Another early morning and we met John Sy to have some breakfast before heading to our scheduled game of World Order from Hegemonic Project Games. We met friends Tom and Tim and they had played the game and prepared to teach Mike and I.
World Order is a strategic level 2-4 player Euro-style board game that focuses on geopolitical influence in 7 different regions. Players are the United States, China, Russia, or the European Union in the year 2010 and compete for global hegemony by earning victory points through economic power, diplomacy, and regional control.
Game at setup. You can see the card market where players build up their deck through improved actions.
This game is played over 6 turns and players have a hand of 6 cards with various actions such as trading goods, influencing countries to become your ally, building military bases and placing influence. Each of the regions will score at the end of turn 3 and 6 and players will have to scramble to gain influence to get the most Victory Points in each region with lesser VP awarded for 2nd through 5th place. But each turn you only play 4 cards fur the actions and then use your remaining 2 cards to earn money and gain research points to purchase new upgraded and more efficient actions.
The game features asymmetric factions representing each superpower’s unique strengths and starting resources. Players will have to choose 1 of 3 Focus each round included my domestic, diplomatic or military, which grants specialized bonuses for that turn.
I loved this one. What a game! My Chinese won with 114 points as I was able to control 3 regions but also weasel my way into 3 others to gain lesser points. This one has a lot of moving parts but plays fairly quickly once people know what they are doing. I very much want to play again.
I next got into a 4-player game of Coalitions: Realpolitik from PHALANX designed by Valdemar Gumienny and Andrew Rourke.
Realpolitik is an area-control board game that features action selection cards where players have to play a card for 1 action that turn including taxing controlled areas, mobilizing new forces and battle cards, moving into battles, scoring victory points or then picking up your already played cards. It’s a very smart and slick little game that sees players competing for control of mid-19th-century German and Italian unification wars.
Combat is lite and fun and uses battle cards that add values of 1-5 to your combat totals but each played unit also has unique abilities that can change the battlefield such as destroying a played unit, adding +1 if the Barrie occurs in an area you control. The goal is to get to 25 victory points first and the game is very quick playing 60+ minutes with lots of strategy, creating alliances and working toward your goal of dominating key areas. Just a very fun and interesting game. I was able to guide my Prussians to victory scoring 25 VP first and it came down to the very end as Italy was also close on my heals. I liked it so much that I’m going to get a copy and hope to play the game with our local gaming group. Thanks to Ric Mann fur teaching and for the members of the Hoosier Herd gaming group for playing.
I then met up with Mark Miklos to chat about his newest upcoming volume in the Battles of the American Revolution Series called The Battle of Green Spring. We did a fairly lengthy video interview covering the game and its history as well as discussing his upcoming book called Liberty.
The Battle of Green Spring was the largest field battle fought in Virginia during the American Revolution with over 10,000 combatants. In addition to being noteworthy for its scope, this battle was Lord Cornwallis’s final victory in North America and served as the immediate precursor to the Siege of Yorktown.
I ended Day 3 playing The Adventures of Conan from Gale Force Nine, which is an asymmetric, semi-coop dice game of exploration, sorcery and combat set in the Hyborian age of Conan. We bounced off this one hard. Poor rules, lack of structure and little clarity, which is a shame. The art is fantastic, great components with custom dice but I felt like we had no idea what we were doing or how we were supposed to reliably get things done. We will try to watch a video out there to get an idea about what we are supposed to do and then maybe give it another try.
Gen Con is Gen Coming, so we’re looking in our wizard’s glasses to tell you what’s what. Whether you’re going or not, you’re gonna want to know what the hot games are, and we’ve got you covered. Before we Indianapolize, we talk about Koinobori, Compania, and Mood Swings.
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If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!
Timecodes:
02:32 – Koinobori 09:50 – Compania 19:52 – Mood Swings 25:39 – Gen Con preview 24:57 – Prague Unseen 28:27 – Triangulation 30:24 – All Mine! 32:25 – Hell of a Deal 34:51 – Night at the Zoo 36:22 – Stonk Market 39:45 – Bullseye 41:57 – Jibber Jabble 44:38 – The Lord of the Rings: Circle of Conflict 46:05 – Revenant 48:11 – FaeKin 49:32 – Mythologies 50:18 – World Order 52:28 – Greylune 57:22 – Corps of Discovery Duo
Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.
