unless
he has a substantial positional advantage (such as control of
a steep ridgeline, or a mountain pass where he can't be flanked),
or a substantial weaponry advantage (such as the British with
rifles against the Zulu with spears). What are the chances, you
ask, of an attacker winning with a 6 to 1 superiority? Fifty-six
point seven percent (170 out of 300). In other words, just a smidgen
more than five times out of nine. Now you understand why I call
the combat system "frustrating". Clearly, this game
is slanted towards the defender. In fact, it is slanted more towards
the defender than any historical simulation that easily comes
to mind. There are two reasons for this. One is the fact that
a roll cannot exceed "20" - regardless of the modifiers.
If the system did allows this, then our 6 to 1 attack climbs to
a more respectable 67.5% chance of succeeding. (This is still
a bit low, to my mind, but marginally plausible.) The second reason
is the aforementioned decision to use a 20-sided die. In my opinion,
this gives too great a range of possible outcomes, relative to
the average modifier (3 or 4) available to a superior force. (A
modifier of "4", for instance, represents only a twenty
percent improvement on the basic set of outcomes, ties and die
roll caps not withstanding.) In the present system, an attacker
with 10,000 samurai facing 1,000 samurai only has a 61 percent
better chance (72.5% versus 45%) of victory, than they would have
attacking with 1,000 samurai. Ten to one odds, historically, is
an insurmountable advantage - not something that pegs in at less
than three chances of victory out of four. Think Santa Ana versus
the Alamo, or the Western Coalition versus Iraq.
My
last beef with the combat system is the way casualties are handled.
For some odd reason, only the loser in TENJO suffers casualties.
Not only is this surrealistic, but it also flies in the
face of thousands of years of combat philosophy. The Russians
alone have managed to survive multiple invasions by spending lives
and space, in order to exhaust superior foes. This strategy isn't
available in TENJO.
What all this adds up to, battle-wise, is something resembling
combat between multiple iterations of (sorry to beat a dead
horse) McClellan's Army of the Potomac (with or without
mechanization, as your cards dictate). Each side will
methodically build up as many attack modifiers as possible, and
still lose to a plucky, undersized defender. What is required of
a superior force, then, is the luxury of multiple action points
spent on combats, in order to retrieve that one die roll which
will vanquish the enemy. In other words, it is not enough to
maximize your odds for combat; you must also maximize your
opportunities for combat, lest the scant advantage in odds bites
you.
Ironically, this reduces the fog of war effect intended with the
use of hidden armies. Either you set yourself up with all the
modifiers you can get - by means of a gradual, encircling of the
enemy with multiple units (thus telegraphing the disposition of
your strength) - or you thrust quickly with a single stack, and
ignore optimizing your modifiers - hoping instead for some lucky
rolls. Only in the latter case do you have a significant element
of deception, and there you more likely suffer from the vagaries
of the combat die roll system.
In conclusion, TENJO seemingly revolves around a movement
and combat system that - through its excessive reliance on luck
- often thumbs its nose at superior strategy. What the hapless
Samurai on the board don't realize, though, is that they are
participating in an unlikely series of events most resembling a
script written in Hollywood. The die roll for movement, and the
Element, Fate, and Ring cards all conspire to insure that no
stone of improbability is left unturned.
Still…within this morass of luck-driven elements, I see a game
I very much could like. I have a hunch that the designers
are familiar with Milton Bradley's GAMEMASTER series (and
the rulebook layout is eerily similar to that found in those
games). Perhaps they had exhausted the possibilities of MB's
SHOGUN/SAMURAI SWORDS, and decided to redress the issue with a design of
their own. Historically, that type of dissatisfaction with an
existing design has given birth to some great games. Indeed, it
has probably even pulled one who would ultimately be a great
designer from the ranks of common gamers, and so I feel
compelled to judge TENJO in that light. Better to have
tried and failed, and all that. And I don't think TENJO
is truly a failure - I think it simply needed additional
development and play-testing - play-testing in the hands of
those who can be critical, based on years of seeing what works
and what doesn't work. I suspect TENJO was play-tested by
"cheerleaders" of the product - those who somehow have
a vested financial or emotional interest in its ultimate
publication. If their familiarity with the GAMEMASTER
series isn't a complete miss on my part, then surely the
designers must realize that only one out of four of those games
is universally regarded as a success - the others missing the
boat on one or more points. With its gorgeous components (yes,
even the board possesses a sort of beauty, in its own non
sequitur way), TENJO cries out to be played.
