Nations the board game is a perfect example of what I like to call board game evolution design, not to be confused with expansion or revolution, sometimes not even really innovation design. It takes a board game that is already beloved by many and applies modern, established design methods and mechanics to it, to create a new, more efficient more streamlined board game. This is often reflected in 2nd edition versions of games, for example Descent and Descent 2nd edition are clearly the result of evolution based design. Often however the original license holders never takes it upon themselves to re-invent their games, or in some cases they do but they make too many changes to call in a 2nd edition. This method of board game design we have seen quite a bit of in recent years. Some good examples are games like Agricola which evolved into Caverna, or RISK evolving into RISK legacy. There are countless examples of this and there is no question in my mind that Nations is an evolution design of Through The Ages, another Civilization building game. To write a review without comparing it to Through The Ages would be silly.

The thing about evolution design is that it’s not always a positive step forward, sometimes the newer design methods manage to create a more streamlined experience, but result is a lesser game. We are going to take a look at Nations today, compare it to Through The Ages and see how its evolutionary design fares. It’s not going to be easy, Through the Ages is a beloved game, sitting pretty on BoardGameGeeks top 10 list for a very long time and for good reason. It is a really great game, perhaps a bit niche but for lovers of complex civilization building games, Through The Ages represents the ultimate experience in the genre.

Nations is a board game of Civilization building using a variety of clever resource management, worker placement and card mechanics. There is no map, so like Through The Ages it is a very abstract experience. It’s really about who can manage their resources and respond to the dynamics of the game the best in the chase for victory points.

In Nations each player takes on the role of a Civilization during the age of Antiquity and manages It through four ages all the way to the Industrial age (roughly world war I). During the game you will purchase improvement cards for your civilization, manage your military strength, stability, heritage (think culture) and your population (your workers). You will build Wonders of The World, fight battles, conquer colonies, construct buildings and acquire great historical figures all through the heavy abstraction of card play. If that sounds familiar it’s because that is the exact same premise as Through the Ages and while many of the mechanics of the game actually differ, conceptually the two games are identical.

What’s Different
First and foremost we must note that as expected given the complexity of Through The Ages mechanics, Nations is a much simpler game, as it intends to be. One of the biggest complaints about Through The Ages is its complexity. Nations is easier to learn and teach, far easier to remember the rules and in as a whole very streamlined by comparison to the often clunky and rules heavy Through the Ages. The real question here is what is lost by this change and the simple answer is not much other than exactly what the intention of the changes are, that sometimes overwhelming complexity that Through The Ages is famous for.

I love Through The Ages don’t get me wrong but no matter how often I play it, I can never fully remember the rules and during a typical game of Through The Ages consulting the very heavy manual is so constant its really almost part of the game.

From a stand point of strategy, tactics and dynamics Nations is as infinite as it is subtle, same as Through The Ages is. If Through The Ages is difficult to learn, impossible to master, Nations is easy to learn but impossible to master. Nations manages to remove the rules complexity, without affecting that deep strategic, often mind melting experience of Civilization management that we got in Through The Ages. From this perspective alone, Nations gets an A+ in terms of achievement of its objective, which was to create a less complex version of Through The Ages.

The next big change is the addition of Asymmetrical play, now Through The Ages also had this but Nations takes it a step further by creating two key mechanics that allow for a wider variation of play. The first is that each Civilization has an A and a B side, the A sides are all the same so it allows for a game where everyone begins the game with the exact same starting conditions. While the B-side is unique to each Civilization representing a sort of historically presumed strength of that nation creating Asymmetrical play. This in itself allows a wider variation of play styles, you can have that “we all start even game” which is great, but offers that asymmetrical style if you so desire.

The other element is the dynamics of the improvement cards themselves. In Through The Ages, while the cards that come up would do so in different order, they would always all come up. This in a sense meant that while there was some dynamics, there was a fixed strategic element you could count on each game. In Nations there are far more cards available than will ever come up, so you cannot reliably align yourself to a single long term strategy, you really have to see what comes up and adapt accordingly. This does wonders for replay ability and creates different types of games where in some Military will be vital, while others stability or money will reign supreme. Sometimes there will be horrible food shortages across the board, other times there will heavy competition for Ore or Heritage. The point here is that you don’t know what to expect and you play the game that is in front of you not one that is theoretical and pre-planned. This change in Nations can be a bit frustrating for those coming from Through The Ages accustomed to building long term pre-planned strategies but for me personally this was a welcome addition to the game. It makes the game more dynamic with a far greater replay value.

