Bruce:<\/strong> I never really had an opinion on Jules Verne. Sure, Journey to the Center of the Earth was a cool documentary, but you can only read so much non-fiction before you start feeling like youre back in school. But thanks to the iPad and digital books and the Internet, I downloaded a free copy of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea from Project Gutenberg, and in the introduction came upon this extraordinary information.<\/p>\n Initially, Verne’s narrative was influenced by the 1863 uprising of Poland against Tsarist Russia. The Poles were quashed with a violence that appalled not only Verne but all Europe. As originally conceived, Verne’s Captain Nemo was a Polish nobleman whose entire family had been slaughtered by Russian troops. Nemo builds a fabulous futuristic submarine, the Nautilus, then conducts an underwater campaign of vengeance against his imperialist oppressor.<\/p>\n But in the 1860s France had to treat the Tsar as an ally, and Verne’s publisher Pierre Hetzel pronounced the book unprintable. Verne reworked its political content, devising new nationalities for Nemo and his great enemyinformation revealed only in a later novel, The Mysterious Island (1875); in the present work Nemo’s background remains a dark secret.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This automatically makes Jules Verne my second-favorite author after Stanislaw Lem. And gives me a great new angle for role-playing my way through one of my favorite solitaire games, Nemos War, designed by Chris Taylor (different Chris Taylor) and published by Victory Point Games in 2009 (available here<\/a>). It builds on the basic idea that games tell the best stories when they dont overtly try to tell any story at all, and cushions it with the background of a great story you can conjure up in your mind any time you want, which is Vernes book about a mysterious captain who travels the seas in a futuristic submarine and has adventures while pretty much being a badass.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> Keep in mind that you might not understand Bruce’s description of Nemo as a badass if you haven’t read Verne’s book. Actually, even if you have read Verne’s book, you might still have a tough time of it. In actual history, France never researched Good Writing, unlike England and America. So you have to peer beyond the main character, a dopey French scientist type whose name no one outside of France can pronounce correctly. Professor Aaron Axe, as near as I can tell, but at some point, you probably have to make a sound like you’re hocking a loogey. You find out plenty about Professor Aaron Axe and his love of fish in 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. Meanwhile, Nemo spends a lot of time on the other side of a closed door, ignoring the main characters, who include Professor Axe, his butler, and a Canadian harpoonist tagalong. And when Nemo finally comes out from behind the door, he doesn’t really say a whole lot about himself. He’s not the kind of guy who would use Twitter or even have a Facebook page.<\/p>\n What’s worse, if you saw the 1950s Disney movie, you might think of Nemo as a proper Englishman doing a James Mason impression. Or if you saw League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, based on Alec Gaiman’s comic books, you might think of Nemo as a dude in a turban who doesn’t have many lines.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> There are actually at least two other versions. One is a made-for-TV movie starring Michael Caine, which I remember seeing as a kid. The other, which I initially mistook for the Michael Caine version when surfing through Amazon Primes on-demand video service, is a 1916 version (not a typo) starring Allen Holubar as Captain Nemo. You may know him from 1915s The Bombay Buddha, as well as Heart Punch from the same year, in which he appears as Al Halubar. I was looking for some video inspiration, and briefly considered checking that out. But I settled for the 1954 Disney version with Kirk Douglas as Ned Land. There was slightly less singing than in a hypothetical Bollywood rendition.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> Is it anti-American to point out that this movie will forever make me think of Kirk Douglas as a total goofball on par with Robin Williams, but less funny and more muggy?<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> Dude, the guy played Spartacus. How badass is that? Maybe they should have cast him as Nemo.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> This guy played Spartacus?<\/p>\n Well, that’s another old-timey grandpa movie I don’t need to see.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> If you want to just get the basic facts of what happens on the Nautilus, without the turgid writing, invest in a childrens edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Thats how I first read it, and when I went to read the real thing on Project Gutenberg, I was shocked to find how much extraneous text there was that didnt add anything except time and confusion. The process of editing stuff for kids must make it a lot better. Although it doesnt do much to shed light on the character of Captain Nemo.