Slitherine

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ORIGINAL: gwgardner

Thx for the heads-up on the SGS games. I wonder if Thibault might implement the Invasions boardgame he made in this SGS game engine.

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ORIGINAL: Rosseau

Yes, I own the base game any many of the others. Winter War is an awesome spin-off, if you can call it that. Another game I reviewed below, that was not quite as satisfying.

The World at War basic game and modules can be relatively affordable. My observation - and it's not even a gripe, per se - is that the map and unit counts can be very small, and replayability may be limited. I am able to edit some files to change things up, but the actual editor and instructions for them are "over my head."

Here's the review I was talking about. I hope this won't kill the forum's bandwidth! The game is available on Steam.

A unique wargame with some questionable design decisions thrown in

By Rosseau

Introduction
Libertad o Muerte! (Liberty or Death, or LoD) covers the Spanish Colonies' wars of independence from Spain from 1810-1825. Players control the Patriots or the Royalists in turn-based fashion through four introductory scenarios and the 30-turn "Great Campaign."

In the latter, the map stretches region-by-region from Santa Fe (Mexico) in the north to Cape Horn at the tip of South America. Even without Brazil in play, that's a large chunk of real estate, but the nature of the game play makes handling such a sizable map quite easy.

In addition to solitaire play, the game features hotseat and PBEM, the latter of which was not tested for this review. It was released on Steam on June 12th sporting a $5 discount, and currently retails for $25 USD.

This latest title follows a string of wargame releases by publisher Avalon Digital, including the superlative Carrier Battles 4 Guadalcanal, Battles for Spain (based on the excellent Wars Across the World (WaW) series module), and Winter War (WW).

To this writer's knowledge, amidst the thousands of digital wargames published since the early 1980s, none have been released depicting the Americas' 19th century struggle for freedom against Spain. For wargamers interested in the period, this game would appear to be a must-buy; for the rest of us, well, read on.

Graphics, UI and game design
We suspect that owners of WaW and WW might naturally gravitate toward this game, as it holds a few things in common, in addition to it coming from the same publisher.

Those players may also have to overlook a couple of things when first firing up this wargame. While LoD's graphics feature a period-feel of sorts, the resolution maxes out at 1900x1080, which results in a rather low-res look for the map, cutscenes, cards and unit counters compared with Avalon's previous releases.

This is doubly so in comparison with WW. In that game, the struggle between Finland and the USSR in 1940 is played out with the most wonderful looking and detailed unit counters around. Hover the mouse over one, and up pops a zoomed-in counter with highly detailed unit data and tooltips everywhere.

In LoD, unit strength is shown in green-colored dots representing steps, but combat factors, movement, morale, etc., requires a peek at the 52-page manual. In fact, as with most games, it's recommended that owners considering this release download the manual from the game's Steam page to get a feel for the design before purchase.

The game does inherit the relative simplicity and smoothness of play inherent in the other releases. The UI does a good job of leading the player forward through the game's various phases. Simply look for the > arrow in the upper right corner of the interface.

If that arrow appears missing, then consult what is most likely a "flashing" card in the bottom left, which must be played before continuing. Beyond that, there are no hiccups that will stymie most wargamers, and the release version was free of game-breaking bugs.

What's in the cards?
Pretty much a big part of the historical immersion. One will learn quite a bit about a rather esoteric group of commanders and events that occurred during the time period covered.

But here's the thing about the event cards in this game: they pretty much play themselves, literally. The program will remind the player using a flashing green or purple outline that a card must be played before the game can continue.

On one hand, allowing the program to chose the appropriate cards for use at the proper time moves the game forward without a lot of fuss. But some may miss a card design that allows players to make difficult choices in terms of what card to play, which would add another strategic layer to the game. However, adding this feature would require a complete redesign, as the events and bonuses would need to made optional in order to give players a choice on when to play their cards.

The way cards are used during the combat phase may be a more questionable design decision. Cards can only be played if a friendly leader is present. Here again, the cards are automatically selected and used by the program.

While this design makes leaders that much more important to have in a stack, potentially interesting tactical choices are taken out of the player's hands when it comes to playing their cards.

In fairness, this choice does force the player to pay more attention to the order in which he resolves each combat in the combat selection screen. For example, it always pays to resolve the larger, key engagements first, in order to ensure the combat cards are used to greatest effect. There's nothing like seeing two powerful combat cards wasted during a tiny battle or a complete walkover.

However, based on this reviewer's observations, card play does not have a dramatic affect on the outcome of battle unless it is an inordinately close affair.

While on the subject of cards, a pop-up may also appear during the Card Draw phase in order to roll dice to determine whether a certain event, such as the immobilization of troops or a naval blockade, continues to have an effect. Again, this happens with no input from the player, including the roll of the dice.

The AI's cards can also flash by pretty quickly on the screen, and it can be difficult to read them once they are in the opposing player's hand.

Overall, the implementation of the event and combat cards may be seen as a mixed bag. The historical flavor provided by designer Miquel Santacruz on each of the cards is brief but generally good, and the game speeds along on rails partly for this reason. But the whole process may be a bit too automated for those looking to both study opponent's cards and use their own to the greatest effect.

Unit movement and attack
Beginning with the movement of units on the strategic map, the entire combat system is quite streamlined. We advise those considering the game to do the obvious, however: watch a few youtube videos first, as this type of combat resolution won't be for everyone.