It doesn’t stop there and this next part is where I think Nations really shines over Through The Ages. You have to figure that Nations like Through The Ages has a lot of strategic decisions you are constantly making. Over the course of many games you are going to get better and better at making those decisions, which creates a problem when playing against new players. Simply put, the first time you play you’re not going to be as good as the 2nd or 3rd time you play. So what do you do when you have 2 players who have a lot of experience, one that is a self-proclaimed master and one that has never played the game before? Nations answers this question with a mechanic that sets the level of each player, kind of a handy cap built into the game to help level the playing field. I love this addition and while you can certainly house rule such a mechanic into Through The Ages, its addition is an example of the evolution of Through The Ages design. It creates balance not just in the game itself but between the skill levels of the players.

Now anyone who has ever played Through The Ages knows that if you try to play a 3 or a 4 player game, you are settling in for a very long haul. We are talking 5+ hours minimum, far more if any of the players are new. In fact to make Through the Ages a game playable in a reasonable amount of time you really have to go two player which is a shame, since part of the fun of Civilization building is having lots of Civilizations. Nations again proves that with clever and streamlined mechanics you can create an epic experience without the epic time overhead as even with a 5 player game you aren’t likely to go over 3 hours. This is a HUGE boon for Nations, in particular that its precisely the length of time it takes to play Through The Ages that it almost never hits the table. No game in my collection has ever collected as much dust as Through The Ages does, even though everyone who has ever played the game at my house loved the experience. In fact the most common sentiment about Through The Ages is “I loved it, let’s never play it again”. More than that however Nations is a far more interactive game, there is virtually no downtime for anyone at any time. Each player takes one action, than the game moves forward. In Through The Ages a single players turn can take upwards of 10 minutes if you sprinkle in some Analysis Paralysis, so downtimes in a 3 or 4 player game can be excruciatingly long. In Nations things can move almost too fast sometimes, your constantly watching the board and anticipating your next action. It has a good flow and feels great.

The main result here is that these two games have two very different very distinct forms of re-playability. You have the dynamics of the improvement deck and the order in which they might come up in Nations, but you also have this element where you don’t know what strategies will be viable. You will have to determine that in the course of the play and even potentially change that strategy in response to what is going on, but not just game to game or round to round, but action to action as the actions of the players leading to yours can turn things upside down for you.

The result is a game that forces you to constantly re-evaluate the table, re-think, plan and execute strategies. This is a far cry from the much more predictable and stable Through The Ages and while some might actually not like this aspect of Nations because it can come off as random, it does present a game that is more opportunistic in nature. More importantly it creates a feeling of distinctively memorable ages in the course of the game as Military might be the big thing in the Antiquity age, but by the Medieval age building wonders becomes the THING to do. It’s just a more responsive experience, one that makes the game more thematic but even more importantly less predictable and more dynamic. This leads this very abstract game to feeling less abstract and more thematic.

Again Nations scores an A+ from me in the department of re-playbility, this subtle yet very important change pushes Nations into a more tactical and strategic game. To win you have to adapt your strategies for each game, each round and each action as opposed to adopting a strategy you apply to every game because it’s effective, a problem Through The Ages suffers from terribly.

Conclusion
Overall I think Nations beats Through The Ages in every single category you could use as a comparison. Its more streamlined, easier to learn, it has more strategic depth and far more varied tactical play, there is more interaction between players and that interaction is constant. There is less downtime, there is more replay ability, the game is faster and it can accommodate more players in a far shorter time.

I still think Through The Ages is a great game, very much deserving its praise and a home in your collection. I think however you will have a hard time introducing Through The Ages to a group that has played Nations. Nations is a game that feels right and brings to the forefront that same depth and harmonized Civilization building experience without all the overhead of Through The Ages and is far more thematic to boot.

