Monthly Archives: May 2015

Board Game Reviews

Nations A Comparative Review to Through The Ages

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.

Nations isn't exactly a thematically overwhelming visual experience, in fact considering the price the components are quite weak, but what it lacks in sensory eye candy it makes up for it great gameplay.
Nations isn’t exactly a thematically overwhelming visual experience, in fact considering the price the components are quite weak, but what it lacks in sensory eye candy it makes up for it great gameplay.

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.

At its core, aside from resource management it's all about the improvement cards. There are so many and at best half of them will make it into any game so there is massive variety and re-playability in Nations as a result.
At its core, aside from resource management it’s all about the improvement cards. There are so many and at best half of them will make it into any game so there is massive variety and re-playability in Nations as a result.

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.

Through the Ages visual appeal is nothing to throw your panties on stage for and as seen here, its a game so long that it actually makes a far better two player experience because of its extensive time requirements to play it.
Through the Ages visual appeal is nothing to throw your panties on stage for and as seen here, it makes a far better two player experience because of its extensive time requirements to play it.

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.

Nations is a heavy Euro game there is no denying it, but it has considerably more interactivity and meanness than most Euros. Wars can be nasty, especially if you are caught unprepared.
Nations is a heavy Euro game there is no denying it, but it has considerably more interactivity and meanness than most Euros. Wars can be nasty, especially if you are caught unprepared.

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.

There is no denying the sexiness of map based Civilization games like FFG's version, but for all its glory to represent moving units most of the time the game is about resource management and building anyway. The map, is really almost unnecessary and this wonderful discovery as presented in Through The Ages is simplified and streamlined in Nations.
There is no denying the sexiness of map based Civilization games like FFG’s version, but for all its glory to represent moving units most of the time the game is about resource management and building anyway. The map, is really almost unnecessary and this wonderful discovery as presented in Through The Ages is simplified and streamlined in Nations.

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.

The improvement cards have iconography that is immediately recognizable and understood making complex resource tracking a snap, yet there is a tremendous variety here which triggers far more excitement than you might expect from a Civilization building game.
The improvement cards have iconography that is immediately recognizable and understood making complex resource tracking a snap, yet there is a tremendous variety here which triggers far more excitement than you might expect from a Civilization building game.

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.

Board Game Reviews

The Witcher by Fantasy Flight Games 2014

Designer: Ignacy Trzewiczek
From the mind of a Pol that gave us the rather complex 51st State and the humorous civilization builder Imperial Settlers, after playing the Witcher its clear to me that Ignacy Trzewiczek is a designer with a bright future. Whether you love or hate his games, there is no denying that he aspires to be inventive, creating the line rather than towing it. I might not be a huge fan of his games as they don’t really rub the genre of board games I prefer, but there is no question regarding his fresh approach to game design.

The Witcher board game is an attempt at a quasi-semi cooperative, semi competitive adventure game based on the PC game that bares its name. Now right of the bat, if you have ever played any of the Witcher PC games you will note that there was a very dedicated and concentrated effort to bring the Witcher universe to life in this board game through the art style and flavor text. It burst with Witcher themes, backstory and art. It’s clear, whoever made this game is obviously well researched or big fan of the Witcher games. The attention to detail here is uncanny. I say this here at the start before I get into the review because whatever can be said about the game play, there is no denying that this IS a Witcher game and for that alone the publisher (Fantasy Flight Games) deserves a node from Witcher fans for making sure that when you make a themed game that the theme comes through and in Witcher the board game the theme is most certainly center stage.

In the Witcher each player takes on the role of one of the main characters from the Witcher PC games story, for Witcher fans you can probably guess who those characters are. These characters each have their own special abilities, combined with a special die(dice) that reflect those abilities which they add to a pool of common dice when facing various challenges. In addition there is a development deck which represents the various items and abilities of that character, each being unique and asymmetrical. The designer did a great job of making sure that not only do the characters in the game play and feel like their PC equivalents, but that each is well balanced and offers a unique way in which the game is approached from that characters perspective. The goal of the game is to complete three main quests, this is done by going around the map collecting clue tokens to qualify for completion of these quests. Relatively simple premise but in the world of the Witcher, this seemingly simple task is a daunting one because around every corner there are very unforgiving encounters that will do everything in their power to stop you. The game ends when any one player completes his third main quest, but the winner of the game is the player with the most

Its all about the characters and while there are only four you can bet with Fantasy Flight behind the game there will be expansions that will add more.
Its all about the characters and while there are only four you can bet with Fantasy Flight behind the game there will be expansions that will add more.

victory points at the end, so while it’s a kind of a race to complete quests you have to make sure that you are actually winning the game by having the most points.

