DEFCON: The board game

[the_redstar_swl]

Found these on a board gaming site I'm on:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/146821
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/146826

[WNivek]

whoa... neon colors, coastline styled similar to Defcon's, and Uplink's font.
Wonder how it plays...

Edit: And if I'd bothered to actualy READ anything, I'd have known that it was a custom map made specifically to mimic Defcon.

Tres cool, anyway.

[Bamelin]

I owned and played Fortress America many years ago when it first came out. My gaming group eventually dropped the game as once you learned how to play the game (as in figured out the best strats) it seemed that America always won.

[Kuth]

Looks a lot more interesting than Axis and Allies, that's for sure.

Why is it that the best board games are long discontinued?

[DocLeo]

I posted the image to this forum a bit ago but didn't make much noise about it. Fortress America is a great game and the copy I got from Ebay was so moldy and warped it was unplayable. So loving the "Defcon" look and being a huge fan of Uplink I made my own board in Photoshop! A friend of mine printed it out and put it together, doing a fantastic job.

The game plays well. As for America winning all the time that happens until the invaders figure out different tactics then the game stays on a knife edge each time after that. It is extremely well balanced and the pieces match the Defcon color scheme perfectly!

I'm glad someone else saw it and that the community here has seen it!

Best regards,

DocLeo

[Dustgunner]

Am I the only one that thinks that this board game REALLY needs to be mass-produced and sold on the IV store?

[WNivek]

Am I the only one that thinks that this board game REALLY needs to be mass-produced and sold on the IV store?

Problem is, only the board is new material. The cards, pieces and rules are an existing game, presumably still under copyright.

However, it might be possible for some dedicated fans to create a full Defcon boardgame from scratch...

[mehrdad]

thats cool but how come the DEFCON game demo doesnt include soldiers....in the manuel...

[Samuelson]

oehm maybe cause this isnt an official defcon boardgame, and it DEFCON is about thermonuclear war, never seen an infantry soldier carry an nuclear missile....


anyway its not a game demo, its a pirated version / review version of the game thats on the net

[Kuth]

Defcon is a game of thermonuclear war, and centers around this aspect pretty much to the exclusion of all else (i.e. all units in the game either support nuclear weapons or carry them, or attack missile-based platforms).

Fortress america seems to be a massive hypothetical battle around the continental United States- utilizing every aspect of war and focusing mostly on the conventional (tanks, infantry, guns).

if DEFCON was a board game, then it wouldn't have tanks or infantry- just aircraft and naval units. It would also be (as I see it) miniatures-based (tabletop), which uses distances for measure on the board rather than predefined hexes or zones.

[ander75it]

I played FA a bit, nice game. No nukes in it, though

[DocLeo]

Nope no nukes.

The laser towers are fun though!

[the_redstar_swl]

thats cool but how come the DEFCON game demo doesnt include soldiers....in the manuel...

I'm going to make a safe bet and say you where dropped on your head a lot as a kid.

[Bamelin]

The game plays well. As for America winning all the time that happens until the invaders figure out different tactics then the game stays on a knife edge each time after that.

Honestly I'd have to argue the point. While it's been a very long time since I played, my play group found that America had far too great an advantage in terms of constant reinforcements through the partisan cards, new units and the dreaded Star Wars Lasers. The invaders on the other hand could not manufacture new units and while usually making it pretty far into the mainland at the start, they would eventually run out of supplies and be anniahlated.

That said anything is possible, what did your group do differently to balance the game?

[DocLeo]

That said anything is possible, what did your group do differently to balance the game?

We've seen that if America recaptures too many cities too quickly that really throws the game over to the USA. So the idea for the invaders, seems to be, to pile up forces around key cities and take them while keeping nearby territories reinforced. I would agree that if the Invaders aren't really solidly winning by turn 6 or 7 it won't go well for them.

Eitherway, I find it a fun light wargame.

Best regards,

DocLeo