Hier ein kurzer Report über die von Günther und mir gespielten Spiele gestern:
„Reef Encounter“ : Günther 8 Moritz 7; (hat uns beiden gut gefallen!)
„Der erste Weltkrieg“ : Günther 4 Moritz 5; (etwas enttäuschend)
„Dr. Jekyll und Mr. Hyde“ : Günther 7, Moritz 7; (nettes, leicht grüblerisches Stichspiel für Freaks)
reviewed by Walter Sorger
Actually, the title (nose picking) refers to an activity in connection with the human nose and already in Essen at „Spiel 2004“ visitors expressed a certain surprise of bad taste when passing the game tables where this game was played. I, too, do not find the title of particularly good taste. If you don’t mind I will use the verb „screw“ instead from now on, because in my generation this word has a very kind, harmless sound. Why not! In the centre of the game table lie five cards with noses (we’ll stick to the name of our smell organ, here!). The cards lie apart far enough that an other card can be placed on either of the four of the nose. To the eastern side of each nose card a „booger“ from a draw pile is placed. It shows victory points, which players try to achieve.
Each player possesses five finger cards from the types north, south and west, which he may place on the respective sides of the nose card. But only if there is a vacant space, competitors may not be removed (unless they are of lesser value). Each player must place at least one finger and can place a maximum of all five fingers during his turn. Once a nose has been completed it has an exactly defined „conquest value“, calculated by using the finger and booger cards next to it.
Subsequently, the dice are rolled. If you roll less than the conquest value, you may take the booger and additionally remove one finger card. A new booger is placed on the free space, the hand cards are filled up to five, and the screwing continues.
There are a few special cards, which allow a player to affect the conquest value of the nose to his favour. The general sequence of play remains however unaffected:
That’s already a lot, or isn’t it? It sure is enough to receive two and a half points from the Westpark.
Dear game producer:
Small formal improvements and three WPG points would have been possible!
rezensiert von Walter Sorger
Ja tatsächlich, der Titel bezieht sich auf eine Tätigkeit im Zusammenhang mit der menschlichen Nase und schon in Essen auf der „Spiel 2004“ drückten Besucher ein gewisses unappetitliches Befremden aus, wenn sie an Spieltischen vorbeigingen, an denen dieses Spiel auflag. Auch ich finde den Titel nicht besonders geschmackvoll. Was haltet Ihr davon, wenn ich jetzt durchwegs das Verb „poppen“ dafür verwende? In meiner Generation hat dieses Wort einen sehr liebenswürdigen, unverfänglichen Klang. Warum also nicht!
In der Mitte des Spieltisches liegen fünf Nasenkarten. (Behalten wir hier mal den Namen unseres Geruchsorgans!). Die Karten liegen so weit auseinander, daß an alle vier Seiten gut angelegt werden kann. An die Ostseite jeder Nasenkarte wird ein „Popper“ vom Popperstapel hingelegt. Das ist eine Wertungskarte mit Siegpunkten, die es zu erringen gilt.
Jeder Mitspieler besitzt fünf Fingerkarten aus den Typen Nord, Süd und West, die er an die freien Seiten der Nasenkarte anlegen darf. Nur wenn dort Platz ist, Nebenbuhler verdrängen gilt nicht. Einen Finger muß jeder Spieler mindestens legen, alle fünf Finger seiner Hand darf er legen. Danach besitzt jede Nase einen genau definierten Eroberungswert, der sich aus den angelegten Finger- und Popperkarten berechnet.
Anschließend wird gewürfelt. Wer mit seinem Wurf unter dem Eroberungswert bleibt, darf den Popper an sich nehmen und zusätzlich einen anliegenden Finger entfernen. Ein neuer Popper vom Stapel wird an die freie Stelle gelegt, jeder füllt seine Handkarten wieder auf fünf auf, und schon geht das lustige Poppen weiter.
Es gibt noch ein paar Sonderkarten, mit denen ein Spieler den Eroberungswert der Nase zu seinen Gunsten beeinflussen kann. Der generelle Spielablauf bleibt davon aber unberührt:
Das ist doch schon was, oder? Für zwei-ein-halb Punkte aus dem Westpark hat es gereicht.
