Let's Play Labyrinth: The War on Terror (solitaire)

[Umbrella]

I did one of these with the board game Navajo Wars, which drew some interest until my wife's cat walked across the board and ruined the game. I'm going to do a new one with Labyrinth: The War on Terror. I'll use a vassal board for two reasons. 1) Avoid the cat fiasco, and 2) take screenshots of the board to post.

I'll go into some details as I go along, but the main jist of the game is that the solitaire player is playing as the US, and trying to defeat the Jihadist AI player. The AI is determined from a complicated series of flowcharts, which I won't be going into great detail. I'll be starting from the "Let's Roll!" start point, which historically is the world immediately after 9/11.

The game is a card driven game, with US and Jihad events, and/or operation points (ops). If you've played Twilight Struggle, you should be familiar with this mechanic. If the US plays a card with a Jihad event, that event must occur. So there will be times when tough decisions will need to be made.

The things the US can do on their turn are War of Ideas, Disrupt, Alert, Deploy, Regime Change, Withdraw, and Reassessment. I'll go into more detail as these happen, but the general ideas are as follows:
War of Ideas - Interactions with other countries to become more US friendly.
Disrupt - Remove Jihad cells from the map.
Alert - Prevent terrorist plots from happening.
Deploy - Move troops around the world.
Regime Change - Overthrow an Islamic government.
Withdraw - A special way of withdrawing troops.
Reassessment - Changing domestic policies toward terrorism (US posture, see below).

The Jihad player can perform the following actions:
Recruit - Place cells on the map.
Travel - Move cells around the world.
Plot - Initiate a terrorist plot.
Jihad - AKA Minor Jihad. Worsen governance in a Muslim country.
Major Jihad - Overthrow government and establish Islamic rule in a Muslim country.

In addition, in solitaire play, there is an event called radicalization, which has special rules.

The US player wins automatically if they can get 12 resources at good governance, or 15 countries at fair or good governance. Jihad player wins if they get 6 resources at Islamic rule, or 15 countries at poor or Islamic rule with US prestige of 1, or they have a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) plot go off in the US. In addition, when the cards run out, for the US to win, they need to have 12 resources. I'll use three decks for this game. Each Muslim country has a resource value of 1-3, which is how resources are determined for victory conditions.

A couple of other things about countries. Countries are identified as either Muslim or non-Muslim (except Iran, which is a special case). For Muslim countries, they have governance and relation. Governance can be good, fair, poor, or Islamic Rule. These are in order from best to worst from a US perspective. Relation can either be ally, neutral, or adversary. You can deploy troops to ally countries, and you cannot perform War of Ideas on adversaries.

Non-Muslim countries have something known as posture instead of relations. This can either be soft or hard, and represents their attitudes towards terrorism. As a note, Israel is always at hard posture. Every other country, including the US, can be either. Non-Muslim countries also have a fixed governance. Most of them are fixed at good, although there are a couple that are fair.

Some other important concepts are prestige, funding, troop situation, and GWOT (global war on terror). Prestige is how the US is viewed across the world, and affects War of Ideas. Funding is Jihad funding, and affects recruitment, and the amount of cards the jihadist gets. Troop situation is how many troops the US has all over the world, and affects the amount of cards the US gets. And finally GWOT is the worldwide posture towards terrorists. If this differs from US posture, there are penalties towards War of Ideas. In general the world shifts towards soft, while the US tends to be hard.

This is a very broad overview. I'll explain things in more detail as they come up during the game. I'm a novice at this game, so I'm sure I will make some mistakes regarding the flowcharts, as well as strategy mistakes, since I don't know the game very well. Also, if anyone has any questions about rules, or comments about strategy, I'll do my best to explain.

[Umbrella]

Here's the starting board.



The black cylinders are the jihadist cells, while the beige blocks are US troops. For the cells, they will have a crescent/star icon on top if they are active. You can see that these don't have that icon, so they are sleeper cells in Afghanistan.