I think it’s fair to say that we crushed this last year (although some of us better than others), so it’s only correct and right that we should return to do it again. What are the best games of 2026 going to be? Well, only we know, but we’re willing to part with that information. Get your fat stacks ready. Before we set ourselves up for failure, we talk about Alibis, Mosaic: A Story of Civilization, and Cyclades: Legendary Edition.
If you don’t want to miss an episode, please subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Google Podcasts/Stitcher/Spotify, or add our RSS feed to your favourite app. Reviews and subscriptions really help us and would be greatly appreciated! To download the episode directly, click here.
If you’d like to discuss anything in the episode, please do so in the comments below, visit our BoardGameGeek guild, join our Discord, or Facebook Group! Any feedback is also always helpful. If you’d like to show your support for the show, we also have a Patreon with some fun rewards, and a merch store!
Timecodes:
03:02 – Alibis 09:18 – Mosaic: A Story of Civilization 23:25 – Cyclades: Legendary Edition 36:27 – Anticipation Auction 2026 41:18 – The Game Makers 44:25 – Cozy Stickerville 46:39 – Brass: Pittsburgh 50:35 – The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers – Trick-taking Game 54:04 – Revenant 56:21 – World Order 59:31 – Dark Pact 1:02:28 – The Great Library 1:03:56 – Spirited 1:05:25 – Realm of Reckoning 1:08:55 – Avalon: The Riven Veil 1:12:57 – La Pâtisserie Rococo 1:14:24 – Nippon: Zaibatsu 1:17:24 – Rewild: South America 1:18:44 – Movers & Shakers
Thank you to Heart Society for generously letting us use What’s On Your Mind, Kid? from their album Wake the Queens.
Last year, I have begun a new irregular series on my blog assessing the merits of UK prime ministers (illustrated through the lens of a single board game per prime minister). The rating system seemed robust enough to apply it to other countries/leaders (at least if they are more or less democratic). Thus, I’m branching out! Today, we’re doing our first US president. And we’re starting with none other than 20th century heavyweight Franklin D. Roosevelt. The accompanying game will be Cataclysm (Scott Muldoon/William Terdoslavich, GMT Games).
The Rating System
Some caveats ahead: The presidents will be rated by the knowledge of their time. If they or their contemporaries could not have known about the effects of something, I will not use my hindsight to mark it as a mistake of theirs. The assessment is focused on their conduct as president, but includes their life after holding the office (in which they will still be regarded in the public eye as (ex-)presidents).
Now, to the system itself: There are three policy field categories (foreign, domestic, and economic policy) and three more general ones (vision, pragmatism, integrity). A president can earn from one to five stars in each category (for a total sum of up to 30). In detail, the president is assessed as follows:
Foreign policy: Did the president increase US influence in the world and the security of Americans at home? Did the president wield US power responsibly and with positive results for the regions affected (the latter counting for a greater deal in times of US power being great)?
Domestic policy: Did the president increase the liberty of Americans to express themselves and to participate in the political process? Did the president promote domestic security and shape the framework for equality before the law and fair justice dealing with offenses?
Economic policy: Did the president facilitate the prosperity and economic security of Americans (including in the mid- and long-term)? Was the president’s economic policy based on mutual benefit of those involved or did it unduly burden one side?
Vision: Did the president have an idea of what the United States and the world (the latter counting for more in times of US influence being great) should look like beyond the immediate future? Did the president’s policies steer the United States (and, if applicable, the world) in this direction?
Pragmatism: Did the president succeed in seeing his policy through from inception to completion? How well did the president manage the support from Congress, society, the administration, the media (the latter counting for more in more recent years)?
Integrity: Did the president understand the office as a means to benefit himself, special interest groups, the entire country, or another community? Did the president respect the boundaries of the office?
