Beware the Gazebo

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.

Kingsburg

2008-03-27T00:04:00.003-05:00

(image courtesy laiernie @ BGG)

I'll admit it, I'm a sucker for dice. If I see dice in a game I get excited. I'm not quite sure what it is but I love the tactile aspect and watching them roll and see what the outcome is. Typically dice are used for a roll-and-move style mechanic (Monopoly), combat (Risk, Britannia, most any war game) and sometimes for other various probability things (Settlers of Catan). Lately, though, we've been seeing games like Yspahan that with clever uses for dice and Kingsburg is another that takes advantage of dice in a whole new way.

I'm not entirely sure what Kingburg's theme is but that's okay. All I know is that you are trying to construct buildings to earn victory points and fight off monsters at the end of each year so bad things don't happen to you. Each player has a mat with 20 different buildings on them; these buildings earn you victory points and also give you various special abilities to use throughout the game. The game plays over five years with each year having three productive seasons and winter simply involves getting attacked by some nasty looking monster. Before each season bonuses are given to the player with the most or fewest buildings (depending on the season) and at the end of each production season players have the option to build a single building if they so desire. Whoever has the most points at the end is the winner.

Overall it's pretty standard fare: collect resources to construct buildings and earn victory points. What makes the game work is the dice mechanic. Each player has three dice that you roll each production season. Turn order for the season is from low to high roll. On the central board are 18 different advisers numbered 1 to 18. In turn order players use one or more of their dice to play on the adviser whose number equals the face value of the group of dice being played. For example, if I rolled 3, 1, 6 I could play on advisor 3, 1, 6, 4, 7, 9, or 10. Placing goes around until everyone has placed all of their dice or they have no valid plays left.

(image courtesy gamephotos @ BGG)
This mechanic seriously rocks. After you roll your dice and see turn order you really need to look at the distribution of each player's dice and figure out how to maximize your actions. Each adviser gives you a different ability that turn, typically earning you resources, soldiers or victory points. You need to figure out which resources you need and which advisers others are capable of taking. Each adviser can only be taken once so it's very possible to block someone out and force them to use their dice differently or even make some of their dice unusable. This dice action system really adds a lot of tension to the game.

Even better is that rolling high all of the time doesn't necessarily mean you'll do better. The higher advisers do have some good stuff but you'll often be able to get more resources or a better variety of resources by picking multiple lower advisers. Low roller goes first, though, so those lower valued advisers will likely get taken up first. Some buildings also let you modify your rolls in some fashion; for example, one lets you play on an adviser one higher or lower than the grouping of dice you choose to play. This gives players a lot to think about and adds a lot of tactical fun to the randomness of the dice and even takes away from the randomness a bit by giving you more flexibility with each roll.

(image courtesy MartinStever @ BGG)

At the end of the year everyone has to face the monster that attacks. You add up your soldier strength plus building defensive bonuses and then roll a six sided die; the total is your military strength. Then the monster is revealed. If your military strength is greater than the monster you earn the bonus on the card, if you tied you get nothing and if you are under the monster's strength you earn the negative on the card. Sometimes the negatives aren't too bad, like losing a single victory point, but others are nasty like losing entire buildings. Each year the monsters get progressively more difficult and deadly but your soldiers are reset to zero at the start of each year so you have to spend more and more resources into pumping up your military if you want to stay in the running.

I really like Kingsburg from my few initial plays. The game itself is unbelievably gorgeous and the symbology is clear and generally easy to understand. You'll have lots of excitement with each die roll and there will be plenty of antagonizing over how to play your dice.

(image courtesy gamephotos @ BGG)
My main complaint is that it seems like there aren't too many different paths to victory. The majority of your points come from constructing buildings and you'll earn a few points here and there for spending resources if you choose to do so and also from a couple different advisers. It really becomes a very tight resource management game where every point matters but I think there just aren't enough different ways to earn points. It looks like there's primarily four different main building strategies and then a matter of how you use your extra resources. Still, I think the dice mechanic and the tough winter battle against the monster makes things fairly exciting throughout. You can try and pump up your military for the easy victory or count on lady luck to pull you through. In a way the process of playing is almost more satisfying than the end result.

