Interview with Carlos Márquez Linares Designer of The Other Side of the Hill from NAC Wargames Currently on Kickstarter

I really am intrigued by this game. The subject, the look of it, the time period. All of interest to me. The Other Side of the Hill is a very interesting looking take on World War II and has some very unique looking mechanics. I reached out to the designer Carlos Márquez Linares and he was more than willing to share information about his unique looking design.

If you are interested in The Other Side of the Hill, you can back the project on the Kickstarter page at the following link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/edicionesmasqueoca/the-other-side-of-the-hill-the-game?ref=bggforums

Grant: First off, Carlos, please tell us a little about yourself. What are your hobbies? What’s your day job?

Carlos: I have been a lecturer at the University of Granada for 25 years, where I teach English. I am married and I have two wonderful sons, Carlos and Álvaro, who are the focal point of my life.

Hardly surprisingly, my main hobby is boardgames. I enjoy most kinds of boardgames, but my favourite ones are those that allow me to be part of a story, be it fictional or not. However, since I love history, my favorite games are those that allow me to recreate history: games of historical simulation and, more specifically, wargames.

I have always loved reading. Like I said, I like history books and especially contemporary military history, but I also enjoy literary classics, science fiction and fantasy. Tolkien holds a very special spot in my heart, as do Lovecraft, Connie Willis, Iain M. Banks, and many, many others.

Related to science fiction, I am also a bit of a Trekkie. I have watched all the Star Trek series and movies and I find its positive and progressive vision of humanity’s future… fascinating.

Grant: What motivated you to break into game design? What have you enjoyed most about the experience thus far?

Carlos: I had been designing games for a number of years, but I had never intended to publish them, not really. I approached game design as an intellectual challenge and my friends were kind enough to indulge me and play with me. But then I attended the second edition of BellotaCon, an international wargame convention in Badajoz, Spain, and there I met Volko Ruhnke. My friends encouraged me to show him The Other Side of the Hill and Volko thought it was an interesting system, and one that should be published. Volko was a mentor for me in the critical early stages of development of the game, challenging me to improve the design and offering precious advice and guidance. And he did this in an entirely altruistic way, only because he likes helping new designers. I am sure that this project would not have been possible without his encouragement and support.

Therefore, it is easy to say what I have enjoyed most about the design process: meeting wonderful people and making new friends out of testers, publishers, artists and other boardgame designers. I must mention the people at NAC Wargames, who have made this game possible and who have always been open to my ideas and suggestions, particularly José Garrido, Publishing Manager of Ediciones Masqueoca, and Rodolfo Serra, the graphic designer who had to put up with my fastidious suggestions. This is a great hobby because it attracts great people.

Grant: What is your game The Other Side of the Hill about?

Carlos: The Other Side of the Hill is a boardgame that simulates the effects of the struggle for power within the German High Command on the development of the Second World War. Up to four players represent military leaders cooperating and competing as they manage Germany’s wartime strategy. To win, they must vie for Prestige by advancing the careers of their favored Army and Army Group commanders, grabbing their share of victories while the early-war pickings are easy, then avoiding responsibility for battlefield disasters as the Soviets and the Western Allies solidify and push back.

Players will pursue hidden objectives to dominate the German Officer Corps on behalf of Interest Groups such as the technically-minded Professionals, a traditionalist Old Guard, or anti-Nazi Dissidents, all while Allied aircraft bomb Germany’s war industry and Allied armies press in on every front. As in history, players must reconcile contradictory roles. The German General Staff’s job is to hold the Allies off, but each clique’s priorities can subvert any collective strategy. And beware: a player may be secretly sabotaging the war effort!

The Other Side of the Hill offers competition for two, three, or four players as well as fully cooperative, semi-cooperative, and solitaire modes. Playing cards include historical details on World War Two’s real-life German Generals, strategic Directives, wartime Events, and personalities of the “Black Orchestra” plot to assassinate Hitler.

Grant: What is the meaning of the title of the game? What should it convey to players about the history?

