Today I have a special treat, an interview with Johan Nagel, founder of Every Single Soldier, a studio which has brought us several high quality games in the last few years. Vietnam '65, Afghanistan '11, and Carrier Deck. He discussed with me the past, present, and future of his company. Enjoy!


AWNT: Tell us a bit about yourself, what was the path that led you into playing wargames and eventually into producing your own games?

I come from a military family, my father was a submariner, my brother an officer in the Army Special Forces and I was a Lieutenant in the South African Marines. I have been playing wargames and generally all sorts of board games since my early teens. I started with Squad Leader and progressed from there. I decided to leave the military as we were always going to win the battle war but lose the political war.

I am a lawyer by degree and went into banking, all the while keeping my interest in military history and especially strategy. Vietnam '65 was actually designed and played on a Commodore 64 (GWBasic) and then later on PC (using the Operation Flashpoint editor) as finding an opponent was always a challenge, especially with such a small community in South Africa.

A few years ago I decided to actually publish V65 and thoroughly enjoyed the whole process from design to actual development and decided to make banking part time and making military games full time.

AWNT: Could you tell us about the founding of Every Single Soldier? Did you and your team have a clear vision of what kind of games you wanted to make from Day 1?

ESS is actually just myself, I design, finance and produce the titles, all outsourced to studios both locally and internationally. ESS was actually created in the early 90's and was another military hobby of mine, casting and painting military chess sets and Anglo-Boer war artillery sets. Literally, every single soldier was handcrafted and painted by me, hence Every Single Soldier. I just kept the brand.

I always wanted to make games post WW2, I have played every battle in WW2 so many times I gravitated to modern conflicts , especially counter insurgency wars, having served in the SADF in the Angola border wars in the mid 80's. I was always very interested in the Vietnam war, partly because of the counter insurgency nature and the fascination with the development of airmobile warfare.

AWNT: Is there a dream game you would like to make one day, that you simply don’t have the resources for right now?

Fortunately after a successful 20 year career in banking, I have the resources to make the games I really want to without the fear of not being able to pay the bills :) I have so many games I would like to make, it's a matter of priority and finding the resources to make them that's the challenge.

Making games about the South African conflicts both in the 19th and 20th century doesn't make immediate economic sense but are what I really want to create, but [I] will save them for later, leaving the best for last, as I learn the trade of making and publishing games.

AWNT: What was the inspiration for Vietnam ‘65, specifically in terms of making a game that wasn’t just about combat, but required the player to focus on the Hearts and Minds aspect of the conflict?

The traditional, conventional wargame methodology of building up your army, crossing a border and then destroying your opponent was becoming a bit stale for me as well as being a model that could never realistically model modern conflicts. Not only did I experience counter insurgency war first hand, but have studied it, and the hearts and minds of the local population had to be a factor in the new model. Also a war without borders, Intel taking center stage and political objectives needed a new model. V65 was really a baby step in this direction, A11 expanded on it adding many new levels of complexity, it [is] still a part of the journey, there is a lot that can be added to the future.

AWNT: After developing Vietnam ‘65, how close was the original design to the final result?

Pretty close, but the original V65 (1990) had a lot more elements and was also played on a strategic map but then the player could assume the actual FPS character of any action at any time, thanks to the great Operation Flashpoint Editor, I still view this as the best version of the game :) The hard part was deciding what to leave out and how to keep as much simplicity in the model whilst capturing the essence of the conflict.

AWNT: After Vietnam ‘65, what led you to choose Afghanistan as the next conflict to explore with this system?

Afghanistan was a natural choice following Vietnam, the parallels are very apparent, albeit the terrain very different. This also gave me the opportunity to include elements left out of V65, for example the whole nation building (Vietnamization policy), political variables (elections and global events) etc.

AWNT: Was there any feedback that Afghanistan was too recent of a conflict to turn into a game?

