History of the Western World (part 3)

History could just be the study of cause and effect. Or maybe it is the study of how great people have shaped our modern world. Maybe it is about how advances in technology make the present different than the past.

In any event, Struggle of Empires is next on my list. It is a highly abstract game, but ultimately captures the feeling of the 18th century, in my opinion. Mechanically it is an auction game mixed with area control.

You start with very little money and few actions, but can grow your country with various tiles into a unique power. Building up your country's technology and economy are fun. Getting bogged down in wars in the German state can also be fun. But all of the games I've played have come down to the alliance auction.

Paying money to determine turn order and who can and cannot attack each other is something that is frequently under valued in the games that I've played. In the "limited wars" of this period, it is vital to have the correct allies (or pay money so they join your side).

Struggle of Empires has a lot of colonial growth. And it is possible for countries to end the game in a state of revolt, if you over tax the peasants or kill too many of their sons in battle. This leads up to the intensely studied French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. There are some good multi-player games about this period, but I've not played Empires in Arms, and it's out of print.

Speaking of out of print the next game is out of print, too. But it is a variation of a game that is still in print. It shouldn't be too hard to print out a copy of the map and find directions on-line. I am speaking of Colonial Diplomacy.

I really enjoy Colonial Diplomacy. It might be heresy to say so, but I like it better than the original Diplomacy. Instead of essentially equal starting positions, Colonial gives the UK a lot of units and territory. That is justified because they historically "won" Struggle and ended up with lots of colonies.

For those who don't like the player elimination of Diplomacy there are options to play faster games. These tend to allow more players to stay in until the end. Paying for alliances was important in Struggle, but Colonial Diplomacy removes the auction and anything goes. You can wheel and deal with any player in the game. You'd probably ask for good deals from Britain since they have such a good starting position.

But beware the stab. Any country can betray any other.

That brings us up to the 19th century colonies, but while Europe was fighting abroad technological improvements and industrialization was happening at home, but that will have to wait for the next part.

History of the Western World (part 1)

I tend to game for narrative immersion. One of the easiest (for me) narratives is an historic one. Here is my list of games to play through world history with 4 players.

Start out with Pax Romana. Second edition is supposed to be coming out sometime (it's on GMT's P500 list so once enough people pre-order it will be published). Pax does have some problems with the physical materials. The money is basically bunk. If you flip your coins over accidentally then you don't know how much cash you have (different denominations on each side). It does do a great job of recreating a strategic view of the period. One thing to keep in mind is the time scale. With 25 year turns, a lot of unexpected "random" things can upset your plans, but it's still great fun.

Now that the rise of the roman empire is broadly covered, it's time for the fall. I actually have 2 games in this category, but one (Barbarian, Kingdom and Empire) is currently out of print. If you're interested, Decision games does have a pre-order program to spur their reprint.

Britannia is one of the best games to cover the transition from the Ancient World to the High Middle Ages (although much of the game is set in the Early Middle Ages). It focuses on the various invasions of the isle of Great Britain beginning with the Romans and continuing until the Norman invasion. You invade, you fight off invaders, you fight with neighbors, you have tons of fun. In a lot of games which try to convey a sweep of history this period is part of a lull between the glories of the ancient world and the dawn of the Renaissance.

Instead of being the "boring turn", Britannia is a joy to play.

One last game to round out the Early Middle Ages: Byzantium by Martin Wallace. It seems like something from right field (to me at least). We haven't had the east on a game board since Pax Romana; why go back? For me this game is a 4 player short hand for a lot of history which doesn't seem to be covered by 4 player games.

It covers questions like: what happened to the eastern empire, how about the crusades, what are the origins of the Renaissance, and so on. The short answer to the question of the eastern empire's fate is that Islam rose. The short version of the crusades is that the Arabs won Jerusalem from the Byzantines and then the Christians tried to retake it. The cliff notes origin of the Renaissance notes that Greek scholars fleeing from the collapse of the Byzantine Empire reintroduced classical learning to Western Europe.

Now, admittedly, there's more to it than that, but we can cover that in part 2 (which includes the Renaissance). See you then.