Carlos: The name of the game comes from the book The Other Side of the Hill, published by B.H. Liddell Hart in 1948 and based on his interviews with German generals held as prisoners after World War II. Much of our understanding of what was going on in the German High Command during World War II comes from the mostly self-serving and self-exculpatory view offered by the German generals themselves in this book.

The aim of the game is to generate a strategic simulation that exposes command dysfunctions within one faction of a military conflict: in this case, the influence of cliques, personal ambitions and the corruption and pettiness inherent in a regime as abhorrent as that of the Third Reich. In wargames, Germany is often presented as a well-oiled war machine with seamless leadership, when the truth is that Hitler assigned overlapping responsibilities to his subordinates. This allowed him to serve as the final arbiter who ultimately reserved decisions for himself, but it is not difficult to deduce that it was also a recipe for waste and the duplication of effort. Moreover, World War II saw a degeneration of the traditional German style of command, which assigned broad objectives to subordinate commanders and granted them freedom to carry them out, into a system in which permission had to be obtained from the OKW even to move around battalions on the front. The orders for the Ardennes offensive came from the OKW to Rundstedt, chief of the Western Front, closed and finalized down to the smallest detail. The Western Front staff simply processed them. These are the aspects contemplated in the game which are innovative with respect to other World War II simulations.

Grant: Why was this a subject that drew your interest?

Carlos: When I read about history, I am drawn to people: how people were affected by historical events, but even more how individual people influenced the development of history. I am aware that this is a romantic and, for some, outdated way to understand historical processes, but I cannot help it: this is what I like about history.

I find that these individual factors, no matter how unimportant in the grand scheme of things, are often influential in the fate of battles and ultimately wars. The death of Empress Elizabeth of Russia is known as the miracle of the House of Brandenburg because it saved Frederick the Great from defeat and humiliation in the Seven Years’ War. The history of Europe might have been different had Elizabeth lived longer or if her successor hadn’t been an admirer of the King of Prussia.

I find that the effects of these individual factors get diluted in wargames. True, there are games that allow the players to activate Generals, and they affect the performances of the troops, but there is really no game design that takes into account the dysfunctions of the high command and its structure to the same extent that others treat intelligence or logistics. This was my aim in this game: to create a system to simulate World War II that included the effects of individual factors in the way the High Command managed the war.

Another topic that I have always found fascinating is that of loyalty, and the manipulation and corruption of loyalty in particular. The German Generals during WWII had to serve (or chose to serve) under the obnoxious Nazi regime, and this makes them a particularly suitable group to analyze conflicting loyalties and the concept of duty.

Grant: What is your overall design goal with the game?

Carlos: My main goal is to entertain people, to allow them to have a good time playing a game, and I do hope to have achieved that. But I would also like players to feel the way the historical protagonists of the game felt: the elation of the German Generals after the dashing initial successes in the West, their surprise and misgivings when they failed to defeat the Soviets in a quick campaign, and their frustration and helplessness when they discovered they were fighting a war that simply could not be won because of the sheer superiority of their enemies in manpower, material resources and eventually even technology.

A historical boardgame is like a history book in that they both tell a story about history, but a game allows players to feel they are part of that history and they can explore alternatives to the historical choices made by the real protagonists. In a boardgame, players can feel they are making or remaking history, and creating that feeling of being inside history was definitely one of my goals. Finally, as a vocational educator, I would like the players of my game to learn something new about WWII, about the reasons why it unfolded the way it did and about its protagonists.

Grant: This is the first entry in the High Command Series. What other conflicts may be featured in the future?

Carlos: I am sure that the system used in The Other Side of the Hill has the potential to shed light on many other historical conflicts, like the Second World War in the Pacific, the Spanish Civil War, World War I, the American Civil War, the Napoleonic Wars… There are no definite plans as of yet, however, and much is going to depend on the evolution of the Kickstarter campaign.

Grant: What elements from WWII and the German Command Structure are most important to include in the design?

