reviewed by Aaron Haag<\/i><\/p>\n
It’s the 1920’s and Australia’s economy is still booming. The government
\nvigorously pursues industrial development and at the same time encourages the development
\nof national parks to support the environment. This is the setting for Wolgang
\nKramer’s and Michael Kiesling’s latest game.<\/p>\n
The map shows the six mainland territories of Australia split into 24 land and water
\nregions. It is the players task to complete industrialization and conservation projects
\nin these regions and to place rangers into camps or on ships located on the regions’
\nborders. The number of rangers a player has depends on the number of players in the game,
\nranging from ten in a five-player game to 20 with only two players. Small plastic
\ndouble-decker airplanes fly the rangers into the region and pick them up again when their
\ntask is finished.<\/p>\n
During a turn, a player performs two actions out of a possible three. One possible
\naction is to fly his plane to any of the regions in preparation for unloading or
\nwithdrawal of rangers. Another action is to unload up to four own rangers into one of the
\ncamps or onto a ship of this region. In order to do so the player must play a region card
\nfrom his hand. Each card shows the colour of the region it can be played for, the number
\nof rangers one may place (one to four) and the money one earns (three to zero dollars)
\nfor doing so. The hand card limit is two, which may sound rather limiting, but in fact
\neach camp is adjacent to at least two and many are bordering three or more regions so
\nthat there is only a slight reduction of choices by unlucky card draws. If all fails and
\nyou do not have the right colour in your hand you may even change the colour of a card by
\npaying money. The third type of action is to remove up to four own rangers from any of
\nthe camps bordering the region where your plane resides.<\/p>\n
Players may spend money during their turn to either change the colour of a card they
\nplay (3 dollars), or to move one of their rangers from any camp or ship to any other
\nvalid location (4 dollars), in addition to the other two actions performed. According to
\nthe German rules, the latter option is allowed just once per turn, while the English
\nrules’ wording suggests that it may be performed repeatedly in a turn. Wolfgang
\nKramer is said to support the English version while Ravensburger is quoted to support the
\nGerman one. We followed the English rule version because it leaves you slightly more
\noptions in case of a required major reshuffling of rangers due to early bad planning.<\/p>\n
![\"board\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen2\/australia\/australia_b1.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
At the end of a turn, players draw new region cards to fill up their hand to two with
\nplayers having a choice from which of the four stacks they draw, the back of the cards
\nshowing the distribution of money vs. rangers.<\/p>\n
The completion of industrialization and conservation projects triggers the
\ndistribution of victory points. Whenever a plane arrives in an area for the first time,
\nthe industrialization marker of the region is turned over, showing how many rangers must
\nbe present in camps located around that region to complete the project. As soon as this
\ncondition is fulfilled the active player scores three points for completing the project
\nand all players score one point for each of their rangers in camps bordering the region
\nor two points for rangers on ships. Conservation projects on the other hand are completed
\nonce all camps and ships of a region are occupied. Scoring is the same as for
\nindustrialization projects.<\/p>\n
Although Australia comes along with only a small set of rules and is explained
\nquickly, playing the game well is a completely different matter. Placement of airplanes
\nand rangers is tactical and there is not much point in trying to develop regions all by
\nyourself, because you will quickly run out of rangers to deploy. It’s better to
\npredict where projects may complete soon and to try and participate in the scoring.<\/p>\n
The number of actions you are allowed to perform is always less than you would like,
\nso planning ahead is essential; the placement of the airplane being of particular
\nimportance in order to not having to move it in every turn. Hence, playing the game in a
\ngroup of brooders and optimizers can result in long downtimes. My experience is that this
\ndoesn’t really matter because there is a lot of suspense even when it’s not your
\nturn as you constantly try to determine the other players’ plans while at the same
\ntime hoping that they won’t recognize yours.<\/p>\n
During the first few rounds players set up what is deemed to be good strategic
\npositions. Completed projects in this phase can result in some players running away on
\nthe score track. However, it is almost impossible for the early leader to maintain his
\nposition, not because there is ample possibility to gang up on the leader – in fact there
\nis none – but because an early lead often results from a concentration of a player’s
\nrangers in just a few regions. Consequently, that player needs too many actions later in
\nthe game to transfer his rangers to other, still scoring locations.<\/p>\n
![\"windmill\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/Ressourcen2\/australia\/australia_b2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Once the board gets filled up with rangers there is a steady increase of suspense when
\nmany regions will be close to completing their projects and placing just a single ranger
\nmay trigger multiple scorings. Now special attention is required not to overlook scoring
\nregions because other players are not required to point out any missed ones. They may
\neven score the region in their own turn collecting the three bonus points for completing
\nthe project! This sounds obvious but I have yet to see a game of “Australia”
\nwithout at least one such missed scoring.<\/p>\n