Anaconda

ANACONDA is a two player, asymmetrical card game representing the operational efforts of the United States and Confederate States Navies over the course of the American Civil War. The two players use similar types of cards in order to contest for the control of the major oceanic and riverine ports of the Confederacy. The USN must successfully tighten the blockade to the extent that the Confederacy has lost its ability to support the war effort economically; the CSN must attempt to keep the major ports of the Confederacy open, hoping to force the USN to concede that the blockade effort and the overall waterborne campaign has been a failure. This is accomplished practically by the USN shutting down two of three major operational areas (the Gulf, Mississippi, or Tidewater Ports) before the end of 1864, the Confederacy preventing this, or one side exhausting the other by reducing their available draw deck to zero cards. The two players make use of a number of historical warships, personalities, strategies, and events. The USN has a large economy and the advantage of plentiful shipyards with which to strengthen its war machine; the Confederacy must rely upon a variety of unconventional strategies and the management of a largely reactive defense while watching their resources diminish over the course of the war.