Bruce had me over to do some playtesting on a Napoleonic game he has been developing to pitch at a publisher. We playtested the two-player version. It is card-driven and you can either use a card to activate units on the board or as an event or (sometimes) to influence a battle (so tough choices each time you play).
What I noticed most this time was how the military and diplomatic mechanics interact. France is crazy strong militarily but needs to gain allies (or at least prevent the British player from doing so). But to be effective diplomatically, the French player needs the glory that comes from successful military encounters--so the diplomatic game requires the French player to act like the French did historically and rewards this behaviour.
Our play test was a French romp due to really unlucky British cards and some bad dice on top of that. Perhaps I have also started to figure out the game a bit? Damn, I hate Spain--what a morass.
Up next: Some 1/72-scale French artillery for Memoir and then the Italians.
2 comments:
Very interesting looking game, and one which could probably be expanded to other eras as well.
Given the necessity for France to gain glory, would it not make sense to have north Africa and the Levant as part of the map? Second Egypt campaign,or a liberation of Ottoman Europe might have been a French policy if things turned out differently in other areas.
Interesting ideas. I think there are some pretty tight constraints on map size and block counts (plus the need for mechanics to address these add ons) that caused Bruce to scope this just as the continental Europe.
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