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I'm a big fan of traditional stuff; I love hex and counter wargames, and am now learning OCS. I'm triyng to presuade Tekopo to play more OCS with me :p
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Sep 10, 2014 14:38
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I did like Reluctant Enemies I must admit, but Blitzkrieg Legend was just too much for me when I tried it before.
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Sep 10, 2014 14:42
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Does Dominant Species fall under war game territory? It seems like an intriguing 4x with a cool theme. It's also GMT, so I don't doubt the quality of the game.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:36
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Dominant Species is a war game underneath imo. It's a pretty good game that gets better the more you play. On my last game I had last turn Wanderlust actions that netted me 28 pts by taking up all of the spots. However, I barely lost because I mistakenly placed the element disc on the wrong corner(therefore moving my species on otherwise element diskless tiles) denying me extra points during the Ice Age and final scoring.
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Sep 10, 2014 15:40
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I still find Dominant Species too much of a worker placement game as opposed to a wargame. Although, to be fair, COIN games really straddle the line between wargames and euros.
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Sep 10, 2014 18:04
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Tekopo posted:I still find Dominant Species too much of a worker placement game as opposed to a wargame. Although, to be fair, COIN games really straddle the line between wargames and euros. Dominant Species is a good bridge between both. A lot of worker placement games are acquiring resources and managing them with minimal interaction at times with your opponents. In Dominant Species, the worker placement roles put you directly interacting with your opponents and if they want to be left alone tough poo poo because I just removed your elements from the board or glaciated your scoring sea tile.
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Sep 10, 2014 18:12
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I think we're beginning to see a lot of boundaries disappear when classifying board games. What qualifies as a war game? Is it mechanics or theme? Is it victory conditions? I'm pleased to see more new games blend those lines, because games like the COIN series are all the better for it.
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Sep 10, 2014 18:12
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I've found a wargame buddy and been we've been working our way though Combat Commander: Europe. Been having a lot of fun with it, even with a few rules interpretation issues (the golden rule of don't read into the rules took awhile to really take hold). It's taken a lot of willpower to not just start buying expansions and the different versions.
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Sep 10, 2014 21:01
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CC:E is good: I would recommend getting CC:M if you are really getting into it since it adds a lot of options but I would skip CC:P because it changes a whole lot of things and not for the better.
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Sep 10, 2014 21:06
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I'm gonna go with dominant species as well. I got it during that GMT sale and just started playing it and it really is a lot of fun.
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Sep 10, 2014 21:14
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Tekopo posted:CC:E is good: I would recommend getting CC:M if you are really getting into it since it adds a lot of options but I would skip CC:P because it changes a whole lot of things and not for the better. If you're motivated you can fit CC:M and CC:R in the same box with CC:E 
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Sep 10, 2014 22:09
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Are the COIN games fairly close in quality? I'm more interested in the Cuban Revolution than the other conflicts, but I'd hate to get Cuba Libre if Fire in the Lake/A Distant Plain are significantly better titles.
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Sep 11, 2014 02:37
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Yes, the COIN games are In addition, Cuba Libre is the shortest and easiest COIN game to play from what I've tried; so go nuts! Also, Dominion Species is a worker-placement-driven area-control war-ish-game. Let the pigeon have its hole.
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Sep 11, 2014 08:39
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So someone (sorry whoever you are, I'll find and mention your name one I'm back at something with a keyboard and mouse) mentioned the idea of Warhammer COIN. As a huge dork for all things 40k (except the actual dumb bad minis game) I've been thinking about it all night. Warhammer 40COIN  Random ideas: Insurgency is chaos cultists. They can switch between chaos gods for bonuses In different areas. Cultists have the advantage of multiple possible avenues of victory. Spaces on the board are institutions and social groups rather than physical locations. Arbites is the military and police. They are strengthened by civil disorder and keeping institutions honest. Cultists can win by being more powerful than them and scoring a military victory by plunging the planet into devastating civil war. Win if disorder becomes is bad enough and government is weak enough to declare martial law. Planetary governor/other political leaders. Want to maintain order, root out cultist infiltration (don't want any competition) and gain power by corrupting institutions for patronage which also increases vulnerability to Chaos infiltration. Both police and military as well as spaces can become aware of Chaos as they are exposed to it. They become vulnerable to subversion but police and military become much more effective at fighting the cultists. Inquisition is super powerful, but can only be in very few locations at once and acts more easily with help from other factions. Wants to keep knowledge of Chaos to a minimum and root out corruption and disloyalty. Disappears police and military units, removes chaos knowledge and influence from spaces. Cultists and politicians can influence spaces, representing patronage and subversion. Either wins a political victory by controlling enough. Core ideas: Weak insurgency vs powerful gov't factions, insurgency gains the edge by playing them off against each other and maybe being sometimes useful, along with nasty chaos surprises. Politicians and Arbites are strengthened by situations that weakens the other, causing friction. Arbites want cultists too weak to challenge them but unruly enough to cause chaos; politicians want quiet but powerful insurgency to distract the Arbites. Inquisition is simultaneously a powerful "oh poo poo" panic button for the COIN side (chaos obviously has to have crazy powers the locals just aren't equipped to properly handle) and a spoiler in normal conditions. Constant cooperation is detrimental to other COIN, but shutting them down removes their best weapon against chaos shenanigans.