Lieber Spiele-Produzent:
Kleine formale Verbesserungen, und schon wären drei WPG-Punkte möglich gewesen!
rezensiert von Moritz Eggert
„Im Schein der Kerzen beginnen die Alchimisten ihre Zeremonie….“ so beginnt die Regeleinleitung des neuen Kartenspiels von Maik Hennebach, erschienen im Argentum Verlag. Und undurchschaubar wie eine alchimistische Zeremonie ist auch erst einmal das Auslegen der Karten. „Hä?“ mag man erst denken, wenn man sich in das auf den ersten Blick komplexe Auslegesystem der alchemistischen Grundsymbole Eisen, Kupfer, Silber und Gold, repräsentiert durch längliche Karten, hineindenkt. Die Regel sagt hier einfach nur „werden nach einem komplexen Muster ausgelegt“ nebst einem Bild, man imitiert also, und so langsam lichten sich die Schleier des Zweifels und es wird klar, dass das System durchaus funktioniert und Sinn macht.
Das Spiel erinnert ein wenig an eine Art 3D-Tetris -die Karten werden nach einem bestimmten System entweder nebeneinander oder aufeinander gelegt, ist die richtige Menge an angrenzenden Karten der selben Sorte beisammen, werden diese als Punkte einkassiert und ein neues (durch die Auslegeregel aber vorhersehbares) Muster kommt zum Vorschein. Wer also geschickt plant (so weit dies bei maximal 3 Handkarten auf der Hand möglich ist), kann gleich mehrere Felder abräumen, wobei man natürlich auch von den Vorgaben der Mitspieler abhängig ist. Gerade letzteres wurde in unserer Runde ein wenig bemängelt – eine mögliche Lösung wäre eine Heraufsetzung des Handkartenlimits, oder aber das Spiel nur zu zweit zu spielen, denn dann ist jeder mehr seines eigenen Glückes Schmied.
Nichtsdestotrotz ist Maik Hennebach mit „Metallurgie“ vielleicht das schlüssigste und beste der neuen Spiele aus dem Argentum Verlag gelungen. 
„Metallurgie“ spielt sich flüssig und unverkrampft, und die Regeln beschränken sich auf ein Minimum. Wer also leicht abstrakte Kartenspiele mag, wird an diesem Spiel mit schöner Kartengraphik und Sinn für Ästhetik seine Freude haben. Bis zu 4 Spieler können mitmachen, empfehlenswert ist es besonders als 2er-Spiel.
Regelerklärung: 5-10 Minuten, je nach „räumlichem Vorstellungsvermögen“.
This game was eagerly expected, as we are big fans of games like „Legend of Zagor„. There is something about a game that talks to you, although of course the novelty wears off quickly…
Knizia is a surprising author for a game like this – One can imagine that Ravensburger first developed the idea, and then thought about which famous game designer to ask…
Opening the huge box first impressions are very good – the game material looks very nice, there is even a big plastic sword which sticks in the plastic stone that hides the CPU of the game. It was a huge disappointment when I learned that the sword fulfils no function at all!
Playing the game has to be learned physically – the rules are very simple. Each player starts out with an Arthurian knight, travelling the land in search for fame and a better horse. The beautiful game board shows several locations the knights can travel too. Although most of the pictures are pretty obvious, it is a shame that the spaces are not titled – to learn where the „monastery“ is for example has to be looked up in the rulebook, as there are several buildings that could be a monastery!
