Kickin' It Creative
Casual chats about board games hosted by drummer/omni-gamer Candice Harris.
Kickin' It Creative
Episode 10: The Beauty of Card-Driven Games, with Uli from Spielworxx
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this episode, I kick it with Uli Blennemann (owner of Spielworxx) for a lovely chat about card-driven games (CDGs) –why they're awesome and which ones we dig most – and we also discuss a few games we've played recently and found memorable. Cheers!
- 00:00:00 Introduction
- 00:01:30 LeiriaCon
- 00:04:55 "moving house", heading to the UK for PunchedCon, GMT Weekend at the Warehouse
- 00:11:48 new KIC podcast theme music?!
- 00:15:49 Fresh Plays
- 00:16:03 The Old King's Crown
- 00:21:14 Age of Galaxy (Second Edition)
- 00:35:32 Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars (Toy Battle, Dogs of War)
- 00:42:41 Space Empires 4X
- 00:59:00 The Beauty of CDGs
- 01:07:50 Imperial Elegy + Big Multiplayer CDGs (Successors, Here I Stand, Virgin Queen)
- 01:30:20 Uli's '5 CDGs for Doomsday' (Empire of the Sun, Pursuit of Glory, Weimar, Imperial Elegy, HiS, VQ)
- 01:33:14 Candice's '5 CDGs for Doomsday' (Imperial Elegy, Land & Freedom, Founding Fathers, Wir sind das Volk!, Twilight Struggle (25th Anniversary Hall of Fame edition), Dual Powers)
- 01:39:00 CDGs we want to try (Common Sense, Europe in Turmoil, Lenin's Legacy, Iron Storm)
- 01:46:07 Hubris: Twilight of the Hellenistic World
- 01:48:11 Sign-off
Thanks so much for listening and for your support!
For more content crafted by Candice, visit kickinitcreative.com
We've got official merch now! Be one of the first to rock the first run of KIC swag!
Hello and welcome to episode 10 of the Kickin' It Creative Podcast, where you geek out about board games, the mechanisms behind them, and the people who create them. I'm your host, Candace Harris, and I am so thrilled to be here today, looking via webcam at my good friend Uli Blenderman, the head of Spielworks. How are you doing today, Uli?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, I'm I'm doing fine, Candace, and thanks for for having me. And it is wonderful really seeing you again. And as we said earlier already, it is half a year since Essence since we we met in person. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02It's so wild how time has just flown by. What's new in the land of Spielworks and in Uli's world?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, in Spielworks is always busy. So so you know, a small company, uh you always there's always something to do. We have several games in pre-order right now, and but I'm still uh I still have very fond memories uh personally on LariaCon, which happened last year, um the Portuguese convention. In my opinion, it's the best convention in the world, period. And um we played wonderful games, but it is even more important meeting all the people. And this year, for example, there was uh Marion and also Corey Thompson first time at MariaCon. That was great seeing them again. And of course, I hadn't met him, I think, since 2013, maybe even 12. Mark Herman was there for the first time. Oh, nice! Yeah, and and actually, I'm I'm uh you know this, Candace. I'm a big Mark Herman fanboy. Yes, yes, and so that was wonderful hanging out with him, spending time, drinking a few beers, and playing some games with him in person. So I'm I'm still in that that mood. So so wonderful times.
SPEAKER_02That's awesome. Yeah, Mark is just a delight. Every interaction I've ever had with him, I'm like, wow, this guy is like just so cool. He's like so laid back, but he's also just like brilliant at what he does, you know? Ah, ah, that's that's cool. So is LyraCon like a more of a play con, or are there like vendors there?
SPEAKER_00And yeah, good question. So there are a couple of vendors. So there is De Vere, which has a Spanish office, but also a Portuguese office. There's Pythagoras from uh Portugal, a couple of others. I I forgot, but it's more a play convention. So yes, there are designers bringing their games uh to test. Ode was there from Germany, Friedemann Friese was there, there are people from uh France, from other European countries, but it's mainly just a play convention. And this is something I love what is fantastic that it's directly at the Atlantic Ocean. So it's a great place, although this year they this area had been hit very badly by a winter storm in late January, and so it looked like it could not happen till late. But uh the the organizers, the hotel, they they really worked super hard and made it possible. And you s uh on the way to the convention from Lisbon, you you saw the damage, and it was quite devastating. And for example, Costa, one of the designers of Yinzi, which was a Spielworks game, so he's a co-designer there, he had no water in February and late January for 23 days. And that is and that is a really, really long time, as you can imagine, and no electricity for almost as long. But it was it was great uh seeing seeing everybody, and they really worked hard, wonderful time.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so cool. I'm gonna have to try to get out to that one at some point.
SPEAKER_00Yes, uh, so next year.
SPEAKER_02Love it, love it. Well, uh a lot's been going on on my end because you know, I was kind of telling you you behind me, usually you would see shelves of games, but all you see is white walls and maybe a box there in the corner. But we are getting ready to move a couple days from when we're at this time where we're recording. And because moving isn't just tough enough, we we went to hardcore mode and we we are not sure where we're moving to just yet, but likely it'll be still in Southern California, like possibly LA area, but possibly San Diego. But it's like, who knows? Because on Wednesday we're heading to Europe and we're going to the UK first. We'll be, and it'll be Matt and I, our first time to the UK, but we're going out there for PunchedCon, which is a historical and war gaming convention. Uh I'm assuming I don't know like the size in comparison to something like SD HistCon or or even like I've never been to Consum World or or or that one, but I'm assuming it'll be like maybe like 100, 200 nice.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I I have no idea. It could be 500 people, but either way, I'm really, really looking forward to it. Like I know some of the designers and development team from GMT will be there. James Buckley, I think, is the one who runs it. And I know he was a developer for Purple Haze when he was he used to be with Phalanx, if I recall.
SPEAKER_00And he recently did his own game via Sappa Studio that is his own company, even that is Battlegroup Clash Beltics. It's a it's a modern time, so so uh contemporary uh game uh with which has lots of drones, it's on the tactical level, but he'll show you in a few days.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure, I'm sure. That's awesome. I don't think I realize that at all, but yes, so I'm looking forward to meeting some new faces, seeing people that I've never like I haven't met Joe Dewhurst in in person. I'm excited to just go out to a new convention, connect with new people, and play a lot of games, hopefully. I don't I won't say a lot because we know how these things go, right? You're there's a socializing aspect to it, and yeah, no matter how many games I think I'm gonna play, it just like like for example, I again to go into moving mode hardcore. GMT had their spring weekend at the warehouse in Hanford, and I squeezed in, you know, initially I was like, okay, I'm gonna get get there Wednesday evening. It starts Thursday, so they don't have Thursday, Friday, come back sometime on Saturday. And then it was like looking at the chaos in the house and everything going on. I'm like, okay, we'll go Thursday. And my friend Lauren ended up joining me at kind of the last minute because, and Matt couldn't join me. He had to then drive his motorcycle near Santa Barbara to a friend that he's selling his motorcycle to. But I did manage to make it to the warehouse for a couple days. I ended up like packing three bags of games. And I'm like, I'm only gonna be there like one full day and a half, and I I just couldn't not have the options, you know.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And that that is important. At least I can play them if I'm in the mood, if I have time, and uh that is important.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, they had Combat Commander Vietnam, like a prototype of that set up. I got to like see it, but I didn't, I never had a chance to like sit down and see how that works. But I played a few other new games, upcoming releases, and you know, it's just always great to see everyone, like Gene and Rachel and the whole crew, and Kai Jensen, and yeah. So it was it was awesome, and it was a nice little like break from packing chaos.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and that is most important in life. Uh that you have your positive uh things because moving is kind of fun, but a special kind of fun.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's more fun on the other end when you're like setting up your new space and everything like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So we'll we'll get there eventually. But the other thing I wanted to mention, let's see, besides GMT moving, going to Europe. Like right now, by the way, we don't have a flight back to the States. So so when I say we might we'll probably stay in Southern California, who knows? You know, like we might be anywhere. Yeah, yeah, we might get on the road for a week and say, hey, maybe we want to like stay being digital nomads and kind of like, because we both work remotely, and I'm I'm trying to not be locked down to a single recording space. Like, I want to be able to make content anywhere, edit on the road and stuff like that. So this will kind of be a good test for that. And yeah, who knows, Uli, you might you might see us at some point because we don't have our whole itinerary planned.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, if if uh if you are in in the western part of Germany, please let me know. We'll meet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02There's a chance, like right now, our plan is to, after visiting friends in Munich, we have a friend in Hamburg we were thinking about visiting because we've never been to Hamburg, but we were like, oh, we've never been to Spain or Portugal. And so like we might end up down that way, and we're like, oh, well, if we go to Spain, we should go to Morocco. Also. So, but we well, we still haven't like committed to like where this where we'll be the second half of May. Yeah, I've never been to Portugal, Spain. I also found out in the GMT newsletter that there's a war gaming convention in Madrid in early June. So so maybe we will like plan our trip such that we're in Madrid for that. I don't I don't know. We'll see, we'll see.
