Rumble Nation

Rumble Nation is a game from Japan by Yogi Shinichi. It is an area majority game. It simple and short, and very clever too. The game is about preparing for war. What you do is just deploying troops. The war only happens at the end of the game. The war is actually the end game scoring. 

There are 11 regions in this stylised map of medieval Japan. During game setup, chips numbered 2 to 12 are randomly placed. These are the point values, the region numbering, and also the sequence in which battles will be fought. The battle winner claims the chip. In 3 or 4 player games, the second placed player claims a chip which is half the region value. 

Every player has the same number of soldiers. The game is played until everyone has placed all their soldiers. On your turn, you roll three dice. You have to add two of them to determine where you will place soldiers (i.e. region number), and the third die determines how many soldiers you will place (between 1 to 3, because you half the die value). So there is some luck in terms of where you are able to place soldiers, but you do have some options. Also you have one chance to reroll if you absolutely hate your first roll. If you are first to use up your soldiers, you claim the most powerful sword, which is a tiebreaker during battles. The earlier you finish deployment, the stronger you are in tiebreaking. 

When the deployment ends and the war starts, battles are resolved based on simple majority. What's special is whenever you win a battle, if you have soldiers in any adjacent regions where battle hasn't started, they all get reinforcements. This can help you win those later battles. Although the earlier regions are not worth much, they may give you valuable reinforcements to help you win those later and more valuable regions. There can be chain reactions too. 

Once per game instead of using dice to deploy soldiers, you may claim and use one of the tactic cards in the game. These are randomly set up at the start of the game and they are visible to all. These cards let you manipulate soldiers in various ways. Some let you move enemy soldiers too. 

During the game you will be playing out the war in your mind many times. If I deploy here and I win this battle, I will get more troops there and there, and this will help me win those battles too. The map is open information so you can do all these calculations in your head. There is some tension in how quickly you want to use up your soldiers. I feel generally it is advantageous to see where others commit their forces before you deploy yours, so that you can concede where you can't win and utilise your soldiers better. Yet, the tiebreaker advantage when you finish deployment early can be crucial. What a juicy dilemma! 

You don't have direct control over where you get to place troops. Sometimes you have no good options. The die roll may force you to place too many soldiers somewhere you are already certain to win. This means wasting your soldiers. Generally I find you have interesting decisions to make. I think it is a nice balance. You have some but not too many options that would give you analysis paralysis. There are only so three ways you can group two out of three dice. 

Rumble Nation is a delight to play. It is the kind of game that puts Japanese designs on the map. Minimalistic but smart. The game is doing well. It has gone through several editions. Battles are deterministic, so that aspect may feel a little dry. However your deployment is dependent on die rolls. Although this is a perfect information game, it doesn't feel like the typical abstract game due to the uncertainty in the dice. You will be holding your breath too when your opponents roll their dice. 

Rising Sun

Plays: 3Px1.

The Game

Rising Sun is brought to you by the same team as Blood Rage. The designer is Eric Lang. It is a Euro-style conflict game with low granularity. The first similarity between these two games you will notice is how amazing the sculptures are:

The backdrop is a mythical Japan, with gods and monsters. You are great clans competing for supremacy. You play through three seasons, scoring victory points by winning battles and various other means. Whoever scores the highest after three seasons wins the game.

There are only 8 provinces on the map. The structure of the game is 3 seasons, each consisting of 7 rounds - only 21 rounds in total. Every round an active player draws 4 action tiles, picks one to execute and return the rest to the deck. Every player gets to perform the selected action, and the active player and his ally also gain a small bonus. This is a little like Puerto Rico. The active player, having seen those three tiles returned to the deck, knows 3 of the 4 options the next player will have, and can strategise accordingly. The actions you get to execute are mainly for positioning your fighters for the battles which will occur at the end of a season. Actions include raising troops, moving troops, levying taxes and triggering betrayals. The number of battles to be fought at the end of a season depends on the number of players. The provinces to be fought over are randomly determined before a season starts, so you can plan where to fight. The winner of each battle gains a war province token, which is worth points. At game end, you also score points based on how many tokens of different provinces you own. This means you are encouraged to fight in different provinces and not turtle in one or two.

