The Game Box

I'm reading: http://www.amazon.com/Song-Wrath-Peloponnesian-War-Begins-ebook/dp/B0046A8SDQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404905351&sr=8-1&keywords=song+of+wrath

It has me very interested in building a game in which you can have 2 - 4 players who each take on the role of Athens and Sparta primarily, but could also expand to handle Argos and Persia perhaps.

Effectively, the game would deal with this concept of ranking city states Tim'e which is a kind of social/power hierarchy between the city states that determined hegemony and ultimately gave city states their marching orders for when and how they'd deal with conflict and cooperation.

The idea would be that players manipulate the Tim'e of their city state in relation to other more subordinate city states to build coalitions and work to provoke direct conflict in which a battle would be fought.

Central to this would be the changing Tim'e of smaller city states based on card play generating specific actions.  Depending on your Tim'e rank, you'd get to select from a pool of diplomatic and military action cards along with pulling blank cards.  You'd place those for each city state you want to deal with face down so that the blank cards might allow you to bluff the level of interaction you're actually having with a particular city state.  Each card would motivate a change based on your allies, your Tim'e relative to the city state, and cost you your turn since you'd have limited access to every city state.  In effect, it's a forced ranking of diplomatic priorities.

Combat happens in a pretty abstract way with separate combat decks that get built based upon your allies, Tim'e, leadership availability, and historical performance.  It's played 3 phases, setup, conflict, rally, resolution.  Setup allows you to build your lines and who sits where.  Conflict is the initial feeling out of each other's lines and first contact.  Rally is the moment when leadership makes their decisive move and the two sides are fully engaged.  You end with resolution which is kind of the "headline" phase except that it happens at the end of combat rather than the beginning and potentially modifies the end results to some degree.

Victory is determined by the final ranking of Athens and Sparta in Tim'e, but that result is modified by the size of the hegemon claimed, loyal city states, and military victories along the way.

So ... my question is ... is this too esoteric to get any traction?  It's not really a wargame, but it deals with a kind of political warfare waged by the Greeks.

(http://content9.flixster.com/question/57/18/52/5718523_std.jpg)


Sounds like the kind of game I'd love. Peloponisian War games haven't done well commercially -
but the hobby's chanced since the last was published, and Hoplite seems to have done well.

Of course, Herman putting a game out on the subject might suck all the air out of the room.

lol .. that's the reference I cannot get out of my head either when reading the book...

I have HIGH hopes for Herman's game.  I just heard it in the latest GDB so that ought to be cool.

Excellent parameters you've set out, pretty much what I'd define as the best PW game with political weight.

(I'm giving The Song of Wrath to myself for my birthday - it's a cinch nobody else is going to get the clue)

Having played Mark's original PW game literally to tatters-two copies!-, I'm really chewing off fingers waiting for his next game.

How many here have played Clash of Arms EPW? I mean the full Campaign Game?
I'm playing it now, and with a few judicious mods it's an excellent game. It's turning out to be quite savage just in the first couple of campaign turns I've played.......

I'm thinking about meshing in Hoplite as the tactical inclusion for EPW.......now there would be indeed a worthy Monster!

I really enjoyed Song of Wrath.

And my plan was to plan VG's Peloponnesian War and use Hoplite for the battles.. but I faltered on the Hoplite piece.  Still not too late, I suppose.

Figuring out the terrain to use in the strategic to tactical change is always the **** for me.

Hoplite might work better than most for this, as most battlefields weren't filled with complex terrain.