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which will
probably leave your advancing army out of supply just as your
opponent hits it with a devastating counterattack.
REDS! proceeds in monthly and bi-monthly turns, and based on weather and reinforcement schedules can see periods of little activity, just as in the real war. The Soviet forces are numerically superior and have the advantage of fighting on interior lines. The Whites, with smaller, scattered forces, basically play the role of spoiler, trying to capture objectives from the Soviets and force them to shift troops to a threatened sector, then attacking in another region to keep the Commies off-balance. Combat and movement mostly occur on or near railroad lines, as to be in supply, units must be within one hex of a controlled railroad that connects to a supply source. Combat can also be an unpredictable affair: a unit's strength is determined by its size and a combat modifier, both of which are factored against die rolls made by attacker and defender. Attackers generally have an edge, particularly the large Soviet armies, but the modifiers and dual die rolls ensure battles can see some wild swings, with a small unit sticking it to a big one. A frequent combat result is disorder, reducing a unit's capabilities, which it can try to recapture in a rally phase.  In his designer notes, Raicer says he built REDS! on the premise that the Whites had no chance to win the Russian Civil War because they failed to offer a viable political agenda to communism, and because they lacked the resources to sustain any major offensives. The victory conditions are pegged to that theory, forcing the Soviets to improve upon the war's historical outcome, either by controlling every city in Russia by game's end or by controlling all major cities and conquering Poland. The Whites must delay the Soviets by maintaining a certain level of offensive momentum or face an early mandatory withdrawal of their forces, which will generally hand the Soviets an easy victory. Both sides face a lot of tough decisions, any of which might blow up in a player's face because of the unpredictability of the game's sequence of play. To sum up, REDS! is another fine entry from Ted Raicer, with excellent solitaire play possibilities. PATHS OF GLORY may have generated more comments than any other game discussed on the Consimworld board, but REDS! isn't doing too badly there, either. It's clear that for many gamers, Raicer is "Da Man" when it comes to highly playable games that are also good simulations. Steve Pfarrer lives in western Massachusetts and enjoys a range of games, including GMT's EAST FRONT SERIES, JUNE 6, and UKRAINE '43. He also likes PRUSSIA’S GLORY and other 19th-century grand tactical games When
you open the box of Wolfgang Kramer's GOLDLAND, you can almost
here the wind whistling through the desert canyons, the low
growling of the jaguars in the jungle, the muttering of the
banditos hiding behind the next bend. From the stunning beautiful
pieces - lovingly overproduced in classic Goldsieber fashion
- to the seamless integration of mechanics & theme, GOLDLAND
does a splendid job of capturing a South American adventure
in a game box.
 The objective is a fabled temple filled with gold (and golden amulets). Getting there involves working your way across uncharted lands - tiles which are drawn and played into a 7x7 grid. Jaguars, chasms, mountains, deserts, lakes, banditos & friendly natives all await you around the next twist in the trail on the road to "El Dorado". You have at your disposal loads of provisions (which look like primitive fish sandwiches), shovels, beads, guns (in a German game?!), rope, wood & fishing poles. Each turn an adventurer can move (your movement allowance is a function of how much 'stuff' you've got in your backpack), explore (add a new tile to the game board if they are next to unexplored territory, and acquire new resources. As well, adventurers can encounter adventures, establishing camps on those spaces by paying the required resources. Some spaces contain treasure, which requires more provisions (and time) to dig up - but are worth gold (read: victory points) at the end of the game. Movement on the board is simple - until you have to go "off the trail" to reach the next space. Thankfully, camps allow you to move through adventures tiles freely without paying the cost of the adventure again. Exploring also gives you "discovery" chips - which can be turned in for resources while avoiding the "one acquisition per turn" rule. These chips also allow you flexibility to deal with changing situations & needs. You can even do nothing for a turn and receive one of these chips - which can be life-saving when you've managed to strand yourself in the middle of nowhere. |
When
one player reaches the temple (at the opposite corner of the grid
from the starting space), they receive an amulet and 2 gold. All
the other players have one round to reach the temple and receive
the 2 gold "looting" bonus - before it disappears. (Amulets
are always available - one per player.) When that round concludes,
each player with an amulet receives one gold coin per turn until
the pile of gold coins is exhausted - and the game ends. (The number
of gold coins in the "timer" pile is dependent on the
number of players in the game.)
