{"id":3597,"date":"2004-11-17T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2004\/11\/17\/ideology-2\/"},"modified":"2004-11-17T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-11-17T11:00:00","slug":"ideology-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2004\/11\/17\/ideology-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Ideology"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ideology<\/a><\/h2>\n

reviewed Walter Sorger<\/i><\/p>\n

Actually, Moritz wanted to write the review about this game. Then he had to travel to
\nKuala Lumpur for some weeks to receive the public price at the “Malaysian
\nPhilharmonic Orchestra International Composers ” competition. In the meantime, his
\nartistic-creative capacity is booked for the next decade, so that I would like to relieve
\nhim and to write this game review using his thoughts and words. Here they are.<\/p>\n

The gaming community does not particularly long for new games about the topic. Up to
\nnow, there may be nearly a hundred thousand games about a 3rd World War (and naturally
\njust as countless computer games). At the beginning of the wargame boom, the legendary
\n“Gone With The Wind” was used as a model for epic but callow combat dice
\ngames.<\/p>\n

With “Ideology” Z-Man Games appeared as one of the most influential
\nindependent American game companies (“Legends of Camelot”) on the scene. It is
\nwell known that this is one of my (Moritz) favorite games. With some trouble I succeed
\nfrom time to time to persuade our rather special group to play a “free for all”
\nchaos driven game. This time everyone was looking forward to this new and ambitious game
\nof Andrew Park, which counts less on power and military but rather on interesting
\nconflicts and tragic characters. An enormous game board started a new trend in the USA.
\nEach player symbolizes one of the most ruling ideologies of the 20th century: capitalism,
\ncommunism, fascism, imperialism and Islamic fundamentalism. Each ideology is anxious to
\nexpand their influence (culturally, economically, and militarily) into still independent
\nregions. As soon as a player achieves a global influence level of 12, the game ends and
\nthe winner is determined.<\/p>\n

Game play consists mainly of playing different influence cards, in order to bring
\nregions under one’s own control or to develop regions in order to stabilize their
\npower base as well as to succeed in conflicts with foreign or independent regions.<\/p>\n

How does the game play? First of all one must realize that this is a wargame in the
\nstyle of “Diplomacy” and “Risk”. Even if one knows nothing about the
\nworld, there’s a lot of atmosphere in the game. King making, alliances and sudden
\nbreaks of alliances are common. It is not too complicated and not dependent on too much
\nluck. Nevertheless, dice (i.e. action cards [ah]<\/i>) help to make for a combat system
\nwith sufficient uncertainties but not depending on pure chance. It is not a game for
\ndie-hard tacticians, but a very entertaining and communicative group experience, which
\nwill inspire many. Not an absolute classic, but worth an attempt.<\/p>\n

\"Ideology<\/p>\n

In addition, the historical importance of “Ideology” is not to be
\nunderestimated – it actually is the first wargame, which uses ideologies as variable
\nmotivation elements.<\/p>\n

Finally, a few Walter words about our session: The game is a war game. Everyone tries
\nto beat on everyone else, above all on the weaker ones. From production and design it is
\nobvious that the regulating influence of the USA is regarded stronger at all places of
\nthe world than grown relations within the third world. I played the leader of the Islamic
\nideology with its heartland Iran, and I was not able to convey why I should not get e.g.
\nmy next neighbor Afghanistan under my ideological control at the first opportunity.<\/p>\n

The USA under President Maurice settled in immediately and prevented any success of my
\nMullahs using their economic presence. But they underestimated my readiness to take
\nsacrifices and my fanaticism. As Ayatollah Walter my whole striving was to release my
\nneighboring country on all accounts from the claws of the evil. I didn’t succeed
\ncompletely. But I could put some nice pressure on the Christian military power. They had
\nto send new troops into the unrest area again and again, while the English imperialism
\nand German fascism could expand their positions unimpaired, and in the end determine the
\nwinner between themselves.<\/p>\n

Next time – if there should be one – the superior USA might well consider whether they
\nwant to seize a remote country like Afghanistan. Fanaticism and terrorism are not
\neliminated by applying the same means. Martyrs are the seed of the church. Every
\nchurch.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/form>\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ideology reviewed Walter Sorger Actually, Moritz wanted to write the review about this game. Then he had to travel to Kuala Lumpur for some weeks to receive the public price at the “Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra International Composers ” competition. In the meantime, his artistic-creative capacity is booked for the next decade, so that I would … Ideology<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spieleabende"],"views":6,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}