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> The intriguing thing about Nemo is how little you know about him and why he’s doing what he’s doing. He’s one of those literary figures driven to his doom at sea. Ahab, Wagner’s Flying Dutchman, Hemingway’s old man, Quint. Nemo’s War captures this by having you play the game for a while before having to make a choice about why Nemo is doing what he’s doing, and therefore how you’re going to win or lose the game. At a certain point, you have to make a choice on Nemo’s commitment track, which will determine how your victory points are scored. This means sometimes Nemo’s War is about exploration, sometimes it’s about science, sometimes it’s about war, and sometimes it’s about Verne’s original story of revenge against imperialism. But it’s always going to be about deciding which of those things is Nemo’s primary motivation.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> Thats something you get to decide, by the way, since this is a solitaire game and most of the decisions are up to you. All good solitaire games have something that drives you forward. In Nemos War its the calendar: you have a fixed number of turns (52 weeks) to scourge the seas and liberate the oppressed, find treasure, discover scientific phenomena, and keep the Nautilus from sinking.<\/p>\n But having a driving force is only one of the key elements of a good solitaire game, and in this case it can drive you to multiple endgames. This is the best part of Nemos War, because there are multiple ways to win, and (even better) multiple ways to lose. Im sorry, did I say that this is the best part of Nemos War? I should correct myself. The best thing about Nemos War is how the theme is so tightly integrated with the game that any the red cube represents Catholicism abstraction goes right out the window. You move around the worlds oceans, revealing ships (which you sink or capture), drawing treasures from a random pool, reading thematic event cards. It all ends up coming down to die rolls, but how you manage those die rolls is so perfectly tied up in the games theme that Im ready to go buy a bunch of Chris Taylors other designs (Astra Titanus, Legions of Darkness) based on the evidence that he is some sort of design savant.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> I have no idea what Bruce is talking about. Everyone knows white cubes should represent Catholicism. Blue cubes should represent Protestants, red cubes should represent heresy, and green cubes should represent Islam. Black cubes are witchcraft. Duh.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> You start out with a full set of resources: crew, Nautilus hull, and the will of Captain Nemo. Each one of these gives you a bonus to your roll. The catch is that you have to risk your resources to take advantage of the bonus, and if you fail your roll anyway, your resources degrade. Eventually your crew, which gave you a hefty +3 bonus when the game started, is down to only +1. Same with the hull of the Nautilus, which can only take so much of a beating. The brilliant exception is Captain Nemo, who starts out giving you a +2 bonus but actually gets better as his psyche degrades to Erratic and then Broken. But kill your crew completely, or sink the Nautilus, or drive Nemo insane, and the game ends. Furthermore, you get victory points for keeping these resources near the top of the track. If you can keep them all near maximum, its worth 40 VP at the end of the game.<\/p>\n The game is obviously balanced in such a way as to force you to exert your resources — youd fail most of the die rolls if you didnt. And like all solitaire games which dont depend on figuring out a system (like, say, Reiner Knizias Lord of the Rings), you do have to count on a bit of luck if you want to do well. Im completely fine with that. The game is a ride, and if youre not willing to give up some control in the name of open-ended storytelling, just grab the Caylus box and go over to that corner.<\/p>\n So heres the deal: well each play through a game of Nemos War, and score ourselves at the end. Whoever achieves the highest score, wins.<\/p>\n If I had known about it sooner, I would have made a custom map using Tracy Bakers awesome redesign, available for free at Boardgamegeek.<\/p>\n But I didnt, so youll have to try it out yourself to see what its like.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> Aw, man, I almost wished I hadn’t seen that. If I didn’t think Nemo’s War was an ugly game before…<\/p>\n …I sure do now.<\/p>\n Up next: The Adventure Begins<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Part II: The Adventure Begins<\/strong><\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> I start in the Western Pacific because that is the historically accurate starting position. I decided to randomly choose Nemos initial commitment (suggested by the rules), and it came up Explore. My plans — Im sorry, Kapitan Nemos plans — are to capture a few ships to get a quick upgrade. The Explore goal gives me bonus points for Wonders, which are special types of Treasures you get when you search an ocean. There is an upgrade called Arcane Library which allows you to search even empty oceans with no Treasure. This is important because once you search an ocean and get the Treasure, you dont replace it until you roll doubles that correspond to that oceans number at the beginning of a turn. Since the odds of that are about 3% for a given ocean, thats a great bonus if youre trolling for Wonders. Arcane Library will cost me the salvage points from three captured ships. Here we go.