You might recognize the name of the designer if you are familiar with Glory to Rome, the game for which he’s best known. Like GtR, Innovation is a card game with some very interesting and original mechanics. It is themed around civilization, which is pretty much a guaranteed buy for me. I have no self-restraint when it comes to civ-themed games; I want to try ‘em all!

In practice, Innovation turns out to be more of an interactive tech tree than a typical civilization game. However, to quote Kip Dynamite, “I love technology…”

The Components

Each of the 110 cards in Innovation is unique. Cards represent technological advancements that characterized human history as we know it. The game begins with techs like The Wheel and Agriculture, and in the most modern era, includes techs like “Databases” and “The Internet”. The cards are separated into piles, one for each “Age” of history (Ancient all the way up through the Digital Age). What’s more, 1 card from each Age is selected face-down and set aside as an Achievement to be earned with points, forming a sort of “kitty” in the middle of the table so the overall pool of cards in play cannot be known at the outset. There are also 5 “special” Achievement cards that can be earned by satisfying specific conditions, like having so many of a particular symbol, or having all top cards of a certain level in play.

That’s it. Just a big deck of cards, some player mats, and a lot of ‘splaining to do…

Photo by Mikko Saari

The Goal

Players’ general objective in Innovation is to obtain Achievements by various means. Picking up a certain number of Achievements is the primary victory condition of the game. Certain cards in later Ages have alternate winning conditions as well. The game also has a built-in “clock” as a winning condition, in that, if a player attempts to draw a card from Age 10 (the highest pile) and there are no cards left, the player with the highest score (not Achievements) wins. The alternate winning conditions add a tension to the game that I rather enjoy… multiple paths to victory and all that.

The Gameplay

In play, cards come in 5 different colors, and each contains text describing particular effects listed on it along with an associated symbol, as well as 3 large symbols that add to the strength of a player’s tableau in those areas. These symbols, and the strategy behind stacking, are what makes the card actions so interesting. When a player plays a card of the same color as a card already in your play area, the first card must be covered by the newly played card, creating a stack, and thus concealing the pre-existing card. This is important, because in Innovation, when it comes to symbol counts and executing card actions, only the top-most cards count. However, there are ways to “splay” (spread) stacks of cards in various directions, which exposes 1-3 symbols on cards in the stack underneath the top card.

On a player’s turn, he can take two actions, in any order: draw a card from an Age pile into his hand, meld (play) a card from his hand to his board, achieve (take an achievement if the requirements are met), or take a dogma action allowed by a top card in his board. A player can achieve twice, achieve and draw, draw twice, draw and meld, etc.

That’s as far as I will go with covering rules specifics. Let me just say that while the rules are extremely straightforward, the cards are less so. However, unlike a game like Race for the Galaxy (one of my all-time favorites), there is no encyclopedia worth of iconography to learn – every card does exactly what it says, and the game uses a vocabulary that is very easy to get familiar with.

The Reckoning

At the core of Innovation is the variety of special powers made available to a player by each card’s dogma actions. Dogma actions can break the rules in some pretty crazy ways, and yes, the potential for constructing card combos is pretty huge. For example, using the Paper technology with the Perspective technology is a combination that can create a formidable scoring engine. Believe me, there are far more, and many that I haven’t discovered yet.

Innovation is an almost purely tactical game. As it is a card game, luck of the draw is a major component, and there isn’t much getting around the very real possibility of a player top-decking his way to victory. The nature of the cards make wild swings of fate fairly prevalent, which is a double-edged sword: on one hand, a player can slap down a killer combo that lifts his civilization up out of the ashes, or even win the game outright. On the other hand, a player will sometimes be able to build up such a head of steam that he ends up being unstoppable, and rolls effortlessly for the win.

For some, this kind of chaos can be somewhat off-putting. It’s true that with a full complement of 4 players, Innovation can be very chaotic indeed.

For fans of other medium- to high-complexity strategy card games such as Magic: The Gathering or Race for the Galaxy, Innovation should be a big draw. It is very different from most other games of its kind, which makes it worthy of adding to most any game collection.

To date, I’ve played Innovation over a dozen times, and each play has been completely different and interesting in its own way. As you can see from my 2010 Retrospective, I am a fan of it. Innovation also won a Golden Geek for Best Card Game in 2010.

I still found time to play plenty of games, though, and the overall numbers for the year were bolstered by trips to the WBC and to EuroQuest, the latter of which was a birthday present from my family. I’m grateful to them for helping to make that happen, and I really enjoyed myself. While there, I had the opportunity to play some of the fresh Essen titles months before they actually made it to the US, which was a huge treat. Another boost to games played came from an unlooked-for source: work. Occasionally, some of my co-workers and I would sit down to a lunchtime game at the office. These were typically short “filler” games, but that’s the perfect fit for lunchtime at work.

There is a lot to my gaming history that I won’t share here, but shortly, it will become clear to most other gamers how much of a lightweight I am in this world of boards, cards, and little wooden cubes. Still, I have some experiences worth sharing, and perhaps some of them will be useful to seasoned and aspiring gamers alike. I’ve certainly played my share of games… it’s just when I look at how many plays some other game bloggers have, I look like a halfhearted dabbler by comparison (and, admittedly, a pretty envious dabbler at that).

