What am I even doing? This game is massive and complex and I had enough trouble writing about my playthrough of Vantage.

But I will do my best, I have the Tru’ng bot to play against, and some software that someone wrote to help process the spaces when I get lost.

I shuffled up the pivotal event cards to choose which faction I should play, and ended up with the Viet Cong.

I will assume anyone reading this knows how a COIN game works, so I won’t bother repeating the rules. Let’s just get into the game.

This playthrough will be for the Full Campaign 1964-1972 using the Tru’ng expansion.

Round 1

Current Event: Henry Cabot Lodge ARVN NVA VC US

On Deck: LRRP US VC ARVN NVA

The first event is Henry Cabot Lodge. This is the background the game gives on this event:

Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge was the US Ambassador to Vietnam and both preceded and succeeded Maxwell Taylor in that (1963-1964, 1965-1967). He advocated for the removal of Ngo Dinh Diem that led to a disastrous series of coups and government instability that ultimately led to Northern victory.

= ARVN Turn Start =

So the first event is one for the ARVN. To determine whether the ARVN will actually play the event means running through the NP Eligibility Table. I’ll use actual sentences rather than the impenetrable language of the Aid Card.

When you see a ✅ it means that the criteria has narrowed down a selection. A ❌ means the criteria didn’t help filter out spaces to a single choice.

  • Can any Eligible NP Faction can play its Pivotal and current Event is not Critical and 1d6 number of cards in RVN Leader box?
    • ❌ No one can play any pivotal events until two Coups have occurred.
  • Is the current event critical and effective?
    • ✅ The event has a “C” in a shaded box on the back of the Non-Player Aid Card (meaning that the faction plays the shaded event rather than the unshaded event).

Following the Effective Events (T5.5.1) table we can see that the shaded event is effective as it increases Patronage.

The ARVN will therefore play the event. But where does it remove up to 3 ARVN pieces from? Well, this is where I wasted a few hours trying to figure something out. I initially started on the Space Selection Priorities (T5.6) sheet, checking out the dots to see what needed doing.

It turns out that actually I needed to FOLLOW THE TRUNG GOLDEN RULE 2.1.4 for removing friendly pieces, which says to just remove a piece one at a time from a space with the most pieces. No need to follow the chart at all!

Therefore, which space has the most amount of ARVN pieces? Saigon, with 5 ✅

Now which space has the most ARVN pieces (excluding the spaces already chosen)? It is a tie between Hue, Qui Nhon, Can Ranh, An Loc, Can Tho. Now, we go to the Space Selection Priorities. The column headers say which action is being performed, so in this case “Remove or Replace”, and we go down the rows.

  • Any vulnerable ARVN bases? ❌

  • Is this a raid? ❌

  • Is there a city or province in South Vietnam without COIN control?1 ❌

  • Spaces tied for highest population ✅

    • Hue, Qui Nhon, Can Ranh, An Loc, Can Tho

  • Most population?

    • Hue ✅

  • Removes 1 x Guerrilla from Hue to available

Finally we pick where the third ARVN piece will be removed from, and so we carry on with the chart. The first bit will be easy now as those conditions have no changed:

  • Any vulnerable ARVN bases? ❌

  • Is this a raid? ❌

  • Is there a city or province in South Vietnam without COIN control? ❌

  • Spaces tied for highest population ✅

    • Hue and Kien Hoa both have 2 population, but Kien Hoa only has a single piece in the space, and bots do not remove their final piece, so the choice is narrowed down to just Hue

  • Removes 1 x Guerrilla from Hue to available

The ARVN can still remove another piece, and so back to the chart:

  • Any vulnerable ARVN bases? ❌
  • Is this a raid? ❌
  • Is there a city or province in South Vietnam without COIN control? ❌
  • Highest population spaces ✅
    • Qui Nhon, Can Ranh, An Loc, Can Tho
  • LoC with enemy pieces? ❌
    • No LoCs have any enemy pieces
  • Is this an assault? ❌
  • Fewest enemy pieces? ❌
    • All have zero
  • Select at random ✅

The random choice was Can Tho.

  • Removes 1 x Guerrilla from Can Tho to available

This increases the ARVNs COIN Control + Patronage marker from 35 to 41.

The ARVN are now ineligible through the next round.

= ARVN Turn End =

Well, that’s it for the first turn of the first round. To me it seemed kind of weird why the ARVN would want to remove their own pieces, so I had a look into the event a bit deeper.

Looks like the ARVN have decided to conduct a sort of political purge or internal coup, and the troops that are removed must have been those loyal to the now-assassinated commander. The wealth that the previous commander had has now been channeled into the ARVN, which is why they get a boost to their patronage of +6.

The ARVN are ineligible through the next round due to the instability that this coup has created.

