By Other Means Megagame Report

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After 20 months away, I finally attended my first live megagame since pre-Covid times, and damn have I missed them.

This megagame was By Other Means by Ed Silverstone and Reading Megagames. Set in a futuristic galaxy at the end of a long and brutal war, players are diplomats seeking to determine the final borders following a peace settlement. Unlike many megagames, the focus here is on the discussions at councils, with map mechanics and battles taking a bit of a backseat.

Ed Silverstone made his megagame design debut with By The Grace Of God, an English Civil War game that he first ran in October 2019. I missed this game, but heard such outstandingly good reports from my husband and various other megagaming friends, that I couldn’t wait to finally make it to one of his games. By The Grace Of God is scheduled for its second run in November. That’s right, Ed is running two games in as many months, and both start with the word “By”!

Back to the game – it ran from 11am to about 4pm, so a little shorter than your standard megagame. This was a bit of a relief, as megagames can be exhausting even when you’re used to regular human contact!

The Grand Duchy of Storvik

My team for the day was the Grand Duchy of Storvik, an ancient and noble royal house. We are close friends and cousins of the Imperial House of Storvik, hereditary rulers of the Huangdi Empire – a fact I reminded them about many many times over the course of the day.

Unfortunately we have seen better days, and our domain has been reduced down to just a few worlds, thanks to the over-reaching of young nations such as the Izurid Emirates and the upstart Kingdom of Phydan.

The game had a flat team structure, meaning that neither I nor my teammate Harrison (of Megagame Assembly) were technically in charge. Happily, we worked very smoothly together, and the game didn’t have a treachery mechanic which is always a relief.

Other notable allies included the Kingdom of Bulan, and perhaps the Thelian Federation… well, if you can call a mercenary an ally! In total there were about ten played teams and several more NPC factions. I will also be honest – I don’t think I called a single team or planet by the correct name all day. Bring on Phaygan, Izurial, Buran and Thebes!

The first council

It was time for our first council sessions. There were four councils, one for each of the more-disputed clusters of worlds. However, the Grand Duchy only really had interests in two of them – Shichang and Far – which was lucky as we only had two players. I headed to Far while Harrison dealt with Shichang.

Within Far, we had two home worlds – Jado Aney and Ayol Alar – and two further planets out the other side, Osiris and Ankhur. However, Phydan forces were circling Jado and Ayol. Phydan already laid claim to most of the worlds in this system – it was vital that they didn’t add to their collection.

Enter the council members. The chair was my “close friend and cousin”, Jade of the Imperial House. We also had a rep from the Izurid Emirates, and James from Phydan. Remember that name. You will hear me cursing it later.

The main mechanic of the councils was, discuss things until you come to a settlement about a world. All parties contesting a world (with fleets, presence or a home-world marker) had to sign the settlement. That’s it.

I say that’s it. It’s a long way when your opening bids are:

“Get out of both our worlds and never come back.”

– Me

“Move all your forces out from defending your worlds and we’ll do the same honest.”

– Phydan James

As I’m sure you can imagine, we didn’t exactly come to any agreements during this first council. Yet elsewhere, the first treaties were being drawn up…

The stick

The next phase was “orders”, where you had to say what each of your fleets was doing. We had seven fleets, and we just calmly sat them where they were. Our ships were pretty damaged, we were pretty poor, and we didn’t want to keep fighting. This was the end of the war, remember!

Unfortunately, Phydan didn’t get the memo. Even more unfortunately, the Thelian merc, Matty, did – the memo from Phydan to attack our ships in Jado! And for good measure, they moved a few more ships into our worlds.

We didn’t want to lose our moral highground, but we couldn’t take this beating. We started our own negotiations with the mercenaries. Sadly, she wasn’t at all amenable to the idea of us paying her not to attack us. She was happier with the idea of us hiring more of her mercs to attack her other mercs… so that’s what we did.

Attack and defense

The next council session, I laid into James. This would be a recurring theme over the day.

How could he attack us? He didn’t know we weren’t pulling back as he’d requested. And even if we weren’t, these were our homeworlds he was invading. Did he read the “peace talks” sign on the door??

In return he said it was all the fault of Storvik aggression, and if we had backed off like he’d asked, it wouldn’t have happened.

I was fuming. HE CAME INTO MY WORLD AND ATTACKED ME AND WE WERE THE AGGRESSIVE ONES???

Matty of Thelia was at the council this turn. Since the Phydan fleets in Jado were in fact Thelian mercenaries, Phydan technically didn’t have a say in the settlement on that world – it was down to me and Matty. But, in true Switzerland neutrality, she abstained on making a decision, saying her politics were not for sale. It would have been so much easier if they had been.

We didn’t make any settlements on this turn either.