Surprisingly no negative feedback on any scale was received, we had no more than a few posts in a few threads , so was very happy about that. I took great care to ensure the credibility and authenticity of the conflict was properly represented, being ex military myself I understand this, and had constant input from a number of serving US Army officers and NCO's throughout the process. The feedback for vets and serving has been overwhelmingly positive and this has really been the most gratifying part of the whole process.

AWNT: Afghanistan ‘11 expanded upon most of the mechanics in Vietnam ‘65. Were there any features or mechanics that you wanted to add but didn’t make the cut for whatever reason?

So A11 was an opportunity to evolve the model but certain elements were left out, mostly to keep the evolution of the model at a steady pace, as the model has a relatively steep learning curve and we need to keep this in mind when trying to get a larger audience. The civilian population and the subsequent interactions with them needs expanding, Intel needs to become more 'nuanced', unit experience needs to play a larger role.  The tactical part of the game, etc.

AWNT: Are you familiar with the COIN series of board games from GMT Games? The games Fire in the Lake and A Distant Plain are similar in some respects to Vietnam ‘65 and Afghanistan ‘11, respectively.

Very familiar with the series, in fact, I contacted them a while back offering to take the series to the computer realm, time will tell. Enjoy the series as it too is abstracted, just like my games are.

AWNT: After visiting Afghanistan and Vietnam, what is the next stop in this series?

Right now we are porting A11 to the iPad, then we will be publishing the British Army DLC for A11, new vehicles, campaign, uniform etc. Thereafter we are planning a USMC DLC and finally an ISAF DLC which would include a few vehicles from most of the top contributors to the conflict.

The potential for future stops could include an ISIS adaption and our very own Angola Bush war :)

AWNT: What was the spark that led to Carrier Deck? While still war-themed, it is a very different sort of game from your other titles.

As mentioned earlier, my interest in game development is not linear to counter insurgency wars, I have a number of game designs that have been 'percolating' in my head for many years, I was always interested in the battle of Midway and especially the finding and destroying opposing carriers. This coupled with my preferred style of making abstracted games as opposed to purely historically accurate games and that I prefer developing systems rather that recreating events in my game designs, CD was born. It's perfect for a game, it is process driven, involves awesome tech and is relevant.

AWNT: Do you have plans for more light, fast paced games in the vein of Carrier Deck?

Indeed I do, currently in development is His Majesty's Ship (HMS), completely different to all my previous games. Being raised as a Navy child, Captaining a ship was always going to be a boyhood dream. Once again, looking for a game that catch the's essence of commanding a vessel has proved hard to find, most 18th century games currently focus on 'sailing around your opponent trying to discharge cannons', similar to the traditional WW2 games where you stack your infantry ( Stregth 5 ) + armor (strength 8) and attack the enemy infantry (strength 4) apply modifiers etc, this is so not my type of game! I have played them to death and rather prefer to try capture the essence of the theater, including logistics, morale, etc. in an abstracted form. I create systems as opposed to outcomes, and when I get that unintended/unexpected result, I still smile (sometimes not) when I unexpectedly experience a crossover of a few of the systems in A11 and the result is both credible, plausible and entertaining.

As development of HMS has already commenced, I am currently working on a new fast paced game abstracting the present/future conflict for the dominance of the Arctic Circle. The game is currently in prototype and coming along nicely.

I have not totally forsaken the TBS genre and have completed a design doc on a game that captures the essence (abstracted of course :) of the period of 1860-1900 in South Africa (Anglo-Zulu + Anglo-Boer) and hope to get this into production before the end of this year.

I am really enjoying my new 'career' in game development and am aiming to publish around 3 titles a year, after so many long years in Financial Services, I have ton of games stored since my youth and now have the time and resources to actually realize them.

AWNT: Well, you sound like a very busy man, so I'll let you go. Thank you for your time!