I’ll start with an overview of my paltry stats first, then move to the “special awards”, and finally close out with my personal Top 5 of the year.

2010 Stats

I played 68 distinct games in 2010, and I had 104 total plays all year. This is down about 15% from 2009, and down about 35% from my 2008 counts. Still, it’s much higher than I would have thought before actually looking at the numbers, so I’m thankful.

There are only 2 nickels (games that I played 5 or more times) on the list: Innovation and San Juan. I’m not a huge San Juan fan, but the guys at work like to play it, and I’m not about to argue when there’s a chance to squeeze a play in over lunch break. Innovation is up there because my non-gamer wife has taken a liking to it, and has beat me more than once (further boosting its spouse appeal)!

Of the 68 games I got to play, 55% of those were new games, about the same ratio as the two previous years. It’s nice to know I’m consistent in one area: I do like to try new games quite a bit. Of my total plays in 2010, 47 were single plays, about 69%. That’s pretty close to the past couple of years as well.

I’ve done a rather bad job of keeping track of my game acquisition stats, but I’ll hopefully get that in order for next year’s reckoning. Suffice it to say that I own far too many games for how often I get to play them. However, I am working on raising a future gamer. Only 5 more years (or so) till he’s ready for Puerto Rico.

In summary, not great numbers by any stretch, but I played games when I could and enjoyed other aspects of life the rest of the time. Maybe 2011 will be kinder to this gamer (it’s not looking that way!).

Special Award: Biggest Surprise

Photo by Raid1280

The game that totally came out of nowhere this year was Dominant Species. There was minimal news and buzz surrounding its release, but people started absolutely raving about it once it got published. I was certainly impressed with it after just reading the rules, but my one play of Dominant Species confirmed that it’s the real deal. It’s surprising too how “nasty, brutish, and short” the life of a species can be.

Runners-up: Thunderstone, Peloponnes

Special Award: Biggest Disappointment

Photo by Kon Wacht

I don’t like to say negative things about games, so I’ll keep this short. I sat through a nightmarishly long Twilight Imperium, Third Edition for 9 hours (!!!) on Black Friday. I could have played 4-5 other games during this period that were actually fun. It gave me a splitting headache and made me want to punch kittens. I was very excited to play TI3, and was severely let down.

Dishonorable Mention: Campaign Manager 2008, Age of Industry

Special Award: Best “New to me” Game

Photo by halobungieman

Twilight Struggle is a mainstay atop the BGG ranking for some reason. I decided to find out what that reason was this year, and it turned out to be pretty rewarding. I played it 3 times throughout the course of the year, not bad at all for a longer game. It’s a great game that every gamer should try at least once. I know I haven’t even scratched the surface of this one. The rules are so simple, but the decisions are so tough, and the game has a wide-open feel that should let creative thinkers run wild.

Runners-up: Innovation, London

Special Award: Best Filler

Photo by Gryphon Eagle

I define filler as a game that takes roughly 30 minutes or less to play. Roll Through the Ages fits that requirement and takes the cake. It’s an incredibly fun and fast-paced dice-rolling game that incorporates a Yahtzee-like civ-building/scoring mechanic. It’s also over quickly, perfect for playing in between longer games, or to start or close a gaming session.

Runners-up: 7 Wonders, Money

Special Award: Best Gateway Game

Photo by thdizzy

I was introduced to Tobago by Kevin (@seizeyourturn) and his wife. It’s simply charming, complete with awesome components, an accessible treasure-hunting theme, and a novel deduction mechanic that narrows down the locations of buried treasure on the island. Did I mention the awesome components?

Runners-up: Acquire, Samarkand

Special Award: Most Thematic Game

Photo by Omega Wolf

Avast! Merchants & Marauders be th’ game fer ye. Arrr, it’s a pretty impres­si’e game, with lots t’ think about and a great feel. On the run from pirates, I verily felt like a mer­chant in th’ Caribbean, ahoy, but ye can turn pirate and start collectin’ bounties at any time. Me liked the upgradable ships an’ the sea bat­tles. A pence for an old man o’de sea?

Runners-up: Tales of the Arabian Nights, Railways of the World

Special Award: Lunch @ Work Game

Photo by ZaNaBoZa

What plays quickly and has the shortest possible setup time? Carcassonne, of course. Just set out 2 stacks of tiles, and off you go. This one has turned out to be ideal for lunchtime gaming at the office. I’m not very good at Carc, nor do I own a copy, but I’ll almost never turn down a game of this if I’m at the office and have time (the latter condition occurs less often these days, sadly).

Runners-up: San Juan, Mamma Mia

Top 5 Games of 2010

Just a note of clarification. Before I get into these, let me point out that none of this really means anything. My thoughts on these games are purely subjective, so I encourage you to take it with a grain of salt, and post your own reviews if your tastes differ from mine.

