War With A Mate - Episode 96: Show Me The Money!

Episode Date: October 5, 2026

It’s all pounds, shilling and pence this week at War With A Mate, as the guys cover a lot of big money topics in both Andy’s History Corner and Common Ground. The game recap tackles the combat section of the rules which is refreshingly unproblematic and the Audio Mailbag makes its Sophomoric appearance with Rick. For those who enjoy board games and good causes, we highly recommend checking out The Spiel Foundation, maintained by swell people like Rick. https://thespielfoundation.com

Hello, it's James. And Andy, welcome to War with a May, where we play SBIs, the campaign for North Africa. And what have we done this week, Andy? Not played SPIs, the campaign for North Africa. Correct, because we are still in our hiatus. We did read the rules for combat. We have. We've been doing some more reading. We've been getting up to scratch with the rules, some background stuff, of course, hard at work.

on the spreadsheets and all of the preparation, and an important part is knowing what we're doing. The practice run was all good and well, but we need to go back through. There's a lot of rules, so we wanted to double check. And as you say, it's been combat this week. It has. This was the rule section. Went through this one pretty, no surprises really, or anything where I was like, oh, we've been getting that wrong that I've found. It seemed combats the bit we are down fairly well. Nothing stood out crazy, which is good, because when you spend 18 months playing a practice run for six turns and you have dozens of combat, you'd hope that you kind of have that bit nailed.

Also, the combat bit section for the rules is nicely self-contained and in sequence, and because the combat is pretty self-encaptulating, there's not a huge amount of like, oh, this is actually different because of a small paragraph, 15 cases earlier in a different section. So there's less of the like... Bouncing around. Yeah. And the whole thing is, for the most part,

so for this part, you consult this table. Yeah. So a lot of it is just directing you to the various tables and the rules themselves, the body of them, are just a means to determine things like the differentials. So you're looking at what values you're adding to your units for raw strength, and actual strength and morale, all these things that make up the final combat differential are really the bulk of those combat rules. And a lot of them are fairly intuitive. You have to do

a little bit of reading between the lines for some of them and going to other parts of the rules. But for the most part, that's stuff like terrain, where it's like you can find the terrain in other parts of the rules. You can find the terrain on the map. But even the combat section even has a how terrain effects barrage, how terrain effects close assault, how it affects anti-tank. So even all that stuff is fairly contained. Yeah, it actually does a lot of what it needs to up front and without any obfuscated aspects that are buried away in the rules, which is a big change because a lot of the rules have you jumping from pillar to post to figure out what's going on. Oh yeah. So that's been pleasant. That's nice and

straightforward. I don't think I'm looking forward to the logistics part. No. Well, we did go through trucks and the various resources a couple weeks ago, and that was fine. The bit I'm not looking forward to is the bit where it's stuff which is not ever done. Which we had a bit of today. I was looking through patrols, which is a big one. We've had probes, but patrols are an aspect that we didn't really encounter for one big reason, which is actually the biggest point I've come away from the combat section with thoughts on. And that is the secretive part of the game. Yes, the Fogar War. Yes, because we didn't have a whole lot of that in the practice run. We were very forthcoming with each other about everything because we were trying to communicate what's going on

and how the rules work. So a lot of that was a lot of transparency of this unit is this strong. This unit is this battalion or this division. And this is what I'm using. I'm using this weapon with this level of barrage points or these strengths of ground units and guns. So a lot of that was very clear and in the harsh light of day. Yeah, well, in the practice row, we wanted to sort of, we'll both work the various numbers out, so we know we're both the other ones like doing it right, as it were, because, I mean, we want to get all the rules right, but I think what's really important, is if we're getting them wrong.

We're getting them wrong in the same way. And now... So not to unbalance things, but hopefully we'll just get them right. Well, now we've got to have secrets from each other, Andy. Yeah. So patrol. Send a bit of your guys out.

It's like a virtual abstracted patrol. You don't like move any tiles for it. It's up to like five squares, right? Yep. And you get... What do you get out of it? You get to determine... You're always...

you roll on a table, would you believe it? It doesn't make any sense. It's so out of character. What were they thinking for this one? They should have had it on the slidy graph that they have for the rest of it, like an abacus. It comes with an abacus. Oh, this is where we've been doing it rules wrong.

I've been getting my numbers by drawing from a deck of cards. Oh, no, that's only if you abstract the air rules. Are we not abstract? Oh, shit. No, that's why the game takes so long, because otherwise you could do a turn real quick. So instead, we've been doing the game correct. We've used the abacus, the deck of cards, and we've also been using star signs to determine what goes on.

Yeah, there's a big astrology. The astrology booklet is my favourite of the booklet. If you're a Libra, then you actually get initiative plus one. Oh, well, I was thinking with the level of simulation, this game's trying to go for. Each of your toe points has a birthday, and then you have to work out if there is. in the correct like star sign for them to get a boost based on the weak it is. You also, it's based on the 1979 sky, so you have to get a transitional star map. The Saharan attachments in retrograde.

Oh, that would be fun. Because at this point, we've already played the game for six turns. It's kind of all hard. So we need to start adding in some more rules. It's not complicated enough. For the avoidance of doubt, by the way, there isn't an abacus or star chart that comes with this. It's just two dice. Because if I started reading these rules first time round back when we first got this, and somebody came up to me and said, by the way, there is a star sign in here, a star graph, and you have to map this out using actual astrology.

I'd be like, oh, cool, that's real. That's actually in here. I'll get to that later, I suppose. Yeah, I've heard that. That in the past the point. The past point, the camels and The Star Sines. Capricorn. Capricorn, Capricorn, O.Pie.

Yeah, Capricorn, I really liked him in Titanic. Never seen it. You've never seen Titanic. I know how it ends. What a stupid approach to film. That's insane, by the way. So you just don't watch anything. Never appealed to me.

So you never watched the sixth sense. I actually haven't. And you're never going to. Yeah, I know he's, he's. dead people and Bruce Willis is in it. What? Come on, are you spoiling the sixth ends on the podcast? I'm really sorry, by the way, everyone listening.

If we've just ruined the six... If Andy has just ruined the sixth thens, I'm not having any part in that. Him being able to see ghosts as a spoiler. Right, but it is. No, that was in the trailer, because I have seen the trailer. What isn't in the trailer is the bit where one of them's dead the whole time. The second twist. Right, I don't know what you do it at you.

trying to like dance around the twist and pretend that you're not giving it away, but you already have. Oh, yeah. On the off chance that someone hasn't already heard the spoiler for that film. Oh, spoiler. Yeah, you usually say that at the very end of the spoiler, nice one. Yeah, also Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's uncle for anyone who's not seen stars. I don't know if you just haven't seen stars. You've just heard general chatter around it. Yeah, the famous line, Luke, I am your uncle. Luke, I am your father's brother. But everyone gets that wrong, the real line is, no, I am your uncle. It's not a slight grammatical change.

The familial car is completely different. But yeah, you roll on a table for patrol. What do you get out of that? So with that, you get a list of what battalion-level groups that you find, and you get information such as their historical name. that's a historical designation, an idea on their size, infantry, whatever they are.