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Sep 11, 2014 10:08
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Could be interesting, but there's a whole lot of playtesting involved in COIN games due to the four players and the need to keep everyone from having a chance to win. I think 3 COIN sides could be interesting, but it'd be hard to balance (most of the CL games have a very 2 versus 2 dynamic or at least 2 versus 1 versus 1). For example, in AA the AUC/Govt nominally work together against the Cartel/FARC. In CL, it's syndicate/Govt vs M26/DR. In ADP, it's Govt/Coalition vs Taliban/Warlords and in FiTL the split is obvious. Of course, the alliances twist and turn, but having 3 factions that can only flex muscles against 1 does not seem to be too balanced. I would amalgamate the government/police in one and create an extra insurgent faction of Lower Hive Gangers, out to control their zones.
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Sep 11, 2014 10:21
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Tekopo posted:Could be interesting, but there's a whole lot of playtesting involved in COIN games due to the four players and the need to keep everyone from having a chance to win. I think 3 COIN sides could be interesting, but it'd be hard to balance (most of the CL games have a very 2 versus 2 dynamic or at least 2 versus 1 versus 1). For example, in AA the AUC/Govt nominally work together against the Cartel/FARC. In CL, it's syndicate/Govt vs M26/DR. In ADP, it's Govt/Coalition vs Taliban/Warlords and in FiTL the split is obvious. Of course, the alliances twist and turn, but having 3 factions that can only flex muscles against 1 does not seem to be too balanced. I would amalgamate the government/police in one and create an extra insurgent faction of Lower Hive Gangers, out to control their zones. One of balancing ideas is supposed to be that two of the COIN factions only care about kicking the insurgency around in their own sphere, (and I actually thought of originally having the Arbites as the PDF who were concerned about purely military matters, but didn't feel they would conflict enough with the gov't) while having them go nuts on the other side actually helps them, and the third faction looking to bring them down, period, is a giant pain in the rear end to have around for the other two. I also see the events in the game being almost always advantageous for the cultists in some way.
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Sep 11, 2014 10:43
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Yes but unless you allow the COIN factions to directly attack each other, the military of three factions will be constrained by the fact that they can only attack directly a single enemy (unless you somehow allow the COIN factions to do massive large scale assaults on each other, which seems unlikely). This is why I think the gangers would be better, so that you can directly have the gangers be against the government and the inquisiton be against the cultists, but still create an atmosphere where all bets are off in terms of possible alliances. This is much easier to balance than your scenario and it's still thematic as hell (necromunda springs to mind) and you don't have the incredible variance of making chaos rely on cards (which might make them win suddenly or be so necessary that if they don't turn up quickly they lose).
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Sep 11, 2014 10:57
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Frankly, the more natural way to go around COINhammer is to have several bickering chaos gods opposed by a hapless planetary governance that can call upon Inquisition/Space Marine every once in a while as their super action or whatever. It's probably a somewhat lame solution in that it resembles the AA/CL structure pretty close, but that's just the way that feels obvious to me.
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Sep 11, 2014 11:08
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Tekopo posted:Yes but unless you allow the COIN factions to directly attack each other, the military of three factions will be constrained by the fact that they can only attack directly a single enemy (unless you somehow allow the COIN factions to do massive large scale assaults on each other, which seems unlikely). This is why I think the gangers would be better, so that you can directly have the gangers be against the government and the inquisiton be against the cultists, but still create an atmosphere where all bets are off in terms of possible alliances. This is much easier to balance than your scenario and it's still thematic as hell (necromunda springs to mind) and you don't have the incredible variance of making chaos rely on cards (which might make them win suddenly or be so necessary that if they don't turn up quickly they lose). I wanted the 3 COIN scenario was to see how such a departure from the other games might work. One I get in front of a real word processor I'll see if I can hammer it out sufficiently. I think the idea would work if the cultists were not player controlled, but that isn't really the same game anymore.