5. Merchants & Marauders

Photo by Henk Rolleman

I really want to play this one more, and I really can’t say that about most games these days. An automatic berth on the 5-spot.

4. Endeavor

Photo by Matic

It’s a good sign that I’m still into this one. I heavily anticipated Endeavor’s release and haven’t been disappointed in it one iota. Endeavor boasts a tense balance of timing, area control, hand management, and action optimization, all within an attractive and accessible package.

3. Race for the Galaxy

Photo by Utumo

I’ve been pretty high on Race this year. Its depth and richness of strategy is tough to beat, and it’s just a card game! Experienced players can also play this pretty quickly, a big plus. I probably have about 100 plays of this under my belt, by far my most-played game. With the 3 expansions, Race continues to challenge and mystify me.

2. Innovation

Photo by EndersGame

A highly impressive game from the designer of Glory to Rome. Its one problem is in scalability: it has a very zero-sum feel for two players, but may be too chaotic with four. Three seems to be the sweet spot. Yes, there is randomness and chaos, but such is the nature of card games, and it plays so fast that it’s easy to just start over with a new game.

And that leaves us with my favorite game of the year:

1. Troyes

Photo by lacxox

Troyes is a really special game, of a breed I haven’t seen a lot of in my short gaming career. I’ve been trying to stay away from the 2010 Essen games, but in this case I just can’t resist Troyes. It’s right up there with El Grande and Caylus as one of the finer examples of modern game design. I don’t know that Troyes will ever be ranked as highly as those, but it’s a deceptively deep game with a lot going on, making for a nice blend of tactics and strategy. The dice mechanic is a stroke of absolute brilliance.

Honorable Mentions: Twilight Struggle, Macao, London

That’s it!

Well, that’s all I’ve got. What do you think of my Top 5, and how would yours be different? What were some other games you enjoyed this past year? Feel free to hit me up on Twitter or post comments below.

This “Year in Review” article was heavily inspired by Hiew Chok Sien and Chris Norwood, whose stalwart gaming blogs are radiant lighthouses to my dim, flickering flashlight.

photo by Francois Haffner (GeekDō)

Components & Setup

Dominion is played entirely with cards: there is no board, tokens, scoresheet, or player mats. Instead, there are 25 action cards (of 10 each) plus three denominations of money and three types of victory cards. Setup is wonderfully simple. It takes a few minutes and is as simple as choosing ten cards out of the 25 action cards in the box and putting those stacks in the center of the table along with three standard stacks of money cards and three stacks of victory cards. Everyone gets the same starting deck of three victory points and seven money cards. It couldn’t be simpler.

photo by Ender Wiggins (GeekDō)

Gameplay

Each player deals five cards off the top of their deck and reveals them to everyone. From that hand, game play can be summed by a clever ABC acronym. Gamers have one Action: they can use a action card. They have one Buy, which means they can use the money in that hand to buy an item in the center of the table (a victory point, action card, or money). They must then Clean up, which means to discard their hand into their discard pile. The next player starts the same process. When you run out of cards in your deck, shuffle them and repeat.

When any three stacks of cards in the center of the table are gone (or if the 6 point victory card stack is gone), the game is over. Players sift their stack and count all of the victory points in it. The player with the highest total of victory points wins.

photo by Gary James (GeekDō)

It sounds too simple, but I didn’t mention that the action cards are incredibly clever and varied. Some cards let you attack other players, give you extra money, lets you trash dead cards in your own deck, give you bonuses in the end of the game, or steal cards from other players. There are also cards that have an additional action on them, so if you activate them with your action, you then have an additional action to use (and if that 2nd card has an action, you can chain these action to have 3, 4, or maybe even 5 actions). Therefore, your one hand can become a chain reaction setting yourself ahead of everyone else.

The end goal is to refine their deck so it has the most victory points but so it also has enough money and actions so you can buy items and change your outcome. It’s a tricky balance, since you need a deck with higher victory points than everyone else, but a deck clogged with victory point cards means that your actions are limited each turn. Therefore, many players try to trash lower cards and upgrade to higher cards or fill their deck with a variety. Alternate strategies are to buy action cards that attack other players or give them curses that deduct from their victory points. But you’ll find yourself refining your deck constantly during the game to find that right balance in a game that has a good amount of skill and luck to keep game play sharp and quick.

photo by Filip Miłuński (GeekDō)

What’s Good About It?

There are many things that make this a worthwhile addition to your collection. For one, it works well as a gateway game. Dominion is a quicker cousin to other strategy cards games like Race for the Galaxy and Magic: The Gathering, but Dominion’s appeal and strategies are more immediate. It’s a wonderful, portable game that feels meatier than most fillers and is excellent to teach to new players or to put on the table while you wait for your game group to arrive.