The large tiles in the first row are the gods. When the raise troops action is being performed, you may train monks and assign them to pray to these gods. At 3 junctures during a season, after the 3rd, 5th and 7th rounds, god powers are triggered. For each god, only the clan with the most monks get to use the god power. God powers include moving troops, gaining mercenaries and gaining honour. Honour is the tiebreaker for all situations.

The second row is the procedures of a full season. The large boxes are for placing action tiles. Two tiles have been placed, which means two rounds have been played. That character after the 3rd, 5th and 7th rounds is the character for "god". That's when god powers are triggered. The red bordered box at the end means war time. The yin-yang icon at the start means alliances. At the start of a season there is a free negotiation session for forming alliances. An alliance must have exactly two members. The main benefit of alliances is you get to enjoy the bonus too when it is your ally's turn to pick an action. During battle, allies don't merge their armies. Only one clan can win a province. In the photo above, Allen (blue) and I (green) have formed an alliance. You can see on the far right that our alliance tokens form a complete yin-yang circle. With only three players, Han (red) is left without any ally.

Player unit sculptures are unique for each clan. I play the green clan. The leftmost is my monk. The middle two are both soldiers. Different sculptures but same function. The rightmost is my castle. One unique ability of the green clan is castles may move, thus those giant turtles. This is the mythical feudal era version of Howl's Moving Castle.

This is the player screen. It lists the unique abilities of your clan and also show your starting province. That table at the bottom right shows how many victory points you score depending how many different provinces you collected war province tokens for. Below this screen are the coins used in the game, which are beautiful.

One of the actions in the game lets you buy special abilities cards like these, which augment your clan. Some give you monsters, and the monsters all have unique abilities. Some give you money. These two give an extra soldier whenever you raise troops. I had two of these, which meant getting two extra soldiers every time the raise troops action was taken. I was going for quantity.

This reference card is double-sided. This side shows the procedures of a battle. Before a battle starts, participants bid any numbers of coins on the four big boxes here. If you win a bid, you get to use the ability written in the box. The first step is seppuku (ritual suicide). You ask your fighters to kill themselves even before battle starts, and earn 1 victory point and 1 honour per suicide. If you don't think you will win anyway, this is actually not as stupid an idea as it sounds. The second step is taking one hostage and stealing one victory point from an opponent. This doesn't sound like much, but sometimes the difference of one unit can change the outcome of a battle. The third step is winning the rights to deploy mercenaries. Mercenaries can completely change the course of a battle, but of course you need to have recruited some in the first place. The fourth step is the battle itself, which is a simple comparison of numbers. Losers all die, winners all live. The final step is earning 1 victory point per fighter killed in battle. Despite the battle step itself being simple, bidding for and winning the rights to the other four steps can greatly affect the outcome of the battle and how many victory points you earn.

The token at the bottom left is a mercenary token. These are ronin, or masterless samurai. The token at the bottom right is a war province token. This is from the first season, the spring season, and is worth 1 victory point.

Overall you can think of Rising Sun as a victory point scoring game. The story unfolds through the manoeuvring in the 7 rounds of each season, culminating in the end-of-season battles. Winning these battles and claiming war province tokens are a big part of scoring, but there are many other ways to score points too. During the battle themselves you can score points. In the normal rounds it is also possible to score points when you levy taxes.

The Play

I did a 3-player game with Allen and Han, and we were all new to the game.

This was early in the game, and our forces were still mostly in our starting provinces. My green clan started in the Kyoto province at the centre of Honshu. Han's red clan started in the Edo province, to my east. Allen's blue clan started in the Hokkaido province in the far north. Han was first to go. Since there were only 7 actions per season, as first player he would be picking 3 actions this season, while Allen and I would only be picking 2 each. Han opened the offer for alliance, pointing out that his ally would enjoy more bonuses. However this only made Allen and I more wary, and we ended up allying with each other, agreeing to join forces to subdue Han.

