When I made my top 10 war games list last year I had just acquired Paths of Glory, played it once and though I was instantly in love with the concept, it was a game that I was yet to truly explore. Since then I have put quite a few games under my belt thanks to an amazing online community supporting the game and I’m at a point now where I think its time to give this one a proper review.

Paths of Glory falls into the CDG (Card Driven Games) category of war games which is a very specific albeit popular style of design in the spirit of giants like Twilight Struggle, Washington’s War and Empire of The Sun. All amazing games in their own right, but Paths of Glory even among this list of exceptional games has its own take on the concept and more importantly it covers a subject (World War I) with such class and elegance that it will take you from a person who neither knows or cares about World War I history to an absolute WWI history buff.

I think on a high level, Paths of Glory is broken down into three very distinct core game elements. The card driven mechanic which is the coveted link to the historical events of World War I and a key driver to the game. The tactical war on the main map which is a point to point system in which players jockey for position and fight for domination in the WWI theatre. Finally you have management of war resources abstracted in a wide variety of ways that give the game that tight, attrition feel WWI is so famous for.

Put them together and what you have is a game that is all about tension, attrition, and players trying to squeeze out every inch of blood, sweat and tears to get that breakthrough moment where one side collapses. Yet its also a game of massive comebacks where a single event can trigger huge swings in the war and this really leads the game to being a game about a story of the game. It gives it that re-writing history feeling and this is something you really notice when you have played several games and can make a comparison between different experiences with it.

The question that remains is do I like it and probobly from that very high level overview you may rightfully conclude that I do, however I think it has its own character and the real question is whether or not this is a game for you.

Overview

Final Score: (3.7) Great Game!

Paths of Glory is a two player game that will quite easily take about 6 to 8 hours to play. This is a long, heavy and fairly complex game with considerable amount of rules in its 34 page rulebook that comes with a fair amount of special cases and exception rules that will take quite a while for you to get your head around. You will spend several games learning how to play before you get it right and its going to take ten times as many games to learn to play the game well.

Players pick one of two sides of the war (Central Powers or Allied Powers) and starting in August of 1914 with the historical event known as “The Guns of August” the war kicks off with something of a slow burn.

The system tries to be historically accurate about the war and in that regard World War I wasn’t some big bang event, its something that continued to escalate over time slowly as more and more resources are dedicated towards the imperialistic efforts of key nations triggering more more countries to join the fight.

There are also mechanics that deal with the politics of the war, shining through in the card play but also key mechanics like mandated offensives which helps to illustrate that the war was not just run by generals making strategic decisions on the battlefield, but by global powers who even when being on the same side had political frictions and infighting. It’s a game about maneuvering events as much as it is about actual tactical warfare.

War itself is also quite difficult to predict, battles that seem like easy wins, stall, battles you thought would be attritions go surprisingly well. Their is a cadence here that feels like luck, but is more about being consistent with your planning. You can’t count on winning any one battle, but its about wearing down your opponent, tapping their resources and constantly pushing on them until something breaks.

Running the war in Paths of Glory, much as it must have been historically was about maneuvering around the many events that pushed the war in a direction that favors your plans, but because the game is a back and forth (You take a turn I take a turn), your plans are often spoiled by the action of your opponent to which you must urgently respond. While the war isn’t going to be won by the results of a single battle, every battle that does take place creates opportunities or emergencies that need to be dealt with quickly.

The whole game although its a slow, attrition, has a constant sense of urgency. You have a feeling that on your turn, with that one action and limited resources you have, you need to do a dozen things but end up only being able to do one. The feeling of having an endless stream of vulnerabilities all over the map creates a kind of stress and pressure, creating tension that climaxes slowly over time. At the same time you can create these emergencies for your opponent which forces them to be distracted by your activities elsewhere in the world.

There are these moments of recovery where the players have an unspoken agreement that the fighting has been too intense, neither side feeling comfortable enough to push forward resulting in a sort of recovery period and then there are moments when the fighting is so intense its almost like to wild barbarians swinging at each other with no regard to the possible consequences.

It’s a fantastic representation of the historical period and works to create a great table atmosphere that only a rich and deep war game like this can provide.

The fun can and does come to sudden stop however and this is one of my complaints about the game in that their are so many exceptions and sub-rules to rules that it seems almost impossible to play the game correctly. Its easy to forget rules like if the central powers reach Limited War on the war status track, Turkey enters the war or that on turns 1 and 2 of the game you get a -2 to attacking forts. These sort of exceptions and special rules require both players to be very well versed on the rules and be vigilant about their execution because ignoring such a rule can really unbalance the game. These rules exist for both historical accuracy and perhaps more importantly to maintain a good balance between the two asymmetrical sides.