So you get a nice bit of info on them, which is handy for things like if you're going to go for a barrage or an assault. You have a general idea of what you're up against. Well, so when we're not saying if you get the historical designation, you can look it up in the other guy's book, right? No, no.

Just to confirm that because... Yeah, that would be... That would be bold. Unless you know it off by heart. God. A few weeks to memorize it. So I can say, if you start trying to rain man all of my units. I'd definitely also just be getting it wrong.

It's like rain man goes to the casino and just loses. Like all this money. Tom Cruise is furious. You get that baseline information, and then I suppose it's on that person to keep track of what they've come across previously. So we'll have our own little recon sheets, our own little databases that we're keeping track of for each other's units. I did start putting them together towards the end of the practice scenario for like when we'd do

what the barrage targets or the bombing targets are. I'd keep a little note of like the fourth black shirts have seven infantry, free guns or whatever it was. I started to do a bit of that with the seventh especially because my whole thing was always trying to hit them with the combined arms disadvantage. Yeah. So I'd always go for their units and started to get an idea of the infantry split with the armour, which I think it was like three armour towards the end? Between three and four, depending on various reinforcements. Yeah, yeah. So that was something I started to do a little bit too, and that will definitely be something I put together in full, in the full game,

because having that kind of information is going to be so valuable. So stuff like patrols will be very important. Also, for the air stuff, you get recon flights, so that will be handy too, just to know what I'm up against, because I feel like in the full game gonna have to pick my fights a bit more carefully. Can't really just run in and smash my guys against yours and hope for the best.

I think also for like it was more open this time but like you know when your Saharan detachment was coming. Yes. That would be like, well yeah, send a recont plane because for all I knew you'd sent one toe point if you hadn't been telling me because we were sharing what things were.

Yeah, I only had a few guys there, but on paper that group of few guys could be a lot scarier. Yeah. I don't believe it gives you stuff like strength. It just gives you base values of like toe and those sort of things. Does it even give you two? I'll have to double check. That's part of the fun.

I can't memorize all these bloody rules. But it does give an idea as to what the combat's going to look like. And the most exciting thing for me is going to be the hiding. The information. The secrets, Andy. I love to keep secrets from you. For example, somewhere in your house here, I've hidden something, and that thing, I'm not going to tell you what it is,

but you should have looked for it. No. Right. Well, you spoil that, haven't you? Yeah, well, in retaliation. The Fruit Zone. So my Fruit Zone is apples and oranges, or chalk and cheese? apples and oranges

Chalk and cheese has a much better ring to it Neither are fruit though The Fruit Zone Okay so rules I was looking out that I didn't use much Yeah Anti-Tank Anteck is a big one Because I used it once I think in the whole practice run

Yeah I don't know if I even bothered I don't know It never looked worth it to me To be like put them in anti-tank rather than just add them to the close assault. Yeah. And I'm not sure if that's... I mean, there's a few options for that, I guess.

One is that it's just kind of underpowered as a mechanic. And I guess the other is... You didn't have a super... A lot of, like, super dangerous tanks, I guess, as the Italians. I didn't have a lot of tanks, period. And the ones I did have were Italian tanks. Yeah. So I had some...

You don't need anti-tank guns. You need a... sword. Yeah, I believe it's called Plaster of Paris. It's what I made of. Yeah. But I also think they'll probably get a lot stronger. Because the Echoes of War guys mentioned one of the huge game changes for the war was the anti-tank guns.

Yes, which I think were American-made. Could be completely wrong with that. But I want to say that. American-made? I had German in my head. That's not good. But yeah, I had German in my head. I think we both fought the other ones

have better anti-tanks by the science of it. Maybe it's around the time with the Lend release agreement. That might be why I'm putting a marker in there. But yeah, it'll be interesting to see if anti-tank gets used a lot. And the other one is probes. Never did many of them, but they're actually really good. Now I'm looking at it properly.

I know I did a probe towards the end. I think it was in the last turn by accident because I just happened to use a... Not put 50% in. Yeah, I used to small enough force. But I think the way of the combat transpired, it didn't matter because it was all about, I think that reduces losses to a certain extent. For what the probes do?

Yeah. They also, they only use two CPA instead of five, I think. That's probably what I'm thinking of then. Yeah. Which is actually... Just read this and it's already falling completely out of my head. But yeah, that's really strong, I think, because, you know, when I was just trying to chew through those divisions you put in the way. Yes.

where I was, like, blowing them out of the water with the amount of, like, what was left in it versus what I was putting in. Yes, you could just do a probe instead. I should have, the probes would still probably have been bigger. And I could have, like, chipped away at your CPA and done cohesion damage and stuff. Yeah, you would have saved yourself a lot of CPA.

Issue is you're still using ammo, and that's the big one. It is, but I guess for certain pushes, it's a nice one. I guess also, because it is a probe, but you can't use more than 50% of you guys. By your nature, you're not going to use... As much ammo. Yeah. And especially when you know that they're already weak guys.

Another fun thing in the combat aspect is something that we didn't use that I'm excited to, which are dummy tank formations. Yes, they didn't see any... I don't think we even... They actually arrive on the Order of Rival, don't. Oh, do they? I guess that makes sense,

they're not in the construction table. Yeah, I think we just might not have got them. We'll have to have a look, and I hadn't looked at the dummy tanks. Yeah, because I know they can be targets in combat, understandably, otherwise what's the point? But that would be very fun to get into combat. Someone's got, say, three armor groups,

but two of them are actually dummy formations. Yeah, inflatable tanks. Inflatable tanks? You really think that's, you think they had inflatables, big balloons? They did use some inflatables, for like tricking air reconnaissance and stuff. Really? Yeah.

I don't know why, and this is something that really goes to show my lack of general knowledge. I don't really know when balloons got big. Probably when they inflated them, am I right? No, but I don't know when balloons started. I think before. Before. Before. When was the race around the world set?

1800s? The race around the world? In 80 Days? Oh, around the world in 80 days. Yeah. Who calls it the race around the world? Subtitle in 80 days. It's another thing I've not seen but in referencing.

I mean, it's bold after I just said I don't have much good general knowledge and then chastodizing you for not knowing around the world in 80 days. But nonetheless, it's happened. But they did have, they definitely had balloons for this. They had a balloon in that, yeah. Because there's a book I've been thinking about getting about this British stage magician, who has all these outlandish claims about like tricks he pulled on the German army and stuff that might all be lies but looks pretty interesting.

That would be cool even if it's a bit of fiction. I'm thinking like latex balloons though. That's what comes to my... When you say inflatable, I'm thinking like a balloon dog. Yeah, not like a big canvas. Yeah, I'm not thinking canvas. I'm not thinking like hot air in canvas. I'm thinking like latex with a little tie at the end.

That probably is a... That feels after. I feel latex wasn't big in the 3040. Latex feels modern. Latex feels modern. Thank you for your input this week, Andy. It's been insightful. Thank God we have the history corner for you to shine.

Well, it's hard to be insightful when both of us are talking about stuff we know nothing about. That's the podcast, Andy. Yeah, and it's hard to be insightful. We've been insightful. We've got plenty to share. Five mistakes sometimes. That's true. A lot of it, we do some heavy leaning on those. who write in and they tend to let us know where we've gone right or wrong with something.

