Tigris & Euphrates

Today, I am reviewing one of my favorite games, Tigris & Euphrates.

If I had to sum this game up in one word, it would be nirvana. This game has everything for the strategy gamer. It has replayability, overt strategy, subtle strategy, some randomness, and conflict.

The premise of the game is you are the head of a dynasty in Mesopotamia. You must become the most balanced dynasty in the region. To win, you must score the most points in your worst category (have the most of your least). You do this by placing leaders, tiles, and fighting conflicts. Each turn, you can take two of the following actions:

1) Place a tile
2) Add, remove, or move a leader
3) Play a catastrophe tile
4) Exchange tiles - Players have 6 tiles that comprise their hand

There are four different types of tiles in the game, red (temple), blue (farm), black (settlement), and green (bazaar), and there are four types of leaders that correspond to each of these colors. If a tile is played in an area that can trace a line of tiles back to a leader of that color, the player that owns the leader, receives a point in that color. If there is no leader of the corresponding color, then the player owning the black leader, if present, receives the point. Leaders must be played adjacent to a red tile, as these provide support for the leader. If a tile is played such that two regions with leaders are joined, then an external conflict is initiated. If there are two leaders of the same color in the new kingdom, a fight will occur. Each player totals the number of like colored tiles in each part of the former kingdoms, and adds any like colored tiles from their hand to the total. The winner is the player with the most tiles, with ties going to the defender. The winner removes the tiles from the loser's kingdom, along with the leader, and scores one point for each tile/leader removed.

Leaders, as mentioned previously, must be played adjacent to a red tile. However, if a leader is played in a kingdom with a leader of the same color present, an internal conflict results. The leader with the most red tiles adjacent plus any red tiles commited from the player's hand wins. Again, ties go to the defender. The losing leader is removed from the board. The winner receives one red point.

A catastrophe tile is the ICBM of the Fertile Crescent. When played, nothing else can be played in that hex, it also destroys whatever it has been played on. These are frequently used to weaken or divide a kingdom, and to isolate leaders from their temples.

Finally, players can exchange tiles, which can be done to get a better hand, or to shorten the game, if they feel they are winning.

There is another way to score points, aside from conflicts and placing tiles. Monuments are constructed when a player plays four of the same type of tile in a square. A player then selects one of the two-color monuments and places it on the board. When a player with a connected leader of the appropriate color ends his turn, he gets a point. Because of this, they represent a focus for conflicts once constructed.

When all but two treasures on the board are collected, or the tile supply runs out, the game ends. The winner is the player that has the most points, in their weakest sphere. So, if a player has 10 black points, 15 blue, 7 red, and 2 green, he has 2 points. If there is a tie, players compare their next weakest sphere, etc.

This game is a solid 10. I try to play this at every opportunity. Even when all seems lost, it just takes one or two great plays to get back into the game.

Middle Earth: The Wizards CCG

Last night, I finally got to play Middle Earth: The Wizards. This CCG is set in the Tolkein universe and each player plays one of the five wizards sent to Middle Earth to rally the Free Peoples against Sauron.

The object of the game is to win the support of the Free Peoples to your cause and means of defeating Sauron. There are three ways to do this:

1) Destroy the One Ring
2) Call the Council of the Free People, and have more Marshalling Points than your opponent.
3) Destroy or corrupt your opponent's wizard.

The game is character driven. Your characters go around Middle Earth scavaging items and lore to use in the fight against Sauron. Each character has a different set of stats. The stats are: prowess, body, mind, direct influence, and skills. Prowess determines how well you fight in combat, the higher the number, the better. Body determines how durable the character is, again, higher is better. Mind is how difficult the character is to control. Direct influence is a measure of the character's leadership. Finally, skills determine what kinds of cards the character can play.

The two most important stats are mind and direct influence. Mind determines how much influence is required to bring and keep a character in play. Each player has 20 general influence available to control up to 5 starting characters. The more powerful the character, the more influence that is required to control him. Direct influence allows your characters to control other characters, without dipping into your general influence reserve. The two stats serve to balance all of the characters in the game. Aragorn II who is worth 3 MPs(Marshalling Points) is a 6/9 (prowess/body) warrior/ranger/diplomat, who is required to play certain cards. However, depending on your strategy, is he more useful than Beregond, a 4/8 warrior? Aragorn II has a mind of 9 and 3 DI, where Beregond has a mind of 2, and 0 DI.