Carlos: I wanted to make this mainly a game about the generals in the field, so each player controls a number of generals and they manage their careers. Generals may hold command positions on the board, but these are limited to Front commanders (Oberbefehlshaber) and Army Group Commanders. On the other hand, lower ranging Generals can lead the Axis forces as Army Generals in combat.

However, this is a simulation of World War II at the strategic level, so players had to make military, political and economic decisions that are beyond the scope of the military commanders in the field. This is why players take on Sections of the High Command, and thus become collectively responsible for the big decisions of the War. There are four Sections of the High Command: the Head of the OKW, the Head of Operations, the Head of Personnel and the Head of Production.

The Head of the OKW selects the Military and Political Directive Cards. In addition, the Head of OKW can overrule the decisions of other players, although this will increase the Unrest of the Army and may reduce Fanaticism.

The Head of Operations deploys replacements during the Administrative Phase and moves armies and air assets on the map during the Operations Phase.

The Head of Personnel is the first player to select new Generals in the New Year Phase and resolves seniority ties in the appointments of Group Commanders and Commanders (OB) of the Fronts (West, East and South). In addition, if no player nominates a Leading General for a battle (which usually happens when defeat seems likely), the Head of Personnel will force a player to nominate one of his generals to face the music and dance.

The Head of Production decides the allocation of Resources in the Production Table, chooses the Production Directive Cards to be played during the Administrative Phase and is responsible for Strategic Warfare.

Finally, each General belongs to one of four Interest Groups: the Old Guard, the Professionals, the Sympathizers and the Dissidents.

Grant: What research did you do to get the details correct? What one must read source would you recommend?

Carlos: This is a subject I have been reading about since I was 10 years old, so it is difficult for me to recommend any particular book. Of course, I must mention Liddell Hart’s The Other Side of the Hill, after which the game is named, but I would recommend reading it from a critical standpoint, as it is one of the foundational works behind the myth of the clean Wehrmacht. One can easily notice how Liddell Hart falls (or chooses to fall) under the spell of charismatic characters such as Rundstedt or Guderian. To compensate for this, I would advise reading a very interesting book by Omer Bartov called Hitler’s Army, which shows how the Wehrmacht identified itself with the Nazi regime and fought an ideological war in the East, where German soldiers were responsible for countless atrocities in Russia.

In another vein, I would recommend Phillips O’Brien’s How the War was Won, a courageous book which dares to go directly against the now seemingly prevalent assertion that the Soviet Union won the war virtually single-handedly and would have done it almost without any help from the West. Based on data that it is difficult to refute, O’Brien demonstrates that the contribution of the Western Allies was decisive in winning World War II, which was a three-dimensional and global war where Germany invested more resources in anti-aircraft weapons to defend itself from Western aviation than in tanks and assault guns for the Russian front.

Grant: What is the general Sequence of Play?

Carlos: Each turn represents a season, so that a year consists of four turns, starting in winter and ending in autumn. Each season consists of one Administrative Phase and one or two Operations Phases (two Operations Phases in summer and one each in winter, spring and autumn).

In the Administrative Phase, the Head of Operations allocates reinforcements to the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and Strategic Warfare. Then the Head of Production readjusts the allocation of resources to the various needs in order to adapt the war production to the current state of the war. Then Directive Cards may be played. The Head of Production may play Production Directive Cards to try and rationalize the German economy or to develop new weapons. The Head of the OKW can play Political Directive Cards which, among other effects, can bring new allies into the Axis or increase the value of Fanaticism, which is the primary objective for the Head of the OKW. Finally, the Head of the OKW may also play Military Directive Cards, which determine the offensives the German army will embark on later in the Operations Phase of this turn. Each of these Directives imply a production cost that will demand precious resources.

In each Operations Phase, the Head of Production first conducts Strategic Warfare for the season. Then, armies may be moved around, players check for dismissals and new commanders can be appointed. After this, battles will be fought: firstly, those initiated by the Axis as a result of the current Military Directive, and then those started by the two Allied factions, as directed by Combat cards. At the end of the Operations Phase, players will check whether the objectives of the active Military Directive, if there was one, have been achieved or not and the corresponding effects will be applied either way. Players also check for isolated Axis areas and, finally, they check if the conditions for automatic Victory or the collapse of Germany have been met.

