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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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.

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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.

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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!

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"Just so you know, Craig takes his games of Ra very seriously."
a cartoon by Scott Starkey

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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