Everything in Kingsburg comes together quite nicely and I think it's a great game to show people that dice don't necessarily equate to lack of strategy or tactics in a game. As much as I like the game, though, I think it'll be best enjoyed in moderation. Players would probably grow tired of it if played too frequently in a short time span but it'd be a great one to take out every few weeks and have a fun round or two.

More on Twilight Imperium 3

2008-03-16T11:48:00.008-05:00

(image courtesy @ nollan BGG)
This weekend I managed to get in another game of Twilight Imperium 3, this time with four players. I've now played three games but this was the first that we successfully completed! Our final play time was around the eight hour mark I think; for learning games it certainly seems like two hours per player is about right. I would guess with more plays that time will go down but the game takes just long enough to not make it a viable option for a regular game night during the week.

My love for the game continues to grow with each play. Twilight Imperium is a space epic that has players competing to be the first to earn ten victory points which are earned by completing public objectives. These objectives range from owning a certain number of planets to spending resources and destroying other player's craft. We play with the "Age of Empires" variant where all objectives for the game are made visible and available from the very start which I really think helps get the game going. Normally objectives are revealed as the game goes but I think that doesn't give players enough focus in the early rounds. With 10-15 points out for grabs from the start players can decide early in the game which they want to focus on.

The interesting part is these objectives don't necessarily require a lot of aggression but you'll certainly get pulled into conflict. At a glance the map looks large; with four or six players there are 37 over-sized hexes that make up the map. Once you start playing, though, you realize that you'll be butting heads with your neighbors within two to three rounds. Planets earn you resources for building new ships and influence for maintaining your ability to command ships so getting and holding planets is very important. There's enough room for everyone to have their share but I think it's rare that anyone is completely happy with what's given to them! You'll get fun contention over some planets and it almost never fails that at least one zone becomes mutually considered neutral.

Some objectives are going to require you to extend outside of your boundaries and the secret objective each player is given tends to force conflict if only in the very middle of the board on a planet called Mecatol Rex. Mecatol is a high influence planet which makes it very useful for commanding your fleet and controlling the senate votes. There's usually a race to get to Mecatol and then some fun, heated exchanges to fight for control over it.

(image courtesy kilroy_locke @ BGG)

Yes, you'll get some diplomacy - as much as players want to have - but at its core it is a light war and resource management game. You need to balance spending resources on your fleet and technologies to keep up with your neighbors while planning ahead to claim victory points. Many of the victory points are just a matter of time before you earn them: research a number of technologies, spend resources or influence, etc. The fun comes in deciding when and how you'll claim these points to push you into the lead and figuring out how to earn the last few more difficult ones.

Typically each player can only claim a single public objective at the end of a round so there's a limit to how quickly you can earn victory points. The expansion added a role that, when taken, allows that player to claim multiple objectives at the end of the round. I really love this mechanic as it allows players to try and plan ahead for a big move that jumps them ahead of everyone else, possibly pushing them to the win. There is certainly a lot of randomness in combat and in card pulls but I think the fate of your race really falls on your own shoulders. You can make good and bad choices throughout and I think playing with public objective and the right mix of expansion content really makes for a great strategic and tactical game.

At the heart of the game's play are eight roles that players pick from each round of play. These roles determine turn order for the round and also give each player a special ability they can use, along with a secondary ability that all other players will get to use. The original game came with a set of roles and there was a lot of discussion and argument over the balance (or lack thereof) surrounding these roles. Later the expansion (called Shattered Empire) added a new set of roles that could replace or mixed in with the base roles however players desire. The role mechanism really drives the game and good timing and choosing of roles is really key to success.

(image courtesy Santeler @ BGG)
One of the guys commented on how "stressful" the game was and I agree that it is but in the best possible way. The map closes up quickly and you'll constantly be on the brink of war and probably fighting on at least two fronts (unless you can negotiate peace with your neighbors). If someone sees that you are pulling away with the win you had better be prepared to have everyone else at the table turn on you. That tension and need to find balance really makes the game extremely fun and engaging. Sure it takes a long time to play but that time really flies. You'll be deep into the game, look at the clock and be shocked that six hours have passed already!

There's a lot going on in Twilight Imperium but it all comes together to make one of the best board gaming experiences I've had. The basic rules are really quite simple but there's so much breadth and depth that every single game will play out differently. I can't possibly cover everything there is about the game in a single writing, at least not without the majority of you completely glazing over. Maybe I'll do a few featurettes here and there to cover some of the more interesting aspects of the game.