Also, you can see the various tracks indicating prestige, GWOT, victory, funding, and the troops. The countries with skulls indicate the potential presence of WMD's, and the oil derrick icons indicate oil producing countries. The white lines between countries indicate adjacency. The EU countries are all considered adjacent to each other, and Muslim countries adjacent to the EU circular icon are adjacent to all EU countries. The resource value is in the upper left corner of Muslim countries.

The game starts with only Afghanistan under Islamic Rule (IR). IR countries are bad for us for a number of reasons, so that will need to be addressed sooner rather than later. Also note that Somalia has a besieged leader chit on it. This means it is more susceptible to major jihads.

[Umbrella]

Nine cards are dealt to both players. My hand is Kashmir, Lashkir-e-Tayyiba, Al-Azhar, Iran, Taliban, Predator, Al-Ittihad al-Islami, Hijab, and Jemaah Islamiya. Five Jihad cards, three US cards, one neutral card. Not the best hand, but not the worst. I want to try and turn Gulf States good before receiving penalty. Then do a Regime Change in Afghanistan before IR cards played with penalties. I would like to play Al-Azhar for the event.

The format I will use is player and card (J4 is the Jihadist fourth card), followed by the ops, the card alignment, and whether or not it is playable. Then the results, and any commentary. Also, I think I will add a little flavor about the cards, to make this an educational experience as well.

J1: Uyghur Jihad (1 op, J playable) – The US designates the East Turkestan Islamic Movement as a terrorist group. They are an ethnic Uyghur group seeking independence and Islamic rule in western China. Beijing has accused them of killing a Chinese diplomat. China goes soft, and a cell is placed in China. The GWOT is now at 0, and I am close to getting a penalty.

J2: Special Forces (1op, US unplayable) – The jihadists use the Uyghur Jihad to try and recruit more cells in China, but they are unsuccessful. This has not been a bad start for the US.

US1: Iran (2 op, N playable) – I choose to use this card to attempt a War of Ideas (WoI) in Gulf States before any penalties kick in. I successfully roll, and Gulf States in now under Good governance. My resources move to 3. So far, this is about the best start I could hope for.

US2: Kashmir (3 ops, J playable) – This is not a great card, but I need 3 ops to do a regime change, so this will have to do. I perform a regime change in Afghanistan, making it a poor ally. The US invasion of Afghanistan is not looked upon kindly by the rest of the world. My prestige drops 4 all the way down to 3, which is extremely unfortunate. All of the cells in Afghanistan are now active. Meanwhile, the Indian-occupied Kashmir is showing support for Islamic militancy. Pakistan has now become an adversary, and a cell is placed in Pakistan. I must keep an eye on this, as I don’t want the Jihadist to gain access to Pakistan’s WMD’s.

J3: Detainee Release (2 ops, J unplayable) – The Jihadist perform a minor jihad in Pakistan, which is successful. Governance in Pakistan drops to poor. In addition, a sleeper cell is known to be in Saudi Arabia, due to radicalization. Pakistan went to a bad situation in a hurry.

[Umbrella]

J4: Saleh (3 ops, N playable) – The US is still upset about the investigation of the bombing of the USS Cole in a Yemeni port. They press Yemeni president Ali Abdallah Saleh to join the war on terror. Saleh initially agrees, but strong Islamic factions and anti-US sentiment shows waning support for Saleh. Yemen becomes a fair adversary, with a besieged leader. Additionally, the jihadist recruits two more cells to Saudi Arabia.

US3: Al-Azhar (2 ops, US playable) – I play this for the event. Al Azhar university in Cairo broadly condemns 9/11, terror attacks in Iran, and the use of mosques to preach violence. Egypt is now a fair neutral country, and jihadist funding drops down to 5. This will hurt further recruiting efforts.

US4: Al-Ittihad Al-Islami (1 op, J playable) – AIAI is one of the most important currents of militant Islamism in Somalia. As a result, Somalia gains a cell, and is poor neutral. For the ops, I place them in reserves. I haven’t mentioned this, so I will explain. If you want, you can use a card and save the ops in reserve. You can save up to two points this way. However, when you use them, you must use them all at once. I don’t have a lot of 3 ops cards, so I am banking this point for later use. Also, with the placement of that cell, because of their funding, they can no longer recruit new cells.