Paths of Glory is a deep strategic experience, its a game that tells a story, but that experience and that story comes as a result of the well thought out and complex rules system that drives this game. It’s a strange setup because without these rules, these special cases and exceptions, it would probobly not be as good of a game. You might be tempted to think that if they just made this game simpler, it would be better but this is not the case. It’s specifically the attention to detail that brings this game to life and it would be a lesser game without those details.

Components

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Pros:  High quality components that are almost standard from GMT these days.

Cons:  Chit tokens are tiny and handling them is a pain in the ass.

Paths of Glory has several different versions that have been printed over the years, the version I’m reviewing here today is the Deluxe 6th edition, the latest one available as of this writing.

This Deluxe edition comes with a two sided mounted gameboard that has on one side the classic original version of the map and on the other an updated more modernized version. Both are actually quite functional, but the updated version color codes the countries making it easier to quickly identify which locations on the map belong to which countries.

The quality of this mounted board is effectively the best possible, I don’t see any way to improve it. It’s sturdy, beautifully illustrated, easy to read with clear iconography. Though the map is extremely busy because so much information is on it, including all the various tracking and status boxes it can be a bit overwhelming, but everything has a purpose and it becomes second nature after a couple of plays to find everything you need.

GMT is quite famous for its card stock and quality, Paths of Glory gets the same treatment with quality so high that I’m certain it will last a lifetime of plays without wear and tear. Glossy, stiff cards that are easy to shuffle and really require no sleeves, they are that well made. The illustrations on the card depict the event of the card to such a degree that after playing the game a few times you know what the card does by looking at the picture. You really can’t ask much more of a game card then that.

The cardboard chits that make up the units of the game on the map are of great quality with legible font, they are very functional in that regard. They are chits however and are a pain in the ass to handle due to their size and the fact that you stack them on the board. Its a constant thing to have to peek under stacks and because the map is quite tight and the chits quite small, its a nuisance to handle them. This is almost universally true about all chit based war games but its particularly troublesome in Paths of Glory as its not a hex but point to point map so the chits must be placed in specific boxes that are exactly the size of the chits. One good bump can misalign all of the units and can easily ruin a game.

I personally would like see these chit games use bigger maps and bigger chits because even though that may take more space and increase the cost, these games are lifetime hobby games, I don’t think players are going to mind shelling out a few extra bucks for a bigger, easier to manipulate game.

One complaint I also have about all chit games is that the chits are all very specific. For example their is a 1st army for Russia, that chit represents a specific unit in the game, linked to a specific card in the game. Lose that chit and you have a real problem and there are absolutely no spare parts in the game. You have to be really careful not to lose even a single piece in a game that has hundreds of tiny pieces the size of a finger nail. It seems almost inevitable that you will eventually loses pieces and replacing them is going to be a real pain in the ass.

I don’t know what the solution here is, but I think the best your going to do is make them bigger so your less likely to misplace them.

As a whole this is a game that looks beautiful on the table but that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I sometimes send screenshots of games in progress to my friends who roll their eyes at the tiny chits on a massive map, I don’t think they see the appeal but of course these are people who play games like Blood Rage filled with beautiful miniatures so I can understand a game with card board chits might not be as visually appealing to them.

For me personally there is nothing more gorgeous than a huge map of Europe filled with chits representing armies of thousands. Its a personal taste thing I suppose, but I think its beautiful and inspiring.

Theme

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Pros:  Captures the World War I theme well… I think.

Cons:  World War I is not an easy theme to sell, its a quirky piece of history.

World War I is, well lets just say that in contemporary culture it’s something of a mystery. It’s rather strange because you can find a lot of World War II historical buffs, Napoleon Era Buffs, really almost any other historical period of conflicts will have sort of fanatics that know and are deeply engrossed by its history.

World War I for some reason is the one period in history very few people know about and when you look around the historical war game scene, their is not much out there that covers the subject.

World War I however just like any historical conflict has tremendous amount of subtle and interesting facts and events which can spark the imagination and the history nerd in all of us and Paths of Glory really tries hard to help players make that breakthrough.

It is a tough sell though and this is because a lot of the history is hard to contextualize in our modern understanding of world politics. People thought very differently during this period and the historical events really reflect that as you wonder, WHY? Like why the hell did they do this, what was the political or historical reason for it and Paths of Glory is not really trying to give you an answer, it assumes to a degree that if your interested you can look it up. Though its worth pointing out that in the rules book each card in the game has a historical factoid that explains the event in a more historical context, but you don’t really get this during gameplay.

The end result is that it might be difficult for players to relate to the history and hence the game. Still, from what I can tell and I’m no World War I historian, this game does a fantastic job of bringing that history to life.