At the start of the game, each player picks up to 5 non-wizard characters, with a total mind of 20 or less, and they reveal them simultaneously. Any characters that are duplicated are shuffled back into each player's deck. All characters start out at the haven of Rivendell. Each player draws 8 cards from their play deck.

There are several phases to each turn, they are:

1) Untap Phase - Each unwounded character untaps, and wounded characters may heal, if they are at a haven.
2) Organization Phase - Each player can play one character or wizard to their home site or haven. Characters can store items at havens, or can give items to another character. Characters can also join or leave companies at this time, provided they are at a haven. Each company decides where they are going to move this turn, and this site card is played face down in front of the company.
3) Long Event Phase - Long or permanent events can be played at this time.
4) Movement/Hazard Phase - Companies reveal their new site card, each player draws cards as indicated. The opposing player now plays hazards against the moving player keyed to his site path or the new site (number of hazards playable against a company is 2, or the size of the company, whichever is greater. Hobbits count as 1/2 of a character rounded up). After reaching the new site, the old site card is moved back to the site deck, or discarded (if it has been tapped). Discard to 8 cards after each company moves.
5) Site phase - After all companies have moved, each company determines whether they are going to enter the site, or remain outside the site. If they enter the site, they face any automatic attacks, and then may play cards playable at that site, provided they have a character with actions to use. If any items, factions, or allies are brought into play, the site card is tapped.
6) End phase - Each player may discard one card from their hand, and draws to maximum hand size (8 cards).

The first question you need to ask is, how do I plan on winning the game? Will I go for a win on points, dunking the ring, or defeating the other wizard? Will I opt for strength in numbers, or will I go for small companies that can bring more items into play, but are more vulnerable? Will I bring my wizard into play, when available (unplayed wizards cannot be corrupted or killed, but your wizard is one of your most powerful characters)? Will I attempt to play a theme deck? What type of characters will I play?

Since I feel the characters are the best part of the game, I will go into a little background on all of the races.

Dunadain - Dunadain are more powerful than normal men, but suffer some big drawbacks. First, they are more powerful, with a average prowess of 3.33, and a body of 7.4 (normal men have 3.06 and 7.26 for avg. prowess and body). Their drawback is their high mind when compared to normal men. Plus several of the more powerful characters have a -1 to any corruption check. Aside from Aragorn, Halbarad, and Beretar, all of the Dunadain home sites are in, and around, Gondor. For character classes, the only weak spot for the Dunadain is they only have two sages, each of whom are unlikely to be in play.

Dwarves - Dwarves are stout fighters, very durable (avg. prow/body 3.6/7.26), and most have a bonus when fighting orcs. In comparison to the Dunadain, their mind is both higher and lower. Their best characters have higher minds for the most part than the Dunadain (Aragorn excepted), and their lesser characters have lower minds than the low Dunadain. Unfortunately, they have far fewer skills than the Dunadain. Their homes sites are either the Iron Hills, or the Blue Mountains.

Elves - They are simply put, the best characters in the game, BUT they have very high minds (avg. mind 5.3!) . 10 out of 15 characters have a 5/8 or better for their prowess and body. Glorfindel at 8/9 is the best fighter in the game. The only weak spot for the Elves is their classes, they have 3 scouts, and each of those scouts are unlikely to see much table time, with the exception of Galadriel. Their home sites are scattered around the map, with emphasis on Lorien and Rivendell.

Men - They have no great strong points, and their only bad attribute is poor body on their high prowess characters, and low prowess on their high body characters. They have a good selection of skills available. Their home sites are scattered across the map.

Hobbits - There are only 6 hobbit characters, but they have some very good abilities. Their are each a 1/9 character, but three of them have bonuses to their corruption checks (makes them very good for toting that trinket to the Cracks of Doom). All of them are worth at least 1 MP. But wait, there's more (couldn't resist)! They have the ability to burgle a site. They can avoid a site's automatic attacks by rolling a 5 or more on 2D6 to play an item at the site. If they fail this roll, they must face the automatic attacks alone (translated, one dead hobbit).

The items in the game are very cool, and most of them are taken straight from the books. Each item is carefully weighted by difficulty to bring the item into play, its worth, and the corruption it gives a character. Weaker items are worth less, and are easier to bring into play. Stronger items are worth more, are more difficult to bring into play, and beware of the corruption checks!

The hazards are the other great part of the game. There are three types of hazard, events, creatures, and enhancements/corruption cards. The order in which you play them are important. Just when your opponent feels they have made it to the site unscathed, out comes some nasty opponent, after they have spent all their cancelling, avoiding, and buffing cards. When all else fails, you can corrupt them.

