Which of these monsters are you ready to break out this Christmas? Do you know nine other people who you'd run to run through North Africa with? What the heck am I gonna cover now? Let me know below and check out the Patreon to support more of this wack crap! www.patreon.com/KamSandwich
Hearing that the famous pasta point was in fact MADE UP has shooken me to my core. Almost as if I became disorganized following not receiving water to cook my pasta in.
Just cook it in the sauce, you'll be fine. I imagine a weary Italian sergeant saying something along those lines when the issue first came up in reality.
"Call your loved ones to let them know you're still alive" being an ACTUAL phrase in a game's instruction manual is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life.
Campaign for North Africa is more complicated than running the actual campaign for North Africa. At least there the weather can figure itself out on its own
At least commanders have people in charge of assigning food and rations and fuel. And mechanics fixing planes they didn’t have to look after every individual plane and pilot
"Passion project", where in the christian definition, "passion" means "nailing something you love to a stick and watching it die a painful and protracted death"
"This is not a Board Game. This is not a War Game. This is The Campaign For North Africa: The Desert War 1940-43, and it stands alone before a mountain of its vanquished foes as a monolith."
I'm pretty sure if you become the first documented person in history to win the Campaign for North Africa you'd be contacted by your country's military to become a general on the spot
it’s a shame Mr Berg himself isn’t still with us. I feel like if he had caught wind in his lifetime of someone ever actually finishing the game he would contact them personally to….. idk thank them? reward them? beat them to death with his bare hands?
Well, they were playing it for 10+ hours a day, every day of the week, for three years. No wonder the Commonwealth went through Seven commanders, and the Axis, 12.
I know you said it as a joke, but I have a funny story for you! I used to occasionally attend my city's biggest board game club. They met once a week, generally for 8-12 hours depending. For the longest time after I started going, there was a game of Campaign for North Africa set up in the back, but I never saw anyone playing it, so I eventually asked the organizer what was up with it. It had been there for approximately 6 months before I started to attend, and was left as a monument to the 2 older gentlemen that had started playing it over a year before that, because, as it turned out, one of them did actually win! How did he win, you ask? The other gentlemen DIED OF A HEART ATTACK before they could finish their game. So yeah, that seems to be the actual, only way to complete a game of this monstrosity.
Bird one moment "I will add things with no gameplay purpose for the sake of historical accuracy" Bird the next moment " The Italian they cooka da pasta"
This is actually based on real history, Italian rations were terrible and soldiers in North Africa often didn't have the precious water for their pasta rations, look it up.
@@billybob6256 Actually the main issue wasnt water for the pasta, but as the portable stoves were wood heated, wood had to be imported as it is even more scarce in the desert than water
@@billybob6256Have you even watched the video? Berg said in an interview his research actually revealed Italians had no issues cooking because they used tomato sauce which came packaged with the pasta. He just was too tired at that point to implement some weird tomato sauce mechanic and added the PP as a bandaid.
having a 100 hour war game be playable solo is actually an genious idea. it perfectly covers for when ou have nobody around to commit 100 hours of time long term.
"One way or another, you will die. Whether that be today, six months, or ten years from now. All that will change is how much you suffer beforehand." "Now, move your piece."
The Campaign for North Africa isn't a game meant to be played. It's performance art, and nobody will convince me otherwise. It would also be performance art to finish it.
Campaign for North Africa needs an electronic edition. Letting the computer handle the movement calculations would probably shave at least 50% off the playtime.
Because it wasn't specifically mentioned, I want to mention 27.65 from the rulebook for Campaign for North Africa, which gives you a bonus to your dice roll for a raid on Rommel if you are related to Alistar McLean, Richard Burton, Franchot Tone, or Jack Higgins. The table for the raid on Rommel does not account for this in any way.
Dear god it’s actually true. [27.65] If the Commonwealth Player is related to Alistair McLean, Richard Burton, Franchot Tone, or Jack Higgins he adds one to his diceroll. If the Axis Player is an intimate friend of Erich von Stroheim or James Mason, well, that’s nice.
My favourite rule in CNA, is the air transport restrictions: [42.37] Only infantry (without trucks), motorcycle infantry/recce units, and airborne units may be transported by air. Exception: dead camels may be transported by air. Live camels may not be transported by air
There is a Japanese variant of chess called Shogi that itself has several variants that were historically played. The largest known version was from the 16th century, which had a 36x36 board and had each player control 402 pieces, among which there were 207 piece types. The game was of course completely absurd to play, taking absolute ages and requiring memorizing a ton of pieces. However, it wasn't really meant to be a contest of skill; rather, it and other enormous Shogi variants were made either as meditation devices or as sort of pieces of art used to illustrate huge mythological battles. In a way, it's very similar to North Africa; both are completely awful experiences as games, but still manage to illustrate what they are trying to get across masterfully.
