Larry Lade it looks really hot. I haven’t played it yet, though! Just eyeballing the system (like I do with RPGs) and I think they’ve nailed it.

The COIN terminology sounds ahistorical but the British, apparently, did use the term “insurgent” to refer to the Patriots. The insurgent/counterinsurgent frenemy relationship is maintained as it appears in other COIN games (colonists + French vs Brits + Indians, each half pushing the territories to support or oppose British rule), then each faction also has its own victory condition: Brits want to kill colonists, French want to kill Brits, colonists want to build forts, Indians want to build villages. 

There’s this fascinating bit in the designer’s essay about how he wrapped his head around framing the American Revolution in COIN terms: the Sullivan Expedition, where Washington takes valuable time and materiel away from, you know, fighting the American Revolution to go murder some Indian tribes. Ostensibly the Iroquois were allied with the British, but they had their own motives for doing so and they weren’t BFFs with the British. Or the fact that the French had just gotten done killing a lot of colonists during the French and Indian War: again, the French and colonists were not suddenly and mysteriously BFFs, but useful temporary allies.

It is a really smart design. Adds some interesting wrinkles.