As the spring season came to a close, things didn't look good for Allen and I. So much for ganging up on Han. Han's forces (red) had spread out to many provinces. One thing that he used effectively was the Betrayal action. He could convert an opponent's unit to his own. Later during the game, Han's clan unique ability also proved very powerful. For his clan, money and mercenaries were interchangeable. He had a strong economy, and could easily win the bid for deploying mercenaries. He would then spend more money as mercenaries, allowing him to win the battle. Money talks! Han had an amazing spring season, winning many provinces and sprinting far ahead of Allen and I.

In the summer season, it was even more important for Allen and I to work together. We became allies again. Han was too strong! Most war provinces in the second season overlapped with those in the first, so there was less incentive for Han to win them. It was more important for him to deny us than to win those provinces for himself. In summer, Allen (blue) and I (green) were better able to march our forces to other provinces.

Each province has a hexagon next to it. The symbols in the hexagon are what you gain when you levy taxes. When the levy tax action is chosen, the clan which has the strongest presence in a province levies taxes. So positioning your troops is not only for the end-of-season battles. Levying taxes during the normal rounds can be very lucrative. E.g. for the Kyoto province (green), you earn 4 victory points when you levy taxes.

The black-and-white lines are shipping routes which connect provinces. Province interconnectivity is high. You can move from any province to any other province within 3 steps.

This was autumn, the third and last season. Han (red) was still far ahead. Allen's (blue) and my (green) alliance was not effective in reining him in at all. Come autumn, Allen decided to abandon me, and took up Han's alliance offer. At the time my score on the score track was near Han's, but Allen's was still near zero. Reaching out to Allen was the best move for Han, because he wanted to make sure the second place (me) would not threaten him. Allen knew it was impossible to win, so he changed his goal - he just wanted to not come last. I did look like I wasn't doing too poorly, but it was an illusion. The points for collecting different war province tokens were not calculated yet, and I was far behind Han in this.

The war provinces in autumn turned out to be completely overlapping those in spring and summer. For Han, who had already collected all possible colours, it was less about collecting more, and more about preventing us from collecting more. In this photo you can easily tell which provinces would have battles. We completely ignored the other provinces.

This was the fifth and last battle for the autumn season. I (green) did have many fighters, but this was no guarantee for victory. Han had a presence, and being flush with cash, he might still win the bid for mercenaries and then deploy enough mercenaries to win. Despite the actual fighting being a simple comparison of numbers, the bidding mechanism often makes the battle outcomes uncertain and exciting. A correct reading of your opponent's intentions can turn a seemingly hopeless situation into a victory.

In the end, I fell from second place to last. Han secured his victory without breaking a sweat. Allen made great advances in autumn and overtook me comfortably. Both of us were still far far behind Han.

The Thoughts

Rising Sun has lavish production and is a very Euro-style multiplayer conflict game. It has low granularity. It has high player interaction. Your end goal is to score points, so you should not fight for the sake of fighting. It's not a hot-blooded battle game. It's more the cold, calculative, bean-counting type. Many mechanisms are deterministic. Much information is open - the gods available, the special ability cards available, where battles will occur. It's all laid out and you can strategise and plan accordingly. It actually feels a little like chess. Everyone has the same information. It is the secret bidding which throws a wrench in the works. This is where you become psychological. There's some double guessing and risk assessment. There is some luck in whether you guess your opponent's intentions right. The order of action tiles coming up is also a random factor and a luck factor. That is somewhat mitigated since you do have 4 options.

Eight-Minute Empire: Legends

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

I wonder whether Eight-Minute Empire: Legends should be considered a microgame. It should at least qualify as a filler. It is a very shortened dudes-on-a-map game, but shortened doesn't necessarily mean overly simplified. You can't play this in 8 minutes, but once you are familiar, it is entirely possible to complete a 4-player game within half an hour.

