Sorry some of the pictures are a bit unclear, I'm still getting used to the lightning in my new gaming spot.
Here is a brief look at important points to understand the game.
- There are four sides. The NVA, the VC, ARVN, and the US. Each has their own victory conditions.
- The victory conditions of your "ally" doesn't match yours. They have partial overlap - both the US and ARVN benefit from pacified, controlled provinces. The VC and NVA both benefit from occupying territory and controlling it. But they also diverge. You can't have a joint victory. And sometimes your actions to help yourself can push your ally toward victory before you.
- Most of your actions come with a cost - resources (the US and ARVN spend from the same pool, the VC and NVA have seperate pools), reduced support (VC taxes drop support but raise resources, say, while US airstrikes remove enemy units and indirectly improve control but breed hostility from the population), or opportunity. Some actions require you to expose "underground" guerilla units to accomplish them, which open you up to destruction, but staying hidden eliminates your ability to take some actions.
- Often what you do to improve your position undermines your ally - the NVA can convert VC to NVA, the US can force ARVN to spend resources and take actions, and so on.
- There is very little randomness to actions. You roll for effects sometimes, but the core effect generally just works.
- The game is card driven, and acting costs you the chance to something the next turn, often a chance at a good card. You can see the next card coming and try to plan accordingly. Basically only two factions get to act or pass on a given turn. Going makes you ineligible the next turn, unless there is a coup.
- There are a series of Coup cards, which force victory checks and reset the game's rhythm.
In country:
I'm still in Saigon. So are 1 US base, 2 US troops, 2 ARVN troops, and 3 ARVN Police. The area is under COIN (counter-insurgency) control, with passive support from the population of 6. You can see VC and NVA (blue and red, respectively) out provinces.
I Corps becomes a battleground. The NVA infiltrated in 6 units of guerillas. Airstrikes and reinforcements would reduce this down. The province is under NVA control because they outnumber everyone else there - including the VC, importantly.
You can see Hue, the cirle overlapping the province. It's full of US troops, ARVN, ARVN police, and one VC unit that just caused a terror event.
I'm still having trouble recognizing the place names . . . that'll come. Hue, Saigon, Laos . . . those are easy. But Quang Nam vs Quang Ti vs. Quang Duc . . . tougher. I have to search the map until I find them.
Here are a couple of cards - the left is the current, and the VC would use it to terrorize Hue. The right is the next card. At the top is the order of selection, telling you which of the eligible factions goes in what order that turn.
Overall impression?
I like the game. There are a lot of rules, but few come into play any given turn. Turns aren't the slog they'd appear - you are limited in what you can do, and you don't act every turn. You need to plan ahead but you don't get too much of a glimpse at what's coming. I had fun during the tutorial and I'm curious how I'll do playing a faction "against" non-player factions run according to a flow chart. For now, I'll play a short game or two playing all sides just to get familiar with what I'm doing before I try to play a single faction to win.