First the knights are presented to the CPU by placing them on the starting space with one hand and pressing (rather touching) a button at the same time with the other hand. This causes a small current to run through your body, and the rules actually warn people with a pacemaker to play the game – they might be killed by playing it! Thus the danger and thrill of Arthurian times is reflected in the game design…
The game recognizes the colours and greets each player. Now we set off in search of a lance, a horse and armour in the magical lands of mythical Britain. Basically this means visiting the three castles and fight some monsters on the way to find fame. Your actual fame score is not represented physically, but as a number shown on the stone when you ask it. Which means that very often the game is interrupted when a player wants to check his/her score….We found that working the electronic aspect of the game was not always easy – sometimes the game doesn’t recognize your commands although you did everything by the book (i.e. putting your figure on a space, holding it between the index finger and thumb of one hand and touching an action button with the other hand – which should result in actions like „talk“, „flee“ fight“ etc.). Our fellow player Hans was mostly not recognized by the game, so other players had to do his moves which became a bit annoying after a while. Perhaps his body didn’t conduct as well? The rules advise to not use hand cream or anything similar, but this didn’t seem to be the reason…The game communicates with different voices – if you meet a maiden it will be a maiden that talks to you (and there is a very annoying one which always wants to be saved by you). The sound quality is not very convincing (technology doesn’t seem to have advanced since „Legend of Zagor“ or „Dark Tower“), but there is some attempt at acting and humour. We actually had to laugh very hard when a castle inhabitant with an extremely gay voice is eagerly presenting us a „wonderfully big lance“ and tells us so repeatedly (well, you have to visit these damn castles all the time, as the money you want to give them is never enough – and boy, this guy just LOVES his „big lance“).
But this is not, where the game fails, actually the sounds have been done with a certain attention to detail and are mostly quite amusing – it is the gameplay that disappoints. Basically every player tries to accumulate goods to pay for the „big lance“ etc.. For this you either visit the villages (the villagers seem eager to give you all they have) or have little adventures. The game also constantly declares a random space as the goal of a little race – whoever reaches them first gets a little bonus, and a new space is declared. Sometimes there is a little variation when you have adventures, but the outcomes seem random and don’t hold your breath for the fight scenes (the squeaking of the big dragon is especially pitysome – you would imagine the sound designers could have come up with something more menacing. Perhaps he is afraid of our big lance?). Even worse – very often you don’t really learn what actually happened after a combat, and have to look it up by checking your fame score – if it is lower, you have lost! The rules leave some things open deliberately (you are encouraged to learn the game by doing), so there is some excitement in learning what happens behind the scenes. But the longer you play, the more you get the feeling that the same game presented as a normal board game without the voice gimmick would be incredibly boring and repetitive (a la: „roll the dice: 1-3 the villagers like you and give you provisions, 4-6 the villagers ignore you“). Even worse – It is quickly clear where you have to go and what you have to do after playing for about 20 minutes, and therefore each game after the first would become old quickly…The influence of master designer Knizia is mostly evident in the very abstract logic behind the game, which basically goes like „find resources – bring resources to certain key spaces – the player who does this most efficiently wins the game“. The game does certainly „work“ in this respect, there is no fault to be found in the rules themselves, but one gets the feeling that even smaller kids will be bored by this quickly, especially when compared to the snazzy computer games of our time.
Apart of a certain novelty value this is a collector’s, not a game player’s item – although I doubt it will acquire cult status in later years… but still, there is the awfully big lance…
reviewed by Aaron Haag
If you have ever been to Munich or any other part of southern Bavaria during summer, you have probably been to a beer garden. These are, sometimes rather large, outside areas with tables and benches where people can drink and eat. Beer gardens in the past where often owned by breweries in order to make use of the area atop their cellars which for the purpose of keeping the cellars cool during the summer had been planted with densely leafed chestnut trees. Until today, many beer gardens are owned by breweries with tight bands between leaseholders and the breweries (sometimes with dramatic consequences as in the case of the „Hundertjähriges Haus“ in Munich).
Franz-Benno Delonge adopted the beer garden and brewery relation for his latest game „Goldbräu“. Players aim to control beer gardens and breweries in order to earn the most money through selling beer to guests in the beer gardens.
The board shows a total of four breweries and six beer gardens. The beer gardens are tiny when the game starts but can be extended by its manager later in the game, similar to the mechanism used in „Löwenherz“. The size of the beer garden is the prime factor for calculating its income.
During the game setup, each player is dealt six shares, four of which are revealed immediately and influence tokens placed on the respective brewery and beer garden while two remain secret in the players‘ hand. The concept of hidden influence reminds one of „Kremlin“. In addition, each player in sequence places two manager pieces on any not yet occupied brewery or beer garden.