ESS Official Website: http://www.everysinglesoldier.com/

All of the games discussed can be found on Steam, the Apple App Store, and on http://www.matrixgames.com/


- Joe Beard

The Siege of Tsingtau

by

Charles Stephenson

First things first, the campaigns of WWI are not very familiar to me. This book covers, what I originally thought, a very obscure battle of the Japanese attack on German Tsingtau in the Pacific (current day Qingdao). Although the name 'World War One' implies a global conflict my naive understanding is limited to the Somme, Verdun, Gallipoli et al. It should be no surprise that the colonial subjects across the Pacific were drawn into the war just as their primary state decreed.

The book starts with several chapters that detail the geo-political environment of all the main belligerents. In these formative chapters there is a large reliance on direct quotes from source material. This leads to some dense sentence construction, of which the author excels throughout the rest of the book, even when source material is not being referenced. 

In the introduction to the book, the author himself states that if you want to get to the actual fighting, i.e. to skip the politics, then skip the first couple of chapters. I might be doing the book an injustice, there are a few skirmishes in the previous chapters, but the actual battle, from my understanding started in Chapter 7, the penultimate chapter of the book.

Again in the introduction, the author states that the book is not aimed at the academic audience. I think he is doing himself a disservice as the book is, to my mind, thoroughly researched and includes 66 pages of notes and bibliography to the 8 chapters, that comprise nearly 40% of the book. Any student of the theatre, at any level, would do well to pick up this book and read this narrative history of the battle.

All that being said, I was continually surprised by this account of an 'obscure' battle. I wasn't aware of the extent of German colonisation in the Pacific, nor the different military's nascent air power capabilities. However what initially piqued my interest with this book was the fact that two infamous WWII allies were, adversaries just 25 years earlier. I personally would have liked to see more analysis of how that came to be, but that is unfair to the author and his work, as that would warrant an entirely different book outside this scope.

The book includes the standard middle glossy insert of photo pages. The scale and size of the equipment shown in these photos somehow seemed incongruous to the text I was reading. This is no criticism of the text rather a new-found admiration and awe of the bravery of soldiers from both sides, with the most rudimentary of equipment, going against massive siege artillery.

I particularly enjoyed the account of SMS Emden's (a German light crusier) exploits in the Indian Ocean against the Entente Powers' shipping. A nugget I will take away from that account is the importance of logistics and command and control (C2) support; often decried as boring and glossed over in many historical war-games, yet it is essential. The German East Asian (naval) Squadron was bereft of a re-supply base and had to split into both the Indian Ocean and round Cape Horn into the Southern Atlantic to find fuel and repairs.

As a precursor to the battle the British and Japanese forces destroyed the radio masts of the German occupiers. This, I imagine, is still employed today as a viable military tactic i.e. denying the enemy C2 channels, but in 1914 the German colony was left with no communication ability to the outside world. From a modern perspective that seems scary and almost impossible to achieve today.

The other aspect, which I found noteworthy, was the effect and experience of aeroplanes in this battle. The author, at some length, explains a few of the aviation firsts that occurred during and in the events preceding this battle. I was very grateful for the detail he included and I would have liked another chapter or so dedicated to the air environment. 

The author loosely follows the exploits of a couple of pilots from both sides as they built, and fixed their aircraft to fly reconnaissance or strike missions. Yes you read that right - 'strike' missions. I was particularly intrigued with a pilot who was given his license, his 'wings' if you will, after 2 days training and how his propeller would disintegrate during flight as the right type of glue wasn't available! I can't imagine flying in a self-destructing aircraft.

Overall this book opened my eyes to the global scale and scope of WWI and I am grateful to have read it. My personal experience and interests include military aviation and the pacific theatre from WWII to today and so this book was interesting to me. I couldn't recommend it to the casual reader unless they have, at the very least, a peripheral interest in the topic. However, if you are in the latter camp then pick it up and you may be as surprised as I was.

The Siege of Tsintau is available from Pen & Sword Books for £20.

