Atlantic Islands (Map Game) Guidelines

This page brings a few suggestions to the rules of Atlantic Islands Map Game. This is not intended to be mandatory, but only a few guidelines, which players may choose to overlook freely. This is only intended to make the game more believable, and maybe taking this into consideration would make the difference between just a nice Map Game and a great ATL.

Moves must be viable and believable
Whenever we make a move, we always have to consider its viability, that is, if the movement is possible, and what motivations the nation would have to do that. A few things thar ought to be considered:
 * 1) Motivation. What would be the purpose of the occupation? Why would, say, Russia send ships to Bahamas and occupy the islands? Just for the sake of having a few colonies? How does it match its historical development? (Or instead, how deeply this historical development would have changed due to the islands in the middle of the ocean?)
 * 2) Islands and colonies dimensions. How would the islands be able to support the colonists? Are the islands big enough to support many of them? How many colonists is the insular colony capable of holding? Islands, if not large enough, usually have scarce resources, such as water and food supplies. Portuguese left off a few sheep in Azores a few years before their actual settlement began, because there was no food supply for a viable colony.
 * 3) Labor. What kind of labor system would be used, and why? Slaves, indentured servants and free colonists are viable possibilities, but each of them has their advantages and their disavantages. More importantly, each of them has been established in the colonies by a series of historical reasons that should be considered.

Of course there is no simple answer to any of these questions, but it is worthy to think about them. The more we consider this, the better our ATL gets.

Have a plan for your colonies
What is the plan of the country you are playing with? Why did they establish colonial systems? Obviously, it’s not just for the sake of it, or because “everyone is doing it”. Can it support this kind of (very expensive) enterprise? How? How strong is the country, in military and economic terms? What is the colonies' main objective? Is it production? Of what? Is it trade? Of what? Is it immigration? Why?

About immigration: In the 1600s or 1700, immigrating used to be a last case measure, or, for very few wealthy and well-related men, a chance of making even more money than they already had. For others, leaving Europe was truly desperation, or a punishment for crimes.

How many people lived in the original country, and how many of them would be willing to leave? What will all these colonists be doing there? What’s the point of taking that specific island and putting some folks in there? Would massive immigration weaken the old European country, and to what extent?

==="It's the Economy, Stupid!" ===

1. What kind of economic activities will be developed in it?


 * If it’s mere subsistence, there has to be a reason, usually a strategical one – like portugal occupying Brazil in order not to lose it, or there being a series of religious conflicts in England that led infidel colonists to want to leave the continent for good.


 * If it is a plantation system for exporting tropical goods, what kind of goods are these? How wanted they are in Europe? Does the country have the necessary technology to produce it? How much of it will be produced, and where will it be exported to? How will they will be produced? And, very importantly, where will the food come from, if it is not planted there? There must be a subsidiary food production system, lest the colonists starve to death.

2. What kind of labor system will be used?


 * Slavery? Where from, Africa? Where in Africa? How is the country going to get the slaves – will it buy them in Africa, or from pirates, from other countries? How? Or will it capture them on its own? As side-effects, how will slavery influence relationship among people: will it lead to prejudice? And what about its economic effects: will it lead to a slower production? This depends mostly on what you believe about what the effects of slavery are.


 * Or maybe you'd rather have indentured servants – but where will they come from? How many citizens of your own country will be willing to virtually sell themselves temporarily as indentured servants? And why? – are labor and living conditions so harsh that they would rather leave the place they ever lived at and venture overseas? Does your country accept foreign indentured servants in the colonies?


 * Or still, free labor – the latter applies as well: why would colonists leave their countries for some tropical island? To make a fortune? To flee from persecution? Of what kind? Are foreign or infidel colonists allowed?

Of course most of the colonies had a mixture of all these systems, and it can be very interesting to think about how these things may relate.

Nothing is definitive
We must keep in mind that nothing must be definitive. The best way to look at the game is prospectively, not retrospectively. I mean, trying to follow every move and derive its consequences, and then see what goes from it, instead of thinking “I want things to be like this in 2000, so I’ll lead my country to get this in 1600”.

So, if a country claims an island, that doesn’t mean this island will have to be theirs in 1800, and speak their language in 2000. Things change. Jamaica was taken up by British, Lagos (Nigeria) was founded by Portuguese and Louisiana belonged to France for centuries. So, we can take any island we want, but usually there is a principle that ought to be followed:

Uti possidetis
''The land belongs to whomever settles it. ''So, if a country takes up an island in, say, the Ampere Islands, it would require a war to make it change hands, or a treaty. A war would hardly be acceptable, since all countries see each other as equals, and they would rather move to the next void island than bother about killing fellow Europeans for a piece of floating land. And why is that specific island so important to the country that is attacking?

At the same time, if a country takes up an island, it had better care for it; if the colony is not strong enough, there may be some skirmish over it.

The only limit is our imagination, here, but this is what makes things difficult: it’s like playing football with an imaginary ball: each one says the ball did what they want it to do.