Mark Herman just posted a tutorial vid for the upcoming
Pericles.
I never checked out the earlier
Churchill system. I'm guessing somebody here did so. Was some praise for it IIRC, but dunno much about it other than having a solitaire option and involving political maneuvering in the theme. Thoughts?
Churchill was our Tabletop Game of the Year winner in the Readers Choice Awards
http://grogheads.com/?p=10362
There's a variety of political maneuvering going on with decisions about where to allocate priorities and who gets to make the choices about what decisions get executed.
The 'maneuvers' being executed are in the negotiations about what other people will do on the battlefield, rather than on the battlefield itself.
In Churchill the questions are things like when, where, how will a second front be opened, and the actual execution of that second front isn't even really played out.
Sounds interesting.
I perked up due to the period portrayed in this one.
The main thing about Churchill, which Mark Herman has emphasized over and over, is that it really is a "coopetition" game -- meaning that you've got to balance your own interests along with those of the other players in order to keep the point spread within certain parameters as the game moves along. An apparent runaway winner is likely to end up losing, both due to the other players teaming up against him, as well as with certain mechanics that are built into the system.
I think it's a brilliant game, and I'm hoping my cash-flow situation improves soon, so I can put in a pre-order for Pericles :)