Control of managers is vital in the game as only they give control about the actions performed by beer gardens and breweries. They can only be placed on the board if no other player holds a majority of shared in that brewery or beer garden. While it is important to have sufficient own managers on the board it is equally necessary to have sufficient influence (shares) in order to prevent other players to take over a manager’s position. Players secretly and simultaneously select their action for a turn having a choice of
However, „Goldbräu“ is a game of shortages. In any one turn players can only perform one of these actions. Therefore, correct timing and balance is an issue in this game; it is too easy to lose control of a beer garden only because one spent too many actions on expansion rather than taking care of maintaining influence (i.e. by buying shares). There’s one more element of timing in the game, which is interesting and new: a player has a benefit, if he is the only one selecting a particular action. Now he is allowed to perform the action twice or pays a lower price for shares. This concept favours anti-cyclical gameplay on the one hand, but to be honest, it introduces also a large element of luck as it is hardly possible to sufficiently plan ahead to make use of it.
This is further amplified by the fact that brewery/beer garden shares are not freely available for purchase. Two shares per turn are revealed and only one of these or a hidden share drawn from the share pile can be bought by the players. Since there are only six shares of a kind, it is common that players have to wait several turn for the right share to become available. Again, it is a matter of timing here combined with making the best out of the current position. As a consequence the ownerships on the board can be rather static.
Aword about the „pretty waitress“ and the „drunkard“: they are giving a bonus/malus to the beer garden in question and their main effect is adding chaos to the game. While their position is known at the beginning of the game, the ability to change their position is completely determined by luck (i.e. decided by cards in the share pile), rendering any advanced planning obsolete.
The subtitle of the game reads „The most clever landlord wins“. Well, does he? Walter mentioned after our first game, that if the shares were freely available and not drawn from a pile „Goldbräu“ would come close to „1830“. This statement indicates a potential problem with „Goldbräu“: it is very dependent on the luck of the cards drawn and may not appeal to die-hard gamers and it is too complex to be a good all-purpose family game. All in all, it is a fast-paced business game and given the right group of people it will provide 60 minutes of fun.
Westpark Gamers ranking: 6.5
rezensiert von Walter Sorger
Der ältere Bruder von „Hol’s der Geier“: Alle Spieler bekommen den gleichen Kartensatz mit aufgedruckten Zahlen zwischen 0 und 6. Alle ziehen verdeckt jeweils eine Karte aus ihrem Stapel und legen sie dann gleichzeitig auf. Jetzt wird das Ergebnis ausgewertet. Gleiche Karten neutralisieren sich und verfallen. Die Spieler, deren Karten nicht verfallen sind, müssen auf einem Schicksalsweg (daher wohl der Name „Destino“) so viele Felder vorwärtsgehen, wie die Zahl auf ihrer Karte angibt. Wer auf diesem Weg 25 Felder vorwärtsgezogen ist, fällt in ein Schwarzes Loch und scheidet aus.
Der Spieler, dessen nicht-verfallene Karte die höchsten Zahl aufweist, bekommt zusätzlich einen Siegpunkt. Wer als erster fünf Siegpunkte auf dem Konto hat, ist Sieger. (Sofern er nicht in das Schwarze Loch gefallen ist.)
Bereits 1986 hat Spear dieses Spiel von Garrett Donner herausgebracht. Wie damals üblich, mit einem richtigen, großen Brett und ausgewachsenen Holzpöppeln, die auf dem Spielbrett tapfer ihrem Schicksal entgegengehen. Das zwei Jahre später erstmals erschienene „Hol’s der Geier“ von Alex Randolph ist dagegen ein reines Kartenspiel und unterscheidet sich von „Destino“ in folgenden Elementen.
