| Age
of Mythology
a review by
Darrell Hanning
You’re getting warmer
I’ve
exchanged e-mails with Glenn Drover, head honcho and designer of
Eagle Games, on a few occasions, now. I’ve ranted about War:
Age Of Imperialism and Civilization; I’ve
told him what I didn’t like about them; I’ve whacked
his designs, thumped them, and verbally left them with the curbside
garbage.
And Glenn, with the unfounded-yet-inexhaustible
enthusiasm of a puppy on a sugar high, bubbles cheery “Gosh,
shucks” back at me. Slamming Glenn Drover is about as rewarding
as playing a funeral dirge to Flipper. The man remains, in a word,
“undaunted”. I hate to admit it, but that’s awfully,
damn cool. So long as his apparently substantial financial resources
remain intact, the man appears destined to drag America back into
the limelight of strategy gaming.
Oh, sure, we had our halcyon days of number-crunching, soulless
wargames, with some of the stalwarts of Avalon Hill and Simulation
Publications, Inc. still making the rounds, still denying the slow,
carcinoma-like death of “traditional” wargames. Some
of them seem to have heard the bells toll, looked Europe-ward, and
decided adaptation is better than extinction. But of those who have
tried, even fewer have succeed in that adaptation, and – let’s
face it – “traditional” wargames (the ones that
take a weekend or more to play) can only adapt so much, like a yeti
trying to fit in, in a Miami suburb, by buying a BMW and some yard
flamingos. No, the computer looks to be their true destination.
Then there’s Eagle Games, which
started out resembling a syndication effort of Milton Bradley’s
GameMaster series. And I guess Glenn caught some hell from that
(I don’t know why anyone would give the poor man grief for
twenty-year old game designs, for heaven’s sake), and I guess
in shopping big-box games around, he saw these smaller-box games
with elegant ideas lovingly tucked inside, and saw how people really
enjoyed them, and a 60-watt went off over his head. So, now we have
Age Of Mythology, which might also be called Odin
Colonizes Puerto Rico, or Empires of the Ancient Mythology World,
or maybe even Medusas of Catan.
Let’s see, here. No map board.
Individual player mats. Buildings such as “Granary”
and “Monument”. Hmm. Where have I heard this before?
Oh, but wait. We also have resource tiles and resource cubes –
made of wood, no less! This grows more curious by the minute. Oh,
no. Wait. Here we are – this looks much more familiar. Sigh.
Hundreds of plastic figures. Oh. No, we also have individual action
card decks for each player. Gad, this game really doesn’t
know what the heck it wants to be.
So, you clip all the intricately, lovingly-crafted,
terrifyingly horrible, little, mythical critters out of their plastic
trees, read the rules, shuffle the card decks, and watch aghast,
as this amazing board game races in four different directions at
the same time, while trying like hell to stay together!
Alright, so I exaggerate. Like a self-conscious
fat man riding in coach on the booked flight, AoM
struggles valiantly to keep from spreading outside its assigned,
economy seat. “Pardon me.” “Oh! Excuse me.”
“I’m sorry, was that your foot?”
When you look at the components, you
think “gaming nirvana”. When you play the game, you
wonder whether “nirvana” is really where you want to
go, in the next life. But let’s return briefly to the facts.
There
are three cultures: Egyptian, Norse, and Greek, with both traditional
and mythical forces unique to each. Each player gets his or her
own board, which is segregated into a “holding area”
(with building construction costs listed), a “resource area”,
and a “city area”. The city area is where you place
the structures you build – houses to increase your labor force
in collecting resources, wood shops, granaries, and gold mints to
increase your ability to use those resources, and others which will
seem vaguely familiar to anyone who has played Puerto Rico
or La Citta.
The resource area is a map of terrain
indigenous to the regions of the various cultures; that is, the
Norse have more mountains, Egyptians more desert, Greeks more fertile
lands. A grid superimposes the resource area, which regulates placement
of tiles matching the terrain type. Fertile tiles, for instance,
generally generate food, and can only be placed on resource area
squares that depict fertile land. Mountains generally generate gold,
forests wood, etc.
The holding area is where you keep
your armies, victory points, and the resources you have on hand.
Each player also has a set of seven
cards, covering the permanently available choices for player actions
– Gather, Build, Recruit, Attack, Explore, Trade, and Next
Age.
“Gather” lets you initiate
the collection of resources for all players. As initiator, you get
to move laborers (citizens) to whatever resource tiles you choose.
The presence of a laborer on a resource tile increases its production
by one cube. Your choice in gathering is either to collect all of
one resource type, or all resources on one resource tile type. For
example, collect all wood you have showing on your resource map,
or collect all resources on your mountain tiles. “Gather”
is one of only two of your action choices in which all players get
to do the same. However, you’re the only one who gets to move
labor around first, and you get first pick from the limited bank
of resource cubes.
“Build” allows you to build
one structure, by paying the resource cube costs indicated on your
player board.
“Recruit” allows you to
build up to two armies by paying the resource costs for them.

“Attack” allows you to
attack the player to your left or right (but not across from you)
with up to four armies. Attacks are designated to either attempt
to steal a resource tile, destroy a structure, or take resource
cubes, upon success.
“Explore” allows you to
randomly draw a total of one more resource tile than there are players,
from the pool of unknown tiles. You then have the first choice of
which tile to play in your resource area, after which each other
player can do the same.
“Trade” allows you to trade
up to five of your resource cubes into the bank, for any five cubes
in the bank, of any type, at the cost of two resource cubes in addition
to what you’re trading with.
“Next Age” allows you to
move your civilization forward to the next Age in the progression,
provided you have the resources to do so. There are four ages. In
the first age, you can hold four cards in your hand at the beginning
of the action rounds. In the second age, five cards; third age,
six cards; and fourth (and final) age, seven cards. The second,
third and fourth ages also have a “hero” army type available,
unique to that age. Heroes are generally very good combat units.
Also, you can only build “the wonder” (this is a generic-type
wonder, less like a pyramid maybe, and more like something WalMart
would build) when you are in the fourth age. Building “the
wonder” is one way to end the game. (Game Notes and all
the contents of Game Notes is the property of Boulder Games. If you
are reading it anywhere other than on the Boulder Games website,
it is a stolen copy. Please let us know. bouldergames.com)
The other way to end the game is to
exhaust the supply of 30 victory point cubes. When three or more
players are participating, three cubes automatically get used up
every turn, so the longest the game can last is ten turns. One VP
cube is, at the beginning of the turn, allocated by each of the
first three players on one of the four Victory cards – Most
Buildings (at end of game), “The Wonder”, Largest Army
(at end of game), and Won Last Battle (as it occurs).
This is one of my issues with the game.
I do not like a small, fixed number of available Victory Points,
the allocation of which is subject to the whims of the players.
While this idea, in abstract, seems very much like a “Euro”
type of thing to do, for me it falls somewhat short of going plunk
against the barn-side. In Reiner Knizia’s Traumfabrik,
for example, there is a finite pool of money always in the hands
of all the players (no bank, that is), and this works because that
money is used to “construct” movies, and serves only
as a tie-breaker, and not as the victory points themselves. This
works. AoM’s cubes do not, at least for me.
At the beginning of each turn, each
player will select what Action cards he wants available for this
turn. He will always have available the seven “permanent”
Action cards, listed above, and additionally, he can draw from his
culture’s “random” Action cards. This is a nice
touch. The random Action cards are usually more powerful versions
of the permanent ones. For example, a random Gather card might allow
you to gather all of your resources on a turn. The drawback, though,
is that these are drawn from a face-down deck, and so the action
options they provide may not
be what you want available for that turn. As stated earlier, each
player can only hold four cards at the beginning of the game, increasing
his hand size by one for each age he advances, during the game.
Generally, a player will only “season” his hand with
random action cards, but if a player feels he is falling behind,
he is more prone to liberally stuff his fist with random cards,
and hope for the best.
There are 3 Action rounds each turn,
with the players playing one Action card each, in player turn order,
three times around the table. First player status rotates to the
left, each turn.
Early in the game, it’s not unusual
to see multiple Gather actions occur. Later in the game, as the
number of resource tiles controlled increases, multiple Gather actions
become somewhat less frequent, but have a much greater impact. This
is because the last player collecting resources during a Gather
action is less likely to get what he is due, the cubes exhausting
before his chance comes up. Also, the bigger the players’
hands (due to advancing in ages), the more Random action cards a
player is likely to hold, and thus it is more likely for a card
such as "Gather ALL resources” to be played.
Battle can only be conducted with players
to your immediate left or right, which makes a difference in a four
player game. Battle is a mixed blessing.
Yes, we have all the marvelous mortal
and mythical miniatures, and everybody is just dying to use them.
