A few months ago, I reached out to the Charles Vasey to get an idea about the changes and upgrades to the new edition of Unhappy King Charles being put together by PHALANX. He was very kind and more...
A few months ago, I reached out to the Charles Vasey to get an idea about the changes and upgrades to the new edition of Unhappy King Charles being put together by PHALANX. He was very kind and more than willing to share. In case you didn’t know, Unhappy King Charles is a 2-player game on the English Civil War covering 1642-1645 which pits the Royalists against the Parliamentarians in a battle for control over England’s regions and economic centers. The game is card-driven and players will play a card for either a historic event or use it to take a range of actions. These include recruiting, placing political influence, raiding and most importantly activating Generals such as King Charles and Oliver Cromwell to move around the map, battle enemies, siege fortresses, and take control of areas.
Grant: First off Charles please tell us a little about yourself. What are your hobbies? What’s your day job?
Charles: I’m an accountant in my own practice in London. My hobbies are almost all based around military history (miniatures, boardgames, reading). I used to box but illness has reduced that, and I like watching Rugby and Cycling (but always on the TV).
Grant: What motivated you to break into game design? What have you enjoyed most about the experience thus far?
Charles: I started designing about the same time as publishing my magazine Perfidious Albion in the 70’s. The magazine reflected my interest in the history in a game rather than its ludic qualities. Back then folks got a map and an OOB plus a borrowed CRT and thought they were off to the races: a lot of them think the same way now. I wanted to adjust everything to give a more historically plausible answer. The most enjoyable feature is sometimes managing to inject the history without killing the patient.
Grant: How did the opportunity to do a new edition of your Unhappy King Charles come about?
Charles: Jaro at PHALANX proposed it as he judged there was a market for a refurbished version. I was working on another English Civil War game (The Good Old Cause for Compass Games) but had just lost my developer to a very time-consuming job so was stopped from doing anything there. It seemed serendipitous and I was glad to see the opportunity especially to improve upon the overall look and components of the game.
Grant: What is being updated in the game?
Charles: Map, cards, and counters are all changing. The map especially is moving from boxes-and-sticks to a more naturalistic look of wee villages and churches – what I call the Polly Pockets style. The illustrations on the counters are being done in wood-cut style.
Grant: What was one thing you really wanted to change or improve about the game?
Charles: Nothing really, we hope to tweak the balance in discussion with the game’s experte Tim Porter who has played and taught the game to many people. Tim has proposed some excellent improvements to the Late War. I think the new artwork will please many people. And of course, just having the game available again is good.
Grant: What is your design goal with the game?
Charles: To place the gamer to some degree in my impression of the English Civil Ware (it might not be their impression of course) yet fitting within the confines of Mark Herman’s excellent CDG series. I therefore wanted the game to feel different from the American Revolution, World War I and the American Civil War. AND I wanted those differences to be ones that the player would recognize from readings on the topic. The old Avalon Hill “Now you are there” schtick.
Grant: Why was this a subject that drew your interest?
Charles: Firstly, the availability of books (Brig. Peter Young especially) in that era where they were few (my first ECW design was in the 70’s I think). Secondly, Marston Moor was fought not far from my hamlet. Thirdly, the mixture of opportunity and limitation from warfare of that period. Fourthly, lots of strong characters who still attract partisan argument to this day.
Grant: What research did you do to get the details correct? What one must read source would you recommend?
Charles: I read many books. From these I built a storyboard of where leaders were and what their army strengths were (which allowed me to judge pace of operations, raising of troops, desertions, and losses). I had tested much of this in my earlier game The King’s War from Clash of Arms Games. An excellent single volume narrative account is C. V. Wedgwood’s The King’s War.
For readers interested in more detail, the partial bibliography for The Good Old Cause is presently:
The Civil Wars – Kenyon and Ohlmeyer
The Civil Wars of England – John Kenyon
The English Revolution and the Wars in the Three Kingdoms 1638-1652 – Ian Gentles
Loyalty And Locality – Mark Stoye
The Royalist War Effort – Ronald Hutton
The Revolt of the Provinces – John Morrill
A King in Search of Soldiers: Charles I in 1642, A Rejoinder – M. D. G. Wanklyn and P. Young
The English Civil War in Geographical Perspective – Leonard Hochberg
The Civil War in The Midlands – Roy Sherwood.
