Fire in the Lake Review - with the Chief
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- čas přidán 5. 08. 2024
- Bart and Judd take a look at this war game
00:00 - Introduction
02:00 - Production overview
04:24 - Game overview
17:42 - Final thoughts
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Find more reviews and videos at www.dicetower.com - Hry
Can't really agree on the 'ahistorical' side Judd. VC/NVA makes good sense to me.
ARVN/US is harder - there are some cases in which the US is very opposed to ARVN
goals (looting money for example), but may be taking actions which seem opposed to
the overall goal in order to harm ARVN, and those are sometimes harder to swallow - EXCEPT when you look at the US political opinion. Once you see that we toppled
ARVN govts, and withheld support at times when they were doing well, it begins to
make a lot more sense.
I think the game covers the broad political decisions (including cutting your ally's throat)
better than any other 'Nam game really.
Couldn't agree more! The US and RVN often had conflicting goals and this game does a great job of addressing those differences. One rule change I (kind of) agree with (posted on a GMT article) is during a Monsoon, the US is not allowed to move ARVN forces. This is to prevent the US from dropping COIN control before a victory check as it doesn't really fit the intended design. What we have done in my games instead is, limit US Air Lifts during a Monsoon from moving enough ARVN to relinquish COIN control in a city or province.
I know this video is 5 years old, but I just got this and god, do I love this game. High production value, dynamic, tense gameplay, event cards with historical events that do a lot for immersion, and an appropriately grim experience overall. I especially like how different the four factions are, and how only one player can win despite it on the surface being a 2v2 game. Also love how well the different issues and contrivances of the Viet Nam war are woven into the game mechanics -- US bombing decreases popular support in the province being bombed, the VC can hijack troops of the unstable South Vietnamese regimes, the US presence will ebb and flow as it did historically because the US player needs troops to fight, but receives victory points for sending men home, et cetera.
All in all, a masterpiece of a game, but the complexity and theme might make it difficult to find people to play it with :p .
Twilight Strugle is a tog of war between two sides.
This is four (4) sides trying to achive their goals, two allies on each side but with very different agendas. It is great unless you want a two-sides-only wargame.
Trying to get into this, but I'm struggling a bit because rules are complex, and because the game has a pretty grim tone to it. Which is great and appropriate, of course, but it hits a bit close to home. My brother just married a girl with Vietnamese parents, and so I visited Viet Nam for their wedding, and I've been studying the Viet Nam war out of interest recently, I've watched Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's excellent documentary for PBS, for example. This game seems to do a good job not just at giving you a challenging strategy game to play, but also to portray the power struggles between the powers involved, and the hardships of the civilian population. I think this is the first game that I've played that actually cares about the consequences of air strikes for civilians. In other games you just roll a die to see how much economic damage you did.
Oh, I have so been waiting for that review. Thank you :)
Thanks. Sry took so long to get er done.
I really enjoyed your video. Especially your explaining "victory" conditions.
Nice job...added to my "buy list"!
Very good review the only thing i would add is that US and ARVN Special forcves being underground doesnt make them untargetable, they are only underground so that they can be activated to attack opposing pieces.
Yes Sir.
Actually this game is the one that made me love the COIN series. I demo'd it on Tabletop Simulator and immediately had to track down a copy. There was no way I could wait for P500. I then picked up A Distant Plain and Falling Sky as well but Fire in the Lake has become my favorite for the very reason you don't love it. I love the fact that the 4 players are working towards their own individual long-term goals while often working together with friendly forces towards short term goals. I do like the game as a 2-player game, but I love it as a 4-player game. I think it does a great job of balancing the different political goals of the 4 factions. I'm waiting on my copy of Liberty or Death, but so far this is my favorite COIN game!
Wow what a surprise. Bart, but not Scotch! How nice that you have multiple channels doing completely different things! I just got Gandhi (the COIN game) but heard great things about this one too.
"If you like COIN you're going to flip for this." I see what you did there, Judd.
This is my first COIN game and I'm really enjoying it so far. I have only played it solo up until now, but I think I have three victims lined up for a session here pretty soon. I think Judd's King of the Hill criticism is valid, but I'm not really sure that it is entirely ahistorical. The in-game relationships between the member factions of the two "teams" are such that while they support each other it is entirely possible for one of them to get so carried away that they harm their allies. If they do that too soon then they hurt themselves too. For example, the NVA can become so focused on gaining military control that they start to turn the people against them and back toward the Saigon government, which harms the VC and by extension themselves too. This means that the natural allies tend to rein in their actions just a bit until they can seal their victory. In real life, were the ARVN and US "factions" restrained by their commitments to each other? Yes, and they definitely had shared and separate interests. Of course, I say all of this without having actually played a 4-player game yet; my impression of the gameyness (that's a word) may very well change with more experience.
It's a gorgeous game, by the way, and a very logical, tight design. I really agree with you on that one, Bart.
