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Balance Of Powers box art
2015 Ranked #8,714

Balance Of Powers

A World War I grand strategy game has players conduct land, air, naval, and diplomatic campaigns for territorial control. Attrition and demoralization can trigger political crisis, making each offensive a gamble with national stability.

Wargames Wargame World War I Hexagon Grid Simulation

Players

1-7

Play time

120-1440 min

Age

?+

Complexity

3.64/5

Rating

7.75

Harder to teach Highly interactive Deep strategy

Overview

At a glance

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ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.

Teachability 2.2/5

Harder to teach

Replay value 3.9/5

High replayability

Interaction 3.8/5

Highly interactive

Player scaling 4.0/5

Scales well

Strategic depth 4.5/5

Deep strategy

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How it plays

How does it play?

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

Core mechanisms

Key systems that shape the decisions players make.

Read the full game description

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. -For the Fallen, by Robert Laurence Binyon Balance of Powers pays fitting tribute to the fallen with a respectful presentation of their bitter struggles in the air, on land, and at sea. The game offers players a corps-level recreation of the entire First World War from the Somme through Dar-es-Salaam and on to Tsingtao. A roll-to-hit system enables air and (optional) naval combat to scale from the small dogfights of the Fokker Scourge to the mighty clash of dreadnoughts at Jutland. On land, corps entrench by flipping which opens up an in-hex dimension for every trench battle to simulate the tactical ebb and flow that animated the front even during strategic "stalemate". Since victory hinges on territorial control, the opposing sides feed men into the mill hoping to win a war of attrition before accumulated demoralization triggers a domestic political crisis to upset their balance. The prospect of a "breakthrough" to the green fields beyond motivates ceaseless attacks, but it's ephemeral until tanks and planes arrive in numbers. The presence of specific admirals and generals, including the U-boat ace Lothar von Arnauld de la Periere, makes the game personal. A haggle-based diplomacy system enables history buffs to recreate the land-swap politics of the period, or players can opt for a simpler, streamlined schedule of neutral entry with a dash of randomness added for surprise. Production is as simple as 1-2-3 to avoid excessive math while enabling players to comprehend the "cost" of their losses. In the end, victory goes to the side that beats its historical record. Link to VASSAL http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Balance_of_Powers Link to Zun Tzu module> http://www.mediafire.com/download/hrl36m0iko6by9c/Balance+of+Powers.ztb

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Editions

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Game and edition data

All specifications (4)

Play and group

Players
1–7
Best with
2–7
Play time
120–1440 min
Complexity
3.6/5
Credits and catalog connections

Credits

Designers

1
John Gorkowski

Artists

1
Mark Mahaffey

Publishers

1
Compass Games

Linked items

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