Lincoln is a fast-paced, light, two-player, card-driven strategic level board-wargame set in the American Civil War that allows you to re-fight the entire American Civil War in under two hours.
Game play uses point-to-point movement and area control, hidden army strengths, and decks of cards providing the command choices and luck; there are no dice. The Union and Confederate players each have their own card decks, reflecting the relative strengths and weaknesses of both sides. The Union player must do all the running to win the game by the time they have cycled through the Union card deck for the third time, having accumulated the required amount of victory points by capturing Confederate controlled areas, as well as squeezing the Confederate player with a naval blockade. The Confederate player must hold on and thwart the North's victory ambitions to win!
Each time the decks are cycled, the Union player adds some better quality cards, becoming stronger as the game progresses, where as the Confederate player adds lower quality cards, becoming weaker. The underlying game mechanism is one of "deck destruction" rather than the more normal deck-building.
Cards have multiple uses and can be recycled if used one way but during the course of the game you have to decide which cards are going to be permanently sacrificed from your deck cycle to allow you to build units.
- well-regarded for its historical flavor and approachable rules
- educational on Civil War political dynamics
- some players find it less accessible than lighter gatekeepers
- political maneuvering, leadership and strategic decisions
- American Civil War era
- historical narrative through card-driven play
- Gettysburg
- Fort Sumter
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- card_driven — cards drive actions and district control decisions
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- the number one game on BGG was Twilight Struggle
- 13 Days which is based on the Cuban Missile Crisis and it's like a trimmed down version of Twilight Struggle
- Memoir 44 is a classic one to get into
- Watergate… very easy to learn