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Family or Euro Games → Fort Sumter: The Secession Crisis, 1860-61 |
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Fort Sumter: The Secession Crisis, 1860-61
Regular Price: $42.00
P500 Price: $29.00 |
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Fort Sumter is a two-player Card Driven Game (CDG) portraying the 1860 secession crisis that
led to the bombardment of Fort Sumter and the American Civil War. Fort Sumter is
a small footprint game (11x17” mounted map) that takes approximately 25-40 minutes
to play. The game pits a Unionist versus a Secessionist player. Each player uses
the area control mechanic pioneered in my We The People design and immortalized
in Twilight Struggle to place, move, and remove political capital. The location
of political capital determines who controls each of the four crisis dimensions
(Political, Secession, Public Opinion, and Armaments). After three rounds of
play, the game culminates in a Final Crisis confrontation to determine the winner.
The heart of
the Fort Sumter design is my CDG system where you use Strategy cards for their
value or historic event to acquire political capital from the crisis track.
Political capital tokens are used to compete for control of the twelve map spaces.
Here the likes of William Lloyd Garrison, Sam Houston, Jefferson Davis, and
Harriet Beecher Stowe walk on stage, while the Southern states dissolve the
Union.
Playtest Version of the Ft. Sumter game map - not final art.
The twelve map
spaces are grouped into the four dimensions of the crisis. You gain a victory
point each round that you control a dimension’s three spaces. For example, the
Armaments dimension is characterized by Federal Arsenals, Fort Pickens, and of
course, Fort Sumter. In addition, each round you score a victory point for
controlling your secret objective space. But beware; either player can score
active objective spaces. At the end of the dual Presidential inaugurations
(round three) a new Final Crisis mechanic drives the game to its hotly
contested conclusion.
Utilizing a new Final Crisis Series mechanic, you may accelerate the crisis by breaching zones (escalation, tension,
final crisis) that yield bonus political capital. However, beware, as the first
person to breach the final crisis zone gains political advantage, yet loses
victory point ground. Each game ends with a Final Crisis, where cards set-aside
during the three rounds complete your final political maneuvers that determine
the winner.
Can you drive
the Secessionist into the Fort Sumter trap that gave Lincoln his historic victory?
Can you successfully use the issue of States Rights to divide Northern opinion?
Fort Sumter let’s you explore this seminal moment in American history in a fast-playing, easy-to-teach game.
Fort Sumter is now in its final testing. It will be the first of a new fast-playing Final
Crisis Series, covering topics as diverse as the Berlin Airlift, the Gulf of
Tonkin, Remember the Maine, Martin Luther’s Reformation, and the Assassination
of Julius Caesar.
I hope you enjoy playing Fort Sumter!
- Mark Herman
Components:
- 1 11 x 17" mounted map board
- 50 wooden political tokens
- 52 cards
- Wooden round and scoring markers
- 8 pages of rules/ historical commentary
Game Design: Mark Herman
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