My Favorite Wargame Cards – A Look at Individual Cards from My Favorite Games – Card #37: Populism from 2040: An American Insurgency from Compass Games

With this new 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.

Card #37: Populism from 2040: An American Insurgency from Compass Games

2040: An American Insurgency is a card driven game that attempts to simulate a near future US civil war in the 21^st century. In this 2-player game that plays in less than 3 hours, the blue team is the Federals representing agents of the government in Washington. The red team are the Rebels including militia groups trying to seize control of states, highways, and cities. The conflict spreads across the entire continental US, from Miami to Seattle and from Los Angeles to New York.

This game is not perfect and it has some issues and the graphics are not that great frankly. As I played the game, I actually felt like it was a pretty decent game, with some very interesting mechanics covering an interesting topic. I know it isn’t perfect and in some ways the designer was so careful not to offend anyone in the game that he really didn’t get to say anything about the situation and its causes, and the game somewhat suffers from that. But it was interesting and I believe that we are about the only ones who played the game.

In this post, I want to focus on the Populism card which is a Rebel aligned event. Populism is an interesting political approach to appeal to ordinary citizens who feel that the issues and concerns they are focused on are disregarded by typical political elites. And 2040: An American Insurgency is based on this premise as each side is focused on their own agenda and not necessarily those that better the nation as a whole. 2040 is focused on such political themes as insurgency and control, and a focus on the manipulation of the social media machine as a means to an end. The game’s mechanics and narrative touch on themes that are often associated with populism as it focuses on such divisions as the “People” vs. “Elites”. The concept of populism often portrays a struggle between ordinary citizens and a perceived corrupt elite. The game’s premise of a civil war between rebels and the government reflects this dynamic.

One of the major ways that the Populism card is used by the Rebels is to break up a lock on several areas by the Federals who may have quelled the rebellious spirit of cities. The card does have a qualifier however, which is not a good sign for the Rebel player, as the cities of New York, Chicago, Dallas and Los Angeles must be at the Order Status. This will mean that the Rebel player is most likely losing the game as these cities are all good sources of victory points and getting them to rebel can be difficult. But the power of the Populism card is that the player gains a few new cards and also is allowed to place 2 Unrest tokens anywhere on the board. These can be used to begin wresting away control of these large cities or any other strategic areas needed for the Rebel player to meet their objectives.

Populist movements often utilize social media to mobilize support and bypass traditional media channels and spread their message to those who may have come to distrust the typical media outlets who may be seen as having an agenda. The game features decentralized Rebel militia groups trying to seize control of territory, mirroring how populist movements can emerge from localized or grassroots movements and the game also deals with a suburban vs. urban conflict by incorporating the unique strategic problem of potential conflicts within cities and suburbs, which can sometimes reflect the political polarization seen in modern societies.

Populism in the United States reaches back to the presidency of Andrew Jackson in the 1830’s and to the People’s Party in the 1890’s. It has made a resurgence in 2010’s–2020’s politics in not only the United States but also democracies around the world. Populism is an approach to politics which views “the people” as being opposed to “the elite” and is often used as a synonym of a focus on anti-establishment; as an ideology, it transcends the typical divisions of left and right and has become more prevalent in the United States with the rise of disenfranchisement and apathy toward the establishment. The definition of populism is a complex one as it has been defined by many different scholars with different focuses, including political, economic and social features. Populism is often split into two variants in the United States, one with a focus on culture and the other that focuses on economics.

Here is a link to our unboxing video showing the components: