Beware the Gazebo

Cult of the New: Runewars

2010-02-06T01:30:00.000-06:00

(image by Fantasy Flight Games)
I think I have a new favorite game.

Allow me to interrupt myself before I go further. Talking about a brand new game shortly after getting it can be dangerous while you are still in the "honeymoon period." The newness has not worn off yet and it is easy to be overenthusiastic. At the same time, it is nigh impossible to not talk about the game; you are so excited you can't help but tell everyone you know. This gives us the inaugural post for Cult of the New. When you read these you know you are getting relatively fresh impressions on a game so take them with a grain of salt: first impressions can be dangerous with strategy board games. There's a good chance I'll come back for a second look on these later.

As I was saying, I have a new favorite game: Runewars. I've talked about Fantasy Flight plenty already as they are behind some of my favorites: Descent: Journeys in the Dark, Britannia, Kingdoms, Battlestar Galactica and possibly my number one game, Twilight Imperium 3. They tend to put out western-centric games with modern Euro sensibilities that really hit a sweet spot for me. When Fantasy Flight first announced Runewars, early talk likened it to a fantasy version of Twilight Imperium... how could I possibly pass it up? After a couple of two player games and a four player game I think Fantasy Flight may have created their finest work yet.

Here is some of what makes the game great:

(image by sydo @ BGG)

Asymmetric powers: Player controls one of four different races, each with unique units and resources. I love games with asymmetry as it adds more variety and gives each player a unique way to approach the game. Your race may help direct your strategy for the game but it also seems like there's no single path to victory to matter which race you choose.

Asymmetric maps and map building: Building the map is a crucial part of the game. Runewars has different shaped tiles made of hexes and each player is given two along with their starting area. In turn players put down one of their tiles until all are placed; this will always result in a unique map. In a fun twist, the first player then puts placeholders for all of the home territories but the person to their left gets first pick of those placeholders. This encourages everyone to build a balanced map and select balanced starting placeholders as nobody knows where they will be starting off. It's a brilliant map building system and adds a lot of variability to each game.

Agonizing decisions: The game lasts a maximum of six years. Each year lasts four seasons and you choose one tactics card to execute per season. Tactics cards are numbered one to eight and have a primary and secondary ability. You only get to activate the secondary ability if it is your highest numbered card for the year. This creates an "ideal" sequence of play but often you find yourself having to go against that path. Weighing those bonuses against doing whatever you need to accomplish most while also trying to second guess your opponents makes for fun tactical decisions each round.

(image by DalimThor @ BGG)
Everything works together: You have heroes running around the map discovering runes and armies moving in to hold those runes to win the game. Each season has a special effect kick in which can greatly alter your plan for that season or even the rest of the year. Influence tokens are your key to winning auctions for various rewards and for attempting diplomacy with the neutral units on the board to try and convince them to join your side and managing your influence is crucial. Combat is resolved via a deck of cards but still manages to be exciting and quick to resolve. Long-term planning is rewarded but players must be flexible as things can quickly change.

Gorgeous bits: If nothing else, Runewars is a beautiful game. Each race has a unique set of units plus there's a set of neutral units out on the map and the figures are fantastic. The tiles look great and manage to never be too busy. Of course the three dimensional mountains are the real kicker. Yes, they only serve to show borders that can't be crossed but the aesthetic appeal really should not be overlooked. This may also be one of Fantasy Flight's best rule books, leaving little room for misinterpretation.

Runewars has really taken me by surprise. There is a lot going on but all the mechanics compliment each other rather than feeling tacked-on. It is also a shorter game than others of this style while keeping an epic feel. My guess is that once everyone knows how you play you can easily finish in an hour per player, possibly less.

(image UndeadViking by @ BGG)

Be warned that early plays may not reveal the true fun to be had. The game is over either at the end of the sixth year or when one player controls six dragon runes. It isn't hard for each player to collect four or five dragon runes on their own without venturing out much, so if all players hang back you may not see much action until the end of the game. Once everyone understands that and realizes the key is not so only collecting runes but doing so while preventing your opponents from doing the same then the game really heats up and starts to show off its potential.

It's been awhile since a game has consumed my thoughts like this. Fantasy Flight has really been showing off their maturity as game designers and for my money Runewars may be their pièce de résistance. We'll see how the game holds up over the course of 2010!

Race for the Galaxy and the fun factor

2010-01-15T13:03:00.001-06:00

(image by Surya @ BGG)
I don't envy game designers. Find that perfect balance between depth and complexity must be extremely challenging. You want a game that holds up to many repeat plays but still has a relatively low barrier to entry. Too difficult to learn and few will want to play it, too simplistic and it may not have much staying power. Somewhere in there is the sweet spot that most designer games aim for.

As the person who generally teaches new games in our gaming groups, I am very interested in the barrier to entry for a game. The key to successfully teaching a game is breaking it down to its basics and describing everything in context to the players' goals. There are games I can explain in a matter of minutes and start playing, others that have easily taken the better part of an hour. Length of explanation isn't important, it is how everything clicks and how quickly the big picture comes together for players. To me a great game is often defined by how accessible the "fun" is.

Take something like Twilight Imperium 3. Yes, it can take quite awhile to explain everything but players will often be making comments like, "This is cool!" even during that first turn. You might not understand every aspect of the game but you can see where the fun is to be had. If you can't see where the fun is, odds are you will not want to play the game again - especially if it takes several hours to play.

(image by kilroy_locke @ BGG)

At first glance, Race for the Galaxy looks quite unassuming. There's a large deck of cards and a few cardboard chits representing victory points. That's it. Even the rules are fairly straightforward. It can take awhile to wrap your head around the idea that cards represent three things: stuff you can build by placing in front of you, currency you spend to build said stuff and resources that may be turned into more cards or points when they are sitting on cards in front of you. It sounds a little tricky but it's much easier to visualize and a few quick examples easily clears it up.

Race for the Galaxy really stumbles with all its symbols. There are five possible phases each round with players secretly deciding which phase they want to see happen that round. With four players you could see only a single phase happen if everyone chooses the same thing or four phases if everyone selects different ones. Every card in the deck has printed slots for these phases (numbered one to five with an extra symbol for a sub-phase) and possibly a variety of icons next to each phase illustrating some special power that cards gives you during that phase. For example, an icon showing a hand gripping a card with the number one inside means you get to draw a single card when that phase happens. On top of all those symbols, each card can be one of two different types (planet or development) - each with their own symbol - plus there are multiple types of planets distinguished by different fill and border colors.

Learning to read the cards is extremely challenging for even the most experienced gamers. While there is a standard base set of symbols, nearly every card is unique and may have extra text or special symbols not seen anywhere else. No matter how well you explain the game, nothing can prepare players to fully grasp the symbols until they start playing and see the game in action. Add in the somewhat confusing concept of cards representing multiple things and you have a system that is highly unintuitive and very difficult to wrap your head around.

(image by TabbySunLion @ BGG)
Your first game is almost guaranteed to be very rough. You'll struggle through the symbols, forget how to use your cards and have no idea what to do to earn points. There's a good chance you will have no idea where the fun is hiding and you will never want to play the game again. It's possible, though, that by the end of that first learning game you'll possibly catch a glimpse of how all your cards could work together and will at least be interested enough to try again.

Race for the Galaxy succeeds where other games with this steep of a learning curve fail. Your first few matches of Race for the Galaxy will probably take around an hour; future games will go faster. The short play time means you can get several games in and with each game you'll see how cards interact, how you build your internal point engine and will see the method behind the madness of all those icons. At that point the system becomes clear and the fun exposes itself.

(image by kilroy_locke @ BGG)

I've played many other games that suffer from a similar problem: somewhere inside the system there is fun to be had but you need to play several times before you might find it. My game groups love to play a wide variety of games and never fully dedicate ourselves to any single one. Games with steep learning curves will often fall to the wayside for other games where we know we'll have fun every time it hits the table. If it weren't for Race for the Galaxy's short play time I'm not sure I would have ever discovered how fun it really is. It's also a testament to the game's design and depth that I felt compelled to return to it even after a few disappointing first games.

Race for the Galaxy is a great game. There's a ton of depth stuffed inside a deck of cards. Resource management really drives the action; you have lots of interesting decisions to make on which cards to play and which to discard. Do you take the easy points in your hand or try and set yourself up for something bigger? While there is no direct player interaction, a good player will try to anticipate their opponents' actions and try to piggyback off them.

My advice is this: don't expect to fully enjoy your first play but do keep an open mind. In fact, don't expect to enjoy your first couple of plays. If possible I would highly recommend getting three or four quick games under your belt before you pass judgment. Learning all of the icons is tough but once it clicks you will find a highly rewarding game. Race for the Galaxy is challenging to learn and even more challenging to play well. For something similar that is much easier to learn I'd recommend checking out San Juan or Dominion. If you want a deep, fast-playing card game that will challenge you every step of the way, give Race for the Galaxy a few quick tries.

Small World

2009-12-16T11:48:00.004-06:00

(image by MarkKaufmann @ BGG)
Sometimes a game comes along that seems like it should be right up my alley but ultimately falls flat. I'm a sucker for a fantasy theme and I really enjoyed my single play of A History of the World (the game that inspired the game Small Word is based on) so I thought that Small World would be a no-brainer. Sadly that has not been the case.

Small World is all about taking control of the land with various fantasy races. As you hold territory you earn points and whoever has the most points at the end wins. You have all your standard fantasy fare with elves, dwarves, giants, sorcerers, undead and many others. What makes Small World tick is that each race is also assigned a random attribute like flying, wealthy and spirit. Some combos are clearly going to be better than others and a good chunk of the game is deciding which powers you think you can best leverage.

The game takes place over several rounds. To start the game players select their new army and bringing them out on the map. Several race/attribute combos are laid out in order. You can take the bottom-most combo for free or you can work your way up the list by dropping a victory point on each race you skip over. This means the weakest races will filter towards the bottom but will also collect points that go into the coffers of whoever picks that combo. After you pick your race you bring them in on the edge of the map and start claiming territory. To take an area you need two tokens plus one per piece of cardboard on the map; cardboard is typically enemy units or terrain features. Enemies lose one unit and the rest are forced to retreat if possible. At the end of your turn you may redistribute your units however you want, most likely fortifying areas you need to hold or think will be attacked. At the end of your turn you earn points for each territory held.

(image by Jeff_Wells @ BGG)

Instead of activating your current army you may instead put them into decline. That turn you do nothing but score points, but on your next turn you get to select a new race/attribute combo to bring into the game. Your old army may no longer be activated but they will continue to earn points so long as they are on the board. Putting your army into decline is almost inevitable as you have a limited number of units and will likely lose some during combat. Eventually you'll reach the max potential for one race, see a combo you can leverage nicely and will want to grab it to try and earn you even more points. Knowing when to time this switch is central to success in Small World.

The game comes with several player boards, each designed for a specific number of players. It's a much better solution than just removing regions from a map or playing on a map size that is less than ideal for the number of players you have. The maps seem fairly well balanced and makes playing with a wide range of players feasible. I also really like the different races and powers. As the combos are different each game you get a ton of variety and it is fun to try and figure out which combo will be most beneficial to you and when to bring them into play.

Unfortunately the game just doesn't do much for me. I really enjoy the artwork but the board is far too cluttered. Regions can be a little hard to distinguish and all of the cardboard pieces blend in. It's even more tricky when a nation goes into decline as they flip to the grayed-out side of their chits which are even more difficult to find on the map and distinguish from each other. Even more offending is that the player reference included with the game is not only not useful but detrimental to play. They tried to summarize all of the races and attributes but they left out highly crucial rules on some of them which can have a major impact on play. Toss out those player aides as they will cause much more harm than good.

(image by lacxox @ BGG)
I also find the game just isn't all that exciting. Generally you'll go through two or three races and the key is knowing when to make that switch. There are a very limited number of turns in the game and going into decline takes your entire turn so by the end I always feel like I haven't done much. Combat is deterministic which by itself isn't bad but combined with the limited number of turns and and limited mobility on the map I find that my turns often almost play themselves. The real decision-making comes in figuring out when to decline and which race/attribute combo you think you can best exploit. Everything else is just a little too straightforward.

When all is said and done I find Small World to not be very satisfying. A single match can easily be played within an hour so there is certainly be something to be said for the ease of play. I think it would be perfectly for a younger or less gaming-oriented crowd but for a group of serious gamers I really think Small World has little to offer. The fantasy theme is great, artwork is fantastic (if not a little busy) and the rules are easy to teach. I just feel like there aren't many interesting decisions to be made and the deterministic nature of combat can lead to lots of analysis paralysis which goes counter to the goal of a fast-playing game. Small World is not a bad game by any means, it just isn't for me.

Galaxy Trucker and chaos in games

2009-11-10T10:58:00.011-06:00

(image by @ henk.rolleman BGG)
Time to tackle another game element: chaos. Your initial reaction may be to equate chaos to luck but I feel they two are very different things. Luck is when the outcome of an event - a die roll or card draw, for example - has a percent chance to result in a given outcome. When you roll a standard six-sided die you have a 1 in 6 chance of any number rolling up. You may not have control of the outcome but there are set odds going in and a random result coming out.

Chaos, on the other hand, is the lack of control in a game. A chaotic game often has little to no room for strategy, forcing more tactical play as you deal with your turns as they come up rather than planning ahead. Chaos may come from luck but there is often more than just luck at play.

I often refer to chaos when describing how a game feels with varying number of players. Alhambra is a great example. With two to four players you can attempt to make plans based on the tiles up for sale, what you believe the other players will purchase and what may be left on your next turn. With five or six there are just too many players going between your turns, making nearly impossible to plan ahead. You lose control over your fate, forced to play turn by turn rather than planning ahead. One of Alhambra's core concepts is competing with other players for majority control of different tiles; too much chaos eliminates that strategic element and fewer turns per player gives more impact to lucky turns.

Don't think that chaos is always bad, though. Galaxy Trucker uses chaos at its core to create a tense and exciting game.

(image by @ henk.rolleman BGG)

Not unlike Space Alert (another Vlaada Chatvil game), Galaxy Trucker has two distinct phases: real-time building of your ship and turn-based resolution of events. Assuming your ship survives you earn points based on your place on the distance track, your cargo and how nice your ship looks. High score after three rounds wins the game.

Building your ship is the bulk of Galaxy Trucker. Each player has a set of identical ship templates that vary from round to round. All of the available ship tiles are set face-down in a pile. One player starts the sand timer and all players simultaneously start building their ship. You grab a tile, bring it over your player mat, look at it and decide if you want to place it on your ship, keep it for later or place it face up back in the pile for others to grab. There's a wide variety of ship components including engines, lasers, shields, cargo holds, crew cabins and more. At any time after the sand timer has run out a player may turn it over to signal they are done and take the 1st place marker. That player may not make any further changes to their ship and the rest of the players have one full sand timer's worth of time to finish their own designs.

Each tile has zero to three connectors going out of each edge. Three-pronged connectors are universal and may hook into any other connector while one- and two-pronged connectors may not connect into each other; also, connectors may never connect to an edge with no connectors shown. Once you've placed a tile on your ship it may never be moved so there's a very fun puzzle element when constructing your ship. You need a variety of components but must connect everything properly while other players are possibly taking the very pieces you could use!

(image by Toynan @ BGG)
Once everyone is done (or time runs out) the ships are complete and are "run through the gauntlet." First, players are ranked on the distance track in the order they finished their ships. Then a stack of event cards are dealt out and resolved in random order. You may find cargo to fill your cargo holds, space pirates that steal cargo or kill crew members, asteroid storms that tear your ship to pieces and many other crazy things. Most events are resolved in player order on the distance track and their outcome may adjust your position. For example, taking cargo typically moves you backwards on the distance track, meaning your turn order may be adjusted for resolving the next event. Other events - like space pirates - go in turn order and hit each player with some penalty (often losing goods or crew) until one of the players eliminates the threat.

The real excitement comes from attack cards. A meteor swarm, for example, will show a list of asteroids, their size and direction they attack. Your ship has a designated facing and a grid of numbers with sevens on the middle axis. You roll two six-sided dice to determine which tile on your ship will be hit. Some attacks may be defended with shields or lasers. If it isn't defended (or is unblockable), small attacks will destroy a tile if there's an exposed connector while large attacks will destroy the tile outright. The real key here is if that tile is the only link back to the core of your ship for other tiles, that entire portion of your ship will break off!

Losing parts of your ship is bad. Not only do you lose whatever was on those tiles (cargo, crew members, guns) you also earn negative points at the end of the round per tile. If you have no crew or no engine power your ship is a derelict and scores no points at the end of the round. Likewise, if your core is hit your ships explodes.

(image by kreten @ BGG)

Given all these dangers, building a solid ship is key to success. Your core is at coordinate 7,7 meaning odds are good attacks will trend towards hitting the middle of your ship. As you build you need to plan your components and connectors to ensure redundant connection paths and plenty of defense for the core of your ship. At the same time you must try to ensure you have enough crew members, cargo space, firepower, engines and shields to survive and avoid having outward-facing connectors. It is a lot to balance - especially given the real-time aspect - but I love the puzzle aspect of building your ship.

Unfortunately I think the game's strength may also be its weakness. While you may peek at some of the upcoming events to give you a feel for what may be important (lots of room for cargo, more attacks from the left) I feel that you generally must make as balanced of a ship as possible. A well-designed ship should be able to weather most anything thrown at it, especially if you ensure you have a well-defended core and redundant connections. While you'll never design the exact same ship twice you will always have the same rough idea for what you need: engines in back, shields in all directions, lots of forward guns, one gun on each side and then as much cargo and crew as you can cram in. I could see where many repeat plays of Galaxy Trucker may render the ship-building portion a little dull as it becomes a quick search for the best pieces rather than a fun puzzle-solving exercise.

(image by slith @ BGG)
As chaotic as the event resolution is, I find it also offers up some nice choices to make. Do you take cargo and lose a few days, putting yourself back in turn order? If you looked at what was in the deck, you may want to drop back and let someone else deal with a nasty upcoming event or maybe you want to stay up front for an even better haul. Knowing when to power up your shields and where to store your cargo in case part of your ship tears off also makes for some good fun. These little decisions give you some small control over the madness of running your ship through the gauntlet.

Chaos can be a great element for adding excitement and replay value to a game when it is built in to the game's design. It can also be a negative when it turns up as an unintended side effect. Not all players are going to enjoy chaos in their games, but Galaxy Trucker proves that solidly-designed chaotic game can be seriously fun. The real-time puzzle element of building your ship offers a unique challenge you don't find in other games and it is fun watching your ship suffer through waves of attacks. You just have to be willing to accept that your ship's outcome is not entirely in your hands. I do recommend playing Galaxy Trucker before purchasing if possible. Either you'll fall in love or never want to see it again! If you do enjoy the game then I highly recommend picking up the expansion as it only makes the game even more chaotic and fun.

Tide of Iron

2009-10-26T16:39:00.009-05:00

(image by zombiegod @ BGG)
Fantasy Flight knows how to push my buttons. They are well known for their massive, epic games with tons of plastic and cardboard. I take one look at a new release and any semblance of willpower I have crumbles to the ground. When I first saw the images of Tide of Iron, I knew I had to have it. Tactical squad-based World War II combat with awesome plastic army men? Sign me up!

Tide of Iron is Fantasy Flight's answer to Memoir '44 by Days of Wonder and Squad Leader by Multiman Publishing. The former is a very simple card-driven combat game based on the Commands & Colors system used in Commands & Colors: Ancients and Battlelore, while the latter is an incredibly detailed tactical battle simulation. Tide of Iron finds the middle ground, offering far more complexity and a system closer to Advanced Squad Leader but toning down the scope and providing tons of chrome.

There are really three parts to Tide of Iron:

Components

Tide of Iron is gorgeous, no doubt about it. The game comes with extremely thick modular hex boards to build maps, hex overlays for different terrain and chits to represent entrenchments, pillboxes, razorwire and more. I really love the terrain components as everything is very clear and heavy duty.

(image by ram47 @ BGG)

While the terrain looks fantastic, the real stars of the show are the plastic army men. The base game comes with American and German units with different molds for infantry, elite infantry, commanders, machine gun nests, mortars and a bunch of different vehicles and tanks. These immediately take me back to my youth playing with the classic green army men and lend a seriously awesome "toy factor" to Tide of Iron. Each unit has a peg on the bottom which snaps into a round base with four peg slots. The base represents a single squad which you may customize however you'd like. Infantry take up a single peg while heavy weapons like the machine gun take up two. You could have one squad of three infantry and a commander while another has a machine gun nest accompanied by a normal and elite infantry. The round bases also have a clip on back where you can stick in a specialization chit to turn them into special units like medics or engineers.

The concept behind the squad creation is one of the really cool features in Tide of Iron. Each scenario gives players a set number of units but you can split them into squads however you'd like. Unfortunately the figures also lead to one of my main complaints with the game. While I understand what Fantasy Flight was going for with the pegged army men plugging into the squad bases, the problem is that they don't fit in that well. Most have extra flashing on them and aren't uniformly shaped so they either fit poorly or don't fit at all. I actually took time to trim the extra flashing off of each peg and even then some still don't make a very good fit. Ones that fit too loose are a pain because they fall out too easily when you handle the squad but others fit too tight and are tricky to get out, possibly breaking off the pegs.

Ultimately the figures end up as more fiddly than cool. I love the customizable squad concept but the bases are not as easy to use as I would like. It isn't a deal breaker but you will no doubt feel some frustration with the squad bases at some point. I'm actually considering trying to modify my bases and units to use magnets somehow; we'll see if I ever get inspired enough to make it happen.

Gameplay

Fantasy Flight sometimes struggles with rule books but I feel they did a great job with Tide of Iron. The book is filled with lots of great examples and offers a really handy index. Sure, you may still have a few questions here and there but overall I think the Tide of Iron rulebook may be their best.

Tide of Iron really shines when it comes to mechanics. Scenarios detail the objective, setup, victory conditions and number of turns played. Players are given specific units they assign to squads and set up on the board. A single game turn is played over several rounds of back-and-forth unit activation as listed in the objective. For example, each side may activate three units at a time (until all units have been activated for both sides) or it might be lop-sided with the Germans activating three and the Americans two It is a great system as it helps lend to the real-time feel of the game and gives players very interesting decisions to make. After all units have been activated the turn ends, you check for control of victory conditions, do some cleanup and continue.

(image by Konwacht @ BGG)
You have several different options when activating a unit. Generally you either move, fire, go into "op fire" (delay your attack until an enemy moves into line of sight) or play a strategy card. After activating a unit you place a fatigue marker next to them to indicate they may not be activated again this turn. Op fire is a big part of the game as you need to decide which units need to be used offensively and which can be used defensively in reaction to enemy movement. You also have two options when it comes time to shoot: normal and suppressive fire. A hit on normal fire simply kills off an enemy figure (removing them from the squad base) while a hit on suppressive fire pins that squad, essentially making them inactive for the rest of the turn. When you make an attack without moving (called concentrated fire) you may also combine fire with other unfatigued units within line-of-sight of the target, allowing you to make a single stronger attack rather than multiple weaker attacks.

I really feel like the combat system nails the feel I want from a tactical squad-level game. Killing off units permanently weakens a squad but sometimes you need to pin down a unit (especially machine gun nests) so you can push forward. Combining fire can be extremely powerful but it fatigues every unit that participates so you need to weigh the odds and determine how important that additional firepower really is versus another separate attack. There are rules for cover (adding to a unit's defense) and special units that give bonuses (commanders add plus one defense against suppressive fire, for example) which all add complexity of the decision-making process. Running through open ground towards a machine gun nest will almost always result in your squad getting mowed down but laying down suppressive fire on that nest first might open up a window for you to advance and get a better position. Those decisions and the moments that play out really make Tide of Iron fantastic.

Scenarios

As a historical game, Tide of Iron comes with a bunch of scenarios recreating battles during World War II. No matter how great the game system is, poor scenarios in a scenario-based game can really ruin it. I won't go so far as to say that the scenarios ruin Tide of Iron but I feel like they don't always make the fun immediately apparent. Many scenarios put one player as the attacker and the other as the defender. This usually results in the attacker having interesting tactical decisions to make while the defender holes up and adjusts as necessary. In many war games the idea is that you switch sides and play a scenario twice. Given a single scenario can easily take two to three hours to play out, that's not always an option in Tide of Iron. Unfortunately this means that one player may be stuck in the less interesting role.

(image by joebelanger @ BGG)

I've seen many comment that the scenarios are not "balanced" but I think they miss the point of these scenarios. They are based on real battles, few of which I doubt had equal odds for both sides going in. As a simulation I think Tide of Iron succeeds and the scenarios succeed in giving players a feel for the situation they are attempting to recreate. Unfortunately that does not always equate to equal fun for both players. I think it is very possible to create scenarios that are very well-balanced but they will likely be less historical. How much you enjoy the scenarios will likely depend on how much you really care about a truly balanced outcome.

One aspect I think the scenarios do a great job with is abstracting out elements that fall outside the squad-level focus of the game. There are a bunch of different card decks and special cards that come with the game. Each scenario details which decks each side gets. For example, the Americans might get the Air Support Deck to help represent bombing runs the player can perform while the Germans get the Reinforcement Deck to help represent additional support that appears over the course of the scenario. Rather than represent these on the board they come into play through cards the player draws and puts into play. The cards really add a lot of depth to the game while adding almost no additional complexity.

When All is Said and Done

Tide of Iron sort of straddles the line between war game and designer game. The rules and underlying system are fantastic and really capture the feel I want in a tactical war game. There's enough complexity to give you really interesting decisions to make but not so much that everything can't be summed up on more than a couple of pages of cheat sheets. The components are gorgeous but not quite as functional as they should be. Scenarios really set the stage for a historical simulation although they don't always result in an equal match between sides.

When all is said and done, I love Tide of Iron. It is not without its flaws but I think the good far outweighs the bad. Like many of Fantasy Flight's other games the experience of playing is what matters, not the outcome. This isn't a game for everyone, though; I highly recommending playing before buying if you can. Tide of Iron does have elements that will easily turn someone away, but if it hooks you it is all over. I only get to break out Tide of Iron a handful of times each year but for me it is worth it every time. I just hope Fantasy Flight takes away some valuable lessons in component usability.

Bootleggers and theme in board games

2009-10-12T13:12:00.007-05:00

I'm always fascinated by the use of theme in board games. I think games tend to fall into one of the following five groups:

* No theme - Usually found in abstract strategy games like Go, these games have no theme. They are simply a set of rules to play but the components are not meant to represent anything specific. It is the purest form of gaming.

* Abstract theme - There is a theme but it does not really relate to the mechanics at all. Any number of themes could easily be placed on top of the mechanics and it would work equally well. Many games fall into this category, especially designer Euro-style games like Ra and Puerto Rico. The theme is generally irrelevant and does not impact one's thoughts on the game.

* Applied theme - Here the theme makes sense in terms of mechanics and probably helps contribute towards your thoughts of the game. Ticket to Ride is a great example; building a network of links works perfectly with a railroad theme and people may very well have their feelings about the game influenced by the rail theme. At the same time it could easily be themed differently and work just as well.

* Integrated theme - This is all about the theme; the game really would not function without it. Most war games probably fall into this category as the game is about that specific war. The theme often contributes equally with mechanics - if not more - when it comes to your enjoyment of the game.

* Pure theme - You play this for the theme and experience, not the mechanics or depth of play. I think many classic children's games fall into this grouping as well as something like Tales of the Arabian Nights or comedy-heavy games like Munchkin. Even thought there may not be much in the way of mechanics, the theme can often be enough to make these games highly enjoyable.

(image by Fawkes) @ BGG)
Bootleggers is one of the best examples of integrated theme I've played. It is prohibition in the 1920s and each player is a mob boss producing hooch and running it to the speakeasies across town while trying to take out the competition. Whoever has the most cash at the end of twelve rounds wins.

The game play is fairly simple. Each player has a hand of numbered "muscle" cards and at the start of the round each player picks one in secret and reveals simultaneously to determine turn order. Then, in turn order, each player gets to pick up one "Men of Action" card which usually involve all sorts of rule breakers. After picking cards, players roll dice to determine how many crates of alcohol they've produced, load them into their trucks and send them to the speakeasies to sell for profit.

First, the components do a great job of evoking the theme. The main game board shows all the different speakeasies around town with era-appropriate store fronts and the track for Men of Action cards has different entertainers and other characters all dressed straight from the 20s. Each player has a set of plastic Tommy gun toting mobsters and trucks that the wooden cubes (representing crates of booze) actually fit into. One look at the game and you can immediately figure out what the overall concept is, even without knowing a thing about the rules.

(image by angelotti @ BGG)

What impresses me most is how well the mechanics tie into the theme. The most brilliant part are the Men of Action cards. Many allow you to upgrade your stills to roll more dice for production or get more mobsters to influence the back rooms of the speakeasies, making it more likely for you to turn a profit there. The rest are rule breakers, though, and these are the key to the game. Most can be held in your hand until you wish to play them. In true mobster form, though, deals may be made at any time for anything you can imagine and nothing is binding. More often than not the Men of Action cards are used to extort money from another player. The threat of playing a card on someone can be more powerful than actually playing it on them!