3:00 And here I thought that KamSandwich was about to piss on the moon. Especially since that boxart of World in Flames looks like two balls and a bong (all points, no quills, too)
No jokes, but i totally, totally someone at Paradox Interactive saying "Yes, North Africa will be our next big hit adaptation". They already did it with Europa Universalis.
When you described the submarine game having you grind out miniscule advantages that will only show months later I immediately began itching to play it and I'm glad you recognize that impulse in yourself as well. It's like an idle game, isn't it?
I heard less than 1% of the total rulebook for CNA in this video, and I still felt overwhelmed to the point where i had to pause the video, how an entire group of people could sit down and “””play””” that game is beyond me
12:10 I'll be honest, i genuinely had never seen the box of the game from that angle before, and my initial astonishment for how thick it is has given way to admiration that something so long could fit in a package so small.
Whenever I get a board game, that very same day I open it, read the manual and play a 2 handed game to learn the rules, then start promoting it to my friends so we can play it. When I got World in Flames I unfolded the map, placed it on the floor (I had to place my feet over another chair to make room for it), read the manual, then put everything back in the box, situated said box bellow a pile of other war games and avoided to talk about that game ever again. Box hasn't been opened since then.
Richard Berg would be well within his rights to be confident in his "bullshit", CNA aside he was a pioneering designer of historical wargaming with an extensive catalog of hit games under his belt.
I really really want someone to convert Campaign for North Africa into a PC game before it's too expensive. Like, get all the papers and chips scanned, slowly comb through the rule book and convert it all to code, all that. Exact 1-1 of the original, except all the counting and math can be automated. It'll stick take ages to play, but that might make it doable and at least then it's testable
You could probably do that using VASSAL, but considering how much of the game is broken/unplayable you're better off playing any other North Africa wargame.
Having hung out with hardcore wargamers in the past, I can say that the designer of CNA was 100% mocking players who are obsessed with making things "more historically accurate," even if the game itself suffers.
You know as insane as CNA is I appreciate it a little how self aware it is. It had a clear goal of being informational and I think it nailed it. It's probably the closest I have seen a board game that could be considered genuine art.
I haven't actually played it, but I did open the box, and can confirm the maps are absolutely massive. A sticker on the back advertising it being the 4th edition of the game does call it "the hottest selling wargame for the last three years" (this version appears to be dated to 1988 and picked up 2 more awards in the meantime, including Fire & Movement's 1986 Game of the Year award). So it seems to at least be a decent enough game, although the box isn't doing it any favors by advertising the complexity as "moderate" (if this is merely moderate, I don't want to know what these guys think is more complex, as it's probably just TCFNA: TDW levels). Edit: I just noticed one more phrase on the box. "Proudly made in Australia by the makers of EMPIRES IN ARMS". Yep, the first two games in this video were both designed by the same team (Australian Design Group)
A youtuber named Valefisk has been teasing CNA for a long while. Given his normal content I would assume he would have converted it (or found a steamwork shop mod) for TableTop simulator.
No, I think you hit the nail on the head with putting World In Flames on the floor. Who needs a gaming group when you can be training a platoon of ants on the optimal method to defeat the Axis Powers?
Just hearing about the CNA is mind boggling, I can't even imagine going though the rules. Tying to conceptualize playing the game is some Eldrich horror level stuff.
The signoff for this episode is very fitting bc as someone with a passing interest in postmodern and conceptual art I genuinely think CNA would fit right in with that genre. It's a work being produced not for the traditional considerations of the field (aesthetic beauty for art, engaging play experiences for games) but to see just how far you can push the medium before it breaks. Outstanding.
You'd be surprised how often Wargames and even more Euro-oriented Historical Games have Works Cited pages or ones with extra steps. My favorite excerpt is one from Mark Herman's Empire of the Sun: "I have literally hundreds of books on the Pacific War and a bibliography of my entire collection would take more space here than it is worth. I offer a few works that I feel I used more than others for this game and that you may want to consult if you are interested in reading up on this topic." In this case "a few" meaning sixteen different sources.
The funny thing about CNA is that the core gameplay is actually pretty similar to Hearts of Iron, but the latter has the benefit of having a computer do all the calculations.
it is kinda funny when theres a war game based on a campain thats longer than the thing its based on with out factoring in the ineviable needing to recalculate an long calculation step to double check. to recreate that if north africa gets a video game form, it should have a manual mode where every calculation + dice roll is done manually in an excell spread sheet.
