Interview with Steve Ashing - Constantinople

Hello! Welcome back to the PNP News! This post is part of a series of interview that I'll be conducting with game designers who are participating in board game design contests on Board Game Geek. Today, I'll be interviewing Steve Ashing who designed the game Constantinople for the 2015-16 Wargame Print and Play Contest.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your gaming history?
My first hobby boardgame was War of the Ring by SPI when I was a wee lad back in 1979. I've been gaming off and on ever since.

What is your favorite PNP game?
If I'm allowed an expandion - Age of Industry - Great Lakes. Otherwise, Barfight.

How did you first discover PNP design contests?
I tried a few print and play games based on them winning contests. I then looked into trying out an entry of my own, but felt too rushed and never submitted a game. When the wargame contest appeared I remembered my previous effort and decided to revive it.

Could you describe your game from a thematic point of view?
In scope Constantinople covers the full sweep of the Byzantine Empire over its thousand year history. You navigate the empire through several centuries worth of wars and internal threats and try to survive longer than actually happened.

Could you describe your game from a game mechanics point of view?
Constantinople is a states of siege style solitaire game playable in under 30 minutes. Each decades-long turn a card is drawn to unveil threats to the empire. The same card also grants you a number of actions (typically 2-4) and modifiers which you then allocate to fight wars and manage the administration of the empire. Actions are resolved by a simple die-roll compared to a difficulty number. Constantinople plays faster with practice or if the empire collapses early.



What were your design goals with the game?
My aim was to chip a small piece off the mountain of ignorance surrounding Byzantine history. I feel that the role played by the Byzantine Empire is often under-recognized relative to its impact on world history.

Here's a quick quiz question to illustrate my point: When did the Roman Empire collapse?

If you answered somewhere around the 5th Century AD then you're my target audience. Play this game and find out the real answer.

I hope that Constantinople inspires players to find out a little more about the place of the Byzantine Empire in world history.

How long have you been working on your game?
2 years off and on, mostly off. The game reached its final form mechanically before the current contest, but graphically and components-wise Ilya Kudriashov redesigned everything in March of this year (2016).

When I first started working on Constantinople, I had a mish-mash of mechanics which I'd cobbled together. I really didn't like the design at all and had put in no more than 10 hours of design effort by that point. Then I discovered States of Siege and realized it was a perfect fit. Constantinople has a much grander time scale than similar games, but all my previous efforts very quickly slotted into the States of Siege framework and Constantinople looked very close to its final form within a couple of weeks or about 8 hours dedicated work.

States of Siege is very easy to tune, by tweaking the cards to strengthen an opponent here or gain an action there. Constantinople went through a few iterations to balance it before I then built my first substantial prototypes for playtesting. I used cardmaker to build the cards and everything else I made in MS-Office and hand crafted. I then eagerly took it to several games events to try on the unsuspecting.

The feedback was lukewarm, but I hadn't tried it on any solitaire wargamers. I lost enthusiasm and shelved the game for over a year. When I saw the wargame contest, I thought I'd try my hand. The timelines were generous and the audience likely more appreciative of the subject matter, so I entered. When Ilya volunteered to revamp the design I was delighted, and feedback from the contest has been more positive than my previous playtests. The total time I've put into Constantinople could be broken down as : 20 hours concept, 24 hours design, 10 hours prototype construction, 16 hours organizing and communicating with playtesters, 16 hours contest and BGG admin - all spread out over 2 years.

I'll leave Ilya to add anything regarding the art and graphic redesign effort.

Finish the sentence: “If you like , then you’ll probably like my game” and perhaps let us know, what the similarities and differences are.
Israeli Independence

Note from Chris: I found this game to be a little more complex than Israeli Independence. In terms of complexity, I'd put it more in line with Levée en Masse.

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