"Making the French Rev & Napoleonic Wars into a boardgame" Topic

Hello everyone,

I've spent the last few months designing and creating a boardgame suitable for staging the geo-political and military machinations of the European powers during the Napoleonic period, and its about time I shared some of the results.

The original inspiration came from a recent binge of playing Axis & Allies and Risk! with my buddies, and coming to the conclusion that I needed to build a Napoleonic version of this type of gaming (those amongst you who have read my posts in the past will know that I have a enthusiastic interest in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars).
I know that there is already a Napoleonic version of Risk!, and Napoleon in Europe is another successful game of this type, but both games are next to impossible to find and buy on the internet (both have become rather expensive collectors items). In my frustration, I decided to build my own game from scratch, tailoring it to exactly how I wanted it. My Fiance has a degree in Illustration and I roped her in for technical advice, but all the artwork is my own. A lot of effort, but I'm pleased with the final result.

Here's a photo showing the gameboard with most of the playing pieces on it, as a quick introduction. I'm planning to make some subsequent posts with more pictures and details of the build process and game mechanics, if anyone is interested.

link

Nice map and interesting project. I have this: link but I haven't played it yet.

Er, does anyone know how to grap a photo from photobucket and then imbed the actual picture into a TMP post?
I managed to do that in the past but I can't remember how to do it now.

The boardgame 'Diplomacy' may be of interest to you, but it is multi player, up to 7 players,the more the merrier.

Empires and Arms?

That comment made, if you're looking for people to evaluate so you can get a sense of how it works and comes across to people who aren't you (always very important not to design in a vacuum) I'd be interested.

Cheers,

The Bandit

Copy and paste the IMG code
[URL=http://s1296.photobucket.com/user/pancho177/media/IMG_1550_zps4f324008.jpg.html]

very nice sir. i would buy. charles

Looks good – I've got 3 or 4 Napoleonic Strategic boardgames (Napoleon in Europe, Empires in Arms, La Grande Armee, etc) and they're all fun. Great for teaching my children geography, geo-politics, history, diplomacy and strategic & operational planning.

I'm interested in hearing more about it.

Unfortunately, there is already a game that has been published and is available that looks very similar to your game. It is by Worthington Games and it is called "War & Peace"

link

Like Bandit and Captain KGL, I'd be interested in learning more.

Your fleet (I presume?) counters are a great idea, being both simple and visually appealing.

Although other posters have pointed out there have been similar games, that's no reason why you shouldn't develop your own version to suit your tastes/requirements.

You might consider making your very nice map available for those who would like to use it for a Matrix game or with their own rules.

I agree with arthur1815.

Thankyou all for your responses, advice and kind words.

I've not really thought about developing the game as a commercial project, this is more of a show & tell thread concerning a project that was tailor-made to my own specific requirements. If anyone would like to do something similar then this could be a good launching point.

Here's some more general info on the game;

- As my gaming group consists of 5 people I decided to focus on 5 playable nations; France, Prussia, Russia, Austria & Britain. If we have more players then they play as the Ottomans or Spain. Its perfectly playable with less than five players too.

- One of the most important issues for me was that I wanted simultaneous play, i.e. all the players carry out their activities during the same phase. I'm quite an impatient person and one of the problems I have with some of the games mentioned above is the fact that you can be waiting ages for your turn. With my game everyone is directly involved at all times, and the whole game can be played in about 4 hours. More on this later.

-Each turn consists of i) Economy phase, ii) Diplomacy & Espionage, iii) Naval phase, iv) Combat phase (land), v) Manouvre phase, vi) Declare War!

- Specific periods can be played; so far I have written scenarios for "the War of the 2nd Coalition", the "Invasion Scare" (covering approx 1804-06), and Napoleons invasion of Russia. But the main rules start off with all nations being neutral and a blank slate existing in Europe. Each nation has its own unique strengths & weaknesses and starting units but the player can use his economy to develop as he wishes. This means that every game is different as different coalitions and objectives are pursued.

- The game has been play tested quite well, solo-play at first and then multi-play. So far we have had 3 full games, which have been extremely enjoyable.

- Land playing pieces represent a Divisional and consist of Infantry, Guard Infantry, Militia Infantry, Heavy Cavalry, and Irregular cavalry (for Russia and the Ottomans). Every player starts with a Commander that represents them personally. They can also purchase Generals when they group enough pieces together to have an army.

- Naval pieces represent a Squadron, and you may have frigate or Warship squadrons. Squadrons can be grouped into fleets which may have an Admiral (represented by a flagship squadron). British and Spanish players are allowed to have an admiral as their overall commander.

-Ports can be blockaded, and the routes to Colonial wealth (off-map) can be patrolled, giving you a competitive advantage in the economic phase.

-Admirals and Generals lend a bonus for movement and battles.