Theme - I think I said it before, this game oozes theme. From the artwork, to the quotes on each card, it just oozes theme.

The only bad part of the game is the movement. In playing the basic game, you go from haven to site, and then site to haven. This slows the game down somewhat, but it does help the newbie by giving him a chance to heal every other turn. The advanced game uses both the basic game movement system (haven to site, site to haven, with the site path as listed on the site card), and introduces region movement. So you can move from Minas Tirith to Mt. Doom without first moving to Lorien. I believe this will speed up the game immensely, because you can cut out approx. 40% of all moves in the game.

Overall: 8

I can definitely see me playing this again and again. The game is well balanced, and fun to play. There is no turn angst, as you are constantly playing cards on each other, and creating themed decks is great.

Wildlife

I played Wildlife for the first time today with a full complement of 6 players. The premise of the game is you are in charge of an animal species and must be the most succesful animal. Each animal has a preferred set of terrain, of which there are 6. Each terrain type is rated as no action, migrate, expand, and attack. Each species starts out with two terrains as no action, two as migrate, one as expand, and one attack.

If a terrain is rated as no action, you cannot do anything in the terrain. If a terrain is rated as migrate, you can move tiles to that area. If a terrain is listed as expand, you can place new tiles to the area. Any terrains listed as attack, if the terrain is completely full, you can discard one of your opponents tiles, and place one of your tiles in its place. The ratings are heirarchical, so if you can attack into a terrain, you can also expand and migrate to the terrain as well.

Each player receives 10 cards at the beginning of the game. They are divided into 4 groups. Terrain cards have terrain types listed on them that you can use to play actions. For example, if I play a desert card, and I have desert rated as attack, I can play the card, and migrate, expand, or attack into a desert space. There are adaptation cards which allow you to increase your rating in a terrain type. No action can be increased to migrate, which can be improved to expand, and then to attack. The third type of card is a special event card, these can range from plagues which require other players to remove their tiles from the board, to food surpluses which give you additional food (which is used as money). Finally, there are wildlife enchancements which give you benefits while you hold the card. Food gives you points each turn, aggression allows you to launch a free attack each turn, intelligence allows you to play one additional card per turn, etc.

Each turn you get to play three cards, but at least one must be auctioned off to the other players. Then you increase your hand size back to ten. You also get one free migrate per turn. During the auction, one card is auctioned off, and the player who wins the auction plays the card immediately.

Points are scored in two ways. When one of the terrains on the board is filled, they receive points from what I will call the terrain track. It starts at 3, and as more terrains are filled, increases to 5. The player who fills the terrain by occupying the last space scores the points. After every 4 terrains are filled, a major scoring phase occurs. Each terrain is scored based upon monopolies (major and minor, if you are the only player in a terrain, and whether or not all the spaces are filled) and places (1st, 2nd, and 3rd). After that, the largest herd (most contiguous spaces filled), most adaptations, most enhancements, and most food are scored. After 3 major scorings are completed the game is over (12 terrains filled, if I remember correctly, or one player plays all of his tiles).

That's all there is to the game. It does allow a variety of strategies to be played, but I did have several issues with the game.

1) Card draw - Drawing cards can improve replayability, but it can severly hamper players as well. In our game, one of the players was hampered because he was drawing cards that he could not play into, and he was not drawing any adaptations. On top of that, every enhancement he had was taken away from him immediately (Once all of an enhancement type has been taken from the pool, players take them from each other, with players in the lead having their enhancements removed first. For example, I want to get intelligence, Neal and Brock each have one, Neal has 3 points, and Brock has 5, I need to take Brock's intelligence, I cannot choose to take Neal's). The other players said that there are ways to avoid this, and that it was a special case, etc. However, I have to give the game a black mark in this regard, if it happens in the first game I play, it is bound to happen again. It's not fun just playing out a game that lasts 2 hours. Also, even though you get 10 cards, if you start off with a bad hand, it is hard to turn over the poor cards in your hand since you cannot discard, and must play three cards each turn.

2) Game Length - Granted this is dependent on the card draw, the number of players, and the pace at which the players play, but we were playing at a good pace, and it still took 2-1/2 hours. There are a good number of other games that I would rather play for this length of time.

3) Play limits - While it is great that each species has a different preferred terrain, and they are randomly dealt to the players, it can provide an advantage to players that do not compete with other players. If I am the only player that can play new pieces to water, that means that other players will try to deal the water from their hands during the auction. Since no one else needs water, I can get it at a good price. Someone can play adaptations to make water useful to them, but it may be too late to be useful. In addition to lower prices, any terrains that I do not need will probably fetch a higher price due to increased demand. While this does not necessarily mean I will win the game, it can be a big advantage.