In the end its about gameplay and experience. Nations is the clear winner here, because as much as I love Through The Ages epicenes, that epicenes sours a great deal when its enormity and complexity coupled with its excessive demands on your time result in a game that you love but never play. Nations fixes this problem and its designer has created a more approachable and viable game for your gaming group. Sure we could nit pick at nations and point out some of the interesting albeit complex mechanics that have been removed that are part of what gave Through The Age’s feel. I certainly understand people who notice and recognize that, but again, if no one wants to play a game in your group because it takes too long and its too complex, even if it’s a great game it doesn’t do anyone any good.

Nations is a winner, one that I think will land on my top 10 games list in the future. I give it my highest recommendation with the caveat that like Through The Ages it is still a very niche game. Its still a heavy Euro and that is something you really need to be into in order to enjoy it.

Designer: Paolo Mori

Libertalia is really a big surprise to me, it’s a game from a designer who’s games have not really hit with me in the past. I found Paolo Mori’s previous games to always come up short in the fun department even though games like Rise of Augustus and Vasco Da Gama featured interesting topics and mechanics, they were a bit of a drag. Libertalia is clearly Paolo Mori’s best game to date and has gained a fair amount of popularity and praise from some respected reviewers. I got an opportunity to finally try this little card game and while I went into it with limited expectations and a “sure let’s try it” attitude, after a single turn of the game it immediately got my attention.

In Libertalia you are a pirate captain who along with other captains (other players) has just captured and plundered a ship. Now it’s time to split up the loot and the game-play is a sort of card driven negotiation of that activity where you try to get the most amount of treasure from the plunder for yourself by playing pirate theme character cards with a wide variety of special powers.

The game-play is broken down into three days, presumably three separate ships that you capture as a group. During each day players will negotiate for treasure on that ship, broken down further into 6 turns, effectively 6 plays of cards. Each player will receive 9 identical cards from a deck of 30 cards numbered from 1 to 30. For each turn random bounty tokens are drawn for that turn of play, these bounty tokens are treasure from the plunder each with its own value, but also includes cursed treasure, treasure maps and a few specialty tokens. This is what your negotiating for. The goal of the game is to claim as many doubloons (victory points) at the end of the day as possible, the player with the most victory points at the end of 3 rounds (3 days of play) wins the game.

Claiming bounty tokens is very simple. Each player selects a card represented by a pirate themed character from his hand of 9 cards and plays it face down. When everyone has chosen a card, the cards are revealed and put in ascending order. Than starting from the player with the highest number, you take 1 treasure of your choice. Simple right!

The catch is that each of these cards are actually characters, each with unique special powers. These powers vary is strength, but in those powers lays the bulk of the strategy. The trick to the game is that powers are executed in reverse order (from lowest numbered card to highest), so while playing the highest numbered card will yield you first pick at the treasure, the lowest card numbers have their abilities triggered first. These abilities can impact characters, victory point earnings and have all manner of special effects so by the time all the powers are executed some of the characters may have been removed, players may have already scored points or taken a variety of special actions that shift things in their favor.

The game is really about trying to guess what cards other players will play and playing your cards in a manner that will benefit you and screw everyone else the most. It’s also knowing which cards to save for later, a lot of this game is about timing. You know what the nine cards everyone has (at least in the first round) so it’s really about just trying to guestimate how your opponents will approach each of the turns in a 1 day round. You can only play any card one time and that card will either be added to your Den (your play area) which coincidently can result in added effects as some cards have effects that take place from the Den or they will be removed. In either case you will only play them once (in most cases) so you must choose wisely.

Now you will only play 6 of the 9 cards in your hand and in the next round (the next day) players will get a new set of 6 identical cards. Hence by the second round of the 9 cards only 6 of those cards in the players hands are identical. This happens again in the 3rd round so things become a bit more chaotic as players not only consider what cards to play in any given turn, but what cards to save for future rounds.

There are many effects that transpire during the course of a round, characters will be eliminated, resurrected, create lasting effects, help players score points, put curses on other players (minus victory points). All of these effects are based on the cards so certainly anyone familiar with the game has a clear advantage but it doesn’t take more than one or two plays of the game to get a grip around what is possible so the game goes from “learning how to play” and “playing with strategy” for any given player after a game or two.