Dominion also works well as a couples game. If I ask my wife what game she dislikes, it is usually a game that has a “take that” element or a game where combat is necessary. Whether or not she will agree to play depends on how much of that is in a game. Lost Cities or Agricola are a yes, but Battleline or Magic: The Gathering are a no. The beauty of Dominion is that you can tweak the deck so it has more or less interaction. With 25 different cards at your command (and many more with expansions) you can make it more combative (e.g., add thieves or witches that can attack other players) or simply a competitive solitaire game (e.g., take the attack cards out, and players are just competing for the highest score).

photo by Mike Hulsebus (GeekDō)

Concluding Thoughts

Dominion is quick (20-30 minutes), replayable, portable, configurable, tactical, and unique. It plays well with any number of players (2-4 out of the box, but expandable to 8); few games scale so perfectly without adding downtime. The multiple expansions for Dominion add new flavor to games and keep it fresh and surprising, but even the base game offers tons of replayability and variety for hundreds of plays.

Where Can I Buy Dominion?

Dominion won a ton of gaming awards in 2009, including the prestigious Spiel des Jahres, the Deutcher Spiele Preis, and the BGG Golden Geek. This is a really big deal, and as a result of the critical exposure, it’s hard not to find a copy of Dominion even if you are just looking for it in passing. It’s on Amazon, I’ve seen it on shelves at Target and Barnes & Noble, and, of course, all the major online gaming retailers carry it.

The success of Dominion has also made possible several expansions, which are also widely available.

Playing against the Race AI is a challenging and satisfying endeavor. At first, I won less than 20% of my 2-player games, but now that I’ve had some practice, I’m hovering around 60% 40% (the Brink of War expansion just came out, and I’m getting familiar with the strategy still). Like Hiew, even though I have well over 100 games under my belt by this point, I feel like a very mediocre player. What’s more, I still learn something new about Race every time I play.

That, friends, is depth. It’s a testament not only to the quality of the game itself, but also to that of Keldon’s AI software. I downloaded the source to have a look under the hood, and though I’m hardly a Tcl developer, the code appears to be very soundly designed and well thought-out. Granted, it lacks the polished user interaction of a commercial app, but for a free download, I’m impressed.

What’s more, Keldon recently updated the app to include the most recent expansion, Brink of War, and this new version includes networked multiplayer (read: human vs. human) support. I have not played against many human players yet, but look forward to doing so.

In the same spirit as Hiew’s posts on the subject, below are a few screenshots and descriptions of the results of some recent games of RFTG I’ve played using Keldon’s platform. Obviously, you’ll need to have played Race a few times to appreciate any of this, but perhaps it will make some curious enough to check the game out.

All three games were 3-player games, me vs. two AI players, with all three expansions in play and takeovers active.

Game 1: Uplift Smackdown

In the first game, I began with Doomed World, which I discarded for a turn-3 Armaments World. I actually laid down a 6-cost development, Pan-Galactic Research, on turn 2, which is very unusual for me, but it paid off big. I had Uplift Code in my hand early, and I started slapping down Uplift worlds like crazy. I also was able to achieve some kind of crazy Imperium synergy with both Imperium Seat and Imperium Lords, topping off my tableau with the 7-cost Rebel Homeworld and the 9-cost Alien Departure Point.

My opponent to the left, Red, started off with Rebel Cantina, but didn’t really do anything with it, switching gears to more of an Alien scoring strategy that featured Alien Cornucopia. Green, on the right, initially began with the militaristic New Sparta, but like his counterpart, never fully took advantage of it.

The final scores were 82-61-49, with me winning the day and Red bringing up the rear. 82 is about as high as I can remember ever scoring, but it’s certainly not high compared to scores I’ve seen posted by others.

Game 2: Brown World Rush

The second game was very different from the first. I took full advantage of the special ability of my start world, Galactic Scavengers, which allowed me to stash one card from every purchase I made, and recover them on every produce phase. This can be very powerful when used properly. It basically equates to a 1-card “manufacturer’s rebate” on everything you buy.

My starting hand also contained both Alpha Centauri and Gem Smugglers, two brown worlds that gave discounts on brown worlds, so it was pretty clear what direction I had to take. An early Improved Logistics helped me rush to fill out my tableau with a bunch of other brown and blue worlds before either of the other players got their engines fully started. I didn’t even bother playing a 6-cost dev because it would have slowed me down too much. I did have to prestige-consume in the final turn, however, because Green was coming on strong.

Final scores were 33-30-18, again in my favor. Red had a terrible showing, but he actually took over one of my military worlds at the end, almost as if he were trying to play kingmaker. Green nearly stole the game with Terraforming Guild and his 3 windfall worlds.

Game 3: Mining League

Initially, I went after a Rebel strategy, but when the cards weren’t there, I committed to the Mining League. I was able to get 3 quality brown production worlds and Mining Robots played, but Red put together a very nice consume-based strategy from the very start, and eventually blew by me with a pile of victory point chips before I got close to hitting 12 cards in my tableau. I think Green might have helped Red out a little too much, because he kept producing in order to get prestige. Oh well.

This score was 53-44-25, with Red winning, me in second, and Green last. The game ended due to VP chips running out, with Red claiming 33 of them. I shake my fist at you, Red.