-Battles are quite simple dice-driven affairs. Some of the complaints about Napoleons Battles is that the battles take too long, and I wanted a quick mechanic that kept the overall game moving. Playing pieces are transferred to a battle strip and attacks are made until one side is destroyed or decides to retreat. Most of the skill comes from BEFORE the battle, i.e manouvring well at the stategic level, achieving concentration of strength on the battlefield, assessing the relative strengths and weaknesses of your enemies army before committing to battle, knowing when to retreat and lure your enemy into an exposed position, using fortresses to your advantage and knowing how/when to attack them, playing special event cards at the right time and using espionage to see what cards your opponent has, using your Generals effectively and knowing when to commit reserves.

-espionage can also be used to create insurrections in other players territories. That player then has to divert troops to crush the revolt if he wishes to use that territory to generate wealth, which can be extremely satisfying for his enemies!

- The standard game is won by the player who amasses the most victory points. Pts are awarded for;
1pt for every territory you control beyond those you started with. 1pt for each Sea that you have uncontested control of (i.e. no other ships). 3pts for each Capital you have taken from another player (only 1pt if it was subsequently retaken). 3pts for each captured enemy Commander. 3pts if you achieve your secret objective.
The historical scenario games have very different victory conditions.

-You might be able to see from the photo that there are "neutral" parts of the map, such as Italian States, parts of Germany, Scandinavia etc.

- There are two different ways to capture territory. One is to declare war on another player or neutral "block" of territories (i.e. italian States) and then attack it.
The other, slightly more subtle way is to declare war on an player aggressing against the neutrals and then support that nuetral state. The good thing about this is that you can use the neutral forces yourself, and then slyly add the territory to your own possesions once the invader is beaten off. The benefit of a direct invasion is that you can draw a special event card (nation specific) that will give you advantages later in the game. It all makes for an interesting cat and mouse affair as to who is going to declare war first, and in what manner. Such as "do I declare war on Denmark now, in order to sieze those ship squadrons before the other guy does?" or "Do I wait for the other guy to attack first and then use my naval superiority to ensure the Danish Navy joins my side out of nescessity?" Decisions decisions….

That should do for now as its already quite a long post.

The ships come from this excellent site;
link

(The actual paper ships are linked to half way down the page)

I had to paint/convert the ships for nations other than Britain and France.

The land pieces are all risk playing pieces (standard set, although one day I hope to get hold of the pieces from the Napoleonic version). Although they wear the tricorne they still look good at gaming distance. I thought about painting 10mm Napoleonic models but the figures get handled so frequently that the paint chips off.
The Generals are 10mm Old Glory and are the only painted land pieces, suitably based to aid handling. The Guard models were made simply by slicing off the fellow that carries the flag on the Risk cannon model. This gave me two distinct figures, the cannon (representing an artillery battery) and the Flag-bearer (representing a Guard infantry division). Very useful and cost effective.

Unfortunately it would be very difficult to share the map-board with other forum members, or to reproduce for commercial sale, simply because the map is hand-drawn and painted.

Would it be practicable to scan the individual sheets which seem to comprise the map?

Very cool.

I guess it would be Arthur1815.
Another option would be to reproduce the original map that I made, which was all in one piece; link

This map was used for the play testing and first games we had. It worked really well, although you can see that the corners/edges had to be held down in order to stop it from rolling up. It was painted with water-colours, which meant that the paper got a bit crinkly and some of the playing pieces fell over now and then.
Here's a pic of our first game; link

I eventually decided to re-do the map on hard-board to make it a bit more player friendly.

Looks like a great initiative! Heck, I'd try to play it

Looks v. Good TW.
Hope you have some special rules for secret societies ? :)

Of course my dear Gustav, it wouldn't be a TW game if it didn't have such things in it!
No secret societies as such, but the players have the option to use their finances to start insurrections in other players territories and blame them on popular "spontaneous" uprisings……

Here's a pic of some of the special event and secret mission cards. These were hand made, simply by gluing the text and a suitable picture on to the back of the Risk! cards. You can zoom in to read the cards using the Photo-bucket magnifying glass. I had great choosing the pictures for the cards, especially the old Gillray cartoons and some of the famous paintings from the era.

link

I just realised that I made a horrible typo above;

Some of the complaints about Napoleons Battles is that the battles take too long, and I wanted a quick mechanic that kept the overall game moving.

I meant to write "Napoleon in Europe", NOT Napoleons Battles, which is a different type of game entirely.

@nsolomon99

You wrote: "I've got 3 or 4 Napoleonic Strategic boardgames (Napoleon in Europe, Empires in Arms, La Grande Armee, etc) and they're all fun."

I would be interested in getting your thoughts on these various Napoleonics boardgames, any similarities or differences, which you would recommend for various reasons?

I don't want to derail TelesticWarrior's thread. Would you mind starting a new thread in Napoleonic Discussion section?

Thanks very much

James

I don't think Telestic Warrior would mind, he left in the middle of the big summer exodus and has had his account locked, both of which are a great pity.