Nevsky: A Review, Or How OCS Ruined My Life

Let me preface this review by stating that I've never really been interested in either the ancient or medieval eras of conflict: my area of expertise are mostly centred around either World War II or the American Civil War (you might wonder how a Brit like me might get an interest in the latter, and I only have a single word as a response: playmobil). The only game I ever bought that featured a pre-19th century conflict was Falling Sky, and that particular purchase was mostly due the game being part of the COIN series rather than any sort of intrinsic interest in the era. As such I am not very well read in terms of medieval warfare, vassalage and logistics, and thus I will avoid making appeals to historicity within this review. The corollary to this is that I am not very well versed in the history and development of wargames concerning this era either, and as such I will only attempt to describe the game from my own perspective and knowledge of wargames. With this dreary preamble out of the way, let's get to the meat of the review.

Let me just put it out there: Nevsky is a good game. It has single-highhandedly made me interest in an era of history that I had no previous interest in. It has made me interested in researching more about the conflict that it tries to simulate. This is usually a sign that the game has captivated me enough that I want to see how the actions and events that occurred during the game match up with the actual historical events of the battle. The last few examples of this phenomenon for me were Reluctant Enemies, where shortly after playing it I picked up a book about this most unlikely of battles, and Burma II, which did the same for the Burma theatre of World War II.

Those two examples are actually more relevant to this review than they appear to at first, because what convinced me to buy Nevsky in the end was the fact that it had a deep interest in portraying the logistics and gathering of victuals that a campaign in eastern Europe would entail. And it's exactly the importance that Nevsky places on the logistics of medieval warfare that really make it stand out for me.

This ties in with the heading that I created for this review: although saying that OCS ruined my life might be a tad hyperbolic, it did certainly ruin an aspect of my life, that being wargaming. After getting but just a taste of the sweet ambrosia of "how the fuck am I going to fuel and supply all of my units properly", and the operational tempo created by actually having to track supplies being brought to the front, it kind of left a sour taste in my mouth for other wargames: they didn't feel much more than front-pushers, with supplies largely guaranteed unless you were surrounded or had the enemy between you and the source of supply. OCS made me really appreciate the advantages of simulation at the operational scale, with a focus on logistics.

And Nevsky provides that (although it's unclear if it is to be considered an operational, grand operational or strategic level game, the distinction within wargaming of those genre being a bit fuzzy, especially when straying out of the comforting blanket of World War II games).

The Tuetons and Novgorodian Rus' at the start of the war

To be clear, there aren't many similarities between OCS and Nevsky. Nevsky features a point to point map, it has random events and some card play and deck management which gives it a distinctively GMT tint, and the battle system within the game is quite simplified in order to speed up the process and make it as quick playing as possible, while still trying to model the relative qualitative difference between the troops of Novgorod and the Tuetons (and, having had experience with trying to balance board games, I can only imagine how many iterations had to be attempted, and how much fat had to be cut in order to arrive at the combat system in its present state). 

So if the differences between OCS and Nevsky, how is a comparison valid, or even relevant when discussing the two games? The answer to that is, admittedly, a cop-out on my part: when I play either, the feeling of playing them is the same. When I'm playing OCS, I am always worrying about how my troops will move and with which supplies and how I will continue to support them in either offensive or defensive actions.

Nevsky provides a similar feeling of trouble, and this is almost entirely in part due to the interconnected puzzle that is the logistic system within the game. There are only three times when you need to feed an army: when you move, when you fight or when you siege. As long as an army remains stationary, it does not require food to survive, but an army which is motionless is a useless one, of course. There are many ways to provide victuals to your armies: they can simply forage the area they are in, but this is only effective in summer, where foraging options open up to include enemy territory. They can ravage an enemy area, and potentially gain both loot and provisions, and although this provides victory points as well as food, it depletes that area potentially forever: a ravaged enemy land might not be able to provide your troops in a future campaign, since it cannot be used to forage, even in summer. The last option is having enough transports to trace a path back to your seat (essentially your head quarters), but this is not always possible, especially due to the shifting seasons.

