This announcement was originally posted on the John Company: Second Edition Board Game Geek page.
Today Drew and I put up the pre-launch page for the new edition of John Company. If you'd like to know when the game goes live, you can sign up here.
I'll be writing a lot more about the design in the coming months. But it seemed like a good time to tackle a few big questions in one place. I posted a version of the following statement on Twitter, but I've built it out a little here.
John Company is the game I never stop working on. It was started back in 2009(!) and it kept humming in the back of my head every since. In a way, all of the other history games I've done are just outgrowths of it. It is a very big design with a lot to say. I adored working on the first edition and am tremendously proud of that game. But it was also a game that shows the marks of a difficult birth.
John Company was completed the same year as my dissertation, back in 2017. At that time, my family and I were broke and anxious about our future. Graduate school and somewhat complicated birth of our second son (don't worry he's fine now!) had more-or-less tapped us of our savings. We were packing up our apartment and knew we'd stay with family for a couple months but had no idea where we'd go after that. The final touches were hammered out on a table that sat in an empty apartment that I had spent the day loading into a truck. The future was very scary, but somehow this game felt important. I delayed my dissertation defense and picked up some extra work as a tutor to cover the expenses of a little more time in Texas so that I could finish everything.
Perhaps appropriately, things were tight when it came to the game too! The production was extremely stripped down. I had to cut rulebook pages to keep it under the weight limit set by the publisher. It also never got a proper release. There was a massive shipping mistake and it missed Essen. Some folks played it half a year before others.
But I loved it all of the same and I was glad to see that it found a little community of players. At the same time, I always thought it could be something more.
When Drew and I started Wehrlegig Games, Pax Pamir: Second Edition was always the title we were going to start with. But in my heart I knew that I really wanted to tackle John Company. Almost as soon as we finished Pamir back in 2018, I got to thinking about how I'd do John Company if given a chance. We've been working on the game since and it's finally ready to show you all.
The new edition of John Company is a dramatic reimagining of the first. It is immensely more accessible and is built around a production ethos that prioritizes usability and immersion. So many of the changes we've made have made the core design much more elegant and expressive. There's a lot more room for deal-making and the game's stories have never been this broad in their scope.
But we've been careful to reinvest some of that saved mental overhead in fleshing out the game's systems and arguments. This includes adding historic details where appropriate, building out elements of the design that were undercooked. The private firm game also got a ton of work and still has months of fine tuning ahead of it.
I've also done what I could to sharpen the game's arguments. Like Pamir, John Company is built on a bedrock of postcolonial thought and draws from many scholars. If you've ever wanted to see the work of Edward Said in board game form, boy do I have a game for you.
Will this game eliminate the first edition? Of course not. Like Pamir, the first edition is very much it's own beast. But, I think may groups that struggled with that game will find a home in this one.
Over the next several weeks, I'll be sharing a lot more about the game, but in the meantime I'm happy to answer your questions in this thread.
Will I like it?
This is very much not a game for everyone. If you like negotiation games, games about history, business simulations, or wish your political games were less about fantasy/scifi empires and more about wearing nice looking hats, you will find a lot to enjoy here.
Is there as much luck as in the first edition?
There is less, though still much more than your average eurogame.
How easy is this game to learn?
It's an interesting teach. Unlike many of my other games, the design sort of teaches you how to play as you play it. It is dramatically easier to learn than the first edition but still takes time. I think it's best learned at a sort of leisurely pace as you play through your first two turns. There's a good chance we'll include a walkthrough of some kind.
Will there be a solo mode?
Yes. Ricky Royal (who did Pamir) is currently working on it. I'm excited with how it's going so far but it's early in the process.
Are there still wild negotiations, marriages, and drama both petty and grand?
Yes. This game generates at least one Victorian novel worth of drama each play.