Many other games have "take that" mechanics where you may play cards and take actions that directly (and usually negatively) impact other players. The mobster theme in Bootleggers fits perfectly with that style of play. Combine that with freestyle non-binding negotiations and you have a game that perfectly nails the mob theme. For example, I may have a card that allows me to hijack someone's truck once it arrives at a speakeasy and steal the profit from its sales. Instead of outright playing that on someone I can threaten to play it on them unless they split the profits. After all, receiving something is better than receiving nothing, right? Better yet, they may counteroffer to give me an even larger split to play it on someone else at the table. Many games with deal making often have fairly strict rules around what can and cannot be negotiated; Bootleggers has no such restrictions and these threats and negotiations really become the heart of the game.

(image by basilmichael @ BGG)
The other thing all this negotiation does is help reduce some of the luck in the game. You roll one or more six-sided dice to determine how many crates you produce and how many crates the different speakeasies will purchase. You can mitigate luck in production by buying and selling crates or buying/renting trucks from other players; at the speakeasies you play influence which may give you preference when it comes to selling, or you may be able to strong arm your way into others' profits by using Men of Action cards. There is most certainly luck but I feel it is very manageable.

My only real complaints are with some of the components. The artwork is great but the there's a lot of extremely small text on the cards and many of them are unique. This means each round you spend time reading the cards out loud - often multiple times - to make sure everyone knows what is available. As much as I enjoy the artwork I think they could have made it a little smaller in favor of larger text. Also, the little plastic trucks are extremely cool but they come in three sizes: small (4 crates), medium (6 crates) and large (9) crates. The problem is that the trucks are all the same physical size and are only differentiated by the number 4, 6 or 9 on the roof. There's no line to help to know which way is up for the numbers so it is very easy to get confused between the 6 and 9. Finally, the game comes with paper money which I think we all know by now I'm not a fan of. Use poker chips; not only is it easier to handle but it fits perfectly with the theme!

Thankfully none of that takes away from the fun to be had. This isn't a game for everyone; you need to accept that you'll get screwed over and blackmailed by other players. Once you accept that and start having fun with the theme, Bootleggers shines. Few games marry theme and mechanics together this well. You can find it for cheap online ($20 or less), which is sadly the only reason I even became aware of it. If a mafia-rich theme and a little dice rolling sound good to you then I strongly suggest you get Bootleggers into your collection.

Tales of the Arabian Nights

2009-08-27T14:02:00.006-05:00

(image courtesy UniversalHead @ BGG)

Before you sits a massive board game. You've never encountered a box so dense or a game so unique.

You would love to open the box and play the game. Turn to page 83.

You need to put on your hernia belt before lifting the box. Turn to page 15.

The sheer size of the box sends you fleeing in terror. Turn to page 102.

For those that grew up in the 80s you no doubt remember Choose Your Own Adventure books where you read a paragraph and made a decision that led you to another page in the book. They were really unique with branching paths and multiple endings, meaning you could experience a new story each time (assuming you didn't cheat and read ahead).

Tales of the Arabian Nights is a reprint of the original by the same name from 1985. It is, in essence, a massive choose your own adventure. Players will move around a map, run into a random encounter, choose how to react and see what happens. Sometimes you'll earn great rewards, other times you'll have some horrible status inflicted upon you. Ultimately you want to collect story and destiny points and return to Baghdad. The first to do so wins the game.

At the start of the game, players have two main decisions to make. First, you get to choose three skills for your character. There are over a dozen to pick from and range from quick thinking and piety to storytelling, seduction and beguiling. Skills generally don't do anything by themselves but they will give you options as you resolve events. You might pick ones that sound fun or - like me - think what type of character you imagine yourself as. For example, I might decide to be a grizzled old wizard and go with magic, enduring hardship and wisdom.

You must also decide how you want to win the game. As a reward for your encounters you'll often earn story and/or destiny points. You need to earn 20 points to win the game but before the game begins you get to decide how you want to split those between story and destiny. So you could go for 10 and 10, or 12 story and 8 destiny... whatever you want to do.

(image courtesy betume @ BGG)

Once everyone has made their decisions the game starts. Going around the table each player moves and resolves an encounter. When you land on a spot you draw an encounter card that tells you what type thing you've run into, like a beggar or a witch. Then you roll a die and that gives you the adjective for that thing, so maybe you've encountered an imprisoned beggar or a wealthy witch. Based on what you've encountered you will have a list of reactions you may choose from. For example, if you find an imprisoned beggar you might have options to aid, rob, talk, avoid or attack them. Your action is referenced on a chart that tells you what paragraph from the book will be read to you.

First the reader will read aloud the start of the paragraph. Then there may be a list of outcomes that start off with various skills in bold. If the player has one of these skills they may choose to have that result read to them, otherwise you default to the "no skill" paragraph. The result is read (hopefully very dramatically) and then some rewards are given out. Typically you will earn (or possibly lose) story and destiny points, plus you may earn new skills or gain a status. There are a bunch of different statuses: some good, some bad. You could become lost (reduced movement), imprisoned (encounter a jailer each turn until you escape), envious (must always rob when given the option) or blessed (always choose the result when you roll a six-sided die) just to name a few. These statuses do all sorts of crazy things and are going to help and hurt your progress throughout the game.

Normally I don't dive this much into the rules but in all honesty that's really all there is to Tales of the Arabian Nights. There's no strategy, no tactics, no real decisions to be made. You just move around the map, have encounters, choose a reaction and hope it works out! You have quests you are working on which give you reason to travel to specific cities on the map but that mostly just helps focus your movement so you aren't wandering aimlessly the entire game. In all honesty there is not much "game" to Tales of the Arabian Nights.

(image courtesy bullseyetm @ BGG)
The experience of playing is really a lot of fun, though, and unlike anything else out there. You'll encounter a beautiful princess and then decide how to react. Your options might include courting her, kidnapping her, robbing her or just talking to her. You might make your decision based on what type of character you are pretending to be or maybe you'll go for the choice that you think may lead to a good result. Sometimes you'll pick "enter" when you encounter a small artifact just because you are curious how the heck that is even possible! You can't "play well" but making these decisions are still a lot of fun.

Then you get to see how your decision played out. The Book of Tales is 300 pages long and has something like 2600 paragraphs, each often having two or three outcomes. I really like that your skills determine how an event plays out and it's always fun to wonder "what if." You could choose to navigate that mystical river and when the reader asks if you have Seamanship and you respond no and get the "no skill" result, you can't help but wonder what would've happened if you did! I've never read the actual 1001 Nights tales but from the little bit I know it certainly seems like the encounters and results in Tales of the Arabian Nights are very much in the spirit of the original tales. The paragraphs are very well written and highly entertaining, plus they just beg the reader to add in all sorts of dramatic flourishes.

I only have two small complaints with the gameplay itself. First, at the beginning you have to decide what your target story and destiny points are. There's really no reason to deviate much from a 50/50 split, otherwise you'll just be prolonging the game for yourself. I've read that others forgo that decision up front and simply play until someone reaches a combined total of 20 points. In the future I may go that route as well. Second, the game technically plays two to six players but I would never play with more than four unless your players are extremely patient. Your turns are quick and there's nothing to be planning outside of your turn so players may grow tired of the game. I really think that the game will be best with two or three.

(image courtesy @ UniversalHead BGG)

Other than that I think the game is a lot of fun and the experience is second to none. However, I do feel that some of the components could use some work. There are over a dozen skills and over two dozen different statuses. The game comes with a bunch of cards and cardboard chits to represent all of these and there aren't enough enough for all the players even though you aren't supposed to be limited by the components in the game. Thankfully BoardGameGeek exists and there are some fantastic player mats out there but honestly something like that should have come with the game; I can't imagine playing without one. Each spot on the map represents some type of terrain that may be used when resolving encounters but I found the colors hard to distinguish and the legend is a little misleading as well. Finally, the Book of Tales is a massive 300 page spiral bound book. The cover is a little flimsy and is already highly creased and bent after only a few plays plus the spiral binding keeps twisting off the ends.

These are really minor complaints in what is one of the most original games out there. As I've mentioned there is no strategy, no grand planning, not even any true decisions to make. You just move, deal with your encounter and hope the outcome is good. The stories that get told are highly memorable, though! One friend of mine tried to court everyone he came across and kept getting thrown in jail. Another had a precious gem taken from him and for the rest of the game had to try and steal from everyone he encountered because he was envious of their belongings. Tales of the Arabian Nights isn't a game you will want to play too frequently as eventually you will start to repeat events. Thankfully there are 2600 paragraphs or so and with each often having different outcomes based on a couple of skills you will still find new events and encounters each time you play.

So long as you go into Tales of the Arabian Nights understanding exactly what you are in for I think you will find a lot to love. It really is a storytelling game and as such it excels. You may want to print out some player aides from Board Game Geek but with those in hand you will have one of the most unique and entertaining experiences out there.

Space Alert

2009-08-17T14:06:00.003-05:00

(image courtesy karel_danek @ BGG)

In space, nobody can hear you scream. Apparently nobody told that to Vlaada Chvátil (designer of Space Alert) because this game is anything but silent!

Space Alert is the latest in the wave of cooperative games that have been hitting the market lately. I've talked about some like Battlestar Galactica, Shadows over Camelot and Pandemic but Space Alert is an entirely different beast. Players are members of a star ship, hopping to new sectors in space and dealing with (read: destroying) whatever they encounter. Space is unforgiving, though, and the crew will struggle to keep their ship in one piece!

The game takes place in two parts. Part one is the planning phase which is played out in real time to a CD soundtrack. Yes, that's right: a CD soundtrack. Each player has a track with 12 spots where they will play action cards designating what they will be doing on that turn. The catch is that you are planning your actions out in real-time as the soundtrack barks out commands. A single mission lasts seven to ten minutes and is divided into three phases. You may only play cards on the spots that correspond to the current phase you are in, making planning even trickier. The soundtrack is going to give out commands like:

"Phase one ends in 20 seconds."
"Data transfer."
"Threat T+3 zone blue."

(image courtesy fehrmeister @ BGG)

There are a variety of things that may happen but the core of the game are the threats. The ship is divided into three sections (red, white blue) and the soundtrack will announce which turn (T+3 means turn 3) a threat appears. You then draw a random card from the threat deck to see what appears in round three and what you need to do to deal with it. Then players start planning out their actions, turn by turn, to figure out what needs to be done. You are free to move your pieces around on the board to help you visualize but you are not actually doing anything in this phase, only programming your actions for each turn.

Once the mission is done, the game board is reset and the resolution phase of the game begins. You now walk through the actions and events turn-by-turn to see how well the crew's plans work out!

It may sound simple but the game is anything but. Resource management is key and you'll be fighting it your entire mission. The ship has a limited amount of energy and firing weapons and powering shields draws from the energy pool so you must make sure there's enough energy in the right place at the right time. Taking down enemy ships is also often tricky as typically you need to coordinate attacks from multiple guns at once if you want to do any real damage. Threats will also attack back and you also need to plan for when they'll be firing and what you need to do to prepare for it. Do you try and take it down before it does much damage or raise the shields to absorb the hits? Once you play the full game (there are several introductary scenarios to help you get up to speed) you'll also have threats on board your ship to deal with, screen savers to keep from kicking in, battle bots to control and windows to look out of.

(image courtesy Meat @ BGG)

If Space Alert sounds crazy, that's because it is. This is, without a doubt, one of the most insane board games I've played and I love every second of it. When you first see two CDs in the box you'll cringe, afraid of what that could possibly lead to. Thankfully the "soundtracks" are really bare-bones audio files that mostly just have the computer voice barking out commands. There is a lot to coordinate across all players and you'll scramble to get everything worked out and planned before the next phase begins. Failing to deal with a threat will typically either damage the ship which causes it to perform less efficiently or may cause players to delay a turn. Delaying can be very bad as all of your actions will slide down one spot to the right, meaning everything else you had planned is now one turn off from what you originally expected. Truly devistating when coordination is such an important part of the game.

I can see where some will really not care for Space Alert. It is a stressful game and requires a lot of communication amongst the group. You need to be a very assertive player; you won't do anything unless you start planning out actions but to succeed you need to coordinate with your fellow players. You also need to be very tolerant of others' mistakes as all it takes is one person doing the wrong thing on one turn for all your well-made plans to fall apart. Failure is always an option (and a likely one at that) in Space Alert; some may not enjoy seeing themselves or others make mistakes that cost the game for the whole group.

(image courtesy filwi @ BGG)

I love this game. The real-time planning phase is brilliant and is unlike anything else out there. Random encounters mean near-infinite replayability and when you use everything the game has to offer it is pretty much impossible to fully plan out all of your moves correctly. Sometimes you'll look back and curse one mistimed action that cost you the game while other times nothing clicks for the group and hilarity ensues. The more you play with the same players, though, the better you'll become at communicating efficiently and the better you will do. Each mission takes 7-10 minutes of real-time play and probably an equal amount of time to resolve. Don't be surprised if you find yourself playing two, three or more missions back-to-back.

I wish words could do this game justice but it really needs to be experienced to appreciate. Vlaada Chvátil is quickly becoming one of my favorite game designers and I will always be up for some Space Alert.

Shadows Over Camelot

2009-07-20T18:27:00.006-05:00

(image courtesy Erich @ BGG)
Board gamers tend to be geeks and geeks tend to love Monty Python. It's inevitable that Monty Python quotes will occasionally come out during gaming sessions. Pull out Shadows Over Camelot, though, and it is a guarantee. If you want to have some fun, keep a running log of how many seconds it takes upon pulling out the box before the first quote comes out. The results may (or may not) surprise you.

Shadows Over Camelot is in fact about King Arthur and the Round Table. Dark forces are taking over the land, Camelot is under siege and one of the knights may even be a traitor! Similar to Battlestar Galactica, Shadows Over Camelot is a cooperative game with a traitor element. Each player is a Knight of the Round Table and at the beginning of the game everyone is dealt a secret loyalty card that says if they are loyal or the traitor. Given the game's setup there is at most one traitor but it's possible there may be none, adding a bit to the suspense.

Players work together completing quests and try to out the traitor (if one exists). As quests are completed, white swords are placed on the round table and black swords are added as quests fail. The game is over when all 12 spots on the table have filled. If half or more of the swords are black, evil prevails and the traitor - if there is one - wins the game. Should the knights manage to have more white than black swords, though, they have kept evil at bay and rejoice merrily.

