Venezuela: Brian Train's Caudillo Part II

In Part I I described the game's general course of play and the group cards that allow players to define their factions. This post will discuss the crisis cards, which drive the game.

If you are interested, Brian Train has made Caudillo available in .pdf format. Brian has made it clear that he never intended Caudillo to be a non-fictional simulation but his game provides a solid framework upon which to build a simulation of current events.

Crisis Resolution

During play, players generate resources based upon their control of groups while facing a random number of new crises. When confronting crises and making resource allocation decisions players must perform a balancing act by expending scarce resources to:

Increase their control over groups.

Decrease the control players have over other groups.

Contribute to resolving crises thereby gaining victory points.

If players decide (by not allocating enough resources) to not resolve a crisis in a turn it will cause "inflation".  During the Inflation Loss Segment, players lose resources and the number of victory points awarded during Scoring Rounds are reduced. If enough crises remain unresolved, hyperinflation sets in (i.e. inflation rates for force, influence and money exceed a certain limit) and the society and economy of fictional Virtualia collapses. All players suffer a major loss.

Crisis Cards

Crises can be economic, social or symbolic and each crisis takes a combination of different resources to resolve.  When viewing the crisis cards the row of boxes gives the number of resources required to resolve (Force, Influence, Money).

There is an option rule for Chronic Crises. If a chronic crisis is resolved the card returns to the play deck to be seen again by the players.

Below I have posted one of the crisis card sheets and have annotated how many resource points each side in the current "scenario" has allocated to the crisis. Please keep in mind that a turn in game turns is abstract and does not account for a specific period of time.

 For purposes of this scenario, the current turn ends once the Foreign Pressure and Food Supply crises are resolved. Resolution can mean the Maduro Regime is still in power in 2020 or that the continued humanitarian aid stand off results in an external intervention (game over, VPs calculated and a war game, rule set TBD, is set up).

Red = Maduro Regime.
Orange = Maduro Allies (e.g. Cuba, Russia, China)
Blue = National Assembly
Green = U.S.A and Allies

Foreign Pressure:

This is the main issue we see in the news with the U.S. embargo and humanitarian aid standoff.  Each player has devoted resources to address this, the crisis will soon be resolved and the U.S.A. player will gain the most victory points as they have allocated the most resources to this issue (1 influence and 3 economic). 

Inflation:

Only minimal resources devoted to this crisis. One reason I judge it this way is that I believe many factions benefit from inflation.  This has been hurting all players for a long time but, for now, they are happy to let this continue.

Food Supply:

This represents the Maduro regime's attempts to subsidize food and find innovative ways to keep the supply lines open (e.g. Turkish pasta) and the current humanitarian aid standoff. This crisis will also be resolved this turn with the Maduro player gaining most of the victory points (3) while the US and National Assembly get some credit (1 VP).

Public & Private Sectors Unemployment & Corruption: 

Private sector corruption has been squashed for now by the Maduro player though this crisis will return.  The biggest factor is the Maduro regime's monopoly of force (i.e. control of all of the force generating Group Cards). 

Even though the Maduro player is the most powerful in this scenario, they do not have enough resources to solve the Public Sector Unemployment issue, which strikes at the heart of their power base.

Crime:

I'll be a cynic here and have all players decide this crisis benefits their faction.  Three players pay lip service to the issue but allocate most of their resources elsewhere.

On the next page, the border incident reported on this blog yesterday makes it into the scenario.

This Crisis Card on a border incident was too good to pass up.  Here is the news report.

I'm judging this crisis as one that caught the Maduro Regime unawares due to overzealous local army units.  The crisis was quickly resolved and the Maduro player will earn the most victory points but suffer a net loss as they had to allocate six resources points to end.  The four force points are spent and scare influence and money points do not show a good return on investment. 

Meanwhile, the U.S.A. and Allies player only had to spend 1 force point (i.e. a phone call by the Colombian President with spoken or unspoken threat of force) and one influence point, sorely needed in the humanitarian aid and economic embargo crises but allowing 2 VPs at the end of the turn.

Crises Mods 

I mentioned that the players in this scenario are fine with the crime crisis.  I do believe there is room to mod crisis simulation by allowing some players to benefit from a crisis, while keeping the risk that a player trying to game a crisis to his or her advantage may be making a mistake. 

An example is the Cuban playbook of encouraging those most likely to be against the regime to emigrate. In this scenario, a refugee crisis will benefit the Maduro player and hurt the National Assembly player (less supporters) and U.S. and Allied player (mandatory resource allocation without hope of gaining VPs).  The risk for the Maduro player is pushing the U.S.A and Allies player over the edge and prompting a forceful intervention.