But there's one thing almost everyone can appreciate. And that's the game's ability to avoid the horrendous "wack a mole" routine, whereby a player or the AI uses a "doom stack" to clear enemy units from the board. With approximately 80 regions on the campaign map and reinforcements popping in on a regular basis, there was a real risk of game play devolving into such a senseless struggle.

Instead, the player focuses on building a few reasonable-sized stacks of four to five units and a leader and maneuvering for either attack or a better defense. And the leaders are important, because in this game one cannot attack without them.

In addition, land units are realistically limited to one region per move based on the actual time being simulated. (Naval units can typically move two to three sea regions per turn.) This also encourages players to choose their moves carefully, as the game map remains open to a variety of strategies.

Movement itself is accomplished by holding and dragging units to an adjacent region, while holding the left mouse button. The region changes color and a crossed-swords icon appears if the move triggers combat. If the region is devoid of enemy units and contains a city, a siege takes place. Otherwise, the region is merely taken over.

Naval units that move into an enemy-controlled sea zone that is unoccupied trigger a pop-up that announces a naval blockade, but the results are not readily apparent during game play. Presumably, this cuts down on enemy resources, but the player never knows by how much. Again, it's a good reason to consult the manual.

There is also a "next unit" button to cycle through units capable of movement, and said counters also animate to show they have movement points left.

Once all moves have been made, the player ends the phase with a click of the mouse and a pop-up appears listing all the combats to be resolved in any order the player desires.

One missing feature that hopefully will be addressed in a patch is the ability to show detailed counter information in every phase of the game. In the movement phase, a right click on a friendly unit counter brings a pop-up, which shows combat effectiveness, movement, morale, etc.
However, in the combat resolution phase, this feature is missing. On the battle summary screen, it works, but the pop-up box is mostly blocked from view.

Finally, when placing reinforcements, it is sometimes difficult to see the highlighted regions and click on them due to the reinforcement box being in the way. A poor showing here.

Quick combat
Veterans of the WaW series are likely to be familiar with the "automated" system used for combat resolution in this game, as well as how the unit counters are displayed on the screen. (See the associated screen shot showing a large battle for more information.)

In this game, when a unit fires, a puff of smoke appears below it and the target enemy unit "shakes" this way or that depending on whether it is hit. While some may miss a more detailed combat report, with a little practice the eye moves from the "smoke" to the target, and the result is displayed as a text message below. Albeit, a rather quick text message that cannot be paused.

In contrast, WW features a combat resolution that speeds forward almost faster than the eye can read, but there is an option to pause at the end of the encounter and read the various hit reports. Neither system seems ideal, and at least one Steam poster has requested a more detailed combat summary for this game.

There is a separate phase showing a battle summary screen, if one opts to enable it, but even if one clicks on the magnifying glass icon for more information, there isn't much: just a representation of the units engaged and the losses. Again, a hit-by-hit summary, which happens to be available in WW, for example, goes missing here.

The siege screen is also devoid of any interaction, although the player gets to roll the dice here. There is a modifier shown (see the manual, please), but beyond that, it is as streamlined as can be.

One tip when deploying reserves during the purchase phase: drag the unit down from the purchase box unto the map, not across the screen, to save some UI frustration.

Another tip is to start with the Bolivar campaign. Some of the introductory scenarios are quite long, and The Early Years scenario features a large part of an already large map.

The AI
Perhaps because the game mechanics are fairly simple, and the AI has a limited number of options in terms to where to move and attack, the artificial opponent is competent and enjoyable to use. But, as is said probably too often these days, nothing takes the place of a conniving human opponent. But in this game, the need is not so great as in more complex wargames.

In fact, the AI did a better job maneuvering its fleets than this reviewer. Regarding the naval aspect, despite some serious playtime as the Royalists, I never encountered a situation where I had reinforcing land units available to offload at a port. Nor was I able to shuttle units around the map via transports. Maybe I was missing something, but the naval experience was a bit lacking when playing the campaign game.

Partly because the game moves along so quickly, it does have that "one more turn" feel that all players crave when investing money in a strategy title.

We mod
After playing the smaller scenarios, this reviewer, recently coming off a long deployment with Gary Grigsby's War in the East, was wishing for a higher unit count.

So, in the interests of science, he modded one of the easily accessible json text files (the nations file, to be exact) to give his side Buku resource points for which to buy more units.

As it turned out this wasn't necessary, as there were just enough counters in the vanilla campaign to make it interesting.

However, those who are interested in modding are directed to the files within each scenario folder. Much can be changed, including unit strengths, attack factors, defense factors, and more. In fact, to the developer's credit, despite some fairly wild adjustments, the game refused to be broken. But back up your files, please.

Summary
And now comes the tough part, and I will quote my Steam home page on this one: "Would you recommend this game to other players?"

If those players had only $25 to spend, I could not. This writer can recommend a number of superior wargames at, or close to, that price point, not to mention the discounts available during the current (2020) Steam Summer Sale.

But this wargame is a niche within a niche. So, for those gamers looking for a streamlined treatise on the Americas fight for freedom against Spain, this game is well worth the price.

Libertad o Muerte! is a truly unique wargame, and despite a couple of questionable design decisions, it remains "the only game in town" when it comes to simulating the Spanish Colonies' wars of independence. Vaya con Dios!