Check out Keldon’s AI for RFTG

Whether your computing platform of choice is PC, Mac, or Linux, if you want to learn Race for the Galaxy or improve your gameplay, look no further than Keldon’s excellent AI. It’s superb, it’s cross-platform, it’s a free download, and the rules of Race for the Galaxy (and its expansions) are freely available from Rio Grande Games.

For the legally astute, Rio Grande Games, the publisher of RFTG, has given Keldon permission to use actual card images and names in the app, so it’s all above board. Play away.

That brings me to the under-appreciated Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation (2002). I think this is a real gem of a 2-player game that may be overlooked by players seeking meatier “War of the Ring” games who might dismiss this merely as Stratego with a pasted Tolkien theme. But there’s more than meets the eye here.

Gameplay

The mechanics are so simple that young players and gateway gamers will be able to pick it up easily. Each player chooses either the Fellowship side or the Sauron side of a board depicting Middle Earth. The Fellowship has 9 game pieces on a small board, and need to get one piece (Frodo) to Mordor, which is on the opposite side. Sauron has 9 different pieces, and needs to defeat Frodo or get three enemies to the Shire, which is on his opposite side. Each character piece has a different ability, and is assigned a strength number from 0 to 9.

The actual identity of the pieces are hidden from the other player (that’s the Stratego element), so neither player knows if they are attacking a powerful minion or a small whelp of a character. Moreover, multiple characters can occupy non-mountain places on the board and swap pieces. So a clever player can constantly play a shell-game of hiding their valuable pieces so their enemy never knows which is which. It makes this into a great bluffing games, instead of the open battleground of Chess, where every piece is known and every piece’s ability can be spotted at a glance.

Players also have a set of nine battle cards that range from attack modifiers (e.g., adding +2 to your strength) to special abilities (e.g., retreat backwards). Each player gets one movement, then (if a battle results) they resolve the battle with the character ability. If that doesn’t solve the battle, then the numbered strength is used and added to the simultaneously revealed battle cards. The battle is resolved and it is the next player’s turn. It’s not a difficult game at first glance.

Why it is So Good

Not many 20-30 minute games have this much tension, are this easy to learn, yet have an enjoyable theme. On the surface, it is Stratego with a LOTR theme. But then there are these wonderful Knizia innovations. For one, the board is diamond shaped, so the movement spreads outward from your starting position, then funnels inward to the tight enemy territory. Secondly, there are the mountains in the center where your abilities are hampered.

This would not be much of a challenge in Chess, but in this game characters must always move forward (with few exceptions). They are mostly pawn-like and cannot move backwards or sideways. So the diamond-shaped board requires that you think several moves ahead before moving. You can “dodge” other pieces by moving to the extreme right or left in this respect because of the ingenious shape of the board.

The abilities also fit the characters nicely. So the Witch King can attack sideways, since he is a flying character, while all the other characters can only attack from the front. Borimir can act like a “bomb” and auto-eliminate both the attacker and himself. There’s lots of richness in these abilities that fits the theme and storytelling.

Deeper than it Seems

I thought the game would be too easy. But like many of Knizia’s games, the end game is brain-burning fun. Like Battle Line, by the end of the game you are forced to make a game-changing decision from only 1-3 possible moves. Having the mechanic where most characters can only move forward means that you weigh each decision carefully and decide in advance which characters you can afford to sacrifice and which must be held by the end game. However, you also need scout characters to probe the enemy. One misstep and you’ve given your enemy the ability to win with no possible defense.

The good and evil sides are also balanced in unexpected ways. Sauron’s forces are much stronger, but the Fellowship’s forces have many retreat capabilities and are often very slippery. In addition, the board benefits the Fellowship by giving them a sideways move and a shortcut through the mountains that Sauron’s forces cannot use.

The hidden nature of the characters also means that the character’s identity is often not known by the attacker until after they attack. So that (plus the battle cards) adds a nice bluffing/tactical element to the game that adds much more tactical fun to the game.

Concluding Thoughts

I happily add Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation to the short list of great 2-player quick games (a short list including Hive, Battle Line, and Race for the Galaxy). Like those other games, it’s a tough act to follow — the game has to be quick, it has to be tactical, yet it can’t be as paralyzing as a tough game of Chess.

The Tolkien theme works beautifully and is probably the most thematic of Knizia’s games. You feel the desperation of Frodo when playing the Fellowship and using the mountains, retreats, and subtle bluffing to slip into Mordor while you feel the vice-like grip of Sauron with his pieces. The Sauron side likewise feels powerful but a bit clueless as to which character is Frodo and how to prevent him from landing in Mordor. Sauron uses his higher-strength characters to remove as many pieces on the board, while the Fellowship has a nice variety of evasive tactics that make them escape Sauron’s net easily.

Knizia may be accused of pasted themes and regurgitating old games. But I challenge any designer to come up with a more enjoyable, streamlined, inexpensive, 2-player, 30-minute game than Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation. It’s just one of those quick and precise games where you wouldn’t want to change a single rule in fear that the elegant rules would collapse.

