Mediterranean Convoy - a complete minimalist game

 Mediterranean Convoy

About 10 years ago I whipped up this game for a minimalist game contest. 21 pieces were the big constraint. It resulted in some really creative games, this one is Stratego-like but doesn't have the fluidity and intricacy of Pacific Convoy or Doomstar (latter published on STEAM 2015 as video game).

This is a copyrighted work. All rights reserved.

This game represents the situation in 1941 in the Mediterranean Sea, when Allies and Axis both were convoying through the same area, Allies to Malta, Axis to Africa.

Components:

5 rows by 7 columns long-rectangular grid filling a 10" by 10" surface (players sit on the "5" sides).

21 plastic pieces each 2 by 1.16 inches (fit the individual rectangles of the board):

10 pieces per side, colored blank red or blue on one side.  On the other side:

Cruiser, three Destroyers, four Merchant ships, two Submarines

One piece, "Air Strike" on both sides, red on one side, blue on other

Setup:

Flip the Air Strike piece to determine first mover.  First mover sets up first.  Partially conceal the Air Strike piece under the board.

Set up with seven ships in the row closest to you, three anywhere in next row, all face down (owning player can look whenever desired).

Game End, and Winning:

A player wins when one of his/her Merchant ships is in the row furthest away.

If all Merchant ships of one player are destroyed, the player who still has at least one Merchant ship wins.

If a position on the board is repeated three times consecutively (same as Chess rule), the game ends and pieces are all revealed.  The player with a Merchant closer to their goal wins; if same, then the one with more surviving Merchants wins; if same, the game is a draw.

Sequence of Play:

Move one piece at a time, players alternate.  A piece can move one orthogonally (up, down, and sideways), not diagonally.  Only one piece may be in a rectangle except when one player attacks the other.  A player must move a piece (except when using Air Strike).

When a ship moves into the same rectangle as an enemy ship (attacks), both are revealed and stay revealed remainder of game.

• When the moving ship (attacker) cannot destroy the target, the attacker bounces back to where it started the turn.

• When ships are same type, both are destroyed, except when both are Merchants, then the moving ship bounces back to where it started the turn.

• A Cruiser eliminates anything when attacking anything except a Submarine.

• A Destroyer eliminates a Merchant or Submarine.

• A Submarine eliminates a Merchant or Cruiser.

• A Merchant eliminates nothing.

Air Strike:

Instead of moving a piece, a player may call in an Air Strike, only once per game per player.  Choose one rectangle in any of the two rows farthest from you.  The Air Strike destroys whatever ship is there!

Also, reveal the Air Strike piece and turn it face up for the player who hasn't used his/her Air Strike.  When that one is also used, put the piece underneath the board.

Optional Rules (can be used together or separately):

1. Flip the Air Strike piece (like flipping a coin) when both ships are the same type (other than Merchants, which still bounce), color shows winner, other ship is eliminated.

2. Flip when Air Strike is called in, Strike succeeds only when calling player's color results.

3. Treat the board's center square as land, impassable to any ship.

4. (Radical change).  When the attacker can be destroyed by the target, then it is eliminated rather than bouncing.

5.  Play with three Merchants and three Submarines per side.  One Merchant piece is marked so that it can be a Submarine for this option.  This piece can be used for other combinations, for example as a second Cruiser or fourth Destroyer along with three Merchants.

6. A ship cannot move backwards (toward its player)!

7.  When a Merchant attacks another Merchant, both are eliminated.

8.  When a Destroyer attacks a Submarine, flip the Air Strike piece.  If the color of the Submarine comes up, the Sub survives and Destroyer bounces.

Further playtesting should solidify rules, and may show that one or more of the Optionals must be used in the standard.

Play Balance in Britannia and Duel Britannia

Play balance - that is, ensuring that each player has an equal chance of succeeding - is an ideal in games that it can be difficult to achieve when the game is asymmetric, that is each player starts with a different situation.

If I had a dime for every time somebody had said that Britannia is poorly balanced I’d be in good shape. But 34 years of experience has allowed us to come up with a game that is well-balanced for those who really understand it. World Board gaming championships tournaments show this over and over. One color may dominate for a while or even for an entire tournament, but then other colors displace it the next years.

Play balance is even more difficult to achieve in a two player game. In the game for more than two, what I call the “Invisible Hand” helps maintain the balance. This is the efforts of the most skillful players who recognize weaknesses of other colors and don’t allow yet other players to take advantage of those weaknesses. They also recognize when one player has done poorly, and tend to “lay off” that player. It’s like an invisible hand helping to arrange where the pieces are on the board. When there are only two players, there are no additional players available to provide the effects of the Invisible Hand.

Playing style has a lot to do with game balance as well. Some groups just don’t figure out the best strategy, or the strategy that prevents one color or side from dominating. Some groups accidentally don’t play the game quite according to the rules, and that can make quite a difference. So right out of the box a game may appear to be unbalanced when it’s not. Britannia has 34 years of play behind it, and the current version was first published in 2006. Duel Britannia on the other hand existed for one year before I had to turn it in to the publisher.

I am including here some rule tweaks you can make if you think that either of these games is not perfectly balanced.

Britannia

 
If you feel a Britannia color is too weak, try the following.

Blue: Pict leader Brude mac Bili in Round IX. (reigned 672-93)

Green: Welsh Leader Cadwallon in Round VIII. (r. 625-34)
OR
Welsh Leader Rhodri Mawr in Round XI (or could be Round XII). (r. 844-877)

Red: Give the Saxons double increase points in Round XII (this represents another effect of Alfred, a monarch who truly deserved the name "The Great").
OR
In Round XII let the Saxons build up to eight Burhs regardless of how many areas they possess (but still only one Burh per area).

Yellow: Scots Leader Kenneth McAlpin in Round XI. (r. 840-58)

If you feel that one Britannia color is too strong, try the following:

Blue: The Angles do not get their leader Ida in Round VII.

Green: Danes do not get their leader Ivar/Halfdan in Round XII.

Red: the Irish get no reinforcing army at sea in Round IX.
OR
Saxons do not get their leader Egbert in Round XI.

You also have the opportunity to use the Saxon-Jute move order as a small balancing factor in four-player games: if green tends to do better than red in your games, have the Jutes play before the Saxons; if red tends to do better than green, the Jutes should move after the Saxons.

Yellow: Reduce the Roman invasion strength to 15 instead of 16.
OR
Dubliners do not get their leader Olaf Guthfrithson in Round XIII.

Duel Britannia
There are many different strategies in this game, more than you might think at first, and you might not achieve a balance until you’ve tried all of them. But if you think one side is at a disadvantage, try one or more of these:

Anglo-Saxons weak?
Give the Saxons a leader, Egbert, in round five.
Take away the Ostman army appearing in round six.
Give the Danish Raiders in round five, five armies instead of six.

Brythons weak?
Give the initial Norse appearance in round four, three armies instead of two.
Give the Danish Raiders in round five, seven armies instead of six.
Reduce the number of armies with Saxon Athelstan from two to one.