Without a common board determining the location of forces,
though, battle has something of an undesirable side effect. This
is something AoM has in common with Empires
of the Ancient World, which is why I’m usually reluctant
to pull that one out. If you go into Battle with someone, and end
up losing several units, then the other player adjacent to you is
likely to attack you, too, or even the same player, again, with
a second Attack card from his Random action deck. There is nothing
keeping a player from getting picked on; there is no distance at
which they can hide; there is no retreat long enough to keep you
out of reach. If your military forces look weak, you will likely
get picked on, and picked on, and picked on, unless someone takes
pity on you, or a plague of fair-play sweeps across the table.
The actual execution of combat is tired,
old story – one which reminds me of War,
and cheesy martial-arts movies. War, because you
pick one combatant at a time to face one opponent; cheesy martial-arts
movies because the rest of the combatants stand there and watch,
waiting for their turn. It’s a guessing game, and not a bad
one, wherein I secretly pick my mortal, mythical creature, or hero,
you pick yours, and we reveal them simultaneously. We then see if
one or the other gets an advantage against that type of opponent,
and drop a lot of really, big dice, looking to roll more sixes than
our opponent does. I’ve heard comparisons to Empires
of the Ancient World, because of the secret allocation
of unit types, and the one-on-one-at-a-time combat system. It also
reminds me of Avalon Hill’s Titan, because
of all the dice. At least in Titan, though, you
were forced to deploy all your troops, and push them into the lines.
Thankfully, combat in AoM doesn’t take as
long as it did in Titan, where the non-participants
could easily drive to the nearest bar, have a couple of beers while
watching a tennis match, drive home, and sit down in time for their
next turn. Figure on an average of about ten minutes per combat.
And combat is far more time-consuming
than it has any right to be, especially considering it can often
have less of an impact on the game than the play of a single, random
action card. After fifteen minutes of rolling dice too large for
a game taking most of a tabletop, you will destroy my gold mint,
or take five of my resource cubes, and then I’ll play a “Gather
All Resources” card, and pick up enough to build the game-ending
Wonder. After a while, combat in AoM takes on the
irrelevant tedium of those incredibly long commercial breaks one
finds during late-night television. And yet what else seems fair,
when you have hundreds of marvelously molded action figures in every
box?
So, we have the structures of Puerto
Rico, the resource tiles of the likes of Settlers
of Catan or Keythedral, the resource cubes
of umpty-diddle other Euro-style games, the action card choices
of, say, Puerto Rico or Wallenstein,
the combat system of Empires of the Ancient World,
and the miniatures of every Eagle game box we’ve opened to
date. Oh, yeah, and really big dice.
What is my opinion of this game, as
a whole? It’s hard to say, because it tries so darn hard to
defy cohesion. It is more an a la carte of modern gaming choices;
call it “the best of recent games” which, of course,
means taking those best parts out of their intended contexts, and
grafting them together in something Dr. Frankenstein would be proud
of. The context is mythology, clearly, but during the course of
the game the mind is constantly drawn from one system vaguely familiar
from another game, to the next system…vaguely familiar from
another game. Like the professional impersonator, the game seeks
to make a name for itself by imitating others. And just how far
did that get Rich Little?
Like Tenjo in 2002,
I want to like this game – I really do. But I can’t
seem to avoid the peculiar, Alice-in-Wonderland kind of sense that
I am experiencing a regurgitation of other experiences, turned left,
right or ninety degrees perhaps, but regurgitation, nonetheless.
For those who do not suffer from this disturbing set of echoes,
I can say you will probably enjoy this game. For those who do suffer,
well, I told you so. Maybe you’ll like it anyway.
Age of Mythology is
kind of like the ten-year old who says, “I want to be a fireman!
And an astronaut! And, and…a pro football player! And, and
a policeman! And…"
Glenn? I have one word for you.
Focus.
Darrell Hanning still resides in
Jacksonville, at least until the cockroaches form a local union
chapter. Then he’ll probably head back to the mountains.
Back to Contents

Age Of Mythology
a review by M. Barnes
Remember American board games? Those
old classics, the MB Gamemaster games, the Avalon Hill greats, games
I used to play before I had a job or a girlfriend…weekend-long
games of Titan, epic Supremecy
battles for world domination…all made obsolete by sexy, shockingly
simple games from Teuber, Knizia, and Kramer. While
American publishers cranked out Risk clone after
Risk clone, one too-long and inelegant, convoluted
game after another the European designers more or less revolutionized
the form, showing the world how sophisticated, clever, and beautiful
board games could be without pages and pages of rules.
Hundreds (thousands?) of wooden bits,
victory points, auctions, and Mayor turns later, Glenn Drover’s
Age of Mythology (Eagle Games) arrived on the American
game market. I was skeptical, my only experience with Eagle Games’
products an aborted attempt at Sid Meier's Civilization
brokered by an interest in the computer game it was based on. I
imagined that AoM would be yet another “area-impulse”
lightweight war game with a fantasy theme that plays to completion
in 48 hours, depending on the amount of leaderbashing. I also doubted
the credibility of a game licensed from a PC real-time strategy
game (albeit a very, very good one).
Early reports were that it played something
like Puerto Rico. The rules were posted. I read
them and was quite intrigued. After all the criticism I’ve
heard about Glenn Drover’s games I was surprised at how tight
and balanced it all seemed- he’s definitely studied the European
games and tried to isolate the elements that are the most significant,
such as balanced play, economy of rules, and providing a great deal
of strategic possibility. It certainly smelled like PR, what with
its variable actions, production buildings and individual player
boards; it was also easy to detect Drover’s study of Settlers
of Catan in its resource production and management. What
struck me the most is that essentially, the rules described something
really new to the American game canon- an abstract, mapless wargame
with distinctly European mechanics. What the Hong Kong-inspired
action of The Matrix was for mainstream American audiences
who had never seen John Woo films or wire stunts, Age of
Mythology is for the American board game industry- a creation
that borrows much from its European sources while integrating them
into a familiar “wargame” milieu to arrive at something
of a syncretic masterpiece.

Age of Mythology is
a lavish production to say the least. 300 plastic miniatures representing
minotaurs, mummies, Niddhogg and other units greet you at the door
(safely restrained by their sprues), making way for 6 mounted (!)
player boards. 3 decks of cards (one each for the Greek, Norse,
and Egyptian cultures, a player aid, 8 six-sided dice, 150 wooden
resource cubes, and a color, illustrated manual that is clearly
written and very well organized. The tile sheet is something of
a disappointment (after one knows the sheer tactile delight of punching
out a Hans Im Gluck game) as the tiles are of pretty standard thickness
and poorly die cut. The graphic design is excellent; Paul F. Niemeyer’s
art really brings a sense of grandeur to the proceedings. Unfortunately
the building tiles are artless, plain, and would look right at home
in an old Avalon Hill game- tan, colourless bits with plain black
text providing the building name and function. Functional, but they
seem rather spartan compared to the rest of the game’s graphics.
Gameplay centers around the play of
action cards- gather, explore, trade, recruit, attack, build and
next age. Each player has a set of “permanent” action
cards of which four may
be selected to determine the possible actions to be taken in the
round, during which each player will get to play three cards. As
players advance in ages (a resource-consuming endeavour), they may
have a larger hand thereby increasing their flexibility and ability
to adapt to changing situations. Players may forego the certainty
of permanent actions and draw a random action, which are generally
more effective and powerful versions of the permanent actions This
mechanic allows the player total control of what he may do in the
round and also allows an element of luck- you can plan on attacking
with your permanent card that allows you to use 5 units or you can
draw a card and maybe get the one that allows you to use 7. Or you
can go for both!
Additionally, the random cards often feature powers granted by the
gods (specific to each culture) that give the user further advantage
or benefit. Timing your actions is critical in AoM,
and selecting the right roles can be pivotal to securing victory.
I think the system is awesome due to its flexibility and the option
the player has to “play it safe” and be certain of having
weaker options or to accept a little luck and go for greater advantage.
Much like Settlers,
resource production is common to all players but there’s no
luck involved, barring the random draw of resource tiles at the
start of the game and during an “explore” action, which
allows players to increase their production capability provided
they can the place randomly-drawn tiles on appropriate land types.
The “gather” action is one of the best-thought out options
of the game, requiring the acting player to determine if players
will gather a particular type of resource or all types from a particular
terrain type. This ingenious idea provides a good bit of flexibility
and some control over who produces what, including the ability to
completely bar players from producing anything. The economic model
of the game impressed me greatly, allowing players a nice degree
of control over their economies including the ability to trade.