But yeah, rule-wise for combat, probably the section I'm the most happy with. Yeah, because everything we haven't used has been pretty much an optional thing. Yeah. Or it's units that haven't arrived yet, so we couldn't feasibly have. So I'm pretty confident as well that you said it before. The order in which it's set out is very intuitive. It's very straightforward. The tables themselves are, now something I'm familiar and comfortable with.

And I think the nature of combat is when it's happening, you've got a build-up to it because of the way we play and the time restrictions we have. Our sessions that are combat heavy tend to be pretty much entirely combat. Yeah. So we don't need to worry about dancing between different rules. So it should be straightforward. And it's in the block stages of like barrage, retreat before assault, and it's time close assault. So it's like you can just go through the sections if you do need to keep stuff in line. Yeah, and things there like probes and patrols.

Those are things we'll definitely have to go back and look at, and we won't, hopefully, fall into the trap we did first time around in the practice run, where we start to feel like we know things off by heart. Instead, we'll shamelessly consult and make sure we're getting everything right, because like you said as well, we don't have the benefit of speaking to each other very openly about what units we have. So we have to be double-checking ourselves, making sure that we're making the right course. on stuff. There might have to be a few moments where we confer and check with each other,

how would you interpret this rule? And is this the right way to do it without getting into the values of what we're talking about? Yeah, because I don't think there'll be anything where we need to give the other person like firm numbers. Except in a situation where you do anyway, like are the three, if the double for actual points gives you the shift on the columns and stuff, those are numbers you have to give the other person anyway. So should be able to keep that kind of thing in line as well. And the number side of things, if there's any confusion on that, it's all based on pretty simple calculations and formulas.

There's nothing in the game that is like complex maths. It is just, you know, it's a division or a multiplication. Yeah. And it tends to stop at that. It doesn't sort of have you divide, multiply, then multiply gain and then add something. There's very few like formulas. like shifting one number to another, it's just the amount of numbers you have to shift

rather than the difficulty of shifting them. Yeah, I think the most complex formula, and this isn't a very complicated one, is fuel capacity for vehicles, which is, I think it's like 0.5 times their fuel rate times something else, like CPA. But also, it also just gives you the fuel capacity of everything that uses fuel.

Yeah. In the thing for it. Yeah, I don't think it gives you the capacity. I think it gives you the fuel rate at which it's consumed. And then you have... Oh, and then you do the timesing by... Yeah. But again, it's straightforward.

So combat, having been looked through, I think we're sitting pretty. Yeah. I mean, that's the thing we've got what we got left to do, because we did the first sort of 10 things, which was like the basics, like the CPA system, and zona control, that kind of thing. Really glad we didn't get any big mistakes flag there. We've done the logistics stuff.

We went through that section. Yes, we've covered that off. And then there's, so we just did combat now, so the only ones left are Air Game. And then the various miscellaneous add-ons, like production systems and the special rules for like your raid on Alexandria and our various versions of the dead. desert group and S-A-S.

And I think those ones will be ones I'd like to do closer to the game start, just so any of the weird things are stuck in my head so that when I go into it, I know what those sort of extra things are that we can tack on. Not necessarily like the Flatelli raid where it's one of a kind and done once later on in the game, but some of the more unusual rules, kind of like construction, where it's things that don't come up all that often, but when they can be used, it's optional and can be beneficial.

Yeah. bit like probes today and patrols where it's stuff that will be useful in the game and I didn't use before. Yeah. I'd like them to be in the forefront of my mind when I start, so I make some use of them early on. Well, yeah, the thing I need in the forefront is all the Commonwealth-specific, like, production stuff.

Because before we start turn one, I will have to plan two months in advance. So that's going to be something that's new for me. from turn one, not like something we didn't get to. Yes. And I just need to not fuck the trucks. I mean, that's the big one. It's the name of the game.

That's the scariest part for me, Andy. It's not ruining my supply lines again. And I don't want to overcorrect, because I feel like last time I had too many tiny little convoys, and this time I'm just going to go for like five big convoys. Yeah. And it's going to go completely tits up. the small convoy thing you have a problem of like it's all just spread out the big convoy thing you have is they're very tempting like targets for bombing or someone like darting over and trying to grab them if they're left out in the open yeah because the small ones it was nice because you were kind of of the thought of where they're going to go what are they going to do also it might be i've spent a bunch of CPA and put a unit out of position to try and capture that but then there's only one truck

Which I liked doing. That was always nice when I had my smaller convoys, and I know the truck bandits tended to get them, which was devastating regardless of the amount of trucks because it felt like a personal attack on me, James, rather than the Italian forces. What? Definitely taking that personally.

Cool. Common ground's going to be fun today then, isn't it? I guess. Because I'm going to hold this grudge for the next hour and a bit. Why? Because you just said something mean-spirited. No, I did. Yeah, you did. You said take it personally. Yeah, that as a don't.

As in, don't take that personally. Wow. So I'm going to read between the lines where do is don't. Yeah. Well, thankfully, Annie, we've got something else to fall back on here. Because we talked about the game and now we'd go to the mailbag, but it looks as though someone has replaced our mailbag with an audio clip. Yeah. It's probably the celebrity on the couch.

because I haven't seen him in a few weeks. I know he's been up to something. He's been getting into the cloud. Yeah, all this movement in Hollywood, all these big films coming out. He's probably out there trying to put his name out. It's nice to see him out for once, not on the sofa.

That is good, yeah. But what he has done is replaced our mailbag segment with someone on the line. So here we have our second installment of the audio mailbag. So today for the mailbag, we've decided to go a little bit different again.

We've brought back the old audio mailbag. It's just like the usual one, but instead of words on paper, it's words in your ear, which is fantastic. And today we are joined by Rick, who has been a long-term follower of War with the Mate. How is it going, Rick? It's going wonderful. It's nice meeting, y'all.

Yes, very good to see at long last. because you've followed us for a good little while now. You've reached out real early on. I did. I probably encountered your podcast via the Reddit post very early on. I think it was like episode 10 or 11 or 12. And of course, back in the days begging for emails, I knew I was behind catching up.

Every week I was ready for you to start the game because you were going to start the game, every single week. So I kept trying to get, but once I got completely caught up, then I was in it to win it for the rest of the time. Yeah, we made that promise a lot early on. So thank you very much for sticking with us

because we, yeah, it must have been episode 15 that we actually did what we said we were doing and started the game. I think we're starting the game. It was a catch rate for the first 10 episodes. We were trying to convince ourselves, convince the audience. But yeah, thanks for sticking around for that.

and your interest in the campaign for North Africa seems to have spilled out a little bit because I believe that you are in a unique situation in also owning a copy of the campaign for North Africa, Rick. I do, I do. It was actually a few years before I found out about your podcast that I had decided in retirement time, I need to find some project, and I don't want something that you can knock out in a weekend. I want something that will take some time. So I'd kind of let know to my friends that I was looking for the campaign for North Africa, and my intention was to play it completely.

They did not sign on board, but that doesn't stop my quest. So I had been looking for a copy of Campaign for North Africa for quite some time, and then all of a sudden I found you guys playing it, and I will live vicariously through your adventures. But at the same time, I must give you credit for allowing me to procure a copy of the campaign for North Africa. Well, I think, if anything, Rick, what you've done here is you've let us know, you've wanted to do this longer.

