Now, at long last, GMT is about to ship Washington's War, an update of We the People by its designer, Mark Herman. I pre-ordered it, and they just emailed me that my credit card was being charged and that the game would soon ship.
I'm going to make a confession that is going to surprise and/or annoy some people: while GMT is a very well respected game company, I tend to dislike their games because I find them over-long and over-complex. Even Commands & Colors: Ancients, one of my favorite games, wasn't a game I liked right away; I found that so many special rules had been tacked onto the Commands & Colors system that it was tough to get used to. After quite a few plays and doing some very thorough summary charts, I found I really liked the game, but it certainly wasn't love at first sight. So, in general, I tend to view GMT games with suspicion.
So, when I heard that We the People was being reworked, my first thought was "ugh, they're probably going to stick all sorts of chrome on the game so that it becomes a long ponderous thing". But, I was re-assured by the designer's remarks:
"Washington’s War is not just a re-tread of my earlier design on the same subject, but a true re-design that is keeping the basic feel while simplifying and speeding up what was already a fast paced game."
Ooo, "simplifying" and "speeding up". Two phrases that the Casual Wargamer wants to hear. I hate to use the overly-used phrase "elegant" used in Euro games, but "elegant" is what we want.