It’s really a game of playing to your strengths, without question it’s all about the characters. For example if you are playing as Geralt, you are the definitive warrior able to take on the game’s most fierce monsters very early, even before you start gaining development cards. He is a bad ass and appropriately you feel like a bad ass throughout the game. While in the same token Dandelion is not particularly well equipped to fight, instead his approach is more subtle, able to gain great success through subtle plays and stealing the thunder from the success of other hero’s. The point here is that whichever hero you play, you will approach the game in a very different way and in its own way this creates significant replay ability, but above all else it empowers the thematic presence of the characters in this adventure game.

In the course of play each player will take two actions from a pool of five actions, four of which are the same for everyone and one which is unique to the character. Players can travel, which allows them to move on the board to new locations on the map. Something you have to do to track down clue tokens necessary to complete your quests and deal with different threats at those locations like misfortune cards or monsters. You can also investigate, which is essentially the act of drawing from one of three investigation decks. These can be positive or negative, but in general you can make gains through these cards and many of the cards you keep which can later be used in combination with other investigation cards. It’s kind of a gamble, but one you can prepare for by developing your character. It’s a dangerous endeavor but it is one of the many ways you can get one up on the competition as investigation can yield extra clue tokens, gold, victory points and sometimes even the much sought after and very powerful fortune cards.

Standard for Fantasy Flight Games the miniatures are amazing.
Standard for Fantasy Flight Games the miniatures are amazing.

You can also develop, now this is perhaps the only risk free thing in the game you can do. You get to draw two development cards from the unique development deck for your specific character and keep one card. These very potent cards make your character more powerful in some way by imbuing you with powers or representing special equipment. Absolutely necessary to gain developments throughout the game, the more you have the better chance you stand against the many threats you will face in the game.

Finally there is resting, simply put, during the game you are going to sustain injuries and the trouble with taking damage is that you place the damage tokens over one of the actions for your character. When you have an injury on an action you can’t take that action, so over time gaining too many injuries results in you having fewer options. If you take enough damage the only action you might be able to take is rest. Resting simply allows you to remove one of your critical wounds or two of your regular wounds.

The final type of action you can take depends on your character but effectively this action will allow you to gain some special character advantage. Geralt can recharge his potions, Triss can recharge her spells, Dandelion gains much needed gold and Yarpen can make use of his companion cards. In a sense characters power up their ability, sort of recharging them and getting them ready for whatever dangers lay ahead.

The sequence of play is that each character takes his two actions and deals with any encounters as a result which is typically through the drawing of misfortune cards, investigation cards or monsters. You continue around the table taking actions until a winner is determined.

Each character has a unique die (dice) that reflect special abilities and actions they can take. A simple but clever touch to give each character a unique feel.
Each character has a unique die (dice) that reflect special abilities and actions they can take. A simple but clever touch to give each character a unique feel.

All and all the Witcher is a very easy game to learn to play and while there are a few special rules and effects, largely anything you need to do is written on the various cards you draw, most of which are very thematically laid out so that the card and the activity are decisively linked. There really is a lot of common sense in the game and the instructions are clear ensuring your focusing on the game rather than trying to figure out the game.

The question is does all this amount to a good game and my first instinct is to say yes, for an adventure game it really does exactly what you hope it would do and it does it in a streamlined and organized fashion. It’s entertaining to suffer at the hands of the Witchers very tough world almost as much fun as it is to watch your friends suffer. Unfortunately the Witcher suffers from three problems that make this largely a pass for me and I think unless you are a hardcore adventure board gamer and huge fan of the Witcher you will feel the same.

