At the April PW meeting, I presented a multi-play campaign game, patterned after THE SUN NEVER SETS (TSNS), a British colonial effort authored by Dave Waxtel and Barry Grey. In the early '80's, Larry Brom published his THE SWORD AND THE FLAME (TSATF), which became the British colonial rules set for miniatures.
Soon after TSATF appeared, TSNS was generated to produce a series of TSATF battles… the campaign used lots of maps and lots of charts and lots of tables and lots of figures as the British Empire fought to maintain control of its possessions.
The heart of TSNS was based on the dual roles played by each participant. A player was, first, a member of the British General Staff, commanding a British force overseas, say, in China. Second, at the same time, he also commanded the native forces in say, Afganistan, which were opposing British rule. He'd gather victory points from both places.
Each player was also a voting member of Parliament, and when Parliament was in session, he'd vote to send troops to China to help his own force out, whereas he'd vote not to send troops to Afganistan, where his anti-British forces existed. In essence, therefore, the player had two conflicting roles… one as a British general, the other as a native general.
In my game, I set out a number of islands on the table… I called them Regencies. Each Regency had either 6 or 7 provinces, and each province provided gold if the native forces were under control.
Each player was termed a Vice-Regent (VR), and he was assigned a Regency to govern… in essence, he had his own little island with which to play.
The VR was initially given 7 stands of troops (I used my 15mm collection) to help him govern.
From the homeland, I laid out, on the table, a series of shipping routes over which reinforcing troops had to sail to get to the various Regencies. Some routes required a trip of a single turn, and the troops would arrive quite quickly. The outlying Regencies required a 3-turn trip, which meant that any reinforcements sent their way would take their time in getting there.
Early in the game, the point was made that it appeared to be rather silly for the Empire to sink its assets in the outlying Regencies, since it took so long for troops to arrive... the natives would have long since taken control themselves. A valid point, for which I had no answer.
Each turn, the provinces in each Regency provided from 1 to 6 gold pieces. A VR, when Parliament met, had a number of votes equal to the total number of gold pieces he was collecting from all of the provinces under his control.
And so, when Parliament met, a player would move to send himself a reinforcement or two, and see if he could gather sufficient votes to pass the measure. To influence his fellow VR's, he'd distribute to them a gold piece or two, and agree that if they voted for him, he'd vote for them.
And thereby hangs a tale. Unlike the backdrop in the TSNS campaign, there was no conflict of interest amongst the VR's. Everyone agreed with one another, and everyone voted for one another. Parliament was the most peaceful, easy-going governmental body ever seen.
Which, in essence, took the heart out of the game.
I thought I had generated the rules to provide two types of combat... first, battles between Imperial troops and native forces on the various Regencies, and second, between the members of Parliament when it came to spending the Royal Treasury on raising troops for each other. This second type of conflict was completely missing.
In truth, we played the game for over two hours when someone remarked on this issue. The game was going along in fine fashion... everyone was having a good time, all the VR's at tableside were prospering rather well... they kept their Regency natives under control, and they had more than enough money to accumulate personal wealth, to distribute amongst friends, and to contribute to the Royal Treasury.
And yet, aside from the race to accumulate private wealth, there was absolutely no competitive parliamentary aspect to the game. The procedures in Parliament, wherein there should have been extensive debate concerning the expenditures of the treasury, were missing. To me, this should have been the most important aspect of the game.
Alas! You can't win 'em all.
And so I'm going to have to restructure the game... salvage all the ploys and procedures and set 'em up again. And this time, force the VR's to battle one another in Parliament.
Perhaps each time a vote is taken to send troops overseas, instead of using monies from the Royal Treasury, each VP will be personally assessed for the venture. This'll hit 'em directly in the pocket book, and they won't be as eager to help each other out. Another method of promoting dissent and competition amongst the VR's might be to send troops, not from the homeland, but from the various Regencies when trouble breaks out overseas.
TSNS is a long term, many faceted campaign game. Trying to emulate it and change it to present a single evening's affair is rather difficult.
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© Copyright 2000 Wally Simon
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