Of course, Age of Mythology
is not just an economic game. It is also a war game. Those Hydras
and Frost Giants would eat your Meeples alive. The attack action allows a player
to raid a player’s resource holdings, destroy buildings, or
seize production tiles, rather than just for the standard “land
grab”. The “attack” action is quite versatile
and allows for the player to set a goal beyond simply reducing an
opponent’s forces and the action can also provide victory
points. Combat itself is straightforward and is handled unit-to-unit;
I’ll forego a lengthy description of it here but essentially
the units generally follow a rock-paper-scissors order of battle
- cavalry is strong against archers, archers are strong against
infantry, infantry is strong against cavalry. Additionally, Myth
units are strong against mortals but are weak against Heroes. Units
roll dice according to their strength (including bonuses when pitted
against units they counter) and the most sixes wins; combat continues
until one side capitulates or is destroyed. The countering system
(lifted directly from the PC game) works very well and prevents
any one unit from being too powerful or unbalanced.
I found the victory point system to
be refreshingly different and new, much like something we’d
expect from a European designer. At the beginning of each turn,
players “wager” victory point cubes on cards awarded
to players having the largest army or most buildings at the end
of the game, to the player who builds the expensive Wonder (thereby
ending the game) and to the player who wins a battle in the round.
The “Won Last Battle” card is the most dynamic, allowing
for bluff (placing a cube there may or may not indicate someone’s
intentions!) and also providing points to a player focusing mainly
on a military strategy. It is also the only card that awards points
throughout the game. Players may also build a monument that allows
the trade of 8 favor cubes for 1 victory point. So again, like a
German game, there are multiple paths to victory and options for
a variety of play styles, and it is this versatility and flexibility
that really make Age of Mythology stand out as
a great strategy game.
By way of criticisms, it does still
seem a little longish. The combat system, although tactical to a
degree thanks to the countering system, still comes down to numerical
superiority and the luck of the dice. Players can be more or less
completely crippled by stronger, more astute players and never contend
for victory. Playing with certain players might make building anything
other than military buildings pointless. The game comes with 6 boards
and 6 sets of miniatures but only enough components for 4.
The game plays in about 2 hours (once
you get the hang of it) and scales well for any number of players.
The 2 player game is great fun in particular if both players are
on the same level. The 3 player game seems ideal, seeing as there
are three cultures represented. The game really captures the theme
and feel of the PC game, and fans of it will find much to enjoy.
This is a game that will appeal to a
wide demographic, drawing in board and war gamers as well as casual
gamers and people interested mainly in computer games. Undoubtedly,
some of these people will never have played a game with wooden cubes or role selection before.
Some of these people will read reviews that mention Puerto
Rico and try that out too. Maybe some of those people
will start buying German and European games, and some of those may
even design their own games. Age of Mythology is
unique, a lot of fun to play, and highly recommended to just about
anybody that plays any kind of game. For now, I think it’s
one of the very best American games on the market and I’m
thrilled to see European style mechanics making their way into this
type of game.
This is M. Barnes' first (and hopefully
not last) submission to Game Notes. We congratulate anyone who can
go head to head with Darrell Hanning right out of the gate.
Back to Contents
The
Creative Power of Insomnia
an interview
with Schutze Games' Peter Schutze
What led to the creation
of Schutze Games ?
I had been helping the Microgame Design Group with proofreading,
etc. and two topics came up: the limits imposed on designs such
as map size and counter limits and also the discovery that Brian
Train had several interesting and nearly completed designs that
were never going to be published unless I did something.
Not long after the release of those
4 designs (Pusan Perimeter, Somalia,
Powerplay and Tupamaro) I learned
that others, such as Paul Rohrbaugh were in the same predicament,
ensuring a steady supply of designs. Now I am so busy preparing
designs for publication, my own design work is lagging far behind.
What games or designers inspire
you ?
I don't think any games have inspired me; I love them all. I am
just as happy playing a real "monster" of a wargame as
I am playing the more popular "Euro" games or even running
a Dungeons and Dragons campaign for my two sons.
As
for designers, It would have to be both Brian Train and Paul Rohrbaugh
but for very different reasons. All of Brian's better known designs
such as Arriba Espana and Algeria
do an excellent job of capturing the politics behind the war as
well as the strategic ebb and flow of the conflict. Paul on the
other hand always manages to capture the feel of a battle without
a lot of "grit" making the games easy to learn and short
enough for repeated playings.
What process do you use for creating
a game ?
Insomnia is not such a bad thing .... many a countersheet has been
created at 3am. For the most part it depends on what state the design
is when I receive it. Paul is usually very helpful in this regard
as he sends in all the basics I need like a roughly drawn countersheet
and map so I just fix everything and then get on with the proofreading
and editing. Bruce Costello has not been quite that helpful ....
Warplan Dropshot has so many unique counters that
it was a real chore turning all the sketches he supplied into a
countersheet.

At the other end of the scale are the
titles such as Dark Continent and March
on Rome that Lloyd Krassnerr and I have completed together.
Lloyd is very big on ideas and has left it up to me to turn a list
of ideas and "key events" surrounding a theme into a working
game. That usually involves a huge amount of playtesting to find
out how much we can keep. Once I have reached that stage the real
enjoyment begins. Since Lloyd's best ideas are "Euro"
style, it can be very exciting watching several groups put a nearly
complete design through its paces.
Designing a game from scratch rather
than preparing someone else's for publication is not that much harder
for a bookworm like me. I have a list of topics that I am working
through so I read everything I can get hold of on the subject and
take lots of notes. Then comes often frustrating but inevitable
task of filling of those holes in the Order of Battle. That can
be a real pain .... for the Singapore game currently being playtested,
I have 2 reliable lists of allied artillery and they just don't
match!
From there on its almost the same as working on one of Lloyd's games
except that it is a lot more tedious writing a wargame rulebook.
What would be a minor point in a Euro game can have far reaching
consequences in a wargame because they are far more complex.
What does the future hold for Schutze
Games ?
Definitely not fame and fortune ! There is always a lot working
its way through the pipeline but because of the small printruns,
I need to send the printers a lot in one go.
The second batch of profesional games
should go to print by the end of the year. The next 2 Blitzkrieg
titles (Dinant and Tongres) and
Dropshot 60's ready and waiting to go. TCS are
going to send over their next title "Montebello"
at the end of October so a new batch of DTP titles is building up
as well.
Somewhere amongst these I hope to have two of my own designs ready:
Impregnable Fortress, the Singapore game I meantioned
earlier and a tactical Boer War game tentatively titled Boer
War Battles.
What game are you proudest of?
I am proud of the entire Schutze Games range although the artist
side of me is often tempted to rework the early games. The games
all have a redeeming feature, whether it is Breaking Into
Valhalla's strategic puzzle or Victory
in Vietnam's compacting so much politics and history into
a neat package.
Of the six games I have designed or
collaborated on, Dark Continent is the family favourite;
my eldest son insists on playing it regularly. It is personally
disappointing that a great game has been neglected by the gaming
community. This is partly my fault since it suffers amongst the
wargaming crowd for being both a Euro game and a DTP. I am certain
that given Eagle Games style components and proper marketing to
the Euro games crowd, it would outsell the entire Schutze Games
range.
Back to Contents
Lawless
a review by Tom Vasel
I
have a soft spot for Blue Box games, as I’ve found them very
fun, and good to play with a larger group of players. I’m
also a sucker for Western themes, as they aren’t extremely
common, and thus found Lawless (Eurogames, 2003
– Bruno Cathala) intriguing. I liked Bruno’s other games
(Queen’s Necklace, Drake & Drake)
and so was looking forward to try out the first game he ever designed.
So, my opinion? Although
I love the theme and much of the game-play, it didn’t really
strike a chord with my group. The game is a good one, but has so
much randomness and backstabbing that it can literally be impossible
to win. That being said, the game is very fun to play. This seems
like a contradictory opinion, but let me explain a bit more.
 A thin, long board is set
out in front of the players, with six spots to place cards, each
numbered from one to six. (This is known as “the Line.”
A deck of 117 cards is shuffled, and three cards are dealt to each
player. Six cards are turned over and placed on the Line, one in
each spot. The rest of the cards are placed face-down to form a
draw pile. A pile of gold pieces is formed in the middle of the
board (depending on the amount of the players). One player then
takes the first turn, with the rest following in a clockwise order.
During the game, a player will play
cards in front of him, indicating that player’s ranch. Cards
include cattle herds (poor, good, and prize-winning) –which
graze on ranges and can be sold for money; ranges (scrub, good,
and excellent) – which support cattle; cowboys (greenhorns,
experienced hands, and veterans) – which watch over the cattle;
and other special cards that accomplish a variety of things.