The first issue is the length of the game. Now when you first start to play the game, after a couple of hour’s players will be finishing their first main quests and really if at that point the game ended the length would be near perfect. At this point however you are only 1/3rd through the game. By the time someone finishes their 3rd quest not only will you be well into your 4th or 5th hour of the game (depending how fast players take their actions) but you will have known who is going to win the game a couple of hours back.

In every game that I played the winner was pretty much determined about midway through the game and while the game is well balanced (each time it was a different character), it was quite decisive. It was one of those situations where you are playing a board game for 2 more hours after you already know you lost and that really takes the steam out of the game.

Simply put, the game just overstays its welcome, it’s too long and the gaps between the clear winner and the losers comes way too soon in that process resulting in you playing a game you have already lost for far too long.

The second problem with the game is that there really is very little strategy in how the winner is determined. All the players are going to be doing pretty much the same thing and while I will grant you the how of it differs, ultiamtly its all about collecting clues, finishing quests and scoring points. There are different approaches to this, but while the methods differ, the strategies are identical.

The winner will be the player who has the fewest set backs and about 90% of the time when you draw a card with a negative effect it’s an effect you have no control over. You draw the card and it says “this bad thing happens to you”. There is no opportunity or chance to do anything about it in most cases, you simply suffer the effects for drawing the card, an element of the game made worse as you typically have no say or control or opportunity to avoid drawing the card in the first place.

In a sense, it’s a game of drawing cards and seeing what happens to you and while there are some decisions that will effect when you draw cards, to win you must push forward so drawing them is inevitable and since you can’t influence most effects it’s really just a question of how many bad affects you suffer compared to the other players, or more specifically which bad effects. Drawing a misfortune card that causes you to lose a couple of clues, or hits you with a bunch of misfortune tokens can delay your progress by 2 to 3 rounds. If that happens a couple of times, your chances of winning will slip away very quickly and catching up is very difficult. I played a game in which I gave no thought to strategy at all, I just moved around collecting clues as fast as I could and I won simply because I didn’t get hit as hard or as often as the other players with negative effects.

The moment you realize that the few decisions you actually make have very little impact on what does and doesn’t happen to you, the game really derails. It maintains some level of excitement because drawing a card to see what happens has its own fun element to it, but doing it for 5 hours is far too long.

The third and final problem is that although it’s an adventure game it’s neither cooperative nor competitive, even though it really does try its best to be. There really is very little you can do to help your friends, for example you always fight monsters alone, no one can help you and since it’s a competitive game of victory points, I’m not sure there would be any reason to do so. Cooperation comes in only one form which is trading gold or clues, something I found is seldom done, again because your so called allies are your main competition in the game so helping them is not something you want to do. In fact in 3 games only once did anyone actually ever trade anything. On the flip side while the game is a competitive race to victory points there is almost nothing you can do to other players in the scope of that competition to hinder them. There are no actions you can do to stop or slow them down in any way, really much like the rest of the game aside from drawing a random card that has an effect that impacts one or more players by chance there is nothing you can actively do to anyone.

In a sense everyone plays their own game and while it’s entertaining to watch people try and fail miserably at the hands of the many set back type cards, It’s really just a waiting game for your turn. The wait for your turn however can be excruciatingly long, in particular by the time you reach the mid-point of the game because by than players have many cards and effects they can use which triggers more card drawing and subsequent resolution. At first players might take the time to embellish their plays by reading flavor text, but that gets really old really quick. The downtime is extremely long in this game which again, combined with the length of the game as a whole makes this a very painful and often frustrating wait.

Conclusion
The Witcher is a very well designed and illustrated game, it’s streamlined and modern and there is no denying that Ignacy is a great designer that got great support from Fantasy Flight Games to make the Witcher. I think for hardcore fans of adventure games in particular if you love the Witcher universe you might be willing to overlook the drawbacks of the Witcher. For the average gamer however, the Witcher is far too long, with too much randomness and far too little interaction between players.

I think the Witcher might be a far better game if completing the main quests happened faster, for example if this was a game that took 2 hours to finish, I think I might be more willing to play it. At a 4-5 hour experience however this game is just way too bloody long and it’s not something I want to do again.

Final Verdict: Give this one a pass.