| Merkmal | Destino | Hol’s der Geier | Auswirkung |
| Kartenwerte | Liegen zwischen 0 und 6. Jeder Wert kommt mehrfach vor. |
Liegen zwischen 1 und 15. Jeder Wert kommt genau einmal vor. |
Die Wahrscheinlichkeit für das Aufdecken gleicher Zahlen ist bei Destino deutlich höher. |
| Siegpunkte | Es gibt immer nur 1 Siegpunkt pro Karte. | Siegpunkte liegen zwischen minus 5 und plus 10. | Dadurch, daß bei Destino immer die gleiche Anzahl von Siegpunkten vergeben wird, gibt es keine Spekulation auf gute oder schlechte Karten. Man kann weder eine eigene Taktik entwickeln noch die der Mitspieler versuchen zu erraten. |
| Schwarzes Loch | Besitzt dieses zusätzliche Spielende-Kriterium. | Besitzt dieses Merkmal nicht. | Diese zusätzliche Möglichkeit zum Ausscheiden ist ein reizvolles positives Spielelement bei Destino. |
Bei beide Spielen handelt es sich um lockere Kartenspiele zum Aufwärmen, Absacken oder für Zwischendurch. Während „Hol’s der Geier“ aber eine ganze Reihe von taktischen und psychologischen Finessen kennt und hier auch ein gutes Gedächtnis einige Vorteile mit sich bringt, regiert „Destino“ ohne Einschränkungen der blinde Zufall. Es gibt keinerlei Hinweise, ob die Kontrahenten gerade Ambitionen für hohe oder für niedrige Karten zeigen könnten. Dubletten lassen sich nicht vermeiden. Taktik gibt es nicht, höchstenfalls einen Spaßfaktor. Der kann in der richtigen Gesellschaft, vor allem auch in jüngeren Kreisen, vielleicht sogar erheblich sein.
Wir waren von diesem Zufallsprinzip allerdings nicht ganz so erbaut. Um mir nicht unnötig den Kopf über die richtige Kartenauswahl zerbrechen zu müssen, und vor allem um mich nicht hinterher über meine falsche Psychologie ärgern zu müssen, habe ich einfach meine Karten gemischt und jeweils blind eine Karte aus dem eigenen Kartensatz gezogen. Augen zu und durch. Überliste den Zufall mit dem Zufall! Stellt Euch vor, ich habe alle drei Durchgänge gewonnen! Ist das bei „Destino“ vielleicht die Gewinnstrategie?
Günther war enttäuscht, daß man sein Spiel damit kaputt machen kann. Womit er auch Recht hat. Aber leider ist das in „Destino“ eine unvermeidliche, ja offensichtlich sogar eine erfolgreiche Option.
Heute wieder ein Quantum von der in Essen 2004 aufgehalsten Arbeit konsequent abgeleistet.
1) Popeln
Ziemlich belanglos.
Aaron 3, Günther 2, Moritz 3, Walter 2.
Der einzige Spaß kann entstehen, wenn man die Assoziation zum „poppen“ herstellt.
Schreibt man letzteres mit einem oder mit zwei „p“?
Sag' jetzt bloß nicht: „Mit drei „p“, einem vor dem „o“ und zweien nach dem „o“!“
Ich schreibe eine Kurzkritik.
2) Goldbräu
Ein hübsches flottes Wirtschaftsspiel um Ausbau und Erträge in Biergärten. Wenn die Aktien für Brauereien und Biergärten alle offen gehandelt würden, wäre es fast so etwas wie „1830“. Ja, WENN! Aber auch dann nur „FAST“:
Aaron 6, Günther 7, Moritz 6, Walter 7
Aaron schreibt eine Rezension.
3) Metallugie
Endlich konnte Aaron das zweite Spiel der „Gartenzwerge“ auf den Tisch bringen.
Moritz wurde unangefochtener Sieger. Mit einer Strategie, die er uns erst ganz am Ende verraten wollte. Nach seiner Offenbarung konnten wir alle drei nur erwiedern: „Si tacuisses .“ (oder so ähnlich).
Aaron: 4, Günther 4, Moritz 7 (klar, er zog ja von Anfang an uns allen davon), Walter 5.
Moritz schreibt die Rezension (oder was immer das Spiel wert ist).
4) Destino
Ein Uraltspiel aus Günther's Speicher. Ein Vorläufer von „Hol's der Geier“, aber mit großem Spielbrett und echten Pöppeln, um die Punkte zu zählen.
Mit einer fast 100% Zufallsstrategie (in 3 Spielen habe ich wirklich nur 2 von etwa 50 Karten NICHT voll-randomisiert gezogen!) wurde ich 3 mal Sieger.
Aaron: 6, Günther 8 (er war ja der stolze Besitzer), Moritz 5, Walter 5.