Richard really making a point to piss off train fans, "Yeah I'm going to make an war game that manages every aspect of war in excruciating detail except railroads because screw 'em they didn't do shit in the war."
Learnt about the North African Campaign from a good friend of mine who is a few decades older than me. He told me how long it was, but he never mentioned ever finishing it.
It would speed up the math but the scale of what players would be commanding means that things would still take forever. Multi-hour turns as players decided what to do with thousands of pieces would still happen.
I am gonna be in mourning over the Pasta Point fiction for at least the next two months. Nonetheless, I want no living person's autograph more than I want Richard Berg's. Certified Legend indeed!!!!!!!
This channel inspired me to design my own boardgame, about leading humanity after Earth's destruction with your colony being one of the last remnants of human civilisation (other remnants controlled by other players). What makes this unique from other, similiar board games? Three things. 1. Each turn represents 10 years (I put 500 turn limit to avoid having to make rules for evolution of human species, so in total you'll lead your civilisation for 5000 years). Based on my predictions, with a full team of 6 players, it'll take about 5 minutes to finish a single turn at the start, quickly escalating to 15-20 minutes per turn, but during lategame a single turn will take up to an hour (with most turns still around 30-45 minutes). So if no player reaches their victory condition by turn 500 (Luckily an unlikely event), total playtime will be around 300 hours. But it's likely someone's gonna achieve victory by turn 200, earlier with good luck, so an average playtime should be only 100 - 120 hours. And much shorter with fewer than 6 players, for example 4 players should finish in under 80 hours, or in under 200 hours if nobody wins by turn 500. 2. You won't be fighting other players with spaceships, you'll be launching hundreds of planet-to-planet missiles instead. Or transporting armies (Each piece represents roughly 1 milion soldiers plus their equipment). 3. Everybody plays as humans. Aliens are an endgame threat that might not even appear during playtime.
Board games like this bring up an important point, take it from a nerd who likes these games. Think about how many hours a week you spend gaming. 6? 20? 40? Because a good 50 years ago, gaming nerds spent just as much time, and probably less money than we do today. They'd have an entire room with a massive custom-made table dedicated to their game. Every week, or even multiple times a week, they and their gaming buddies would meet to continue their given game. They might dress up in costumes, ham up the roleplay, or just spend an hour talking about the individuals in that particular division while their opponents take their turn. Then computer games came along; and they changed everything. You may think it's impossible for a game like War for North Africa to exist, but it does, and it's far greater in scope and mechanics; it's called the Hearts of Iron series, and it's been going on since the early 2000s. Remember Europa Universalis from last video? That too is now a computer game, on its 4th title now. Even Sid Meier's Civilization series is somewhat based on Avalon Hill's Civilization board game, one I grew up playing actually. Is it any wonder my dad has played all 6 Civ games? See, all these mechanics and calculations and rules and numbers are almost impossible to fit into the head of an ordinary human. But when a computer runs it all, you have an award-winning Paradox Interactive game
I love Empires in Arms!!! I used to play when I was in HS and College - i.e. back when I had time and friends. BTW, there was an expansion printed in The General Magazine back in the day which more than doubled the possible length of the campaign game, extending the time period from 1792 to 1815
I really think if you were to grab 20 or so people for each team, and have them play the game for 8 hours every day, it might be possible to actually complete a game in a reasonable amount of time. If you could “out source” a lot of the work I imagine this becomes much more manageable
I would still like to recommend that you cover Empyrean Challenge, it's even longer than the games you described here and it occupies a unique spot in the history of grand strategy games due to still being a pen-and-paper game but encouraging (and practically requiring) players to use a spreadsheet program to evaluate turn results, with hundreds of pages of results being possible to create in a single turn.
This reminds me of my dad who was a big wargame player. I don't know if he ever played any of these super-long games, though we did play Freedom in the Galaxy.
"I don't know about you, but I think ants learning complex military strategy is not a problem the world needs to be dealing with right now." -Kite (HunterxHunter)
2:29 I immediately got flashbacks to Games Night’s Battle Report of Marvel Crisis Protocol where they reveal that Ultron’s actions are chosen via a literal flowchart 😂
Thank god Desert War is a game that was developed not by unhinged board game nerds that are so up their ass they can't see how ridiculous it looks but rather by unhinged board game nerds that are self aware but commit to the idea to the very end
i cant stop thinking about porting CNA into a video game. You wouldnt really lose any functionality, but all the math would be done for you so you can at least experience the whole thing. Although on the other hand it does feel antithetical to the original vision
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Which of these monsters are you ready to break out this Christmas? Do you know nine other people who you'd run to run through North Africa with? What the heck am I gonna cover now?