Grant: How do players vie for Prestige by advancing the careers of their favored Army and Army Group commanders?

Carlos: The game includes dozens of historical generals, including most of those who held the position of Army Commander, Army Group Commander or Head of a Front during the war for a period longer than six months. Players will earn Prestige Points at the beginning of each year if their generals occupy an Army Group Commander or Front Commander (OB) position. In addition, generals will also be awarded Prestige Points based on their victories in battle. Conversely, the generals’ defeats and retreats will reduce the players’ prestige and cause failing generals to be questioned and ultimately dismissed and removed from the game…or they may also become dissidents to the regime.

At the beginning of each year, the generals entering play that year are distributed among the players. Generals will be appointed to positions or chosen as leading generals based on their Seniority factor. When a Vacancy in a Command position must be filled, players nominate Generals and the candidate with the higher Seniority factor is chosen. The Head of Personnel breaks all ties in Seniority, and he may do so in favor of his own candidate. When a Leading General must be chosen for a combat, a similar procedure is followed: players nominate Generals and the candidate with the higher Seniority factor is chosen. However, for Leading Generals in combat, the ties are broken by the head of the Army Group involved in the combat, who may also do so in favor of his own candidate. Some players prefer to save their best Generals for battles where they also control the Head of the Army Group, to help him keep that position.

Grant: What are the different Interest Groups involved in the game and how do they help players?

Carlos: In the game, each General belongs to one of four Interest Groups: the Old Guard, the Professionals, the Sympathizers and the Dissidents. Typical representatives of these four groups could include Rundstedt (Old Guard), Manstein (Professionals), Kesselring (Sympathizers) and Witzleben (Dissidents).

Although the four Interest Groups are apparently watertight categories, the German General Corps was not made up of clear factions. There was no Old Glories Association, no Professional Military Guild, no Führer Fan Club. Certain Generals could certainly be assigned to various interest groups. In fact, the only undisputed Interest Group is the Dissidents, since it consists entirely of Generals who suffered retaliations for their opposition to the Nazi regime, most often death.

Interest Groups represent one possible classification of Generals, like the very traditional and staunchly anti-Communist Old Guard Generals, or the apolitical Professional Generals, which include those who in the last days of the war endeavored to get as many German soldiers as possible to surrender to the Western Allies rather than be captured by the Russians. Both groups would renege on Hitler and his works after the war, even though they never actively opposed him and benefited from his regime in various and often shameful ways. The Sympathizers represent Generals identified with either the aims or the methods of Nazism, (or both, such as the infamous Schörner). Most of the Generals who were responsible for war crimes fall into this category, but even the expression “responsible” is problematic. If all the Generals who tolerated war crimes in the regions under their command or simply looked the other way were assigned to the Sympathizers group, very few would be left out of this category.

There is intensive research work behind the Interest Groups, as the game is designed with a focus on simulation and seeks to provide a learning experience. The possibility of some Generals becoming Dissidents adds a component of fluidity and uncertainty to the game and represents shifts in allegiance such as those of Rommel, Hoepner, and possibly von Kluge.

Grant: What hidden objectives are players pursuing?

Carlos: In every game there will come a moment when the High Command will be restructured to increase OKW control in the conduct of the war. When this happens, Agenda Cards will be distributed among the players. The player with the Head of the OKW Card at that moment will keep that card until the end of the game and will receive the OKW Agenda Card, which is public. The remaining players will receive one of the four remaining Agenda Cards at random. These other Agenda Cards must be kept secret. Depending on the number of players, at least one Agenda Card will be removed from the game without looking at it, so players will not know what the other players’ secret Agenda Cards are, nor will they know for certain that a particular Agenda Card is in play. Agenda Cards award Prestige Points at the end of the game that depend on the interests of the different factions within the German High Command.