So we're going to, we'll hand it over to you. We will stop here. It sounds as though we've got someone who can take the reins for us. So thank you for that. You've taken a burden off our shoulder. Oh, no. I would never want to steal your thunder. No, no, no.

I am safe. Wonderful press you've been getting lately. Yeah, that's a good point. probably got too many eyes on us, our presence. So give it a year or so. We'll hand over to you. You can pick this up for us. Wonderful. Excellent. But on your side, do you have any questions from your mailbag, Rick? Is there anything you would like to fire over our way? One of the things that I look at is with the game in full, we know everything that's going to come up. The German reinforcements are going to come in due to the Italians that's being pushed back so far.

and they're trying to save the situation. It's an emergency response. Since you know that the Germans will be arriving around turn 26, and that's for knowledge, that's going to impact some of your planning. Oh, yeah. And so I guess this is, as Richard Berg would call it, playing the game from the God perspective, how do you think that is going to impact your attempts to complete the game early? or will you be playing it for a long-term 111?

So I suppose all in all, it would be cool to go the whole 111. That is the ideal plan here. If it does happen to wrap up that bit earlier, then, I mean, I'm not going to turn down a win early. And I guess on the German side of things, I'm hoping to maybe go for, and this is kind of counterintuitive based on what you've just described as playing from God's perspective. but if I can kind of trick Andy into forgetting the Germans exist and just do really badly with the Italians up to that point and then hit you with the surprise sucker punch,

then that means you've never seen it coming. I just need to make you forget Germany exists. I think that's going to be tough. I don't know if you're going to get away with that. I do think it's an interesting one knowing when they're coming in, though, because it's like I feel like I'm going to be on a real clock of like well you're going to get a bunch of stuff so I have like five turns to

really push but also I can't win until like turn 34 or something so it sort of can't quite go for the jugular I just need to get you back as far as possible before the Germans show up yeah there's a cap on when you can win

I think yeah 34 sounds right before the Commonwealth forces can I can win at any point though that's true so yeah who knows Rick maybe I won't need the Germans maybe the Italians are enough it didn't seem like it in the first six turns so if that does happen

that's Andy's fault entirely but getting if that happens I think if that happens I think switching sides would definitely be the way to figure out which is the better commander I think at that point you have to come in Rick you have to be you have to stub out

the winner takes on Rick I think should be the way this goes oh goodness you've got time to prepare in the background you've got the game to yourself so do a solo run see how that pans out Well, I will be setting mine up and playing along with you, so I've got my own copy of everything set up. So I will be able to analyze your attacks and foibles and all the things. Perfect.

You can mirror the whole thing in that case. We're going to be releasing the spreadsheets alongside, so you don't even have to play the game. You can just pretend. You can bring all your friends around and say, look, I've done all of this. Forget that it says Andy on this sheet. This is all my workings out. You've got a deal. I think you being a bit more of an experienced war game

and then as though you've set it up and be following along and then you're like, why are they doing that? Yeah, and simulations of the war, obviously, you're looking at it from that God perspective, as I mentioned, but I try to see how close the game can come to recreating what happened historically. I don't think that, from what I've been able to research online, that Campaign for North Africa is able to do that in certain areas.

But I just look forward to playing the game as it is designed because that in and of itself is going to be the fun. And I think you've demonstrated where the fun parts of that game are. Yeah, I think the game itself, while it's got all of that historical accuracy, in quotations, in what it's trying to do. And it's got all of the units that are there, the logistics in essence are there. but when it comes to it being an exact one for one, I guess by the nature of it being a game,

you can't ever truly capture that. And I think Richard Berg probably was well aware of that, but just threw in as much stuff as possible, so that at a glance, it looks as crystal clear realistic as possible. But I have seen people comment online about the fact that when they've tried to run combat simulations of actual battles that occurred, it doesn't quite add up, which I guess makes sense with the combat mechanics and it's always going to be slightly skewed. So we are interested to see the parallel history that's born of it, especially if any fights happen to occur with similar units that did go up against each other in maybe similar regions or times.

Yeah, I think also because it's got the scenarios spread through various start points, like there's ones that start to 10, 20 further along. it'll be interesting because those are historically based as far as they could tell for where the units were placed and stuff that'll be a good test to see how far off we are like compare the start point for the desert fuck scenario with where we are at that turn yeah well the huge milestone comparison yeah yeah very good point so yeah we're interested to see what accuracy there is

I have a funny feeling it's going to be pretty far off based on the fact that after six turns we had completely diverted from human history history. Yes. Wonderful. But looking forward to the ride along. One of the things that I kind of keep track of is dice rolls. How many dice came with the game? How many dice do you use when you play? Will you be using the same dice for every die roll? And will we be able to summarize all those in a kai square test to make sure that it is a fair dice? Now, that last one's very interesting. So dice rolls. So this is going to be interesting, actually, since you have a copy of the game. We got three dice. When your game came along, was it fully packaged still?

Or was yours kind of a hodge podge? No, it was actually fully packaged. It did not have the errata in it, which was put out, I think, a few months later by SPI. But it did have the two dice of two different sizes. Cool. Yeah, so we got three for some reason in ours, and they're all the same styling. So it looks like they are all the dice that would have come with this game, but for some reason we have an additional small D6. Yes.

So we've got three of those. Of the two D6s that are small, one of them is in better condition. So we keep that one on the side of the special spare D6, and we just use the other two. So we're planning on using those two for the entirety of the game, for every role that we need to do. and at the end of it we will hopefully have a good idea as to what those dice rolls look like I guess are we getting

a dice roll tracker where we just fill in each time we roll the dice once it's fall yeah yeah I reckon so because there's not too much to roll apart from air combat is really where it kicks up to 11 yeah but I think even then it would be just part of it yeah

yeah we'll keep an eye out yeah I think that's a very good idea because we should have done this for the practice run otherwise we're going to start playing this and we're going to get partway through and realize these dice are loaded. We're going to have to start again. As long as we're using the

same dice, although it would be interesting to see oh, one of us has just got improbably lucky or unlucky throughout the scenarios. I don't know if I want to see that. I don't know if I want to see that the whole 20 years that we spent playing this game was decided by a dodgy die. Or that you've had bad luck in 20 years.

I'm not sure what's worse. Sabotage or curse. The last question I've got has to do with the combat results tables. In the Europa series of war games made by GDW and GRD, that's my exposure to wargaming. And they use a CRT table, combat results table that's based on attack defense ratios, one to one, one, two to one, three to one, four to one.

But the CRT table used in Campaign for North Africa uses a differential table. So I am wondering if doing that makes small units much more impactful when it comes to combat in campaign for North Africa because you can add one or two more points and get that column shift. Whereas with the ones I'm used to, you have to throw in enough to overcome that ratio. So that's another thing that I kind of watch for. Any thoughts on that? Yeah. And it does come up in a sense. and the game does account for it to a degree

because that differential is made up of quite a few different things. So you've got the actual point-to-point value of raw strength point, well actual strength points, again, strength points. But then you've also got some factors like if you are twice the size of a unit in terms of raw strength, that is a further column shift.