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> Great, Bruce is using math. That’s tantamount to cheating. I start in the Mediterranean because I figure it’s easier to clear out some stuff up here and then not have to fuss with it later. Because until someone invents the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean is a dead end. And good for me for starting here, because I uncover a valuable treasure that I can discard for a free re-roll. Thanks, Mediterranean!<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> I start off Stalking the ships Im targeting, which limits me to one attack per week for now. As Kapitan Nemo, you can do various things during your turn, but when attacking the ships in an ocean you have two options. Once is to Attack a ship of your choice. If you sink it, you then get to move on to the next ship, and then the next one, until you are either unsuccessful, sink all the ships in that ocean, or capture a ship (whereupon you must stop). Since I am planning on capturing some ships, that would limit me to one attack per week anyway, so Im going to do the other attack option, which is to Stalk. Stalking gets me a +1 modifier to my dice roll, but limits me to one target per week. That works out perfectly.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> What a slowpoke. I just attack willy-nilly. Early on, there are plenty of choice targets without having to worry overmuch about warships. The imperialist powers gradually fold more warships into the mix as time goes on and as your notoriety rises. But until then, I see no need for skulking about. On week six, I have a run-in with a shark that leads to Ned Land escaping, but he saves us from the shark in the process. Which is fine by me, because prancing singing mugging Kirk Douglas has forever ruined my mental image of Ned Land.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> By the tenth week Ive managed to run into a giant squid which I barely defeated but which yielded two Treasures, and also got lost at sea and thus lost two weeks (an event which pushed the turn marker ahead without my being able to do anything). But Ive also captured three ships, sunk two, and am now positioned in the Eastern Pacific, looking to get a fourth prize vessel.<\/p>\n Which I do — a mail ship with a defense value of 7, probably carrying parcels to San Francisco. I relieve them of these. But now my Refit Box is full (can only have four ships in it at a time), and it consumes a full weeks action to refit (plus 1d3 additional weeks), so I have to wait until next turn at least before I can buy my upgrade. In the meantime, I clear the Eastern Pacific of a cargo ship and a frigate.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> When I was a kid, my mother wouldn’t let me watch the 20,000 Leagues under the Sea movie because of the giant squid scene. She was afraid I was going to be traumatized by the sight of a giant squid ripping men apart. That’s what she imagined happening in that scene. Which I suppose is accurate historically, but you’re never going to see that in a Disney movie broadcast Sunday night on ABC’s Wide World of Disney. So I got dragged out to see The Sting. True story. To this day, I can’t stand The Sting because I remember sitting there in the theater wishing I was home watching a giant squid ripping men apart. Two years later, my mother would take me to see Jaws. “Remember, sweetie,” she reminded me beforehand, “It’s just a trained shark.” Not only was she wrong, but it didn’t help. I spent most of Jaws with my eyes shut tight, hearing horrible sounds and asking my mother what was happening.<\/p>\n So, where was I? Oh, right, Nemo’s War. I’m lousy with treasures from a couple of events, the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic. You might say I’m rich.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> A weird occurrence on week 11. The event Public Opinion comes up, which instructs me to place one ship in every ocean, even if it means exceeding an oceans ship limit. But there are only four ships left in the Available Ships Box. Should I place them in oceans randomly? Or should I try to fill the oceans that still have room? The rules are as silent as Nemos countenance. Since there are exactly four ships, and four oceans that arent full, I decide to fill up those oceans preferentially because that puts me in danger of losing the game by Imperial Victory, which happens when the oceans are all full of ships at the end of a turn. I figure that in a solitaire game, when in doubt you should always make it harder on yourself.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> I just want to note that Bruce has gone outside the scope of the rules. If he wins, this game should get an asterisk.