Needless to say I'll never turn down a game of Twilight Imperium... nor should you. Assuming you are free for a good six to eight hours.

Light Games for Four or More

2008-03-12T13:01:00.008-05:00

I was recently asked for suggestions on short to medium length games that work well with four or more players. The group of gamers is made up of some guys and their wives; they've been paying Settlers of Catan and enjoy it but wanted something a little lighter and with less of a time commitment. Here's the list I came up with, feel free to share your own list if you'd like! If you haven't played any of these games I highly suggest giving them a try:

Ticket to Ride
image courtesy Pr Halios

This is probably the first many would recommend. You are trying to collect sets of colored cards that allow you to build various length connections between cities on a map of the US. It's really easy to learn and play and the game can be as friendly or competitive as players want to make it. Plays up to 5 (I think it's at its best with 3 or 5) and will probably take around an hour to and hour and a half depending on your players.

If you haven't played Ticket to Ride before and are thinking of a purchase, head over to the Days of Wonder website. You can register on the site for free and play Ticket to Ride online. If you like what you see I highly suggest picking up a copy.

Alhambra
image courtesy myadestes

Each player is trying to build the best Alhambra. Yes, I know there is only one Alhambra but never mind the logistics behind that. It's a pretty game and there's no real confrontation (each players has their own play area), just a little bit of competition to purchase the tiles you want. You can play perfectly fine by only paying attention to your own Alhambra but you'll do better if you keep an eye on what others are doing. Plays up to six although I think it gets too chaotic for my tastes with more than four.

Bohnanza
image courtesy spearjr

Fun little game about bean farming. You have a hand of bean cards that form a queue so you must play them in the order you receive them. The fun is that you may only have two fields of beans in front of you at a time but on your turn you can trade away cards with other players to try and set yourself up for future plays. Bohnanza is very light, easy and entertaining. It has a fun social aspect as you trade with other players and requires just a little bit of forethought to try and plan your moves.

Category 5
image courtesy m . a b e

I've already mentioned this twice on the blog now but it fits perfectly on this list so I thought I'd bring it up a third time! A single round takes no more than a few minutes and there's a minimal amount of thought that needs to go into any given round of play. It also supports up to ten players, making it one of the most flexible games you'll find.

I promise to make this the last time I mention Category 5 for quite some time!

For Sale
image courtesy Jormi_Boced

Players buy up houses on the market and then try to sell them for the most money. It's a theme most people can relate to and the rules are incredibly simple. Just enough light strategy that you can put some thought into it and try to figure out the groupthink mentality each round or you can just play a card and see what happens. The art is fun, it plays up to six and I think I have yet to find someone who hasn't enjoyed it. For Sale is light enough to introduce to new gamers but there's enough substance there to work as the perfect filler for a more serious game group.

The Downfall of Pompeii

2008-02-28T22:27:00.008-06:00

(image courtesy Drew1365 @ BGG)

There's something captivating about natural disasters. Not that I necessarily enjoy partaking in them but it's nigh impossible to flip past one on the Discovery Channel without stopping for a few minutes. I even watched a really interesting special on Pompeii and the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. The Downfall of Pompeii manages to take that horrible disaster and turn it into one heck of a fun little game.

Pompeii starts off innocently enough. During the first half of the game players move their set of people into the city. The map is divided into city blocks and buildings with a varied number of available spots on them. On your turn you'll play a card and place one of your people in a building matching the number on your card. You'll also get to place additional people based on how many others were in the building you picked; they call this the "relatives" rule but I call get getting as many people on the board as possible. There are seven gates that exit the city so generally you'll try and get people placed as close to the exits as possible.

Vesuvius is getting angry, though, and during the move-in phase you might draw an Omen card which lets you toss someone into the volcano. A little mean-spirited perhaps but erupting volcanoes and earthquakes generally aren't very forgiving. Once the 79 A.D. card is drawn Vesuvius erupts and the game changes to escape mode.

At this point any player pieces that didn't get into the city goes away; nobody wants to move in now! As players take their turn they first draw a random lava tile from the board, place it next to another lava tile matching its symbol and them move two of their people. If the lava tile lands on a city block with any pieces on it they all go into the volcano. When you move a piece you get to move it a number of city blocks equal to the number of pieces in that block. The winner is whoever got the most people out alive. If there's a tie then the winner is whoever has the fewest pieces in the volcano.