Let me know below and check out the Patreon to support more of this wack crap!
www.patreon.com/KamSandwich
You should do the opposite of this: board games that can be done very quickly
↑
It's hard enough to get 9 family members to eat dinner at the same time. There's no way I could get anyone to play these.
The shortest board games
I still can not wait for the dedicated racing board games video teased in the sports board games video.
Hearing that the famous pasta point was in fact MADE UP has shooken me to my core. Almost as if I became disorganized following not receiving water to cook my pasta in.
Just cook it in the sauce, you'll be fine. I imagine a weary Italian sergeant saying something along those lines when the issue first came up in reality.
-26. Just like that.
The "Fine UA-cam, I guess I'll watch this weird boardgame video" to "The hostages will be freed only when Kam next uploads" pipeline is staggering
Concerningly relatable
this is way too real get out of my head
@ciphergacha9100 it's worked for me so far, but the Stockholm's inevitably makes the group watch party afterwards a little awkward
I can't deny it.
Literally me
Common misconception, actually: 1940-1943 is the estimated playtime in hours
*years
@@swaggerdagger8976 *decades
There are decades where years happen and there are years where decades happen
"Call your loved ones to let them know you're still alive" being an ACTUAL phrase in a game's instruction manual is one of the funniest things I've ever seen in my life.
The game really is just an elaborate shitpost.
Words cannot express how funny it is for the official rulebook to state "Even our playtesters never finished a game so good luck"
I don't think it does, unless the reason it doesn't recommend a full 10-player game is because it hadn't finished at time of publication.
Campaign for North Africa is more complicated than running the actual campaign for North Africa. At least there the weather can figure itself out on its own
At least commanders have people in charge of assigning food and rations and fuel. And mechanics fixing planes they didn’t have to look after every individual plane and pilot
"No, little Austrian boy! Don't become a dictator or The Desert War will exist!!"
"Oh mein gott, das Rulebuch ist ein bunch of bullschisse!!"
I think das rule book would be better
das Rulebuch
@@woodfur00Fixed but I lost Kam's like.
@@Soldado94aliasUnit594 Noooooo :(
"Passion project", where in the christian definition, "passion" means "nailing something you love to a stick and watching it die a painful and protracted death"
HELP THIS MADE ME LAUGH REALLY HARD
And like that Passion, all of that pain and torment somehow turned into something that is just an honest to god marvel to behold.
"This is not a Board Game. This is not a War Game. This is The Campaign For North Africa: The Desert War 1940-43, and it stands alone before a mountain of its vanquished foes as a monolith."
I immediately recognized that as a line from the co-commentator during the worst board game bracket
CNA is a shitpost. The highest quality, most elaborate prank ever pulled on war gaming, nay, the entire hobby of tabletop.
A magnum opus that trolls to this day could not replicate, truly beautiful.
I'm pretty sure if you become the first documented person in history to win the Campaign for North Africa you'd be contacted by your country's military to become a general on the spot
it’s a shame Mr Berg himself isn’t still with us. I feel like if he had caught wind in his lifetime of someone ever actually finishing the game he would contact them personally to….. idk thank them? reward them? beat them to death with his bare hands?
But what if you manage only a draw? What a waste of time... 😁🤣
The actual North African WW2 campaign was shorter than the board game
Well, they were playing it for 10+ hours a day, every day of the week, for three years. No wonder the Commonwealth went through Seven commanders, and the Axis, 12.
Easier to start a war than to play the game.
Actual war seems simpler 😭
Yeah but they played it everyday
@@Vehrec And split up among hundreds of guys
I know you said it as a joke, but I have a funny story for you!
I used to occasionally attend my city's biggest board game club. They met once a week, generally for 8-12 hours depending. For the longest time after I started going, there was a game of Campaign for North Africa set up in the back, but I never saw anyone playing it, so I eventually asked the organizer what was up with it. It had been there for approximately 6 months before I started to attend, and was left as a monument to the 2 older gentlemen that had started playing it over a year before that, because, as it turned out, one of them did actually win!
How did he win, you ask? The other gentlemen DIED OF A HEART ATTACK before they could finish their game. So yeah, that seems to be the actual, only way to complete a game of this monstrosity.
My god
“Some of you will, no doubt, drown, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.”
Bird one moment "I will add things with no gameplay purpose for the sake of historical accuracy"
Bird the next moment " The Italian they cooka da pasta"
Even the most erudite of historical scholars cannot resist immediately going into a Mario voice shouting SPAGHETTI when Italy comes up.