(image courtesy kilroy_locke @ BGG)

At its core, Shadows Over Camelot is really a rummy game of sorts. You are trying to collect sets, straights and pairs of cards to play on different "quests." Some quests - like the duel against the black knight - may only be attempted by one player at a time, while others allow multiple knights to work together. You may only play one card per turn so generally you need to work together to complete quests in a timely fashion.

Completing quests quickly can be important because at the start of your turn you must first "progress evil" which involves drawing and resolving a card from the deck of bad things. Generally these cards push a single quest closer to failure. As these bad things come out on each player's turn it really is important that the players work together; it's not unusual to see your hard work go down the drain quickly with a few bad card draws.

The knight's special powers and the traitor mechanic really make the game. Each knight has a rule-breaker special ability that they may use on their turn. King Arthur, for example, can exchange one card with another player while another knight may use special white cards as a free action. Some knights work well together, others just help the group as a whole. You really need to make sure you put your special powers to use as they can easily be the difference between winning and losing.

(image courtesy flieger @ BGG)
Then there's the traitor mechanic. At the start of the game a deck is built consisting of one loyalty card per player plus one traitor card. These cards are shuffled and one is dealt to each player. Players look at their card in secret and now know their role for the game. Odds are there will be a traitor but there's a small chance there's none so that adds a fun unknown element. The traitor has a very important part to play as they want to influence events so that the heroes lose but want to keep their identity hidden if possible. Most cards are played and discarded face down so you never know the true value or type of card someone got rid of. The traitor could, for example, sit on the quest for Excalibur and throw away all of their best white cards. While each white card discarded moves the Excalibur quest one step closer to victory, by burning their best cards the traitor is making the group weaker as a whole.

There's a lot of subtlety when it comes to playing the traitor. Once there are six swords at the round table or six siege engines at Camelot, players may start making accusations. If the player make a successful accusation then one white sword is added to the table; guess wrong, though, and one white sword turns to black which can be devastating. Should the traitor make it to the end of the game undetected, two white swords will turn to black which will almost certainly equal doom for the good guys.

Unfortunately I think there's almost too much subtlety when it comes to playing the traitor. My main complaint is that, as the traitor, there's really not a whole lot you can do. Sure you can waste some time on a quest here, throw away good cards there and try to generally play sub-optimally without giving away that you are the traitor but none of those actions are all that exciting. Shadows Over Camelot is a challenging game all by itself. There's often not a whole lot the traitor even needs to do to tip the game in their favor.

(image courtesy kilroy_locke @ BGG)

Mechanically the quests work but I also find they are not all that exciting. All you do is play cards in various ways on different locations. That's fine, but when battling off the Saxons and Picts involves playing a straight and dueling the Black Knight has you playing two pairs... well, that doesn't do much for the theme. You are also only allowed to play a single card per turn. This forces cooperation as players need to work together to complete quests quickly but it also means that your individual turns aren't all that exciting. If you have a straight in your hand you may spend the next five turns at the Picts playing them down, which can be quite dull as you wait for the other players to go.

Given my complaints you might think I dislike Shadows Over Camelot. Quite the opposite! I think it is great fun, especially with the right group of people. By the nature of the game the traitor can often be difficult to weed out but it is really necessary for the heroes to do so if they want to succeed. Drawing from the "bad deck" each turn means that the group's priorities are constantly in flux. A single quest can easily go from nearly complete to just about to fail in a few turns, so the group is always re-evaulating what needs attention and trying to coordinate how to best tackle the issues at hand.

(image courtesy IntvGene @ BGG)
What really impresses me most is that I don't think I've found anyone that just does not like Shadows Over Camelot. The rules take a little while to explain but are pretty straightfoward once you start playing; combine that with the gorgeous art and components and the Knights of the Round Table theme and you have a game that you can teach to anyone and have fun. I've played with gamers and non-gamers alike and it goes over well every time. The game is not without its flaws but the good parts are good enough to make for a great gaming experience. Personally I find Battlestar Galactica to be the more engaging cooperative/traitor style game but Shadow Over Camelot's relative simplicity makes it a better introduction to cooperative gaming.

Note that there is an expansion for the game called Merlin's Company. Stay away: you have been warned. Some folks complained that they had pretty much "solved" the base game so Days of Wonder put out an expansion to bump up the difficulty level. Unfortunately I found that the expansion just sucked all the fun out of the game. The main offender is that you now have random encounters as you move from quest to quest and usually the encounters involve bad things happening like you losing your turn. You are already so limited in what you get to accomplish each turn that I found this expansion to be maddening, not fun. Stick with the base game and enjoy.

Agricola

2009-06-19T16:54:00.005-05:00

(image courtesy cuazzel @ BGG)
There's a new king in town and it goes by the name Agricola. For quite a long time Puerto Rico claimed the number one spot in the rankings over at BoardGameGeek. When Agricola released at Essen in 2007 it quickly climbed and at some point last year it finally knocked Puerto Rico off its throne. Agricola had a lot of buzz about it and the speed which it rose was really quite impressive; is the game equally as amazing?

Agricola is a worker placement game about farming. The game takes place over 16 rounds with harvests happening after every few. Over the course of the game you will place your family members (initially two but you may get more later) to raise animals, plow fields, sow crops, expand and renovate your house, bake bread, collect food and much more. There are a lot of aspects to the game and essentially you earn points for everything you've managed to do and lose points for the things you haven't.

As a worker placement game I think Agricola succeeds. There are a lot of different areas to place your family members and even with five players there's almost always something useful you can do each turn. One aspect I really like is that there is a base set of actions (determined by the number of players) and then each round another action is made available. Family members determine how many actions you'll be performing each round so as you grow your family and as more actions come up you do get a sense of growth and accomplishment as you manage to do more each turn.

(image courtesy richardsgamepack @ BGG)

One of the more interesting parts of the game are the occupation and improvement cards. Each player is dealt seven of each at the start of the game and will be able to bring these cards into play over the course of the game. What's most impressive is that every single card is unique and there are even three different decks that come with the game but only one is used at a time. This means there is a ton of replay value as you'll probably never be dealt the exact same set of cards twice. There's also a good chance these cards will help you formulate your strategy and set your course for the game.

Unfortunately this also leads to one of my main complaints with Agricola. The occupations and improvements do a lot of cool and varied things but I feel there is a significant luck-of-the-draw aspect to the game. Sometimes you just get dealt really awesome cards that work well together. If you don't have that same level of synergy you are already at a significant disadvantage.

I've discovered that Agricola really stresses me out but not in a good way. There is something like a dozen different areas where you can gain or lose points. Generally you need to make sure you are doing a little bit of everything; focusing too much on one aspect means you are forgoing something else and losing points. You'll feel real despair when the end of the game is rolling in and you see how much more stuff everyone else has managed to accomplish compared to you. Case in point: I think my highest scoring game was my first when I had no idea what I was doing. I played turn-to-turn and did whatever looked best at the time. Every game since then I've tended to focus on whatever I was lacking in last time, meaning something else was ignored and my scores suffered greatly. I've found the trick is to really play more tactically and try to maximize each turn rather than try and plan some great strategy. Take what you can when you can get it and you'll do well.

(image courtesy timsteen @ BGG)
I also feel like the game is dull for the first half to two thirds of the game and then really quickly escalates towards the end. There's a good chance you won't be getting your third family member until nearly halfway through the game and harvests come more quickly towards the end. Usually it seems like things really don't start clicking until round 10 or later at which point you are well over halfway through the game and often things won't really come together for you until the last couple of rounds when you fill in those last few missing pieces that you need. It'd be nice if the game had a more gradual curve than the somewhat sudden crecendo I often feel.

For all my complaining, though, I do think that Agricola is a good game. Does it deserve the number one spot on BoardGameGeek? Probably not. The mechanics are solid and the game has really high replay value which is fantastic. Unfortunately I think the cards can put you at a disadvantage from the start and I find having to do a little bit of everything not as satisfying as other games where you can really focus on a strategy and see it unfold. I'm not going to turn down a game of Agricola and I might even recommend it from time to time, but generally there are other games I'd rather play.

Dominion

2009-05-04T10:24:00.001-05:00

(image courtesy monteslu @ BGG)
BoardGameGeek - while a great site - isn't always a good thing for me. Whenever a new release really catches on there I have a tendency to fight against that game; I'm always skeptical that it can be remotely as good as the masses claim. Early reviews are always in that honeymoon period (which I get caught up in as well) so it can take a little while for the game to "settle" to its proper place on the site. Dominion caught like a wildfire when it released which is surprising since it's just a card game and the BoardGameGeek community tends to favor more in-depth strategy games. Race for the Galaxy had a similar fever around it when it released and while I think it is a good game the complexity and learning curve means it rarely hits the table. With comparisons being drawn between the two on BoardGameGeek I found myself having a hard time getting excited about Dominion.

Then I played the game and realized what the fuss was all about.

Dominion is a deck building card game for two to four players. There are 25 different kingdom decks that come with the game, 10 of which will be in use for a single match. You'll also find copper, silver and gold cards - the currency in the game - and estate, duchy and province cards - worth 1, 2 and 3 victory points respectively. Player start with seven copper and three estates, shuffle them up and draw five into their hand. Over the c0urse of the game players will be playing cards from their hand to acquire new kingdom cards which will in turn allow them to earn yet more cards. The ultimate goal is to pick up victory points. Once either the provinces or three of the 10 kingdom card stacks runs out, the game is over and whomever has the most victory points wins.

(image courtesy garyjames @ BGG)

What makes Dominion so brilliant is that the rules are incredibly simple. On your turn you have an action and a buy that can be done in any order. Your action allows you to play a card marked as an action from your hand. Many action cards give you more actions (listed as +1 action) or more buys (+1 buy). More actions allow you to play further action cards from your hand, possibly chaining them together. Each buy allows you to purchase one kingdom card using the money cards in your hand. Everything purchased, spent and unused from your hand is put in your discard pile and you draw five new cards, reshuffling your discard pile as needed.

That's really it! Dominion is a deck building game and everyone starts on equal footing with the same 10-card deck. On your turn you'll be able to purchase new cards which go directly into your discard pile and will get shuffled in when you need to reshuffle. It is a great mechanic because you are trying to seed your deck with the proper types and amounts of cards that you feel will get to you victory the fastest. The fate of your game is mostly in your hands based on how you build your deck with a little bit of lucked tossed in based on what cards you draw.

The rest of the rules are printed on the cards themselves. For example, play the Cellar and you get +1 Action plus you can discard any number of cards from your hand and redraw new ones. The Woodcutter gives you +1 buy and two more copper to spend on your turn. As you look at the available cards you'll be able to visualize combos building up that allow you to burn through your deck more quickly and get to the cards you need.

(image courtesy Filippos @ BGG)
While all these actions are nice, money and victory points are extremely important. Provinces - worth three victory points - have a cost of 8. If you can't get 8 worth of money into your hand you'll never have a chance of winning the game. Copper is worth 1, silver worth 2 and gold worth 3. You don't want to flood your deck with copper because you need eight of them to get a province, whereas three gold gets you there too. Since your initial hand is only five cards, you need to find a balance between more actions to draw through your deck and more efficient money to get you more with less.

What's really brilliant is that victory points are also cards that get shuffled into your deck. They have no inherit value and are of no use to you while you play the game, they are just your points at the end. Any victory points you draw into your hand are dead weight so you need to start the game early by building up your infrastructure of actions and money and at some point switch over to grabbing victory points. Finding the proper balance for your deck and deciding when to make that transition is your key to success. Once one player picks up the first province it is often an arms race to grab the rest.

Not only is Dominion incredibly simple it is also just a lot of fun to play. With 25 different kingdom cards the game is going to play different every time. Even with the same set of 10 kingdom cards in play there will probably be at least two or three viable ways to build your deck, maybe even more. Everyone will find a slightly different balance and it's hard to describe the satisfaction I find in selecting the right cards, building up my deck and seeing it execute properly. It's also interesting how your card draws influence what cards you plan on buying. I may have bought a few Cellars but based on their distribution in my reshuffle I might feel like they just aren't coming up often enough and will try to play accordingly. There's an interesting balance in building your deck mathematically to play the odds and playing by gut reaction as you go.

(image courtesy EndersGame @ BGG)

I honestly have no complaints about the game. The artwork is a little bland but it works and doesn't distract you at all. It is a little pricey for a box of cards but the game is very well designed and a ton of fun; you'll get your money's worth. My main fear is the upcoming expansions. There is another full 25 set of kingdom cards being released soon. It'll function as a standalone game but can also be mixed in with the base set. I think there are more expansions planned. My fear is that it'll just get too bloated with all of these expansions and the fun will get lost along the way. Thankfully the base game is enough fun and has so much replay value that I'm not sure a person would never need to get these expansions. I just don't want them to dilute the value of the game by pumping out too many expansions too quickly.

Nobody is forcing me to buy expansions, though, so I'm going to continue to enjoy Dominion for a long time to come. It is incredibly easy to teach, has a lot of replay value and is highly satisfying to play. A couple of guys in our group have had a somewhat lukewarm reception to it, but overall it has been received with great enthusiasm. I think it will be a staple for our gaming group going forward.

Battlestar Galactica

2009-03-30T09:49:00.007-05:00

(image courtesy Surya @ BGG)
Competitive/cooperative games are sort of the new hotness in board games. Shadows Over Camelot is one of the most popular in the genre but there are others like Bang!, Saboteur and Betrayal at House on the Hill. Typically these styles of games have players working together against the game system; the catch is that one or more players are secretly working against the "good guys" and are trying to make them lose. It's a really interesting mechanic that adds a lot of tension to a game and generally results in a lot of player interaction.

Battlestar Galactica is the newest in this style of game. I'm a huge fan of the television series so I was both excited and nervous about the game. Like video games, board game movie tie-ins generally don't turn out to be that good. Usually they are just a cash-in on the franchise. Early press made Battlestar Galactica sound like little more than Shadows Over Camelot with a science fiction twist. Thankfully it turned out to be much more!

(image courtesy @ henk.rolleman BGG)

Here's a real quick rundown of the story as it applies to the board game. Humans created a robotic race called Centurions to do their bidding. Eventually the Centurions rebelled, left on their own and created the Cylons, robots that look and act exactly like humans. Finally the Cylons invaded the human home world of Caprica and forced the remaining survivors to flee and look for a new home. The humans are looking for the mythical planet of Earth and need to get to the planet Kobol which supposedly will point them in the right direction. They are being chased by the Cylons, though, and worse yet have no idea who in the fleet may in fact be one of them!

