From: RayFreeman@AOL.COM Subject: Hearts and Minds (Vietnam 1965-1970) [long] Dave Kohr said: <<>> Here's a (long) bit about the game: Back in the late 80's I developed an interest in designing a low complexity strategic level game on Vietnam. I did a little book research and also checked out the games Dien Bien Phu by Flying Buffalo, The Fall of South Vietnam by Yaquinto, The First Team (Wargamer Magazine, I think) and Vietnam by Victory Games. The basic idea was to come up with an area movement based board, encompassing the period during which American combat troops were committed on the ground, and have some "political" elements which would affect the military engine, but still be primarily a wargame. To my knowledge, a low complexity strategic level game on Vietnam during the period covered by "Hearts and Minds" (1965-1970) has not been done. The heart of the game is recruitment of forces by the South Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong based on control of areas (similar, but probably not exactly equivalent to provinces). To recruit, one must have the "Hearts and Minds" of the population of the provinces of South Vietnam. The population (as in real life) tended to "support" whichever side was able to offer them security. This support is modelled in the system by the ability to recruit units to your army (ARVN or VC). The communist forces are required by the rules system to avoid battle in favor of recruitment, and to avoid battle unless the odds are favorable. However, when the combat odds are favorable, he is usually required to attack. Mobility is very low, as forces in an area primarily represent units assigned to "garrison" the province, or perhaps engage in an offensive operation, rather than large mobile formations. Of course the US tactical air and airmobile units are considerably more mobile, but are somewhat tied to the major bases in SVN such as Nha Trang, Da Nang, and Can Tho. The premise is that the Allies must build up the ARVN forces and their recruiting base and repress the VC/NVA and the VC recruiting base sufficiently for the ARVN to hold South Vietnam once the US withdraws its forces beginning in mid 1969. For the sake of simplicity, the US and NVA reinforcement and withdrawal schedules are fixed. The board is roughly 18 inches by 30 inches, has 47 "provinces" in SVN, 7 sections of the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and Cambodia, a small part of North Vietnam (one area) and six sea zones. There are six distinct types of "terrain" in SVN, each of which has a unique combination of characteristics for ARVN and VC recruiting, VC ambushes, or movement limitations. There are 10 major bases in SVN, where US and Allied reinforcements and replacements enter play and from which US tactical air and airmobile units must operate. The US also has strategic air and naval units. All combatants have armies, the basic unit of the game, with the VC and ARVN armies being slightly weaker than the other nationalities. At the moment there are about 240 1/2 inch counters. I don't anticipate needing more. The counters are generic rather than listing specific historical units. Although that could be done, it isn't necessary to the system. The game started off as a solitaire excercise for my own amusement, and was intended to be strictly a solitaire game for many years, with the "system" playing the communist side. In July 1997 I finally got around to writing a first draft of some two player rules, although the nature of the system does not allow the communist player a great deal of flexibility in determining when to fight or not, but he can often decide where. The two player rules are 9 pages long, the solitaire version 13 pages, mainly due to the very detailed VC/NVA movement algorithms. There are also two pages with 3 charts and tables each (for both versions: Unit Characteristics Table, Time Record Chart, and Terrain Effects Table) (for solitaire only: Trail Movement Table, Odds Limit Table, VC/NVA Withdrawal Table) and two pages of Random Events to shake things up a bit. The sequence of play is pretty standard Igo-Hugo stuff; place US and FWA reinforcements and replacements, ARVN replacements and recruiting, move Allied ground and naval forces, move VC and NVA forces, move US tac air, airmobile and strategic air units, check random events, resolve combat, resolve VC ambushes, place NVA replacements and reinforcements, VC replacements and recruiting, reset. The game runs 18 turns, each representing 4 months of time. Successful play for the allied side involves constantly enticing the communists into battle at not too unfavorable odds so that your mobile reaction forces can tip the scales in your favor. Playing too conservatively will result in a huge VC buildup which can not be overcome, while playing too aggressively will result in your forces being bled white in battle while your rear area troops are carved up by ambushes. Some other political elements come in via the random event phase which accounts for some special circumstances like a foreign crisis, the Tet offensive, and possibilities like Khe Sanh, as well as a host of other, less significant occurences. However, the game really isn't any more political than Diplomacy would be if played between 2 players. Neither the US, nor the NVA have any control over their reinforcement (or in the US case withdrawal) rates. I'm not going to make any earthshaking claims about the design, and lovers of VGs Vietnam may well find HaM overly simplified for their tastes, but I think it will fill a relatively empty niche in the hobby. Hearts and Minds made its debut at Pacificon on Sunday. I played a few turns as the communist side against my friend Jack Gin. Unfortunately, Jack, as usual, once again decided to prove that he can't roll dice worth a damn and managed to recruit only 1 unit to the ARVN army on turn 2, despite making about 18 recruiting DRs (which should have generated 6 units). This, and some early conservative play (it's hard to be aggressive when your army is weak), put him very much on the wrong side of the bell curve and soon the red menace was looking formidable indeed. In fact, I was doing a lot of damage in the battles we did fight, although losing most of them. However, Jack's airmobile assets were getting chewed up at an alarming rate and he lost one of his tactical air formations to a European Crisis random event, which certainly wasn't helpful. His B-52 arclight missions were devastating however. He seemed to rarely miss with the big bombers. We called the game after 7 turns so we could do the flea market. This has gotten a bit long, so I'll wrap it up by saying I'm not yet decided whether to DTP the game or peddle it to a publisher. I suppose the latter is preferable due to greater exposure, and the DTP rout is pretty darn time intensive.