The map is modular, you can arrange it in many different ways. We started our game with the capital in the central island, where most of our troops were amassed. We had an expeditionary force on another island, the one at the lower right. Most spaces have a token. Some tokens give bonuses. Some are face-down exploration tokens. You get to peek at it if you end your turn controlling the territory. You gain the benefit (or suffer the penalty) when you build a castle there.

The game is played over only 8 rounds. On your turn you pick one card from six from the table, and add it to your personal row. The card picked allows you to perform some actions, e.g. producing soldiers, transporting soldiers, killing enemies, building castles. Some cards also give you long-term benefits, e.g. enhancing future actions and giving bonus points. Your ultimate goal is to control territory, i.e. to have the most soldiers in the territory. Scoring is only done at game end. You score 1VP for every territory you control, 1VP for every island you control (i.e. you control the most territories on it), and you also score points for some tokens on the board and some cards you have collected.

Three turns in, and these were the cards I had collected. The upper bar shows the name of the card and any long-term benefits. The lower bar shows the action(s) you get to execute when picking it. Here are what the icons mean: Cubes mean producing soldiers, struck out cubes mean killing enemies, and cubes with an arrow mean transporting soldiers.

Wai Yan (purple) and Dith (grey) had each built a castle here. New soldiers are produced at castles or the capitol.

The Play

I did a 4-player game with Ivan, Dith and Wai Yan. It turned out the game played more like El Grande than Risk. It's actually an area majority game. Killing your enemies is not the most important thing. You just want to have more soldiers than them in as many territories as possible. Quite often in our game we begged for mercy promising that we were leaving soon anyway. The key decisions in the game are the 8 cards you pick. You need to consider what you want to do on the board, your long-term strategy (e.g. do you want to focus on producing many soldiers, or moving soldiers around more effectively, or scoring using a certain type of card), and also what cards your opponents may desperately want.

The game started with a turn order bid. I didn't know whether it was good or bad to go early, so I bid nothing. I ended up being the start player. In the later half of the game, I realised going first was not a good idea. It's an area majority game, so going early means others can see what you do and then react accordingly. I thought my board position was decent throughout most of the game, but in the late game I sensed disaster coming, and in the last round my world collapsed. I lost majority everywhere, and in the end I came dead last. I can't completely blame turn order though. I did make some (in hindsight) dubious decisions myself.

At this stage Ivan (white) had completely vacated the capitol. The rest of us were still partying on.

Towards the later part of the game, we had spread out to most corners of the map.

I had done 7 turns, and only had one last card to go. I think my choice of long-term powers was poor (i.e. icons in the upper bar of my cards). I focused on collecting blue crystals, which was something used for game-end scoring. In hindsight, I probably should have collected abilities that let me produce more soldiers or move more soldiers. Having the most blue crystals only gave me 2VP eventually.

The Thoughts

Eight-Minute Empire: Legends is more an area-majority game (like El Grande) than a dudes-on-a-map game (like Risk, Axis & Allies, Cyclades). You don't get to do whatever you want. You can only pick actions from among the six cards available. The game is less about attacking and destroying. It is more about simply having more men than others in as many territories as possible. It is also a tableau game like Race for the Galaxy, San Juan and Imperial Settlers. Throughout the game you are building a tableau of cards, and you want to make sure they jive with one another. I wonder whether the recent hot game Deus feels like this. It is also about building a tableau of cards, and the cards you pick determine what you get to do on the board.

I find I keep repeating that I don't like area-majority games. I want to be fair to the games I write about, so I feel the need to state my personal bias. The selling point of Eight-Minute Empire: Legends seems to be its shortness. Even the title reflects that. Shortness is not an important criteria for me personally, so it doesn't draw me. I'm perfectly happy to play a longer dudes-on-a-map game, or a more complex card tableau game.

The Staufer Dynasty

Plays: 4Px1.

Disclaimer: I didn't read the rules myself, and we learned and played the game speaking Cantonese and Mandarin, so some of the game terms I use here may be completely off.