The size differential in terms of unit organization, so a division versus a battalion, creates another shift of, is it four on the table for that? For the maximum, yeah. Yeah. So you can have another shift of up to four for that. And then things like terrain, I guess that doesn't come into it too much in terms of making it fair when it comes to small units.

But those aspects where it can shift it further does feel like it's got not quite a ratio built into it, but it does seem to adjust with those other factors. So those small units, while they can be a sticking point, and I've used that to annoy Andy a lot by just planting a small unit and just letting it get shipped away because the losses are percentage-based so that differential

can end up where the differential can be a plus 10 on Andy's side when he's attacking but he could still roll say 15% of my guys are dead so I've still got a pretty hearty force based on what he's committed yeah I do think the differentials helps small unit

and the fact that I think it puts more emphasis on like terrain and things so because terrain can be up to if it's free columns not just free numbers and because some of the columns are two free numbers it means that you can have the equivalent of like seven actual point combat difference made up by good terrain and like a big division that's a division even if it's empty but it's like a very well stocked battalion. So I do think it does give you a bit of ways to swing things even if you've got those smaller units.

Yeah. So yeah, I think maybe a ratio system would help when it comes to the scale of it. But I think when we've had clashes, usually way I mean, towards the end it was just like getting two action figures and banging them together because we just had all of our big

divisions right there next to each other. But I'm interested to see how that pans out in the full game when we do have smaller clashes and skirmishes between units of differing sizes. So we'll get back to you as well with that and let you know how that pans out, see if there is real sticking points with small units against bigger ones. Excellent. Yeah. And to your point, there are smaller numbers in the desert. And Richard Berg being a very smart man when he designed this, I think it was due to the fact that you can't

bring huge armies to bear against each other like you could in the rest of the European theater to what I used to usually exposed to. So I'm wondering if that's what allowed him to use the differential table, which is why they were testing it for playability. Yeah, and to what extent they've tested that to playability. We'll find out, I'm sure, at some point. It could well be that the game is completely unbalanced and lopsided. But yeah, the smaller number of people that are in the desert compared to some of your other bigger theaters with bigger clashes, it does mean that you get huge stretches of land you have to get across just to have them go up against each other so seeing how we can have these small forces interact with the big ones without everyone just ramming into the middle

it'll be interesting and probably not happen i think we will just bash all of our guys together and uh hope for the best well i did have my truck bandits have a big advantage of them with being small and mobile and the fact if you do want to chase it with a division that's like 10 times more resources to move than if you've got... So I think small units were very good as like annoying skirmishes

but yeah I think having those big huge clashes I think also resource-wise it's very difficult like we could do it in that last turn because we had that what did someone call it

but the end of the world problem yeah the end of the world problem where you know you don't have to reserve of anything, so you're just using it all. So I don't think we'll be seeing those huge clashes on turn six next time. Hopefully not, because that means that we've given up again at turn six. So, yeah. But yeah, was there anything else, Rick?

Any other questions? Andy, just one request for the history segment. The history of SPI and sort of the making of this game and where it fit into what they were going on at the time. I know that 1979 was roughly the peak years of SPI as well as the wargaming industry here in the United States and then complication of factors brought them down. But I think that would be an interesting thing. I always like to see the man behind the curtain stuff.

So just if you get a chance and you run low on the history, maybe a little history of SPI and where this game actually came in their design methodology. Yeah, I think that would be really interesting. Yeah, looking into Richard Berg a bit because he's become a bit of a mythical figure for us. So getting more info would be good. Excellent. I have to send you some links for the recordings of him doing interviews on other podcasts. Oh, that would be great.

Yes, please do. That will be one interesting and two, it gives Andy homework. And I love when Andy gets homework from this long product. Excellent. It's been great to chat, Rick. And again, thank you for follow. along since such early days all the way through to now when we've

nearly actually started the game. Happy to spread the fame of your honored name. Thank you very much and we shall chat soon, I'm sure, as this continues. Thanks. And that was Rick. Now, Rick not only had

some fun things to say about the game and has boldly acquired a copy himself, but he also works alongside with the Spiel Foundation. which is an awesome foundation that I have a podcast, which I've had a little listen to here and there, which covers board gaming as an industry,

but also is a non-profit organization that raises money to distribute games to those in need. So they have regularly donated their game bundles as part of their game bundle program to thousands of places, at this point, which has been used by, I think it lists millions on the website. I think it says, which is crazy. It's children's hospitals, senior centres, shelters, shelters, halfway houses, clubs, schools,

libraries, even send them at prisons. So I think a really good cause spreading a great hobby and also giving people access to some really fun games they might not have had anyway and can enjoy for a few. hours bond with the people around them. So really good cause. Absolutely. And being able to share a bit of time with people that are around you, especially if it's in a place that isn't particularly uplifting by its nature, depending on where you are in any of these places. I think that escapism of board games is such a great medium because you get to spend that time with the people around you, but also do it in an environment outside of where you want to be.

and that escapism, I mean, hey, we're playing a board game for the rest of our lives. So if it comes to an escapist fantasy, we very much are living that. And these people are benefiting from great work from really great people. And Rick is a top guy, top bloke, as we would say. So if you want to check out the Spiel Foundation, we'll pop a link in the episode description. Definitely encourage having a look, even if it's just spread a bit of awareness about it. But there's also options on there to get involved and contribute. So check it out.

Very good stuff. Board games, Andy, thoughts? Good things. Yeah, big fan. I am, yeah. Yeah, they're all right. I mean, I'm jaded a bit, to be honest. I'm playing this one.

I mean, shouldn't be sending this one to anyone unless you hate them. Yeah, do not send the campaign for North Africa to anybody who wants to get away from whatever they're going through. It's just a horrible way to tell them that you hate them. mean-spirited thing. Speaking of mean-spirited things, Andy. Yes. I believe we've got a history corner to get into you. We do.

Let's do it. Yeah, let's do it. The men of the long-range desert patrols were quite a sight on their return to Cairo from a most trip to the The contrast between the east and west of the Nile is very marked. In the east, the country, at this point I gave little thoughts of my pastures, but had always been interesting boats in the sea. I am more or less in a position of a cactus of pride. We are absolutely not qualified to share views on history.

Andy, where and when are we? Start with a quote. The Roaring 20s were very pleasant if you did not stop to think. That's from Billy Burke, a Broadway star from around that time period. That's kind of true about the 20s now as well. Yeah. Not only the 2020s, but my age, my 20s. sure

I don't think you need to stop to see the unpleasantness Thanks Chief Yeah So on to a cheery note Italy and Britain have been struggling a lot Since the end of World War I But America has been growing through the roaring 20s Good for them

Yeah With the rise of consumer goods Like washing machines, refrigerators and cars And the automotive industry led by Henry Ford being available to the first time for the average families. This created a huge surge in the economy, and alongside that you've got the cultural revolution of the 20s,

so you've got flappers, jazz, golden age of Hollywood, all the while booze is illegal. Which is interesting. That's always caught my eyes that this era seems to be... Very drunk. For lack of a better word, roaring. Yeah. And yeah, in all of the media around it,

I know you've got your speakeas and whatnot, and I'm pretty sure you'll probably get into it. Yeah. But that's a weird juxtaposition. Everyone's having a great time. No one needs to drop to drink. They were drinking a lot. Yeah, they were.