But gold is not the only measure of a great adventurer - his skill in completing adventures is also important. The 7 adventures each have a “longest road" marker (worth 2-5 points) that goes to the player with the most camps on that type of adventure. "Stealing" this from another player works just like SETTLERS - you've got to pass 'em to take it away. So, amulets & treasure chests & gold coins... plus your "fame" for vanquishing certain types of adventures, add up to your final score. At its heart, GOLDLAND is a puzzle game along the lines of BAZAAR, SAMRAKAND or VINCI. The majority of your decisions are how best to utilize your resources & limited actions to obtain other resources that allow you to complete adventures & obtain treasure. Everything is visible - your resources, other players resources, the possible places you can move on the board. Granted, it's a puzzle game that's thematically tied together… which makes it an enjoyable 75 minutes in my book. (I'm fully aware that some of you have your jaws dropping to floor like a Tex Avery cartoon at my calling VINCI a "puzzle" game. Think about it for a minute - all the elements are visible, combat is not luck-dependent, your resources and the resources of other players are known. You just have to figure out how best to utilize those resources. Voila! Vinci = puzzle game!) There have been some complaints about skewed boards developing... which is, of course, in the realm of possibility with the random exploration mechanism. I think, however, that the majority of these "problems" are generated by defensive versus offensive play (and no, I'm not talking about gamer B.O. or other hygiene & behavior problems). Gamers have a tendency to play for ‘hosage' - but in GOLDLAND, you must work to slow down other players WITHOUT slowing down your own progress. In a game where all the players are busily cutting each other off, the game would have a tendency to bog down. (Tactics idea: if this begins to occur, concentrate on completing adventures for the “longest road" markers and to increase your means of access to the temple. Then dash backwards, stock up on the necessary resources, and plunge forward in one mad dash.) There have also been suggestions that the "ordeal" mechanism (the penalty paid for crossing between tiles without a trail) is too harsh. The official rules set the cost at 4 resources (which must include the appropriate resources to complete the adventure). Al Newman, designer of the upcoming TIN SOLDIERS (from R&R Games) suggested making it 3 resources... and I'd like to experiment once or twice with trying x + 1 resource (with x = the number of resources needed to complete the adventure). Mind you, I don't think the rule is broken as is... but if you were playing in a primarily defensive group, this might be an issue for you.  Finally, there's been some concern that the race to the temple defines the game... in other words, lose the "dash for the gold" & lose the game. That may be true if one player reaches the temple alone (scooping up the 2 gold bonus plus the majority of the "timer" pile income) but I don't think that will work out as well if more than one player reaches the temple. The other players can focus their energies on scooping up treasures & completing adventures. Interestingly enough, this is the third exploration game from Goldsieber—one each by Knizia, Kramer & Teuber. (The "Big 3" of German game design - thanks to Kevin Whitmore for this observation.) AFRICA (by Knizia) is the lightest of the three; GOLDLAND (by Kramer) is the heaviest, with the most appeal for 'serious' gamers (though by no measn a brain-burner of a game). ENTDECKER is the middle ground - though I do not personally recommend the new version from Kosmos. I like the Goldsieber edition better (but that's a subject for another article). GOLDLAND is marvelously produced, well-designed and dripping with theme. However, it will not resonate with every gamer. If you like SAMARKAND or VINCI, this may be right up your alley. If you like games with strong themes, this is one of the best integrations of theme and mechanism I've seen in a long time. Heck, if you like most of the games I like, you'll probably enjoy it, too! Mark Jackson runs Game Central Station, a Nashville based gaming group and website. His favorite game this week is KONTOR.
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