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Sep 11, 2014 11:12
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ThisIsNoZaku posted:I wanted the 3 COIN scenario was to see how such a departure from the other games might work. One I get in front of a real word processor I'll see if I can hammer it out sufficiently.
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Sep 11, 2014 11:20
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3 COIN Factions, except one is actually unknowingly corrupted and wins if Chaos wins. This can be done by having Chaos play a card that flips one other player's allegiance.
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Sep 11, 2014 11:31
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Fangz posted:3 COIN Factions, except one is actually unknowingly corrupted and wins if Chaos wins. This can be done by having Chaos play a card that flips one other player's allegiance. Imagine four COIN factions on the edge of a cliff... Thread relevant content: fantasy COIN y/n? Wizards, mind control, shape shifters, ghost spies, bribe a dragon for air strikes.
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Sep 11, 2014 11:38
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Star Trek COIN. Romulan Player notes secret movements of its invisible pieces. Dominion player substitutes other player's pieces for it's own, distinguishable only by a subtle mark on a side, when no-one is looking. Federation player (government) has access to a powerful "Call Captain Kirk" action which takes care of opposition, albeit oftentimes at cost of PR blunders and unwanted pregnancies. Game turns into a semi co-op when the "tribbles" card is drawn. [fake edit] C007IN. I need this to be done.
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Sep 11, 2014 11:56
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For 40k COIN I would do Imperium (government), Chaos (insurgents), Eldar ("warlord/cartel") and then maybe have the Space Marines be the sometimes ally/sometimes not faction to the Imperium. Rogue Traders could also be another really cool sometimes ally faction. I think the special track for the game should be WARPSTORM. The Warpstorm should be something that can fluctuate, but the higher it goes the more hosed everything gets. Having it at max should be part of the Chaos win condition or something. The Imperium can drop Warpstorm with operations that will increase opposition and dropping terror markers on your own planets (Inquisition). Exterminatus also needs to be a special operation. Guys... let's do it. Let's make this thing. 
Dre2Dee2 fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Sep 11, 2014 |
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Sep 11, 2014 14:29
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Dre2Dee2 posted:For 40k COIN I would do Imperium (government), Chaos (insurgents), Eldar ("warlord/cartel") and then maybe have the Space Marines be the sometimes ally/sometimes not faction to the Imperium. Rogue Traders could also be another really cool sometimes ally faction. Yeah, I realized how totally appropriate to 40k it would be to have the entire thing operate on a galactic scale, where it takes entire sectors being attacked or subverted to catch the attention of the highest echelons of the Imperium.
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Sep 11, 2014 14:56
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New Vegas COIN or go home.  On a historical setting, I wonder if you could do something with the religious rebellions in France and the Netherlands during the Reformation. I don't know enough about the time period, though.
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Sep 11, 2014 15:41
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Well, my one experience with P500 has confirmed that it is not worth P500ing for me. Payed 55 dollars for FitL, 30 dollars for P&P and 35 dollars at customs. Yeah, no.
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Sep 11, 2014 17:28
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Tekopo posted:Well, my one experience with P500 has confirmed that it is not worth P500ing for me. It is probably a much better deal for US customers.
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Sep 11, 2014 18:12
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Tekopo posted:Well, my one experience with P500 has confirmed that it is not worth P500ing for me. That sucks  And yes, were you playing these COIN games in the US you'd be bypassing those other two fees (I'm pretty sure I either didn't pay much or anything at all for shipping). But if it doesn't work overseas it doesn't work.As for a 3-player COIN; just go the Maria route and have one player control two factions that are simultaneously allied and against each other! It'll be easy  The greatest thing about COIN to me so far has been how far-reaching its system could potentially be. I'd love to see a sci-fi/fantasy COIN on some big brand just to see if COIN could have far-reaching appeal. Imagine a game in this series being...being...popular
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Sep 11, 2014 18:26
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Ropes4u posted:It is probably a much better deal for US customers. There's a thread over on BGG about how with Customs/VAT it doesn't make sense for Europeans to order P500.
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Sep 11, 2014 18:27
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Yeah, I saw that thread and it's kind of annoying that we have to pay such a big premium on game. Still, I have an online shop with good prices from a guy I know so it's easy for me to ask him to keep a few copies reserved in the future if I really want something and I think it is going to sell out fast (like I know it will for FitL).