War only brings ruin to this land and its people.

Transports are another crucial part of the game.  They are necessary in order to bring your hard-earned provisions around with you, or to trace back supply. The issue is that transports are limited to specific paths, and these also change according to the season. In summer, carts can use trackways, while boats navigate the rivers and lakes that crisscross the region. Once winter comes, however, the only transport available is sleds, but they work equally well within the frozen rivers as on land. However, once the thaw sets in and the land turns to mud, both carts and sleds are useless, and as such the only useful transports are the boats that ply the rivers. 

This use of transport leads to a map that rapidly changes from season to season: your well supplied troops might suddenly find themselves with no means to transports their food once the winter is over, simply because they have no means to build boats and are stuck deep in enemy lines. This was the experience that I had with my first game: a state of perpetual surprise at just how badly I had handled the food requirements and lives of the people fighting for me.

But, strangely enough, the game can create situations in which starving your soldiers might not be the worst thing in the world. This is closely tied to another interesting feature of the game: the systems that simulate fealty and vassalage within the game. Each side has access to 6 armies throughout the game, each with different levels of ability and fealty. These armies have to be called up by other lords that are already fighting, and even if they do show up (which is not guaranteed), they will only serve you for a limited time before going back home to recuperate their troops. Armies will only stay for a certain number of turns, which varies from lord to lord, and this can only usually be extended by paying them coin or loot (although the latter has to be brought home for it to be something accepted by the lords as payment). Thus, each raised army has a clock counting against it, encouraging you to send it to the fray where it will hopefully gain the coin it needs to remain fighting. 

The Tuetons conquer while raids hit Estonia and Livonia

Normally, when the term of service of a lord is over, it is removed from the map and after some time, it is able to return for another tour of duty, but there are ways to decrease the number of turns of service and, if the situation is drastic enough, to remove the lord permanently from the battle, never to be called to service again. This usually happens due to battles lost, or because of missing provisions, but as I mentioned before, the latter might even be to your advantage. Maybe pushing the attack even without provisions is paramount rather than wasting time trying to gather food and as long as the battle is won, the fact that your army will leave the very next turn is not so important, relatively speaking. 

These options to push your troops beyond their endurance really adds an element to the game, and creates risky dilemmas baked into the rules of Nevsky. The fact that you cannot reliably keep armies on the board also ties in with one of the most brutal victory conditions in the game: if you have no lords left on the board, you lose, no matter how many victory points you accrued. Did your opponent raid your hinterlands and gained an overwhelming number of victory points? The war is not lost, as long as you crush each and every one of his armies.

All these elements, these interlocking mechanisms that all tie in together, are what really makes the game shine: they all join together to make a puzzle that will leave you scratching your head at every turn: how can I get this army back home to be able to muster more transports for the coming winter? How do I keep supplies flowing to this siege? Do I send an army filled with victuals and transports just in order to feed the besiegers (who cannot move in order to not break the siege)? Or maybe, since it's summer, it's best not to ravage the area around, and just slow the tempo of the siege by regularly having entire turns just dedicated to gather food. And it's answering these questions, through trial and experimentation, that really make me interested in analysing and study this game as thoroughly as possible.

But you know what is even more wonderful about this game? It's that I've written almost 1600 words and I've yet to even explain about the other interesting mechanisms in the game. How, for example, having a large number of armies does not necessarily mean that you'll be able to move them all in a turn. Or how the deck system makes you choose between adding powerful capabilities to you and your armies, or leaving them in as a random event. But I wrote this review to focus on what I thought was the most important and interesting element within Nevsky: the logistic mechanisms nestled directly in the middle of the beating heart of the game.

So do I recommend Nevsky? Almost definitely. Even if you aren't interested in the period, or the conflict, I would recommend at least trying it. And it will be all worth it when, during your first game, winter finally hits and you realise that through your own mismanagement, you have left an army dangerously exposed. And hopefully, that moment will be one that you will be looking with fondness later on, much as I did while exploring this deep, interesting game.