MGoAG: Rewriting the Rules

So I started reading the rules for Risk last night. I should say re-reading, since I played quite a bit of Risk as a kid. I glanced through the Monopoly rules the other day, too. And took a look through the rules for Sorry! The most straightforward way to approach this will simply be to take those rules and rewrite them.

Since this is a project for anybody to try, and it's basically just me playing these commercial games in my own way, I offer up these rewritten rules as Open Source, Creative Commons, use 'em as you like, they ain't mine anyway, I'm just messin' around with 'em. Cheers.

I'm going to go re-familiarize myself with these three games so I can play. And by play I mean rewrite the rules. Should be fun.

Also, upcoming: Huge infodump. Notes From the Phone!!!

Stand by for further instructions, as I make them up.

The only picture this time is of the table, which is totally portable, and the pile of stuff, which is likewise portable. My plan has been to play a game made from readily available commercial products. So done and done.

OK, Rexopolis! Rules Rewrite next.

Risk.
Monopoly.
Sorry!
TTWG.
18C.
H&M.
Central Europe.
Decaying Empire.
Imagi-Nations.
REDvsBLUvsYLOvsGRNvsBLK

Completely Portable! Set Up Anywhere! Cheap AND Easy!!!

Paper or Plastic? The pile of cards and cash, and the pile of tokens and dice.

MGoAG: Rexopolis! The Unboxing Continues

MGoAG: Rexopolis! The Unboxing Continues

I think I may have figured out what to do with the Sorry! pieces, and I'm sure I won't need the Risk cards. I think the Risk figures are a bit fiddly, and possibly basing them for wargaming and using the Lego pieces on the campaign map is an option. I still need to grab some pieces from the chess set, and find a use for the Poker deck. I did find a use for the Sorry! cards and the Monopoly cards, though.

I took a couple pictures for color comparison, and "kind of" arrived at a preliminary set-up on both boards. Except there will be a lot more armies on the campaign map. And more chess pieces. Everywhere.

Here are the pictures, and then I'll explain Today's Tentative Plan, based on actually unboxing all of the games and comparing the pieces. I think I'll play Risk, Monopoly and Sorry! at the same time. Hence the name, Rex-opoli-s! My Game of All Games: Rexopolis: City of Kings - The Game of Intrigue & Peril!

Once I decide the order of play, I'll play each of the players in turn, starting with the set-up, and play one Risk turn for all five players (based notes in my phone), then one Monopoly turn for all five players (again, based on notes in my phone) and finally one Sorry! turn for all five players. I may even allow a different sequence of play on each board, to represent greater initiative in that arena of conflict.

Speaking of arenas of conflict, just what do the two boards represent, what are the victory conditions, and what do I mean "play three games at once"? (Actually four if you add in tabletop "battles" with Lego bricks or Risk figures, instead of playing out all the battles by dicing them a la the Risk rules.)

The two boards represent two different arenas of conflict, the Diplomatic Arena (the Monopoly board) and the Military Arena (the Wikipedia-map-as-Risk-board). Let's call them the Board (diplomacy: honey/the carrot) and the Map (force: vinegar/the stick).

On the Board, the goal is not only to get the most Property (in our case Principalities), but to bankrupt the other fellow, just as it is in Monopoly. Also, as in Stratego, there are spies, in this case, agents authorized to kill, that is assassins. The Sorry! pieces represent these agents, who will be able to hunt each other down. The first one to get all four of his agents around the board at least once and then off the board (safely retired having accomplished their secret mission) wins in that arena of conflict, the Clandestine Arena. These pieces will follow the Sorry! rules as they race around the Monopoly board, slide, use cards for movement, go backwards, need a 1 or 2 to get on the board, have a home color, etc.

In the Diplomatic Arena, also played on the Board, the five Monopoly pieces represent official diplomatic envoys who are not agents authorized to kill, but instead career diplomats, operating to buy titles, forge alliances, build embassies and the like, all the time trying to bankrupt their rivals and outflank them to acquire more territory. Monopoly rules will apply to these pieces, and we will use the Monopoly houses, hotels, and cards as well, to represent Small Investments, Large Investments and Titles to Principalities respectively. I sat down a few days ago and rewrote almost all of the content in Monopoly to apply to the politics of Central Europe in the mid-18th-Century. Players win here by getting all the land and the money.

