#125: Imperial Struggle

"From the discovery of New France to the 1981 Referendum, all of Quebec history is based on a single fallacy: that the British actually wanted to own Quebec. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The British already had a surplus of colonies in the sunny Caribbean and took little interest in the Canadian icebox later dismissed by Voltaire as nothing more than 'quelques arpents de neige'... In 1759, with war raging everywhere between France and England, the British knew if would look suspicious if they didn't engage the French in North America. They placed the expedition in the hands of a thirty-two-year-old, inexperienced general, James Wolfe, and gave him strict orders: 'Put up a good fight... but lose.' Wolfe devised a clever theatrical strategy. He would choose an impossible attack-route: Arriving by boat on the St. Lawrence river then scaling the unassailable walls of the fortress of Quebec, thus guaranteeing defeat and dumping Quebec with France for good. But Wolfe's glorious defeat was snapped from the jaws of victory by Montcalm who brilliantly out-manoeuvred Wolfe and surrendered--a stroke of genius that got the colony off France's hands once and for all."
-Nick Auf der Mar, "La Petite Histoire du Québec (Version Anglaise)"

Games Played Last Week:
01:09 -SEAL Team Flix (Pete Ruth & Mark Thomas, WizKids, 2018)
02:37 -Teotihuacan: City of Gods (Daniele Tascini & Dávid Turczi, NSKN Games, 2018)
04:04 -Yokohama (Hisashi Hayashi, Tasty Minstrel Games, 2016)
04:48 -Sprawlopolis (Steven Aramini, Danny Devine, & Paul Kluka, Button Shy, 2018)
08:26 -Mezo (John Clowdus, Kolossal Games, 2019)
13:25 -The Crew: The Quest for Planet 9 (Thomas Sing, KOSMOS, 2019)
15:02 -Qwixx (Steffen Benndorf, Gamewright, 2012)
16:41 -That's Pretty Clever (Wolfgang Warsch, Schmidt Spiele, 2018)
17:30 -Coloretto (Michael Schacht, ABACUSSPIELE, 2003)
19:32 -Orléans: Invasion (Inka Brand, Markus Brand, & Reiner Stockhausen, dlp Games, 2015)
20:59 -Scythe (Jamey Stegmaier, Stonemaier Games, 2016)

News (and why it doesn't matter):
25:55 Expansion to Twilight Imperium 4th ed.
26:44 Pandemic Legacy Season 0
27:20 Undaunted: Reinforcements
28:39 DeepMind: An AI for Diplomacy?
29:35 Lord of the Rings: Anniversary Edition
31:01 Steven Universe Beach-a-Palooza on Kickstarter July 14th
31:29 Pendulum by Stonemaier
31:39 Lost Ruins of Arnak by CGE
31:59 Documentary: Gamemaster

32:42 Feature Game: Imperial Struggle (Ananda Gupta & Jason Matthews, GMT Games, 2020)