Ich schreibe eine Kurzkritik.
reviewed by Moritz Eggert
Two years ago the independent game designer Robert Johannessen from Canada single-handedly revived the grand epic risk-style wargame-cum-adventure fantasy game genre (lying dormant since „Battlemist“ from Fantasy Flight) with his major effort „Quest For The Dragon Lords“, a beautifully produced game with lots of figurines and cards in a sturdy box packed to the rim with goodies. The game found many friends (including me) and so it was no surprise that last year saw the „Crystals of Power“ expansion, which made 5 and 6 player games possible.
With the „Advanced Game Expansion“ Dragonlords gets it’s first „real“ expansion, which adds additional rules to make the game more varied. It can be used with or without the „Crystals of Power“ expansion.
„Dragonlords“ is one of the few games that combine „Talisman“ style fantasy adventure with epic battles. It has relatively simple rules and a reasonably short playing time (for such games), making it possible to play a full game in an evening. This does not really change with the expansion, but players should be well familiar with the original game to fully enjoy the new rules.
What does the expansion change?
First of all the battle rules have been changed for the third time (after streamlining them a little in the „Crystals of Power“) and an all new battleboard is introduced, which is reminiscent of „Axis&Allies“-type games. The main reason for the battleboard is to make large battles easier to play and keep track of (it is actually not necessary to use the board in the many smaller battles the game usually sees), but it also shines by introducing some new tactical options which spice things up considerably. These include rules for flanking and a revised magic system.
The second major change is the introduction of buildings and a tech tree. As an alternative to buying the „ordinary“ units players can now invest in the development of more powerful offensive or defensive units and abilities through the placement of buildings, which gives the game a totally new dynamic. The tech tree is kept relatively simple to keep it playable, but the options it gives the players will result in more varying strategies than before. There are also some buildings that only work with certain races – the formerly weak dwarves especially profit from this as they now can build mighty cannons with the alchemists lab for example. Wizards can now research and buy spells at a temple, not necessarily having to travel to the Wastelands as before. The game comes with beautiful pewter figures to represent the new units, there are also slightly boring looking counters that one can use in addition. The new units all bring different advantages, but as so often in games of this type it is the well-mixed army, which will be most successful.
One can also fortify additional spaces now, which makes the introduction of Siege rules necessary. The Siege rules actually drive the game forward, as laying siege to a space can majorly affect the production abilities of your opponent and can even lead to a quick victory if handled the right way.
All these rules combined make for a deeper but also, as could be expected, slightly „slower“ experience of Dragonlords. QFTDL is still not a deeply strategic game- part of the fun comes from the all-out chaos reigning on the board, but the expansion set is a major attempt to give players with good „empire building“ skills a certain edge and a more rewarding gaming experience.
It is especially nice to see that Johannessen and his crew are clearly dedicated to keep the game alive and interesting. If you talk to him, he is certainly full of enthusiasm and interesting ideas that he wants to try out to satisfy the fans of the game. And it is already clear that the development of „Dragonlords“ has not stopped with this effort. This dedication to increasing perfection is certainly a nice change in a scene, which is increasingly dominated by people trying to make a quick buck with half-baked designs that soon end up as unfinished torsos. Therefore I can fully recommend the game to fantasy enthusiasts – don’t expect the game to be perfect, it still need some tweaks here and there (and Johannessen is working on it), but the sheer enthusiasm for the project makes it stand out from a lot of mediocrity in the genre. Compared to the products of the big player game companies QFTDL is still like a slightly wild grunge band, but it has something that others don’t have – the heart is definitely in it!
reviewed by Moritz Eggert
I have to admit something from the start: I love this game. It is great. Please buy it and make Harry Rowland a rich man (or at least help him produce more games). If games like „History of the World“ or „Civilization“ have ever piqued your interest, this game is an absolute must-have. Believe me. You can trust me. Order it…. NOW!
