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This is the new home of the PostModern Variant. First off, thanks go to Vince Mous for not only allowing me to create a variant based on his great Modern variant (and in using it's name in the title), but in helping with the design. He's a first-class variant designer, and I learned a lot from him. Also, thanks to my good buddy Philip Kimpton for hosting the PostModern site for me. With these pages up, I can do much more with these pages. Future plans include strategy pages for each variant, starting with Europe. A little history first...
PostModern started when I was browsing the Modern pages. One thing caught my eye, though, and the creative process started.
"Iran would have qualified as a 4 supply center power, but
this would have made it necessary to extend the map into Asia, so it was
not done."
I didn't feel that extending the map into Asia was all that necessary,
as there were potential areas of growth into Central Asia (aka Kazakhstan),
Middle East and the Caucasus. Further research led to the discovery
that under Vince's guideines for Major Power status that Algeria would
qualify (and later would find out Sudan, Ethiopia and Morocco would too,
but left those for the Africa variant). Then the fun began...
Eventually it led to an extension of Africa to as far south as the Gulf
of Guinea, and Nigeria was also added as a power (with a population of
125 million and rich oil reserves, it easily qualifies). That gave
us 13, and a map extension made it more than a simple update of Modern
(much like extending the Modern map south and east made it more than a
simple update of Vanilla Dip). The trick then was to balance
it. Much reworking was done especially in Africa and around Iran
to allow it a chance to break past the bottlenecks (and it has 4 to face...),
but with it's corner position and 4 home centers it's a well balanced power.
Russia and France were slightly changed, Russia becoming more of a southern
power with no center for Gorky, but one now in Astrakhan, on the caspian
sea. Paris' borders were moved north to border Belgium, strengthening
them. Britain lost the SC in Gibraltar, but gained one in Belfast,
making it more of a Northern power, and abel to compete on a more even
keel with Germany. Spain now had Algeria as a neighbour, and Gibraltar
was kept as a neutral SC, giving Spain two free builds. Algeria would
turn out to be extremely weak in the original map, but corrections were
made to give Algeria a fighting chance, and I now feel that Algeria can
stand on it's own two feet. The only other worry I had was Poland.
With 11 more centers required for a victory than in Modern, Poland was
hard pressed, as reaching 33 was hard enough. Wings were then added,
giving Poland a better chance to gain centers in the Atlantic (past the
Baltic) as well as further south, as Poland could now reach such key spaces
such as the Black Sea, Caspian Sea and Adriatic Sea, breaking the bottlenecks
that exist in those areas. It also gives other powers which may otherwise
be easily bottled up (such as Nigeria and Iran) to break out in the Mid-game.
PostModern:
Africa was done the same way. The inspiration was originally
Thundar's Africa map, which was used a template, so my thanks go out to
him. I searched through the CIA World factbook for my info regarding
population, etc. I used the same scale that Vince used for Modern
(population 30 million gets a power 3 home SC's, 55 million for 4, etc.).
That gave me 14 countries total: 10 in Africa, 2 in Europe
(Spain and Italy) and 2 in the Mid-East (Turkey and Iran). France
was a possibility, but there would be a severe lack of neutrals, and 14
is definitely enough! The first play test is now underway, and already
I've found several areas that need major correction, mostly in the northwest
(Spain and Morocco). A newer version of the map is available here,
as is the original.
Next on the slate is PostModern: Americas, a 10 power affair covering
North, South and Central America. It uses the same population scale
used in Modern and the other PostModern variants, with two exception:
Quebec and Cuba. I liked the idea of Cuba as a power, due to it's
'thorn in the side' attitude towards the USA (I got that expression off
the Empire page, another great variant designed by Vince Mous), as well
as giving the game an Island power (which Africa lacked, unfortunately).
Quebec doesn't have near enough population to qualify normally, but the
seperatist movement is still strong, and keeping it a part of Canada would
have caused several problem (a huge border with only one neighbour being
the main problem). Otherwise, the same scale was used, giving 5 South
American Powers (Brazil, Columbia, Peru, Argentina and Venezuela) and 5
North American powers (USA, Canada, Quebec, Cuba and Mexico). The
map isn't complete yet, but when it is, you can find it here.
Wing units will also be used in all PostModern games. The following
description is from the Modern page.
A new type of unit was originally planned for Modern. If you are
not playing on the judge, you might want to try playing with wings - a
military
term denoting a group of squadrons of planes, similar in size to
a fleet or an army.
Wing Rules
1.A wing unit can move over both land and water spaces
2.A wing unit can support actions in any space adjacent
to the one it occupies.
3.A wing can give, receive and cut support in the same
way as armies and fleets.
4.A wing unit cannot convoy or be convoyed.
5.A wing unit cannot capture an SC, but instead blockades
it:
1.A blockade occurs when
a wing unit occupies the SC of another player in a fall season.
2.The player who owns
a blockaded SC does not get to count it when counting his total number
of SCs.
3.A blockade ends as
soon as the wing unit no longer occupies the SC.
4.Builds only take place
in the winter phase, just as in games without wings.