The rules might sound a little wonky and I'll admit they are. Placement rules can be a confusing at first as its counter-intuitive... why do you get to move more people in if you move someone into a building with others? There's no thematic answer but the key is it sets players up for the second phase. When escaping it doesn't thematically make sense that a piece moves further if it was in a crowd but the mechanics work really well. You need to have your pieces spread around to avoid getting gobbled up by lava, close to the gates for a quick escape and in groups so they can move quickly but you don't want to help other players out too much. It's a brilliant trade-off and really makes the game.

Even though the rules aren't exactly intuitive, players will generally catch on after a round or two. The game moves very fast and while it might be prone to a little bit of analysis paralysis (especially in the second half of the game) any single turn generally doesn't take too long. It is a light game and certainly luck dependent; random card and tile draws will influence the game. I do think that good planning will generally outweigh the luck of the draw in most cases.

Most importantly, though, Pompeii really evokes a great sense of prosperity followed by dread. In the first half things are pleasant and prosperous as everyone moves their people into the city. Once those lava tiles start hitting the board, though, the transformation of the board as the player pieces flee towards the exits is too much fun.

I highly recommend Pompeii. It's a great little game that plays in under an hour. The components are gorgeous, especially the awesome plastic volcano (as pictured). You can't help but make screaming sounds as you toss people into it! Yes, the game has some dark humor but it works. Even with its somewhat violent nature I think it makes for a fairly good gateway or family game. It's simple enough to teach (players catch on fast) and I think the theme and components easily help draw people in. Pompeii might not hold much appeal for a more hardcore gaming group but for something more casual it's a personal favorite.

Tag 6 = 6 Nimmt = Category 5 = Slide 5

2008-02-24T10:19:00.004-06:00

(image courtesy cagriggs @ BGG)

A few weeks back I did a quick write-up on a great little filler game called Tag 6! which is also known in other parts of the world as 6 Nimmt!, Ta 6! and a few others. When it finally hit US shores it was called Category 5 and had a hurricane theme slapped onto it. The theme really didn't make that much sense and the artwork was ugly. Needless to say I don't think that version sold well.

I was pleased to find out that the game has recently been republished in the US as Slide 5 which appears to either have a monkey theme or skiing theme depending on which retailer you are looking at. The good news is that it seems to be available in larger stores like Barnes & Noble. From what I can tell all of the boxes say "Wolfgang Kramer's '6 Nimmt'" on them so you'll know you are looking at the right thing. It's also nice that they give Kramer credit (typically mass-market games never mention the designer) although most will have no idea who he is. Unfortunately the box I see at Amazon with the monkey theme says "Even a monkey can play"; even it if may be true that type of phrase doesn't make the game look particularly good. Don't pass it up because of the artwork!

Nice to see a great little game like Tag 6! get more exposure. It's easily my favorite filler. You can teach it in just a minute or two and play a few rounds in not much more than that. The game is deceptively simple, though, as there certainly is more to it than pure luck. If you want something quick, light and fun you probably won't find much better than this. It also supports up to ten players which is something of a rarity in games.

If you don't have a friendly local game store to visit or if they don't carry the game, check out Barnes & Noble or Amazon.com and see if you can't snag yourself a copy of Slide 5.

Recent Acquisitions

2008-02-21T13:34:00.004-06:00

I recently participated in a local math trade at BGG and got a few new games in return along with picking up some new ones as well. Here's a quick hit of what I got. Don't be surprised if you hear more on these in the near future:

Fire & Axe: A Viking Saga - One of the big games I was hoping to get off of the math trade. The game is gorgeous, I love the map and the components. We got to play a three player game the other night and I like the core of the game but I don't think it works very well with three; four or five should be good. I'm going to wait to talk about this until I can play it more, but I will say that it's not really what I expected; it's an interesting mix of efficiency and push your luck mechanics. Once I get a game or two in with four or more I'll share some thoughts on it.

Battlestations - The other big game I was hoping to get from the trade. Battlestations is very much a board game/RPG hybrid, more so than Descent and its ilk. Players make characters that play out specific roles on their starship and fly around completing missions that generally involve flying the ship around, shooting other ships and boarding them (or being boarded). The components are really simple but the rulebook is very well done and will take some time to get through. I did break down and ordered the minis as I think they will add a lot to the game. Really want to break this out but I need to wrap my head around the rules first... don't expect to hear about this one any time soon.

