Gravediggers (乱炖春秋)

I should call this game Warlords of the Spring and Autumn, or something along these lines. This Reiner Knizia title was first released in 2005 in German, as Bankuberfall. An English edition was  released in 2007, and it was called Gravediggers. A Japanese edition Bank Robbers was released 15 years later, in 2022, and so was the Chinese edition 《乱炖春秋》, which I would translate to Warlords of the Spring and Autumn. My copy was a gift from Mia of Reayoung, a game manufacturer in China. Her colleagues brought it all the way from China to Malaysia to pass to me at the Asian Board Games Festival in Penang. 

I remember reading up about Gravediggers when it was released many years ago. At the time I wasn't interested enough to order a copy. By now it is out of print. I would not have tried this game if not for this latest Chinese edition and Mia's generosity. For many years in the hobby I gravitated towards more complex games and I settled down in the heavy eurogames genre. In the past five years I shifted towards lighter games and minimalistic games. Playing Warlords now, I have new appreciation for the game. 10 years ago I might have dismissed it as too light and easy. Now I admire the play experience it creates using just enough and not too many rules. 

In Warlords, up to five players play the hegemons of the Spring and Autumn period in China. The Zhou emperor is but a figurehead. Real power is in the hands of the hegemons. They go about capturing settlements and strengthening their domains. 

Regardless of the number of players, there will always be five settlements in play. Settlements are sets of cards placed in front of the player screens. They don't belong to the players. They are just juicy targets for everyone. On your turn, you either reveal an action card and do what it says, or you initiate an attack on a particular settlement. Most action cards tell you to add a card face-down to a settlement. Usually this increases the value of a settlement. Sometimes you might peek at a card, or reveal a card for all to see. If you initiate an attack, everyone gets to participate. It's not a joint effort though. Instead it is a simultaneous bidding exercise in which everyone tries to claim the most spoils. Some might gain more than others. Some might gain nothing. Depending on the special cards in play, some might even lose power. 

Action cards

Coins represent power and they are hidden behind your screen. 

During an attack, everyone puts coins in their closed fists and then reveal at the same time. The settlement cards are then revealed to see how much the settlement is worth. Beginning with the player with the lowest bid, you claim a reward matching your bid. If the settlement worth is higher or equal to the total of all player bids, everyone gets what they want. However if there is not enough, only the players who bid less gain the reward. The order of claiming rewards is lowest bid onwards. You until there is not enough there is not enough spoils left for the next player. If two players bid 3, and there is only 5 left, neither of them get anything and the attack ends. So greed is good, but if you are too greedy, you might not gain anything. 

These are the basic number cards

The highest value is 10. That card on the left is a double card. It doubles the settlement value. The cards of a settlement may have been contributed by multiple players. You know what you have contributed but not what the others have. So you are bidding with only partial information. 

What adds some spice to the game is the special characters. There are four types. Ministers protect settlements. You earn nothing when attacking a settlement protected by a Minister, unless you bid 0. If you bid 0, you earn 5. Villains are traps. They make you lose whatever you bid. Lobbyists help the greedy attackers. When you resolve the attack, the highest bidder gets rewarded first. The Beauty cancels the abilities of all other characters. 

There are interactions between the characters, in addition to their powers. Villains and Lobbyists cancel each other out. Their powers come into play only if they outnumber the other type. Ministers and Beauties cancel themselves. If there is more than one Minister or more than one Beauty, they lose their power. These interactions can certainly create some surprises. 

This was one pretty big settlement in the game we played. Eight cards! We knew there was one Beauty because she was exposed, which meant other characters would lose their powers. With so many cards at this settlement, chances were the value would be high. 

When we revealed all the cards, we found a second Beauty, which meant neither of them took effect. We had three other characters. We had two Lobbyists to one Villain, so the Lobbyist power took effect, rewarding the player who bid the highest first. We had a double card, which doubled the settlement value from 10 to 20. 

This was one very funny moment in our game. The deck had run out, so the game was about to end. We attacked all settlements one by one. When it came to one particular small settlement, we had little information, and Michelle decided to bid nothing, to our surprise. When we revealed the settlement cards, one of them was a Minister. So Chen Rui and I earned nothing, but Michelle earned 5. She hadn't seen the Minister card. She just had a hunch that there might be one, because there were not many throughout the game. Her instinct was accurate! 

This was the Minister protecting that small settlement. Indeed you should somewhat card count when you play this game. It is played until the deck runs out and one player has played his last card. Since you know there are 4 copies of every character card, you can certainly keep count. 

I remember a time I felt I had grown out of Reiner Knizia's games. I felt I had moved on to meatier and heavier games. More complex games. Longer games. More challenging and fulfilling games. Warlords (Gravediggers) felt like coming home. I enjoyed the game very much, and now that I am designing games myself, I appreciate the simplicity and also the interesting situations that can arise out of just a few rules. One thing I like is how players hold different pieces of information, and this creates very different perspectives for them. The difference in information access makes the game interesting. 

This being a light to medium weight game means it can be easily taught to anyone. New players can play it competently. The game is a platform for players to interact, and not a complex problem players need to learn to solve, like how many heavy eurogames are nowadays. I am glad to have found new appreciation in an old game. I am glad Yaofish brought this title back into print.