= NVA Turn Start =

The NVA’s turn is more complicated as it draws Trung cards to determine what Operations and Special Activities to take. Let’s check the eligibility table:

  • Can any Eligible NP Faction can play its Pivotal and current Event is not Critical and 1d6 number of cards in RVN Leader box?
    • ❌ No one can play any pivotal events until two Coups have occurred.
  • Active Faction will be 1st Eligible on upcoming Critical Event and cannot execute any current Critical Event?
    • ❌ NVA is not 1st eligible on the next event
  • 1st Eligible chose Ops + SA and Event is Performed or Critical and Effective?
    • ❌ ARVN chose the Event
  • Will be 1st Eligible on upcoming card?
    • ❌ NVA is not 1st eligible on the next event
  • 1st Eligible chose Op only or 1st Eligible chose Op + SA?
    • ❌ ARVN chose the Event
  • Otherwise
    • ✅ Op + SA

Ok so a fairly lengthy process to determine what the bot does but we worked it out. Now to draw some Trung cards.

  • Draw Trung card NVA-R:
    • Support + Available >= 42? ❌
  • Draw Trung card NVA-P:
    • COIN-Controlled Pop + Patronage >= 42? ❌
  • Draw Trung card NVA-Q:
    • 2d6 <= Available NVA Guerrillas? (8) 9 ❌
    • d3 >= Trail Level (1) 1 ✅
    • 6+ NVA Troops in any space with COIN Troops or COIN base? ❌
    • FLIP CARD
  • Flipped Trung card NVA-QQ:
    • NVA Rally Operation

NVA Rally Operation

So now we know that the NVA are going to be performing a Rally operation. To determine which spaces are being rallied into we must look to the Golden Rules again. To summarise, the bots place one piece at a time, choosing the destination space via the Space Selection Priorities table, and will place as many pieces as possible.

The Trung card says to:

  1. Place Bases where 3+ NVA Guerrillas
  2. Select spaces using Place Guerrillas
  3. Improve the Trail for free

All right let’s have a go at this Space Selection Priorities table then.

  • City or province with the most NVA Guerrillas

    • The Parrot’s Beak, Southern Laos, Central Laos, North Vietnam ✅

  • Laos/Cambodia with COIN control ❌

  • Most Pop ❌

    • They are all 0 pop spaces

  • City or province without US Base ❌

    • There are no US bases in the four spaces

  • City or province with highest total adjacent pop ✅

    • North Vietnam = 2
    • Central Laos = 3
    • Southern Laos = 6
    • The Parrot’s Beak = 6

  • Random choice between Southern Laos and The Parrot’s Beak

    • The Parrot’s Beak ✅

  • Parrot's Beak

    • Removes 2 x Guerrillas
    • Places 1 x Base
    • NVA Control + NVA Bases moves from 4 to 5
    • Activation Roll against 2: 4 ✅

Ok, now, back to the table, but quicker this time as we know it’s going to be Southern Laos as it is the remaining choice from the previous run:

  • City or province with the most NVA Guerrillas

    • Southern Laos, Central Laos, North Vietnam ✅

  • Laos/Cambodia with COIN control ❌

  • Most Pop ❌

    • They are all 0 pop spaces

  • City or province without US Base ❌

    • There are no US bases in the four spaces

  • City or province with highest total adjacent pop ✅

    • North Vietnam = 2
    • Central Laos = 3
    • Southern Laos = 6 ✅

  • Southern Laos

    • Removes 2 x Guerrillas
    • Places 1 x Base
    • NVA Control + NVA Bases moves from 5 to 6
    • Activation Roll against 2: 1 ❌

  • Improves the Trail from 1 to 2

  • Is 3d6 <= Available NVA Troops?

    • ✅ NVA Infiltrate Special Activity

The NVA only managed to rally in two spaces.

NVA Infiltrate Special Activity

There are no VC bases for the NVA to replace, so they will focus on placing troops instead.

To the table!

  • City or province with the most NVA guerrillas ✅

    • North Vietnam, Central Laos

  • Most NVA bases ❌

  • Laos/Cambodia with COIN Control ❌

  • City or province in South Vietnam without NVA control ❌

  • ARVN is player ❌

  • Most population ❌

  • City or province without US base ❌

  • VC is player: VC base ❌

  • City or province with highest total adjacent pop ✅

    • Central Laos: 3 ✅
    • North Vietnam: 2

  • Place Troops leaving 2 NVA Guerrillas.

  • Central Laos

    • Removes 1 x Guerrillas
    • Place 4 x Troops

The next step is to re-run the table, but we already know the outcome will be North Vietnam, so:

  • North Vietnam
    • Removes 1 x Guerrillas
    • Places 4 x Troops

= NVA Turn End =

A fairly big turn for me to figure out what the NVA are doing. They are building up their bases in southern Laos and Cambodia, ready to push be able to recruit masses of troops and push into southern Vietnam.

They are also building up a large concentration of troops in the north, perhaps to fight the US for control of Hue and the surrouding provinces.

That’s all for today. I’ll make a start on Round 2 soon when I will make a decision on how to avoid defeat as the VC.

« Back to Fire in the Lake Home | Turn 1 | » Turn 2

30th Nov 2025

  1. Where there are ALSO ARVN pieces that can be removed! I initially made this Trung chart way harder than it should have been ↩︎