SPEAKER_00Simply enjoy it. You'll have a wonderful time seeing all the different countries and and meeting people. It will be wonderful. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Uli. Thank you. The other little thing I wanted to mention was there's new podcast music. So I I have been for the past like several episodes, like since I started Kicking a Creative Podcast, been using some of my own music, like from a demo that I recorded. But I knew it wasn't like, oh, this is the theme music for the the podcast. But I just wanted to give myself some time. So you are gonna be the first episode, like this episode with us together is gonna be the first episode that has the new theme song for for my podcast. And I'm just super stoked about it. My good friend Logan Staley, I met him from playing Keyforge, so he's a local gamer friend who's now, I think, very obsessed with Dominion still. He's a every time I talk to him, well, Keyforge for sure, but like also like Dominion, and he loves like Slay the Spire, the board game and everything. But he's a composer professionally. And so Matt and I went over. I had this idea that some point I'll shall probably share the idea I recorded of myself singing this melody in my phone, and it was inspired by something that I'm not gonna share just yet, but because I'm curious to see what people might think when they hear it. But, anyways, we went in like with this like idea and just started recording. And like, so I started playing like the main beat on the like a kick drum with some mallets, and then Matt added something, then Logan added something, and we just kind of like did this until it got to the point where it is now and just had fun in the studio, and yeah, so it was just it was just fun. Thank you, thank you, yeah, yeah. So I'm happy to finally be like sharing that, and also just it's fun getting back into playing music and fusing it with board games, you know.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, wonder wonderful, yeah, excellent.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Uli. But we're not here to talk about music, we are here to talk about card-driven games, or also known as CDGs. Uli and I recorded back on the Board Game Geek podcast episode 22, way back in July of 2023. Wow, I didn't realize it was that long ago.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, well, time really flies.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and so there is one game in particular that I'm very excited to talk to you about, but we're basically gonna get into like what are card-driven games for people who aren't familiar, what makes them so special, how have they evolved, and we're gonna talk about some of our favorites. Yeah, and this is like one of your favorite genres, Uli.
SPEAKER_00It is the favorite genre for me in our on the gaming table, period. So so it is, in my opinion, it is simply the most exciting to me personally because it's so diverse, you can do so much, it's also very ludic thing because uh everybody who's who has played traditional card games knows that uh how to have a hand of cards. Yeah, cards are different, and that you play when it's your turn one card at a time normally. And uh so it feels like a traditional card game, but you can do so much with it with different values on the cards, different uses, so it's not there is a just a seven on the card, and I play it, and my seven is higher than your six, or your eight is higher than my seven. Right.
SPEAKER_02You can do a lot, yes, yes, yes. I love it, I love it, I love it. But before we jump into talking about card-driven games, Uli, I'd love to hear what you've been playing lately. So let's jump into Fresh Plays.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, my first game here is the old King's Crown. And I played it uh recently a couple of times. I played it also at Laria Cons. LariaCons three times. It is designed by Pablo Clark, and the company who's publishing the game is Eerie Idol Games from Scotland. The year it was released is last year, 25, but there is a new edition coming out late this year, so Octoberish time. Player count is one to four. And I fall in love uh love with the game because first thing is when you see it on the table, it has an excellent table presence. And the artwork, in my opinion, is really beautiful. The good thing is that the designer, the game designer, Pablo is also the graphics artist. And that is you you have your own vision, you know exactly how your fantasy, middle ages, middle age kingdom should look like, how the characters should look like. And of course, in the game, I think there are about 200 cards, all with individual illustrations, so that it's also a labor of love. On top of that, it is a lane battler, and I love lane battling as a genre because it's very direct, it's very interactive. So, you know, there's um I have nothing against this. These days, a lot of games, you are having your own player mat, you are solving your own puzzle, and you barely notice the other players at the table. There's nothing wrong with this, uh, with these games, that's fine. But here in in Old Kingston, in lane battlers, you each turn you have to observe what the others are doing, and basically you are attacking them. If you it is not a cozy, peaceful game. It is an lane battling is aggressive. And in my opinion, uh Old King's Crown is also the first time that lane battling is only used, or not only, is just a tool in the game. So you see in games like GMT's Battleline by Rainer Keetia, or my favorite one uh is Air, Land and Sea by John Perry. Yes, quick, and but lane battling is everything, that's a whole game. Here it is just a tool, like in some other games. Or let's talk about ARC, trick taking. Okay, of course, there are some people who are saying ARCS is not a trick taker, but trick taking is a part, it's it's a tool in the game. And old King's Crown is for lane battlers, but it's also very atmosphere, uh atmospheric, so so it's nice.
SPEAKER_02Oh, so cool! Yeah, believe it or not, I still have not played Old King's Crown, and I I just continue to hear fantastic things about it. I've seen it like very briefly. And wait, didn't you interview the game designer?
SPEAKER_00Yes, um I uh I interviewed the I met him first time at Essen last year, was a great talk, and and it in our interview uh we had so so I I saw in the back of his shelf that oh that that collection is kind of mine here. What I'm I'm I'm seeing. So you notice ah there's same interests. He likes weird games, uh he likes some war games, so so so everything's great.
SPEAKER_02That's cool. That's cool. Yeah, I saw that that interview pop up on my feed, or maybe you posted about or something, but I haven't had a chance to watch it yet. But I definitely love, you know, I love designer interviews, and you know, for something like this, like the like I don't think I realized that it was a lane like, or that it uses lane battling as like one of the mechanisms in it. But the other thing is there aren't many lane battlers that aren't strictly two players, too, right?
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Um here it's uh some people say it's better with two because it's a little bit, and I think these people are right, it's more strategic. You only have to react to one other person, but with four, it is perfectly playable. There are so many options, it's just pretty difficult to determine what three others are are are using at a single lane. So so yeah, but but it's great. It's whenever you have a chance, probably at a certain point in Europe or at PunchCon, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, exactly. I suspect someone will have it there, so hopefully I will get to play it soon. But yeah, that's that's fantastic. I'm glad you're enjoying it, and it's nice to hear you know your thoughts on it. So that is the old king's crown. So the first game I'm gonna mention is a game that just got a second edition and has been getting more love, but it's called Age of Galaxy, and I'm gonna talk about the second edition.
SPEAKER_00Are you familiar with Age of Galaxy, the original or um the is this the is a new edition by Portal Games by Glazi? Yeah, I I've seen the game. I'm uh yeah, well, too many games is my uh excuse here. I played the old one, the the tiny, the the really tiny, tiny box, I think from Taiwan.
SPEAKER_02I think so too.
SPEAKER_00I I uh yeah in in and the new edition is looking, yeah, well, more more inviting to play because everything is decent sized, but I want to hear more from you here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so so I had the way I discovered the designer who is known as Jeffrey C C. Jeffrey CCH is the lead designer of a pub a small pump publishing company in Hong Kong, Ice Makes.
SPEAKER_00Then it's probably not Taiwan, but but but Hong Kong. So so Yeah. So it's it's stupid Uli again.
SPEAKER_02No, no, you're not stupid at all. There are just so many designers all over the place. You cannot possibly unless you're Eric Martin and just like the the database it you know that you could just call up these these fans.
SPEAKER_00And and and a tiny notebook. So it's his it's his brain and the tiny notebook.
