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Everything about every single Friedemann Friese game looks similar when you consider each green game box with dry cover art and a game title that (usually) starts with the letter F.

At the behest of my editorial boss, Meeple Mountain founder Andy Matthews, I stopped by the 2F-Spiele booth at SPIEL ‘22 to pick up a copy of Findorff, Friese’s newest game, for his personal collection. While I was at the booth, I went ahead and grabbed a copy for myself.

I added Findorff to the 40-or-so review copies I hauled home from the show. Fast forward to the moment I whipped out the rulebook for Findorff and then did a dummy-hand three-player setup to walk through the game.

Two turns into that walkthrough, I knew we had something here. After four plays (two solo, one three player, and one four-player game), I know something else: this has replaced Power Grid as the best Friedemann Friese game I have ever played.

Downtime? Zero

Findorff is one of the 23 districts of a German town called Bremen, the birthplace of Friese. Findorff (the game) is based on the history of this district with players producing resources to build up the town from the early 1800s to the early…

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Captain’s Sea pits the frigates of the US Navy against those of Great Britain and France from 1799 to 1815. During this period, the US Navy was in its infancy, having only been formed by Congress in 1798. Prior to then, the only naval action the United States experienced was during the American Revolution, and most of those engagements took place on rivers, lakes, and along the coast of the Eastern seaboard. By the early 19th century, the US began to develop a truly ocean-going navy capable of fighting it out on the high seas against their much more experienced European rivals.

Released by Legion Wargames late in 2021, Captain’s Sea is like many games by this publisher who specializes in smaller wargames. Founded in 1990, Legion Wargames’ goal is “to bring you a fine selection of military board games which cover topics that are as of yet un-gamed, or new game systems that offer a unique perspective on history.” Their titles include games about the Boer Wars, Spanish-American War, Indian Wars of the American West, and the New Zealand Land Wars. In a hobby dominated by games about the World Wars, Napoleonic battles, and the US Civil…

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The Shores of Tripoli is a card-driven wargame for 1-2 players from Fort Circle Games. Based on the first Barbary War or the Tripolitan War (1801-1805), players take on the role of the nascent US Navy or Tripoli as they struggle over the US’s refusal to pay tribute for protection against piracy in the Mediterranean. The US player must demonstrate to the Tripolitans and the Americans back home that the Navy can protect US merchantmen while the Tripolitan player must either do enough damage or gather enough tribute to make their refusal moot.

From the Halls of Montezuma to Your Gaming Table

Mechanically, this is a card-driven wargame. Each full turn, which represents 1 year starting in 1801, players draw 6 cards and add them to their hand. Cards can be played for their event or discarded to perform some standard actions. The US player can always discard to move frigates or build gunboats in Malta, for example, while the Tripolitan player can discard to build corsairs or else launch a pirate raid from Tripoli itself. Cards are played in 4 rounds, which represent the 4 seasons. First, the US player will play a card and carry out its ability,…

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[caption id="attachment_25136" align="aligncenter" width="730"] I mean look at that *exciting* board[/caption]

My father is always describing me as being farther to the left than anyone he’s ever met and he’s telling the truth. If you’ve read any of my writing, you’ve likely caught a whiff of this. I’m going to talk about games, of course, don’t worry! But I’m also going to talk about the personal, which is impossible to divorce from the political. Negotiation games are the most personal games that I know and therefore cannot be separated from the political. It doesn’t hurt then that the game (or argument simulator) that I will frame this piece around is one about the founding bros of the good ol’ US of A.

We’ll come back to my politics.

The Game of Wigs

2007’s Founding Fathers (not to be confused with 2010’s Founding Fathers, a game co-designed by Jason Matthews, one…

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Original Game Design

The 1980 version came with four map boardssp that, when put together, created a long rectangular playing surface roughly 17-inches high by 44-inches wide that stretched from the Iberian Peninsula in the west to Russia in the east. Besides the major European powers (France, Britain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria), counters representing Spain, Portugal, and numerous other minor powers and satellite states were represented. Some were allied with France, some with the anti-French powers, and some were neutral. The allegiance of some countries, even some of the major powers, could change during play. The game counters represented infantry, cavalry, and naval forces, as well as leaders. Several player aid cards are provided, including the Leader Display…

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