TERRAFORMING MARS

Well from modern urban warfare to the future.  Quite a journey and, in this case, not a military one.  Here we're solidly into Eurogaming mode - my other major gaming preoccupation. 

Quite some time ago, when invited to take part in my first game of Terraforming Mars, I was willing, but less than enthusiastic.  For someone who thoroughly delights in establishing cotton mills and iron works in Lancashire [Martin Wallace's Brass - currently reissued as Brass: Lancashire, along with its sequel Brass: Birmingham], undertaking the task of transforming an alien world should surely have had more appeal.  It didn't.  Thankfully, being willing to try anything once paid off! 

It's my most played game in the last six months and since first being introduced to the game I've played it with the whole range from 2-5 players.  Most recently a 3 player game a few days ago.   I can strongly recommend all number of players [5 perhaps not so wholeheartedly.]  But, I didn't have my own copy.  Sold out!  Yes, for an eye-watering sum  a second-hand copy might have been possible.  Just as reprints were starting to be advertised as available soon, I was given the opportunity to receive my own mint copy to review.  Bliss!  Seventh heaven! Pigs in muck!

So, you can tell ... I like this game.  I hope I can infect you [no, there are no alien parasites or chest-bursters in this game] with my enthusiasm.  You are the head of a gigantic corporation undertaking projects [no, you can't undertake a project to acquire and research an alien creature and turn it into a biological weapon/soldier], mine resources, construct oceans and cities, undertake a sort of afforestation to increase oxygen levels and develop plant life and produce energy and heat to raise temperature levels.  Oh , and by the way produce lots of money which can be ploughed back into all these activities and make more money and fund awards and pass milestones and emerge as the most influential force behind [fanfare of trumpets] the terraforming of Mars  ... and win the game.

Having read a very wide range of views and reviews of the game, it does seem personal taste may play more of a part in your reaction to some aspects than with many games.  Take the playing board, not surprisingly a schematic of the planet, Mars.

As you can see, it's surrounded by a track on which you record your Terraform rating [which indicates both your base income for each turn and VP score].  The curved track above the planet charts the increase in oxygen, the temperature gauge to the right records ... well, the temperature.  Beneath the planet, are two sets of VP awarding objectives that you can achieve - even the potential to achieve them will cost you money.  To the lower left is a table of basic actions and their costs that you will probably be in dire straights if you need to utilise them.

Mars itself is covered in those good old hexes where you will place lovely thick cardboard tiles as you acquire cities, oceans and what, for want of a better word than that used in the game, are called greenery tiles.

Loads and loads of ...err ...greenery tiles!

Well, you are transforming Mars by your actions into a green and pleasant land fit for humans to inhabit without the sealed domes beloved of SF.  Currently, it is a bare landscape, with some hexes outlined in grey/blue where you can place ocean tiles and a scattering of symbols that indicate bonuses when you place a tile there.  Mars is a sort of pinkish ochre in colour - definitely not a strongly Red Planet!

For me it works well.  All's clear and, I would say, a good sized board, appropriate and very functional, which my very average camera skills don't do full justice to.  In come other views and questions that I've seen.  My favourite was why was the board when folded down for storage made smaller than the box it comes in. As if the questioner had been cheated because there is room for the board to be bigger!  It serves its purpose perfectly.  I've never heard anyone I've gamed with complain that it is too small or there's not enough room and so on.

Here it is set up for three players, never mind five.  As the game progresses, the whole layout takes up quite a bit of my gaming table even despite my OCD as you can see for producing neat piles and containers for resources.

Next comes your player mat.  Attractive, colourful and well organised, but lacking the two key words that, if you read my reviews, feature repeatedly: sturdy and strong.  

They are thin and I would agree would benefit from being larger.  The reason you will see below.

