my experience playing other CDGs, but the two sides did not feel as meaningfully different as I thought they might. The Parliament does have two big events that drastically change their gameplan, but the events for both sides don't feel very interesting. The Alt-History cards are interesting ideas, but again, they don't necessarily feel very meaningful. 

The natural areas of control both sides have do give each side something different to pursue, but the limited use of enemy events, and the sole path to victory based on PC control means that players do not have too much room to attempt different paths to victory. "Place a PC, raid for a PC, move around a general for a PC," all essentially are paths to the same goal. Luck actually helps the game feel too samey, since without the wild card swings and casualties, the game would probably feel fairly on rails. 

I can't help but feel biased after playing Ed Beach's games, where the political and religious control of spaces were separate mechanics yet wonderfully interconnected with each other. The PC placement in this game feels far more simplistic and less engaging. Perhaps separate decks with more varying events, or different ways to change the hearts and minds of the English people would have created different varying ways to make the game interesting. Its interesting to compare Unhappy Charlie to Virgin Queen, in both (and I've seen it in both) a newbie starts an endless military campaign ending in a miserable loss. In Virgin Queen, players are dissuaded from ahistorical military action by different routes to victory points. In Unhappy Charlie, players are dissuaded by the rails on the game. Both systems fit well with their historical basis, yet one provides more strategic options and fun for its players than the other.

Tied in with this is the length of the game. My normal gaming partner and I have not had as long of playing times as others have had, but its still a fairly long game. I think thats necessary in order to get the feeling of escalating pressure to end the war, from the shrinking reinforcement pool to the escalating PC requirements. Yet its a game thats nearly as long as other CDGs with less evocative of a storyline. Its a necessary length for the historical feeling you get, but the time you put in is greater compared to what you might be able to accomplish in game. 

Overall: Unhappy King Charles is a fun game. Especially after my studies on the ECW, it certainly matches the ECW in feeling. The desertion mechanics, the permanent losses, the turncoats, all are very interesting things that set it apart from other CDGs I've played. Unfortunately, its hampered in part by the very mechanics that make it so evocative of its time period. That is somewhat unavoidable, but it certainly is weaker as a game as a result. The game has a complex set of rules for the payoff it gives, and I'd almost like to see a more complex game to go along with those rules. A more interesting deck, or different mechanics for PC control might have lifted this game up even higher. All in all, it may not be a perfect game, but its got a lot of good ideas, its fun, and its certainly a good game.

ERRATA:

FAGGOT MASTER: My first game, my opponent kept muttering "Faggot Master" as I was sending my armies out on maneuvers. For a while, I was convinced my brilliant moves were reducing him to making homophobic slurs at me, until he slapped down the actual card.

THE ROYALIST CLUB: After studying the Civil War in which most of the Royalist commanders were described as less than competent (to be polite) by most historians and primary sources, it is bemusing to say the least that the Royalists have a surprisingly competent line-up. 

NEW MODEL PWNAGE: The New Model Army is not as fun as it sounds. Have fun destroying your veteran brigades so you can put down Cromwell, who's harder to activate than the rather foolish Prince Rupert. And if your the Royalist, be sure to laugh at the Parliamentary player as he picks up each veteran off the map.

GUERRILLA WARFARE: This game offers the best way to annoy a warmonger. Continuously evading and dispersing across England may be the best way to trigger a board flipping from your Friendly Neighborhood Angry Gamer.