Mechanically this sets the game up perfectly for a hidden traitor mechanic. At the start of the game everyone picks a character and is then dealt a loyalty card that says if you are human or Cylon. If you are human you want to get the fleet to Kobol; if you are Cylon you want to blow up Battlestar Galactica, overtake the ship or make the humans run out of resources. Only one side will come out victorious.

As a Cylon you generally want to keep your loyalty hidden as you can do a lot of damage that way. Each turn players draw a set of skill cards of five different possible colors, defined on their character sheet. Then they take a "good" action which might involve fighting Cylon ships, repairing Galactica or throwing someone in the brig. After that you are forced to resolve an event which is never good. These represent things like new Cylon ships appearing, prison riots, hostage negotiations and the like. At the bottom of the card are symbols showing if Cylon ships attack and if the battlestar spins up its faster-than-light (FTL) drives which is key to jumping closer to Kobol.

(image courtesy filwi @ BGG)
The top portion of the card is typically some sort of skill check to pass or a decision to be made and these are the real crux of the game. Decisions are made by either the current player, the president or the admiral (roles that are assigned to players over the course of the game). Usually you have to pick between two different bad things and decide which is the lesser of two evils. Skill checks make up the bulk of the event cards. On the card is shown a target level, which of the five skill card colors apply towards success and what happens if you pass or fail the check. First, two random skill cards are added to start the pile, then going around the table each player has the option of playing face-down as many skill cards as they would like. Once all the cards are in the pile is shuffled and the cards are totaled. Each skill card matching the colors on the event adds its value towards success while each non-matching cards subtracts its value. If the total equals or exceeds the target you pass, otherwise you fail.

This part of the game really lets the hidden Cylons mess with the humans. Assuming everyone is loyal there should be a maximum of two bad cards in the stack if both random cards were bad. Everything else should be good. If not, you know someone intentionally played a bad skill card! As a Cylon you can try to toss in bad cards to push the event towards failure but you risk revealing yourself. While you don't know who threw in a specific card, process of elimination based on what color the card was and what skill cards each player draws can help narrow down the traitors. There's also the possibility for some bluffing and blame-laying; you can even toss in cards to try and frame someone else! The amount of mind-games and deduction is extremely fun and players are always interested as the totals are added up.

There's one more mechanic that makes Battlestar Galactica work. At the start of the game the loyalty deck is built with a specific number of human and Cylon cards based on the number of players. Only half of the deck is dealt out at the start, giving each player a single loyalty card. Roughly halfway through the game the second half of the deck is dealt, giving each player a second loyalty card. This means you may have been a loyal human at the start but you have now switched and become a Cylon! Players may have had everything figured out from the start but halfways through it can almost become a new game as the paranoia settles in all over again.

(image courtesy avyssaleos @ BGG)

While I love Battlestar Galactica, it isn't perfect. My first complaint is that they used stills from the show for a lot of the artwork; this is going to make the game age really poorly. Second, the pace of the game is often determined by the random event deck. Sometimes you can go awhile without anything too exciting happening. Granted, skill checks always keep people involved but the game is typically more "fun" when there are Cylon ships attacking as well. There's also the possibility for a player to get stuck and unable to contribute much to the game if they are in the brig or keep getting sent to sickbay. Finally, it is a long game (plan on 3-4 hours) and might outstay its welcome for some.

For me, though, Battlestar Galactica is pretty much the ultimate competitive/cooperative game. It improves upon other games in the genre by adding in the second round of loyalty cards (allowing for changing loyalties) and players are involved every single round as they add cards to skill checks. I do think it runs a bit long and there are some minor balance issues but I've had a ton of fun every time I've played. It does a great job of invoking the feeling of the show and I think fans of the series will get into the game even more. Both sides of the game - human and Cylon - are engaging throughout the entire game, something other games in the genre struggle with. Assuming we have the time, Battlestar Galactica will always be my "traitor" game of choice.

Railroad Tycoon and Rails of Europe

2009-02-03T12:16:00.005-06:00

I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for expansions. If a publisher adds on to an existing board game, odds are I'll end up getting. Often expansions add more content, simply adding on to the base game (Descent: Journeys in the Dark). Others make changes to the original game that some argue are critical to truly enjoying the game (Twilight Imperium 3rd edition). You also have expansions that give you new ways to play the existing game (expansion maps for Power Grid). Rails of Europe is the first expansion for Railroad Tycoon and it is a mix of all the above; thankfully it turned out to be great.

First, a bit on Railroad Tycoon. As the name implies it is a rail game where each player works to build the best rail company they can. The game features a hex map of the eastern United States. Cities of various colors are located around the map and each starts with a certain number of randomly-colored cubes. Ultimately the goal is to build links of track and deliver these cubes to cities of the matching color. You earn a victory point for each link of yours that the cube travels over; it is possible to use other player's links to get to your destination but you feed them points in the process. The number of links you may use per delivery is based on your engine size which may be upgraded over the course of the game. Whoever has the most points at the end wins.

(image courtesy EndersGame @ BGG)

One of the more interesting concepts in the game is that you start with no money. Income is based on how many victory points you have; outside of that you must take shares to get money. Shares are subtracted from your income at the end of the round (considered to be paying dividends) and each share is worth minus one victory point at the end of the game. You may never get rid of shares so each one you take is one less point for you when all is said and done. Early on you need to take shares so you have enough money to get started but take too many and you are hurting yourself in the long run. Planning early short deliveries to earn points to get you going while setting up long routes and getting your engine upgraded is where the real fun of the game lies.

All of this works really well and the core mechanics are solid. Unfortunately a few things hold Railroad Tycoon from being great. First, the map of the United States is way too crowded in the northeast and far too sparse everywhere else. You can't let one person control the New York area so you'll have two or three players fighting it out there while others pretty much do their own thing in another part of the map. Play with less than six and you can go the entire game without ever having to run into another player. Second, the track laying rules are far too ambiguous when it comes to rivers. You are supposed to pay an extra $3000 when crossing a river but there's always arguments over what is considered "crossing" thanks to how the map is drawn. Third, there are cards dealt out each round that players may purchase to give them extra bonuses. Some cards are actually bonus points for successfully connecting two cities. It is impossible to plan for these because you never know if or when they'll come up so it actually feels a little random when people manage to score those points.

(image courtesy keithblume2 @ BGG)
Enter Rails of Europe. The core mechanics are all the same: lay track, deliver goods, earn points. What you get is a new map, a new deck of cards and some rule changes.

First off, the Europe map is awesome. It may not quite be as accurate a representation of Europe but it is perfect in terms of game balance. Cities are spread out nicely and there are far fewer of them meaning everyone is going to be thrown into the fray. They also cleaned up the track cost rules, getting rid of the highly ambiguous river crossing. Now if there is any water in a hex it costs $3000. It might not be quite as realistic but I think the simplicity really helps the game flow much more smoothly and makes the map more balanced. Another very nice change is that the city connection bonuses are no longer in the deck of cards but are all printed on the map and available from the start of the game. It allows players to build strategies around these connections and get some bonus points early on to help offset the much more challenging map build conditions.

Essentially every single complaint I have with Railroad Tycoon is fixed with Rails of Europe. The map is better, the rules are simpler and the game play is tighter and far more fierce. Our group has played several games of Railroad Tycoon before but when we set up Rails of Europe for the first time we just all stared at the map, uncertain of how to formulate our strategies. It really is a different game.

(image courtesy EndersGame @ BGG)

There's really only one remaining issue: the color choices for the cities and cubes are terrible. In the original print of Railroad Tycoon they did a very poor job matching the dye colors of the blue and purple cubes to the blue and purple cities on the map. They've since fixed that but now it is difficult to tell the blue and black cities apart, especially when you have bad glare on the glossy map. With so many colors and hues to pick from I'm not sure why they had to pick ones that look so similar. Thankfully there aren't many cities in Rails of Europe so it is easy to point out which cities are what color and people can easily remember. Still, I'd love to see them fix up the colors some day.

Outside of that I honestly think Rails of Europe fixes everything that was wrong with Railroad Tycoon. As Rails of Europe only supports five players and Railroad Tycoon supports six the only time I'll probably ever play the base game again is if we have the full compliment of six. I'm hoping that Rails of Europe does well because I would really like to see Eagle Games put out more expansion maps. If they can keep up this level of game play quality I think having a variety of maps will really add a lot of life and replay value to the game. Rails of Europe easily bumped Railroad Tycoon up several notches for me and it is a game I will always be willing to play. It really hits that sweet spot of complexity, depth and play time.

Finally, I will mention this is another game where you will want poker chips to replace the paper money. Paper money equals bad, poker chips equal good. You would be wise to remember that.

Vegas Showdown

2009-01-08T16:00:00.000-06:00

(image courtesy Shadowen @ BGG)
I've previously talked about Nexus Ops, an Avalon Hill game that should not be judged by its cover art. Clearly Avalon Hill needs some new artists because Vegas Showdown falls into that exact same category. The box and even the components are very lackluster but the game itself turned out to be a real surprise.

Vegas Showdown is a game of making the best hotel/casino possible. You will be bidding against other players for new rooms to place in your building. These rooms bring in more income, allow for more guests and ultimately earn you points. Each turn some new rooms get placed out if the bidding table has open spots, players earn income and take turns bidding on the rooms up on the auction block. Winner pays for their new building tile, places it on their building mat and play continues until one of the stacks of buildings is exhausted or one player completely fills up their building.

(image courtesy kilroy_locke @ BGG)

The auction system in Vegas Showdown is extremely simple. There are bidding tracks next to each tile that is up for sale. On your turn you place your bidding token on one of those tracks. If someone else is already on a track you must outbid them and they get their piece back to rebid when their turn comes around. Once everyone has placed their bid token you pay for your tiles, place them, adjust your income/capacity/victory points accordingly and do it all over again.

That's pretty much Vegas Showdown. It really is that simple. There's a pretty healthy dose of luck as to which tiles get turned over and what special effects kick in when new tiles are revealed but the player that paces their purchases and picks up the right tiles at the right time will certainly do well. Unpurchased rooms drop in price each round so there's also decisions to make on how long you wait for something to drop in price before jumping on it. What really impresses me is that I've seen people win using very different strategies. Some of the rooms may only be placed if you have the prerequisite room and the quantities are limited so you also have to decide which rooms you really want to battle over.

(image courtesy ronster0 @ BGG)
What impresses me most is that there are several different paths to victory. You might shoot for the very nice rare rooms, build out lots of smaller rooms, focus on rooms that nicely fill out your building mat or just go for the really good deals. The rules are very simple - you can likely explain the entire game in under five minutes - meaning you can dive right in and the fun is immediately apparent. There's enough depth to the game and interesting decisions to be made, though, so the game feels interesting every time. Placing rooms in your building also has a very nice puzzle aspect as you try and maximize your available building spots and points earned.

If you do pick up Vegas Showdown, be sure to have a set of poker chips handy. The game does technically come with chips to represent the players' money but they are really cheap, thin plastic chips. Using a nice set of weighted poker chips goes a long ways towards adding to the Vegas feel of the game and just makes the game more enjoyable. Unfortunately the other components are on the cheap side as well: player mats are glossy paper instead of boards and minimum bid discs tokens are small red discs that slide around too easily.

I'd love to see a premium version of Vegas Showdown released sometime with upgraded components. The game is well worthy of a re-release and deserves the royal treatment. If you can find a copy, be sure to pick it up. You won't be disappointed.

Hollywood Blockbuster

2008-11-25T11:00:00.006-06:00

(image courtesy TheKeck @ BGG)
Auction games are hit-and-miss for me. As I mentioned in my post on Modern Art, I'm terrible at evaluating the worth of things. I did eventually come to like Modern Art, though, and I do really enjoy other auction games like Ra, For Sale and Nefertiti. When I first discovered the original German version of Hollywood Blockbuster - called Traumfabrik - I was extremely interested. Rebuilding classic films using actors and directors of my choice sounded like a lot of fun and the game is by Reiner Knizia, one of the most prolific game designers out there. It seemed like a sure thing even with my uncertainty on auction mechanics.

Traumfabrik was only available in Germany for quite some time until Uberplay finally brought the game to the US as Hollywood Blockbuster. The theme remained the same but they had to replace all of the real actors and film with parodies. At first I was extremely annoyed by the change but after playing the game I realized it really didn't make that big of a difference. In fact when I play I typically see the titles and names as the things they are trying to parody and just ingore the terrible puns (like actors Nickeless Wage and Keanu Breeze).

(image courtesy ronster0 @ BGG)

Hollywood Blockbuster takes place over four years as players try to put together the best films possible. A year has three auctions and two parties where players will be able to acquire the components needed to complete their films (actors, directors, special effects, cameras, etc.). The first auction is strictly for a high profile director while the others are for a random set of film components. There are also two parties where players get a component based on who has the most popular actors in their films. A film's final value is the combined value of all the film's components. When you complete a film you immediately score its points. At the end of each year bonus points are given for the most valuable film and at the end of the game bonus points are also given to the best film in each category (comedy, drama, action) and also for the worst film. Whoever has the most points at the end wins.

That portion of the game works fairly well and people always have fun trying to complete their films and make them the best - or the worst - possible. Unfortunately things break down once we dive into the auction mechanic behind it all.

Each player starts the game with a certain number of contracts which are the currency for the game. That starting amount is fixed; no money will enter or leave the game. Each auction players take turns going around the table making bids for the film components currently up for sale until someone finally wins the auction. Here's the catch: the winner's bid gets redistributed evenly amongst all the other players. If there is a remainder it sits in the middle and gets redistributed with the next auction.

(image courtesy hotrodqt @ BGG)
I find this leads to a real problem with the game. There are only six auction each year. Since your bid gets redistributed, winning an auction means you are immediately poorer and all of your opponents are now richer, making it increasingly less likely for you to win the next auction. In practice what happens is players need to pick a couple of auctions they feel are imporant for them to win and focus on those, holding out on the others to make sure they get the proceeds and guarantee them enough money to win the auctions they want. The bidding process feels rather shallow because it is generally in your best interest to maximize your bid on the auction you need. There's no real disadvantage because you'll get your money back in a few rounds.

What I've found is that this ultimately leaves you without many interesting decisions to make over the course of the game. Pick a couple of rounds that matter and make sure you have enough contracts to win them. With no way for money to enter or leave the game its just a matter of timing your auctions so you have money when you need it.

(image courtesy P47 Thunderbolt @ BGG)

My second complaint is that it generally feels like it is in your best interest to complete films as quickly as possible and there's little room for other strategies. If one person is tearing through films they are likely going to win the game. Trying to save up and pile all of your most valuable film components on a single movie means you aren't finishing other films and you aren't getting points. There are a limited number of films in the game, so it is also quite possible that there will simply be no more films for you to complete as other players gobble them all up. Also, while having a bonus for worst film is a clever touch it is rarely worth specifically trying to grab the worst film. I don't think I've ever seen anyone intentionally pursue worst film and even come close to winning the game.