SPEAKER_02Exactly, exactly. Well, I had played a game called Inheritors a couple years ago. It's a card game that I remembered a couple people making videos. Like I know Monique and Naveen on Before You Play had a video on it. Or actually, when I recorded the BGG podcast with Monique, she brought this game up and I was like, oh, that sounds cool. So at some point I got a copy and I took it on a trip because I'm like, this is a small game. I haven't played it yet. And we were on a trip with Matt's brother and his brother's girlfriend, and the uh Matt and his brother and I played this game almost like every day, multiple times, and that's inheritors. And that one's cool. I'm not gonna talk about it, but that trip was leading up to Essen that year. So at Essen, I was like, I want to get like whatever else this designer created, and so I picked up Age of Civilization and then also Age of Galaxy, which is this the space follow-up to Age of Civilization. So I had both those small box versions, and then I ended up getting to play the original edition of Age of Galaxy just once. And I remember liking it and being like, ooh, like I need I need to play this again. Like there's something like just a little different about it. So then Ignacy was kind enough to send me the new version because I kept hearing people like more people that didn't know about the like small box version talking about it, and like a lot of people have been like surprised, like, where did this game come from? And so the the original version was out in 2022, so not that long ago, but this new version I know definitely improves on the the UI experience. Yeah, and I I'm just gonna say I I love this game, it's it's a space, like kind of uh I would say it has 4x elements in a package that plays in 45 minutes to an hour, and it is full of like really cool decisions because it's card-driven. Not in the same sense, it's not a card-driven game, but the cards in this game are like really, really special. They're multi-use cards. There are 30 cards and they're all unique. They're like different kinds of uh alien factions or or something. I forget what they're lore-wise, what they are, but they come with different effects. Each one has a different effect, they have a one-time use. If you just want to, you know, you need a resource or something, you can burn one for that. But at the beginning of the game, you're gonna get seven cards. There is an advanced variant where you draft cards, and I think I think the draft is where it's at. But what you do if you're not drafting is you get to mulligan three cards. So yeah, so you get your your hand, and then, but from there, Uli, you don't get any more cards the rest of the game. So you have seven cards you're playing this entire game with, which it's a short game, but the decisions around how you play your cards are so cool. But the premise for people who haven't like really like played this game or don't know much about it is you're like a you're exploring space, like there's a the round tracker for the game is these cards, and there are gonna be some planets out there that you can like colonize more or less. There are different little things in space that you'll be able to explore. You are getting battleships. I forget because of the other game that I'm gonna be talking about, but you're getting some kind of spaceships. And it's interesting because like spaceships in this game are kind of used as a currency.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_02You're not really like flying your spaceships out on a board, you're producing them, you're manufacturing them, you're getting them however you can, and you're using them to like when you explore, you have to like spend a ship. When you when there's the war phase happens, you're not like actually fighting people. You are comparing the number of ships that you have versus the other players and getting some reward. So it's a very like kind of a Euro-y experience, but there's also each player has their own player board with a little tech track that you can build up to choose different techs. And some of the cards that you get have advanced tech that you can go ahead and learn for your your crew. But the cards, the way the cards work is cool because you are going to be able to play a max of three cards and tuck them in your player board as part of your, or I guess to derive your your your major ideology. And that is simply the combination of whatever color cards, because each card has a little like a tab that has a color. Like it could be red, meaning they're gonna be like more militaristic cards. There are green that I think focus on like innovation, blue, you know, there's a number of colors. And as you play cards and before you start the game, you're gonna tuck one card. You're gonna choose one of those seven cards and tuck it. But then from that point forward, you can play one card per turn. And when you fill up those three cards, you cannot replace them. Some of them give you an immediate effect, but most of them give you some kind of ongoing ability. So you're trying to like synergize your cards and like have like set up some cool combos. And the colors of the cards matter because if I tuck a majority of red cards, so if I have two red cards and maybe a blue card, I am now like a part of the major ideology of militaristic. And that's gonna help me, that's me creating my scoring objective for the game. Not completely because it doesn't, it's not your entire score, but a part of your end game scoring is gonna come from your ideology. And if you wanted to, for you know, whatever strategic reason, like play all three different color cards, there's also a way, and regardless if you play the same color or different color, there's a way where you can overwrite that decision and just tuck a card and declare that as your major ideology. So, like maybe I do start off saying, okay, I'm gonna be like militaristic, I'm gonna get majority red cards down here, but later I'm looking at like, well, how does militaristic score bonus points? And I'm not doing well at that, but I'm doing like really well at something else. I can switch that with one of those seven cards. The the cards can also be like when you're going to colonize a planet, your your people can only live on certain types of planets based on, again, the cards that you've selected to tuck in your like alliance, those three cards. But sometimes you might want to take a planet that's different and you can just discard one of these cards to use it as a like one-time, almost like you're terraforming or something like that. And then again, like the texts get really cool. It's just it's it's really, really solid because it feels so different from like any spacey kind of like 4x themed or vibed game, and the the way the choices that you have with picking your cards when to play them, and and the scoring is so tight. That's the other thing, and that's something I loved about inheritors. It would be like, oh, first place was like 24, second place is like 22, and like, you know, we're not talking like 100-point games or anything. So aligning your major ideology with how you are approaching the game and you know, getting whatever you need to get bonus points from that is very important because that can make the difference. And there's like there's like a little mechanism that's kind of like where you're influencing the government to get prestige points. I don't know. It's just really, really awesome. And every single time I play it, just like when I played the old one, I just want to play it again. I'm like, oh, I want to play it again. Drafting is so cool. Oh, it's great.
SPEAKER_00But but that's a a great sign if you immediately want to play a game again. And actually, your description was excellent because I remember a few things from the first uh edition. Um I'm not sure why I haven't played it for so long, but now having the second edition uh means I now have to get the game out soon to give it a try.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I know I would definitely like if if anyone's like getting into this game now, I would recommend getting the the second edition if you can, because I think there were some things that were streamlined cosmetically to make it more approachable. And it it just it it looks it looks great, but if you have the old version, I've I think like they might have changed some of the card powers slightly, but you could probably find that on BGG, so you don't like need to have the new version. But yeah, I just I think it's it's just feels so different because of the way you can use cards. The other thing I'll just quickly mention about it is that during the phase where we're taking actions. Oh, there's two more cool things that that you you get like three, we'll say workers. They're not meeples, but when you're taking actions, it's almost like a worker placement thing. Like you're either putting one of your, I don't want to say their discs. I'm I'm now forgetting what they were. You, but you're you're getting a number of them as income, as part of your income phase. So then you have like worker placement, but it's never like too like there were moments where it's like, oh, that area got filled up, and those like certain areas when you place your disc, it's kind of permanent. Other areas they go away, but you always get like an income of some number of workers. And one of the cool things is there's a trade action where you're gonna put three trade cards out during setup. And so there's a little bit of variability because I think there were like maybe five or six of them and they're double-sided. And so you put those out, and when you take certain actions, your your discs or your workers shift up to these spots on these different trade cards. You can also, as an action, trade and put one of your discs there. And what happens is when all the slots on those each trade card is filled up, I don't remember the exact term, but basically it like pops and it's gonna flip over. And anybody who has a disc on that card gets all those discs back in addition to their normal worker income. So you might set yourself up to have a a big round because you have like maybe four more discs than everybody else to place and do stuff. So that's really neat too. So yeah, I'm I'm I love I love this game. I think this designer is is very like it's is different too, you know.
SPEAKER_00Which is also important. Um, but but you you see it is refreshing to see for now the last uh 10 years to to see more people that are not from from Europe or from the US coming from all over and bringing new ideas in. So great for Portal games and my good friend Ignazi to to have brought back this this game. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, seriously, because I'm I'm telling you, if you go on YouTube, I feel like half the videos are like, this game came out of nowhere. Like, and so I'm really glad that Portal picked it up and is getting it more exposure too. So that is Age of Galaxy 2nd edition. So, Uli, what what else have you been playing?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm also at that Laria Con with Mark Herman. Uh, we played Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars. Uh, that game is designed by Alessandro Zucchini and Paolo Mori. Quite a few people probably know Paolo or have played a game by Paolo. The game was released last year in 2025. It is for one or two players, and it's a war game, of course. And the company producing the game is Ing sorry for my pronunciation. It's Ingennesio Hidalgo. I think it is somewhat close to it, and it's a it's a simple Napoleonic tactical war gaming system, and it is four battles. This package features four battles, but there are also expansions planned. Maybe there's already one out in this uh base game. There is Austerlitz, Big Battle, Corona, Rivoli, and Hagelsberg, which is a small engagement, I think in 1813, but I may be wrong. And although it's an amateur publication, it's their own small publishing house. The components are really, really nice. Yes, you are having paper maps, quite a few wargamers know paper maps, but otherwise the cardboard is great, the wooden components are great, rules are fine, illustrations in there are fine, so it's excellent. It's very elegant. So you see, there was a podcast quite recent, a couple of months ago, by the super awesome Dan Thoreau space bif. So we interviewed the two of them, and Alessandro apparently is a hardcore wargamer and he loves to play also tactical Napoleonics. Whereas Paolo in the podcast uh still said, even after publishing the game, I'm not a war gamer. But he is a great he's a great systems designer.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00So so he's looking at Napoleonic warfare at the tactical level from the point of view of special mechanics. So everything is highly interactive, there's hardly any downtime, you're doing one action at a time, you only have a few actions available a turn. And some of the uh elements that I do not like in tactical war games, like line of sight calculation and all this stuff. Can I see this guy? Even uh that is almost gone. You do not have 20 pages of charts and tables, is this now a fire column? Is this now I'm uh assaulting and all and 25 modifiers to each and everything, everything is really well integrated, and you're rolling a couple of special dies. Plus what Mark and I both loved. I even forgot the true name for this die, but we called it the drama die because the you may choose it, but you don't have to as the attacker. It's an additional die, but it can backfire. And of course, of course, Mark and I we use it basically all the time. So that's this time it will work out. Well, not always, not always, so and I'm not even a huge tactical gamer, but I loved the game, and I think both of them have really achieved something. The first edition, I think it was 150 copies, was immediately sold out, but they will redo the game, plus expansions, and and Paolo and Alessandro just showed or proved that you can do something pretty new. They are not reinventing uh the wheel, but you can do something really pretty new in a very crowded field of tactical Napoleonic games. So, really, in my opinion, quite an achievement.