In the Military Arena, which will be played on the Map, and also wargamed out as battles on the tabletop (or floor), players will follow Risk rules vis-a-vis movement, but using the Monopoly cards (which represent vulnerable Principalities), and by actually enacting battles with terrain at battlespace scale (battalion to brigade to army). I may end up using Lego bricks to represent armies, with Risk figures just as specific commanders. Or the Risk figures may represent Brigades, Divisions and Corps (Risk infantry, cavalry and artillery figures,  respectively). They didn't use those terms in the Eighteenth Century quite the way we use them today, but we know what we mean when we use them, viz, 3 battalions to 6 regiments, around 10 to 30 regiments, and half (or a third, or a quarter) of a field army. [More simply, up to about 6000, between 10000 and 30000, and between 20000 and 40000.]

This should reduce the number of Risk figures needed, and players could show losses to Corps or Divisions by replacing them with Divisions or Brigades, as needed. I may just make Brigades 6000, Divisions 12000 and Corps 30000 (or a cannon is worth 2 horsemen or 5 soldiers). I like that. It works for me. Kind of a logarithmic thing: 1, 2, 5.

Again, in the Military Arena, the players use the Risk rules on the Map, but the cards are the (modified) Monopoly cards and battles are actually fought out on a tabletop with Linear Warfare and Grand Tactics, using proper wargaming rules. A separate article will cover the many candidates I have acquired for the TTWG aspect of the Military Arena and Overall Campaign.

I will probably use Lego bricks as counters for these tabletop battles, and tape, twine and foam shapes for terrain. I plan on gaming the battles at Grand Tactical command level, ie as the army commander, using 1x2 bricks as infantry battalions and artillery batteries, while 2x2 bricks may represent cavalry detachments. I still have to work with basing and frontage a bit yet to figure that out across all five rulesets. Again, another post (or twelve) will be dedicated to that aspect of the Military Arena.

So the Overall Campaign will consist of conquering the most territory, retaining the most troops (with the least possible "on the table" or armed and quartered), gathering the most titles, having the biggest treasury, bankrupting your rivals and assassinating all of their spies (or at least retiring of yours safely).

And now, a couple of pictures, just to show how the colors match up, and how the Map and the Board might be unboxed at the start of the game, before Principalities have been awarded and Alliances formed. Much more to follow.



Yes, it's Hanoverian Britain vs. Bourbon France vs. Hapsburg Austria vs. Petrovna Russia vs. Hohenzollern Prussia for control of the vulnerable Principalities of the crumbling Holy (Sanctioned) Roman (German) Empire (Confederation), and similarly placed Duchies, Electorships and the like!

I still need to get some black pawns from the chess set, and put them on the board as the Sorry! pieces for BLACK, but this shows the Envoys (Monopoly pieces) and Agents (Sorry! pieces) as well as the Palaces (Monopoly hotels) that mark each of the Spheres of Influence. After the Risk turn, then the Monopoly turn, then the Sorry! turn. During the Risk turn and the Monopoly turn, battles may be generated by either ruleset.

MGoAG: Rexopolis! - The Players

MGoAG: Rexopolis! - The Players

Even though this is an "Imagi-Nations" project, it's based on 18th-Century European history. The key players in Central Europe in the middle of the 18th Century, (in the middle of the "flintlock musket and socket bayonet" era, the middle of the "Linear Warfare Grand Tactics" era) would be Great Britain (through personal union with Hanover), France (Germany's neighbor, Austria's rival), Austria (seat of the Empire) and Russia (that new powerhouse of military might).

In addition to these four Big Players, there was one new upstart, just making waves: Prussia.

In this game we'll use the basic colors of the map, of the Risk and Sorry and chess pieces, of the Monopoly properties, and of the Legos to represent these four (five!) major players.

RED - Great Britain (Albionia)
BLU - France (Lotharia)
 YLO - Austria (Osterik)
GRN - Russia (Kashthurazia)
BLK - Prussia (Brandenia)

Below is a shot of the Rexopolis! Map, with the extent of the states, the major capitals and five tokens to represent the major monarchies, be they Hanover, Bourbon, Hapsburg, Petrovna or Hohenzollern.

I still haven't figured out how I'll use the Sorry! pieces...

The Monopoly tokens will actually be used on the Monopoly board, but here they are just shown for reference. As are the Sorry! pieces. Not quite sure what we'll use those for, but we've got 'em, and they're the right colors for the project. We'll need a counter or a token or a marker or an objective eventually, no doubt.

So... who are the players? Each one represents one of the four (OK, FIVE!) nation-states, viz, Britain, France, Austria, Russia and Prussia. We'll need some black pawns for Prussia.