This is actually based on real history, Italian rations were terrible and soldiers in North Africa often didn't have the precious water for their pasta rations, look it up.
@@billybob6256 Actually the main issue wasnt water for the pasta, but as the portable stoves were wood heated, wood had to be imported as it is even more scarce in the desert than water
There should be a war crime of pineapple on pizza.
@@billybob6256Have you even watched the video? Berg said in an interview his research actually revealed Italians had no issues cooking because they used tomato sauce which came packaged with the pasta. He just was too tired at that point to implement some weird tomato sauce mechanic and added the PP as a bandaid.
Once we get the shortest board games ever, Kam will gain his ultimate form and release his own game
Teeko is pretty short.
@@Thick303 Is it a *board* game, though?
@@jasonwalton9553 here it is: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teeko
goes quite fast
Clue?
you can literally just guess and get lucky and win in a few seconds right?
@@j0anbugBig shoutouts to the clue video game speedrun
having a 100 hour war game be playable solo is actually an genious idea. it perfectly covers for when ou have nobody around to commit 100 hours of time long term.
18:45 Did Richard Berg really hit players with the "Yeah this is just set dressing, dont touch it."
The non-usable railroad is so vital I must mention it twice
@@kamsandwichMonopoly players seething
"2309. If I challenge Death to a game, picking Campaign for North Africa doesn't ensure immortality."
I think if you try to pull that, death will make you play the entire thing in one sitting.
"One way or another, you will die. Whether that be today, six months, or ten years from now. All that will change is how much you suffer beforehand."
"Now, move your piece."
@@ninjacat230yeah but death would be stuck playing it in one sitting to. Imagine trapping death in one spot for 1,500 hours with a board game.
but it might give your DM an aneurism, and that’s close enough
I can’t get over the fact that the only thing anyone remembers about CNA, the pasta point, was completely made up, that bastard
The Campaign for North Africa isn't a game meant to be played. It's performance art, and nobody will convince me otherwise.
It would also be performance art to finish it.
Campaign for North Africa needs an electronic edition. Letting the computer handle the movement calculations would probably shave at least 50% off the playtime.
This. And 80-90% of the playtime is more likely to be saved by this.
The only disadvantage: you need a 3m wide monitor to play it properly!
Yeah, the rules just sound like a complex but focused Paradox game. It could even be playable at that point
I'd imagine Gary Grigsby's war in the east might be quite similar to this but in a digital format.
Because it wasn't specifically mentioned, I want to mention 27.65 from the rulebook for Campaign for North Africa, which gives you a bonus to your dice roll for a raid on Rommel if you are related to Alistar McLean, Richard Burton, Franchot Tone, or Jack Higgins. The table for the raid on Rommel does not account for this in any way.
This is why reading Rommel's book is important to defeating him.
Wait wait wait....does that mean you, the PLAYER?
@@RoxxieRaeVA well, unless this game also has an ancestry mechanic on top of everything else, I suppose yes.
Dear god it’s actually true.
[27.65] If the Commonwealth Player is related to Alistair McLean, Richard Burton, Franchot Tone, or Jack Higgins he adds one to his diceroll. If the Axis Player is an intimate friend of Erich von Stroheim or James Mason, well, that’s nice.
My favourite rule in CNA, is the air transport restrictions:
[42.37] Only infantry (without trucks), motorcycle infantry/recce units, and airborne units may be transported by air. Exception: dead camels may be transported by air. Live camels may not be transported by air
-"As we move on to our final game".
-*Checks how much of the video is left*
-20 minutes left.
This is gonna be good.
Oh yes it was
There is a Japanese variant of chess called Shogi that itself has several variants that were historically played. The largest known version was from the 16th century, which had a 36x36 board and had each player control 402 pieces, among which there were 207 piece types. The game was of course completely absurd to play, taking absolute ages and requiring memorizing a ton of pieces. However, it wasn't really meant to be a contest of skill; rather, it and other enormous Shogi variants were made either as meditation devices or as sort of pieces of art used to illustrate huge mythological battles.
In a way, it's very similar to North Africa; both are completely awful experiences as games, but still manage to illustrate what they are trying to get across masterfully.
That sounds like what Magic the Gathering turned into with EDH.
BRB found a new game to play
Richard Berg: "I must apologize for CNA. It is impossible. We have made it this way on purpose, as a joke."
3:00 And here I thought that KamSandwich was about to piss on the moon. Especially since that boxart of World in Flames looks like two balls and a bong (all points, no quills, too)
Nah, we're pissing on the entire Earth! Ho do ya like that Obama!?
Important point: no pillows as well
No jokes, but i totally, totally someone at Paradox Interactive saying "Yes, North Africa will be our next big hit adaptation".