Some of these Prestige Points depend on the Influence value of the different factions at the end of the game. This Influence is granted throughout the game according to the faction of the Generals occupying command posts (Group Commander and OB of a Front), as well as the faction of the generals that have been activated for a battle.

The OKW Agenda Card awards Prestige Points at the end of the game if Germany has not collapsed and according to the level of Fanaticism.
The Old Guard Secret Agenda Card awards Prestige Points at the end of the game if the Old Guard has the highest Influence value, for the Command Posts occupied by the Old Guard Generals and for the Festung sectors of the Eastern Front that have not been captured by the Allies.
The Professionals Secret Objective Card awards Prestige Points at the end of the game for the Command Posts held by the Professional Generals and for the surviving German Armies on the map.
The Sympathizers Secret Agenda Card awards Prestige Points at the end of the game if the Sympathizers have the highest Influence value, for the Command Posts occupied by Sympathizer Generals and for the Festung sectors on any Front that have not been captured by the Allies.

Grant: Conversely, how do players avoid responsibility for battlefield disasters as the Soviets and the Western Allies solidify and push back?

Carlos: Generals include two numerical factors. The Seniority Factor is associated with their rank and is used to fill Vacancies in Command positions and select leading generals. The Confidence Factor indicates the confidence that the general inspired in the OKW. When a general fails, either as a commander in a battle or because the objectives of the offensives in which he participates were not achieved, that general becomes questioned. In the following Command Phase, a die is rolled for each questioned general. If the die roll is higher than his Confidence Rating, the general is dismissed. If it is lower, the general keeps his post. If the result is equal to the Seniority Factor, the general keeps his command, but he becomes a Dissident.

A moment will come when a combat is so desperate that all players will refuse to nominate a General to lead in it. Then it is up to the Head of Personnel to select one player, who will then have to assign one of his Generals to face the music.

Grant: What are the main mechanics used in the game?

Carlos: This is a game where resources are scarce, so players must decide where to invest them. At its heart, it is a game of resource management. Among these resources, players have Armies and generals, which they must place on the board to achieve their aims, so in a way there is also a bit of a worker placement mechanic in the game. Battles are resolved using dice depending on the Armies and generals involved, so there is also an element of pushing your lack. Also, certain strategic options are taken by playing cards, so it is also partly a card-driven game.

In general terms, even though The Other Side of the Hill is a game of historical simulation where the narrative is paramount, it includes mechanics from Eurogames, Thematic games and Wargames.

Grant: What role do cards play in the game?

Carlos: The Other Side of the Hill is a card game (lots of cards), but it is not a card-driven game. Players play cards for many purposes, such as using generals in battles, making strategic decisions, or resolving events, but the cards that represent strategic decisions are drawn neither randomly nor freely; rather, the players themselves must choose in advance the cards that will be available every year. Thus, the players have control over strategic decisions, but they also have to deal with the selection they made if the strategic situation changes during the year.

Grant: What different types of cards are included?

Carlos: Strategic options in the military, political and economic spheres are expressed by Directive Cards; the Allies’ attacks and their performance in combat are dictated by Combat Cards, there are Strategic and Combat Event Cards; there are Black Orchestra Cards to determine the outcome of the Coup Attempt that will be triggered some tine in 1944. And, of course, there are General Cards.

Grant: Can you share a few examples of these cards and explain how they work?

Carlos: I would say that the most representative cards are General Cards. A general’s card and counter include information regulating its use in the game:

For Reichenau, the information provided is:

Name and portrait, which identify the general.

Card number, which is used to identify the card easily.

Year of entry, which indicates the year when the General’s card is incorporated into the game.

Setup code, which indicates the scenarios in which this card starts in play and the player who will control it (identified by color).

Seniority factor, which is the value used to appoint Army Group and Front (OB) commanders and to choose the Leading General in battles. The higher the Seniority Factor of a general, the more easily he can be appointed to a Command and intervene in battles. As older generals are dismissed or withdrawn from the game, other less senior generals will begin to take over commands and intervene in battles

Confidence Factor, which indicates the confidence that the general inspired in the OKW.

