“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Just a few days ago Compass games brought forth The Price of Freedom: The American Civil War 1861-1865, a strategic level, card driven wargame covering the American Civil War. Designed by <PERSON>, PoF attempts to distill this vast conflict down to a playable three hours, just as <PERSON> sought to distill the meaning of the war in the Gettysburg Address.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.”
PoF gives us a nice looking battlefield of that war, worthy of admiration once it is on the table. The counters are well illustrated and pleasantly large. The standard size cards have sepia period art and photos. The cardstock point to point map is pleasing to the eye and legible, save for the dark numbers on the War Effort track. The two player aid cards are shining examples of helpful summation, and in play often take the place of the color rule book. The components are indeed fitting and proper.
In a perfect world I would wish for thicker counters and a mounted map, but the game is fine as is.
“But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate—we can not consecrate—we can not hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here.”
PoF deploys those brave men in corps of about 20,000, meaning there is a low counter density. 92
Units can be flipped to show a spent side that can simulate green troops or the effects of battle. All corps are the same, and count one-for-one on the differential CRT.
The corps and army level leaders are here, boiled down to three ratings for attack, defense and movement. Rules and cards address promotion, removal and the battlefield fate of these leaders, forcing the player to play a game within the game to add and detract the <PERSON> and the <PERSON>. I thought the scale might make the units and leaders seem generic, but it isn’t the case at all.
“It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.“
The cards in PoF nobly advance the task of giving flavor and period feel to what might have been a soulless simulation, given the large scale needed to make the war fit in eight semiannual turns. I was concerned that having the right cards might decide the contest with little player input, but instead I found enough fate to spice things up but not enough to frustrate sound play. The game is an unfinished work in the best sense, with the players completing the story of the war within a system that rewards clever play but lets fate keep the stage from becoming stale.
“It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion”
PoF gives the player a couple of great tasks; learning the rules and making decisions. The game is an odd combination of the simple and complex. The rules, while brief compared to other wargames, were hard for me to grasp until I saw the game mechanics in action. The outstanding player aid cards are a great help here. There is a lot going on, and merely deciding what to do is a challenge at first. PoF requires a full measure of devotion to learn, but rewards the effort with an intriguing simulation that lets the player feel like a strategist making choices rather than a mathematician solving a problem.
“—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—“
This game layers several simple concepts that highly resolve themselves in to something greater than the sum of the parts. For example, the whole idea of riverine warfare is dealt with by a simple modifier to attacks along river lines for that favors the Union, an abstraction that works well. Operation points must be budgeted; event cards mix things up, force pools have to be managed, the freedom to choose between several paths to victory mulled over. 100