Drakon - This is the 3rd edition by Fantasy Flight Games. I gave it a quick look and it seems to be fast, fun and fairly mean. It's a pretty simple "screw your neighbor" type game where players build out a dungeon in an attempt to collect a set number of coins. In typical FFG style the components are great and very high quality. Seems like it'll play best with more but we'll see. Shouldn't be too tough to get this on the table; it'll be interesting to see how it goes over.

Vegas Showdown - Great little auction/building game from Avalon Hill. You'd never guess that by looking at the box and components though. Avalon Hill really needs to find new artists. I'll probably write up something on this soon, but needless to say it's quite a bit of fun.

Wings of War - I received the Famous Aces pack as my final game in the trade. I'm a little disappointed as it comes with lots of planes but only one of each main maneuver deck and one type of damage deck. At some point I may have to pick up an expansion or two so there'll be enough variety; still, there's enough in the box to have fun. Played a quick round of deathmatch the other night and we had a good time but I really need to look up some objective-based scenarios soon as I think that's where the game will really shine. I will say that I think I much prefer the damage deck to a hit table as it really speeds up the game.

Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization - Here's my big purchase. The game may not look like much at first - just a bunch of cards, a confusing board and some cubes - but the buzz at BGG is off the charts. Word is that it's the closest thing to Civilization the computer game that has been made in board game form. I've skimmed through the rules and that certainly looks to be true. There's far more to this game than I originally expected and I think it's going to have some serious staying power. Only problem is that the new reprint by FRED Distribution has some printing issues including missing cubes, misprinted cards and even an incorrect score track. Thankfully they seem to be responding quickly and will be getting replacement components out soon.

Pandemic

2008-02-12T11:16:00.001-06:00

(Image courtesy Zman @ BGG)

Cooperative games are an odd beast and it takes a certain type of gamer to enjoy them. Strictly playing against a game system is tricky as it needs to strike the right balance between difficulty and enjoyment. Too hard and people get discouraged and wonder why they're even wasting their time; too easy and there's no real fun to be had. Some games, like Shadows Over Camelot and Saboteur, solve the issue by having a few unknown traitors in the game. Others, like Pandemic, go the strictly cooperative route and hope the system is engaging enough that players come back for more.

I'll admit, at first look I wasn't very excited about the game. The artwork is fairly basic and the components are average at best, although they are far too large for the playing board. Cities are fairly small dots on the map. A single player pawn is as large as a city dot and you could have multiple players in a single city along with a few wooden cubes. Hopefully they can work that out in a later reprint.

Also, I thought the game looked like it was going to be far too easy. Players are working to prevent the outbreak of four different diseases across the world. Each player is randomly assigned a special role that lets them break some rules. On your turn you get to travel around the map and try to clear out cubes that represent outbreaks. After you take your action you draw a couple of cards and then resolve the infection. The infection deck contains one card per city and for each card you draw you add one cube in that city. If the city already contains three cubes, instead of adding another cube there is an outbreak and you add a cube to each adjacent city, which could result in a chain reaction of outbreaks. Each outbreak advances the outbreak track and the game is over if you hit the end. The game is also over if you run out of cubes of a specific color or if the players exhaust their deck, so there are lots of ways to lose. You win if you can find cures in all four sections of the world which involves collecting sets of cards for a given area and playing them on your turn.

The player deck is similar to the outbreak deck as there is one card per city, but there are two differences. First, there are a few special cards mixed in that let you break the rules a bit. Second, at the start of the game the player deck is pre-built with a certain number of epidemic cards. When an epidemic card is drawn you immediately resolve the bottom card of the infection deck, reshuffle the discarded infection cards and place them on the top of the infection deck.

Yep, that's right, they go back on top. Now the game gets significantly more interesting and very dire. It seems so easy at first as you think the cubes will be spread around the map nicely but once that first epidemic hits the panic settles in. All those cities that just had infections will be getting them all over again. Suddenly you find yourself planning out your moves carefully and coordinating with your fellow players to make sure you maximize every move.

Three of us played three games last night and we lost them all although they were generally very close. The fact that we were willing to play three games back-to-back certainly says something about the game. It plays fast - maybe around an hour - and it's fun watching the world's ebb and flow of disease as it pops up and you work to (hopefully) keep it under control.