Roosevelt’s Life
Franklin D. Roosevelt – or FDR for short – (1882—1945) came from a wealthy New York family. He studied law and ventured into politics soon after graduating: At age 28, he was elected into the New York state senate. Like his famous (distant) cousin Theodore Roosevelt who’d been president until a few years before, Franklin was a progressive in favor of ambitious reforms. Unlike Theodore, he was a Democrat. When fellow Democrat Woodrow Wilson became president in 1913, he appointed FDR Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Many of Roosevelt’s convictions – like the importance of a strong navy to control sea lanes and his commitment to an interventionist foreign policy – were shaped in that time. In 1920, FDR was nominated as the Democratic presidential candidates James M. Cox’s running mate. They lost in a blowout, but Roosevelt established himself as a national figure. Roosevelt fell ill soon after and became paralyzed from the waist down (traditionally, his illness has been identified as polio, but newer research suggests it might have been Guillain-Barré syndrome). Consequently, he retired from electoral politics for a few years.
Roosevelt returned to politics and was elected governor of New York in 1928. His energetic tenure recommended him as a presidential candidate four years later, when the country was suffering from the Great Depression. Roosevelt won the election against Republican incumbent Herbert Hoover in a landslide. He would be re-elected an unprecedented and never repeated three times, winning over 80% of electoral votes in every election.
Roosevelt immediately began a flurry of reforms – starkly different from Hoover’s aloof and seemingly indifferent reaction to the Depression. This “New Deal” included unemployed relief and federal work programs, the foundation of federal social security, and the regulation of the financial sector. Thus, Roosevelt restored trust in the American economy and government.
In his second term, Roosevelt’s reforms were opposed by the conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Roosevelt threatened to introduce legislation which would have increased the size of the Supreme Court. As Judge Owen Roberts left the conservative camp in the Court, the New Deal now had a reliable judicial majority and the “court-packing” bill failed in Congress.
Outside of the United States, storms were brewing. Germany, Italy, and Japan challenged the existing world order. Roosevelt recognized early that American isolationism was ill-equipped to deal with these challenges. He pushed for American rearmament and, once war had broken out in Europe, supported the United Kingdom, France, China, and later also the Soviet Union in their struggle against the Axis aggressors – especially by giving them war matériel which they were to return or pay for after the war (“Lend-Lease”).
The Pacific is large. Even for a country as wealthy and powerful as the United States, it is not easy to project power on the other side of it. Setup for scenario C.4 The Eagle and the Sun from Cataclysm, taken from the Vassal module.
The United States only joined the war after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 (and the subsequent declarations of war by Germany and Italy). Roosevelt mobilized the country on an unprecedented scale: Federal spending from 1941 to 1945 exceeded that from the founding of the United States to 1940. The demand for war materiel stimulated the economy. Thus, America overcame the Great Depression building the planes, ships, and trucks with which the Axis was defeated.
Roosevelt’s main allies, the communist Soviet Union and Britain with its large colonial empire were not always supportive of the president’s ideas for a post-war order based on national self-determination and a rules-based international community. Yet they went along, defeated the Axis powers together, and founded international institutions like the United Nations. Roosevelt, however, would not live to see it: He died on April 12, 1945, less than a month before Germany’s defeat.
The Rating
Foreign policy: Roosevelt’s impact on US foreign policy can barely be overstated. He overcame the traditional American isolationism and replaced it with the United Stated adopting a global role appropriate to its economic strength and ideological appeal as the beacon of democracy and capitalism.
Even before the United States entered the war, Roosevelt had succeeding in putting the country on a quasi-war footing, instituting selective service and supporting the beleaguered Allies first with the “cash & carry” option to purchase war matériel, then with the destroyers-for-bases deal, and finally with Lend-Lease).
During the war, he managed a coalition of unlikely allies and got them to agree with his outline for the rules-based post-war order in which we live until today.
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Domestic policy: Roosevelt expanded American liberties with the early, symbolically valuable decision to end prohibition. More substantially, his appointments for judgeships as well as cabinet and administration posts reflected American diversity much better than before – Frances Perkins, his secretary of labor, the first woman to hold a cabinet post, may have been the most famous, but besides her, countless FDR appointees were women, from racial minorities, as well as Catholic and Jewish. Thus, Roosevelt ended the practical monopoly of WASP men on the levers of political power.
