People Power: Insurgency in the Philippines, 1981-1986

People Power: Insurgency in the Philippines, 1981-1986 is among the more approachable COIN designs I have encountered, including beside CL. It does not burden the system with low-yield exceptions such as railways or economic zones, and the lack of a green faction creates no absence; it simply makes the design easier to read. The Philippines setting is handled carefully and honestly, if through the familiar Western blinkers of the genre.

Play moves from card to card, and the pressure arrives with the first one. With three sides in contention, the conflict has a clear rock-paper-scissors logic: every move creates an opening for one player while exposing another. Where ABB, as a three-player COIN, required more work to parse through its treatment of the subject, this structure makes the stakes apparent very quickly.

The interesting decision is whether to let an event dictate the tempo or preserve your position against the card that may follow it. In one game, several particularly brutal events pushed matters towards the government side and came close to locking the game down, without actually breaking it. Acts of Desperation and the Leaders/Personalities system add depth that is not merely ornamental; they give the pressure generated by the cards consequence and character.

Its short duration and restrained rules overhead make it an excellent way into COIN without sweating over details that rarely repay the time spent on them. This is not simplification for COIN tourists; it is a carefully judged three-player COIN that knows precisely what to remove and what to retain.