Pandemic's fast play time helps to avoid the "why the hell are we playing this" syndrome, which is a good thing. It's challenging without feeling impossible but you need to be ready for a good dose of luck. Our last two games were very close and we probably would've won had our infection draws gone differently, but we may have been able to better optimize our moves too... hard to say. It does also start to feel less like a multiplayer game and more like a puzzle that the group is collectively trying to solve. Maybe we played it a little loose but we were each giving just as much input on other's turns as we were putting thought into our own.

I think I still prefer semi-cooperative games like Shadows Over Camelot and Saboteur better as they add in a fun bluffing element for the traitors and a guessing game element for those trying to weed them out. Pandemic is fun though and the theme and mechanics work really well together. I'd love to play it some more with different numbers of players to see how it works out. If you like cooperative games it certainly seems like a good pick.

Antike

2008-02-06T22:06:00.001-06:00

(image courtesy MacGerdts @ BGG)

Sorry for the lack of updates, I've been fighting off a nasty cold and the weather hasn't been cooperating much. Thankfully Monday night I was finally able to get some gaming in. I got Antike in trade not long ago and have been itching to try it out so we decided it would hit the table.

Antike is a game of conquering Europe (and eastern Mediterranean if you use the flip side map) for up to six players. Sure, there are a lot of games that involve beating each other up in Europe but Antike has a few unique things going for it. First off, there is zero luck; not a single die roll or card draw. Second, it uses an interesting mechanism called the rondel for choosing player actions.

I'm a big fan of luck. Rolling lots of dice makes me happy. I find some sort of sick enjoyment from managing the randomness while pulling from a deck of cards. No luck can be a scary proposition for me in a game and I was a little worried about that in Antike. Most games of this sort at least use a d6 for combat but not so here. Battles are simple and brutal; in general, like units are eliminated 1:1. If two players each bring three soldiers into battle, nobody is left with soldiers at the end of the day.

Initially that makes the proposition of combat a little scary. You know going into battle if you'll win or lose and at first it seems like that would lead to some serious stalemates on the board. While I'll need more plays to determine if that's fully true, I really didn't get that feeling in our three player game. Combat isn't a means to an end in Antike, it's a tool that you exercise at the precise moment you need it. Figuring out those moments and trying to make them happen is extremely fun and rewarding.

The game is played to a number of victory points which varies based on the number of players. Points are earned in a few different ways: owning cities, building and destroying temples, controlling seas and researching technologies. Combat becomes a tool for either earning those victory points or denying someone else points. What makes it really work is that you earn points for reaching various milestones. For example, you earn a point for every five cities you control. At the end of your turn, if you own five cities you earn a point. That point will never go away, even if you drop below five, and you'll never re-earn that point. Your next point from cities will come when you manage to control ten cities and so on. That system allows you figure out which attacks will push you to your goal. You might push hard to take a city from someone simply to earn you your tenth for an extra point and immediately abandon it because that city is now useless to you.

Actions are taken by moving around the rondel which is a circle divided into eight parts. You get to move three spaces for free and need to pay resources if you wish to move further. There are three resource gathering actions and their counterparts along with two maneuver actions. Iron is used for building new units, so iron and arming are directly opposite each other on the rondel. This clever system not only makes it easy to remember what resources are used for (just look opposite on the rondel) but also means that you can't generate a resource one turn and immediately use it the next without paying out an additional resource. You end up making some tough decisions on where to move on the rondel as you'll have lots of things you want to do and getting back around can take a couple of turns if you pass up something.

Turns fly by too, which is great. It's a longish game... I would plan for three to five hours depending on the number of players, but that's pure speculation on my part based on our one play. Each turn is fast though so it never feels like there's much downtime and you have plenty to be thinking about while others are going. With no luck involved you really have nobody but yourself to blame if things go poorly!

My only major complaint is that the game was a tad fiddly. There are little cardboard coins to represent your resources that you are always earning and spending, plus you have to add up how many resources you gather all the time. I think I'm going to print out little sheets so players can easily track how many resources they are gathering to help cut down on time and potential errors.