You place nice little plastic cubes in your player colour on each track to show your current number of each resource available to be produced and collected at the end of each turn.  The display above shows 1 resource of each type at the set up of the game.  This is one of the main complaints, as it's all too easy for a marker cube to get accidentally misplaced... a trailing sleeve, a heavy sneeze and curses on the one who jolts your table!  As for anyone who you have the slightest suspicion might stoop to underhand practices - just don't let them near this game.  Oh for the lovely thick, strong, sturdy [there I go], recessed player mats of Scythe!

And so you shall have it! Or something very like it.  A special set of overlays for your player mats, along with a whole lot more to organise the game.  Not essential, rather pricey, but when available that's what I've ordered.

On to the major gripe from players, the resource cubes, also done in neat plastic cubes, but coated in bronze, silver and gold for denominations of respectively 1/5/10.

Complaints have come in of some of the cubes' coatings already being chipped at the corners when the game arrives.  Got to say that mine were all fine, but I've already started to see the problem starting to appear with friends' copies of the game and I know that at some point it will start to happen with mine.  If the state of my cubes gets so bad that I can't stand it any longer, I know that I'll simply substitute small wooden cubes in three different colours that I possess in abundance.  I agree that the quality should really be better than this, but the way this game sells like hotcakes indicates that it's not a killer problem.  Oh, and nearly forgot, there are3 slightly larger white cubes for use on the Oxygen, Temperature and MC tracks.

Apart from the rulebook, the other major component are the cards which are the heart of the game and drive the whole process.  There are lots and lots and lots of them: 208 to be precise.  So many that shuffling is a skill in itself and considering the amount of use they are going to get if you like this game, then sleeving them produces a real Eiffel tower's worth that needs to be piled in at least three stacks.  In the picture I have not yet sleeved them, because I don't have enough sleeves left to cope with all them!

Good quality, plenty of colour and a range of art work.  I'll say more about the meaning of the symbols, when I discuss game play later.

There are also 2 sets of 4 references cards, which after your first game should largely be redundant.  For a seemingly complex game, once you've experienced a single game, I doubt you'll need these at all and finally there are 17 corporation cards.

There are 5 identical copies of the top Corporation card, which as the heading suggests are designed mainly for if you are very new to the game.  It means that you start the game with 42 "money" or, in game-speak MC [MegaCredits] and 10 Project cards that you don't have to pay for at the start of the game. 

Once you're familiar with the game or, if you prefer even on your first game, you will be randomly dealt two of the individual Corporation cards [PHOBLOG being one such example].  You choose one of them as your Corporation card for the game, receive the appropriate amount of MCs and a specific number of resources, in this case 10 titanium and a bonus ability framed in the oblong box.  Also you receive 10 Project cards, but now you only get to keep as many of them as you are willing to pay 3 MCs for each card chosen.

The rulebook is a slim 16 pages of fairly thin glossy paper.  Again not the most durable item; mine had a slight tear in the back page when I unboxed the game and I shall have to handle it with care.  But the rules themselves are abundantly clear and thorough.  I found no ambiguities nor uncertainties at all.

So, regarding total components, I'd rate them in the main as good quality with the key question mark for some people hanging over the resource cubes.  For a typical price of at least £49.99, perhaps you might expect better, but again no one I know has been put off buying or has been disappointed with the game.

For me, the compulsive element of the game is its mechanics of play.  Like many games of this type, it is a question of building a smoothly working games engine, increasing as many of the different types of resource as possible, increasing your terraform rating, acquiring cards with VPs on them, achieving bonus VPs ...

The game ends when three goals have been achieved: all the ocean tiles have been placed on the board,  the Temperature track is at maximum and the Oxygen track is at maximum.  At this point players conduct one last Production Phase and place any greenery tiles that their supply of plants allows them to.  Then work out your scores.   

Game play is in essence very straightforward.  First player moves clockwise at the start of each Round.  Next is the Research Phase, where players are dealt four project cards and simply to add them to your hand costs 3 MCs per card retained.  A variant is offered where you first draft the four cards you have drawn.  According to the rules this is for greater interaction, but personally I feel that the main reason for using this variant [which I strongly recommend] is more to reduce the luck element.  