The Game

The Staufer Dynasty is an area majority game played over five rounds. The board consists of six provinces, and the king visits a different province from round to round. The provinces have various numbers of government positions, and you want to send your officials to take up these positions. At the end of every round, one or two provinces will score, and when they do, you compare officials. Whoever has the most will score the most points and gain some benefits, and others will score fewer. Officials at scored provinces are then all fired, and go back to the general supply.

The game board is made of one turn order board at the centre, and six province boards around it. It takes up quite a lot of space, more than I had expected. That big purple pawn is the king.

Two of my officials. The big one on the left counts as two of the little ones on the right. Some spaces on the board only allow big officials.

On your turn, you have two options - hire or deploy. If you choose to hire, you are basically taking officials from the general supply into your personal supply. Your officials are your main currency in this game. If you choose to deploy, you send one official to claim one government position on the board. If this is at the province where the king is visiting, there is no transportation cost. If it is further away, you need to pay the carriage fare in the form of... your officials. These officials are placed onto the board (not the general supply). They can be claimed back into your hand in later rounds. When your new official takes up his new post, you also need to make a payment depending on the post being taken. This payment is made in the form of... officials again. They are, again, placed on the board, and similarly they will go back to your hand in future rounds. So you see, getting one person one job requires much effort and sacrifice from many people.

This table here is the round events tiles. Every row corresponds to one round in the game. We have completed the first round, so these here are for rounds 2 to 5. The first segment of each row indicates which province will score. The second segment shows the criteria for a possible second province to score, e.g. the province with the fewest remaining treasures or the province with the most number of officials. If the province that meets the criteria happens to be the same province as indicated in the first segment, then only that one province is scored, and it is scored just once. The third segment is mainly a reminder for some upkeep tasks, but one important part is how many steps the king will move, because it determines how many officials the players will claim back from the board, and also the traveling costs for the next round.

This is the Milano province. It has five spaces, and the costs are shown next to each space. The rewards when Milano scores is 10VP for the strongest player, 5VP for second place, and 4VP for everyone else who has presence. Those tiles below are the treasures. Whenever you deploy an official you get to claim the treasure(s) under his seat.

There are many treasure tokens in this game which give various special abilities. Some score points. Some give long-term benefits. Some give a one-time ability like waiving the transportation fee. When you hire officials, you can usually claim a treasure. When you deploy an official, usually you will also claim a treasure. Deciding which treasures to go for adds a layer to the strategy. Most of these treasures are quite useful, and it is fun to coordinate the right moment to make the best use of them.

Scoring is done in quite a few ways. The province scoring is done regularly throughout the game. Some treasures score points. There are also three secret objectives dealt before the game starts. They score at game end depending on how well you fulfill the conditions stated.

At the start of the game you are given three secret objectives, which are scored at game end. The first one here scores points based on the number of officials remaining on the board at game end. The second one scores points if I have majority in Strasbourg. The third one scores points for each set of officials placed to make such a pattern on the board.

The Play

I did a four player game with Ivan, Sinbad and Dith. Ivan taught the game. Playing the game is very much about tactical analysis to determine the most juicy opportunities. You can invest in some long-term abilities to help you for the rest of the game. Like any area majority game, you need to decide where to spend effort to compete, and how to fully utilise your resources - gaining the most points with the least investment. Of course this depends a lot on your opponents' actions and where they are focusing. The treasures are quite fun. They come into play when you decide whether to hire or deploy, and who to hire and where to deploy. Sometimes your decision is based more on the treasure you want more than who you really want to hire or where you really want to deploy. It is exhilarating when you get to use treasures to make big moves.

You oscillate between hiring officials and deploying them. There is a rhythm to it. Naturally you want to be deploying more and hiring less, because deploying is where you will score points (mostly). But you can't deploy when you don't have enough resources. Hiring is gathering resources. It is important to manage your pool of officials. They are your money. You need to time when to hire and when to deploy. The turn order mechanism is another layer to think of when you decide between hiring and deploying. There are many interwoven tactical decisions to make in this game.