Now come back to the screen or wherever you are reading this and let me explain why:
„7 Ages“ has a bold approach – 6000 years of human history in a nutshell, or rather, if you dare, in a weekend (although you can shorten the game in many ways, see below). If you ever wanted to see the Babylonians make it into the 20th century and develop nukes (possible in the game), if you ever wanted to see many of the historical great empires rise and fall in a grand all-or-nothing game (possible), if you ever wanted to build world wonders like the Colossus or the Hanging Gardens (possible), if you ever wanted to see Native Americans force back a European invasion (possible), this is the game for you.
The game is about gathering Glory points. Each of the empires you play (and you will play many different ones, rest assured) has different „goals“. Some want to dominate a certain continent, some want to be the most technologically advanced, some want to have the most cities, etc. Achieving the goals gives an empire around 4 glory points average per turn; if you fall below that number, you might think about dumping an empire and start a new one.
Players can perform various actions, which are as follows:
The number of actions seems daunting at first, but with a very simple rule, downtime is effectively negated: each empire can only perform ONE of these actions! (Harry Rowland writes in the rules that it took him several years to finally discover this solution to the problem of endless turns). At the beginning of a turn all players place action chits (they have one of each the above) on their empires, the phases are then played one at a time and only the empires who have the action will be active in each phase.
This of course creates interesting dilemmas – on the one hand, you have to guess the actions of your fellow players and play accordingly, on the other hand, you have to develop your fruitful empires before they disappear from the centre stage of history. A common combo is to play production in one turn, then to play manoeuvre in the next. Two production rounds in a row rarely make sense as you have to always conquer new territory to earn more money than the upkeep for existing troops that amass in crowded spaces costs you. But spreading yourself thin makes you extremely vulnerable to attacks, as your defence will be pitiable.
„Civilize“ is perhaps the most powerful action…if you have the right artefact cards to play, and perhaps an evil event card or two to spare. However, to use it effectively you MUST have played „Destiny“ with some other empire, because cards aren’t automatically drawn, they have to be acquired. „Trade and Progress“ seems boring at first, but many empires need to be advanced to gain glory points, and also many nifty units only become available in higher ages.
This brings us to the „age track“, which is the heart of the game. Each empire will have a position on this 7×7 square track, which 1) shows in which age it is (one of the 7 lines) and 2) which units it can build (certain spaces show units which can be bought if you are on or beyond this spaces).
There are also „dark ages“ spaces which can only be left via a „trade and progress“ action. The game ends, when the final space of the track is reached (or „Internet“ is invented – a very funny idea). This happens more or less automatically after a while (barring dark ages) as each empire normally gets a „free progress“ at the end of a turn.
The „age track“ can also be used to limit game length; one could decide to just play one age for example.
The empire that is farthest ahead on the track denotes the current „age“ of the game. There are over a hundred cards representing the cultures (they can also be used as event or artifact cards), but you can only start an empire if it’s age is „current“. You can even restart an empire (if still possible) that already appeared.
The amount of units available in the game is impressive – any possible military unit you can think of is represented, there are even Elephant and Star Wars counters that would make Ronny Reagan proud (or ashamed, as he should be). In addition each playable colour (15 empire „colours“ are available) has a completely different counter mix, even different strengths for various units. Therefore, you better think twice when selecting a colour for an empire that tries to conquer the seas (for which you need ships) – some colours have more but weaker ships, some less but more powerful ships.
The combat system (diceless) looks daunting at first, but turns out to be very ingenious and logical. Each player divides their troops in a front and back row, adding support, frontline value, defensive bonuses, bonuses for being in a higher age etc., all this added to a random card that you can look at BEFORE deploying your troops. If you burn up your troops quickly at the front you will have to reuse them and gain disorder markers (which makes you weaker), on the other hand some units are stronger in frontline value than in support and vice versa. The ancient battles at the beginning of the game are usually tense affairs, as the card drawn (valued 0-7) really can make a difference. As technology advances units become more and more powerful and fortifications and cards (luck) play a much lesser role (which reflects the real evolution of military technology). There are some cards that mess around with this, but usually you win a battle that you really commit yourself to with the necessary force, which is nice.
The best thing though is that war is not the best way to win – in fact, there are very few cultures, which profit from all-out conquest like the Mongols or the Huns (following their real-life counterparts). The vast majority of cultures profits from other things. In our current game, I play the Phoenicians under the rule of an able artist. Since starting their empire, the Phoenicians have never left their homeland, instead concentrating on building artefacts. So far, they have a record number of eight artefacts in their homespace, gaining double as many points through the artist present. I actually got many more points through peaceful play than if I had tried to attack my neighbours!