On their turn, a player completes four
phases. The first phase is the manage livestock phase. First, a
player must check to see if any of his cattle have run away. The
player to their left counts up the amount of cattle herds they have
on the table and adds that number to the roll of one die. The player
who owns the cattle adds up the bonuses on the cowboys they have
on the table, and adds that to the roll of a die that they make.
The two rolls are compared, and if the player who owns the cattle
rolls lower, one herd runs away. Otherwise, nothing happens. The
player who owns cattle may then sell each cattle herd or let it
graze. Each cattle is worth an initial amount of gold. Every time
it is not sold, but left to graze, the card is rotated (up to four
times). The amount of times rotated is multiplied by the base value
to get a total value when the herd is finally sold.
The next phase is collecting other incomes.
During this phase, any player who owns a gold mine collects money
for it. After that, a player has six action points to spend. They
may do four different things with their action points (which should
be spent and cannot be saved from turn to turn).
- Take a card from the Line (the cost in action points is the number
that corresponds to the space the card is in.
- Take a card from the pile (the cost is 3 action points)
- Play herd, range, or cowboy cards in front of them. (The cost
is 1 action point per card, and herd cards cannot be played unless
they are supported by range cards – each range supports a
certain amount of cattle.)
- Play special cards. (The cost is indicated in the top left corner
of the card.)
During the last phase, the player discards
down to his maximum hand size (10 cards), and moves the cards on
the line. Each card moves down to fill gaps in the Line, and the
top cards of the deck are drawn to replenish the Line.
There are many special cards in the
game. These include:
- Indian raid: This card can be played on an opponent’s range,
locking it up, and preventing it from scoring any points.
- Cavalry: Cancels Indian raid
- Stampede: This card increases the chances of cattle running away
from the player on whom the card is played.
- Rodeo Champion: Cancels Stampede
- Hold Up: Allows you to rob the bank or another player of some
of their gold.
- Gold Mine: Puts a gold mine on a range, giving that player additional
income.
- Hired Guns: Can be used to attack opponents’ cowboys
- Sheriff: Helps defend against Hired Guns
- And many more….
After the last card is drawn from the
deck, or the last coin taken from the bank – the game is over.
Each player then scores up their total points. Each player totals
up their ranges, herds, cowboys, and gold. The player who has the
most in each category scores five points, with the second getting
three points, the third getting two points, and the fourth scoring
one point. Fifth and sixth get nothing! The player with the highest
amount of points is the winner!
Some comments on the game:
1). Components: The components for this
game are typical of Eurogames Blue Box series. The cards are of
decent quality, while the artwork on them is superb – comic
book style, and very Western. The money is gold-colored Tiddly Winks,
and functions well as commerce – although it would be nice
if they had included chips that were worth five coins. The (typical)
die, cards, and coins all fit easily in the box, which is the same
size as all other Blue Box games and has some good artwork on it.
2). Rules: This is my personal biggest
complaint about the game. The rules are fairly clear (although the
organization leaves something to be desired), and printed in an
eight page booklet. The booklet is colorful and includes examples
and many pictures. The problem lies in the card interactions. There
are many things that come up in the game that are just not covered
in the rules. Some cards are downright confusing to play (hired
guns). Other cards bring up questions – like can cattle be
moved from range to range? These questions are not in the rules,
and it seems like play-testing would have brought them out. We finally
had to make some house rules and spur of the moment decisions, but
it would have been nicer if the rules had covered these things.
3). Backstabbing: I’m a huge fan
of stabbing players in the backs. However, it’s extremely
easy to gang up on one player and practically eliminate them from
the game. While this may be fun for everyone, it’s not fun
for that one player. And the backstabbing cards are immensely powerful.
4). Powerful cards: And this brings
us to my next criticism of the game – the cards. Some cards
are just too powerful, and can really change the game. Hired guns
seem excessively powerful, as are mines and several other cards.
I’m also not a big fan of cards that can only be canceled
by one card. I love the variety that the cards provide, and the
chaos that is included. But it’s just too easy for one player
to draw better cards than the next player and win based on that
alone.
5). Theme and Fun Factor: The theme
is a good point, however. The wild, wild west is simulated well
through the game. Players will find themselves talking in a western
draw and making sound effects as they shoot each other’s cowboys,
rustle cattle, and rob banks. The game is a lot of fun to play,
as things move fairly quickly, and players are involved in much
of the game.
6). Strategy: I haven’t decided
on strategy yet. It seems that if you get a card, it’s usually
pretty obvious where to play it (and that’s usually the player
who is in the lead). Should a player try to get the most cattle,
ranges, cowboys, or gold – or all of them? That sounds like
a lot of strategy, but a player is fairly limited by the amount
of cards in their hands. Strategy and tactics are here, but the
randomness of die rolls and card selection can drown them out. The
“Line” is a very unique idea (it’s a little similar
to Queen’s Necklace card costs), and I like it a lot, but
it doesn’t work as well in this game.
So I will recommend the game, but only
to people who like the Western theme and a LOT of chaos in their
games. I probably won’t play the game again until a good FAQ
is posted, and even then not often. It’s a sad thing, as I
love the Blue Box line and Bruno Cathala’s games, but this
one isn’t that great. It’s a mediocre game, but if you
want a true, fun Wild Western game, play Way out West.
Tom Vasel's reviews appear regularly
on rec.games.board and boardgamegeek. We're glad he saved a few
opinions for us.
Back to Contents
GMT's
Ardennes '44
a review by Steve Pfarrer
Is
there any battle that has spawned more wargames than the Battle
of the Bulge? By one count, the Bulge has been the subject of 32
games, primarily at the operational level and at various levels
of complexity, since board wargaming first became a hobby in the
1960s. Four new titles, including GMT's Ardennes '44,
have been released this year alone. The Bulge has also been explored
at the tactical level in various games.
Certainly the December 1944 battle had the kind of drama that has
led to its popularity as a wargame: a last-ditch, surprise offensive
by a German army thought to be kaput; a desperate defense by outnumbered
GIs; the defense of Bastogne by the surrounded 101st Airborne Division.
But how many times can cardboard panzers push across the wooded
hills of Belgium and Luxembourg before you say "Enough!"
As Mark Simonitch, the designer of Ardennes '44,
writes in his designer notes, "Why another Bulge game?"
The answer, in a nutshell, is that Simonitch -- aside from his own
interest in the topic -- believed there was room for a Bulge game
that accurately simulated the details and specifics of the battle
while still retaining a good level of playability. His philosophy
is to avoid making, "a simulation that masquerades as a game.
Rather, make a game that can stand among the simulations."
Ardennes '44 appears to have done that with flying
colors, and it may well become the gold standard for regimental-level
Bulge games. Simonitch has blended some basic mechanics from other
games, streamlined or modified others, and introduced his own unique
ideas to produce a game that, at least in my initial playings, has
modeled the Bulge better than any other game I've played on the
topic.
Like Simonitch's previous games (Ukraine '43 and
The Legend Begins) Ardnennes '44
is of roughly medium complexity, with slightly over 20 pages of
rules; the rulebook also includes a very helpful extended example
of play and informative designer notes. Turns represent 12 hours
of real time, and the full game runs from December 16 through December
26, by which point the German attack had been stopped. There are
also two shorter scenarios depicting the first days of the offensive.
For gamers familiar with other Bulge treatments of a similar scale,
Ardennes '44 strikes a middle ground somewhare
between the popular
Bitterwoods and the detailed but errata-plagued
Hitler's Last Gamble. It's a
much better simulation than the former and a much more playable
game than
the latter, while still having excellent detail and carefully considered
chrome.
Aesthetically, it's the kind of effort one has come to expect from
Simonitch, who did all the artwork. The two-section, 30'' by 37"
map, at 1.6
miles per hex, is outstanding, showing the rough, wooded terrain
and narrow
river valleys of the Ardennes in the muted colors of winter. It
also has
large hexes to accommodate the slightly oversize 9/16-inch counters.
The
game comes with some 570 counters, about 130 of which are markers.
Most
units are regiments and brigades, but many armored and some infantry
units
are battalions. Armored units are represented primarily by tank
silhouettes,
while most other units use NATO symbols. Units are rated for combat
strength
and morale, while tank units also have an armor rating that can
provide a
favorable shift on the CRT.
Aside form the fine artwork, what makes Ardennes '44
different than
other Bulge games? A number of things stand out. One is that the
map does a
better job than most in showing how restrictive the terrian was.
Mechanized
units, for example, will find it very difficult to move off road
-- at least
at any speed -- and armored and recon units will be further hemmed
in by
river valleys and forests. The German player may well find himself
backtracking down a river valley after the Americans blow a bridge
in his face, as only infantry units can cross unbridged hexsides.