4) Tactical, not strategical - Most of the plays are due to the current set up on the board. While you can opt for longer term options, these are pretty much limited to adaptation cards. The good enhancement cards could be considered strategic options, but the fact that the more strategic of them are in great demand, it limits their effectiveness. In the late game, the use of enhancements comes down to, which one do I need for this turn? While I love tactical games, I prefer longer games to be strategic rather than tactical. It means little if I get intelligence on the first turn to let me play four cards each turn, if I need to play another enhancement to get it back each turn. Sure, I can play other enhancements, but, how do I know if the other players are going to take that back from me on their turn.

Wildlife is a solid game, no more, no less. I would play it again, but I will not request that it be brought out. I give it a solid 6. Unlike other games, I really do not see any improvement in this score. My main knocks are the length of the game and the lack of immersion for a game of its length. Die Macher can be played in a similar length of time (say 3 to 3-1/2 hours for experienced players, and I enjoyed that game far more after one play). For the same time frame, you could fit in two games of Puerto Rico, Princes of Florence, or Traders of Genoa (without micromanaging the deals), or a game of Tigris & Euphrates. That said, it is a good 6 player game, and there are not many of those, so it does have some merit when 6 players are present. With fewer players I would rather play one of the other games I named.

Overall: 6

Modern Art

Alan, Joe, Todd, Jamie and I played our first game of Reiner Knizia's Modern Art Friday evening. Just so you're not under any suspense: Alan won. As usual. One of these days I'll play a game with Alan and actually beat him.

Modern art is a card game with an auction mechanic. Each player plays an art dealer, and auctions off various paintings by one of five (fictional) modern artists: Lite Metal, Yoko, Karl Gitter, Christin P., and Krypto. The game takes place over four "seasons." In the first season, each player is dealt a certain number of painting cards; more cards are dealt out in the second and third seasons. Player take turns auctioning off cards to other players. The auctioneer also takes part in the auction. The player that wins the auction pays the auctioneer, unless the auctioneer wins the auction, in which case the auctioneer pays the bank for the painting.

Each painting card has a different type of auction associated with it. There are open auctions, in which anyone bid in any order; once around auctions, in which each player gets one bid going around the table clockwise; sealed auctions, in which each player offers a bid in secret; and fixed price auctions, in which the auctioneer sets a price and the first player (again, going around the table clockwise) to accept it wins.

A season ends when a fifth painting by any artist is played; this painting is not auctioned. The paintings that were auctioned are then sold for an amount depending on the popularity of the artist. The paintings of the most popular artist, i.e. the one with the most paintings auctioned, are worth $30,000. Those of the second most popular artist are worth $20,000, and those of the third most popular artist are worth $10,000. Those of the two least popular artists are worth nothing.

The value of the paintings is cumulative over the four seasons: so if Karl Gitter was the most popular artist the first season, the second most popular the second season, and the third most popular in the third and fourth seasons, his paintings will be worth $70,000 at the end of the fourth season ($30K + $20K + $10K + $10K). So for the first couple of paintings the first season, you don't have any idea of what paintings will be worth, but after that you have some informations.

Like in most auction games, you win not by getting good deals (paintings that are worth more than what you paid for them), but by getting better deals than your opponents. Furthermore, since it is usually one of your fellow players that you will be paying for the painting, you don't want to pay so much that your opponent makes more than you do on the sale. For example, if you think a painting will be worth $50K at the end of the season, and you buy it for $30K, you've potentially made $20K on the painting - but your opponent has made $30K on the sale.

This was how Alan won the game. He hung back and let other players overpay for paintings; in particular, paintings that he sold.

The painting cards themselves are beautifully designed. It would be nice to have paintings from actual modern artists on the cards (I'd suggest Picasso, Modrian, Dali, Rothko, and Lichtenstein), but I'm sure that would make the game a lot more expensive because of copyright fees. The only complaint I have about the components is that money comes in denominations of $100K, $50K, $20K, $5K, and $1K, but no $10K. I played banker, and it would have been much easier making change if I had some $10K chips.

I hesitate to put a rating on the game just now, since I think that this game may well improve if all the players have played before. In an auction game, having just one player who overbids can throw a big element of randomness into the game, and we had several players doing that in this game. I look forward to playing it again with a group all of whom have played it before.