I think depending on the source you look at, drinking might have gone up. So, yeah, you've got Al Capone and the mob being celebrities, basically. So, yeah, the decade is built, is filled with highs, but it's also built on pretty shade. aky ground. Most of the wealth is gathered in urban areas, while rural areas are suffering to falling food prices. And a lot of that wealth is also coming from massive levels of financial speculation and borrowing backed by people investing in the stock market using margins. Do you know

much about these? I do from, well, modern day economics rather than back there. I don't know how much has changed. I imagine the nature of it is still the same. Yeah, it's pretty similar, so it's a bit borrowing a large amount of money to buy stocks. So at this time, stockbrokers are selling stocks where you only need a down payment of 10%. Okay. And you borrow the other 90% to buy the stock. Right.

This is basically built on the assumption that the stock market can and will only ever go up. so even if you only own 10% of that stock and you owe 90% on it, you'll be able to sell it at some point for a quick profit. Yep. So, yeah. And that, of course, happened and everyone was happy. Yeah, and everyone was rich forever, and the graph kept going up forever. You hear that rich audience?

No one in poverty. Everything worked out. That's why 100 years later, we're all thriving. Yeah, so this all leads up to August 1929. At this point, there's over 8.5 billion out on loan. This is the 1920s as well. So billions are big number. There's approximately $50 billion in existence,

but that's including non-physical. So that's like money on ledgers and stocks and stuff. Watch the space handy because you're going to like the common ground. Okay, cool. So, yeah, there's $8.5 billion out on loan out of a total of $50 billion, but there is only $4.5 billion physical dollars in circulation. Hmm. Yes.

Which leads up to September 3rd, 1929, where the Dow Jones, which is an index of the top 30 companies in America, reaches an all-time high at the time of $381. for a stock in the index fund. Okay. But people are starting to recognize this might not be super sustainable. There's some economists being like,

this is going to plateau at the highest level and just stay high forever and a bunch of others being like, where's all of this money coming from? So you get, throughout October, the market starts to hit roller coaster mode as some people who see what's about to happen

start selling off their stocks, which drops the prices and the people who haven't quite figured out what's going to happen yet or think it's further away than it is are like, ooh, these stocks are cheaper, let's buy them. So the stock market's just yo-yoing. I believe they're called diamond hands.

Yeah, no diamond hands involved here. So, yeah, speculators are buying them up even when investors are trying to offload them. So as the stock market fluctuates and panic starts in, because the market isn't just relentlessly marching upwards, those get rich quick margin calls stop being a sure thing. Stock brokers and lenders call in the money they had lent out on margin calls, causing a major problem.

One, a lot of people have just borrowed far more than they can afford to pay back because they didn't think they'd have to pay it back. Who are leveraging? Yes. Another problem is the cash to pay these loans back didn't physically exist. And this is before digital currency. Yeah. So you need to have it behind the couch.

Yeah. So investors are liquidating their stocks in order to cover their stocks. Their stocks. While also people are starting to be like, I'm just going to sell it for a loss now if I can afford to eat the whatever I got lent, because I think it's going to go down further. And then this is also compounded by the fact people are going to banks and being like,

I need physical money. I owe a stock broker. And they're calling it in. And the banks are going, we don't have your money. Yeah, it's a run on the banks. It's 2008. Yeah.

Does history repeat itself? Maybe. In this case, yes. Sure as hell rhymes. Yeah. So this is leading up happening throughout October leading up to October 24th, 1929, which is Black Thursday, when panic starts to truly set in.

Just before the sales. Yeah. This is a good day for sales. It's just no one's buying, I guess, because these margin calls have come in and this is when they really start to hit a peak. So up to this point, the average daily trading volume is between three to four million shares or like stocks per day. Okay.

On Black Thursday, there were 2.9 million stocks sold. Right. So like four times, people just offloading stuff. The prices are starting to just tank to zero. So a bunch of New York bankers, like billionaires, like J.P. Morgan, spend millions of dollars just trying to stabilize the stock market. And they do manage to limit it. slightly over the next day.

The stock market's only open for two hours on Saturday morning at this time, and it's down about six points, but it's kind of fine here. But on Saturday afternoon and throughout Sunday, all of the stockbrokers, lenders and banks are calculating the damage

and carnage that's been done to their books. And thousands and thousands more letters go out calling in margin calls. That's a bad. Monday. Yeah. This means that for Monday, there are thousands of pending trades just for when the market opens of people hoping to further liquidate their stocks to pay back loans. This is also called Black Monday. You rarely have multiple days where it's just Black Thursday, Black Monday. Yeah. So on Black Monday, the market crashes 12 to 13%. That's a big hit. Yep.

What follows Monday, Black Monday? That's right, it's Black Tuesday. In this point, give it a different name. Call it Black Week or something, I don't know. It doesn't have the same impact it's meant to when it's like, oh, Black Thursday. And then Black Monday. Yeah. And Black Tuesday.

It's like, it's no longer got the impactful connotation you think it does. No. It's just Tuesday now. It's a Tuesday where 16.4 million stocks are sold. Right, that went up. Yeah. The ticker tapes, which are physical back then, backlog and jam and are hours behind. So people are selling shit with no concept of what the price is.

People are like shouting, sell for any price on certain stocks. Like, we just need these off our books. So no one has any clue what's going on. They're just convinced the market's going. down and that's sort of a self-fulfilling sort of prophecy or cycle where they think it's going down causes to go down. Yeah, because now it has no value because no one believes in it. It's like art.

Yeah. So the market takes on the Black Tuesday another 10% dip, 11% dip. So by mid-November, the Dow is down at 198.7. there's about half the stock market's value being just completely wiped out. 30 billion of the 50 billion in the US economy, it's just gone. It's just evaporated into nothing. What a horrible time to be alive. Oh, yeah.

So three years later in 1932, the Dow Jones closes at 41.22, having lost 89% of its value. it wouldn't return to its 1929 peak until 1954. That's again post-war. Yeah. Just a different world war. Yeah. So through this time, thousands of banks got out of business, businesses that use credit to grow,

have lost most of their stock value, so they can't like sell stocks or borrow money. By 1933, 9,000 banks have gone out of business. Slight difference from 2008. none of these guys are too big to fail. Yeah, no one's getting bailed out at this time. And fail, they do. Nine million savings accounts, just gone.

Seven billion dollars in people's assets just disappear as the banks do. Yeah, because there's no one to bolster this. It's just over. Yeah. So because of the highs the US had during the 1920s, they suffered the most from this. GDP drops 29%. Oh my God.

While unemployment rose from three to 25%. A quarter of people were unemployed. Yeah. It's very much gone from a white picket fence and a chicken in every pot to urban slums and breadlines. Like, in a matter of years, it's just flipped. That's insane. Yeah.