I found that after playing it several times I would say stuff like “man I need to get Romania into this fight” where prior to playing this game I’m not sure I could tell you much about Romania or find it on the map (I’m embarrassed to say).

You sort of get into it and its thanks to the games focus on trying to represent the WWI conflict in a less esoteric way. In a way the game tries to simplify the history a bit, not necessarly making it less about real history but more about being a game about creating your own history using real history. This is in big part because every card in the game represents a historical event, but you are not going to execute those cards in a historically accurate timing so you are creating your own version of WWI history. In this way the games subject matter becomes a bit more personalized, its not World War I, its your version of it.

None of this really distracts from the game but I do believe knowing a bit about world war I history would probobly help you to play this game better. Like knowing that Romania while being a small country with limited troops played a pivotal role in history and you get a sense of that after you played a few times. Their position on the map, is quite critical and take could very well swing the war if they enter at the right moment. Just an example but its not something that is intuitively understood just by reading of the rules.

I think I could see this game being ported to other themes and being just as interesting, perhaps even more so, however as it stands as a world war I game I think the theme works quite well even if I don’t really have a real grasp on the historical period.

Gameplay

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Pros: A deep, rich experience with heavy tension and massive scope that gives you everything you want from a historical war game.

Cons: The heavy rules weight and typical 8 hour play time makes this an experience not everyone will appreciate.

Paths of Glory is a complex game, to explain the gameplay in a review article would probobly take as many pages as the actual rulebook and I doubt I could do as good of a job as the actual rulebook does.

I think I will stick to my standard policy of assuming that since this is a very deep, strategic game that part of your research into this game will include familiarizing yourself with the rules and I will instead focus on my opinion about the gameplay to hopefully illustrate what I like and don’t like about the game helping you to make a decision about whether or not to invest.

Its worth noting however that playing Paths of Glory is more than just an financial investment in the game, its a considerable time investment and I think I would put this game into the lifestyle category of games for that reason. Its not something you can just pull off the shelf, explain the rules to a friend and go. This is a game to which two people must dedicate considerable amount of time before they play to understand and learn the game, then ten times that much time to learn to play it well, not to mention the typical 6 to 8 hours it takes to actually play. There is no quick fix for that when it comes to Paths of Glory, that is what it takes and you must embrace that or you probobly should skip it.

Fortunately there is a great online community that supports this game and there are a number of youtube tutorials that can give you a pretty solid start, Harsh Rules is a really good one. In the end however their is no substitute for reading the 34 page rulebook and both you and your opponent should read it cover to cover before playing. Not the most exciting thing you’ll ever do, but it is the path, I don’t think is avoidable if you want to play this game.

Paths of Glory is a multi tier game, meaning their are several core concepts working independently, but the entire thing comes down to a relatively simple back and forth action system. Each round players will take 6 actions, going back and forth and on your turn you will play a card.

That card can be used in several ways to take several different types of actions each with its own purpose and this is where the nuts and bolts of the game center on.

Each card represents an event and these events run the gambit from being political events, reinforcement events, special combat events and more. Each is representative of a piece of history and in this lays much of the games nuanced storytelling. You execute cards representing things that actually happened in history but because your doing it in your own order of play things aren’t going to play out like they did in real history. Paths of Glory is about writing your own history of World War I and this is really the fun of the game, seeing how your version of World War I actually differs from what actually happened.

Maybe in your game the Allies go on the offensive and become the aggressor, perhaps Italy joins the war much later in your version of history, or perhaps the Americans never join the war. What is the impact, how does that change history, that is where the joy of that story your creating with your opponent comes from. There is all sorts of stuff that can happen, some of it you can control, some of it you can’t.

The main thing about the event cards is trying to figure out when is the best time to execute them and in this we could have endless debates about almost every single card. This is deepened even further by the fact that each of the two asymmetrical decks (central powers and allied powers) is split into three separate periods of play, divided into Mobilization, Limited War and Total War. When these periods execute and when you gain access to those cards depend on your sides war status which is something that is driven by how you play your cards so you have some control over when these cards come into play.

Werther its a good strategy to push war status or not is a subject for debate, but it suffices to say there is a great deal of decision depth here that will have your historical war game senses tingling. I love this aspect of the game and really it stems from my general love of card driven war games, after all, Washington’s War, Twilight Struggle and Empire of the Sun are among my favorite war games and they all use a very similar mechanic.

Instead of the events on the card you can use cards for their operational value, a number typically between 1 to 5 which is a reference to the card events general impact and value. The higher the operations value the more mobility and attacks you can get on the board so sacrificing an important event with a high operations value allows you to have a big impact in the tactical war on the board. This trade off is among the toughest decisions you have to make, but it goes even further then that.