Go see Jeffro Johnson's and my response to Brian. I point out two in-game instances of exactly why the King of the Hill failed. It wasn't the general nature of having a 4-player game that failed. Rather it was absurd stuff that defies history and common sense to make the mechanics of this game work. All of this can be corrected by playing it 2-player, or playing 4-player with the 2-player victory objectives.
The rationalizations I hear for this are comparable to hearing Combat Commander fans try to rationalize why "shooting bullets at the sun to end the game" is a realistic tactic, but it's the same thing: the game allows this silly tactic, so you do it to win the game. Mechanics first -- tactics and realism be damned.
As far as "If you like COIN you're going to flip for this." I'm not even sure what I did. I think you over-estimate me. We shot this video before Christmas. I continued to ponder and ponder on it and came to the realization that I do not like COIN, and I got flamed over on a BGG thread for stating why I find the core mechanics so unappealing and generic. I probably lost all favor with the Great One forever, but I really did try hard to like this game. The goal of any game isn't to ultimately win, but to have fun, and COIN is just not fun to me. Cuba Libre was my first exposure to COIN and I hated it. FitL did not change my opinion of COIN. At the same time, I cannot see a person who loves one of the COIN games not thinking this is the best one in the series. After all, he who is legend blessed it, so it can never be improved on by mere mortals.
Just the pun of flipping a COIN, that's all I meant, LOL.
Just played the four player. Loved it.
I understand Judd’s dislike for the 4 player asymmetrical goals: one senses the victory conditions become diluted and less satisfying. On the other hand, there’s no rule saying the four players can split into teams and help each other achieve their goals or work as support or adopt the others goals.
Any chance of reveiw of the conflict of heroes 2nd printing games?
I've already done just that Panzer. COH Awakening the Bear 2nd edition came out late 2013 I think and I reviewed right away. I also took some photo comparisons of the maps from first addition to second edition. Gorgeous map.
I like that you can play COIN games totally by running 4 bots. (One of the things I love about ROOT, too.)
Mate, just a random question.... have you checked out any of the Paradox Games pc sims ? Im playing Darkest Hour at the moment and am completely addicted..... its eating into my wargame time in a big way... check em out... Highly recommended. Great review as always. Keep em coming :)
miridian2012 Europa Universalis is amazing, and Crusader II is just unlike anything ever made. It is currently free to play for a week on steam and 75% off to buy.. you should check it out. Not really a wargame though.. something unique. Check out "Matrix Games" for more PC wargames of exceptional quality.
TragicTheBlathering lol.. Dude im one of your subs and literally just finished watching your latest vid when I saw this message.... I own and play EU and CK and you are absolutely right they are both awesome :). I also have just received a copy of Gary Grigsbys War In The West from Matrix... massive rulebook. If your into wargames checkout Darkest Hour which is a standalone mod of HOI 2 ... also a classic :)
That is too bad I would have loved a comparisson between A Distant Plain and Fire in the Lake... Joel Eddy did compare the 2 and had a slight pref for Fire in the Lake... and since I was leaning on A Distant Plain I need something to sway me one way or the other.
As soon as ADP is back in print I will do a review.
I really have no interest in the other two games. I learned from Card Driven Games that you just can't top Mark Herman. There are plenty of fine CDGs out there, but nothing compares to his games. So I have climbed the pinnacle of COIN. I can't really see myself digging Andean Abyss or ADP. It violates the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics or something.
Andean Abyss is still my top of the COIN imo... I also have Distant Plain... just not sure if more of this game design is warranted. Better to get stuck into the strategy and depth of a single game than spread out over so many maybe. I like Distant Plain as in a very real sense is a team vs team game, so unlike all the other COINs can be played 2 player with little affecting the overall fell of the game.
I would still like a far future COIN game in space. Sci-fi would allow for some very interesting COIN situations. And just to float it out there...let's say you have an evil Empire, some home grown Rebels, powerful forceful beings and toss in some organized crime syndicate...dare I say Hut 1..2..3. Now that would be a COIN series I would have to buy.
Bart Brunscheen
I said I am done with COIN for good, but I would actually play one based on the Babylon 5 universe. I have toyed with the idea from time to time, but can't get excited enough about COIN to play it enough to understand the nuances, but B5 would be a perfect 4-player King of the Hill game, even if it's not a counter-insurgency.
Hmmm....
I wonder... has Judd read Mark Herman's designer notes in the Fire in the Lake Playbook? In those notes Herman clearly disagrees with Judd's view of the history of the Vietnam War during the years covered in the game. His designer's notes suggest right up front that those who disagree with his take on the history are free to play FITL as a 2-player or 3-player game. He then devotes the majority of the rest of his designer's notes detailing why he thinks the FITL 4-player game is historically justified. And why the COIN game system struck him as the perfect way to model the conflict.
I think this adaptation of Volko Ruhnkes's genius game system is a Mark Herman masterpiece.
watch it at 1.5x for a perfect review