Losing

We decided to pull back our forces. We were spread too thin, and there was no way we could sustain it. Negotiations were going similarly poorly in the Shichang council, so we pulled forces out of Ayol Alar, as well as Shichang homeworld Jalbar. We planned to focus our forces in Jado Aney and Aramac (another Shichang homeworld), while making moves on Henry, another Shichang world on which we had a claim. We also hoped to send a damaged fleet in Jado back to Osiris for cheap repair.

Then we lost two fleets in one turn.

This was not a good feeling. Our retreating fleets in Ayol and Jado were both wiped out, one by the Phydan, the other mercs paid by the Phydan. It was a very low moment.

• 

• 

We had managed to pay down our debt in the first turn, but we realised that we couldn’t win the war that way. We immediately took out 12 more credits in loans. But was it too late?

Steadfast

At the following council, James was triumphant. He thought he had us beat. Honestly, he might have done.

But I could not waver. I could not show weakness at this, our hour of defeat. I told him again to leave our worlds.

The others in the council pleaded. Will you accept that he takes Ayol and leaves you Jado? Can we do a power-sharing situation, where you get the land and Phydan gets the money? Can’t we please just make one damn settlement?

But I was resolute. I would not put pen to paper until Phydan left our worlds alone. Even if we all would wither to dust with age before that happened. Even if they burned the seas and scorched the skies of Jado.

You see, I had allies. The Imperial House of Storvik, the Kingdom of Bulan. They were busy with their own wars now, busy making their own settlements. But when they were done, they would come to my aid. Phydan may be at its peak, and the Grand Duchy at its nadir, but those places would switch, and when they did, he would regret not taking my first offer – to leave with his life.

And so our third turn passed without a resolution.

And yes, there was roughly this amount of imperious grandstanding at the game.

Rebel rebel

Unfortunately, having two fleets destroyed in the skies above your home can make people a bit… testy. So we really should have been expecting it when the rebels showed up. How they got their hands on a fleet is beyond me – maybe they scavenged pieces of debris from the fleet wrecks.

So we were now not only fighting a war with our enemies, but also with ourselves. Luckily, it was around now that the Imperial House remembered that they had close friends and allies, and came to check in. We had a few pennies to hire another Thelian merc, so at least we were evenly match in Jado again.

Meanwhite, in Shichang, Harrison was going all-in to get our claimant in Henry recognised. Unfortunately, the rival was backed by Phydan – and they thought they had us on the bounce. They were probably right.

Consolidating your debts into one simple monthly payment

Since the situation on the ground had worsened (or at least, hadn’t gotten any better), James from Phydan revised his offer. He would no longer settle for Ayol Alar – he demanded Jado!

Jade used this as an opportunity to suggest that we settle Ayol Alar. After all, James had said that Phydan didn’t want it anymore. In all of his options for how this would play out, Ayol would be with the Grand Duchy! But he held his ground, sensibly – no need to give up a bargaining chit at this point. Still, I appreciated the clear show of support from the Imperial House.

Meanwhile, Tim of the Imperial House said that we needed to give Phydan something, if only so they could save face.

In strategy talks with Harrison, we determined that if we had to give up any world that we currently held, it would be Ayol, and we would try to hold onto Jado, Aramac and our newly gotten Henry. He promised he was on the verge of an agreement with the rest of the Shichang council, if he could only force the Phydan out of the discussion.

He even traded Jalbar to the Izurids in return for their neutrality on the issue of Henry… and for them eliminating our entire debt! I couldn’t quite follow the maths on that one. No idea which side was radically underpaid, but I’m sure one of them was. But hey, I wasn’t in those councils!

Anyway, no further progress was made in the negotiations on Far Cluster this turn.

A spark of hope

At that moment, a treasure ship we had sent into deepest darkest space returned, laden down with credits! We could finally use our fleets for something more than decor, so we attacked the Phydan ship above Jado.

There was only one problem – there wasn’t a Phydan ship above Jado… yet.

See, I’d heard rumour that there was a secret Phydan strategy that allowed them to move their ship before combat, rather than after. I’d noticed a Phydan ship idling above an adjacent world, and I guessed where they might be headed. Luckily for me, I was right!

Unfortunately, the fleet that launched the attack had only one strength point left, so it was a suicide mission. But it felt apt that we would finally start fighting back with such a dramatic shot.

Our newly arrived fleet even managed to put down the rebels, however more rebels sprung up in their place. We may have rallied, but we were far from safe.

The mega-council

Many of the other councils had settled all their disputes by this time, but we still had a blank sheet of paper in Far Cluster. Many people suggested bringing together Far and Shichang so we could settle on the most contested worlds as part of one agreement – Jado, Ayol and Henry.