Given time and reflection, it seems a second edition of the
rules could go a long way toward making TENJO the game it
wants to be. Remember, the kitten doesn't always get it
right on the first try, but every graceful and competent cat was
once a kitten who didn't give up. I hope this is true of the
people at WhySpire? Games, too.
Darrell Hanning lives in Jacksonville, Florida and is currently
on the prowl
for weekend competition.
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CAPITOL
a review by Jeff
Suderman
CAPITAL, ARCHITECTS
OF THE ETERNAL CITY, is a clever game of building
strategy, card management, territory acquisition and blind
auction. Players aim to score the most points by placing
buildings in one of the nine districts in the city of old Rome.
Each of the nine districts has space for five to seven
buildings. At the end of each of the four rounds players with
the most and second most floors in each of the nine districts
receive points.
The game is released by Schmidt from Germany. It is one of
several successful releases in the last year by the Alan R.
Moon/Aaron Weissblum games design team (DAS AMULET, SAN MARCO and
CAPITOL were all nominated for the
Deutscher SpielePreis). Other than the instructions, no game
components are in German so this poses no obstacle to non-German
speakers. The game plays in about 60 - 90 minutes and can be
played with 2 - 4 players. Game play differs greatly between 2
and 4 players as the board is more congested and volatile with 3
and especially 4.
Components are simple yet attractive. The 90 building
blocks (floors) are nice quality lacquered wood the size of
scrabble tiles but twice as thick. Roofs are also wooden but are
painted in one of four vibrant colors, one color for each
player. Roofs come in two different styles, rounded and peaked,
and each player has five of each style to begin the game. There
are three different decks of cards that are used for both the
action and auction phases. All cards have the same design on the
back so they can be held in your hand without other players
knowing which action strategy you are pursuing.
The game board depicts an aerial view of Rome with colored
squares showing where buildings can be placed. The board artwork
is nice but has one slightly annoying feature - the colored
squares that show where buildings can be placed have a shadow
placed beneath them. This makes the boxes appear as if they are
hovering above the board for some unknown reason. Don't let this
minor pet peeve keep you from buying this game.
CAPITOL is played in four rounds. Each round has four
phases. The first phase of each round has players use their
action cards. Players begin the game with eight cards in their
hands and re-draw six cards after each round (phase four). The
three different action cards perform the following plays:
A. Building action cards allow players to take two blocks
from the stockpile and add floors to existing buildings or begin
a new building in front of them. Buildings are not built on the
board but in front of each player. Once floors are played they
cannot be moved.
B. Roof action cards allow players to add a roof to one
of their buildings. Players choose when to roof a building as
once it has a roof it cannot have any floors added. They must
also choose between rounded or peaked roofs. Only roofed
buildings can be placed on the board.
C. Region placement action cards allow players to place
one of their roofed buildings on the board in a region
corresponding to the color of the action card (blue, pink or
purple). Since each colored region has three different districts
on the board, each card gives players three possible districts
to place their buildings in. The first building in each district
must only be one floor in height. Any buildings after that can
equal the existing height or be one floor higher. Once a style
of roof is played in a district (round or peaked) that style
must be used for every other building in that district. As well,
the three districts of the same color must have at one least one
of each style of roof. This means the three blue districts could
have one peaked and two round roofs or vice versa.
During phase one players keep going around the table
taking turns playing one action card at a time until everyone
has passed (once a player passes they are done this phase). Any
unused cards can be utilized in the next phase. There are
advantages to saving cards for future rounds or for the auction
phase. However, there are also advantages to playing after other
players have passed as you can often commandeer some regions
they have control of.
Phase two is an auction phase. One of the clever aspects
of this game is every action card has two purposes. They can be
played as action cards or saved for the auction. Each card has
both an action (build, roof or place) as well as a number from 1
- 8. The numbers have no correlation to building, roofing or
placing but rather, are used to bid on things in the auction
phase at the end of each round.
There are three items auctioned each round. Rounds one and two
auction two fountains and an amphitheater while rounds three and
four auction two fountains and a temple. Fountains are placed by
the auction winner in a building site of their choice (note:
this will reduce the usable building sites for future rounds).
Amphitheaters allow extra action cards to be picked
at the end of each
round (phase four).
The first place player in an amphitheater zone receives two
extra cards and second place gets one extra. Temples double the
scores in a district for both first and second place players.
The auction is blind
and each player inserts a stop card in their deck of cards that
remains from the action round. Players then reveal their cards
and any card above the stop card is added up to give a player's
total auction bid amount.
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