You should be able to finish a game of Hollywood Blockbuster in a half hour to forty five minutes, though, which is nice when you need a quick filler. It is also fairly easy to teach and the theme will appeal to many so it is a good intro game or a game for a younger crowd. In that regard I think Hollywood Blockbuster works quite well. Unfortunately I don't think most serious gaming groups will find much satisfaction playing Hollywood Blockbuster with their peers.

El Grande

2008-10-30T01:55:00.011-05:00

(image courtesy roboman @ BGG)
It is good to show respect for your elders. Euro-style games really started to become popular in 1995 with the release of Settlers of Catan which really introduced and reintroduced many concepts that are standard in modern board games: resources, victory points and no player elimination. It's a game that introduced many people to the hobby and is one of the most popular board games out there. What some forget is that another game also came out that year: El Grande, the father of area control games.

The game board in El Grande represents Spain broken into a handful of provinces and also features the castillo, a massive upright wooden tower. Players take turns placing wooden cubes called caballeros in an attempt to have the most cubes per region. El Grande lasts nine rounds and scoring is performed after every third round. Each territory earns point values for first, second and third place and whoever has the most points at the end wins.

I suppose the concept of area control may have very well appeared in games prior to El Grande but it generally seems to be considered the inspiration for every area control game that followed (of which there are many). There are three major things that make El Grande unique not only from area control games but from most games in general:

(image courtesy garyjames @ BGG)

The Castillo - It is impossible to look at El Grande and not comment on the castillo, a massive black wooden tower on the game board. The castillo serves two purposes. First, it is a territory like any other on the map that players may place their caballeros on. You must drop your pieces in the tower, though, and may not peek inside so there is a bit of a memory element if you wish to compete for points. Second, your pieces are moved from the castillo to a single province in Spain prior to scoring, making the castillo a stall tactic to allow you to make a last-minute adjustment to your current standing on the map.

Province Dials - Each player has a cardboard disc with an arrow and all of the province names listed. Most any time multiple players need to pick a province they do so secretly on their spinner and then all players reveal simultaneously. This secret selection mechanism causes some antagonizing moments as you attempt to out-guess and out-maneuver your opponents.

(image courtesy Nodens77 @ BGG)
The King - Aside from the castillo the next most prominent piece on the board is the king marker. The king sits in a single province and prevents the players from affecting that province in almost any fashion for the course of that round. Also, when players move new caballeros on the board they may only be played in territories adjacent to the king. Smart use of the king allows players to lock in points and protect a key territory while making sure they are not giving others players too much benefit by denying access to territories they need.

What gives El Grande its legs are the action and power cards. Each player has a hand of power cards numbered one through thirteen that shows a value and a number of caballeros. In turn order players choose one of their power cards but may not choose a value already played by someone else this round. You then pick and resolve action cards in order from high to low power card. There are four stacks of action cards with enough of each to last over nine rounds (meaning some in each stack will not be used each game) along with a fifth power card that always lets you move the king. These action cards allow the players to put a certain number of caballeros on the board and optionally perform some special ability. The abilities are the heart of the game and let players perform a variety of actions like move the king, force your opponents to move caballeros, manually shuffle caballeros around yourself, score a province early and so on. As the action cards are revealed randomly you never know exactly what events to expect or the order they'll occur. There is still plenty of room to strategize around the cards but their random nature adds a fair amount of replay value.

(image courtesy henk.rolleman @ BGG)

I really only have two complaints with the game. First, the text on the action cards is pretty bare-bones. There are more detailed instructions in the manual but the inclusion of even a couple of key words would've prevented you from having to reference the rule book. Second, the game's terminology is not very intuitive. Players have cubes representing their caballeros in two piles, one that is immediately available for placement and the other is your unavailable pool. The available pool is called your "court" and your unavailable pool is called your "provinces." It usually takes players awhile to wrap their heads around the terms but it is very important to know the difference as several action cards specify one or the other.

El Grande is a game every gamer should play, if only to see where many games got their inspiration from. In this case it is an oldie and a goody. You have a lot of very challenging decisions to make when picking your actions and then figuring out how to best exercise (or not exercise) the special ability. The rules are very easy to teach and while some of the terminology is odd players tend to pick it up fast. I might catch some flack for this but I think that Settlers feels a bit dated. The artistic style and the gameplay mechanics put it in the 90s. El Grande, on the other hand, has aged well and I think it'll stand the test of time.

Shogun

2008-09-10T13:31:00.015-05:00

(image courtesy Bernd @ BGG)
There are currently only two games I have rated a "perfect 10" over at BoardGameGeek. A game does not need to be truly perfect to get the elusive perfect score but just a game that I'm always wanting to play and that I often continue to think about when we're done. Twilight Imperium 3 is one of those games, but I've already talked about that (although don't be surprised to see more talk in the future). Shogun, by Queen Games, is another.

If nothing else, Shogun is a gorgeous game. The large map of Japan broken into provinces is very colorful, pleasing on the eyes and very easy to read. There's even an alternate map on the back side with a different layout for more advanced players. Each player has bright, well-illustrated player mat to help them plan their actions and place their armies (using the advanced setup). Of course players have a bunch of wooden cubes to represent their armies. Most striking, though, is the cube tower. The tall cardboard tower with a clear plastic funnel and base dominates the visual field. It is impossible to miss and is guaranteed to get more than a few people at least curious about what the heck it is.

Shogun takes place over the course of two years. Spring, summer and fall have players planning and executing their actions while winter is purely a scoring round. You earn points for holding provinces, owning buildings in those provinces and having the majority of three different types of buildings in the regions on the map. At the end of two years the player with the most points wins.

(image courtesy asm_zero @ BGG)

While the basic premise is quite simple, doing well at the game is far from easy. There are ten actions players will be able to perform each season. Each player has a hand of province cards that represent the territories they control. To perform an action you place a province on the action you wish to perform there. For example, to collect rice from Owari you'd place your Owari card face down on the collect rice action on your player mat. The order of the actions is randomly determined each season. You get to see the order of the first five actions but the last five are hidden and revealed as you start resolving actions. This means you have some knowledge about the timing of events for the season but must also plan around the unknown.

(image courtesy richardsgamepack @ BGG)
One very important part of the game is feeding your people come winter. You are allowed to take rice from provinces you own, adding to your overall rice supply for the year. At the end of the year you need to have one rice for every province you control. If you are short then you'll be facing revolts come winter. Collecting rice can often be challenging enough but the real tricky part is that four event cards are put out at the start of each year, one card per season. Each card has two parts: first is a special condition that applies for spring, summer and winter, second is rice loss come winter. This number will range from zero to negative seven or so. You'll see the four possible cards at the start of the year but the order is random so you have to plan for the possible rice loss and possibly take some risks or change your plan as the cards are resolved.

The best part of the game is without a doubt the cube tower. Inside the tower are a couple of horizontal platforms with random holes cut in them. When you attack another player (or face revolts) you take your army cubes along with cubes from the defender, toss them in the tower and see what comes out! Attacker and defender destroy each other on a 1:1 basis and whomever has the most left wins. Any cubes not related to the attack stay in the tray and are tossed in again on the next attack to keep them cycling through the tower. Cubes will get caught up in the tower so you may only have a few come out or you might knock some loose inside and end up with more cubes coming out than you tossed in! It's quite possibly the most exciting randomizer ever. There's no way you can even begin to guess probability, you just have to toss your cubes in and hope for the best. Generally combat is extremely bloody with the winning side only having a couple of cubes left. Everyone loves watching the results from the tower... it's just oh-so-satisfying.

Shogun is not all that difficult to learn even if it looks a bit daunting at first glance. It is part war game, part area control and part resource management. You need to balance all three to do well at the game. With only the possibility of 12 attacks per player over the course of the entire game (two per season) you really need to pick your battles carefully. Armies are expensive not only in gold cost but also in activation; you can't move an army the same turn it is built so you always have to be thinking at least one season in advance. The cube tower is a great way to resolve combat. Not only is it a fun randomizer but you also will be making decisions based on how many cubes you might have sitting in the tray or possibly stuck in the tower.

(image courtesy Legomancer @ BGG)

Which is why I think the game is so fantastic. There's a decent amount of luck in the game with the random events, random action order and the cube tower but it's all very manageable. You might get a few bad results from the tower but it's rare to see someone win or lose the game from luck alone. At the same time there's enough variability that no two games ever seem to play out exactly alike. You can feel when you've made a good move; it's possibly one of the more satisfying games in that regard. With only six seasons every action counts and you need to be setting yourself up from turn one. Pulling off a win in Shogun is a great feeling.

Shogun is actually a remake of Wallenstein which featured a map of Germany during the Thirty Years' War. Having played both I can say without a doubt that I find Shogun to be the much better game. Shogun has a few extra mechanics - most importantly a bid for turn order - that really adds a lot. I also feel the map is actually better. At first I thought Wallenstein's more rounded map might make for a tighter game but it is almost a little too large and has some seemingly imbalanced areas. Shogun, while much longer and narrower, feels like it makes for more interesting and focused interactions with other players. Generally I think you interact with fewer players (as there are fewer adjacencies) but those conflicts turn out to be much more interesting.

(image courtesy cimere @ BGG)
I really only have three complaints. First is that the player mats tend to bow upwards a bit which can make dealing with your province cards a little bit of a pain at times. Second, I don't like the rule that you plan your actions before seeing what special event is in effect for the season. Sometimes the action will impact rice or gold production, for example, or might protect provinces with certain buildings. They did that to add a little bit more randomness but I think the game could just as easily be played with this information known before planning your actions. It's a variant I'd like to try out sometime and see what impact it has on the game. If anything I think it'd just make it even more strategic. It's a minor complaint, though, and the game works perfectly fine as-is.

Finally, the game is a bit punishing once you start falling behind. Fewer owned provinces means fewer actions you'll be taking each round. When two of your actions almost always will need to be taking gold and rice that can leave you with little left to do. If you carelessly attack or leave key provinces unprotected it's not hard to end up in a bad situation. I've seen players pull off great wins but often you'll have a rough feel for which spots you'll be competing for at the end of the first year. I don't find this to be a real problem as careful planning will generally keep you competitive. Still, I can see where some might find issue with this.

Part war game, part Euro, Shogun succeeds on both fronts. The game can run a little long at times - plan a good 2 1/2 to 3 hours - but it's well worthwhile. Players will be sucked in by the cube tower and hooked by the interesting decisions and good mix of strategy and tactics. Shogun is a great game, no doubt about it.

Ave Caesar

2008-08-23T01:14:00.009-05:00

(Image courtesy CafegamesRon @ BGG)
It's not easy to find quick six player games. I've talked about Category 5 at great length, but sometimes you need something else to help fill the gap, something with just a little bit more meat on. Ave Caesar is that game.

Ave Caesar is a chariot racing game where players compete to be the first across the finish line. Asmodee did a fantastic job with the box art, board and components. The player pieces are really cool plastic chariots that look like Roman reliefs; they are very striking and look great when set up on the board. I also really like the board itself. It's very bright and colorful, particularly the crowd. Anyone taking a glance at the game is bound to be immediately interested.

Seeing as how you'll probably end up with a lot of people oohing and aahing over the game once it is set up, it's good that Ave Caesar is incredibly easy to play and teach. Each player picks a chariot and receives a deck of cards numbered one through six. Players will always have a hand of three cards. On your turn you play a card, move your chariot and draw a new card. First to complete three laps wins. It's that simple.

(Image courtesy Capitaine Grappin @ BGG)

Well, almost that simple. There are a few things that really make the game interesting. First, the track is generally only two spaces wide representing the inside and outside of the track. Only a single chariot may occupy a space and you may not pass directly through an opponent so it's quite possible for players to block both lanes, preventing others from getting through. There are also a handful of spaces on the board that take up both lanes, meaning a single player can block off the track in those spaces. Navigating yourself into these blocking areas is one very key aspect of the game. Second, you may never play a "six" card when you are in the lead (or tied for the lead). Third, when you play a card you must move exactly the number of spaces listed on the card. If you have no valid card to play then you must pass. Finally, sometime on the first or second lap you must stop in front of Caesar and pay tribute. This is represented by the player tossing in their plastic coin and proclaiming, "Hail, Caesar!

Positioning and timing are everything in Ave Caesar. At first you may wonder why you wouldn't always play your highest card every time. It seems reasonable at first but once you see how tight the board gets you'll understand how important timing your movement really is. Just because you can blow past someone doesn't mean you should; often you are better off using a little less movement if it means you get prime positioning in a blocking spot or on the inside of the track. Forcing your opponents to waste their good cards traveling on the outside of the track can really be devastating. You also will need to relinquish the lead at some point to use your sixes, so timing when to fall back and push forward again can be very tricky.

(Image courtesy gamephotos @ BGG)
The beauty of Ave Caesar is how incredibly simple it is. If people just want to toss down cards that's fine and the game works. At the same time more skilled players will always be thinking two or three moves ahead and will generally be rewarded for it. There certainly is a luck component to Ave Caesar and there may very well be times where you suffer because you didn't have the ideal movement cards in your hand. At the same time you always have three cards so you should always be planning your next couple of moves. Decisions are usually quite simple but it's important to time your key movements as best you can.

Starting position is important, and while the early players seem to have an advantage the leader has to work much harder and take more risks to get their sixes used up. Being in the lead and having two sixes in your hand really hurts. You also have to be careful when you pass the leader as you are now giving them the opportunity to play one of their sixes. The rules recommend you do a few races in a row to try and even out the luck factor a bit and I do think that's a good idea. At first I think players are going to feel that the game is extremely luck-based. After a race or two, though, they should start to see how even a little bit of planning will go a long way.

(Image courtesy gamephotos @ BGG)

I do have a few minor complaints. First, there are many spaces on the board that are not large enough for the chariots! You end up sticking them in there sideways so it looks like your chariots are drifting around corners and sliding through pit row. Second, the board seams are in some very inconvenient spots and I've had several first time players think a crease was actually marking a new track segment. Finally, while the game does come with two tracks I do it had come with a few more. There is an expansion in the works and there's plenty of fun to be had with the two included tracks but one or two others would've been nice.

These are very minor faults, though, and really don't bring the game down at all. It's a fantastic gateway game and people really seem to get in the spirit of the race. The real beauty of Ave Caesar is that it's best with six and it's possible to get a couple of races in under an hour. Add in the great art and components and you have yourself a real winner.