Fresco

The fresco in its newly restored glory. Photo by Stephen Tudor

Dominic was kind enough to help explain Fresco, and after we lurched through the first turn, it was all downhill from there. The goal of the game is to restore an old fresco painting, and the players take on the roles of rival art gangs. As this is a Eurogame, however, you can’t succeed by stealing your opponent’s paint or ransacking his studio — you must simply outsmart and outperform him on the job site.

A typical round of Fresco works like this:

1. Pick a time to wake up. This is effectively turn order for the round, and the player who is last place in points gets to pick first.
2. Secretly plan your actions. You have 5 workers you can assign in any combination to buy paints at the market, restore part of the fresco (by turning in combinations of paint colors), paint portraits (to make a little cash), mix paints (to convert primary colors into secondary colors), or go to the theatre (to improve your mood).
3. Execute your actions in turn order. Players who “rise earliest” get first choice of the paints available at the market, but at a higher price, and at a cost to morale (which might lose them a worker for the round), while players who “sleep in” are quite happy (which might gain them an extra worker for the round), and can acquire paints very cheaply, but often end up buying the least desirable paints at the market.

Fresco is a very straightforward Eurogame, but one that is brimming with meaningful decisions and healthy tension. It is important to get the paints you need, but in order to do that, you need to wake up earlier, which means the paint is more expensive, so you might not be able to afford as much of it.

So what happened with Fresco?

For the first few turns, Rich woke up towards the end of the morning, which gained him an extra worker for a good portion of the game. John and I consistently ended up in spot 2 or 3, while Dominic rushed for points from the very first turn. He ended up waking earliest for several turns, which sapped his cash, but it gave him first crack at the goodies.

Rich eventually went for the early wake-up time, and started plunking down for some serious points. Dominic was relieved that he’d actually have a chance to save a little money. Both John and I punted at least once in order to fall slightly behind in points, Power Grid style, which let us exploit the game’s balancing mechanism to get first choice of wake-up time in the next round.

It turned that I was in last place going into the final round, but I was sitting on a healthy supply of paint, so I picked the earliest wake-up time to ensure I’d be able to restore most of the remaining fresco tiles. Sure enough, I shot into the lead, but Rich edged me at the end on account of his coffers full of money. Every 2 coins are worth 1 point, but I just had one penny left to my name.

All four of our final scores were extremely close, and I think we all stepped away from Fresco with a really satisfied feeling.

Ra

Dominic’s perspective. He ended up with a heap of niles and pharaohs. Photo by Stephen Tudor

This was Dominic’s first time playing Ra, and he did extremely well. He called Ra quite often, which often left me nothing to do but pull tiles because I was sitting to his left. It also didn’t help that I started with the 13 sun, which I feel may be a small handicap because if auctions keep happening for 3 or 4 tiles, it’s very hard to justify bidding that 13. I just don’t know what to do in that situation.

So, not my best showing. I actually did manage to cobble together a nice collection of monuments for the end-game scoring (7 different, and 2 sets of 3), but I was last in Pharaohs for the whole game, and never got any flood/nile or civilization sets. Rich was very much in the same boat as me in this game, only pushing me to last place because he had the most suns at the end of the game, scoring for 5 points, which gave him a total of 19 to my 16. We both had a hard time getting it going.

On the other hand, John played very well, managing to get 4 different civilization tiles and multiple gold tiles down in at least one round, and he had the lead in Pharaoh tiles early on until Dominic overtook him. Dominic had a monster last round third epoch, with a ton of floods/niles and the Pharaoh lead, but it wasn’t enough to surpass John’s early points.

Judging from Dominic’s reaction after the game, I’d say we have a new Ra convert.

Brass is a medium-weight strategy board game for 3 to 4 players. It was designed by Martin Wallace, and was first published in 2007 by Warfrog Games in the UK. Since then, it has been distributed in US, and to date, has enjoyed two successful reprints. The copy of the game used in this review is the first US edition.

Please note: This is just a general overview and review of the game, not a careful walk-through of the rules. There is plenty of in-depth discussion of Brass in the forums at BoardGameGeek, if that’s what you’re after.

A brief rundown

In the game of Brass, you are an industrialist entrepreneur in 19th-century Lancashire, England. Your goal is to build cotton mills, coal mines, iron works, ports, shipyards, canals, and railways, each of which can be used by you (and the other players) in some fashion to earn money and score points. Meanwhile, the other players are trying to do the same thing – it’s a race to see who can best take advantage of the economy.

Brass is one of those games that encourages you to plan out your actions ahead of time. In order to score, you have to build. In order to build, for example, not only must you have enough pounds to pay for the building, but you often must have coal as well, and you’ll be presented the choice of developing your own coal mines, using someone else’s mines (which gives them victory points), or buying coal at the market price.

One extremely cool aspect of the economy in Brass is that players influence both demand and supply. If there is a glut of coal on the board, then it can be had very cheaply. In a coal shortage, you’ll pay dearly for it (as well as raise the price for players who buy after you). Of course, you can always build a coal mine to increase the supply, thereby driving the price down and earning you income at the same time.

That was just one example. There is far more to Brass than I’m describing here, but suffice it to say that it’s a deep, tense, satisfying experience to play. More on that later.

Photo by Geo

What’s in the box?