SPEAKER_02Cool. Well, I you know, I I I'm pretty sure my friend Nate brought this to, I think he was one to get one of the early copies, but when we were at SD Histcon, but I didn't get a chance to play it. But I love like just about everything Paulo Mori touches. And for Alessandro Zucchini, as soon as I saw that name, and I was like, oh, the two of them re- I was about to say recorded. Wow. My my brain's mush right now. But the two of them made Toy Battle. And I don't know if you've played Toy Battle, but that is a fantastic two-player game where you're like, you're, you're, you're battling as toys, and you have these kind of like tiles, like these units that have all these abilities, but then you have all these different maps where and you're basically trying to like kind of come for the opponent's tower, but then there's another victory condition. And I think that game is like so fantastic. So this this duo seems really awesome. Also, I've been introducing people to Dogs of War, speaking of Polo Mori, which is like it's just such a fantastic banger.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is, yes, it's so good. It is, and then thank you for introducing me to Toy Battle, which I did not know, but I had just written the name down.
SPEAKER_02Good, good, good. Yeah, I highly recommend checking out because that is one it's light enough to play with just about anyone, and thematically it's cute, but it's like really cool what they've done with hey, here you have all these different types of units, and some of the units aren't in play. So you don't know exactly like what your opponent is going to be able to do. And there's a cool way that you can kind of stack units on top of each other and having I think eight different maps that are all like fun, colorful, like toy themed. That's another really good one from these two. So now you've given me another one to hopefully play at PunchedCon. Because I I would imagine someone will have it there.
SPEAKER_00So hopefully, yeah. Give it a try.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And and the funny thing is, this episode is gonna drop after PunchedCon. So I'll have to do I'll have to post a follow-up or something to to say what I actually got to to play. I mean, well, I will be doing like a bunch of videos probably from from that event, but that's so cool, awesome. And that one is Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars. Very cool. So I'm not even a big space themed gamer or anything, and I struggled with I had so many games that I wanted to share with you and everyone listening, but I had to bring up Space Empires 4X. Oh man, Oli. So this this game, this is a game designed by Jim Crone back in 2011. It originally came out from uh GMT Games. And I remember probably early on into getting into war games, like it fell on my radar. It had, you know, lots of people speak highly of it. And so I I bought it at some point, and then expansions come out. I'm like, well, I gotta get the expansions too. Still hadn't played it, still hadn't played it. A couple years ago at GMT Weekend at the warehouse, two good friends, Adam, who's one of the developers of Red Dust Rebellion, and Ken Kuhn, who used to do like work on rule books and playtesting and some development, I think, for GMT. They were like, like, love this game. And we played a four-player game with one of the co-op scenarios. And I remember, like, after that, I was just like buzzing about the game. I'm like, oh, I want to play it more, I want to play it more. Of course, didn't get a chance to. Years passed, every once in a while. I'm like, oh, Space Empires, I want to get that back to the table. Finally did because, well, number one, I was determined. So I brought it because I have this really awesome insert, 3D printed insert from I'm gonna give this a shout out just because so many people walked by our table and was like, oh, that looks awesome. That's so helpful. Peck Labs, I believe, on Etsy, he makes fantastic inserts for like Combat Commander, like SETI, like just like really like innovative and like really like premium 3D inserts. But, anyways, so I had it all organized, and I had also like there's someone on YouTube who has a solo playthrough where He uses these like tokens that I got. So I kind of like pimped it out, even though, again, I still have barely played this game, but I'm like just like slowly building the obsession in my mind. And we got to play a three-player game with Brett Rikert, who is right now who's developing the official like app for Space Empires 4X, which is because of some licensing issues with another video game. It's called Space Imperia. Like the app. But but so Brett was at GMT and Space Empires 4X is his favorite game. And I'm like, I had the opportunity to play with someone once again who it's like, this is my favorite game. And he did a fantastic job teaching, even though like I was kind of refreshed, but my friend Lauren had never played. And this is a 4X space game that, like, honestly, Uli, I'm going to give my copy of Twilight Imperium to my friend Jake because this game does so much for me. You know, it doesn't have the like the politics of TI4, and I still love TI4, but the exploration in this game, the choices you have with technology, the flow of it, like the the structure of the game is not that complex, right? You have you play turn after turn until somebody like takes over someone else's like home base. And there are a bunch of scenarios. You can play solo, there are co-ops and I haven't even peeked at the scenarios yet, but you're you're basically exploring space. The exploration is like awesome. Everyone has like a number of spaces within their like home system. Have you played it before?
SPEAKER_00No, actually not. So so um um but I know the game and uh fiddle, who's uh doing lots of work these days for Spielworks, it's one of his favorites games, and he always tells me, let's play the game, let's play the game. Holy play it! Now I hear it's it's a second different voice, so so uh finally I probably have to. To me, actually, why have I never played the game? You hinted on this, it's a lot of competition in in this field. Although I'm not a great Twilight Imperium fan myself, I my favorite one actually is still Eclipse in this genre, which which I love, but Arcs is there and a ton of different uh titles. But now I have to play Space Empire.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes. If any of this, like that I'm about to share, these couple of highlights that I find with it sound cool, you you should definitely check it out. But it is very much like so. The exploration's really cool. After you get beyond your home system, and the things you'll find, like everybody's home system has the same pool of things that you will be able to find, but obviously they're not in an order because, or not in the same order because everything gets randomly placed. And that's where, like, typically when you play when you set up this game, you have to put all these chits face down because you're, you know, you gotta go fly in there and explore. But the person that I saw playing this solo on YouTube, and I wish I could remember his channel, but he was using these tokens, they're just like acrylic discs, but they're like a nice company makes them. But he puts those and then he puts all the exploration chits into a bag. So it's like you fly somewhere, remove the token, and then you draw on your bag and say, Oh, I found a mineral. Oh, I found an alien planet, I found whatever you found, you know. But beyond each player's home system, there's there's deep space. And in deep space, there's so many other things you can find. And, you know, from the three expansions, like you can choose to like have certain things available that you'll discover and leave stuff out if you want, so you can kind of customize. But I think there's something like 193 different things. Wow, different, like or or maybe not different. No, it might not be different. Like there might be 10 nebulas you could that are within there, but like lots of cool exploration. Then you have ships. So the flow of the game is you have three turns, like yeah, three player turns of movement. And what after you move, so it's like I will move all my ships, and then any that are are scouts, they can explore new stuff. Then Uli, you would take your turn, you would move all your ships, and then we do that three times around, and then there's an economic phase, and this is where you get to shop. So your your home planet is gonna give you a number of construction points, but then you as you find minerals and and and discover other planets that you settle, like there's they start to generate resources, which you can then reinvest in your fleet. And when you're shopping, you can upgrade technology. So, like at the beginning, everybody's ships all just have a move of one, but you can later start like spending some of your currency in this game to say, okay, now I'm at movement level two. And this means on turn one and turn two, I still can only move one space, but when I hit turn three, now all my ships can move two. You have like you have combat ships, and then you also have more like civilian ships that are non-combat. You have these pipelines that you can make a route to make flying, traveling more efficient. That's really cool. You you can place mines, you can you build better ships, you like there are just so many options. And I will say it looks very intimidating because of the economic phase. The way it, the way it's handled is you have like a sheet. So you're literally gonna be writing down, okay, I have 36 CP. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get another scout, I'm gonna build this, and you're spending this, and sometimes you'll carry some over. So you you kind of write down your income, then you have some maintenance costs on some of your ships, and then you can spend it however you want. And this is so cool because when you put ships on the board, they're face down. And then the number of ships is represented by a counter that's all that's your ship is covering. So you will see my little stack flying towards you, and you don't know if that's just like one ship or maybe it's six cruisers or six dreadnoughts coming at you. And they're also decoys that you can build. And so the fog of war is so cool. Like, I think I don't know if I read this in the rule book or somewhere or where I heard this, but like it is a game of psychological warfare. Like, be because of that. Like at some point, uh, I flew close to Brett's ships and everything, and he ended up making a decision to split his fleet because he didn't know one of mine was just the decoy. So he's like, Well, I can't go in there and like, you know, unprotected or whatever. So there's there's awesome exploration, there's awesome like ways that you're building things, like the secrecy of it is like phenomenal. And what was the other thing that I like? Oh, combat. Combat is so cool too, because ships that are combat ships have a level A through E. And if I go to fight you, we're gonna flip over and see what I encountered. You know, you're gonna say, oh, I have three of these ships, two of these, or whatever. We're gonna set it up, we're gonna pull them off the board, and like any A ships are gonna fire. There's a tech you can increase called tactics. So if we both have A ships, whoever has the highest tactic level of technology is gonna go first, otherwise, defenders. But maybe you don't have A ships. So then my A ships are gonna fire at whatever ships of yours. You there's no simultaneous, like it is very, very structured with this initiative order based on the ships you have. And there are bonuses you can have if you have doubled the fleet size of the other player. But the the combat is just like really, really awesome. And it's everything about it, like with the the again, that fog of war of not knowing exactly what's what your opponents are are planning to do, the the all the tech options you have, like the exploration is so fun. You can discover alien planets, and then all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, now if I want to take over that planet, which will help me build my engine of resources, I need to first fight all these alien chips, which you can like there's so much with that. But I just like I think this game is so cool, I think it's so cool. I think the the onboarding can be rough because of the the way the tech options, the way it's all presented is like table, and it makes it'll make sense to you after you play like a round or two, but I think there's a better way to present those options, and so that's something I mean, I'm gonna check BGG to see if anybody made a a different way for like tracking that kind of stuff, or I'm gonna create something because like I'm like this game is just too good to like I wanna show more people and I want to like make the onboarding experience like as smooth as possible, and it's just freaking fun. So, yes, you need to play it, Lily.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but it it's uh if if if you are saying this, if Phila is saying the same thing, I have to play the game, and I think you're right. So because you said uh the game was released, the original edition was done in 2011.