Interest Group, which indicates which of the four Interest Groups in the game the general best identifies with: the Old Guard, the Professionals, the Sympathizers of the regime or the Dissidents. The four Interest Groups coincide with the Secret Objectives Cards that are assigned to the players when the Reorganization of the High Command occurs, sometime in 1941.

Combat rule, which describes the general’s ability when he intervenes in combat, either because the Army Group under his command is attacking or defending or because he is chosen as the Leading General for a battle. This ability reflects both the skills attributed to the general and the historical performance of the troops he commanded in the war. In the case of Reichenau, his Combat rule allows him to re-roll one die in the Allied Combat Roll.

Combat symbols, which indicate when the general’s Combat rule can be activated. In Reichenau’s case, his battle specific rule can be activated against the Western Allies and against the Soviets, as it includes the symbols of both factions (the American Star or the Red Soviet Star). The second symbol (which is a diving Stuka) indicates that Reichenau’s specific rule can only be activated if the Axis is the attacker, but it applies in all types of terrain (white background).

Special rule: Some generals have specific rules that limit their eligibility or, as in the case of Reichenau, are activated at certain points of the game. Historically, Reichenau was very close to the Regime’s ideology and was favoured by the OKW.

Misfortune: some generals have Misfortune rules, which indicate that they are likely to disappear from the game as a result of an illness, accident, injury or capture (Paulus). Reichenau died of a heart attack in early 1942.

There are three types of Directive Cards:

Military Directives: they allow offensive military campaigns and are managed by the Head of the OKW.
Political Directives: they represent diplomatic actions or decisions affecting mainly Fanaticism. They are also managed by the Head of the OKW.
Production Directives: they improve the production of Germany at war and to develop weapon technologies that will be useful on the battlefield and especially in strategic warfare. They are managed by the Head of production.

In each Administrative Phase, the player responsible for the segment may play one or more Directive cards as long as their cost does not exceed the production points available for that Directive type.

Military Directive Cards indicate how many attacks the Axis faction can make during this season and in which areas they can be made. The number of pawns on the card indicates the number of attacks and the areas where attacks can be initiated are listed below the pawn symbols. The Axis cannot initiate an attack in an area that is not listed on the active Military Directive Card.

Each Military Directive Card also indicates the objectives to be conquered on the map and the bonuses gained if those objectives are attained during the current season. These benefits usually grant advantages to the Axis, but they also award Prestige Points to the Head of Operations (OPS), the Head of the OKW (OKW) and the players controlling the Army Group Commanders in the areas that can be activated by the Directive Card. If the objectives set by the military Directive are not achieved, all Army Group Commanders in the areas that can be activated by the Directive Card will be questioned, and will have to make a Confidence roll in the following Command segment. This Confidence roll will determine whether they are dismissed or Hitler forgives their failure, though he will not forget it.

Political Directive Cards allow the head of the OKW to manage foreign policy and manipulate Unrest and Fanaticism, which is his main source of Prestige Points.

Diplomacy Cards are an important subset of Political Directive cards, which allow the players to turn Neutral countries into Satellites of Germany.

When the head of the OKW plays a Diplomacy Card, he rolls one six-sided die and checks the die roll modifiers result. If the modified result is equal to or higher than the Activation number in the card, the target country is activated as an Axis Satellite.

Many production Directive Cards can improve Germany’s economy and military industry. Sometimes they can also affect Fanaticism, so the Head of the OKW must weigh their advantages against the cost to Fanaticism and decide whether to overrule the use of a specific card or not.

Project Cards help develop technologies that will improve Germany’s performance in strategic warfare or in the battlefields. When a Project Card is played for the first time, the corresponding marker is placed in the box indicated by its Development Factor in the Project Track. Every time the Head of Production plays a Project Card, he must roll a six-sided die. If the result is equal to or higher than the Advance Factor of the project, the marker advances one square on the Production Track. When the Project reaches the “Completed” box on the Project Track, the effects of the card are applied and the card is discarded from the game.