The second point is that Ardennes '44 conveys much
of the battle's
flavor and detail with a minimum of rules fuss. For instance, mechanized
units using secondary roads to move through forests pay two movement
points
as opposed to one, to simulate the muddy conditions of many of these
roads.
The Americans have a chance to stop a German attack cold by rolling
on a
defensive artillery table and getting a "Time on Target"
result, just as the
real German attack on Elseborn Ridge foundered under well-timed
U.S.
barrages.
One problem for Bulge designers is how to handle the traffic jams
and
logistical snafus that were endemic in the battle because of the
poor road
network. No one wants complex rules that force players to become
traffic
cops, but neither should units be able to sprint like greyhounds
across the
map. Simonitch handles the situation with some innovative rules.
As one
example, each player gets six "traffic" markers and two
"road block" markers
that can be placed on roads to slow an opponent's units; the counters
represent factors like small-unit delaying actions, traffic jams,
and
confusion spread by German Greif teams. However, players must make
a die
roll each turn to remove one or two of their traffic markers, meaning
they
can't be certain they'll be able to slow enemy units in the most
critical
places.
Finally, stacking and "command and control" rules put
the damper on
many of the massive attacks that occur in some Bulge games. You're
generally
limited to one regiment and one battalion per hex, and a maximum
of two
divisions per attack. Couple this with the difficult terrain and
the traffic
snafus, and the German player in particular will often find it difficult
to
bring much force to bear on the attack.Just getting the Germans
untracked
during the first days of the offensive can prove maddening. Later,
as Der
Fuhrer's legion finnally get moving forward, American reinforcements
begin
streaming in, and a lone U.S. infantry unit hunkered down along
a forest
road can negate German armored superiority and bog down an attack.
The CRT conveys a bit of tactical flavor, as some results allow
the
attacker to roll on a "Firefight" table on which you can
try and press home
an attack at the risk of higher losses; similarly, the defender
can sometimes
try to hold a critical hex by rolling on a "Determined Defense"
table that
may give the defender higher losses. Some other basic elements of
the Bulge
-- German fuel shortages, improve positions, strategic movement,
infiltration and disengagement -- are handled with simple, elegant
rules.
As
the game progresses, the Germans, just as they did in the real battle,
will likely see their panzer units worn down by attrition, and much
of their immobile artillery will be left behind, as the Germans
have limited transport that they'll often have to use to move reinforcements
forward. The Yanks may lose many of their starting units -- mostly
infantry battalions -- but with careful positioning of their traffic
and road block markers and some decent luck on the CRT, they can
slow the German offensive and use the superior mobility of their
reinforcements to plug holes in their lines -- and launch an occasional
counterattack. By December 23, the weather clears and U.S. airpower
begins to make itself felt in the form of favorable defensive shifts
on the CRT. If they aren't within a quick strike of the Meuse by
then, it's pretty much lights out for the Germans.
Yet the Germans can break out -- they just have to work harder to
achieve it than in most Bulge games. A special "night movement"
phase at the
end of each day provides for some limited reserve movement and combat,
and
the player order is reversed, giving the Germans two consecutive
turns to
try and punch a hole and exploit it. I consider it a measure of
the game's
balance that in my first two playings, the battle shaped up pretty
much
along historical lines, while in a third playing -- this time one
of the
shorter scenarios -- the Germans broke through in a number of places
and won
convincingly.
I have some quibble with Ardennes '44, mostly that
the Germans seem to
make ahistorically good progress toward the southern map edge, where
they
can block U.S. reinforcements. But I'm confident I'll be able to
devise some
strategies to firm up the U.S. line as I continue to play the game.
The game would have also benefitted from a scenario or two depicting
an American counterattack, like the drive Patton's 3rd Army made
against the southern edge of the German penetration to relieve the
surroundered troops in Bastogne. Simonitch has said counter limitations
prevented him from adding anything to the game that would have taken
it beyond the last turn December 26, but it's possible such a scenario
and some extra counters might be featured in a future issue of C3I,
GMT's house magazine. In short, even if you own a number of regimental-level
Bulge games,
there's room in your collection for Ardennes '44.
If you haven't played one
yet, this is the one to buy.
Steve Pfarrer lives in western Massachusetts
and enjoys a variety of historical simulation games, including GMT's
June 6, Ukraine '43 and Eastern
Front Series, as well as the Panzer Grenadier
series by Avalanche Press. In between them, he also enjoys Strat-O-Matic
Baseball.
Back to Contents
Re-imagining the Power of Play
an interview
with Uberplay Games' Jeremy Young
Tell us about what
led up to the creation of your company. How did you get it started?
What do you see as your corporate purpose?
Back when I was running my Web Hosting
company, VServers.com, I hired a
good friend of mine to come and run some media web sites that we
were using
to generate traffic for sales. One day I was in his office and he
pulled
out a box from an online game company from under his desk and inside
were four German board games. I remember Lost Cities,
El Grande, Tikal and something
else. He kept bugging me and bugging me to play these games with
him and I couldn't imagine sitting down to try to play these board
games! For one, they looked complicated and two, one of them was
in German.
He bugged me for months until finally
I played a game of El Grande and Lost
Cities with him one night. Then we played Settlers
of Catan and I was
totally hooked. I started to research all I could about the German
game
business. Who were the main players in the industry? Who were the
main
designers and how did they work with the publishers? How did the
supply
chain work in Germany and how was it different than the US? How
did the
Germans create such a high demands for these products and why weren't
they
that big in the US?
So I just started emailing and calling
people until I learned what I needed
to know to build the foundation of creating Uberplay Entertainment.
I am
doing this because I love games, but first of all because I love
to build
successful businesses, and I think I can do both with Uberplay.
How would you differentiate what
you do as compared to what Rio Grande
(or other producers of English language German games) does?
There are a couple of things that differentiate
us. One is that we are
trying to find games that we can sell through unique distribution
channels.
Creating different themed games based on games that have already
sold
millions of copies is a no-brainer for us. We know the games are
good! All
we need to do is find the right channels, create some very compelling
graphics, nice presentation, well-written rules and use PR and marketing
to
create the awareness in the channel. With The Settlers of
Zarahemla, we
hired a PR firm to help us create a media blitz in Utah complete
with TV
advertising, newspaper interviews, television spotlights on us and
the
company and more.
Another way that we will differentiate
ourselves is through some unique
sales channels that we are working on that we can't quite talk about
yet -
but you will hear about it!
The notion of digital versions
of some of the best German games has us
intrigued. What inspired this idea and when can we expect to see
some of
the products?
My first foray into the business world
after I sold my web hosting company
was a company that was going to build browsers and video games for
handheld,
mobile devices. Part of that was to take simple Euro games and turn
them
into PocketPC video games. That business didn't work out as planned
for a
variety of reasons so I partnered up with a company called Gatehouse
Games
in the UK. They are doing the design work on the titles now and
we are
going to focus on distribution and marketing of the games. We should
have
Lost Cities released very shortly.
Will the digital games be for online play against human components,
will they have artificial AI for players to compete against, or
both?
Both - we are working on the server
aspect of the game now where you can
log in and connect to other players around the world. The main programmer
Tom, is a killer AI developer so the single player modes will be
quite good.
Your Ark of the Covenant
game is an interesting variant of Carcassonne.
What differences will a verteran Carcassonne player
notice when he or she
plays Ark?
We had some great help from Klaus-Jurgen
Wrede with the game mechanics on
this one. The game plays similarly to Carcassone
with some notable exceptions. There are no "farmers" in
the game but you herd sheep. There are wolves in the fields that
will eat your sheep. You also have a temple piece where you try
to have a majority of followers around the 4 squares of the temple,
which will earn you points. There is a prophet piece (which is a
large follower) that you can use one time per game. He goes into
a City and gives you double the points (see, he is preaching repentance
to the City!) and then you have The Ark, that you can move up to
5 spaces on your turn if you don't place a follower. If you move
The Ark past your, or your opponents', followers - each is worth
1 point.
What
differences will we see in Settlers of Zarahemla
as compared to traditional Settlers?
For those who don't know, The
Settlers of Zarahemla is a Settlers variant
that is based on The Book of Mormon, specifically published
to sell to the Mormon community. We used some of the game mechanics
of some of Klaus Teuber's expansion Cheops, in
Zarahemla. The basic game of Settlers
stands but you also have to help construct the Temple of Zarahemla.
The board is variable - meaning that the board acts as a frame and
the hex pieces fit inside the framed board. All of the development
cards are based on Book of Mormon characters and stories.
We also added a nice score track around the outside of the board
to help people keep score more easily. And we really like the art!
It came out extremely well.
Finally, what games can we look
forward to in the near future - and what
games do you hope you can bring to America in the next year or so?