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> Now that the oceans are almost full, I need to clear them, and I stalk a ship here in the Eastern Pacific which turns out to be an ironclad. Ouch. But it misses me, and I sink it.<\/p>\n On week 12, Im in an interesting position because there are no more ships in the Available Ships Box. The worlds shipyards are exhausted! Normally, I would use this turn to refit. But those ships in my Salvage Box would go back into the Available Ships, and be placed back on the board. Instead, Ill hold onto them and give myself a respite to search the seas for treasure.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> Okay, now if Bruce wins, the game should get two asterisks.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> I hung onto my captured ships for a while, eventually using one of them for an upgrade called Seek Adventure. This is a renewable one in which you get to trade a salvaged ship for a draw from the event deck, except you get to choose whether you use the card or not. Because Ive started with the Explore motivation, I get double victory points for certain event cards, and this upgrade lets me cycle through the deck searching for them. Instead, I come up with The Coral Realm, which I can use to replenish my crew, except that I am already at max crew. Later on I run into an event called A Mass Execution, in which I have to increase my Notoriety by the roll of one die. I roll a six, which is the worst possible result.<\/p>\n Notoriety is another mechanism which drives the game forward, as each time you attack a ship, you move up the Notoriety track, triggering things like additional reinforcements or bonuses to attacks against you. The worlds governments eventually get wise to your marauding ways.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> Notoriety is the 19th Century equivalent of the United Nations.<\/p>\n Bruce:<\/strong> Ive found a problem with my seek adventure strategy: its going to cost me 1d3 weeks every time I cycle through a card. Plus, that is going to get me to the end of the game faster, because near the end of the deck is a game-ending card called The Maelstrom. I know because I put it there. There are only 20 event cards in the deck, anyway. So wasting an average of two weeks per extra event card doesnt sound like a great tradeoff.<\/p>\n Another problem with my Arcane Library plan: I didnt count how many Treasures there are and what their average value is. Because my expected value is only two-thirds of the average value of a Treasure, since on a roll of 1 or 2 I dont find anything, unless the average value of a Treasure is 3 (not likely), Im probably better off sinking ships for now and clearing the existing Treasures first, and for that Im better off with a Strengthened Prow, which gives me +1 to every attack roll. Plus, I dont know how many Wonders there are relative to Treasures, which throws off my expected calculations even more.<\/p>\n You just bought all that, didnt you? You think Im sitting around calculating how many Treasures there are, and what my odds of getting 3 VP by the route are versus sinking an ironclad. Ok, I admit it did cross my mind. But Nemos War shouldnt be an optimization exercise, since (a) the game is about reacting to the swings of fortune, and (b) you cant optimize rolling snake eyes. I may be analytical to a fault, but I still really enjoy a good romp through a compelling game setting, and despite the jokes weve made about the writing, Vernes book has the essence of a good story. That essence is the scaffold that you use to make your own narrative, and it works. I have absolutely no problem telling you that I get a kick out of moving to the North Atlantic, taking a hull hit from a frigate, and then stumbling upon The Underwater Coalfield which only works in the North or South Atlantic, and being able to use it to gain 2 hull points … but having the Explore motivation and having to decide whether using it for 2 hull was worth giving up 9 VP (4 VP for the doubled Adventure category, and 5 VP because its a Science card). The short answer is no, it wasnt. But that there is the perfect combination of exposition and agency, and if you like games, you know exactly what Im talking about.<\/p>\n And I want a Strengthened Prow because at heart, I just want to sink some more ships.<\/p>\n Tom:<\/strong> On week 26, I discover treasure in the Indian Ocean. It’s a “gain 4 notoriety” treasure. Worst treasure ever. Then, on week 27, I draw the Attack of the Giant Squid event. Take that, Mom! I risk the crew and the hull for a bonus to pass the event, but roll a miserable little three on 2d6. I don’t want to take the crew and hull hit, and I don’t want to miss out on the squid’s treasure, so I spend the special treasure I found in the Mediterranean at the start of the game to reroll. I handily pass the reroll and score two treasures, one of which is a special event telling me to draw two more treasures. This was a squid with deep pockets. Did I mention that I’m rich? 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