The turn order mechanism is interesting. Each player has three secretaries here, and their positions in the queue at the centre determine when the player gets to take an action. There are only two action types - recruiting officials or deploying them. If you recruit, your secretary joins the queue on the right. If you deploy, he joins the queue on the left, and that queue starts from the other end. Once all secretaries have left the central queue, the round ends, and there will be two newly formed queues. These merge to become the new central queue, determining the turn order for the next round.

Ivan and Sinbad. Sinbad looks distressed but he's actually doing very well. He's the only guy collecting the point scoring treasures. None of the others wanted to get tied down competing with him.

The Thoughts

For me personally The Staufer Dynasty doesn't offer any new excitement. The turn order mechanism is clever, but the game overall doesn't leave much of an impression. There are many tactical decisions. There is healthy direct competition. There is no strong theme or story. It is a competently put together and passable game to me. Unfortunately there isn't anything that makes it particularly memorable. The Staufer Dynasty is designed by Andreas Steding, who designed Hansa Teutonica, a game which I admire very much. Hansa Teutonica has a paper-thin setting too, but the mechanisms and competition are much more compelling.

Las Vegas

Plays: 3Px1.

The Game

Las Vegas is a light dice game by Rudiger Dorn (Goa, Istanbul, Dragonheart, Jambo). It is played over four rounds only. In each round, each of the six casinos on the table offers at least one money card for players to fight over. Whoever wins the most money by the end of the fourth round wins the game.

During a round, you win money by placing your dice on the casinos. You start every round with 8 dice of your colour, and 2 dice of a neutral white colour. On your turn you roll all dice still in hand, and pick one of the numbers rolled. All dice of that number (whether in your colour or in the neutral colour) must then be placed on the correspending casino. Then the next player takes his turn. This goes round and round till everyone has placed all his dice. You then compare the number of dice at each casino. Whoever has the most takes the highest valued money card. Whoever has the second most takes the next highest valued card, and so on. One important twist is when there is a tie at a casino, all tied players are disqualified from that casino. This means two strong players may both get kicked out, leaving the spoils to a humble third party. It also means sometimes you can make use of the neutral dice to screw an opponent by forcing a tie between him and the neutral colour. Of course your opponents will try to do the same to you.

At Casino #5 red and blue are tied at three dice each, so both will be disqualified, and white (the non-player colour) will become the winner. At Casino #6, blue will win the highest valued money card, but since red and white are tied for second place, no one will win the second money card.

The Play

The game is quick and smooth. Being a dice game, there is definitely luck, and you don't always get to do what you want. Instead you are often presented with multiple opportunities and/or dilemmas. You need to evaluate the potential risks and rewards, and decide how much you want to gamble. You need to pick your fights, since you can't fight everywhere. Early in a round you will have more options, since you still have many dice. As more and more dice are committed, you will become more reliant on luck giving you what you want. It is important that in the early stage of a round you pick wisely, so that you won't get thwarted by bad luck too easily towards the later part of the round. But it can still happen.

The risk management and the dwindling options feel a little like Pickomino, however unlike Pickomino, you only roll once on your turn, like in Airships. One thing I like about Airships is the single roll aspect. You don't need to watch your opponents roll dice over and over. Turns are quicker.

My strategy during our game was to delay commitment as much as possible. I tended to pick the numbers with fewer dice, so that on my turn I committed fewer dice. My dice pool lasted longer, and I could watch where Chong Sean and Michelle committed their dice before I committed too many of my own. I could delay my decisions until later - where to fight and where to concede. The delay strategy has its merits, but it is not always up to you to execute it. You are still at the mercy of the dice. One thing good about it is once your opponents have played their white dice, you know they won't be able to sabotage you anymore. But then it is still possible for your own white dice to mess up your plans if your die rolls suck.

My delay tactics worked very well for me and I won the game with a large margin. This was a great boost to confidence, after having lost two games of The Palaces of Carrara so spectacularly just before this. Then Michelle said, you do win at games of luck. Hey, it's skill! I haz dah Skillz!

Money cards on the left, start player card on the right.