Well, we don't want to let the cat out
of the bag just yet. We have a ton of games slated for release in
2004 but we are going to keep a lid on that until after Essen and
then we'll make some more announcements after Nuremburg in February.
Let's just say, we are very excited about the future of Uberplay!
Back to Contents

"Just so you know, Craig takes his
games of Ra very seriously."
a cartoon by Scott Starkey
Back to Contents
ZooSim
a review by Michael Debije
ZooSim
was released originally by Corné van Moorsel’s Dutch
company Cwali for Essen 2002, and has apparently been picked up
for publication by Zoch as O Zoo Lo Mio in 2003,
a terrible name in my opinion, but we’ll leave that be. As
I don’t know if there are any changes in the Zoch version
of the game, I restrict this little writeup to the original game.
ZooSim is at heart
a tile-laying game. In all, twenty five tiles are laid during the
course of play. Each tile depicts some paths, trees, and two zoo
animal exhibits, coded for animal type (aquatic animals are blue,
reptiles are gray, and so forth for the five colors) and attractiveness
of the exhibit (one to three stars). In each of the five rounds
of play, five tiles are placed face up in order. Players must bid
from their stock of coins (initially eight) on the first tile of
the line using a blind bidding mechanism. High bid wins the tile,
ties going in order of a special tie breaker system- each player
has a ‘flag’, placed in ascending order. Whoever has
the highest flag wins all draws, but after such a win displaces
his flag to the bottom of the pole, and thus that player is guaranteed
to lose the next tie bid. After winning a tile, it must be immediately
placed to extend the player’s zoo. There are several factors
to consider when placing tiles. Having similar animal exhibits next
to each other is an advantage: a two star blue immediately adjacent
to a one star blue gives a total three-star exhibit. The player
with the most ‘stars’ in each color attracts two visitors,
the second-most stars gets a single visitor, etc. As an added wrinkle,
if there is a tie for number of stars, the player who most recently
placed a tile to bring about the tie gets the visitor, as the fickle
public prefers a new exhibit to an old one! In addition to the five
animal exhibits, players also score visitors for the number of trees
in the zoo (visitors like shade!) and the number of paths through
the zoo that form complete loops (the reason behind this is a little
less clear- we assume that these people have become lost, and can’t
find their way out again). After placement and visitor allocation,
the next tile is bid on until all five are gone, and the round is
scored.

Players receive one point
per visitor in their zoo at the end of the first round. The next
round consists of bidding and placing the next five tiles, but scoring
increases each following round: two points per visitor after the
second round, three per visoitor after the third, and so on. Players
receive income at the end of each round for future bidding in the
form of one ‘coin’ per tile in the zoo, so in this way,
having a larger zoo gathers more funds.
Enough about the rules, and a little into the play of the game.
The afficianados of games such as Carcassonne will
welcome the tile laying, but soon will realize this one is more
of a mind bender. The tiles are twice as long as they are wide,
and with six possible exit sides for paths, one must have a little
mental dexterity to be able to flip tiles around in their head to
accurately view potential placement in their zoos. Also, since placing
like colors adjacent is an advantage, one must also consider the
positions of the animals with respect to the paths, another extra
challenge. I have been stuck several times with tiles that looked
initially like they would fit nicely, only to find a mismatch that
thwarts my plans.
Money can be tight, and winning one or two tiles in a round with
4 players requires some careful evaluations. Since everyone knows
what the next five tiles will be, one must carefully consider what
colors to focus on, and be aware of what the other players may be
coveting. Aslo, being aware of where you stand on the tie-breaker
can help influence the bid - its a little safer to bid low if you
are high on the pole, but necessary to perhaps overspend to get
a tile you really want if you are last in the tie-breaker. Spending
all your money early can cost you in that you have to sit and watch
the others bid for tiles in the next round(s), but being too stingy
can doom you with too few points to be able to catch up later. People
with good memories have an advantage, as they can track the amount
of coins each opponent has.
It is possible to play with 3 or even 2 players. The two player
game can be a bit tricky during the first few plays, especially
if players are too frugal, as later in the game they realize they
have tons of money, but little time to catch up in scoring.
The Cwali cannister is used to hold the game, which I rather like
although it doesn’t always fit on the gaming shelf very easily.
I am not so fond of the cover art, as some of the people drawn are
downright scary; this is a pity, since I do believe
it may put off some people looking for a nice family game. The tiles
are nicely illustrated with animals, but I wish the red and orange
stars were a little more differentiated. The money coins are oddly
painted gray, but are nice and big. The black meeples are also pleasantly
bulky, but unfortunately there is quite a bit of clutter on the
board, with double meeples, single meeples, and lying-down meeples,
and one constantly has to check who has the lead in each color,
and how many ‘stars’ or ‘trees’ each opponent
has in order to best evaluate a bid on the next tile. I’ve
heard some gamers have alleviated the scoring headaches by coloring
the meeples to correspond with the animal colors, but that seems
like too much work for me. The little 3-D zoo entrance huts are
nice, doubling up as the money hiding place, but they can be easily
knocked over, revealing the number of coins a player has left. Be
aware that a decent-sized space is needed to set up all the zoos.
Most of the criticisms leveled towards the game have centered on
the ‘rich get richer’ problem, and it is something that
needs to be addressed. The criticism is that the person with the
most tiles gets the most money, thereby allowing him to bid higher
and get more tiles later, and that it is not easy to catch up. In
some games this is the case, especially ones in which the initial
bidding is low. If one allows the opposition to obtain tiles too
cheaply, then one can indeed fall behind, and since the leader is
still replete with cash, it is hard to catch up. However, if one
forces opponents to pay good prices to obtain tiles, the amount
of money they go into the next round with, even with their increased
income, will still be less than those who have fewer tiles, allowing
players to come from behind. Clever manipulation of the tie-breaking
flagpole also can keep the leader at bay until one can catch up.
However, runaway situations do come about from time to time, but
luckily this is a 30-45 minute game, so the agony does not go on
long.
In summary, this is a nice filler game. It has high-quality components,
clear rules, and is approachable by gamers and non-gamers alike.
The appeal crosses age and gender boundaries, and blends several
mechanisms nicely. It plays well with 2-4 players, and in only 30-45
minutes. Add in an affordable price (less than $25 at Boulder Games!),
and you have a mild winner. I give it a solid 7 out of 10 –
not an award candidate, but a good starter or ender to an evening.
Michael Debije is yet
another newcomer to Game Notes. We hope to see more reviews from
him soon.
Back to Contents
Discovering,
Developing and Designing DTP
an interview
with Saxon Games' Norman Smith
Can you tell us what got you interested in wargames
in the first place?
A. Just like most other boys born in the early 60's, I went
through that thing of spending all of my pocket money on Airfix plastic
figures and vehicles. In my early teens, I came across a couple of
books, one called Discovering Wargames and I can't remember
the title of the other, but it was by Don Featherstone. That was it.
I was hooked. My figures were instantly elevated from mere play things
to something much more important. I started buying the 'Battle'
magazine and Don Featherstone's Wargame Newsletter, which
connected me to the world of figure
gaming.
Then in 1977, by chance I visited a local games shop and came across
a publication called S&T. It was a military magazine
with a wargame called 'COBRA' in it. I bought this
strange thing and played and replayed it over and over again, totally
captivated by the tactical nuances of this kind of gaming. That was
it; this chance purchase had pressed all the right buttons and introduced
me to the world's best kept secret, board wargames.
I think it's this experience that makes me feel so strongly about
supporting that increasingly rare creature, the wargame retailer.
As wargamer numbers have decreased and gamers are encouraged to buy
direct with pre-published discounts, the retailer/distributor network
has paid a heavy price. I’m not aware of any shop in my city
now that sells wargames; what chance does the next generation have
of accidentally discovering wargames in the way that I did? So far,
I have resisted direct buying, though my own dealer no longer has
full coverage as a couple of publishers have fully gone to direct
sales only.
What kind of shape is your game collection in after 25 years of
buying games?
My collection is actually quite small. I must have bought hundreds
of titles over the years but with having a local games dealer, I have
enjoyed the benefit of being able to trade back the stuff that would
just collect dust. My collection reflects my interest in low complexity
games that play to a conclusion in a single session. I maintain a
website that highlights those games that I keep going back to; as
such, the site has evolved the theme of playability, which I think
is becoming an increasingly important consideration to modern gamers.
How do you think
wargames have changed/evolved since you came into the hobby?
Perhaps the most obvious change is that modern printing methods
have allowed a substantial improvement in the physical quality of
games. If I look at a new S&T compared to my old ‘Cobra’
game, the format is much the same but the latest issues have much
more colour, heavier paper and really nice maps. I think the team
at Command Magazine really showed the wargame world how
to use the new technology when they produced ‘Kadesh’
in the early 90’s; those counters made you say wow (then).