If there are any great games that I omitted or you disagree with the inclusion of one of the games then feel free to send a comment.

Brass (not a review)

Martin Wallace's game Brass is one of the games I will play almost any time. I really enjoy it, but it hits the points that I enjoy in a game. One of my gripes about Industrial Waste is the need to get orders to get income form your developed factory. I enjoy building up my super factory, but the day-to-day drag of actually getting orders isn't as fun.

Brass gives you all the fun of running several industries, but once you have a market for your goods, you never have to go through the bother of selling from that factory again. You keep selling from that factory (since your income is permanently increased), but you don't need to concern yourself with such low-level details.

The most important action (in my opinion) that you can take in this game is development. And that is implemented in a staggeringly unintuitive manner (flipping tiles off of stacks). The best payoffs (in points) come with the more developed industries, but they tend to give the worst income boost. It seems hard to evaluate, but I guess that's a good thing. Few businesses in the real world know exactly what the pay off for R&D investment will be.

The tension of this game lies in its limited actions and money. If you go for a cash strong approach to the game, then you should hope that shipyards are open when you need them (shipyards are a very good way to convert cash into points). You can almost always go for loans (and if you are feeling short on cash that is usually a good move).

Brass is a hard game to learn, but I think that's mainly because a lot of the mechanics are new. Also the components lead people to think coal and iron are the same. They aren't, and the rules treat them differently. Although calling iron, "iron" is somewhat misleading since it represents iron works building steam engines and such.

I've played the game about ten times. The first few games were learning about how cards worked and where you could build (transporting coal/iron). The next few were learning the importance of loans. Then there was learning how important development was. The last few games have focused on transportation links.

There is a lot to this game, and even after all the times I've played it, I don't feel like I know it well enough to give a fair review. The best I can do is say that I've enjoyed every game win or lose (which is admittedly highly subjective).

Mordred and Byzantium

Both Byzantium and Mordred are co-operative/competitive games. You are ostensibly playing knights of the round table and combatants in the 7th century fight between Byzantines and Arab Caliphs, but each game has only one winner.

In Mordred, you can be "greedy" and that tends to help Mordred out, but if Mordred wins then the person who helped Mordred least wins. Normally the greediest person wins. I haven't been able to get into the flow of Mordred, after a couple of plays. The game wants to be a quick 30 minute game, but every time the game seems like it will end people who feel they'd lose, work to prolong the game so they can win. I'm still learning though so it's not a knock on the game system.

I seem to be very good at setting my "good" knight moves for Mordred to attack (under the guidance of my fellow players), but somehow I won one game by building lots of cheap towns (instead of the more valuable and durable villages). Placing Mordred's forces seems to be the main source of player interaction in Mordred. The game is fun to play.

Byzantium, on the other hand, feels like it's rushing to an ending. Cities besieged until they are little more than piles of rubble fought over, and resources get more scarce. I still have no idea how to play a "good" game of Byzantium. There are a lot of subtle mechanisms in the game. After every play I realize how moves at the beginning of the game made the end harder for me because I wasn't strategically planning that far in advance.

I love how Byzantium makes you think about the resource management of a large scale military campaign. No simple tracing of supply routes with food automatically appearing for free if it could reach troops. Admittedly the system is highly abstracted, but poor resource management will hurt your score. Since troops cannot be disbanded the game rewards you for killing most of your troops in battle (so you don't need to support them from turn to turn). Although culling your troops means that you'll need to recruit more next turn (which might not really be cost effective, one of the subtle touches I still don't get yet).

Part of the subtle nature of Byzantium is the possibility of Constantinople's fall. I've pulled it off once, but that was probably caused by the other players inexperience instead of any skill on my part. Since you play both sides, you can leave Constantinople's defenses open (by taking control of Byzantium navy and the city's levies). However, players can still try to rush their armies to defend the city if they notice you lowering defenses.

Byzantium is the type of game (involves strategic thought and longer than an hour) game which I really enjoy playing. There is enough theme (desert transport, slight asymmetry between Arab and Byzantine forces) for me. Historical flavour, but not simulation (simulation really only works at the tactical level anyway, I want to change history not relive it).