All out war never pays off in the game – the more you fight the more you lose opportunities to get glory points. In fact artists (to my great joy the game actually has counters for personalities like Mozart and Shakespeare) can be deemed the most powerful point-garnering leaders in the whole game, much more effective than tacticians and strategists. The most often used tactic is to select an empire that is far away from any „action“ or „conflict“ and let it thrive as long as you can, of course, but sometimes it also makes sense to start empires close to or even IN other players‘ lands to limit their progress.
Conflict is therefore sometimes a necessity (and fun to play), but it is nice to see that the game is not solely dependent on it (like „History of the World“). Glory points are forever – once you gain them you don’t lose them, so in effect it is not important if you are the big boss on the board – gaining glory points in any way possible is the main incentive.
I already noted that event cards can be very powerful – in fact, this is the only gripe one could have with the game. Some events are so powerful that they literally can erase a complete huge empire with the play of one card. In the long run things equal out, though, as at the moment players oppose a certain empire it is best to give it up anyway, and by having it destroyed one even saves an otherwise necessary time-consuming action („discard empire“). The events have clearly been introduced to create flavour (of course, there are earthquakes and even the dreaded civil wars which play similar like in „Civilization“) and to satisfy players who want to have a „historic“ or epic game with no regard to game balance. The rules suggest a „Mike Siggins“ variant in which events can only be played on empires „in range“ (range is determined by the age an empire is in). I would certainly recommend that variant, but it is also easily possible to leave away the events altogether, especially if you want to play a shorter game. As I already said, events will equal out in the long run, but if you only play a couple of rounds, they can be very unfair.
„7 Ages“ is not, as many would expect, a complicated game. In fact the rules are only slightly more complicated than „History of the World“. One can tell that a lot of streamlining work has gone into the rules – although some concepts need getting a little used to; the rules only need to be consulted for looking up the various artefact and leader abilities (a handout would have been handy, but isn’t existent). They also contain a long fun article covering the whole world history and extensive and interesting designer notes. There is even a quite beautiful and poignant poem by Harry Rowland’s father in it, to top things off.
The amount of counters needed for the game is immense. ADG provides six heavily cluttered countersheets (the graphic design is excellent, by the way), but even then many counters can only be found on the back of counters that are needed somewhere else, which makes it hellish to find some particular counter. Some event cards ask for counters that are not existent (or at least we couldn’t find them). The amount of named leaders and artefacts is staggering, and if you don’t put them in some kind of order before the game you might spend a couple of minutes to find Genghis Khan for example.
I recommend using different, out-of-the-game markers for fortresses (we use small wooden blocks) and unrest (we use the „gem stones“ used for Magic the Gathering-type card games). The huge board (two A1 paper sheets) is cluttered with counters as it is, so some different looking, easy-to-spot counters are a nice change. Are all these (minor) gripes damaging the game as it is? Definitely no, you will find your own solutions, and play it nonetheless.
Don’t be deluded, though: „7 Ages“ is not a game for the casual gamer or for the family gathering. It demands some attention, and especially time. You would need a weekend to play a full game from age 1 (which is actually not necessary, as any age can be used to start a game) with 4-5 players. In contrast to some other monster games in your cabinet this game won’t gather dust. It is a game that you will want to store somehow and continue playing again and again. Because there is little downtime every player is constantly involved in the game, and the fascination of seeing empires rise and fall in a truly epic but totally playable game is payoff enough for me. It is even easily possible to join a game already in progress, or to leave a game and come back later. The Internet will be another medium in which this game will thrive – there is already an experimental cyberboard version around, and the game lends itself easily to an online or computer version – Harry should recommend it to the excellent Matrix Games who are already working on computer versions of „Empires in Arms“ and „World in Flames“.
If you have any love for grand historical games (AND call yourself a non-casual gamer) this game will become a classic for you, to be visited again and again, for countless hours of pleasure. Don’t wait, do Harry a favour and order a game, I promise you won’t be disappointed.