The physical components of Brass are amazingly good, with one exception which I’ll mention now: the coins. The coins are categorically awful, nothing more than plastic tiddly-winks that are difficult to stack, and have a propensity for slipping (and even flying) all over the place. Throw them away, and use poker chips instead.

Now that the one truly negative bit has been outed, I’ll focus on the overwhelmingly positive. First, the artwork is absolutely fantastic, very thematic and evocative of the period. The game board presents the rough geographical location of each town featured in the game, as well as several flavor illustrations. The cards are attractive and quite useable.

Photo by Henk Rolleman

The player colors (red, yellow, green, purple) are well chosen, and easily distinguishable. Each player receives his/her own set of hefty and well-printed building tiles in his/her color. The wooden bits are quite adequate, as one might expect of any serious Eurogame: black and orange cubes to represent coal and iron, respectively.

Photo by Geo

Lastly, I must admit that the rulebook, although well-set typographically and attractive graphically, is horribly organized. The rules aren’t simple as it is, and the way the rules are organized certainly doesn’t make them any easier. Thankfully, there are resources available on BoardGameGeek to help clarify the rulebook’s shortcomings.

How to play (in a nutshell)

Player order is not seating order, as it is with most games. In Brass, the money players spend is tracked, and the player that spent the least in the previous round is first player in the next round, second-lowest spender = 2nd player, and so on. Thus, the player order will most likely change from round to round. This is a really cool balancing mechanism that I wish more games had. You have to watch your spending, because this will affect your order in the next round, and therefore your choices of which spaces are left available on the board (the early players get first choice of the prime locations).

Another trick is that only the top tile on each of your personal industry stacks is available to be built. Typically (but not always), the more rewarding tiles are towards the bottom of each stack, so each player has to choose whether to build down through a particular industry, or develop the industry (remove tiles off the top).

Photo by Henk Rolleman

The game takes place over two Eras: the Canal Era and the Rail Era, respectively. You start with a hand of 8 cards, each of which contains either a location on the board (for example, the city of Manchester) or a type of industry (cotton, coal, iron, port, or shipyard). Each turn, you will take 2 actions, discard a card for each action. At the end of your turn, you draw back up to 8 cards. An Era ends when all players run out of cards (not when the deck is depleted).

As what to do for an action, you may do any of the following five things:

• Take a loan (cash infusion)
• Build a link between cities (canal or rail)
• Build an industry in a city (cotton/coal/iron/port/shipyard)
• Develop an industry (remove 1-2 tiles from the top of your stack(s))
• Sell cotton (increase per-round income)

Photo by Henk Rolleman

Here’s the rub: For an industry tile you’ve played to be any good, it needs to be used, or flipped. Cotton mills and ports can be flipped when a player sells cotton. Coal mine and iron works tiles are built with a certain amount of coal or iron sitting on them, and get flipped when their respective resources are depleted. When a tile is flipped, it is literally turned upside down to reveal the per-round income it will earn you, and how many points it’s worth at scoring. You won’t get any income or points for your unflipped (unused) industries, so only build what you think has a chance be used before the end of an Era.

A good rule of thumb is to try to build more of what other players are building less of. The demand will come, and the fewer players you have to share that demand with, all the better for you!

Scoring points

At the end of each Era, there is a round of scoring. Players get points for their flipped industry tiles and for their links to industrialized cities. After scoring the Canal (first) Era, all canal links and level 1 industry tiles are removed from the board, leaving a partially clean board for the beginning of the Rail Era.

Elsewhere

In the interest of (relative) brevity, I won’t get into any more specifics about the rules here, but Warfrog has a downloadable PDF of the rules, as well as a FAQ page for those that are interested in learning more about how the game works. You’ll also want to check out the rewritten rules on BoardGameGeek after seeing the official ones! The BGG forums for Brass are another great resource if you have rules questions, or just want to read what other people have to say about the game. Finally, BGG has a wonderful image gallery of people playing Brass, some of the playing pieces, etc. All of the images used in this review are courtesy of BGG users.

Photo by Henk Rolleman

The Review

Brass is an absolutely brilliant game, and I’m thrilled to have the chance to share my thoughts on it. It’s certainly not a simple game, and you’ll probably play it wrong on your first attempt (as I did), but I’ve found it to be a true gem after several plays, and I don’t expect my opinion to change anytime soon. Brass shares much in common with old-school railroad games, but emerges as its own unique experience.

Playing Brass actually makes me feel a bit like a 19th-century English businessman. Wallace has clearly designed the game to be thematic. Yes, there are some niggly rules exceptions, but the mechanics of Brass are largely refined abstractions of business processes from the period. Taking into account the geographical element, it’s amazing how much complexity Wallace was able to distill into a really fun, and relatively simple game. The game’s soul draws me in.

Brass can be quite contentious and cutthroat with 4 players, and slightly less so with 3. With either number, there will always be that delicious tension between wanting to increase your income, score more points, and position yourself to grab the prime locations on the board, whilst trying not to run out of money or have your plans foiled by the other players, all of whom are trying to do the same thing. There is a lot going on, and there will always be more you want to do than you are able to do – a sign of a solid and worthy game. I highly recommend Brass to those who like their games meaty and strategic, and who don’t mind using their first play or two of Brass to learn how to play it.