My most recent game illustrates perfectly what I mean.  When gaming with a group who favour not drafting, I drew only four cards in the whole game that directly improved the levels of some of my resources, while the others drew more than double the number of such cards.  I've found this one area of drafting/not drafting to be the main one that players disagree over.  It adds only slightly to game play time, unless you have players who suffer from analysis paralysis and as I've said I strongly recommend trying.

Nor do I think it adds much to aiming to thwart other players from obtaining a card they need, as some have claimed.  Each player will build up so many cards that are upside down from where you are sitting, so if you can see what they might especially need you must have special inverted x-ray vision.

Once you've paid for the cards you are keeping, you take them into your hand and then the main Phase of the game begins which is taking Actions in turn order.  On your turn, you can take one or two actions and this opportunity continues until you pass.  At this point, you can no longer take any further Actions and the Phase continues until every player has passed.  Occasionally this may lead to an individual player having a little downtime, but I've never felt that it has occasioned anyone major delays.

Most Actions will probably involve you paying to play a card down in your play area of the table.  At this stage, it starts to become very important to know the meaning of the symbols on the cards.  When you explain this can be critical.  I've experienced those who like to try and explain every symbol to newcomers before play starts and I think for some beginners this can be a significant deterrent to them enjoying and coping. 

Two of the three types of cards that can be played.

Personally, I tend to point out that there are three types of card; with either a red/orange band, a green band or a blue band across the top.  The first are Events that are one-off happenings that are then turned face down; the second again have an immediate effect, but need to be kept face up in a pile so that the symbols at the top of the card are visible and the third type also need to be kept face up because they either have an effect that can recur or that you can activate as one of your Actions once per Round.

The reason why you need to be able to see the symbols is twofold.  Some cards have instructions on them that they can only be played, if you already have a specific number of the appropriate symbols in front of you.  Some cards can be paid for using not just MCs, but in resources too.  For example, a card that has a brown circle with a building inside the circle can be paid for in steel resources and/or MCs.  Or a card with a black circle with a golden star inside can be paid for with titanium resources.  So, the card above on the right that costs 11 MCs could be paid for using MCs and/or steel resources and the card below on the right costing 12 MCs can be paid for using MCs and/or titanium resources.

Apart from paying to place a card in front of you, there may be other requirements.  Again a typical example is on the left-hand card above.  The requirement is given both symbolically and also in words - the oxygen level must have reached 11% on the Oxygen track to allow you to play the card.  So, good news, all these types of symbols don't need to be known or remembered!  Just read the words!

Other Actions you can take are the basic ones, that I mentioned early in my review, for which there is a table to explain them on the game board.  These allow you to do things like pay to place a city or a greenery tile, but they are the most expensive way to accomplish anything in this game.  So, try to achieve them by playing cards rather than purely spending MCs.

As the game progresses, you and the other players will slowly at first, but with rapidly accelerating progress towards the end be filling the map board with cities and oceans and greenery, until ultimately Mars will have been appropriately terraformed.  In the process, you will pick up a lot of information about that process and every aspect of the game from actions to cards to game board reinforce the theme.

For you, that may play a part in the enjoyment of playing Terraforming Mars, but for me that is wholly peripheral and that is not a complaint or criticism.  I am wholly immersed and taken up with the sheer delight I get from trying to make the most of my every card and action, trying to create a smoothly effective process, to build up my terraforming rating and to acquire VPs in as many ways possible.

Rarely has the winner been clear until the very last totting up of all the different ways to score VPs.  And if you're really desperate for a game, it can even be played solo and just as all the other numbers of players provide a fantastic game, so does the solo experience.

RRP – £64.99
Online Retailer – 365games.co.uk

Store Locator - http://www.findyourgamestore.co.uk/