Overall I was really impressed and can't wait to play some more. I thought the no-luck factor would turn me away but it ends up working just fine. It's a very dynamic game - our map changed a lot and key territories were hotly contested - so there's plenty of excitement. You do have to play it a bit differently that your typical conquest game though as you need to pick your battles wisely and decide when to push for points. If you like conquest style games, though, I'd really suggest giving Antike a look. It's something a bit different and it won't suite all players but, like me, you may be surprised at just how fun it is.

EDIT: I may have overestimated the length a bit. Thinking back our learning game with three was around 2 1/2 hours and we probably could've done it faster than that. Although I still think it'll take awhile with six, especially depending on how analysis prone your players are.

Two Player Games

2008-01-26T10:37:00.001-06:00

The first "holy grail" of board gaming seems to be a good, deep civilization style game that can be played in an evening. Second holy grail? Quality two player games, especially those that will appeal to significant others usually of the female persuasion. These are just five that I and/or my wife enjoy; there are many more great two player games of all sorts. If you'd like more information, these GeekLists at BoardGameGeek are good starting points:

Favorite Two-Player Games
Good two-player games
Multi-player games that are better with two

Lost Cities
(image courtesy Urtur @ BGG)

This is almost always the first game that comes to most gamers minds when you say two player. Lost Cities, by the Good Doctor Reiner Knizia, has players attempting to have the most successful archaeological digs by the end of the game. There are five expeditions (each a different color) and cards of each color numbered one through ten and three handshake cards. On your turn you must first play a card then draw a card. Playing a card means either putting it on an expedition in front of you or discarding it in the middle; drawing a card means drawing from the draw pile or taking the top discarded card from any expedition.

Cards must be played from low to high although you may skip numbers and handshakes must be played before any number cards. So your sequence on the blue expedition could be handshake, 1, 2, 4, 6, 7. In this case you'll never have a way to play the blue 3 or blue 5 as you've skipped past them. At the end of the game you add up the face value of your cards, subtract 20 and multiply by the number of handshakes plus one. Most points wins.

I think Lost Cities is a fantastic two player game. It's simple, the art is bright and colorful and you'll be making lots of tough decisions throughout. As you must always play a card before drawing you'll often end up having to make a sub-optimal play, either skipping a number in sequence or discarding a card your opponent could use. While many consider this the ultimate couples games, I will note that my wife hates this game. She finds it too stressful; the tough decisions frustrate her too much. Still, I think it's worth taking a chance with the game. My only complaint is that it gets a bit mathy when scoring at the end.

Knights of Charlemagne
(photo courtesy Jasonofindy @ BGG)

Another Knizia special, Knights of Charlemagne is sort of a simplified Lost Cities (or more closely a simplified Battle Line). On the table are ten tokens players are fighting over: five numbered 1 to 5 and five in one of five colors. Players are dealt cards that have both a color and a number on it. On your turn you draw a card from the draw pile and play a card in your area on either the matching number or matching color on the board. Play until all cards are used up; at the end the player with the most number of physical cards on a given token earns it. Total up the points on your tokens at the end to see who wins.

There are a couple great things about Knights of Charlemagne. First, it's incredibly simple, even more so than Lost Cities. Second, it plays 2-4 and I think works well with any number of players so it's a good option if you have friends over. It doesn't have quite the depth of other games but it's fast, easy to teach and still requires a bit of thought. Your first few rounds of play aren't very important but towards the end you'll find yourself counting cards and trying to play them where they count. My wife really enjoys this game; it's a good balance of simplicity and light strategy for her.

Dynasties
(photo courtesy Nodens77 @ BGG)

Here's a surprise: an area control game that is specifically designed for two players and works!

Players duke it out for control over provinces in an attempt to reunite ancient China. Each player has a hand of cards representing army strength and a bunch of wooden cubes for their armies. In secret players put a card down on each area, reveal and resolve. Generally the higher card wins and gets to adjust the number of armies in that territory by the difference of the two cards played. If black played a 3 and white played a 5 in Tibet, for example, white would get to adjust the number of armies in Tibet by 2 in their favor. If there was a single black army there already it would be removed and white would add one army, or if while already had an army there they'd simply add two more. The game takes place over nine rounds and you score the territories every three rounds, earning points for the areas you control.

What really makes the game work is that the players have the same basic set of cards. Some cards are returned to your hand after they are played, others are discarded and some of the more powerful ones can only be played once per territory. This system means that while there is some luck in your card draw you and your opponent are pretty evenly matched so it's more about how well you play and how well you can out-think and bluff your opponent.