Next we'll move these tokens over to the other board (maybe the Sorry! pieces can represent alliances), and we'll throw down some Risk armies on this board and decide what they represent. The quest continues...

FINALLY!!!

Yes... Finally.

Of course, nothing is ever really final, is it?

I finally put together most (I hope) of the pile of stuff that I'll need (need?) to start playing My Game of All Games.

I finally got that Wikipedia map printed as a poster to use as an oversize Risk board.



What's Wrong With This Picture? OK, I'm playing an Imagi-Nations campaign starting sometime about mid-century, and all the colors don't match up exactly... What's right with it? 20 bucks, 2 days, in hand. 4/5 colors PERFECT!

I finally got the rulesets that I'll use to resolve the battles as tabletop wargames.



Well-Supplemented: Might and Reason pdf, Volley & Bayonet: Road to Glory (and both SYW supplements), the public library's copy of Black Powder, King of the Battlefield, and Warfare in the Age of Reason (with both supplements).

I got the pile of colored tape that I'm going to use to mark troop deployment and subsequent movement, (as well as the unseen piles of masking, painter's, spike and gaffer's tape that I'm going to use as terrain). And the foam shapes I'm using to mark blocks to LOS or difficult terrain (the hills and the woods).



Dept. of Craftiness: Colored tape to mark battle lines and foam shapes to marks hills and woods. Yes, I'm going all out on the artisanship and attention to minute detail to convey outstanding realism and verisimilitude.

And I also assembled all of the toys and games I plan on using to create the first in a series of My Game of All Games - Rexopolis: Peril & Intrigue!

Yes... Games and Toys! There's just something...foundational... about Red, Yellow, Green, Blue. Plus! The ever-elusive yet once-ubiquitous Lego 6177. Risk, Monopoly and Sorry! Probably my three favorite commercial games, when I was a kid.

OK, it's a Risk campaign on a Wikipedia map, while semi-simultaneously playing Monopoly with all of the content changed, and resolving the battles with Legos instead of actual miniature figures... BUT, I finally have all the pieces!!! Most of them anyway...

So, yes, here we are in the Twelve Days of Christmas, and just as I planned (HA!) I FINALLY have all of the parts to create my monster - MGoAG: Rexopolis!

Ooh, Shiny!

One thing about playing games, including wargames, is that I find myself always searching for the newest thing, the next thing, the latest thing to grab my interest. This time I'm picking up on a project I last pursued about forty years ago: My Game of All Games.

This was a game my best friend and I used to play when we were ten or twelve years old. I'm sure we weren't the first, and I know we weren't the last. Any kid with more than one game or toy tries to make a game using all his games and toys. It's that game you play where you use other games to resolve conflicts in the primary game.

For example: Risk. Any kid who has played this game more than once starts looking for a cooler mechanic than the handful-of-dice, attacker-favored, attrition-centered, "pick off the weak but don't overextend" gameplay that usually results. In our case, we played My Game of All Games. We'd use any other game to resolve the battles generated from the Risk board. Chess. Checkers. If the attack occurred in Asia, Chinese Checkers. If the attack involved a sea crossing, Battleship. Cards. If the attack involved a ridiculous number of armies grinding down a large number of enemy armies, several hands of War. Army guys mixed with marbles. Anything that was vaguely a "war" game. Stratego. Even "race" games like Sorry! and Aggravation.

Unfortunately, we didn't have any proper "wargames" just the usual board games and military toys of the average suburban kid in the early Seventies.

There were always several things about My Game of All Games that I wanted to improve, but then my best friend moved away, and I wasn't 12 years-old anymore and life went on.

Until a couple of weeks ago. For some reason, a bunch of things I was interested in but never continued on with have come back to me in a big way from those years of my life. One of them was the urge to play some games. To take the few cheap games I own and somehow make a semi-legitimate "wargame" out of them, right down to the level of actual engagements. But with a more, shall we say "horse and musket" mechanic than, for example, either chess or Battleship. Something more 18th century than Stratego. Something like a "board" game, with practically flat terrain, but played on maps at several different scales. Something perhaps more Eurocentric than the global Risk map. Something where actual battles could be fought out.

I've spent about six or eight months learning about wargames, specifically miniature tabletop wargaming, that is, wargaming with actual figures. Along the way I became really inspired to reinvent My Game of All Games.

But first, I'll need a new copy of Risk. Some Legos. Some masking tape. A Wikipedia map printed at poster size. An empty table. A lot of floor space. And all the other games in the house. Time to take inventory. Where's that deck of cards...?