Phalanx and recently Avalanche Press (with Granada)
have pushed the boundaries still further with their games produced
to the sumptuous ‘Euro’ standards.
The wargaming community is small and divided into players and collectors.
The collectors can afford to buy based on subject interest alone,
while ‘real’ players are increasingly looking for playability
in their games as spare time appears to be in short supply (or more
likely, our inclination towards reading another set of long rules
is fast diminishing). I think that this has created a definite shift
in which publishers are more responsive to the question of playability,
as a game has to appeal to both players and collectors if it is
going to sell enough copies to pay its way.
What motivated you to start producing
your own works?
I made my first wargame design in 1984. It was a computer game called
NATO Alert, covering a Soviet invasion into western
Europe. It was designed for the Spectrum computer and was published
by CCS. Doing that game taught me that it is easy to start a project
but much harder to finish one and that much can be achieved if the
effort is made. Most importantly though, it taught me that turning
a hobby into a commercial venture can spoil your enjoyment of that
hobby.
I did my first DTP design in 2001. At that time, I had bought a
couple of DTP games by Hampton Newsome of Ivy Street Games and I
thought ‘wow’ has someone really done this on their
home computer? I like small format games and have nostalgic memories
of the games that Swedish Games put out in the early 80’s.
The whole DTP thing fits in with my preference towards small, playable
formats.
Yours are DTP games. How has DTP
software changed the face and substance of wargames?
Without doubt, desk top publishing software
has revolutionised the wargame industry. It has removed the total
control of publication that publishers had and quite literally given
the power of print to the individual. If you wanted to publish your
game in the 80’s, you would have to go via a publisher. These
days, you can self publish with the greatest of ease.
The benefit to the wargame hobby is that it now has a vibrant and
strong amateur publishing wing, which as well as mainstream titles,
covers the more obscure subjects that would not otherwise get any
exposure by the big publishers.
It is probably the combination of DTP
and the internet that has made these games such a success and that
partnership should ensure that the amateur wing of the hobby will
always have a platform to supply new material in the future, regardless
of commercial pressures that the mainstream publishers may face.
The influence and quality of DTP games looks set to increase over
time.
Can you take us step by step through
your game creation process?
Once I have decided on the unit and map scale, I draw a very large
map and build up the map information from as many accounts as I
can get hold of. Next, all of my other notes go onto that map. I
then create an order of battle, again, checking this against accounts.
Having an accurate map and detailed order of battle are the most
important design tools.
Next, I look at the major military features from that battle or
period that I want to absorb into the game. For example, if I were
doing a Napoleonic game, I would want the Imperial Guard to be handled
historically so that its units are not committed to battle on each
and every turn, throughout play as a lot of systems allow, but rather,
they are more commonly held back as the ultimate reserve.
In my 1066 games, I prevented the archers from
being able to fire missiles continually every turn without regard
for missile supply and did not allow them to be used offensively
as melee troops. Basically, they fire and then tend to melt out
of the way, while the heavier soldiers close for battle.
Once done, I make initial fire, melee and movement charts, etc.
and start to put together a shell of a rulebook. I then start to
push things around and use the rulebook as a living document so
that EVERY time a rule needs to be created or developed, I make
an entry.
Once things get up and running, I tend to sit down after each playtest
game and update the entire rulebook at one sitting. This greatly
helps in ensuring that when a rule is changed, all other rules that
cross reference with it are changed as well; it is probably sloppiness
here that creates most of the errata problems in rulesets.
Once you are happy with your design,
how do you go about publishing it?
I use CorelDraw for my maps, counters and title page. The rulebook
and charts are done with Microsoft Word. The first time that I tried
to get my counters and maps published, I saved the file to disk
and took the disk to the printers. This caused problems because
the printed product ended up with different colours and tones than
I had intended, due to the variances between the RGB and CMYK codes.
So now, I print all of my colour items at home on a good quality
printer so that I keep full control over the quality of the colours
and then I get them photocopied at the printers. There is a slight
reduction in quality through photocopying but the trade off is worthwhile.
I use two printing firms; one does the rulebooks because his machine
copies, folds and stables the booklets in one operation. The other
does all my colour work because their machine gives more constant
results.
As for selling the games, Consimworld has been a wonderful platform
for passing the word around. I keep a small stock of games for direct
selling but as I have already said, supporting the distributors/retailers
is an important philosophy to me, so most of my stuff goes to them,
with Boulder Games obviously being an important part of that network.
It’s also very nice to see that the excellent review magazine
‘Paper Wars’ gives DTP games equal prominence
to the professionally produced games in its pages, rather than simply
shoving the DTP stuff to the back pages of the magazine or something
like that.
I see that you have used self adhesive
counters for your recent reprints, do you think that you will eventually
get into fully mounted and die cut counters?
No, that is unlikely, at least in the near future. The way I see
is that there are some people who are now used to DTP and buy it
quite freely and that there are others who will just never go near
it. But there are a bunch of people sitting on the fence who would
like to give it a go if the counter mounting thing could be made
easier. Going to self adhesive counter sheets means no gluing for
the customer. Just peel the back off the counter sheet, fix to card
and then cut. I think it will get some new people into DTP games.
Die cut counters would be lovely to do but from a cost effective
point of view, I would have to have larger print runs and probably
gang print two games at once. It would move the product up a notch
to semi-professional but I would lose the flexibility of very low
print runs with low financial risks. Frankly, I would probably lose
the focus that this is all for fun and end up working too many hours.
To me it makes more sense to simply accept that there is professional
and there is amateur; each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
The self adhesive counters are a good compromise and I hope they
bring a few more gamers into the DTP fold.
What does a wargamer need to know to transform their idea into
a DTP game?
There is something of a steep learning curve to producing the first
game but it is certainly rewarding to see the completed product.
Creating a DTP game takes a LOT of time and the biggest problem
that I encountered was that it did not leave me enough time to do
any gaming for pleasure. It’s probably a good idea to pace
yourself and maybe give yourself a year to get the project done.
You don’t need the latest fancy computer or software but you
will need a capable drawing package, I use CorelDraw which handles
both vector graphics and bitmap graphics. Save your work regularly
to an external medium and make sure you date it, so that you know
which is the latest version.
For starters, a print run of between 50 and 100 games will have
a fairly good chance of shifting. Photocopying prices start to drop
at around 50 copies and then again at 100 copies. Printing costs
will typically be around £250 to £300 and by using a
mix of retailer and direct sales, it is sensible to aim at recovering
costs and accepting that any meaningful profit is unlikely.
Will Saxon Games only produce designs about Saxon battles?
No. I have a wide range of military interests and I tend to flit
from one period to the other. I thought a trading name would be
useful for a number of reasons and since my first two games involved
the Saxons, I thought ‘Saxon Games’; why not?
What plans do you have for your next game?
My most advanced project is the Battle of Bosworth 1485
(Wars of the Roses), using my 1066 system.
I’m also interested in the Picts (England AD 680) and I would
be very interested to see my 1066 system used for
a crusades battle, highlighting the cavalry rules and testing the
system on two very different armies.
I would like to do something Napoleonic; having recently visited
Waterloo, that battle interests me. I know people will say ‘oh
that’s been done to death’ but the beauty with DTP is
that you can largely design for yourself rather than being driven
by commercial interests.
Do you have any timescales on these?
No, I am enjoying a bit of ordinary gaming at the moment, sort of
recharging my batteries. In the background, the Bosworth historical
notes are done and going through an initial edit.
Back to Contents
Amun-Re
a review by Jon Waddington
Success
can be a mixed blessing. For any creative person, each creation
invites comparison with those that have come before. A past record
of quality only increases the pressure to exceed the older works,
lest the new fail by contrast. Consider the latest episodes in the
Star Wars movie series; by many accounts, George Lucas
failed (perhaps spectactularly) to live up to the standards set
by the first two or three episodes. Now consider Reiner Knizia,
a game designer who has a track record of probably unparalleled
productivity (well over 100 published games) and who also has a
reputation as one of the world's best designers. When Amun-Re
was released in early 2003, Knizia stated (and I'm paraphrasing
here) that it would appeal to those who enjoyed his "heavier"
games, like Tigris & Euphrates, Through
the Desert, and Taj Mahal. Lofty expectations,
indeed. So does it live up to its predecessors? Is Amun-Re
The Phantom Menace, or The Empire Strikes Back?
In terms of presentation, the game wants
for nothing. The graphics are very attractive, the components durable
and consistent with other efforts from Hans im Gluck. The atmosphere
conveyed by the map and the various tokens is convincing, though
this is of course a German game: elegant mechanics at the expense
of rich thematic integrity. You're not simulating anything here,
but the game is stronger in this regard than many Knizia games,
in fact stronger than any of the games listed above save perhaps
Tigris & Euphrates. It's designed for three
to five players, and a typical game should take no more than two
hours at the outside.
