States of Siege games tell stories. The core story or narrative is defending a central point against numerous enemies with the player seeking to hold out. Often, the story told is one set in a historic strategic moment.
Ottoman Sunset and Hapsburg Eclipse see the great empires of the Ottomans and the Austro-Hungarians struggle to survive or even prevail in World War One.
In Cruel Necessity, Parliament and Cromwell battle the Royal Crown for supremacy in the English Civil Wars.
During World War Two, the Japanese seek to establish their own empire in We Must Tell the Emperor.
In Constantinople, the player represents the Byzantine Empire as it struggles to survive over a millennium against a seemingly never-ending onslaught of enemies.
These are typical strategic settings for States of Siege games.
However, the setting could also be purely tactical, as doomed defenders seek to outlast a vastly superior enemy in a decisive battle. In Zulus on the Ramparts, a small contingent British soldiers battle against a massive Zulu army. In A Blood-Red Banner a band of Texian soldiers heroically fights to the last man at the Alamo.
Curiously, the story doesn’t always have to be set in history. In the most popular States of Siege game ever, Dawn of the Zeds, a plucky band of all-American heroes fight for survival as a zombie horde descends upon the small city of Farmingdale. Another example is the mythological setting is Yggdrasil as Nordic gods battle to prevent the release of Rang. In Legions of Darkness, the battle is a classic castle siege in a fantasy world with warriors, wizards, goblins and all sorts of fantastical creatures.
Clearly, the States of Siege system is versatile. Yet, if you want your design to shine, setting is insufficient. The most important detail is the game must have a clear narrative arc. The purpose of this narrative arc is twofold:
To give shape to the story being told and experienced by the players.
To give the designer/developer team opportunities to enhance the story being told through game-specific mechanics.
Defining “Narrative Arc”
In the original States of Siege game, Israeli Independence, the Event Deck has no structure. Shuffle up the Event cards and just start revealing them. This has an obvious simplicity. Given the game is not really a mature design and more proof-of-concept, one can gently overlook this. Essentially, the Event Deck is a randomization mechanic advancing enemies against the central point, Jerusalem. If any enemy reaches Jerusalem, the game is over. Effectively, the narrative is just random threats. What this means is there is no narrative arc.
One of the unfortunate failings of Cruel Necessity is the lack of any meaningful narrative arc. Yes, there are three different Event Decks: one for each of the English Civil Wars. Yet, each is without any distinguishing narrative character. Without any narrative arc, the game is just “one damn thing after another”. The Event Deck just conjures random threats to the player. Ultimately, in conjunction with other design failings, the game becomes tedious and dull. By the end, the player is just relieved the game is over.
The Cinematic Treatment
Dawn of the Zeds takes States of Siege mechanics into a zombie apocalypse. It is an ideal marriage of theme and mechanics. The narrative arc is that of an action horror film. As the game progresses, the zombie threat increases in a rising crescendo of widening chaos. Thus, the Event Deck becomes increasingly dangerous as the zeds multiply and advance. Early on, the player should be doing everything they can to prepare for this final showdown. Ideally, the player’s plucky heroes survive and are rescued. More often, they come to an untimely doom as the final credits roll.
The narrative arc here could not be more straightforward – rising danger culminating in a final showdown with the deadly zeds. In the context of the setting and theme, it works and works very well.
A Blood-Red Banner 2.0
A Blood-Red Banner is tells the tale of the desperate battle of the Alamo. A massive Mexican army overwhelms outnumbered and outgunned Texian defenders. The original incarnation has a small Event Deck with no structure. Just shuffle up the event cards to create the Event Deck. The Mexican attack begins.
During my time at VPG, I worked with the designer, Richard Trevino (RIP). One idea we tested was to create a very simple narrative arc by categorizing the event cards as Initial and Final. The Event Deck now had two distinct phases:
The initial attack
If that fails, a final assault unleashes the powerful Mexican Reserve unit
Two Event cards separated the initial attack: “Crippling Losses” with no enemy advances. This was followed by “Commit the Reserve” that saw the Mexican Reserve join the final assault. The narrative arc is a two-step -- attack, pause, then final assault. The cherry on top was seeding the “Overwhelming Numbers” event as the last card in the Event Deck. These changes could not be simpler.
At first, Richard was skeptical of the idea. It seemed inconsequential, if not entirely pointless. Testing it out, he changed his mind. With very little overhead, the narrative was enhanced. The initial attack was as wild as ever. Yet, now he realized, surviving it simply meant the final attack would be even more intense. He liked how this worked. The game now had a simple narrative arc that enhanced gameplay with nominal overhead.
Before the game, the Event Deck is divided into the Initial and Final event cards with two events to separate them: very simple and very effective. One more change was to seed the last card in the Event Deck with the “Overwhelming Numbers” event. The last event sees a final all-out effort by the Mexicans. These simple changes to the deck structure elevated gameplay. Now the game had a narrative arc that engaged the player.
Military Victory
We Must Tell the Emperor demonstrates excellent use of narrative arc in a design. Set in WWII as Japan seeks to conquer a new empire in Asia and the Pacific. The Event Deck has three distinct phases—Early, Mid, Late.