Cuba

2008-07-25T15:56:00.006-05:00

(image courtesy MikeBwithoutadot @ BGG)
Every now and then a game surprises me. At a glance, Cuba doesn't look like anything special. Sure the board is gorgeous but the theme and mechanics all look derivative. Once I played it, though, I realized that Cuba has plenty to offer.

Cuba has players gathering resources, producing goods and shipping or trading them for points. By itself that doesn't sound very exciting, not to mention all that unique in the Eurogame realm. The game does borrow a lot from others that came before it. There is role selection, making and shipping of goods, collection of victory points and laws that get passed. It all sounds pretty mundane but Cuba adds its own unique twist to nearly everything.

Each player has a set of five role cards, a player mat showing a 3x4 grid of fields and a worker token. The game takes place over six rounds and whoever has the most victory points at the end wins. On a turn, players go around in order activating one of their roles and performing that action. Each role has a number (one through five) and the fourth card you play activates but also counts as your "bid" for turn order. Your remaining role card is not played but its number counts as your base votes for parliament. The clever part about this is that the higher numbered roles are the more powerful ones, meaning you'll have to sacrifice a good role to get a good base vote in parliament.

One of your roles is the farmer who allows you to place your worker somewhere on your 3x4 grid and then harvest the resources and goods in the row and column he's placed in. There's also the foreman who activates all of the buildings in the row and column your worker is currently in. Player mats have two sides, one that is identical for all players and one that is unique so you could play on completely equal footing or have different starting setups, which is a nice touch.

(image courtesy diceychic @ BGG)

To leverage all of the stuff your workers collect, though, you'll most likely need buildings. The architect role allows you to pick one building of your choice from the pool of available buildings and place it on a square on your player mat. This is one of the most important parts of the game because not only do the buildings you pick determine your overall strategy for the game but you also must cover up an existing resource when you build it. Figuring out what you need and what you can do without can be painful at times but thankfully your player mat is small enough that your choices are fairly limited and once that first building is placed you've pretty much locked yourself in to a pattern for the rest of the game.

Three of the roles have alternate uses. The mayor, tradeswoman and architect all have primary uses that work with the resources you have gathered so far. Their alternate uses allow you to collect a bonus which is then unavailable to all other players for the rest of the round. For example, the mayor normally lets you ship goods to a single ship at the docks. If you didn't feel like shipping anything, though, the first person to use the mayor's secondary ability collects four pesos and the second person collects two pesos. These spots can be in serious contention each round and you need to plan your actions accordingly.

Finally, the best part of the game is parliament. Each round there are four categories of laws that will be invoked. The first two involve discarding money or goods for victory points and if you do both you get a bonus point. The third law gives more victory points for specific conditions and the fourth is always some form of rule breaker. At the start of the game the four laws being voted on are shown at the top of the board. As I mentioned earlier, the value of your fifth card determines your base votes and then there's a blind bid to add additional votes, one per peso. Whoever has the most votes gets to pass two of the four laws and their choices replace any previous laws of that type. Then the laws are invoked in order and players earn points for the laws they are in compliance with.

(image courtesy richardsgamepack @ BGG)
This really makes the game and I think the it can be won or lost here. Most of Cuba is about picking a strategy from turn one, building your victory point engine and working it throughout the game. There are many different ways to earn victory points and it seems like they are all roughly equal in their ability to win. The variables are the laws, if/when they get passed and how long they are in effect. For example, if you are generating a lot of income and the other players are poor you'll probably want to pass the law that makes players spend five pesos to earn two victory points as there's a good chance you'll be the only person who can afford to do that each turn. Or if you have more buildings than everyone else you'll want to pass the law that earns you points for each building.

Making sure you have the money to win votes, picking your roles so you have the proper base number of votes going in and knowing when to aggressive protect or remove laws is not only very important but a lot of fun. It adds a level of player interaction and awareness you don't often see. When the new laws come up you'll be very aware of what impact the passing of those laws will have on each player. If you ignore your opponents they'll capitalize on the laws and most likely pull out the win.

(image courtesy Nobi @ BGG)

This isn't to say that Cuba is perfect. My main complaint is that there are only six rounds so there's no time to waste. From round one you had better pick a strategy and stick with it. If you end up in too much competition with another player or waste too much time getting your production machine up and running you'll fall behind and have a very difficult time catching up. Your turns will feel scripted at times as well as there'll really only be one logical way to play it out. Other times you'll be scratching your head trying to maximize your turn as you generally can't afford to make many mistakes. Also, there will be times when you discover you can earn more points on a turn by completely ignoring your original strategy and going a completely different route. Not a big deal but it can be a little demoralizing to have built up this whole system just to ignore it on the final round.

Overall, though, I think Cuba has a lot to offer. There are a lot of different ways to achieve victory in the game but I think they all rely on paying attention to the parliament and making the moves you see necessary to give you a boost or prevent others from getting one. It's also a relatively fast game, easily playable in a couple of hours. Out of the new board games I've played over the last year Cuba is easily one of my favorites.

Modern Art

2008-07-01T16:52:00.009-05:00

(image by nrihtar2 @ BGG)

I could never survive in a barter economy and I've never tried to play the stock market. I'm terrible at evaluating the worth of things and in all honesty it stresses me out a bit. Which is no surprise that Modern Art and I have had a rocky relationship.

Modern Art is an auction game in its purest form. Players buy and sell art in while trying to predict which artists will be the most lucrative. Each player starts with a hand of cards that represent a piece of art from one of five different artists. On your turn you play a card which you are putting up for sale. An auction occurs, the winner pays the seller and places the work of art in front of them. Once the fifth piece of art from a given artist is played on the table the round is immediately over. The top three most popular artists - those with the most purchased paintings wwwwall players - are given values of 30, 20 and 10 for that round. Then players collect money for the paintings they purchased that round. Purchased cards are removed and a new round begins.

There are two things that make Modern Art work. First, artists accumulate worth over the course of the game. If Krypto places first in round one, his art is worth 30 per card. Round two Krypto places second making his art worth 50 per card (30 from round one plus 20 from round two). Round three Krypto doesn't place, meaning for this round his art is worthless. Last round Krypto places in second place again, meaning his art is now worth 70 each(30+20+20). When you purchase and sell art you are trying to predict which artists will place each round and where they will place. An artist tracking for first will rake in more cash than one that isn't looking to place.

Second, there are several types of auctions in the game. Each card has a symbol showing the type of auction that occurs when that card is put up for sale. The types are:

Open - Your standard auction. Players call out bids until nobody wishes to raise the bid further.
Once Around - Bids go around clockwise once starting with the player to the right of the auctioneer.
Sealed - A blind bid. Each player puts an amount of money in their hand and reveal simultaneously. Highest bid wins.
Fixed Price - The auctioneer sets the bid price and in clockwise order have a chance to buy it at that price or pass.
Double - A double auction card lets you put down a second piece of art for sale and the form of auction is determined by the other card played with it.

(image by creech @ BGG)
Combine these two things and you have a game that is all about trying to read your opponents and figuring out the best timing for an auction. Throwing out a double auction can rake in a lot of cash. Likewise a well-timed sealed auction might have people over-bidding to make sure they get that piece of art. The catch is, of course, that you never want to pay too much otherwise you are giving an opponent a lot of money and not making much profit for yourself. As you would expect, the key is to buy low and sell high. Most importantly, though, your hand of cards gives you some inside knowledge about what the market looks like and allows you some control over the course of the game.

My first few plays of Modern Art were rough. As I said, I'm not good at evaluating the worth of things and that's pretty much all you do in this game. When you first play you really have very little understanding of the general price trends and it's easy to overpay or sell something for far too cheap. Experienced players will wipe the floor with you. That's what happened with me and I really came to dislike the game.

One night, though, things finally clicked. I decided to play a game without buying a single piece of art; all of my income came exclusively from sales. This let me watch how everyone else bid and allowed me to better focus on the trends; that game gave me a lot of insight on how Modern Art works and how to read the group you're playing with. I came in an extremely close second without purchasing a single piece of art.

(image by Moviebuffs @ BGG)

That's when I realized that Modern Art is truly a great game. There tend to be general price guidelines you'll follow each game once you understand how things place and the impact that'll have on their worth; there's definitely a general pacing to the game. Yet two matches will play the same as each match takes on the mindset of the players and you have to understand how to gauge the impact that'll have. I highly suggest you take a similar approach during your first game: sit back, watch how others play and make money off of your sales. You probably won't win but you'll gain a real understanding of how the game works.

After my initial hatred for the game I've actually come to enjoy it quite a bit. Odds are I'll never recommend we play Modern Art but I'll no longer complain about my dislike for it. Modern Art is a very simple board game with some serious replay value. I do think the game could grow stale if you play too often with the exact same group of people. Still, it's a great game to close off a game night.

On a side note, be sure to have a set of poker chips to use in place of the cheap plastic coins that come with the game. They are a pain to handle and people just like holding poker chips.

Starcraft: The Board Game

2008-06-13T10:59:00.006-05:00

(image courtesy Aarontu @ BGG)
There's this little game for the PC called Starcraft. Maybe you've heard of it? I'm actually going to lose a little bit of geek cred when I say I've never actually played Starcraft on the PC before. It came out early in college for me and my only computer was an older Mac so I missed out on lots of great PC games during that time. This means I won't really be able to compare the board game to the computer game, but you can find lots of discussions about that elsewhere.

When I first saw what the Starcraft board game looked like, I pretty much decided to boycott it. The computer game is a real-time strategy game and I wanted the board game to basically be Tide of Iron in space. Turns out Fantasy Flight put together a galactic conquest style game and I really had no interest in it. Fast forward a few months to a friend of mine picking up the game. I've now played it four times.

First, let me say that Fantasy Flight really nailed the components. There's a ton of cards, cardboard and plastic in the game and it's all quite well designed. I have a few minor complaints on the player aide sheets as I don't think they give you quite all the information you really need but overall things are very clean, clear and easy to identify at a glance.

(image courtesy Neurocide @ BGG)

There are three main races in Starcraft with two factions each, allowing for a total of six players. One of the key concepts in the computer game was that the races were extremely different from each other and that has carried over very well into the board game. Each race has a very unique set of units and technologies and you'll need to develop strategies on how to best play your race against the others at the table. To start the game, players build the map of planets, take turns placing orders on planets and finally resolve the orders. There are two different victory conditions. First, players collect victory points from certain areas on the map and the first player to 15 VPs wins. Second, each faction has a victory condition that is unique to them. If anyone qualifies for their specific victory condition at the end of a round they win.

The order placement is really quite clever. Each player has a set of tokens that show one of three orders: move/attack, research, and build. In turn order you place one of your order tokens face down on a planet. If someone else places on the same planet, their token goes on top of yours. This means that orders on a planet are resolved top-down on the stack meaning tokens are resolved in the reverse order they were placed. It's a really cool system with some interesting subtleties. Being first, for example, is very challenging as everyone else will be able to stack on top of your orders. The order system requires you to think in a whole new way. Unfortunately this leads to people making many mistakes while placing orders when they are first learning.

Probably the most interesting part of the game is researching new technologies. Players have two decks of cards: combat cards and technologies. Combat cards are drawn throughout the course of each round and are played on units during combat to set their combat strength and health along with any supporting abilities. Most technology cards are actually combat cards but you have to spend resources to research that technology to get it added into your deck. It's cool because researching a technology doesn't generally give you the benefit instantly but increases the chance that you'll draw a good card for a given unit type. Figuring out which technologies you need to do well against your neighbors is very important and a lot of fun. Outside of the technology deck you may also build new production buildings and module upgrades that allow you to create new unit types and give you extra bonuses throughout the game. Planning your technology choices and timing your upgrades all while balancing the resources available to you is really important and quite a bit of fun.

(image courtesy model359 @ BGG)
I'm still not sure what to make of Starcraft's combat system. When you move into enemy territory the attacker lines up their units against the defenders into a bunch of skirmishes. Each player then plays combat cards face down on each skirmish and then the skirmishes are resolved. If the defender has any units left the attacker retreat, otherwise the attacker gets to move in. Given the asymmetrical nature of the races you really need to have a solid understanding of what each unit's strengths and weaknesses are in order to line them up most efficiently. Also, battles are never very epic in scale. Areas on the map are limited to two to four units and an attack may only bring in two more units than the area can hold. This means the largest battle you'll see in the game is six attacking units against four defending units. Anything larger would take a long time to resolve, so I can understand the limitation, but battles generally don't seem very exciting or epic in scope.

My biggest issue with Starcraft is that it just doesn't feel like all that much happens throughout the course of the game. Players rarely seem to expand much more than a planet or two beyond their starting spot and the face of the map doesn't change much. There's quite a bit of contention over the planets between players but I prefer games where the face of the map changes quite a bit over the course of the game; it makes me feel like I've accomplished something even if I lose. Also, the end of the game really comes out of nowhere. You can track the VP win easily as you see people earning points each round but the special victory conditions can really come out of the blue. All of the special victory conditions are quite easy to accomplish. The really important (and difficult) part of the game is pushing to prevent your opponent from getting their special victory as getting your own isn't that hard. All four games I've played have felt like they ended just as things were getting interesting.

I'm willing to chalk that up to player inexperience though. Each game I've played has involved one or more new players and this is not an easy game to learn. You're going to make a lot of mistakes - some very critical ones - during your first couple games and you probably won't do well. I think that a game of experienced players could be more interesting but I still get the feeling that the end won't be all that satisfying.

(image courtesy -=Dani=- @ BGG)

I've still had fun playing Starcraft, though. The asymmetrical nature of the races really gives the game a unique feel and there's a lot to learn about which units and technologies work best against each other. Placing orders is fun and challenging and you have plenty to think about during the other players turns so it never feels too slow. I just wish that combat was more streamlined and larger in scale and that the end game was more satisfying.

I don't think Starcraft is a bad game at all. It has some great stuff going on and it plays relatively quickly (2-4 hours) for a game of its scope. At the end of the game I had fun but I don't really feel like I've accomplished much. I'm not sure I would ever request to play Starcraft but I certainly won't turn down a game if it's been offered.

Silent Review: Tsuro

2008-05-25T13:04:00.003-05:00

Here's a little something I put together. Not only is this my first attempt at a video review but it's also my first attempt at stop motion animation. I'd love to do more of these but it's extremely time-consuming.

Hope you enjoy!

Nexus Ops

2008-05-14T21:11:00.004-05:00

If you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, then the same holds true for board games as well. Take a look at the cover of Nexus Ops:

(image courtesy paw @ BGG)

Based on that, what are the odds you'd ever pick it up off the shelf at a store let alone purchase it? Slim to none would be my guess, assuming you knew nothing about the game in the first place. I got a copy of Nexus Ops on a whim as it was for sale at a great price over at Tanga. Little did I know a fantastic game was hidden inside that horrific box.