SPEAKER_012011, yeah.
SPEAKER_00But but at that time, GMT games weren't necessarily welcoming. So they were done in the standard wargaming ways. Yeah, texting. Here's the rules booklet. We have three illustrations in there, and the rest is text, and and you'll manage. And of course, you'll manage, and uh but for newcomers to uh to this genre, uh they may say, Well, no, this is must be, it has to be super complex. And most of the games, if you have played them, uh you see, ah, it's not that complex, and they offer so much, they are they are so rich in in uh play experience that it's too bad. But I have to say, GMT has gotten a lot better since then. Not 30% or 50%, it's really a lot better. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. I I completely agree. And even just since I've been like, I think Comancheria, you know, I bought Battleline early on, but like, but I think Comancheria was my first like GMT like war game where I'm, you know, looking at the rule book with the 3.1.2 says this. And you're right, like there might there might be one or two pictures or graphics in the rule book, and then it's just text. But yeah, I think this game needs some kind of refresh treatment in terms of like player aids because like I'm telling you, like the the process, when you get to that economic phase, that like and saying, oh, like what how do I want to spend my points to get like new ships and technology? And they're also ground like structures that you can get. There's all sorts of like really neat stuff, but looking at these, like this player aid that's like a grid, like a it looks like an Excel spreadsheet. And then also the fact that you're writing stuff, I think if it's presented a little differently, it's gonna be awesome because like I know my friends who play TI4, like we all love like getting technology. And when you do in in TI4, you have cards. So you can like, while it's not your turn, you're looking through, like, oh, maybe I'm gonna build this for my dreadnoughts. So that's actually something I was thinking about for this game. I might try to make some cards for tech or something, or or maybe like a multi-page, like a fold out thing, something that just makes it easier to see what your options are. You know, like some things have restrictions. Like you can't build a dreadnought until you have ship size technology of three or whatever, you know?
SPEAKER_01Very good. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02So anyway, I uh yeah, I'm sure I will talk more about this game at some point because I'm still just like really, really buzzing from it. And I'll just give another shout out to Brett Rikert, who's making this digital adaptation because it is on it is on board game arena, but to my knowledge, board game arena doesn't have any of the expansions, and the expansions really like open it up, and there are things that make the board look more beautiful. There are cards, like, oh, there's so so much cool stuff. But he's planning to, with this app that I think is on Steam, he's planning to like get every expansion in there, and you know, it's a labor of love because he loves the game so much and he wants to play it more himself and to make it like more accessible. So that's it. I'll stop gushing.
SPEAKER_01That'd be great.
SPEAKER_02So that's Space Empires 4X. Let's jump into our chat about card-driven games.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, in a CDG, what is special is that normally the cards drive the game. That's why it's called card-driven games. So, but it's not a card game, or these are not card games per se. So you have a board, you have pieces on the board, and you're doing some action. It's just that the cards determine what you're doing. And I hinted on this before. When it's your turn, you normally play a card, but the cards most of them, or in most games, they are multi- multi-purpose. So you can use them for action or command points. Most of them have have an event, or some have other uses uh uses. There are combat cards, there are reaction cards sometimes. But when it's your turn, you can only use it for one of these different things. And so, what is in my opinion really most exciting is first at the start of a game round, if I have a if I take a look at my hand of cards, I have to determine to determine the sequence, the order when uh to play a certain card, but also when it's my turn, ha, this event is very powerful. On the other hand, I now need uh four command points, which is high. So there's also this agony, this decision making, and that makes it so exciting. And again, it feels like a traditional game experience. There's most of the time there's most of the time very few very little downtime because you are playing a card, and then the actions from the cards translate to the game board and to the pieces. And of course, another thing that is very interesting, in my opinion, you can script historical games very well.
SPEAKER_02Oh yes.
SPEAKER_00In in Mark Herman's We the People and that later Washington's war, there is a card where the independence of the United States it will happen in the game. It's just not certain when it will happen. And that that is wonderful. But as a designer, you can say, Well, of course, at a certain point the independence has to uh happen. How do I model this? There could be a table that it could be based on events on the board, but this is simply a great thing. And you know, this we are talking we were talking about space empires, about Twilight Imperium. These rules booklets are long, and sometimes there is an exception or a special case just for a very tiny little special thingy, and here you can translate this to a card, so it's just happening on a card. Oh, this event had this special card. You don't don't have to include it in the rules. So often that is also a nice thing.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. Like, exactly. Like that is the cool thing. There are so many rich decisions and like agonizing decisions from your hand of card in in card-driven games. Often, like they're predominantly historical games, war games, but nowadays there are all sorts of different games that are using this mechanism. And it's just it's so cool. And I'm glad you brought up the fact that you can unburden the players with like learning a bunch of upfront rules by being able to use the cards as the rule changes and everything. You know, I'm like you, Uli. Like this is, I don't know if the mechanism of a card-driven game is like my favorite, but it's one of my favorites for sure. I love games that give you like those tough hand management decisions with your your cards. And also often when when these games are two-player, you need to sometimes like even when you were talking about your card that has the four ops or the four command points, and it has a great event, and you might say, Okay, like, no, I really need to like, I can't do this event because I have I need these these four action points, right? But then you do something on your turn, and I'm like, that that's now changing, like, you know, the the decisions of how which card I'm playing when and everything. It's really, really cool. I I know there are some of the games that kind of started this genre that I've still have not played. I'm I know I'm due to play Washington's war on Rally the Troops with Mark at some point. Yeah, yeah, and I have a copy of it here that I just haven't busted out. And I know I've still always wanted to play Wilderness War, which is one of Volko's designs, but it's also cool to see Fort Circle is, I feel like, focused on more accessible, like lighter games and different settings. And a lot of them, like we have like votes for women as a fantastic multiplayer CDG that can be played solo or two players, but it could also, I think, play up to like four. Then like you have like Dan Bullock, who's doing like really cool things with uh with CDGs.
SPEAKER_00Dan is also wonderful. So and a designer that really tackles different uh topics, and and that is also something which I like of him very much. So yes, yeah.
SPEAKER_02I know I have the uh his game, the 1979 Iran revision.
SPEAKER_00Yes, Raid on Iran or whatever the title is, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And I've I only played it once. I want to revisit it because it's just like a little weird, you know, like there's something different. I think in that one, there's a draft with and it's a two-player game, and you like draft cards, and it reminded me a little bit of Versandas Volk, like the the way that the cards are kind of there are public cards there, which is yeah, which is really cool. Like there's so many neat innovations we're seeing with CDGs over the past couple years.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I I I I think uh that uh nowadays uh because some of these innovative designers uh they have shown it doesn't have to be military war games. There is so much more. Basically, any topic could be tackled by uh by card-driven games, any topic. It is just pretty difficult to set up and to test because you are each of these uh or all these cards are interacting with each other. That makes it really tough to to uh balance it, and I think some of the designers feel that there are other ways to do it, which I think more should at least try a war game from maybe from Four Circle, Shores on Tripoli, I think is one of the simpler ones. And then, of course, votes for women by by Tori Brown. I think uh these are ideal starting points, and more designers, more players will notice wow, this is a wonderful mechanic.
SPEAKER_02Yes, yes, and then I I don't even know if this is accurate, but I was gonna say like majority. Might be two player games.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think so.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but but there are a lot of like multiplayer CDGs that are even even more exciting sometimes, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. And of course, even more difficult to test. And uh so, but yes, there are more and more coming out, and that is also a good sign.