For my first review of a board game, I’d like to feature a true classic: Ra, by prolific game designer Reiner Knizia. Knizia has designed hundreds of board and card games, but among gamers, Ra is widely considered to be one of his finest creations.

Ra is a Eurogame with a pasted-on Egyptian theme. What I mean by this is that, in the end, it’s really an auction game that could just as easily have been about space ships, dinosaurs, or fine art. It could have been about anything else, and it would play exactly the same way. The gameplay has little to do with Egypt, and the theme has little to do with what makes Ra a great game. The credit for that goes to the game’s core mechanics, and that is what places Ra squarely in the Eurogame camp: Its main focus is on the gameplay itself, rather than the theme.

I’m reviewing the Überplay edition of Ra, which I own. I understand that Überplay is now defunct, but Rio Grande Games has picked up the rights to publish the next edition Ra, and that printing will probably hit shelves in 2009.

What’s in the box?

In addition to the nicely printed (and short) rules booklet, there is a board, a canvas bag, “sun” auction markers, scoring counters, a Ra figurine, and a bunch of cardboard tiles (and by a bunch of tiles, I mean a whole lot of tiles).

As it turns out, the board is little more than a pair of “tracks” for auction tiles to sit on. Fortunately, it’s not entirely pointless, as it also contains a simple reference that reminds how the different types of tiles are scored. I suppose the only other justification for the board is its Egyptian-themed artwork, which can help reinforce an otherwise weak theme. As I’ve already pointed out, though, the theme is of no real importance to this game.

When you score points in Ra, you receive little “tablets” with quasi-Egyptian numerals on them. They come in denominations of 1, 2, 5, and 10. A cool way to keep track of how many points you have throughout the game.

The auction markers are wooden “sun” pieces, numbered 1-16. In an auction, players bid with these suns, and ties don’t happen because there are no duplicate numbers. The heart of the game, however, is the enormous complement of auction tiles, and as I mentioned above, there are quite a few of those. The different types of auction tiles you’ll come across are:

Pharaoh

Nile

Flood

Civilization

Monument

Disaster

God

Gold

Epoch

How to play (in a nutshell)

Ra is all about auctions. Every auction gives players a chance to win a set of tiles. The basic gist is that you can choose to do one of three possible things on your turn:

1. Draw a tile from the bag and place it on the board.
2. Call for an auction to begin.
3. Discard one of your god tiles and claim a single tile of your choice on the board.

Scoring points

Ra is played in three rounds, or Epochs. An Epoch comes to an end when the Ra tile track fills up, or when everyone has played all their suns. At the end of each Epoch, players score points for the tiles they own. The goal is to have the most points at the end of the game.

Elsewhere…

In the interest of (relative) brevity, I won’t get into the details of the rules any further here, but BoardGameGeek has a downloadable PDF of the rules for those that are interested in learning more about how the game works. The BGG forums for Ra are also a great resource to check out if you have rules questions, or just want to read what other people have to say about the game. BGG also has a wonderful image gallery of people playing Ra, some of the playing pieces, etc.

The Review

Ra is such a simple, smart, easy-to-teach game. It’s just plain fun, and I’d recommend it to almost anybody, even many non-gamers. It plays pretty quickly, and the press-your-luck element is fantastic. Everyone I’ve introduced to Ra has loved it, too. Despite the loose-fitting theme, the game is still visually rich. Yelling “RA!” when you want to start an auction is a blast as well. I very highly recommend Ra.

I would say that the biggest hurdle for newcomers to Ra would be picking up on how some of the scoring works, but even that isn’t too cumbersome. There’s a cheat sheet on the game board that summarizes the scoring very nicely, and it’s not too hard to get used to. Like most games, the best way to learn how to play it is to play it.

The bidding is streamlined, and the other players’ suns are easy to read across the table, so you will always have an idea of how likely you are to win those tiles you want. There are often plenty of opportunities to bluff or force someone else to play their high sun too early, setting you up to win a bigger auction later. That is, if the Epoch doesn’t end first!

There is wonderful tension in Ra. Players are constantly balancing the desire to wait and get the best value for their suns with the knowledge that they need to get what tiles they can before the end of the round arrives. The game is a ticking clock, and everyone feels it.

In conclusion, Ra is one of my favorite games. It’s not a terribly heavy or complex strategy game, and there is a bit of luck/chaos due to the draw bag, but it still rewards smart play most of the time. Most importantly, it’s ridiculously fun, and doesn’t take all night to play. In the end, those two things are what makes it so much more likely to hit the table than some other really good games. Even if the Egyptian thing was just tacked on at the last minute.

Photos by Kurt Keckley and Stan Mamula on BoardGameGeek. Many thanks, guys!

Please also check out some of the links to other game blogs (over there on the right) which you may not have heard of. There are quite a few excellent resources, and they’ll appreciate the traffic.