With this My Favorite Wargame Cards Series, I hope to take a look at a specific card from the various wargames that I have played and share how it is used in the game. I am not a strategist and frankly I am not that good at games but I do understand how things should work and be used in games. With that being said, here is the next entry in this series.

#101: Constantinople Sends Aid Core Event from The Shores of Tripoli from Fort Circle Games

I have never played a historical wargame on the First Barbary War, which if you didn’t know was one of the first major wars the young United States of America participated in that was situated far outside their sphere of influence in North and South America. Shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War, commercial vessels of the United States were being attacked and raided by the pirates of the Barbary coast in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1801, newly inaugurated President Thomas Jefferson was eager to put an end to this threat and sent a “squadron of observation” to the Mediterranean to deal with the threat. The Shores of Tripoli covers this conflict and does so using a card driven game mechanic that works really well in this instance. The game is a little deceiving, as at first it appears to be pretty introductory with simple rules and mechanics, but the depth for the game lies in the strategy for each side and the fact that their victory conditions are asymmetric.

There are two decks of cards in the game and each is unique for the side that is using it. The American Card Deck is blue-backed with a picture of President Thomas Jefferson and the Tripolitan Card Deck is red-backed
with a picture of Yusuf Qaramanli. Each deck consists of a total of 27 cards and this is divided up between 21 Event Cards and 6 Battle Cards. The Tripolitan Deck also includes 3 additional cards that are used only for solitaire play. There are three different types of Event Cards included in the decks. These include Core Events, Unique Events, and Common Events. Each player has the same number of each of these type of cards with the only difference being that the Americans have only 10 Common Events and 2 special cards that are called Victory Event Cards.

Core Event Cards begin the game face-up in front of the player and do not count against the eight-card hand limit. Core Cards may be played in place of a card in hand at any time during the player’s turn for their event and then are permanently removed from the game. The Constantinople Sends Aid Core Event Card has a condition that must be met in order to be played and that is that Hamet’s Army has captured the city of Derne. This means that this card will have to wait to be played until at least after the Spring of 1804 or even later as the American player must play their Hamet’s Army Created Core Event Card and then invade Derne which will take a turn or two after the Core Event Card is played. This card is a last ditch effort to stop the Americans as they make their eventual drive on Tripoli. The addition of 1 Tripolitan Frigate and 2 Corsairs will beef up the naval defense of the port and the addition of the 2 Tripolitan Infantry in the city of Tripoli will aid in staving off Hamet’s Army.

The Constantinople Sends Air Core Event Card is somewhat of an ahistorical event, meaning that it was possibly available if necessary but the anticipated invasion of Tripoli Harbor by the forces of Hamet never occurred. Following the fall of Derne, Hamet Karamanli’s forces held the city and planned to press onward toward Tripoli, which put immense psychological and political pressure on the ruling Bashaw Yusuf Karamanli. But, before a full-scale assault on Tripoli could take place, U.S. Consul General Tobias Lear negotiated and signed a peace treaty with Yusuf Karamanli in June 1805 effectively ending the First Barbary War. The treaty secured the release of American hostages from the USS Philadelphia in exchange for a ransom, ending the military campaign. U.S. forces secretly evacuated Derne, abandoning Hamet Karamanli’s push to take Tripoli and returning him to exile.

In the next entry in this series, we will take a look at Austrian Leader Klemens von Metternich from Congress of Vienna from GMT Games.

-Grant