Nexus Ops falls directly into the category I would consider gateway games: games that are good for introducing people to the wide world of newer board games. It takes elements from classics like Risk that many will be familiar with and turns it into one of the best light war games I've played.

(image courtesy dsmeyer @ BGG)

In Nexus Ops, players are pitted against each other in an attempt to complete missions that earn them points; first to twelve points wins the game. The game takes place on a modular hex map forming two rings around the Monolith in the center. While the number and type of tiles are fixed their locations will be different each game. Each hex also has a random resource tile placed face down. As players explore the hexes the resource tiles are revealed, either showing a mine (to earn players cash) and/or a free unit.

On their turn a player first purchases new units. There are six types of units ranging from lowly humans to the massive rubium dragons with unit costs increasing appropriately. This means you could buy a bunch of cheap humans or a single dragon... it's your choice. Then you place these units in your starting area and proceed to move as many units as you wish. Some units - like the lava leaper - have special movement rules; typically a unit is allowed to move a single hex. After movement battles are resolved and your turn is over. If you have units on a mine you earn the number of credits listed, take a secret objective card and play continues to the next player.

A couple of things make Nexus Ops stand out from war games many are familiar with (Risk, etc.). First, the combat system is very interesting. Units are ranked from low to high. All hits are determined by the roll of a six-sided die but the number needed to hit the enemy varies based on the unit type; the stronger the unit, the lower you need to roll. For example, the rubium dragons hit on 2+ while humans only hit in on a 6. What really makes the combat work, though, is that combat is resolved from high unit to low unit: first the rubium dragons attack, then the lava leapers, rock striders, crystallines, fungoids and finally the humans. When you take a hit you get to choose which unit to lose. This means humans are least effective in battle as they aren't likely to hit but are the cheapest unit making them most effective as fodder. Likewise, having a army of rubium dragons look impressive but without fodder to protect them you'll be taking casualties It's a very clever system and while not entirely original it serves its purpose extremely well and adds for some fun decision making when figuring out what units to build.

(image courtesy Jezztek @ BGG)
What really makes the game shine, though, are the mission cards. At the end of each turn you take a mission card. These cards list a number of victory points (usually 1 to 4) and the condition needed to meet that objective. You may have a mission that earns you 1 point for defeating a lava leaper in battle: pretty easy. On the other hand you may have another mission to bring two rubium dragons to the middle of the map, teleport them to an opponent's home base and win a battle; not quite as easy but worth more points.

These mission cards really give the game a great twist. All of the objectives are offense-oriented so there's no reason to sit back and "turtle." Generally, if you aren't attacking someone you are probably doing something wrong! It's a very fast-paced game and you'll find yourself working hard to set yourself up to complete the missions you have in your hand. Your opponents are doing the same, though, so you don't want to leave yourself open for an easy attack. Each battle you lose is one or more points for your opponent so you really have to plan your moves accordingly.

(image courtesy dsmeyer @ BGG)

In the middle of the board is the Monolith. If you control the Monolith at the end of your turn you get two combat cards; you'll also earn a single combat card as a consolation prize if you are defending and lose the battle. These cards do all sorts of crazy things but often help you in battle or give you extra credits or further movement for your units. Combat cards will greatly sway the course of the game so you never want to let a single player dominate the Monolith for too long. This forces all players into the middle of the map, pretty much guaranteeing even more chaos!

I love Nexus Ops, there's no doubt about it. It's very easy to learn, fast-paced, has lots of combat, cool figures and plays in under two hours. You'll be hard-pressed to find a better light war game with this much variety, depth and fast play time. The victory point system is brilliant as the cards you pick up determine your focus for the game so it's more than just trying to wipe everyone off of the map. In theory a player could be fully eliminated but that's almost never going to happen. Due to the nature of the mission cards you can fall behind and make a huge comeback with a couple of well-played turns. At the same time you draw mission cards at random so it's quite possible that the missions you have are simply going to be difficult to achieve based on the situation.

(image courtesy paw @ BGG)
Far as I'm concerned, Nexus Ops should pretty much replace Risk as the go-to war game. I really do think it's a game most people should own. It's fast, easy, fun and highly replayable. Do yourself a favor and pick up a copy. Just ignore the box art.

Cutthroat Caverns

2008-05-09T01:38:00.003-05:00

(image courtesy Smirky @ BGG)
There's something to be said for very simple games: games that you can teach in a matter of minutes that anyone can learn. "Beer and pretzel" games, as they're often referred to. One fairly popular category of beer-and-pretzel games are "take that" games... games where you may (and will) play cards that directly affect other players in some negative fashion. Some popular "take that" games you may have heard of include Munchkin, Killer Bunnies, and Guillotine. Cutthroat Caverns is one of the newest entries in the genre and manages to bring a lot of interesting things to the table.

First off, let me say that I'm not a huge fan of games where you can directly screw other players over. It can be fun for awhile but after getting messed with time after time the gimmick wears thin. Add on to that the tendency for everyone to gang up on the leader and you have a style of game that can frustrate quickly. Take Munchkin, for example. I love John Kovalic's artwork and the roleplaying satire is fantastic. In fact, the premise of the game is quite cool: romp through a dungeon, kill monsters and steal their loot. The game falls apart after awhile, though, as players will just keep piling on the leader. Combine that with the massive number of cards in the deck and there's no real strategy and no way to plan ahead. I do feel that type of mindless entertainment certainly has its place in the gaming world, though, and these styles of games tend to be very popular.

Along comes Cutthroat Caverns. Like other "take that" games you can directly screw other players at the table. What makes the game so brilliant is that isn't always the best idea. In Cutthroat Caverns the players are a band of adventurers killing of a series of nine monsters. Players must work together to defeat the critters as they take turns swiping at it. The catch is that each monster is worth a certain number of points but only the person who lands the killing blow actually earns the points.

That's right: it's a game about kill stealing (for you MMO fans).

(image courtesy sedge @ BGG)

This very simple but ingenious twist really sets it apart from other "take that" games out there. If you die before the last monster is killed it doesn't matter how many points you earned because you won't be alive to enjoy them. Each monster has a strength based on the number of players but if someone dies the monster strength remains the same. This means if you kill off too many party members the group as a whole will struggle; if nobody lives to see the end then nobody wins! You don't see cooperative/competitive games very often and Cutthroat Caverns really nails that concept.

Each monster is revealed, one at a time, and the players must fight them. Each player is given a hand of cards. These cards usually have an attack value but others are potions that give you temporary bonuses or action cards that directly affect other players, usually in negative ways. A battle against a monster is made up of several rounds of combat. First initiative cards are dealt, then each player chooses an attack card in secret. Cards are resolved in initiative order, the monster attacks its target and you repeat until the monster is dead. Whoever kills it earns the points.

A few things make this whole concept work. First off, the monster powers are crazy. Some are certainly easier to kill than others but they tend to push the teamwork element quite a bit. You'll need to work together in some fashion and just because you could cancel someone's attack doesn't mean that you should. For example, you might be counting on their attack to soften up the monster just enough so you can swoop in for the kill.

Second, you'll go through the deck quickly. You draw a new card after each round of combat and between encounters you may discard and redraw new cards. There's a good chance you'll go through the deck two or three times during the course of a game meaning all the cards will be seen a few times; this helps to minimize the amount of luck as you'll quickly become familiar with the deck. You'll find yourself making some fun decisions on how hard you should hit this turn or how you can best work the monster's special attack powers to your advantage. Do you go for the big hit and hope nobody has cards to cancel your attack or do you use a very weak attack and try to set yourself up for next round? There are real decisions to be made here, and while luck is certainly a big factor I think it is possible to make good and bad moves in the game.

Cutthroat Caverns isn't without its issues, though. While I love the artwork and components I do think the glass marker beads are a little too hard to use, especially on the monster hitpoint track. Like most card games with lots of text there are also quite a few rule ambiguities and scenarios simply not covered in the rules. Common sense usually prevails without too much effort but the game's fun is slightly diminished when you need to take a moment to discuss how to rule a should work. Finally I do think the game is a little fiddly. After each round of combat you have to collect, shuffle and redeal the initiative cards. I understand why initiative works this way but it does add a bit of overhead.

Even with those complaints I think that Cutthroat Caverns is the best light, "take that" style game I've played. It has a built in timer - nine monsters - so the game will never drag on too long. Luck is diminished a bit with the frequent cycling of cards and ability to refresh your hand between encounters. Plus the whole semi-cooperative aspect really adds in a new level of fun when trying to decide how to best play your turn.

If you like fantasy games, dungeon crawlers and/or have a fondness for Munchkin and its ilk, do yourself a favor and check out Cutthroat Caverns. It plays 3 to 6 players and due to the monster health scaling I think it works well with any number. The game is easy to teach, plays in roughly and hour and you'll have plenty of great moments to laugh about as you play.

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization

2008-04-24T19:08:00.000-05:00

(image courtesy keithblume2 @ BGG)
There seem to be two main "holy grails" in the board gaming world: spouse-friendly two player games and fast-playing civilization games. When a new civilization-style game hits the market the Internet is abuzz with anticipation. Through the Ages was one of those that was receiving a lot of early good reviews and people couldn't wait for it to hit stateside. Printed by FRED Distribution, the game finally landed early this year.

I've managed to get a couple of games in so far and I must say I'm impressed. If you've ever played any of the Civilization computer games you'll feel right at home; Through the Ages takes many of the mechanics and concepts and successfully abstracts them out into a deep, engaging card game. I'm not quite sure what it is about extremely long games that i love so much, but I keep falling in love with them!

Each player takes their civilization from the Age of Antiquity through modern times over the course of four ages. In a very interesting move, Through the Ages has no map; you don't own land and attacks are made directly against other players. Each player has a mat that shows their current population, available workers, population happiness and available resources. You also have a set of cards representing your farms and mines along with any other civil buildings you can construct, armies, wonders, leaders and government type. A track in the middle shows everyone's culture and science earned per round while a card track shows the cards available for purchase with the newer cards costing more. At the start of each player's turn a number of technology cards are removed, everything is shifted down and new cards are played representing the advancement of time and technology. Ultimately victory is determined by the player whose civilization has the highest culture.

On your turn you'll be able to perform a number of civil and military actions; how many actions you have available is determined by your form of government and possibly modified by technologies, leaders, etc. I'm not going to dive into details on all the actions, but here are a few things you can do:

* Increase your population.
* Construct a building.
* Purchase a card from the track.
* Construct the next phase of a wonder.
* Put a new leader into play.
* Change your form of government, either peacefully or through revolution.
* Build military units.

(image courtesy edubvidal @ BGG)

Pretty standard stuff for a civ-style game. One aspect really makes the game shine is the population/resource track. For population you have a row of yellow discs broken into sections. That section lists an amount of food you need to pay when generating food; this represents the need to feed your population. Likewise, there's a blue resource track with numbers that represent the number of resources you lose for hoarding too much in storage. That single track represents both available food and metal. It's an extremely clever supply/demand style that forces you to adjust throughout the course of the game. Sometimes you'll find yourself not producing enough food and losing most of it to feed your population; other times you'll be hoarding too much food which will directly impact how much metal you'll get.

When you produce food or metal you move a blue disc onto the appropriate card. Early on a blue disc on a farm represents a single unit of food but with later farm upgrades a blue disc will represent two food. This puts real importance on upgrading your farms and mines as they become more efficient at higher technology levels, meaning you'll decay less. If you have to lose two metal, for example, early in the game you'd have to lose two blue discs (each represents a single metal) but later in the game you can lose just a single blue disc (as it now represents two food).

The entire game is a real balancing act. You'll find yourself watching the card track, trying to figure out which technology cards you need and which you can live without. You are limited on what you can do each turn; sometimes you'll want to pick up a nice card but you'll have too much "housekeeping" (increasing population, moving workers around, etc.) to do and simply won't have enough actions to pick something up. There are lots of ways to earn victory points and it's a matter of figuring out how to work the system you are building up. This amazing balance is really what makes the game so fascinating.

Up to this point, though, it's all very much a solitaire experience. Sure, you'll be watching cards move down the track and hope you can snag something before someone else does, but that's minor. The other major component of the game is military. Throughout the course of the game you'll be picking up military cards that do a variety of things. The two big ones are colonies and wars. Colonies require military strength to claim; you actually bid your military strength and the winner loses that many military units (representing them sailing off to settle the new land). Aggressions and wars are played against a single player. Here it is straight up military might versus might but players do have a chance to sacrifice units to double their value and play bonus defense cards. Highest strength wins and takes something from the loser.

(image courtesy duartec @ BGG)
There's a very strong tendency in this game for the weak to get weaker and the strong to get stronger. Normally I don't like that sort of thing in a game but for some reason it works extremely well in Through the Ages. Once one person builds up some military it becomes an arms race because you generally can't afford to fall behind. New colonies are often very tempting but they're going to cost you military strength may put you in a weaker position. As turn order simply goes clockwise around the table you always have a chance to respond to someone building up so it's all about balancing your internal economy with growth and keeping up with everyone's military strength.

At the start of each game a few end-game objectives are laid out and will determine the overall flow of the game. If you have a lot of military-oriented objectives you'll see tons of military strength build-up where more economic conditions may result in a slightly more peaceful session. There are a lot of variables and I think no two games will play out exactly the same. A the same time I don't think luck will be a significant factor in your outcome. It's possible cards just won't come down the line when you need them two but based on how the game is going and the number of cards in the deck I think there will almost always be a way to work with what you've been given. How you manage your civilization over the course of the game is going to be far more important than the cards available to you on any given turn, and part of the fun is working with what comes your way.

Through the Ages is a complex game, no doubt about it, and a long one to boot. If you want to play the full game with four players you'd better plan for a full day. With two I think you could tear through the game in a few hours once you both understand it. I get the feeling that the game would play best with three although I have yet to try it out that way. Having a third person should give players options on who to attack but would likely play faster than having that fourth player involved. Don't be scared off by the length and complexity, though. The rules are put together extremely well and lead you through several stages of learning to build up the knowledge you need. It does abstract out many concept (obvious by the complete lack of map) and that may be a minor deterrent for some. I think that it works well, though, and allows players to focus on the delicate balancing of the inner working of their civilization.

My only complaint is that the FRED version has some glaring production issues. It is missing quite a few cubes for each player, the scoring track is misprinted, there are a few card misprints and the cards warp a bit. It's probably worth waiting for the coming reprint to see if they fix up the quality issues. I don't regret buying the game at all, though. Hopefully I'll get to play it more often as it's a game that will really consume your thoughts once you finish a game.