So, and America didn't even start recovering until 1933 with the New Deal, and then it took the mobilization in a new deal, and then it took the mobilisation and industrial thing of fighting World War II to again get out of this hole. Meanwhile, across the pond, Britain isn't immune to the Great Depression,

but it didn't have as far a fall due to having stagnated for the entire 1920s. Yeah, they weren't having a great time already. Yeah, so people didn't have enough money to be buying consumer goods or speculating on the stock market. So a lot of this effects is the effect that had on the global,

economy, but less of a direct effect on the British people. Yeah, it's just the knock-on rather than anything crashed. Yeah. The knock-on is pretty bad, though, because they're relying heavily on American investment at this point, as on much of the world, and that is gone. So Britain's steady rate of 10% employment through the 1920s spikes to 20. Also nearly a quarter. Yeah.

But Britain manages the recovery. fairly well compared to a lot of countries. By abandoning the gold standard, they're able to realistically price the currency, which helps a lot. It's about bloody time. Yeah, because also all that shit's happening, and their currency is actively detrimental.

Another economy whose currency is directly detrimental to them because it's been artificially pegged is Italy. Oh, you don't say. Yeah. So Italy's economy isn't going great The great European PR machine Yeah Mussolini's various economic battles

Have not prepared Italy for the Great Depression Not even the wheat one No And we do have to talk about Germany a bit here Because of the way money was flowing around the world After World War I And this is very stupid Germany has been using American loans

To rebuild And also make its reparation payments the reparation payments are made to countries like Britain and Italy who then use that money to pay back their own American loans. Okay, I see what the circle looks like here. Yeah, so when the American economy explodes, that just all stops. Yeah, because they can't rebuild Germany and Germany can't pay us. Yeah.

So we can't pay the US. Yeah, and it just cycles. So this also causes a lot of the economic hardship. that along with like the Treaty of Versailles push Germany into fascism, but we will do Germany, but we're focusing on Italy and Britain mainly. Just need to talk about the dumb money flow, because this does affect Italy a lot. So Italy has three major banks at the time,

which are relying on foreign investment to officially strengthen the currency. So once Germany and America's money streams are gone, they would have gone bust, but Italy sets up the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction or the IRA, which is basically this like bailout slash nationalization mechanism, where they bought out a lot of bad loans or like the stocks from industries that crashed, kind of as a way, their way to keep the economy in some form of functioning state. Yeah, I can't completely buckle. Yeah.

So by doing this, the IRA essentially, this is also meant to all be a temporary measure, but, you know, how things go. So the RIA had accidentally become a major shareholder in many industries, and realizing this Mussolini decides to keep the control instead of selling off shares or closing down those companies. Seeing this effect, they continue to expand the RIA, which is this. weird hybrid of public and private structures where the companies keep their branding and like border directors and continue to operate and pretend they're like their own company. But the major shareholder of all of them behind the scenes is the fascist government. It's just an odd version of nationalization. So by 1934, Mussolini boasted the three quarters of the Italian economy.

is in the hands of the state. And it was, it had 100% of telephone networks and steel foundries, 80% of all shipbuilding, 40% of all heavy industry. Ironically, the fascist government had created the largest nationalized economy in the Western world outside of the Soviet Union. So they're actually doing it? Yeah. They've nationalized everything, basically.

So realizing how successful this is. all is the IRA goes from a temporary measure to counter the depression to a permanent institute based off this concept called autocrity, which is like self-sufficiency, basically. And the government's using its control to lay the industrial groundwork for World War II. It's been a whistle-stop tour of the world economy going into World War II. Well, I can see why it fell apart. Yeah. It's just one big circle of loans.

Circles of loans, wild speculation. And it's a bit of a stretch, but I am counting this as a secret treaty. And I'm glad to everyone. Everyone owes everyone. So I'm just, I'm glad that it fell apart so that we learned from it and no one ever did that again. Yeah, that's definitely never going to happen again. Yeah, so basically America spent the world's entire economy for the 1930s in the 1920s. They spent all of our cash from the future.

Oh, no wonder it was a roaring time. Yeah. Spent all that money. No wonder they had to start drinking again. It is quite funny. The Great Depression happens and they are like booze. They need the booze back. We've got too lucid.

We did better when we kind of have a hate. going on. We've got to a point where people need to drink. Oh man, what a mess. Oh, yeah. That is just a real cataclysm of the consequences of your actions coming to bite you in a literal full circle. Yeah. Just the fact no one was looking at that, like, who's paying for all of this? And it's just, we're all taking loans from America to pay back America. Then America is like, I've got some bad news, guys. No more money. but I still need you to pay me back more than ever. Turns out hoping to grow to infinity

doesn't actually work. Oh, buddy, well, we've got a bit of an awkward one here because now we need to try and come together, but I fear that what I'm about to bring forward to the table for common ground might just be a little bit of the same old hat. Oh, okay. And now for something nicer, a little oasis in the war. It's time for some common ground.

I'm trying the intro of the common ground. I'm recording. Maybe. So common ground is, of course, the segment each week in which we come together to agree on a topic to make sure we stay friends in amongst this conflict. And each week feeling that way. But Andy, unfortunately, your history segment, it could have come at a worse time for what I'm going to suggest. Because my common ground is, we need to find out where all the money is. I think this is a great history segment for that common ground because...

Yeah. Where's it all? Where is it? So what we need to do, my proposition here is we need to account for everything, every penny. And we need to see what's going on, where it is. Because if we can figure out where all the money is, then we can start distributing it and find out if there's too much being borrowed. And I have a funny feeling the answer is going to be yes, especially based on. on what we've just heard.

So I'm talking everything. Like the change down the back of your sofa. Okay. The money in your pocket. I'd start digital. Digital's going to be the easiest. No, it's not. Yes, it is.

No, it's not. You've got to track down every coin. You've got to track down like tax havens and weird crypto buckets and... Yeah, because that's the thing. When everyone does actually involve themselves in this process, which bearing a mind in this YouTube which they definitely will. Everyone is.

Well, yeah, in this situation, they're going to have to because otherwise we're sending them to the island where the cryptids are. Cryptids and crypto pros. Yeah. The cryptodes. Yeah, so they're going to have to be involved.

So that makes the digital side of stuff real easy because it's tracking it all the time. It's digital. You can open it up anywhere in the world when they give you access to us. So we'll be able to get that. Easy. Easy.

The hard part is going to be finding all of the actual hard cash in circulation. I mean, yeah, that's also impossible. It's not impossible because we're going to be financing metal detectors. Because bearing of mind, we'll have all the digital currency very quickly. Okay. So we can use that to then fund the infrastructure. To find pennies. Yeah.

Spend billions to find thousands. Yeah, we need to make sure we feel. find all of it. And then we can have a look and check our account and see what we have in the world. And we'll transfer it all into a single currency. Okay. The common coin. Credits. Credits. Universal credits. Nope. That's a different thing. Planetary credits. So we'll transfer it all to one currency. Okay. The common currency. And from there... What are we going to peg that to do? Nothing. Cool. It's not going to be backed by anything. Okay.

That's just how much money there is. Okay. And that's it. It's set. We're not printing any new money? No, because we found it all. Okay. They don't print new money because they lost the old money.

Yeah, but now we don't need to worry about inflation. Because we have all of it accounted for. We can have a universal value for everything. Everything's going to be set and locked in. Anytime someone takes out cash, physical cash, we delete it from the digital realm. and anytime you put hard cash into the digital realm, we destroy that money, the hard cash. Okay.