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Sep 11, 2014 21:22
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I wish GMT made some euro-friendly deal for P500 in future. There's so much poo poo I'd love to support, but my hands are tied. Speaking of P500, where's my goddamn Fields of Fire sequel?
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Sep 11, 2014 21:32
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Lichtenstein posted:I wish GMT made some euro-friendly deal for P500 in future. There's so much poo poo I'd love to support, but my hands are tied.
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Sep 11, 2014 21:34
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Tekopo posted:Well, my one experience with P500 has confirmed that it is not worth P500ing for me. That, and GMT generally lose a crapton of money on shipping. It genuninely is better or both you and GMT if you jus buy it from a British retailer.
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Sep 11, 2014 23:57
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That said, everyone reading this should P500 the reprint of A Distant Plain. Even if you live in Britain. Or already own a copy. Or don't play wargames. C'mon it's still 300 people short, I'm begging you...
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Sep 12, 2014 00:26
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Hey guys, pretty new to the thread. What're all these COIN games you're going on about, there isn't really anything in the OP that I saw about them. From loose context, it sounds like a series of lightweight(?) asymetrical warfare game with more than 2 factions?
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Sep 12, 2014 03:57
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The COIN (COunter INsurgency) series of games is a series created by CIA security analyst Volko Ruhnke. The series models asymmetric engagements between traditional forces and insurgent guerrillas. Each game features four unique factions. The series currently consists of four games: Andean Abyss (modelling the Colombian FARC insurgency of the 1990s), Cuba Libre (Castro's revolution), A Distant Plain (the modern Afghanistan campaign) and Fire in the Lake (the Vietnam War). A fifth game, Gallic War, is currently in development, concerning the Roman conquest of Gaul. The games are arguably middleweight, campaign-focused games, with a few uniting features. 1) An innovative variant on the CDG mechanic--rather than giving each player a hand of cards, players interact with a single communal card at a time dealt in the middle of the board, maneuvering for operational or event use. 2) The games always pit traditional forces against guerillas. Traditional forces are significantly more powerful (they don't need die rolls for combat), but can only attack guerillas who have been exposed, either by their own actions or by COIN sweep missions. 3) A "hearts-and-minds" focused campaign. Controlling the political allegiance of the civilian population in is crucial to faction victory conditions and/or safely conducting operations. 4) A eurogame-like resource management system, wherein all factions need to maintain their income and operational budgets, and can trade resources for favors with one another. 5) Complex political double-dealing, even between supposed allies. For example, in A Distant Plain, the Coalition forces and the Afghan Government have a shared resource pool, and wildly different goals for governance. Forums regular Tekopo has written a lot of words on the series here and here. The Washington Post has also done an article on Ruhnke and his designs here. tl;dr They're the best wargames released this decade, buy them if you can find them. gutterdaughter fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Sep 12, 2014 |
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Sep 12, 2014 05:42
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e^^  Galaga Galaxian posted:Hey guys, pretty new to the thread. What're all these COIN games you're going on about, there isn't really anything in the OP that I saw about them. Yeah, they came out in 2013, I think, designed by Volko Ruhnke (with various co-designers) and published by GMT. The first one was Andean Abyss, about the Colombian drug wars. The others that have been released are Cuba Libre (Castro's revolution in Cuba), A Distant Plain (Afghanistan), and Fire in the Lake (Vietnam), with Gallic War (Vercingetorix's revolt against Caesar) currently in production. They're for 4 players with AI flowcharts for solitaire or filling in missing players. They're similar to card-driven games like Twilight Struggle or 1960 but draw cards one at a time from a single deck rather than having player hands. Each faction has its own victory conditions and possible operations. (Interestingly, unlike most traditional wargames pieces are represented by wooden cubes and cylinders rather than counters, the game's pretty abstract.) In terms of complexity, they're slightly deeper than Twilight Struggle but much broader (there's only 4 operations in TS while 20 in Cuba Libre) and generally take longer (Cuba Libre is 2-3 hours while Fire in the Lake is 5-6 or so). Unfortunately, most of them are out of print- FITL is currently being shipped but will likely run out fast.
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Sep 12, 2014 05:43
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At the time of the OP, only Andean Abyss had come out, hence why the other two are missing from it. I should probably update the genre bit to make it slightly more up to date.
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Sep 12, 2014 06:00
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Gutter Owl posted:tl;dr They're the best wargames released this decade, buy them if you can find them. god drat, good job on this post  The COIN series is amazing and my only regret is they don't hit the table more often. More people should know about them and play them, awesome stuff
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Sep 12, 2014 13:49
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