{"id":3545,"date":"2006-12-09T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-12-09T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2006\/12\/09\/city-ofchaos\/"},"modified":"2006-12-09T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-12-09T11:00:00","slug":"city-ofchaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/2006\/12\/09\/city-ofchaos\/","title":{"rendered":"City of\nChaos"},"content":{"rendered":"

City of
\nChaos<\/a><\/h2>\n

reviewed by Moritz Eggert<\/p>\n

Euro Games come in many forms, types and variants, and you might think you have heard of them
\nall. But you’re wrong!<\/p>\n

In the following essays I’m going to talk about some of my favourite Euro-games in my
\ncollection that most of you will definitely never have heard about, games that are weird, downright
\nbizarre, good or bad. You can actually still find these games at Ebay or some shops, so good luck
\nlooking for them, I hope you enjoy it!<\/p>\n

Let me start with a game that I really love a lot, and which is in many ways unique. The game is
\ncalled “City of Chaos”, and was published by the short lived British company
\n“Monocle Games” in the 90’s. Yes, I know, some think that Britain doesn’t belong
\nto Europe, but I think it does, ol’ Blighty is Europe!<\/p>\n

“City of Chaos” has a huge box with an ugly screaming face on it, nothing that’s
\nparticularly enticing. The blurb says “A Random World Generator” game, whatever that
\nis.<\/p>\n

When you open the box you are greeted with a HUGE assortment of game material, something that
\nonly recently has become standard again, but at the time of the production must have cost the
\nproducers a hell of a lot of money. There are weird fantasy pewter figures, huge map tiles that
\nform the board, cards, cards, cards and cards, coins and a huge adventuring tome in the style of
\n“Tales of the Arabian Nights” as well as a rulebook.<\/p>\n

On the surface this is an “us against the game system” adventure game, in which the
\nwhole game world is handled by the game itself. Players represent adventurers who explore the
\nominous “City of Chaos” and try to find out its terrible secret. The goal is to
\naccumulate clue cards that enable players to find out something about the threat. Depending on what
\nclue cards the players gather the threat will be slightly different each time and the way to end it
\nwill also be different.<\/p>\n

So far so “Arkham Horror”, but… the game is not unusual through the game system or
\nthe game mechanics, which are partly a little clunky and involve the dreaded “I roll dice and
\nmove that many spaces” movement mechanic. It is unusual because it is – well, so imaginative!
\nAnd that I am at a loss for words here really should tell you how unusual this game is.<\/p>\n

You see, there are guilds that the adventurers can become members of, and each of these guilds
\noffers special abilities, items that can be bought and subquests to solve (there are also many,
\nmany other subquests in the game, that you can encounter at the different locations). In normal
\nfantasy games there would be a thieve’s guild, a magician’s guild and the usual standard
\nfantasy fare. But in “City of Chaos” you can become a member of the
\n“Pneumologist” guild, that teaches you to inhale and exhale air forcibly, or become a
\n“Pyrotechnic” who creates fireworks and scares his enemies away. There is also a
\n“Mesmerist” guild, which teaches hypnosis and a “Pugilist” guild which teaches
\nyou how to fist fight honourably.<\/p>\n

\"board\"\/<\/p>\n

And these weird and strange ideas are not only confined to the guilds, they pervade the entire
\ngame and also the beautiful drawings accompanying it. It is difficult to describe this world, I
\nthink it comes closest to what is sometimes described as “steampunk fantasy”, fantasy
\nwith a technology that uses steam engines and real science but also has magic like other fantasy
\nworlds. The world of “City of Chaos” is absolutely non-derivative, though, and extremely
\noriginal, which you will discover soon after having a few adventures.<\/p>\n

Every time you enter a building you have certain encounters, depending on what kind of building
\nyou discover. These encounters are resolved using an adventure game-book style tome, and what a
\nweird tome this is. Players can solve the side quests to advance in power, get special abilities or
\npowerful items. It is also possible to hurt the other players in many ways.<\/p>\n

While you explore the city a HUGE game board comes into existence step by step as you add tile
\nafter tile, absolutely gorgeous to look at and too big for most gaming tables. The city really
\nlooks like a city, as each building card is placed on a plastic base that makes it stand upright, a
\nsimple but very effective idea. You really get the feeling of roaming the streets of a weird
\nfantasy city with looming buildings above you.<\/p>\n

And the city itself changes – it is not uncommon that building tiles change place and navigating
\nthe streets becomes a task in itself after a while.<\/p>\n

If all this sounds mouthwatering to you, I have to come to the negative points, and sadly there
\nare some. First: the combat system. What sounds good on paper is actually a bit of a chore, as some
\nrules seem to miss from the rulebook. Are combat cards used up or do they regenerate? If the latter
\nis the case the whole system does not make much sense, as one would never play the weak combat
\ncards. A house rule is desperately needed here, although this would be easy to invent for geeks.
\nThe rules are also sketchy in other departments, but then they are actually quite simple and easy
\nto get into, which is a bonus.<\/p>\n

Another aspect that I should mention is that the game is LONG! I once played a full game with my
\nwife (2 players only) and to really finish it and to overcome the evil of the city we actually
\nplayed for several days on end. Downtime can become a serious problem if there are more than 4
\nplayers, and even then waiting time can be long. The game has an optional rule to end the game
\nbefore its natural end, but that seems unsatisfying given that it is such an epic game. But you
\nknow what? It doesn’t matter, really, because when you then vanquish the evil you feel like you
\nreally have accomplished something, let me tell you that!<\/p>\n

“City of Chaos” is in many ways a flawed and imperfect game, and it has never been
\nreviewed really favourably. Little is known about the designers and what they were up to after
\nproducing this game. But if you are looking for a really unique and fresh take on an extremely
\ndetailed and rich fantasy world you should absolutely try to get this game. It is one of the main
\nprizes of my collection and I would never part with it for anything in the world!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

City of Chaos reviewed by Moritz Eggert Euro Games come in many forms, types and variants, and you might think you have heard of them all. But you’re wrong! In the following essays I’m going to talk about some of my favourite Euro-games in my collection that most of you will definitely never have heard … City of
\nChaos<\/span> weiterlesen →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spieleabende"],"views":6,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3545\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.westpark-gamers.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}