Aaron Berger continuing: now I would say that COIN games are very much the storygames of board gaming. They’re abstract and quite narrative, insofar as you never really care what the logistical range of your Special Forces specialists are in A Distant Plain, right? What you do care about is that the Americans Coalition kicks ass at murder but murder isn’t how they win, so they need to parley their murder skill into help from the local Afghan government in achieving local support. Lots of little fictional bits cordoning off the fruitful void of the game where you constantly negotiate frenemy relationships to eke out temporary advantages. Make sense?

This game goes the other direction, giving you procedures that are much more literal: how to get a rocket launched, how to extract fuel, how to prospect, how to maneuver through space, how to balance the mass of your ship against the thrust you need to get safely through radiation belts. And those literal procedures cordon off the fruitful void of trying to maximize your eventual VP payout based on what technologies you have and what deals you can make at the table. The deal-making is a very big deal and more necessary than the book lets on.