Grant: How is victory achieved?

Carlos: In the competitive mode, the game ends when Germany collapses or at the end of the 1945 spring turn. In both cases, the player with the highest accumulated Prestige is the winner. Players receive Agenda Cards that will grant them extra Prestige Points at the end of the game. One of these cards may be that of the Dissidents, whose goal is to bring the war to an end as soon as possible, even at the cost of Germany’s defeat. One way to achieve this is to assassinate Hitler in the Black Orchestra Plot. This competitive mode is the primary game mode.

Grant: Is there an option for solitaire play? What priorities does the bot use to make its decisions and what is the experience like?

Carlos: In the cooperative and solitaire modes, the game ends immediately when Germany collapses or at the end of the Spring 1945 turn. The main difference with the competitive mode is that in the cooperative and solitaire modes the players will automatically lose if Germany collapses before the end of the scenario. In cooperative and solitaire games, there is no Prestige, no Influence and Agenda Cards are not used. The player(s) lose if Germany collapses before the end of spring 1945.

Provided that the game has concluded without Germany collapsing, the player(s) can win the game as a group based on the Victory Points they score. These Victory Points are:

1 VP for every Festung Sector controlled by the Axis.
A number of VP’s equal to the Fanaticism Value
1 VP for every French or USSR Home Area controlled by the Axis (not Disputed)
1 VP for every Concluded Project marker in the Year Track

The player(s) add up their Victory Points to determine whether they have won the game:

21 VP or more: Grand Victory
16-20 VP: Marginal Victory
15 VP or less: Defeat

The core game mechanics are the same as in the competitive game, but the player(s) are obliged to observe the generals’ Seniority and cannot always choose the best General for each position or combat. In order to fill a Command Position or choose the Leading General in combat, the player(s) must choose one with the highest Seniority or the second higher Seniority factor. This is an elegant way to simulate the fact that in competitive play sometimes a General is chosen simply because a player decides to take advantage of his Seniority regardless of his abilities in order to secure Prestige, so the best General is not always selected for a Position.

For instance, let’s imagine that the player(s) must select a General as Head of an Army Group during a Cooperative or Solitaire game. In that moment there are 30 Generals theoretically available to the player(s), ranging from Seniority 8 to 4. There is only one General with Seniority 8 (Reichenau) and several Generals with Seniority 7, 6, 5 and 4. Even though Manstein would be the best option, his Seniority factor is only 6, so the player(s) will not be able to select him until Reichenau (the only General with Seniority 8), has been assigned to a Command position. Only then will the player(s) be able to choose generals with Seniority 7 or 6 (including Manstein). However, Generals with Seniority 5 will not become available until all Generals with Seniority 7 have been assigned to a post or removed from the game.

The solitaire mode works in essentially the same way as the cooperative mode, but in a cooperative game the players (up to four) distribute among themselves the Sections of the High Command and the Generals at the beginning of each year, while in a solitaire game the Section of the High Command Cards are not used, since the one player simply makes all decisions. He also controls all the Generals and uses a single Player Board, labelled “Solitaire”.

The cooperative and solitaire game modes may only be played with the scenarios ending at the end of spring 1945.

Grant: What changes have come about through play testing?

Carlos: I have greatly simplified the game, but not so much in the sense of reducing complexity, as the game is still complex, but rather to try and make it more elegant. At the beginning a general was assigned to each army/cube, but managing this was very laborious and distracted from the simulation, so I eliminated the micromanagement of Army commands. Now a Leading General is activated every time a battle occurs and that general is not available again until the following year. This has added agility and richer decision making.

The second major evolution was to shorten the game. In the initial version each season had one Administrative segment and two Operations segments, except for Summer, which had three Operations segments. This amounted to a total of nine Operations segments per year and the game was overly repetitive. In the final version, each season has only one Operations segment, except for summer, which has two. This means just five Operations segments per year. Now, generally speaking, each Operations segment is followed by an Administrative segment, so the game gains in agility and options. Of course, this meant substantially modifying the map so that Armies could get to the same places in a shorter time, and also adjusting the tempo of Allied operations. It was a difficult job, but I think it was worth it because the game is now more agile, more playable and more fun.

Grant: What do you feel the game design excels at?

Carlos: As I said at the beginning, when I read about historical events and processes I am always drawn to individuals and their decisions, but I get the impression that this is poorly reflected in wargames. We move armies and make decisions, but rarely are we confronted with the ethical choices of the historical protagonists, rather it is usually us moving pieces representing military units within some military logic. We do not truly put ourselves in the shoes of those who made those decisions. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Atticus Finch tells his inquisitive daughter Scout that, in order to really get to know a man, you need to walk around wearing his shoes. However, wargames hardly force us to truly put ourselves in the circumstances of historical characters.

In The Other Side of the Hill, players are driven by the same ethical, individual or caste considerations as the members of the German High Command in World War II: the player in the Professionals influence group will try to save as many German soldiers as possible at the end of the war, while the Old School will try to keep the Soviets out of Germany’s borders, and the Sympathizers of the regime aim to preserve all of Germany’s borders, regardless of casualties. And they all want their Generals to rise and hold on to command positions. Should the Professionals and the Old School hasten the collapse of Germany to achieve their goals? It is tempting, but that may give victory to the Dissidents. On the other hand, if they sacrifice their individual goals to save Germany, that may give victory to the OKW. The game’s design intent is to imbue military decisions with considerations based on ethics and group interests.

There are many things that have given me food for thought while designing this game, but perhaps the most important and at the same time saddest conclusion is that there is very little to admire in the German military leadership in World War II. Generals praised by all, such as Manstein or von Rundstedt, accepted gifts – or rather, bribes – from Hitler that help to explain their lukewarm attitude towards opponents of the regime and their repeated support for the Führer’s leadership. The moral fiber must be sought in Beck, Treschow or Stülpnagel, the men who died after the July 20 attack, not in Rommel, Kesselring, Guderian or Heinrici. Many of those men were admirable professionals, but certainly not role models. I probably would not have been braver than they were and many of us might have conducted ourselves as badly or even worse than they did in the same circumstances, but in history I seek to admire exceptional human beings who rose above their circumstances. For a person firmly grounded in the average of humanity, I only need to look at myself.

Grant: What other designs are you currently working on?

Carlos: I currently have a game in GMT’s P500 program called Imperial Fever: Great Power Competition in the Late 19th Century. This is a deckbuilding game for three to four players that recreates great power competition in the period between 1881 and 1915. Players will vie for world dominance as they take on the roles of the United Kingdom, France, the Central Empires (Germany and Austria-Hungary), and the Emergent Powers (the USA and Japan). These powers compete across several interlinked domains, including the naval arms race, military expansion and diplomacy in Europe, power projection in key international theaters, and colonial expansion. This was an era in which the race for hegemony became an end in itself, with entire peoples and national industries consumed by petty competition, eventually resulting in colonial exploitation and the outbreak of WW1.

The game features a unique approach to this complex and important period of world history, including the following innovative aspects:

A deckbuilding mechanism that will allow players to pursue different strategies and model escalation of global competition.
A variety of other mechanics, including area majority, push your luck, tug of war, technology tracks, and set collection.
Competition between players in different areas: national prestige, military power, naval dominance, colonial expansion, and key strategic areas.
International tensions that may culminate in the outbreak of the First World War.
A wide range of political agendas that will allow players to choose among different paths to victory.
A rich Event deck that poses additional challenges to players, ranging from international conflicts to political mishaps at home.
The influence of non-player powers such as Russia, China, Holland, Belgium, Spain, and Portugal.
The full game is playable in under four hours, once players are reasonably familiar with the rules.

It is close to the 500 pledges needed to make it happen, so check it out!