SPEAKER_02Cool. Okay, well, let's just kind of casually. I know I I put more of a of a plan together, and I did not have as much time to prep as I was expecting. So I'm gonna be sort of winging it a bit and talking in between, you know, we're just gonna trade off some games that because I because I have some CDGs here that I've haven't gotten a chance to learn and play yet that I'm excited about. I know there's one, maybe we'll just get it out of the way right now, but Imperial elegy. Yes, like well, let's just talk about that whole genre of these big epic multiplayer games. Like we have successors, we have here I stand, Virgin Queen.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, man, and uh yeah, first of all, um I love multiplayer CDGs, and I think they add something to the gaming table because now you have also a psychological aspect. What is that player doing? How do you react? Often they are asymmetric, so it's not that everybody has the same victory conditions, makes them also, in my opinion, more interesting, and that that is wonderful. And Imperial Allergy to me, it's by VUCA Simulations, that is a German company, was released last year, is already sold out, but they republished it, so there is a second edition already out. The designer is, I think, US, it's Michael Lorino. Yeah, and I think it's a newcomer as designer, but in the design notes, he states that he built the initial design on the wheels of on the of the chassis of Here I Stand. And I think that was an immensely smart move to take something that is working and then modify it. And you see the rules, but it has been modified in a in a big way. And it's for one to six players, uh yeah, there are both rules. I'd say I'd only play it with six because this psychological aspect and you need the different personalities on the table, which with their own interests, with their own options, I think then the game shines. And yeah, playing time is an issue. There there are shorter scenarios, but I'd say if you put as much time and effort in something, you want to play the full scenario, and that is the game starts 1850 and could go up to 1920, so seven decades and one decade is game route. And um I I I think I even I'm I'm that smart that I didn't even mention what's the topic of the game. So sorry. Sorry. So the the topic is the the six we are in in imperialist times, so the six powers in the game are Germany, England, France, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. And we are trying to get our share of the world, basically. Yes, main focus is in Europe, but there's also an Africa insert map, there's also Asia. Of course, colonialism is a big topic here because we are imperialistic powers. That's what we are. And the game will end in World War One, at the end of World War One. So we are fighting also World War One, but it's not mandatory that World War One will be happening. So I played two games so far in January, and then Atleria with Mark last month. And in Atleria, Great War started, I think, in 1890, so very early. But in our first game, we had no no Great War.
SPEAKER_01No Great War.
SPEAKER_00So so totally different experiences and a really great time. It's just you need a full day, in my opinion, and you need six people.
SPEAKER_02And yes, yeah, yeah. And I like I certainly am not opposed to like just trying some of the like those shorter scenarios just to get more familiar with the game. And I do hear that the that the bots are smooth to run. But yeah, let that like six-player dynamic, we all are have asymmetric abilities and goals, but like sometimes you're going to be you're gonna be making alliances. Like, I love the the diplomacy in it, and that those secret objectives. Like, that was one of the first things you told me about when I when I was asking you about it over email. I was like, you know, how do you feel like or or where does this stand? Where does this stand compared to here? I stand. And you mentioned those national goals, and I think that is such a really, really cool aspect of this game. That I barely scratched the surface of because my we we weren't able to finish my first game, but most of us were like, we were talking about it for probably like an hour after we we needed to call it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and uh the i I I think first I want to return to the two points you mentioned, the diplomacy system and the national goal cards. And what you just mentioned also happened at Laria in Portugal. We were we are finishing the game, we are moving to dinner, and we are talking at the table the whole for the whole dinner. Ah, that could have been done differently. Oh, why did I do what is happening? That is always a great sign of a sign of a great game if this is happening. But getting back to the national goal cards, you see, I love Here I Stand, I love Virgin Queen. And of course, Ed Beach is also the designer of these two games, is a genius that he moved, that he was able to compose these two uh wonderful games. But in Here I Stand, for example, after a certain while you see, ah, that player, because everything is open information, is very close to win because you see the number of keys on the table, and if you and suddenly some other several other players are working against you. In Imperial Allergy, at three times of the game, each player has a deck of nine national gold cards. Some of them are identical between the players. So, for example, there is, I think for each player there is a card, Great War should shall not happen. Then you're yeah, then you get some some victory points. But some are player specific. So, for example, for the UK player wants a dominance in Africa, so lots of colonies. And but at three points of the game, I think at the end of the first, third, and fifth round, you are drawing, you shuffle your deck of nine cards, you draw three and keep one, and the others are reshuffled, so you could draw them back. But you're it's not guaranteed that all of your cards will ever end in your hand, and you have to pick three at the end. Just these three cards determine the number of points. So that is an additional element that is first very elegant, but also it adds to the whole game. So very good. And the second thing, diplomacy, and a lot of these multiplayer games, card-driven or not, it is ah Candace, shall we do an shall we do an alliance here? Because we have the same interest, and you are saying no with you, Uli, no, never ever. Yeah. Or with some other players, and and we we can form alliances. But here it is handled via a mechanism, via a track. And I can even try, but it costs me cards because I have to play a card from I can to break off an alliance. Like, for example, Russia is in alliance with France, and I'm playing Germany, so I'm afraid that I could be attacked from both sides. I can try to get Russia out of that alliance, and yeah, that is also wonderful. And we saw this because we were inexperienced in our games. At first, nobody's wanting to do this, but then you see, oh, world war could break out. I'm better in an alliance now with somebody else. And I realized in our second game that Germany's very strong. I was playing poor Austria-Hungary, but that's why I wanted to make sure how Germany is my ally, and that helps me in the end a lot. So it's really, I cannot recommend Imperial allergy highly enough, especially from a newcome, newcomer designer. And if you have the time, the number of players, give it a try. It is really wonderful. One last thing, maybe from from my point of view, uh-huh. I'm still because my experience is not that big, I'm not really sure about the Great War because it it starts not a completely, but a different uh sequence of play, different things are happening, and so it it felt when we had it in our second game as a kind of break here. So, so and and I'm not sure if you can do it more smoothly. I'm not sure, and it's not a critique. And I'm playing the game next next month again, but we we we were surprised that that it changes the game pretty big.
SPEAKER_02Sure, yeah, it's a drastic change, and we didn't get to the point where I knew either way if the great war was gonna break out. But one thing as you were talking that I was like, oh, we definitely should mention is if the Great War happens, then you win with the people that you're allied with. Like then it becomes sort of a team game. So you are as you play, like, you know, factoring that in, like, oh, like who do I want to be allied with? And yeah, the alliance systems, super cool. And then the other thing that I thought was I don't know if I've seen, I I don't think I've seen it in any other CDG. I don't know if it exists, but the ambition, your national ambition cards. So each turn, you you will always have in your hand one of these two cards. And they each have like a different kind of effect of how you how you might want to strategize. So there's a a main deck of cards that's common that's gonna get shuffled, and you're gonna get a number of cards. Also, throughout the game, you're trying to get control, like I think they're keys or something, major keys, which are gonna help you get more cards because cards are like that is everything in this game, and you know, a lot of CDGs. So the fact that, like, even beyond the asymmetric powers and your abilities, but like that certain players might have access to more cards and they might be able to help you get more cards is really cool. But I love that the progression of it that you that the deck changes as the game goes on. You add in certain cards as certain events are are played as an event, they're removed from the game. So they're not reshuffled. So you are seeing the cards again, but you always have those two national ambition cards. So after you get your hand of cards, you can look at your cards, and then you can, you know, do the diplomacy where I where we talk and see what people can do. And then you have to lock in whichever of those national ambition cards that you want to use for the round. And it's it's just like there, I think there's something really nice about that, like knowing you will always have like one of your signature cards in the mix of the random pool.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, I I I agree one 100%. And it is also something because you have one big uh, as you just mentioned, one big deck of cards you you draw from. So it could be that you are really unlucky and have just poor cards in your game round. But the the special card is really strong for each for each country. So that adds to it. So so it also tells you, at least I have one card. And another great thing is in January when we played our first game, nobody had played the game. So we were we set up the game, and you thinking, oh, what and you have the initial uh hand of cards, and you think, oh, what to do now? But but uh because you're just playing one card at a time, it is not that hard to get into it. And your initial hand in the first round is just three plus this special card.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, like four cards, right?