Libertalia is a game that is very simple to learn to play but nearly impossible to master. The complexity of the moving parts and trying to make predictions is very rewarding when you succeed and heartbreaking when you fail, but it’s not a game of guessing, it really is a mind game of prediction and reaction to what has already been played and what can be played in the future. There are a lot of surprises and “oh shit” moments in the game, it has that spark a lot of great strategy games I love have like Dirk Henn’s shogun where there is a period of quiet contemplation with a sudden burst of energy and chaos after a revelation. The more players the more chaotic and difficult it is to make predictions, but to me this really makes the game more fun. The game plays 2 to 6 players, but I think the sweet spot is 4 to 6 players.

It’s a fast, relatively short game, the box says 45 minutes and that is quite accurate and once everyone knows how to play I think it can be even faster than that. (the first game might take a little longer).

Libertalia is a game that scratches that hard core gamer in me, it’s got the depth of a very solid and thinky strategy game, but is so simple and social enough with a familiar theme (pirates) to be welcomed as a after dinner party game you can pull out with none gamers. It has energy and excitement built into that moment of revelation of the cards and I think this does wonders for the atmosphere it creates. It really has those longevity legs as well, it’s a game that gets better with repeated plays and is just short enough that in can almost be used as a filler. I was really surprised on how quickly I became enamored with it, in particular given that this designer’s games have landed so flat with me in the past. Now some might say this game is a kind of watered down Caylus, which I suppose one could make that argument but I personally never cared for Caylus so the fact that I really like this one says to me that the games are distinctively different enough.

I’m not sure one could say the game is thematic, it has a solid theme which really comes through in the art work which is nothing short of amazing, but you’re not really doing much piracy stuff. It really is just a kind of estimation, logic card game which could easily be layered with any sort of theme you like. I think choosing a pirate theme for this game was a smart idea though because pirates are kind of that universal theme that gamer or not you can get behind. Fantasy themes and science fiction themes typically don’t land well with none gamers, but pirate themes in my personal experience don’t have that “we are nerds playing a board game” social stigma.

I highly recommend Libertalia in particular for any gamers out there trying to get non-gamers into the fold. It’s a really clever yet simple game that can function really well as a gateway game, but it has the muscle and depth of a solid game for hardcore gamers. I honestly believe this to be one of the best games to be released in 2012, a solid contender for my top 10 entry level games, I’m certain if I did the list today it would find placement there. It might even breach my top 10 best games in the future, I really like it that much.

Designer: Michael Rieneck, Stefan Stadler

Pillars of the Earth is one of those games that is touted as a classic or a gateway game into the world of designer board games by many. Released in 2006 it comes from that golden age of Euro games period where a tremendous amount of modern game design comes from and while I agree the game is simple enough to be a gateway game, I find it highly unlikely I would introduce this game to brand new would be gamers, there are just far better games than this one to do that with and the theme is a bit of a hard sell. I actually didn’t play the game until it was reprinted not too long ago, In fact, you could say I largely skipped the golden age of Euro games and I’m now kind of going back and playing some of these older games like Pillars of the Earth. This gives me a unique perspective because I have played games that use mechanics that where based on some of these originals. Interestingly enough though, I find that in in some rare cases the so called classics actually play a lot more like modern (recent) releases and Pillars of the Earth is definitely one of those.

Pillars of the Earth is a uniquely designed game and one of those rare Euro games with a theme that fits the mechanics even though being architects of a cathedral in the 12th century is not exactly what I would call an exciting theme, at least it doesn’t sound like it when I describe it. I don’t want to come off sounding negative however as Pillars of the Earth is a very interesting, very well paced and very challenging game and for a Euro game, very thematic.

In Pillars of the Earth you are grand master builders (Architects) in the 12th century contributing to the building a massive construction project (a cathedral). It’s a game based on a book by Ken Follet that you have probably never read as well as a TV show that comes highly recommended and acclaimed that no one has seen. I’m not entirely sure the theme of the book or the show come through, but you certainly feel like the manager of a construction project in the game and in the end that is far more important to the theme than the actual literature it’s based on.

