Le Jeu de la Guerre

A WEB implementation of Guy Debord's A Game of War (Le Jeu de la Guerre).

About the Game

Here are some materials about the game and its history.

• BGG page
• On Class Wargames
• Kriegspiel

Pieces and Strongholds

Why emoji? there is nothing more appropriate than emoji to illustrate the Spectacle: we are habiting from symbols to symbols that are produced by L'Autre. The big tech companies decide the meanings and the representations of those symbols, whether 🔫 is a handgun or a harmless toy.

• Units
  • 💂 Infantry
  • 🏇 Cavalry
  • 🎉 Artillery
  • 🚀 Swift Artillery
  • 🚩 Relay
  • 🚚 Swift Relay
• Strongholds
  • 🎪 Arsenal
  • 🏰 Fortress
  • 🛣️ Mountain Pass
  • ⛰️ Mountain
• Battle related symbols
  • ⚔️ Attack
  • 🛡️ Defense
  • 🎯 Combat Range
  • 🐴 Move Speed
  • ⚡ Cavalry Charge
  • 🏃‍♂️ Retreat
  • 💀 Captured
  • 😅 Out of Supply
  • 💥 Battle

Rules

You can also refer to the more detailed rules here.

Overall

This game is a simulation of the battle in the Napoleonic Wars. Two armies with a limited amount of units fight on a 25⨉20 board. The game ends by occupying(thus destroying) the enemy's all 🎪Arsenals.

Each player can move up to 5 units and attack 1 enemy per turn. The 🐴speed affects the unit's movement range in one turn.

The two main features are combat and supply settings

Notice "adjacent" in this game means all 8 direction

Combat

There is no randomness in combat, and combat does not depend on single units. The game stress arranging and cooperating units to achieve high combat factors(i.e. ⚔️Attack and 🛡️Defense), which decide the combat.

Every unit radiates its factor in 米 shape within its 🎯combat range. You can see the units that provide ⚔️Atk and 🛡️Def. The total values are the combat factor at that point. Some strongholds 🏰Fortress and 🛣️Mountain Pass can provide extra defense if they are occupied by 💂Infantry or 🎉🚀Artillery.

To attack an enemy you need to have a higher ⚔️Atk than its 🛡️Def at that point, and if just higher than 1, the enemy has to 🏃‍♂️retreat this unit; otherwise, it will be 💀captured.

⚡Cavalry Charge

Units usually provide higher 🛡️Def than ⚔️Atk, so to break through the enemy's defense, you can use ⚡cavalry charge.

Just let 🏇cavalry be adjacent to the enemy's unit to toggle ⚡charge, and other 🏇cavalries in the direction line also count. When 🏇cavalry is in ⚡charge, its ⚔️Atk becomes 7, so totally you can get up to 28 ⚔️Atk through ⚡charge.

There are also some restrictions about the ⚡charge, such as one can not charge towards the unit in 🏰Fortress or 🛣️Mountain Pass.

Supply

Units highly rely on supply, the unit 😅out of supply can not move nor provide combat factors. Notice that supply could be cut by the enemy.

The supply originally emitted by 🎪Arsenal, also in 米 shape with unlimited range, except be blocked by enemy's units or ⛰️Mountain. The 🚩🚚relay units can redirect supply lines, and they even can move when they are 😅out of supply.

To be in supply, units must be on supply lines or adjacent to units that are in supply.

Edit Mode

Currently, the game provides a default opening. But you can customize your own with the editor mode.

You can Save and Load your game with the FEN-like notation. Merge game can add units to the board, which is useful for players to apply their deploy plans.

The Other Implementation

You can also try the local version on the GitHub page.

There is another digital implementation: Kriegspiel, made by Alex Galloway. There are an interview and a playthrough by Fred Serval. Unfortunately, it's only available on Mac and IOS, which inspires me to make a WEB version.

The Ambiguities of Rules (my setting)

• Will enemy units block fire lines? i.e. can I attack back-line units? (no, yes)
• Will offline enemy units block communication lines? will the retreating unit do? (no, yes)
• Is failed retreat count as a move? (no)
• Can offline units retreat? (no)