They already did it with Europa Universalis.
War in the East is pretty much that, just a different theater.
I have to think that if you were to play the grand paradox games by hand, it would look like and consume as much time as CNA.
I would love that!
I think I understand why Valefisk hasn't done that North Africa video yet 😭
It is just a week away, definitely
What are you talking about? It's just a week away!
in one week, we’ll have the world’s first recorded cna playthrough
a friend of mine is currently trying to form a group to play CNA, I am both excited and deeply terrified to see it come to fruition and start playing
Let us know in 20 years how it went.
When you described the submarine game having you grind out miniscule advantages that will only show months later I immediately began itching to play it and I'm glad you recognize that impulse in yourself as well. It's like an idle game, isn't it?
I heard less than 1% of the total rulebook for CNA in this video, and I still felt overwhelmed to the point where i had to pause the video, how an entire group of people could sit down and “””play””” that game is beyond me
12:10 I'll be honest, i genuinely had never seen the box of the game from that angle before, and my initial astonishment for how thick it is has given way to admiration that something so long could fit in a package so small.
5:55 bad news, ants are already very well educated on complex military strategy
THEY USE LITERAL TRENCHES-
Whenever I get a board game, that very same day I open it, read the manual and play a 2 handed game to learn the rules, then start promoting it to my friends so we can play it. When I got World in Flames I unfolded the map, placed it on the floor (I had to place my feet over another chair to make room for it), read the manual, then put everything back in the box, situated said box bellow a pile of other war games and avoided to talk about that game ever again. Box hasn't been opened since then.
I aspire to be HALF as confident in my bullshit as the creator of campaign for North Africa
Richard Berg would be well within his rights to be confident in his "bullshit", CNA aside he was a pioneering designer of historical wargaming with an extensive catalog of hit games under his belt.
I really really want someone to convert Campaign for North Africa into a PC game before it's too expensive.
Like, get all the papers and chips scanned, slowly comb through the rule book and convert it all to code, all that. Exact 1-1 of the original, except all the counting and math can be automated. It'll stick take ages to play, but that might make it doable and at least then it's testable
You could probably do that using VASSAL, but considering how much of the game is broken/unplayable you're better off playing any other North Africa wargame.
There’s a CNA mod for Tabletop Simulator on Steam Workshop!
I still wake from a dead sleep screaming “pasta points!” Occasionally
Having hung out with hardcore wargamers in the past, I can say that the designer of CNA was 100% mocking players who are obsessed with making things "more historically accurate," even if the game itself suffers.
You know as insane as CNA is I appreciate it a little how self aware it is. It had a clear goal of being informational and I think it nailed it. It's probably the closest I have seen a board game that could be considered genuine art.
I was wondering why the world in flames cover looked so familiar... for about a second, before realizing where I'd seen it before: in my own house
Have you ever played it? Follow up, is it good?
I haven't actually played it, but I did open the box, and can confirm the maps are absolutely massive. A sticker on the back advertising it being the 4th edition of the game does call it "the hottest selling wargame for the last three years" (this version appears to be dated to 1988 and picked up 2 more awards in the meantime, including Fire & Movement's 1986 Game of the Year award). So it seems to at least be a decent enough game, although the box isn't doing it any favors by advertising the complexity as "moderate" (if this is merely moderate, I don't want to know what these guys think is more complex, as it's probably just TCFNA: TDW levels).
Edit: I just noticed one more phrase on the box. "Proudly made in Australia by the makers of EMPIRES IN ARMS". Yep, the first two games in this video were both designed by the same team (Australian Design Group)
almost as long as one (1) nascar race
Taking away pasta from an Italian is no laughing matter, Kam. Can’t believe you’d sink that low.
I swear, someon needs to bring North Africa Campaign into a video game format so we could see how it actually plays in reality.
Just play HoI4.
it is in boardgame sim
@Valefisk
@@ANDREALEONE95 hoi4 isnt the campaign for north africa though
A youtuber named Valefisk has been teasing CNA for a long while. Given his normal content I would assume he would have converted it (or found a steamwork shop mod) for TableTop simulator.
The Campaign for North Africa has a longer play than the actual Campaign for North Africa.
No, I think you hit the nail on the head with putting World In Flames on the floor. Who needs a gaming group when you can be training a platoon of ants on the optimal method to defeat the Axis Powers?
The ants are just a free new faction! Think of the added value!
It may take 100 hours to play these games but I clicked this video in less than 100 seconds
Don't kiss ass brother. It's pitiful.
pre-hundred minutes
Just hearing about the CNA is mind boggling, I can't even imagine going though the rules. Tying to conceptualize playing the game is some Eldrich horror level stuff.