In the Early War Event Deck, Japan has many advantages and rapidly advances out from its Home Islands to conquer large portions of the gameboard. Subsequently, in the Mid War Event Deck, Japan’s advances are checked, and her enemies begin to attack the perimeter of her new empire. In the Late War Event Deck, Japan’s enemies become very strong. They begin to liberate most of the map and threaten the Japanese Home Islands directly. This narrative arc traces the historic ebb and flow of the events covered in the game.
Taking advantage of this narrative arc, the design alters the classic States of Siege dynamic of victory by just holding the central point. Instead, it also allows the player to achieve a Military Victory early in the game by knocking out three of his enemies simultaneously. This is very difficult to achieve. Yet, it creates a tremendous opportunity for the player to think offensively and win quickly. This is excellent use of narrative arc in terms of design and for the player in terms of gameplay.
It also captures well the historic mindset of the Japanese “Victory Disease” as the Imperial Japanese Navy sweeps all before it in the Early War. A wise and experienced player knows they must balance this opportunity for Military Victory against the likelihood of the final showdown against her enemies. Then, the objective changes to pure survival. Yet, the thrill of early victory can tempt the player to overreach, which is always a worthy design goal.
It is curious to note, most players are not tempted. Indeed, they don’t even try to achieve a Military Victory because it is so difficult. A common lament for many players is they don’t know what to do in the early phases of the game when they are on the offensive. This is an easily remedied problem. Players who play cautiously should be penalized by the game. That, however, is another discussion.
Peas in Pod or Not?
At a glance, and leaving aside the whole Narrows issue in Ottoman, the narrative arc in Ottoman Sunset and Hapsburg Eclipse appears similar. Both are ailing empires. Both are beset by too many enemies and insufficient resources. In both cases, their ultimate dooms appear almost inevitable.
However, upon closer examination, the underlying narrative arcs are different and distinct. Whereas Ottoman Sunset is almost purely a defensive slog, in Hapsburg Eclipse, the ability to remove enemy fronts presents the player with some legitimate offensive opportunities to outright win the war.
Fundamental to States of Siege games, the player is seeking to “shape the board”. Shape it to their advantage at particular moments to survive and endure. In Ottoman Sunset, the player seeks to leverage geography to manage the threats they face in an orderly fashion. For example, early on the player seeks to contain the Sinai front by leveraging the obstacles of the desert and fortifications. The plan is to hold them off until the Russians are removed by revolution. The player can reasonably plan to face down two major threats via the Sinai, Russia and Mesopotamia, but they can’t reasonably handle all three enemies at once. Or more precisely, they shouldn’t plan on doing so.
In Hapsburg Eclipse, the player has the opportunity to knock out their Russian, Romanian and Italian enemies. With careful planning and vigorous execution, the endgame could see the player facing only a single threat from the French on Balkan front. While quite dangerous on their own, with the right resources squirreled away, outright victory over the French becomes quite plausible.
What is interesting is that most players assume by default the defensive mindset. Most players don’t see the narrative arc in Hapsburg Eclipse. Thus, they miss the offensive opportunities it provides for a path to victory. It also should be noted, most players miss the possibilities for a richer and more sublime game experience by assuming a purely defensive mindset.
That said, designer/developer teams should always be aware of the narrative arc so they can leverage it. In Hapsburg Eclipse, there was an opportunity for the design team to give the player incentives to push Russia into revolution, shades of Lenin in a sealed train. Essentially, the design team can riff on the narrative arc to make it more vivid to the player and draw the player into it as a participant through game mechanics.
Now About those Narrows
In Ottoman Sunset, there is a dramatic and unique moment in the game’s narrative arc. Early in the war, the British sought to break the strategic quagmire descending upon the Western Front in early 1915 by using the Royal Navy to seize Constantinople and drive the Ottomans from the war in a single decisive stroke. The history of the era forces this moment into the game’s narrative arc.
Thus, when the “Forcing the Narrows” event is revealed, there is a special procedure to resolve this unique situation. It sees the Royal Navy attempt to evade minefields and engage gun emplacements to fight their way into Constantinople. Depending upon success or failure, British Fortitude is tested. Too much failure and British resolve breaks with the Royal Navy defeated.
One of the decisions made by the design/development team had the “Forcing the Narrows” event happen somewhat randomly. In game terms, this sets up a dynamic whereby the player knows this uniquely dangerous event will happen. They just don’t know when. During this period of uncertainty, the defenses in the Narrows should be strengthened. With limited Actions, the player is tempted to put off fortifying the Narrows to allocate Actions for more immediate and pressing crises. Yet, if the Royal Navy promptly attacks, there is little the player can do, which makes for unsatisfying gameplay. In another post, I discuss the design challenges of the Narrows event in detail. Personally, I think the way Ottoman Sunset handled this issue could have been improved.
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The key point is for designers and developers to be mindful of a game’s underlying narrative arc. These are opportunities to make the narrative (aka the story) more vivid for the player by injecting unique decision points, be they tactical or strategic, into gameplay. The objective is to leverage them to enhance player engagement and ultimately make the game a richer and deeper experience.