In this worker placement game you compete via management of a variety of resources including workers, gold and various other building resources (wood, stone etc..) on a tight game board with limited spots all in the typical Euro style battle for victory points. This is not the part of the game that makes it unique, though I would point out that from an artistic point of view the game board is nothing short of beautiful and it’s a joy to play on. What does make the game unique is that the game is pleasantly balanced, has a number of random elements (that don’t make the game random) and puts players to tough choices that go beyond simply “where to place the workers”.

In fact, even worker placement itself is two prong as you first choose where to place your “worker units” to collect resources but later you also place your master builders on spots with various beneficial effects. The master builders are put into play using a really clever mechanic of pulling random master builders out of a bag and placing them on a roundel where the player who’s master builder is pulled must decide whether he will pay in gold the fee to put the builder into play, or pass so he can place the builder later in the round for free. This combined with other tough decisions like which resource cards or builder cards you pick all combine to create really an almost overwhelming amount of choices. Each choice has to serve a purpose and be planned, but the random elements to the game like when your master builder will be pulled out of the bag for example and how much he will cost to put into play create tension and management problems you have to solve as you go. It’s quite easy to mismanage yourself or manage yourself into a corner, so while newbie friendly rules wise, the game can be quite unforgiving at times and you can see your victory slipping away from you because of a couple of bad decisions early in the game.

I suppose the issue I have with most worker placement games is that they tend to become kind of predictable, it might explain why I like Lords of Waterdeep and Kingsburg. In Lords of Waterdeep you have quest cards and secret missions on your lords cards that force you to adapt your strategies for each game while in Kingsburg your rolling dice to determine where you CAN go. The randomness in Pillars of the Earth don’t force results upon you but rather put you to tough decisions, unlike Kingsburg for example where the dice limit what you can do as a mechanic. This is the sort of randomness I really like where it can be mitigated a great deal with smart decisions.

In either case the mechanic works very well, it creates tensions, opens paths to strategies and varies each game sufficiently so that you really can’t repeat the same strategies with each play. More than that though Pillars of the Earth has a lot of sections of decisions, the choices aren’t simple and they have long term effects. Which builder and resource cards you claim in one part of the round, which resources you claim with your workers in another part of the round, when to put out your master builders and subsequently where to put them in the last part of the round all form the events of a single round that has lasting effects for this and future rounds. Than you have to deal with the event cards, worry about your limited resources like gold for example all the while trying to squeeze as many points out as you can. There are a lot of moving parts yet the games sequence is fast paced and keeps everyone involved at all times so there is virtually no downtime in the game. You’re constantly making decisions and the game rewards you for those decisions and punishes you for mistakes. The pacing feels just right, the tension is just right and while I prefer the game with 4 players, it plays fine with 3 (skip it as a two player game).

I think as far as worker placement games go the tough sell here is the rather bland theme and again, I say bland more because it sounds bland, in practice the game is actually very engaging and interesting, with a theme that really fits the mechanics and kind of settles naturally into the games flow. The hurdle is trying to explain to your friends that a game about 12th century architects building a cathedral can be exciting, strategic and fun. When I describe Lords of Waterdeep for example, I tell them that they will be noble lords of a fantasy city vying for power and control, suffice to say, it’s a much easier sell.

Pillars of the Earth is a very good game, in fact, dare I say it may actually be a better game than Lords of Waterdeep which I consider the premiere worker placement game because it’s a got considerably more depth (in particular if you compare Pillars of the Earth to Lords of Waterdeep without the corruption expansion). It’s more gamey, even if it boasts relatively simple rules depth and I find that the many strategies and approaches to the game, coupled with some of its randomness give this game a very high replay ability value. It may in the future appear on my top 10 list, I like it that much.

I would put this one into the worker placement game for people who want to take a couple steps above the pure worker placement games. Lords of Waterdeep and Kingsburg are good example of very simple and straightforward worker placement games. You put your worker down, collect resources, score points. Rinse and repeat. These games are fun for various reasons and I will happily play them both, but for me, Pillars of the Earth really brings it up a notch above the standard worker placement affair. There is more umpf to it and I really think if you like worker placement games this is one you definitely should not miss.

I highly recommend it.