Each card also has a reinforcement point value for each nation and can be used to resurrect and heal wounded armies. This is yet another use for the cards and another point of decison.

This balancing act of choosing what cards to use, when and for what purpose is really where the core of the games strategic gameplay and player decisions comes from. Its at the heart of the game and while there are plenty of other mechanics and gameplay elements I could talk about, this is the bread butter, this is the mechanic that makes Paths of Glory the award winning game it is.

These are tough decisions you make throughout the game and for the historical war game buff, the fun of the game. You these make this decision six times per round and there are potentially 20 rounds in the game if it does not end early which means that you are making a ton of decisions all the time in this game.

What is wonderful about this game is that it’s so painful, every time, round after round, action after action, you are forced to make a call about which card to play and what to use that card for. Its a pain of joy, it gives you the feeling of command over the war and when the game is over you can trace your victory or your defeat to how you played these cards and when you played them. That “I should have played X for Y” discussion after the game will have your head spinning and looking forward to the next time you play so you can do things differently.

There is a simple battle system here that I’m not going to get too much into because it is indeed quite simple. There is of course tremendous strategy in understanding positions, your odds, controlling supply lines and various maneuvers that you can make on the map that are quite important, but these fall into what I would call standard fare for a war game. The system is point to point rather then a hex grid, so there is a sense of tightness on the map where you have to pay close attention to how different areas are connected and this can be quite tricky as it really is a maze. This however adds to rather then takes away from the strategic depth, though it does add to the complexity of the games learning curve.

To me the game is the CDG mechanic and its executed brilliantly here making for a game of tough decisions, inside of a historical layer that comes through at every turn. The game captures the attrition warfare of World War I perfectly, while making sure that the game feels tight and tense so that players are always interested in what is happening. When its done, after 8 hours of play you look back on your experience and speak of it in terms of a story about your version of World War I. Its something that’s difficult to describe, but surely is a wonderful thing.

I certainly have my beefs with the game, there are a few cards I think could be better balanced, a few rules I think dive a little deeper then the game needed it to be, there is the quirkiness of the Near East Map and a few other things. To me none of these spoil the game, in fact I would be hard pressed to point out specific things and as you play the game more and more, coming to a higher understanding of its more subtle elements you also learn to appreciate some of the things that might otherwise come off as complaints.

For example while the Near East may seem like a pointless place where nothing happens in your first few games, as you become better at the game you start to see its potential and suddenly it can be as much of a hot spot as the Eastern or Western fronts. So the learning curve doesn’t really stop with learning to play, there is a tremendous amount of depth to explore in this game and as such, the more you play the more you learn to appreciate its various quirks.

I think the gameplay here is executed extremely well, this is a game that clearly had a design goal that it achieved. Its educational about its historical elements, it has a deep, thinky strategy, it puts players to constant and difficult decisions and the game has an almost exhaustive tension. Its just fantastic.

Replay-ability and Longevity

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Pros: No two games will ever be alike, rich dynamics give this game infinite replay-ability.

Cons:  You need a dedicate opponent ready to play repeated games to get the most out of this game which can be tough in any gaming circle.

I will make this short and sweet because I don’t think there is much to say here. This game has infinite replayability, there are so many dynamic elements here that even though the game setup is static, the resolution of the game is anything but. Its a card driven game, what cards you draw are going to define your actions and in my experience once you get past the first round, there is no way history is going to ever repeat itself.

As far longevity, I think a lot of that comes down to your personal preferences and whether or not you can find an opponent with a matching dedication. For me, this game is on my hobby table fairly often as I play it against online opponents, but finding another player with the same interest and dedication in real life has not been easy. Its a very niche thing and I think for most people this will be something of a dust collector just because of the nature of its complexity and general difficulty to get to the table.

You need to find a like minded war gamer with the same interest and I think that goes for all games in this category.

Conclusion

Paths of Glory is a deeply rich and rewarding experience, but its also a very demanding one. This is a difficult game to learn to play and its even more difficult to learn to play well. It’s certainly not a pick up and play type of game, it requires two dedicated players ready to invest the time to learn to play and that road is long and can be a bit frustrating as the game has a tremendous amount of rules weight and is filled with special case exceptions.

If you can get past that with a buddy however this is an absolute and unquestionable king of historical war gaming. For me its right up there with some of the stone cold classics like Empire of the Sun. It’s not just a game, its an experience.

You have to understand and embrace what your getting yourself into but for those of you out there who are looking for that next historical war game addiction I can’t recommend Paths of Glory enough. It’s amazing!