So it means that you have this constant situation where there's no extra money in the digital realm compared to what there is in the physical realm, and there's no deficit on the other end. Okay. It's all accounted for. Okay. And then, the next thing,

we're going to abolish credit. It's going to abolish credit. No more borrowing, Andy. At all. At all. Okay. Things are going to have a lower price all the time. I mean, I'd like it if any of this was true.

No, it can't. Why can't it be? Give me four reasons why this won't work. Greed. Right, okay. Incompetence. No, no, we'll start with greed. We'll tackle these one at a time. Greed, there's going to be some really good incentives to not do this.

Wait, to do this, you mean? No, to not do greed. Oh, okay. Yeah, sorry. We're not going to incentivize people not being part of this. So to stop people from being greedy, if they are greedy, we're going to put them on the cryptid island. Okay. This is an economy heavily relying on monster islands. Monster Island, there's just the one. We're not going to have like an archipelago. This is just the one island with monsters on, which will...

That's going to get pretty full. We covered in a previous common ground. No, not really, because monsters will eat you. So that's true So there you go It becomes a kind of If you will Self-sustaining economy

And they don't They don't have cash by the way They're cryptids They have no cash What do they buy things of They just eat people We're giving them the greedy people But what if they want to buy like a hat

They don't They're monsters They don't need clothes Bigfoot could like Want a bucket hat I don't care what Bigfoot wants Oh Okay

Whoa Whoa Why are the theological argument Why even Bigfoot doesn't have a soul? Why would he have a soul? Because he's just a guy? No, he's not. He's a monster.

Some think he is. Some think he is what? A monster. He is a monster. He's not a debate. It's black and white. The guy's a monster. I don't know.

I think he had his reasons. There's reasons for what? He's not... No, whatever he's accused of. That's a slippery slope. You don't know what he's been accused of. We don't know what he's been up to. That's true.

I'm just innocent until proven guilty. Especially for cryptids. Especially for monsters. If anything, by the nature of monsters, they should be presumed to be guilty. That's... You want to talk about slippery slopes. But anyway, this isn't about the justice system.

That's in a few weeks. This is about the economy. So greed, they go on a monster island. Okay. You mentioned incompetence in the second point. Well, right now, that might be the case because there's so many things, it actually benefits people for there to be incompetence within the system. This time round, incompetence, that's going to cripple the world economy

and not in a way where we can get it back. Because with this system, there's no fixing it afterwards. If it goes down this time, Andy, we're all going to die. I guess that does incentivise a certain level of competence. So if you're not competent at maintaining the economy, This isn't for you. There's plenty of other jobs. Right now, the economy is going to be booming.

So there's going to be so much opportunity to help put into this. But if you want to work in the common currency, we cannot have incompetent people. They will end the world as we know. Okay, so there's an institution managing this central currency. Yeah, yeah. Okay, number three, corruption. Corruption. That sounds a bit like greed to me.

That's just greed with steps. Fine. If you've got a rebuttal, I'd love to hear it, but... Corruption isn't always driven by greed. What else would it be driven by? Um, ego. These are just things that fuel greed. Okay.

I guess the food balance is, I don't think anyone... you're going to have enough goodwill or support to get this off the ground. Well, that's where I need your help, Andy. Oh, okay. So how are we going to do this? Because right now it's just me suggesting something. You've come to the master of PR. Italy?

In the 1930s. You know, we don't want that model. What the bad one? We've pinned the currency to be really strong by destroying the economy. I think there's something in this. I think if we can get all of the money, we can account for it all, we can make the world so much more easy.

Isn't this what blockchain was for? I wouldn't know. No. It seems to be, they kept saying it's untraceable, but... That's not good. But also the blockchain keeps a record of it all.

I've never understood that. Yeah, I don't understand how something's untraceable, but there's an order to fill for absolutely everything. It's built around. an audit trail. The idea of untraceable digital currency has always just bewildered me. Because the nature of it existing

digitally means that there's always a record of it existing at some state. Otherwise, you'd have no money. Yeah. And in order to verify, you actually have that money, you need to be able to show where it came from. Otherwise, you could just fabricate having the money.

How are you going to get the money for, like, you know, the guy who did invent Bitcoin where he's like a pseudonym, and then he disappeared, and then he has like billions of... Bitcoin in his account, but never access to them. Well, he's got it somewhere. So when we find that money, we'll go, does this belong to anyone?

And if he's like, I'm a secret guy. Then we're like, oh, in that case, we'll just take it. If no one's here to claim it, this must just be no one's money. And then he'll go, oh, fine, okay, it's me. So are you also going to help that guy who wants to go through a landfill to find his Bitcoin? Yeah, that's one of the first places we'll go. I actually think if your Bitcoin, I think they should pass a law of it if your Bitcoin's been in a dump for more than $4.

five years you don't own it. That's a good point. Like if I threw something away, and then five years later... You put it in the trash. Then five years later, I found it, and I was like, this is mine still. No, it's not.

You don't have any claim to this. Like, if I went to the dump now and found something I threw out five years ago, well, one, that's filthy. They should have cleaned up the dump. Yeah, that's a good point as well. How long does it stay in the dump? Well, I think they just bury it, and it's there forever.

I think that's kind of a problem. Right, okay. I guess when we fix the economy, we'll sort that out, because that's not okay. Okay. We'll start launching stuff into space. I think that's a good idea. Yeah? There's so much room in space.

I think we should just put rubbish in space. Space is pretty full. It's so not. We've like surrounded the earth and trash. No, no, like way further than the orbit. Oh, okay, cool. We're not putting it in orbit. That's filthy.

Let's put in the sun. Yes, yes. There we go. Let's make the sun no poisonous trash bowl. It's not ever going to. going to be a problem. Said the first guy I set fire at coal. I'm going to be the Obenheimer of throwing rubbish into the sun.

I have become trash man, a spoiler of suns. Well, Andy, this to me sounds like agreement. Are you with me? I'm with you, yeah. I mean, creative use of cryptid island. It's when we are. Yeah, I thought, you know, we'd bring that one back in. It's an old common ground. but I think it's the only way to really stop greed as a concept. What if you... Side note.

If we also want to help the economy. Okay. Recruit the leprechauns. Recruit them. Yeah. From. Wherever they're hanging out on the island. Sorry, leprechauns on the island.

They're cryptids, right? They're in the past, though. They're old cryptids. Oh, okay. They're dead. They're dead. Yeah. Yeah. They passed away.

Yeah. That's a shame. But, rip lefrogons. And on that devastating note of the leprechaun's having went extinct, if you'd like to get in touch, you can do it info at warwithamate.com. Or our functional web form. Yeah, it works now, guys.

You can use the web form. The web form is on our website, war withamate.comaute at UK. Our Instagram is just war with a mate. Post updates on their polls and all sorts of fun bits and pieces. YouTube is where we're putting out any video things, which come up every now and then. and we have our live stream on 30th of October for the 100th episode, the start of the full game. So check that out.

That'll be a one for the history books. Andy'll be doing a history segment on that in 20 years. I'll be dead, of course, but like the lepricorns, my time has come. But in the meantime, I guess all that's left to do is say the thing, Andy. Thank you for listening. Stay subtle, humble, and brave. in those remote and economically stable deserts of your minds. Good night.