While the practical implementation of some New Deal policies excluded disadvantaged Americans (particularly Black southerners), the programs overall were the first large-scale social scheme in America not designed to exclude them and contributed to their equality.
However, Roosevelt’s controversial decision to incarcerate ethnic Japanese (most of which were American citizens) from the Pacific Coast states was an act of state violence based on racial prejudice and taints Roosevelt’s record for liberty and equality.
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Economic policy: The strategy tips for the United States in the Cataclysm playbook state: “The United States can do everything. But in 1933, America is not doing anything.” That’s precisely the state in which Roosevelt found the United States. His deft management of competing interests quickly restored trust in the US government and economy, as when his early cuts in federal expenses increased support for the following spending on unemployment relief.
It is impossible to list all New Deal policies and their economic effects. Three examples might illustrate their breadth and depth:
Roosevelt’s labor rights legislation allowed for the establishment of minimum wages, maximum working hours, and codified the right to collective bargaining. Combined with the expanded access to higher education from the G.I. Bill, these rights ushered in an unprecedented age of prosperity for the American working and middle classes from the 1940s on.
The Glass-Steagall Act separated commercial and investment banking and thus limited the effect of stock market crashes on the “real economy”. Its repeal in the 1990s paved the way for the Great Recession beginning with the crash of 2007.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) did not only provide unemployment relief and conduct infrastructure projects, it also had a massive positive environmental impact (for example, with the three billion trees that were planted by CCC workers).
Rating: 5 out of 5.
The United States has great potential in Cataclysm, yet begins with a small force and low commitment. It is your task as the player – as it was FDR’s – to change that. United States power sheet from Cataclysm with counters from the beginning of the full game on them, taken from Vassal.
Vision: Roosevelt built the modern presidency and shaped US and world politics for decades to come. He elevated and enlarged the office of the president, which, as a strong executive center, allowed the United States to become a global superpower. His vision of achieving liberty, equality, and opportunity with the help of an active government dominated in US politics until the 1970s, and his vision of the rules-based world order even longer (even though it has been under attack in recent years both domestically and internationally).
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Pragmatism: As outlined above, Roosevelt undertook a massive transformation of American policy as well as of the role of US government. He succeeded in getting this transformation through Congress and the judiciary mostly by virtue of his immense electoral appeal: The public’s trust in Roosevelt was never more eloquently put forward than in his four landslide electoral victories. The “Roosevelt coalition” of urban working class, southerners, and racial/ethnic minorities proved almost unbeatable even after his death – from 1933 to 1969, Democrats held the presidential office for 28 of 36 years. Thanks to the Roosevelt coalition, they could always rely on Democratic strength in Congress. These endured even longer – the first time Republicans held both houses of Congress was after the “Republican Revolution” of 1994.
This combination of radical reform and enduring popular support in a democracy is remarkable. Cataclysm players need to keep their stability always at a high level if they want to emulate FDR!
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Integrity: Roosevelt did not use his vast power for personal benefit, but for that of his country and the world. Still, his reach for power knew no bounds. He frequently tested the limits of his office, as in the “court-packing” attempt or in his battles with Congress. He never relinquished power voluntarily. Only death parted him from the presidency.
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Overall: Roosevelt is not easy to rate. He is such a massively impactful president – by virtue of his long time in office, his re-shaping of the presidential role, his complete re-orientation of US foreign and economic policies – that in all the categories in which I have awarded him five stars he is likely still to stand out among future highly-rated contenders. The low points of his presidency – Japanese internment and his constant reach for more power – remind us that he was a flawed man, and that the flaws of a man with his power would shake a nation.
Summed up, he scores 25 out of 30 stars – a top contender.
Maybe I should tackle a less stellar subject for the next leader rating…
How would you rate FDR? Let me know in the comments!
Further Reading
For a recent, politically-focused Roosevelt biography, see Daniels, Roger: Franklin D. Roosevelt (2 volumes), University of Illinois Press, Champaign, IL 2016/2020.
William E. Leuchtenburg’s chapter on FDR in his treatment of the American presidents in the 20th century is almost a monography unto itself. See Leuchtenburg, William E.: The American President. From Teddy Roosevelt to Bill Clinton, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2015, pp. 143-242.
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