The
object of the game is to, well, earn the most points. Thank you,
Sherlock. Really, it's a game of optimization and efficiency, where
the players need to balance the use of their resources against the
aims of their competitors and figure out how to gain small advantages
that will translate to victory at the end.
Play begins by the starting player placing
bidding cards on three to five (one card for each player) of the
fifteen regions on the map. Players then bid to control the displayed
regions, using little chiclet-like bidding stones. The bid increments
are shown around the edge of the card, and are in the following
sequence: 0, 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 21, 28, 35, and so on. People with
math skills call these "triangular numbers." I call them
"numbers that get really big quick." The tricky bit here
is that you place your bids in player order (not so tricky), but
if you are outbid, you must wait until all subsequent bids are placed
and then place your stone on a different region (that's the trick).
Here begin the difficult decisions. If you are angling for a region,
it may actually be counterproductive to bid on it, as you may not
get the chance to return to the region to up your bid. Eventually
each region winds up with just one stone on it, and the last one
placed is on the least desirable region for a bid of zero.
Unsurprisingly, each region contains
a unique set of attributes; this is why some are worth more than
others. In addition, their relative value changes over the course
of the game. Attributes include income, temples, arable land, a
"power card" rating, and bonus goodies (gold, power cards,
and stones for building pyramids). For instance, a region might
provide four gold each turn, have two open spots of land for farming,
show one power card icon (which determines how many cards you can
purchase), and might immediately grant the purchaser one free building
stone. In one respect, then, Amun-Re is a typical
German auction game, like Knizia's Ra or Medici,
where determining the relative value of a given item is an interesting
challenge.
At this point, everyone pays up (you
get twenty gold to start) and then moves on to the purchasing phase.
Here's where the game shifts gears away from auctions and becomes
an economic game. Each player buys (in this order) power cards,
building stones, and farmers. A player can buy as many of each as
he can afford, but the prices go up along that same severe schedule
described above (only this scale starts at one, not zero). So a
player could buy four power cards (cost: ten), two stones (cost:
three), and one farmer (cost: one). Every three stones in a region
creates a pyramid. Farmers are used at the end of each round for
income generation, but power cards are for lots of different things.
Each of the twelve different types of power cards allows some special
advantage at a specific stage in the game. Some provide extra victory
points (under certain conditions), some provide gold, some affect
the order of bidding, and some provide bonus farmers. The real hitch
is that only one of a given type can be used at any one time, and
some cards may not be useful to you depending on how your game has
developed. It's an undeniably random element thrown in, but it's
not as random as I've made it sound, as you'll discover below.

After work comes religion, and that
means money. Each player secretly allocates a gift of gold to the
eponymous god. The amount contributed by all players determines
the quality of the harvest, and, during a scoring round, the amount
of victory points each temple is worth. This "Sacrifice"
track ranges from 1-4, with fixed breakpoints. The player contributing
the most to the sacrifice is granted three free items (building
stones, farmers, or power cards) from great Amun-Re. Second place
gets two items, and any other players who contributed get one item.
Further complicating matters is the fact that each player has a
"-3" gold card. When played, 3 is deducted from the sacrifice
total and that player gets three gold (but no free gift from the
annoyed god in question). One other consequence of this phase is
that the highest contributor also becomes the starting player.
Players now reap the benefits of the
harvest, and collect gold from other sources as well. Every farmer
generates one to four gold, based on the sacrifice phase. Some regions
have a fixed amount of gold, and others distribute some gold, but
only when the sacrifice totals one or two. The rules actually mention
that this is in the game because of the caravan trade used by Egyptians
in times of poor harvests. I'm not sure if this is bizarre or reassuring,
but at the least I appreciate the attempt at thematic fidelity.
Three rounds of the above activities
(auctioning regions, buying stuff, bribing the god, and getting
income) give rise to the end of a kingdom (in accordance with history,
the first kingdom is the Old, and the second the New; the Middle
is curiously skipped). Points are distributed, and if it's the end
of the New Kingdom, the game is over (six full rounds). Between
kingdoms (that is, after the third round), the board is wiped clean
of everything except pyramids and building stones. Thus, the regions
in the New Kingdom are "seeded" with pyramids, almost
certainly changing their value. One can spend a great deal of effort
building up a region or two in the Old Kingdom, only to have it
snatched away in the New. Them's the breaks in Ancient Egypt. Points
are given for pyramids (each is worth one point), sets of pyramids
(each set of three--each in a different region--is worth three points),
most pyramids (two five point awards, one for having the most pyramids
on each side of the Nile), temples (each temple is worth one to
four points, depending on the sacrifice total), and bonus cards
(three points per card, if the player meets various conditions such
as having nine farmers or having all three of his regions grouped
in certain patterns). A final award goes to the top three players
in terms of gold left over at the end of the game, who receive six,
four, and two points. Other than this, gold is useless at the end,
not even serving as a tie-breaker (most pyramids, then most building
stones, is the tie-breaker). From this, it's clear that building
pyramids is where the points are.
My initial impression was that Amun-Re
is an auction game, with some unusually detailed sub-systems. A
subsequent playing left an impression of an economic game, with
money-management a top priority. The proper taxonomy of the game
isn't all that critical, but it does contrast with many of Knizia's
games, which tend to feature one predominant mechanic. On the auction
side, it's important to be able to effectively evaluate the relative
worth of different regions. But this appears to be nearly impossible
due to power cards, especially those granting points at the end.
On the economic side, the power cards again inflict chaos on calculation,
as card after card could be nearly useless to one player, but grant
large boons to the next. I should note that at any time, a player
may turn in an unwanted power card for one gold; small consolation
compared to drawing a useful card, but a nice touch.
Not so obvious from the description
above are the interesting and significant psychological decisions
the game demands. It doesn't exactly feel like bluffing, but the
auction phase does reveal or conceal a fair amount about the players'
intentions and hidden capabilities (i.e., power cards), especially
the longer the game progresses. Economic activity is straightforward,
but presents some difficult decisons akin to many set-collecting
games, where one must consider not only what to go for, but who
is competing with you for it, and what else you or they are trying
to do. The sacrifice phase should be fairly obvious (those with
farmers will push for a large sacrifice, those without will likely
disrupt with the "-3" gold card), but in reality isn't,
due to the bonus "gifts from Amun-Re" and the temples.
In the end, I think this game will fall
a bit flat for those who prefer rigorously controlled systems, and
who like to be able to calculate the ramifications of all actions
with near-perfect precision. It contains explicit random elements,
and there's no doubt these have a possibly significant effect on
the outcome. But I don't think this tells the whole story. I believe
there is a good balance in Amun-Re between raw
analytical prowess and intuition, between predictability and moderated
chaos. I don't make any claims at being a particularly skillful
player, but I think skillful play of Amun-Re hinges
about as much on psychological factors as it does on pure calculation.
This is especially true in the bidding phase, which is where most
of the player interaction occurs. There's also plenty of grist for
the calculation mill, at least for non-savants like me.
So is it a blockbuster or just a bust?
Well, the judges for the Deutscher SpielePreis (a German game award
generally presented to "heavier" games than the more family-oriented
Spiel des Jahre award) gave it their top honor for 2003. That may
be neither here nor there to you, but I think they were on the money
with this one. Despite having a lot of familiar systems, it is an
original amalgamation that is among the upper echelons of Knizia's
output. I don't think it quite supplants Tigris & Euphrates
or Through the Desert, but it doesn't really cover
the same ground as those games, either. Rest assured, this is no
Phantom Menace. The emperor has struck back, and he's at
the top of his game.
Jon Waddington lives in the Denver
area, where he plays German games (and the too-infrequent wargame)
with family and friends. Sometimes they even let him win. Contact
him at jon_waddington@yahoo.com.
Back to Contents

Life
after NASA
an interview
with Looney Labs' Andrew Looney
Tell us whatever you can about your
backgrounds and how the company got started.
Kristin and I used to work for NASA.
In our free time, we played at running a small game company. After
10 years of practice, we "jumped off the cliff" as we
like to say, by quitting our really good day jobs and becoming full-time
entrepreneurs. Amazingly enough, it seems to be working.
What games inspired you as children
and what games inspire you now?
Cosmic Wimpout was
probably the most influential game for both myself and Kristin.
We each ran into it in High School, and it made a big impression
on us both. The simple but addictive game-play, the attractive but
mysterious playing pieces, and the enthusiastic dedication of the
entrepreneurs behind it... all of these things were in our minds
when Kristin and I talked about starting our own |