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Political decisions of Ici, c'est la France!

One of the aspects of an insurgency is the political war. In Ici, one of the tough decisions that you have to make is what political chit to play.

Will you play something that will affect the hotheads among elite forces and the pied-noirs (local French)? This is important, if they run amok they will seriously lower the political will of the armed forces (which will result in less amount of operation points each game turn).

Will you play something that will affect the efficiency of the FLN? The lower the efficiency the lesser chance there is for FLN to succeed in their attacks and the more difficult it is to recruit new fighters.

Will you decide on something that will get the international politics support you? This usually affects the loyalty among the moslems in Algeria. This is important, not just in how willing they are to become recruited by the FLN but also whether if they, by the end of the game, will wish to stay with France or become independent.

Will you go for something useful on the battlefield? Getting the upper hand in the regions of Algeria will allow you control the people living there. For the French it is a matter of finding and fighting the FLN fighters out there. They will do that by advancing their tactics and the technology of war.

All these are crucial but you will have to choose one chit only each game turn and, of course, it matters if you play first or second.

Later I will go into the matter of recruiting.

Ici is due for printing in 4-6 weeks from now

http://www.khybergames.com/id41.html

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Comment by Kim Kanger on April 29, 2009 at 5:31am: I answered a guy elsewhere who was airing a certain tint of frustration regarding the delayment of Ici. I basically said that Ici now was ready to go, but also that the good thing about the delayment was that I now had the opportunity to clear out some bugs in the rules before it got printed. So I believe the game is better now than it was a few months ago.

The interaction between the parameters in the rules have been difficult to balance since, in practice, there are three games in it. But not three parallel games (like a land game and a naval game and so on), but three intergrated and highly interactive games.

This is not a game where there is a front of counters which basically move and fight. This is a game where the enemy is everywhere, where you are unsure of what policy to have, where you are not certain whether you should fight or not, where you struggle to get the population to support you and where you are convinced that you will lose.

Each person that I have played against has accused me of favouring the side that I'm playing. The funny thing is that I hear the same thing whether they play FLN or France...

This is not a game for everyone. I'm certain that I will hear many views from players later on (which I both dread and hope for). The rules are not complicated and I have gone to great lengths to clear out any ambiguities. But I promise you, the game will be a challenge and, if you like it, you will be able to spend hours contemplating strategies (I still do and I designed the damn thing!)