SPEAKER_00So in some UK, I think, and the Ottomans they have four cards plus the other ones. So the first game round moves pretty quickly. There are hardly any wars, and you learn the game, and uh in the starting in the second round, you feel ah, I know already uh something here. And that the player eights, yeah, it's if you see your player eight card, which I think it's six pages, yeah. At first you think, oh, what is this? But it's actually really helpful. It is really helpful.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is really helpful because like some of the things that tripped us up, I think, were how you move in the your fleets and everything, like the rules with that. But like once you understand the like the rules, the like and you understand how to interpret the player aid, it's it's it's really solid. There's a tons of information on there, but it's it's helpful. I think that we all agreed that like there was something on the the combat side that like we might want to make a revised like combat player aid, because there were some like even the the the like the the rewards you get for combat, like the treaty points and everything.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Or like the the type of victory. It's not just like, oh, I won, you lost. It's like, did you have a major victory? Did you have this? Because if so, like what you get from it is it varies. And yeah, so there's there's so much cool stuff with this game. I really look forward to like playing it more and like you playing it more or anybody and like talking more about it because I feel like I'm not at the level like of experience where I can even like appreciate all the things. And I like I already appreciate so much about it. And I just hopefully, like when I when whenever we get back and we settle in a new home base that like I could get a monthly game going. Because like also, like as people know the rules, it it might not be like that crazy long.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it will be uh still a long game, but not that crazy long. I I agree 100%. And on the other hand, uh I I think in both games we played some some rules uh wrongly. But it it it will happen, but it doesn't matter, in my opinion, if if all players are happy, if the game uh flows along uh smoothly. And you have to see the these people who governed these countries, they weren't perfect, and and they made that they made more than enough mistakes, especially the German chancellors and the German Kaiser. They made enough mistakes, and you are doing uh the same thing. And that leads me to maybe one final point. What I also really appreciate in multiplayer card-driven games is a couple of years ago I played uh Pax Britannica again, and that is this old game from '86 Greg Kostikian, wonderful designer. And obviously, because it's old, not a car-driven game. And here you are the heads of a state, and you decide everything that is going to happen. You are you you are godlike basically. And in card driven games, yes, of course, it's that still heads of state fantasy that you decide 90% and uh you have lots of freedom. But the events, some of them are mandatory, you have to play them. And so you do not have perfect information and you do not have perfect what what's the term agency. You can't do whatever you want. There are outside things that are directly influence you, and that I also like a lot.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, oh, so good. It's so good. And uh the last thing I'll just say is one of my good friends here, Tim, he was able to join my Imperial Elogy game. And I think he's played TI4 once and had he's never played like Here I Stand or anything. I think his only other experience with any kind of war game or historical game was like Land in Freedom, which I played with him and my good friend Ben Mandelcore like a couple years ago. And he liked that. But like after playing, and he was playing France in Imperial Elogy, and he was just like looking through, thinking about like, oh my gosh, like what if I use this national ambition? Like, there are wildly different things that you can do. And like looking at the goals, like he's bit now developed a thirst for these kind of games, and like he's he's getting like why I got so like ups, or why I am still so obsessed with these kind of games, and like it's just it's awesome. So I know I know he's always gonna be down to play it if he has the time to play Imperial LG games.
SPEAKER_00It it it it is wonderful, and what what we before Laria, when I tried to to get a game of six, and Mark wanted to play and others wanted to play, but we uh we were looking for more players, so so I asked our friend, our mutual friend Ben Maddox from Five Games for for D I asked Ben, you are at LariaCon, you have to play it. And Ben normally does not play these long historical wagons. He said, Oh, yeah, he likes one day when at the convention is already planned. I have to play for the full day. I said, You'll enjoy it. And I told him, so he said, Yeah, I'm in. But I told him, Ben, read the rules. You don't have to memorize, yeah, but read the rules. But knowing Ben, I knew it wouldn't happen. So so of course he hadn't read the rules, he had looked at a at a video or two, but he's an experienced, intelligent person and experienced in games. So he as I said earlier, you don't have 15 cards in your first game round, and you need no, I need to boost my economy. One card is used for industry. So he was in the game, he played smartly, he played well. So so it is possible. I wouldn't recommend it without reading the rules to play the game, and because you can't really teach it on the table, or it's it's very difficult to teach it on the table. It takes forever, and I would fall asleep.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And and but it is not that hard to get into it.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah, you're you're totally right. It's like you, if everybody like this is definitely a type of game where I had everybody like do a little homework. And I think once you get to someone like you that's played like a couple times, if you have those new players, if they do a little bit of homework, when they have questions, you'll be able to say, Oh, this is how it works, and it'll make it make it nice and smooth. That's awesome that Ben played because I know he is very the like loves medium weight Euro games.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And and and that won't change, but he loved it too. And we were talking, and he was also at dinner time. Oh, I could have done this, and uh so so he really liked it a lot.
SPEAKER_02Cool, cool. And well, speaking about Ben and his podcast, Five Games for Doomsday, which is awesome. This is a podcast where basically he challenges different gamers or or whoever, whatever guest he has on, to choose five games if it's like zombie apocalypse and you have to leave your house in a hurry to like go to a cat. You can only carry five games. Which games are you gonna bring? And it's such a it's a challenge. I'm gonna tell you, it is a challenge to like narrow down to have that like within five games, you want to cover so many things, especially if you're an omni gamer. You know, maybe you're someone out there who's just like, I just like train games. Here are my favorite chain games. Yeah, I don't know. But like I found it really challenging. So, but like with CDGs, I kind of said, Hey Uli, which would be your five games for doomsday CDG-wise.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so uh first thing is because I think it's one of the very best games, not only war games ever done. So it's Empire of the Sun by Mark Herlman again. Um so that is a game, strategic game on the War in the Pacific, integrates also politics into the game. So that is sheer genius, this game. So wonderful game. Then Pursuit of Glory. That is in the Path of Glory series.
SPEAKER_01Oh, right, right.
SPEAKER_00But different different designer, and it's I think Near East, Middle East thing, Balkans are included. I love Path of Glory as a game. I do not like it as a simulation of World War One. Pursuit of Glory, I think, is as good as a game, but better as a simulation, two-player card-driven game. Um, also GMT. Empire of the Sun is also GMT. Ben Matthias, my good friend Matthias Karma, was also at LariaCon. You have to come to LariaCon. That's what I'm always saying, Candace.
SPEAKER_02I gotta get there. I gotta get there. Sounds awesome.
SPEAKER_00So that is Weimar, a pure four-player game politics. Weimar Republic politics, four-player plays in six hours, so it's not short, but it's really great game. Then the just Imperial Allergy, VUCA simulations, and then I'm cheating because this game is actually two games Here I Stand, Virgin Queen. Sometimes I'm thinking here I stand is better, then it's Virgin Queen at Beach, again, GMT games, wonderful pair of multiplayer uh war games.
SPEAKER_02Wow, wow. I would I would totally go hang out in your cabin on Doomsday with this. I I I love that like everything, so I didn't really. I'm I might wing some of this right now and just come up on the spot with with what I would pick, but I I was thinking there would be like some like lighter ones.
SPEAKER_00We have so much time in the cabin. We can even read the rules in advance.
SPEAKER_02You're right. So that is the time to just get the the the best of the best. You got time to kill. That's awesome. Yeah, I I I'm gonna have to try. I've never played Paths of Glory or Pursuit of Glory. Weimar is still on my list to try. I still haven't played Virgin Queen. I've only like done Here I Stand. I have attempted to learn Empire of the Sun multiple times. I do look forward to the day. Like I was playing that or learning that shorter scenario that was in the C3i.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I forget what it's called, but I had everything for that. And I was gonna play it with my friend Hector, who is also another one that's obsessed with Imperial Elogy right now. But we we I think he he ended up like learning and playing a little more than me. So those are still very much on my list. I think if I was gonna pick now, I think I would take Imperial Elogy for like my my my big one. I really liked Successors too.
SPEAKER_00Good game, yes.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've only I only played it once and it ended very, very early. Like some auto victory uh happened. But I want to revisit that one. I think I think I would I would take uh land in freedom.
SPEAKER_00Yes, excellent game, excellent game. Yes, I I like it a lot too.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I would take land in freedom because it's it's three-player and it's semi-cooperative and a little more like it's like a 90-minute game or something like that. Like I think it's less than two hours. Um, and then I also something I tried to play recently, but then I realized whoever I bought the copy from, I don't remember if I was aware of this or not, but all the purple blocks were missing. And that is uh Founding Fathers.
SPEAKER_00I haven't played it. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_02I would say it's it's accessible, but it's I like all that, like the the political stuff. Like I love the great statesman, like like Churchill and Versailles 1919, like anything that has like kind of like some of the political stuff mixed in. I think Founding Fathers does a good job of that, and you're like, you're kind of influencing different articles that are gonna be possible the constitution. But yeah, I was trying to play a five-player game and realized the copy I bought from someone doesn't have any of the purple blocks. It has the stickers though, so I don't know if like there was some issue when whoever got it. I don't know. I'm gonna find purple blocks and and make it happen. But I think I would take that just because like every time I've played it, I've liked it a lot and I don't get to play it that often. But then, I mean, I think I would take Versindos Volk.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, wonderfully.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And and with the expansion, so that like if there are four of us at the uh at the cabin that you know we we could do the it's sort of like mostly a team game, but I think there's only one winner when you play with the expansion. I'm actually pretty excited about this new edition, the 25th anniversary edition, Hall of Fame edition of Twilight Struggle. Yes, because this has like a new scenario that's like an alternate history scenario that you can play, and it's just looking good. Oh, I love I love dual powers.