Despite insisting that we compromise, my close friends and cousins in the Imperial House thought we were mad for considering giving up Ayol Alar in favour of Henry. And the terms of the mega-council couldn’t be agreed, so back to our own councils we went.

I had no idea what deal they were striking for Henry, but I couldn’t possibly give up my ground now. The tide was indeed turning – Bulan and the Imperial House were on their way. And so a fifth turn passed without settlement in the Far Cluster council.

Henry remained unsettled, and unfortunately the tide was shifting away from us getting Henry outright. The best it seemed we could hope for was an independent Henry under the Grand Duchy claimant, but even that seemed unlikely.

Surprise motherfuckers!

The situation in Shichang was almost settled, and we had two fleets that had been hanging out in Amarac for most of the game. Wouldn’t it be a shame if they used the secret portal from Amarac to Osiris to put pressure on Phydan. I’m sure they’re not already too worried about the Bulan and Imperial fleets that are making their way definitively towards Far Cluster…

That’s right – like the Phydan’s speed-move, the Grand Duchy’s grand secret is a wormhole from the centre of the Shichang cluster to our territories on the far side of Far. We hadn’t used it all game, so it was a huge shock for those poor Phydan players.

And if you weren’t already feeling sorry for them, their claimant to the throne of Henry died a completely normal and not-at-all mysterious death, leaving behind his four year old son as heir. What a coincidence that Harrison was visiting Henry at that time…

Settling at last

At long last, in the council session on turn 6, James of Phydan magnanimously signed an agreement, settling Ayol Alar for the Grand Duchy of Storvik.

“A lot of reinforcements have come in for the Grand Duchy, and we cannot hold on any longer.”

– James of Phydan

He signed further agreements to remove his fleets from Jado Aney, and to cease paying any mercenaries in the area (actually, we both signed that second one). James briefly mooted that we could still pay them to kill each other, but I retorted that I personally was not a fan of needless death.

Jado could not be settled this turn as there were Thelian mercenaries in the world, which meant it required Matty’s signature too, but with the removal of the troops I was confident (despite my paranoia) that the situation was in hand.

There’s something about Henry

Henry was still not settled, but a ceasefire had been called in the region. It was the linchpin of all these other agreements, and now Phydan had backed down in Far, it would hopefully not be long until the rest of the worlds, and Henry, could be settled.

Meanwhile, the mercenaries that we had decided not to pay were having a turn of mourning – it seems that during the previous turn, one of the merc fleets had wiped out another of the merc fleets. I guess that’s what you get when you are paid by both sides of a war??

The Grand Duchy came into a little more cash when the pirates bribed Harrison 20 credits to vote for the Phydan four-year-old. The four-year-old survived the game, despite our efforts. With this settlement, the other outstanding issues fell into place like so many dominoes. We kept Jado Aney, Ayol Alar and Amarac, plus our other two worlds.

But how have I not mentioned the pirates til now? The Tuith Clans, aka pirates, aka Chris Brown, were a constant annoyance, coming around and asking half the teams for protection money every turn to stop him from raiding. My final act of the game was to ask a bunch of people if, now the war was over, they’d be willing to chip into the fund to send Matty’s mercs after Chris’ pirates. There was a lot of interest.

Other affairs

I barely interacted with the Senate game at all – even though we are close friends and cousins to the Imperial House, we are not actually a part of their Empire, so I mostly ignored their going-ons. It was briefly mooted that we might be getting a Senate seat in a power-sharing deal, but that never happened and honestly it completely slipped my mind.

There was also a lot of debate about cybernetics going on. I never really participated – we hated it, our allies hated it and most of our closest enemies hated it as well, so it didn’t really factor into the game for me.

There were teams that I barely interacted with all day – at one point someone from a team I hadn’t spoken to thus far (The Kingdom of Skane, perhaps) came over to ask for my signature on a settlement in Kunender (Shichang Cluster). They said something about Harrison being too busy to sign… which I immediately recognised for the fob-off that it was, and ran away. I didn’t even know we had presence in Kunender…

Overall, the game was a huge amount of fun, and a great reminder of why I love megagames so much. The shorter format was great, the councils were busy nearly all day, and there was some excellent scheming going on.

Despite control’s need to insert a bit of support for our team (two fleets wiped off in one turn was a huge hit), we did pretty well overall. The designer himself said he thought ours was the hardest team, and despite losing Jalbar and not winning Henry, we kept strong and met most of our objectives!

And our relationship with our close friends and cousins is stronger than ever, of course ❤️

Find out more about Reading Megagames here. The next megagame you’ll find me at is Washington Conference on 6th November, and you can also join me for Ed’s next game, By The Grace Of God, on 27th November.