Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order from GMT Games – Event Card Spoilers with Designer V.P.J. Arponen – #91 Muammar Gaddafi

We have worked with V.P.J. Arponen over the past several years with his fantastic entry into the COIN Series covering the Finnish Civil War called All Bridges Burning: Red Revolt and White Guard in Finland, 1917-18. We posted an interview for that game as well as about a dozen Event Card spoilers from that same title. More recently, his new design called Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order was announced by GMT Games and we are again honored to work with him to bring an inside look at the game to the faithful readers of the blog with a series of Event Card Spoilers.

*Please keep in mind that the artwork and layout of these cards is not yet finalized and is only for playtest purposes at this point. Also, as the game is still in development, card details may still change prior to publication.

If you are interested in Order & Opportunity: Making of the Post-Cold War World Order, you can pre-order a copy for $55.00 from the GMT Games website at the following link: https://www.gmtgames.com/p-1027-order-opportunity.aspx

#91 – Muammar Gaddafi

Historical Background

Muammar Gaddafi was the Libyan dictator who in a coup in the late 1960s took power in the North African state. From the beginning, Gaddafi’s Libya was for decades a thorn in the side of the US-led West representing a regional and sometimes global anti-Western influence. However, by the late 1990’s, efforts were underway to rehabilitate Gaddafi’s Libya and seek avenues of cooperation in the context of which various “deals in the desert” were indeed struck with Gaddafi. Things turned around again in the 2010’s as the Arab Spring sparked an uprising in Libya against Gaddafi which the West supported by a NATO air war intervention. In the course of the Libyan Civil War, Gaddafi was ultimately captured and died in the hands of the rebels in late 2011.

Note that all card and other art you will see in these card spoilers is provisional playtest art only.

Game Effects and Uses

Alongside Event Cards associated with particular powers — such as the War on Terror Card from the US Deck that we discussed in the previous card spoiler — Order & Opportunity also contains so-called Development Events of which #91 Muammar Gaddafi is an example.

At the start of each player turn, a Development Card is drawn representing the “latest developments” from around the world. Upon arrival, the Development is placed on the map edge in special holding slots that ties the card to a specific region of the map. Gaddafi naturally pertains to Africa. The card’s event options thereby become available for the players to make use of.

Gaddafi’s appearance on the “world stage” presents two options for the players. The top event option titled “Intervention” enables the player to bring a second card — the Libyan Civil War World Event — to play and immediately add their influence in North Africa where that World Event Card occurs. This represents the historical pathway triggering the Libyan Civil War as described above, although the progression of the war and its ultimate outcome remain for the players to carve out. The second event option titled “Deal in the Desert” represents a “peaceful” way of engaging with Gaddafi. It bears a cost in terms of reducing the acting player’s adherence to the rules based world order (“WO -1”) but gives a leg up in North Africa where the player may replace one level of opposing influence with theirs.

Thanks to Vez for his work on designing this very interesting looking Card Driven Game but also for his willingness to prepare and allow us to host this series of Event Card Spoilers. This is the second entry in the series and there will be more in the near future.

If you missed the previous entry in the series, you can catch up on the posts to date by following the below links:

#12 War on Terror/Operation Enduring Freedom

You can also check out the interview with V.P.J. Arponen covering the design on the blog at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2023/08/21/interview-with-v-p-j-arponen-designer-of-order-opportunity-from-gmt-games/

The next card in the series will be #43 Belt & Road Initiative/Dependencies Created.

-Grant