Cavaliers: the Royalist Army at War, 1642-1646 – John Barratt
The Royal Navy Under James I – Oppenheim M, English Historical Review
Raglan Castle and the Civil War In Monmouthshire – Arthur Clark
All The King’s Armies 1642-1651 – Stuart Reid
How The Scots Won The English Civil War – Alisdair McRae
These Familiar Things? Witchcraft, War Crimes and Prince Rupert “the Devil” – John Callow Review of Mark Stoye’s “The Black Legend of Prince Rupert’s Dog: Witchcraft and Propaganda During the English Civil War”
Cavalier Capital: Oxford In The English Civil War 1642-1646 John Barratt
Grant: I have read where Unhappy King Charles is “highly acclaimed for the way in which it captures the unique aspects of the English Civil War.” How have you taken care to get this right?
Charles: The secret lies in the storyboard followed by steady playtesting to see if those key issues actually weigh upon the players. How do they fund their armies?, how do they supply their armies?, how do they match armies to geography?. If a player finds these things too easy, then I have failed. Of course, because most games are set in later periods or with better organized armies at first most players are going to either conclude the game is nonsense or perhaps to give due credit to the historical generals.
Grant: What elements from the English Civil War were most important to model?
Charles: Local sentiment, the limitations of government, the financial straits of both sides and the uncertainty of battle. All of these elements are key to an understanding of the ECW and why it turned out the way it did.
Grant: How does the game use cards?
Charles: The cards are typically single use cards with an event or an operations number (just like in We the People). There is limited use for events by the other side. Cards are in three decks (Early, Middle, and Late War). There are also some alt-hist cards for possible events that did not occur – some quite serious.
Grant: What type of cards are included?
Charles: There are Operations Cards: these allow you to move your main forces (in the ECW you do have full agency over all forces). Special versions are major and minor armies on campaign and the Core Cards that guarantee each player at least two Operations Cards a turn even if the dealt cards prove barren.
Most cards cover historical events placing or removing control, giving or removing cards, etc. All with the event name to give some historical view to the event. There is also optional alt-hist deck to cover some possible events, this can turn the balance over, so only for the fast and the furious.
Grant: How do players influence both their allies and enemies with politics?
Charles: They cannot directly (bar an alt-hist card like “The King Abandons The Bishops”). My reasoning here is that the Raising of the Royal Standard marked the complete breakdown of political discourse between Royalist and Parliamentarian. There were attempts at treaties, but I could not see them as ever being successful. The major political split during the War was between the Presbyterians (under King Pym and others) and the Independents, and they were on the same side! A manifestation of this is the New Model Army but really it reached its true climax after the war.
Grant: How did you handle the economy of the game? How and why are economic centers important?
Charles: Apart from a few cards that access other cards or provide troops with funding, the economy mostly appears by means of VP’s for holding key ‘industrial’ or resource areas. For example, the Wool Road that stretched from Wiltshire towards London. Large cities are also important for not just for being large but being key points in the local economies. However, this is one area I would like to improve in The Good Old Cause.
Grant: How do Raids work? What is their main purpose?
Charles: Raids provide an opportunity for Local Notable to change control. The Local Notable can be an important local grandee whose affinity and wealth control an area, or a popular leader to turn his area into a hotbed of supporters for his side – for example Robert Blake at Lyme who went on to be a great naval commander.
Grant: How is combat handled in the design?
Charles: Points for units, status of units, and points for commanders. It can be hard to achieve a key victory unless one has a point advantage, so small armies faced by large armies may simply melt-away. Some units will be lost, but others will reappear in happier times.
Grant: What are you most pleased about with the design?
Charles: So many people were willing to accept its difficulties. It is a war without fronts, where armies can melt away and combat is risky. That it sold out once impresses me.
Grant: What other games are you currently working on?
Charles: The Good Old Cause (ECW designed to allow me to move to the Rhine with Condé, Turenne and Montecuccoli) for Compass Games if we could find a developer.
Leopards and Lilies: Play a French noble family during the reigns of the House of Capet.
B1704: Pretty much done, Blenheim based on the brilliant W1815 game.
Field of Battle: Ancient tactical
England Expects: Strategic naval from 1793 to 1815
And five other sketches.
Thank you so much for your effort in answering our questions Charles and for the great information you have shared. I am even more excited about Unhappy King Charles now that I have heard the inside information and also felt your passion and energy for the subject. I do think that they aesthetic upgrades to the art and components are really nice and are sure to make a great play experience even better!
If you are interested in Unhappy King Charles, you can pre-order a copy for €52.00 ($56.94) from the PHALANX website at the following link: https://phalanx.co.uk/unhappy-king-charles-returns-pre-order-your-copy-now/
-Grant
