History of the Western World (part 2)

When we last left our European nations Byzantium had lost Jerusalem.

That bring us to Saladin: The Fall of the Crusader States. It covers the period starting in 1174. People who have seen Kingdom of Heaven or a Robin Hood (Richard the Lionheart is included in the game, too) movie will have some familiarity with this time period. The only problem is that at this time only 50 copies of the game exist on the planet. I am not one of the lucky 50 people. I'll write an entire blog on this game if I ever get to play it.

Thanks to Richard's crusading his brother John (Prince John of Robin Hood fame) came to power without much popularity. John signed the Magna Carta and that charter laid the foundations for parliamentary democracy.

Continuing with the Middle Ages we have Kingmaker. This is a game about the nobility fighting each other to advance their royal heir, killing others in line, and gaining votes in both houses of Parliament to secure the throne.

A lot of negative things have been said about Kingmaker, as a game. But all of the "problems" that I've heard can be fixed by playing with the right combination of advanced/optional rules. If you think the game is too long then play the "short game" with a fixed time limit. I enjoy it for what it is: a good game about the Wars of Roses.

About 200 years later Revolution: The Dutch Revolt. Notice that I've skipped over Here I Stand. While I respect a lot of GMT's games, I tend to dislike Card Driven Wargames. I've never played Here I Stand so I could be in for a pleasant surprise. It plays 2-6 players (an expansion is needed for 2 players).

Main things that happen are the Reformation and the rise of Protestantism. Basically laying the foundations for everything that happens in Revolution.

The rise of the merchant class. Armies marching across the country. Merchants paying Water Beggars to attack enemy troops. Jesuits trying to hold back the spread of Protestants. The construction of Protestant Universities. Culture shaking changes.

This is one of the great games. It feels smooth like eating a decadent chocolate dessert. The joy of this game lasts for hours after it is done. Looking at the moves you made, seeing how the situation went your way or fell out of your control. Scores tend to be very close at the end. Although there is no luck, the consequences of your actions are so complicated it seems impossible to compute the results. I play by "feel". Each faction in the game has its own strengths and weaknesses. There are "natural" alliances, but I have even seen alliances between Protestant and Catholic.

We're firmly in the Modern Age now. Just as the Ancient World passed away so too are the foundations for a new social order laid.

Here I Offend the Remaining Board Game Readers

Common wisdom says that Aquire is one of the pinnacles of American style design. It is a classic. One of the "few good games" from before the Eurogame period. Deep strategy. Brillant design. Multiple paths to victory (agressive purchases or money conservation). Player interaction.

It is one of those games that I plan to never play again.

The game is like Scrabble. You have six tiles hidden. You play one on the board in a specific place each turn. Each tile has one and only one place where it can be played. And you buy stock.

Most money wins.

Good luck trying long term planning with this game. You only have a hand of 6 tiles (so you know exactly one tile that you'll have 5 turns from now).

If Aquire is a "brain burner" due to the huge range of choices (play 1 of 6 tiles) then you'd probably want to stay away from Puerto Rico. There are eight different roles to chose from each round (in a five player game)!

Moving away from the "incredable depth" that playing 1 tile in a predetermined spot has, you also get to buy up to 3 stocks per round!

There are 7 different companies. Some of them pay out different amounts when they pay out. That's about the only difference between the companies.

So you buy stock in almost identical companies and play tiles in set board positions. 18xx is somewhat similar (stock buying and tile laying), except the tiles you lie in 18xx are train tracks and actually have some concrete connection to the financial sucess of the company that builds them. Come to think of it, 18xx does everything that Aquire tried to do but better and more thematically.

And 18xx games don't have the chance that you'll get a bad tile draw because there is no luck in 18xx (excluding 1829 mainline which I haven't played yet).

I personally would have more fun watching paint dry than being dragged into another game of Aquire.

Scalable Train Games: 1825 and On the Underground

Most train games are good for a fairly small range of players. By looking at two games which do seem to scale well we can see what mechanism help scalability (but it's really just an excuse to gush over 2 games I really like). On the Underground player 2-5 and 1825 plays 2-9 (although I've only played up to 5).

There are many way to get victory points in On the Underground: loops, passenger, National Rail stations, connecting two matching stations, and terminus stations. That's an awful lot of different "paths to victory" available. If someone is blocking one VP source then there are so many others to choose from. This game gets its tension from providing an environment where you want to do 5 or 6 things each turn, but can only do 4.

The game plays in semi-random number of player turns (there is a deck from which 1 or 2 cards are drawn each turn and when exhausted it's the final round). This keeps games at a similar length regardless of how many players are in the game. There is more downtime with more players, but since so much of the game is trying to connect lines without being blocked and blocking others, I am involved all the time.

The other scalability mechanism is giving out different amounts of track lengths depending on the number of players. Even the number of different colours you have available changes (and since you can only add to ends of existing lines, number of colours does change the opportunities available on the board).

It does feel like the same game with 2, 4, and 5 players (I have not played the 3 player version, yet). I think this is, in part, due to the passenger movement. There is always something out of your control each turn so adding chaos from other player's moves doesn't seem like a major shift.

1825 on the other hand, only has "one" way to get "points": money in hand at the end of the game. It scales, in part, because there are more companies than players. You can (and I usually do) run 2 or 3 companies in the game.

Another huge scaling factor in 1825 is the modularity of the board. You play on different parts of Britain depending on how many players. This keeps the number of companies per player manageable, and keeps track building competition intense.

The joy of 1825 comes from setting up a long term business plan for your companies and watching them fail. Also watching the stock market for undervalued stock is a must. 1825 is short enough (with 2-5 players) to play in an evening, and with the linear stock market is less overtly cutthroat than the 1830 branch of 18xx.

Gaming as a Social Experience

Finally played a four player version of Tresham's Revolution: the Dutch Revolt . It isn't a simulation of the 80 years war, but more of a "high level"/strategic game of influence, economics, armies, and religion. Revolution rewards long term planning. And it captures the historic theme good enough for me.

Although in the game I played the Reformers and the Burgers weren't getting along well. Those Reformers wanted the same provinces and towns I did and at the same time. Historically Burgers supported the reformation, but not in this game. It was a game long fight between our 2 factions.

There was a huge fight in Holland between the burgers and the reformers. Burgers eventually won Holland with an army build-up. Plus a stalemate between our armies in the north (Friesland, Groningen, and Drenthe) which was eventually resolved by Calvinist support in Friesland overwhelming the assistance the burgers got from the Huguenots.

A fight with the Reformers is usually the last thing the Burgers want. The whole game ended with the map still split between the four groups. The Hapburgs were on the ropes, after losing a lot of ground to Burgers and Reformers (who weren't just attacking the poor Burgers). But the last turn saw the Hapsburgs grabbing enough points to put them in second ahead of the Reformers and just behind the Burgers.

I had a fun time, but then again I played the Burgers.