San Juan
(image courtesy Geosmores @ BGG)

Trading goods and putting up buildings in the city of San Juan might not sounds like much of a theme but this is a fantastic card game. Players compete to have the most victory points by the end of the game. Buildings placed in front of them are worth points and some buildings work in conjunction with others. The game is over when someone builds their twelfth building, then you tally up points and see who won.

San Juan has a few things going for it. First, there is a little bit of player interaction with the role selection. There are six roles available for use each turn. These roles determine what actions everyone will be taking but whoever actually picks the role gets a bonus. For example, if I take the builder everyone will have the opportunity to put up a building but I'll pay one less for it. Also, nobody else will be able to take the builder role this round so only I will get that extra discount. Of course you'll be able to place buildings that might work in conjunction with the builder role, giving you extra bonuses even when you don't specifically take that role.

Next is the fantastic card management aspect of the game. Cards serve three proposes: as buildings you can build in front of you, as money to pay for your buildings and as goods that are traded. Players are dealt a hand of building cards and buildings have a cost listed. When you decide to build a building you must pay its costs with cards from your hand. If you have six cards in your hand and play building with a cost of four, you'll need to play your building in front of you and discard four cards from your hand as payment, leaving you with a single card left. Some buildings generate goods which are represented as face-down cards that can be traded in for new cards.

This simple mechanism really makes the game fun. You have to make interesting decisions as to what cards you want to keep around and which you are willing to part with. As you play more you'll find certain building combos seem to work better than others so you'll start to push your luck a little bit and try to go a certain route in hopes of getting the cards you need. At the same time you may need to adjust your strategy if you see your opponent is pulling away from you.

I love this game and so does my wife. It's more complex than the other games I've listed so far but still simple enough that everyone I've taught it to has been able to grasp the concept and have fun. San Juan also supports up to four players so it's another game that has some good flexibility as well. Easily my most highly recommended game on my list.

BattleLore
(image courtesy kilroy_locke @ BGG)

Last on the list is BattleLore. It's strictly a two player game (technically there are rules for up to four but I'd stick with two) with a sea of plastic miniatures placed on a hex-based board. The look of it could very well scare off many non-gamers so I would recommend easing your significant other into this by getting them to enjoy some of the other games on this list first.

BattleLore is a fantasy war game. Each player controls an army of humans, orcs, dwarves and a variety of monsters. Generally you earn points for defeating enemy units and the games typically end after someone has killed a certain number of units.

BattleLore is based on Richard Borg's Command and Colors battle system which has appeared in several games. This is the first game with a fantasy setting which I think will appeal to many more so than a historical war period like the other games that use it. It may look a little daunting at first but the command system is very simple and makes the game far more approachable than it may appear.

Based on a scenario out of the manual, players will set up their armies and move them around on the board. Each player has a hand of action cards that determine what actions they may perform on their turn. The board is divided into three flanks: left, center and right. A card typically specifies a flank a number of units. For example, the card might say "Order three units" and have an arrow on the right flank. This means you may move and attack with any three units you may have in the right flank. You may have a lot of units on the board but these cards limit how many decisions you have at any point in time. I think this system helps ease people into war games as you aren't overwhelmed with having to plan moves for every single unit on your turn. Just look at your cards and see if you can find a decent move from them.

Combat is a pretty simple dice-based affair. Some units have special abilities but the game's manual gives lots of great examples and it comes with little summary cards you can have out to help you remember the details. BattleLore is far more involved than anything on this list, and while it may look extremely cool to you I wouldn't advise making this the first board game with your significant other. Once you start playing you'll find the game is more simple that it looks and it plays in roughly an hour; you'll be hard-pressed to find this much depth in that same amount of time.

If the fantasy theme and plastic bits aren't necessarily going to help your cause, check out the more simplified Memoir '44 (World War II) or Commands and Colors: Ancients (Romans) which use the same basic command and combat system. I think Commands and Colors is the best in the series but BattleLore is certainly the most fun.

Getting the Games

There you go! Hopefully this list gives you a good starting point. You won't find these games at any big retail store. See if there are any gaming specialty stores in your area or hop online and check out ThoughtHammer or Fair Play Games; both are online board game shops that I often rely on for my board game purchases.