No Motherland Without: The DPRK vs. the West

I first encountered No Motherland Without last October at GMT Weekend and immediately fell in love with the game. Game designer Dan Bullock was there, and I had the pleasure of gaming with him and a few other folks I met that weekend. I was drawn to No Motherland Without because it’s a card-driven game similar to Twilight Struggle and 1960: Making the President, both of which I love, plus it also has some unique elements that make this game stand out. It’s set in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, and the game is now on Kickstarter! (Edit: The Kickstarter has since been cancelled, as the designer is deciding how to progress. Stay tuned!)

No Motherland Without is a 2-player card-driven strategy game that highlights the tentions between the DPRK and the West from 1953 to present day. The DPRK is seeking a nuclear deterrent to invasion, improving living conditions, and purging elites to prevent a coup. Meanwhile, the West is aiding defectors to obtain intel, stymieing the missile program, implementing sanctions on the North Korean economy and further isolating the DPRK from the global community to intensify pressure on the regime.

The game takes place in North Korea over three generations of the Kim regime, and game play lasts 60-120 minutes. Victory is determined by either prestige or by final score. Prestige reflects the standing of the Kim regime.

The board is unique in that it has a map of North Korea, but there’s also a Generational Map and Defector Map (both of which I’ll explain later), as well as an Enduring Events, the Prestige track, the Global Opinion track and strategic reserves. Along the side of the board is the Ballistic Missile Research, which is for the DPRK player.

The game takes place over up to seven turns. The first three turns use the Junche event deck, and the remaining turns use the Songun event deck. Within each turn, there’s a draw phase, an action phase, a resolution phase and a cleanup phase. At the start of the turn, players draw until they have a hand of 8 cards. At the start of the action phase, the West decides whether to go first or second. Players then alternate playing a card for activities, investments or events until neither player has any remaining cards in hand.

Much like other card-driven strategy games, you can play a card as an Event if it belongs to your faction or if it’s neutral (depicted by a grey band on top of the card). There are also Enduring Event cards, which will impact the game for the duration that the card is sitting on the Enduring Events track. Each subsequent play of an Enduring Event card will push the cards to the next space, and in the case of the third card, will bump it off the track. What a cool mechanic! There are also Legacy Events that have a permanent effect for the rest of the game.

You can also play a card for Actions Points, but if the card belongs to your opponent’s faction, the event will trigger before activities are taken. Each card’s value is printed on the top right.

If you use the card for Action Points, there are various activities you can do. If you’re the DPRK, you can improve infrastructure, imprison a defector, uncover a defector route, purge an elite or advance ballastic missile research. If you’re the West, you can place outage markets, place a defector route, appeal to the Global Community or choose a citizen to defect.

To improve infrastructure as the DPRK, you spend the number of points based on the level of improvement. For example, a level three improvement will cost 3 AP. Infrastructure is important because during the resolution phase, the levels of improvement plus the number of elites from the active generation are compared to the standard living of threshold and that determines if Prestige moves. If the prestige is below “Critical” status, the game immediately ends with a West victory.

The West meanwhile, as one of its actions, is working to place outage markers, which prevent the DPRK from placing infrastructure improvements. But during the cleanup, outage markers are removed, thus the West needs to start over again in the next turn if they decide to use their APs for that action.

What sets No Motherland Without apart from other card-driven strategy games is that it deals with the people affected by the conflict. The whole second side to the board includes the Generational Map and the Defector Map. The West is actively, with its APs, trying to get people out of the DPRK. The West can spend 1AP to place a defector route on the map or spend 1 AP to choose a citizen to defect. You do this by placing the defector pawn on the map of the active generation. Unmarked female citizens must defect first before male citizens can be picked. Defectors can move across the Gobi Desert and get to safety faster, but it’s risky (and a die roll determines success), or move through China to Thailand back to South Korea.

The DPRK, on the other hand, is purging elites and placing elite markers on males in the active generation. If the West chooses a citizen to defect that’s adjacent to an elite, the total cost to travel by defecting is increased by 1AP.

There are special activities the DPRK and the West can do. The DPRK can advance Ballistic Missile Research. The DPRK will tuck event cards face down in the numbered space corresponding with the current number of third-level infrastructure improvements. In the Songun deck, there are missile test event cards that, when played as an event, look at the level of research. and the DPRK gains prestige and global opinion is shifted toward the West. If the DPRK is in high prestige when a missile test event is triggered, the DPRK immediately wins. As a special activity, the West can appeal to the Global Community, which shifts opinion to the West and triggers benefits for the West.

There are also Aid from the Kremlin and Aid from Beijing cards, which can be used by the DPRK player in lieu of playing an event card to conduct 3AP of activities. After turn 3, the Soviet Union collapses and the Aid from the Kremlin card is removed from the game.

Lastly, players can invest a card’s AP (partially or completely) into their reserves. Reserves can hold a maximum of three points to be used for activities in future action rounds. I really liked having this option!

This game has lots of tension, like with most other card-driven strategy games, and there are a lot of hard decisions to make to minimize the damage from your opponent. It’s difficult to do everything you want to do. This game goes beyond placing chits on the map — there are people trying to defect from the DPRK, and that adds a very real and unique element to the game. The components are great, and there are 120 unique cards, of which many have colorful fascinating propaganda art.

Game play lasts from 60-120 minutes. The end is triggered if the DPRK is in high prestige when a missile test event is played (securing victory for the DPRK) or if prestige is below “Critical” at the end of the Resolution Phase, ending with a West victory. If the game is not won by either player before the conclusion of the seventh and final turn, victory is determined by points earned from infrastructure or defectors and dissidents.

The Kickstarter is live and will last through May 26. For $10, you’ll receive a high-quality Print and Play, and for $55, you’ll receive a copy of the game. If you love card-driven strategy games, this is definitely worth backing.

And in case you were wondering, what does the board game’s name mean? “No Motherland Without You” is a North Korean song that was written to Kim Jong Il after his passing.

Thanks, Lock Horns Game, for sending me this game!