11:27 Wait. He's covering The Campaign for North Africa: The Desert War: 1940-43, and the video's not even half over?
I don’t know why, but the second thing in the turn breakdown being “Raid Malta” was really funny to me for some reason.
Do you think you have to do that every turn?
Learning that CNA is more of an art piece than an actual game actually makes a shocking amount of sense. Why do I kinda respect it now.
KamSandwich not starting his video off with "Hoooooow's it goin doods?" is one of the whiplash I didn't see coming lol
Imagine getting to turn 91 of CNA just for some tragic event like a house fire or a flood completely upending you progress.
It is probably easier to strategize for a real military effort than it is to play TCFNA: TDW '40-43
it be more realistic to get countrys in their 1940's state than find enough poeple to finish an whole campain game.
The signoff for this episode is very fitting bc as someone with a passing interest in postmodern and conceptual art I genuinely think CNA would fit right in with that genre. It's a work being produced not for the traditional considerations of the field (aesthetic beauty for art, engaging play experiences for games) but to see just how far you can push the medium before it breaks. Outstanding.
I adore the self-indulgent tone of the campaign for north africa's rulebook. It makes fun of itself!!
You'd be surprised how often Wargames and even more Euro-oriented Historical Games have Works Cited pages or ones with extra steps.
My favorite excerpt is one from Mark Herman's Empire of the Sun: "I have literally hundreds of books on the Pacific War and a bibliography of my entire collection would take more space here than it is worth. I offer a few works that I feel I used more than others for this game and that you may want to consult if you are interested in reading up on this topic."
In this case "a few" meaning sixteen different sources.
The funny thing about CNA is that the core gameplay is actually pretty similar to Hearts of Iron, but the latter has the benefit of having a computer do all the calculations.
it is kinda funny when theres a war game based on a campain thats longer than the thing its based on with out factoring in the ineviable needing to recalculate an long calculation step to double check. to recreate that if north africa gets a video game form, it should have a manual mode where every calculation + dice roll is done manually in an excell spread sheet.
There is a legit ad break in the turn order and I didn't even bat an eye. THAT'S how long it is.
Honestly silent war being a solitaire game seems like it could be really fun
Richard really making a point to piss off train fans, "Yeah I'm going to make an war game that manages every aspect of war in excruciating detail except railroads because screw 'em they didn't do shit in the war."
When we are older we can open an old folks home dedicated to The Campaign For North Africa. Play everyday, swap out commanders as they fall.
Kam, how could you release the second part so soon? I bought two of the games from last time. I don't need to fall even deeper into this rabbit hole.
I'm on a new campaign against full wallets
Which 2?
Sounds like the Dwarf Fortress of board games. Except for the fact that there are people who like to play Dwarf Fortress
There are people who like North Africa to, they just play the scenarios rather than the full campaign.
imagine spending 15 years trying to be the first people to beat the CFA and then someone who started 5 years earlier than you beats it first 😭
I saw the thumbnail and said out loud when my entire family could hear me, “oh my god, campaign for North Africa”
Learnt about the North African Campaign from a good friend of mine who is a few decades older than me.
He told me how long it was, but he never mentioned ever finishing it.
Now imagine making a board game based on the eternal Civilization 2 game
Last time I was this early the only thing we knew about Campaign for North Africa was to not play as Italy.
the craziest part about the campaign for north africa for me is that playing this game would take you longer then the conflict it's based on
How come there hasnt been a videogame adaptation of The Campaign For North Africa? Itd really help with all the calculations
for completeness it should also have a manual mode with a spreadsheet for the feeling it was intended to give.
It would speed up the math but the scale of what players would be commanding means that things would still take forever. Multi-hour turns as players decided what to do with thousands of pieces would still happen.
16:15 I don’t think I can repair breakdowns. My mental one after reading that is broken beyond repair
CNA may not be a great board game, but its a good thing it exist
I am gonna be in mourning over the Pasta Point fiction for at least the next two months. Nonetheless, I want no living person's autograph more than I want Richard Berg's. Certified Legend indeed!!!!!!!
Dread it. Run from it. The Campaign for North Africa: The Desert War 1940-43 arrives all the same
im asking this for my birthday and im FORCING the gang to play it
This channel inspired me to design my own boardgame, about leading humanity after Earth's destruction with your colony being one of the last remnants of human civilisation (other remnants controlled by other players).
What makes this unique from other, similiar board games? Three things.
1. Each turn represents 10 years (I put 500 turn limit to avoid having to make rules for evolution of human species, so in total you'll lead your civilisation for 5000 years). Based on my predictions, with a full team of 6 players, it'll take about 5 minutes to finish a single turn at the start, quickly escalating to 15-20 minutes per turn, but during lategame a single turn will take up to an hour (with most turns still around 30-45 minutes). So if no player reaches their victory condition by turn 500 (Luckily an unlikely event), total playtime will be around 300 hours. But it's likely someone's gonna achieve victory by turn 200, earlier with good luck, so an average playtime should be only 100 - 120 hours. And much shorter with fewer than 6 players, for example 4 players should finish in under 80 hours, or in under 200 hours if nobody wins by turn 500.
2. You won't be fighting other players with spaceships, you'll be launching hundreds of planet-to-planet missiles instead. Or transporting armies (Each piece represents roughly 1 milion soldiers plus their equipment).
3. Everybody plays as humans. Aliens are an endgame threat that might not even appear during playtime.
Don't forget Oliver Lugg's 4D Diplomacy with multiverse time travel. That game can theoretically go on forever.
The Campaign for North Africa is why we play videogames instead of board games now
Board games like this bring up an important point, take it from a nerd who likes these games.
Think about how many hours a week you spend gaming. 6? 20? 40? Because a good 50 years ago, gaming nerds spent just as much time, and probably less money than we do today.
They'd have an entire room with a massive custom-made table dedicated to their game. Every week, or even multiple times a week, they and their gaming buddies would meet to continue their given game. They might dress up in costumes, ham up the roleplay, or just spend an hour talking about the individuals in that particular division while their opponents take their turn.
Then computer games came along; and they changed everything.
You may think it's impossible for a game like War for North Africa to exist, but it does, and it's far greater in scope and mechanics; it's called the Hearts of Iron series, and it's been going on since the early 2000s. Remember Europa Universalis from last video? That too is now a computer game, on its 4th title now. Even Sid Meier's Civilization series is somewhat based on Avalon Hill's Civilization board game, one I grew up playing actually. Is it any wonder my dad has played all 6 Civ games?
See, all these mechanics and calculations and rules and numbers are almost impossible to fit into the head of an ordinary human. But when a computer runs it all, you have an award-winning Paradox Interactive game
I love Empires in Arms!!! I used to play when I was in HS and College - i.e. back when I had time and friends. BTW, there was an expansion printed in The General Magazine back in the day which more than doubled the possible length of the campaign game, extending the time period from 1792 to 1815
From watching the first North Africa video when it released to seeing you talking about in depth now. Time is really a flat circle.
The craziest thing is that World’s Worst Boardgame would still take nigh-infinitely longer to complete than even CFNA.
The difference between impossible and infeasible.
I really think if you were to grab 20 or so people for each team, and have them play the game for 8 hours every day, it might be possible to actually complete a game in a reasonable amount of time.
If you could “out source” a lot of the work I imagine this becomes much more manageable
I would still like to recommend that you cover Empyrean Challenge, it's even longer than the games you described here and it occupies a unique spot in the history of grand strategy games due to still being a pen-and-paper game but encouraging (and practically requiring) players to use a spreadsheet program to evaluate turn results, with hundreds of pages of results being possible to create in a single turn.
This reminds me of my dad who was a big wargame player. I don't know if he ever played any of these super-long games, though we did play Freedom in the Galaxy.
Gotta love with all the crazy things you need to do to compete one turn, the second bullet point is just "Raid Malta"
Desert Bus, The Campaign for New Vegas
"I don't know about you, but I think ants learning complex military strategy is not a problem the world needs to be dealing with right now." -Kite (HunterxHunter)
Thank you. Thank you so much for diving so deep into *The Campaign For North Africa, The Desert War, 1940-43.*
"Impossible to beat without drinking water" I don't know if anyone playing these games are drinking any beverage below a 6.0 ABV
2:29 I immediately got flashbacks to Games Night’s Battle Report of Marvel Crisis Protocol where they reveal that Ultron’s actions are chosen via a literal flowchart 😂
Thank god Desert War is a game that was developed not by unhinged board game nerds that are so up their ass they can't see how ridiculous it looks but rather by unhinged board game nerds that are self aware but commit to the idea to the very end
CNA greatly inspires me, one of these days I'll make something worthy of being a spiritual successor
You know is bad when just one unit can make the game go for half as long as it should.
I guarantee that if you turned Campaign for North Africa into a computer game with fully-voiced anime girls, you'd make millions.
Finally a game that accounts for spillage and evaporation of water
i cant stop thinking about porting CNA into a video game. You wouldnt really lose any functionality, but all the math would be done for you so you can at least experience the whole thing. Although on the other hand it does feel antithetical to the original vision