SPEAKER_00Ah, yeah, very good game. You know that one? Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_02That one for a a lighter, a lighter CDG is has a lot of like really cool stuff happening. So that's like just offhand. I would probably take see, I just haven't played Virgin Queen yet, so I would probably take one of those, but I don't know which one, or maybe I'll just pull an ulie and take, take, I'll just say all three of Imperial Elogy, Here I Stand, and Virgin Queen. That will be one slot. But think offhand, like those are maybe what I would grab if we were running to the cabin right now.
SPEAKER_00And and it it also shows us because now I have also different games in my mind. So Clash of Monarchs uh came uh came to my mind now again. And uh but you see, in in the 30 years that this genre is only existing, there are already so many good titles. More simple ones, more complex ones, shorter ones, longer ones, two-player games, multiplayer games. So it's it's really evolving.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and also we did even mention some of the some of the CDGs that aren't war game related, like there's hegemony, which has like, you know, lead your class to victory. I forget, but it's an asymmetric card-driven game about like different economic social classes. You have like the capitalists, the middle class, you have these the these four different areas of uh economic and and social aspects of life that are that are captured in in that game, and it's card-driven, asymmetric, and that one's very cool too. Did you ever play Forged in Steel?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I I played this. Uh that is city building, although I have to say it's more uh city uh deconstruction. Uh so it's really aggressive. It's really aggressive, but I haven't played it in years. I think the last time uh was before the pandemic, and I have to revisit it. But that game, that game was surprisingly brutal. So everybody is hitting you immediately. You build something, somebody's saying, No, this card's gone.
SPEAKER_02So yeah, the this is one that my friend Ben has had for years, and it's like one of many that are on our list to play together at some point. But I just know, yeah, it's a city building game that uses the card the card-driven mechanism. So yeah, there's a there are lots of options out there, it's continuing to evolve. What are a couple games that you haven't had a chance to play or like upcoming releases that you're excited about that that are card-driven?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, man, and uh again, uh you see they are really the leader in card-driven game, it's GMT games. So and and each each month when when Gene sends out the new GMT news, so so so I'm I'm I'm reading it. And I'd love to try two two games from from this list. The first time that they came up, one is Common Sense. The designer is Sam London, so it's unreleased, so it's for one or two players. And the topic is American Revolution. I have to say I'm not the largest fan of the American uh revolution as as a topic, although I love Washington's war. But this took really my interest because it's trick-taking plus card-driven in a single package. So I know I really do not know anything else about the game, but uh this combination alone's Chris Uli purchase me, please please get me. So so as soon as it is out, I I will definitely get it. So that is one of the games that I'd love to try.
SPEAKER_02Yes, and this is so sad, but like I was almost going to play it at the warehouse because Sam had it. We were like, but my my Space Empire's game, since the time we started it, we had to like take a dinner break and it didn't work out, but I'm I'm definitely like excited because I think Sam is also just busting out all these cool designs. So I have been like intrigued by everything that I've seen from him. So that that should be very cool, and I wish I could speak more about it. Have you ever played any of the European turmoil games?
SPEAKER_00Yes, I played both of them by by Compass games. Yeah, they are good, but it is they are pretty very much mechanically like Twilight Struggle, but it is really a multiplayer situation in a two-player format, and I'm not really convinced. I I have to say, Okay, if you see them, give them a try. They feel a lot like Twilight Struggle, but afterwards I I said, Well, in my opinion, Twilight Struggle is a clearly better design. Gotcha. What I also did not like, I'm not sure if it's in the European Turmoil 1, but it is in two. Actually, it is missing. There is not a single reference to Twilight Struggle in the whole game. To neither to GMT games, neither to Jason, neither to an under. And that I found pretty poor. It's it's nobody invents the wheel these days.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_00But you can at least credit uh give credit uh to the to the great people who who did the game first or the game system first, and that was yeah, yeah. So so I'm not a huge fan here.
SPEAKER_02I picked them up at some point, and I have never played them, so I've always kind of been like curious, but I haven't been rushed to to try them. But like if and when I get to it eventually, I'll let you know like my my thoughts on it. And then I was also thinking about there are also like all the the way more accessible ones like Watergate. And I just got to sit in on a TTS demo of a Lennon's legacy, speaking of GMT games, which is a a very quick playing CDG that's doing some things a little differently because there's an open draft of cards, almost like uh in Versinda Smoke. Yeah, but this is another like Matthias Kramer game that's that's coming out, and it seemed like pretty cool and it is like a a a fast design. Yes, it is or like it plays fast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it it is wonderful. Plays in 45 minutes, uh very interesting mechanic, very tight, very uh it feels very historical. So Matthias Kramer is one of the masters, too, for sure.
SPEAKER_02Cool, and you had a you have another one that you've been wanting to play?
SPEAKER_00And and surprisingly, it's again GMT games, and title is Iron Storm. Uh the designer is Ector Fanola, I guess. It's unreleased to players, it's strategic World War One. So yeah, you could now say, well, oh, there are 50 uh different uh World War One strategic titles, probably more. But this one is actually first, it's card-driven, so I'm interested. And second, it's it's supposed to play in three to five hours, and that makes it for the full war, that makes it interesting to me. So I'm looking forward to that one as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that's that's the problem with GMT sometimes. They're just like all these games, like I want them all, I want to play them all, and there's just like never quite enough time. Yes, but yeah, definitely like common sense, Lennon's legacy. I would love to try the the expansion with Versandas Volk. Yeah, and I'm sure there are others that like if I wasn't in the midst of moving chaos and had time to like sit down and like make make a proper list that I could I could think of. But Uli, like I really appreciate you like taking the time. I know we had to like reschedule a million times, but I'm glad we're doing this.
SPEAKER_00I am I'm very glad.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'm already looking forward to like talking to you again to like to like for our third discussion on card-driven games.
SPEAKER_00Yes, uh let's plan for that. And we will meet for sure, uh, maybe during your European trip. Chances are low, but maybe, but for sure at essence. So, so let's see.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. So, yes, uh lovely, lovely to see you. And I'm also excited about like a bunch of upcoming Spielworks games, and like, you know, you're always you're you're doing cool stuff. Like, we have we definitely our ta our tastes overlap, and there's just lots of exciting stuff on the horizon. And maybe I'll make a geek list at some point of all the CDGs that are either I want to play or that I already love, because I know there are more that I'm not thinking of right now.
SPEAKER_00But and and and there are surely more that that are not in our minds, and I'm always happy to learn about these. And you see, GMT news are fantastic, but each time it is so many different pages, and sometimes you simply miss a game, and uh and then you suddenly it appears and you think, oh, this is also available. Yeah, interesting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. And I guess like one more thing I'll mention since I just got back from the warehouse. There's and and also from the the the April monthly update from GMT, there were some testimonials from people who had played hubris. Have you had a chance to like look at that one at all?
SPEAKER_00No, I saw it on the table in January and at a at Matias Krama's games convention, but I I haven't played it, don't know anything about it.
SPEAKER_02Well, I somehow I had been seeing it, like the updates here and there, and I haven't really delved into learning about it, but then I saw it on the table at the warehouse, and I like went home one night or to the hotel and was just like obsessively like reading about it, watching videos. That one's from the designer uh Morgan Guyanretti. I'm probably I don't know how to pronounce her name. The designer who made Pendragon, which is one of one of the coin games that I still haven't played, a kind of intimidated by. This one also, it's the Hellenistic time period, second century BC, and it's like apparently like it's one to three players, and it's like got tons of cards, and it's like a a fresh system. I think some people in the comments were saying like it's like a master's degree in the box, like there's a lot to it, and for some reason that doesn't scare me away. That makes me intrigued.
SPEAKER_00So I'm I'm bringing in.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly, exactly. Like this period of history as of now isn't like something that I'm like, ooh, gung-ho about, but I am very curious about this game and to learn more and to eventually try it, even though it looks intimidating. So anyway, I was just curious if you had played that one.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, not yet, but uh at a certain point, as I'm always saying, yeah, I I'll play this at a certain point. Whenever that is.
SPEAKER_02Yep, yep. All right, well, I can talk to you about games forever. So I'll just say thanks again, and I will see you at some point in Germany, whether it's now or Essen or whatever. Um, but thank you again so much for coming on.
SPEAKER_00My pleasure. I have to thank you, and it was really enjoyable. So uh thank you very much.
SPEAKER_02You've been listening to the Kickin' It Creative podcast, produced and edited by Candace Harris. Special thanks to Matt Fonda and Logan Staley for editing and mixing our music. Be sure to visit us on the web at kickin'itcreative.com and on YouTube for even more kicking it creative content crafted by Candace. Thanks for listening and happy gaming!