J5: Danish Cartoons (1 op, N playable) – A Danish newspaper prints a series of satirical cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. Violent Muslim protests ensue. As a result, Scandinavia turns hard, and a plot is hatched in Scandinavia. I cannot have this plot fire, as I want their funding to stay low, and the GWOT is a concern. For the ops, the cell in China attempts to travel to Afghanistan, and is unsuccessful.

J6: Predator (2 ops, US playable) – The Jihadist decides to plot in both Somalia, and Pakistan. Both plots are successful. There are now three plots on the board, and I only have the ability to react to two of them, so one will fire.

US5: Hijab (3 ops, US playable) – I use this card to alert the plot in Scandinavia, as that one will do the most damage to me.

US6: Predator (2 ops, US playable) – This is where reserves come in handy. Alerting plots require 3 ops. I can use this 2 op card, along with my 1 op in reserves, and alert the plot in Pakistan. Unfortunately, the plot in Somalia fires. This results in funding increasing to 6. I was debating using the ops to try and disrupt the cells in Afghanistan, but decided it was more important to keep funding at moderate.

[Umbrella]

J7: Clean Operatives (3 ops, J playable) – The jihadist is able to get through the new screening system implemented by the FAA. This results in two cells in the USA. This is obviously not desirable.

J8: Martyrdom Operation (3 ops, J playable) – A jihadist cell in the US decides to fight against the US to become a martyr. As a result, the cell is removed, and two plots are placed in the US. These cards back-to-back are devastating, as I only have one 3 ops card to respond, and it is a Jihadist card. A terrorist plot will fire in the US, and that is very bad news.

US7: Taliban (3 ops, J playable) - I have decided that two plots firing in the US aren’t that much worse than one. If they had WMD’s, I would be forced to respond, but they don’t yet. Therefore I will use the ops on this card to disrupt cells in Afghanistan. Two cells are removed, but both are available for recruiting. Disrupting in a country where you have troops increases prestige, so I am now at 4. I am sure the plots in the US will take care of this, though. Meanwhile, the Taliban still has support after the invasion of Afghanistan. Both Afghanistan and Pakistan gain a cell, and the prestige drops down to 3. Also, Afghanistan is now a besieged leader. The situation there is very precarious.

US8: Jemaah Islamiya (2 ops, J playable) – JI is an Islamic extremist group out of Indonesia seeking to establish a caliphate over Southeast Asia’s Muslim populations. You may remember the bombing of the Jakarta hotel. This was the group responsible. Two cells are placed in Indonesia, and it is a fair governance. For the ops, I need to address the cells in the US, so I disrupt there. The remaining sleeper cell becomes active. Both plots are now firing in the US. The first brings funding all the way up to 9, while bringing prestige down to 1. US posture remains hard. The second plot cannot increase funding any higher, but the US posture switches to soft. I now have a GWOT penalty, as the world is still hard. Surprisingly, our prestige does increase to 2. This was a seriously bad turn of events.

J9: Zarqawi (2 ops, N unplayable) – The Jihadist cells in Indonesia perform a minor jihad. They are successful, and Indonesia governance is now poor.

US9: Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (2 ops, J playable) – When the US is only holding one card, they have the option to play it, hold it, or discard it. This event is one I would rather not deal with, so I discard it.

The turn has ended, so funding decreases to 8. The good news is that I already have one country at good governance, and no countries are IR. The bad news is my prestige is awful, I am taking a GWOT penalty, Afghanistan is a mess, cells are in Saudi Arabia, and Somalia, Afghansitan, and Yemen are all serious candidates for a major Jihad. This biggest things I need to do next turn are clean up Afghanistan, and figure out whether I want to keep US posture at soft.

The board at the end of turn 1:

[Brian Swartz]

Very interesting!