The Thoughts

Kareem has recommended Las Vegas to me before, saying it's simple but fun, and now that I have played it, I fully agree. The casino theme doesn't seem appropriate for children, but I think Las Vegas makes an excellent family game. It will work well with casual gamers and as a party game too (but it supports at most 5 players). It's easy-to-teach, quick-to-play, has some strategy, presents meaningful decisions, and has decent player interaction. There is always an excitement in rolling dice, especially a mighty handful of them. Sometimes bad die rolls can be discouraging, but even with a poor roll you usually have options, just that you are in damage control mode as opposed to an opportunistic investment mode.

Rialto

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

Rialto is an area majority game. What is special about it is the values of the districts being fought over are gradually determined throughout the course of the game, through players actions. Area majority scoring is done only at game end. There are a few other ways to score points, e.g. from buildings and from actions, but the bulk of the points come from the area majority competition.

The game is driven by a card drafting mechanism. At the start of each of the six rounds, a few sets of cards are dealt face-up for players to pick. These cards are used later that round to execute various actions. Actions are executed in the order of action types. To participate in an action phase, you need to play one or more cards for that particular action. The more cards you play, the stronger your action. The player who has played the most cards gains a special bonus. E.g. for the earn money phase the bonus is you earn and extra $1 (well, it's actually florin I think, since this game is set in Venice). Other actions include competing for turn order, constructing buildings, getting pawns from the general supply, placing pawns into the active district of the current round, and scoring points. Among these are two important bonuses. Firstly, in the score points phase (or bridge phase) if you win the bonus you get to place a good bridge between two districts, usually significantly increasing the value of the districts. Secondly, in the gain pawn phase (or gondola phase) if you win the bonus you get to place a lousy bridge (which is actually a gondola) between two districts, increasing their values by a paltry 1pt. You also get to place one pawn in one of these districts. This may not sound like much, but it can be very powerful because it means you can place a pawn in a non-active district.

With 4 players, we had 5 sets of cards laid out at the start of every round. The last player will still have two sets to pick from.

From left to right: The bridge cards score 1pt per card. The bonus is you get to place a bridge tile onto the board to increase the values of the districts at both ends of the bridge. The gondola cards let you take pawns from the general supply. The bonus is you get to place a gondola (i.e. lousy 1pt bridge) onto the board. The mask cards are jokers, and must be played with another card. The hat cards are for turn order. The coin cards are for money. This was still early in the game. In the background you can see that most spaces for bridges and gondolas are still empty. Also only one district has pawns.

When you select a set of cards, others can see what you have selected. However, you also draw two cards from the draw deck, and then discard two cards, before the action phases start. So your opponents will not be entirely sure what cards you have.

The building powers are mostly straight-forward. Some are related to drawing more cards and having a larger hand size. Some are related to playing one card as a card of another type. Some give points. All building powers need to be activated by paying $1, and they can only be used once per round. Money is only used for triggering building powers.

The player board has 7 spaces for buildings. There are three types of buildings, blue, green and yellow, and four levels in each type. The level (top right corner of the building tile) is also the point value. From left to right: (1) upgrade a building to the next level. (2) Draw one more card from those face-up or three more from the draw deck. Also handsize is increased by two. (3) Gain 3pts. (4) Gain 1pt and one pawn.

The Play

Having played Stefan Feld's In the Year of the Dragon and also other games where player order is something that can be fought over, I decided it must be quite important, and spent much effort keeping myself in first position. Heng and Ivan didn't really bother to compete, but Allen did, which meant I had to maintain my effort. It was an arms race.

There are six action phases in a round. At first I thought it would be a good idea to claim a good variety of cards, so that I could participate in many action phases. However I later found that this meant my actions were rather weak, and I would often miss out on the bonuses. The game forces you to make choices and sacrifices. At the start of every round, you should pay attention to what cards your opponents are taking, so that you have a rough idea of where they intend to compete. I didn't really do that though, since I was still learning the ropes and couldn't spare the extra effort.

In the early game it was difficult to plan which districts to go for, since the district values were not determined yet. So we had to fight first and talk scores later. Once you have majority in a district, you should try to place bridges that increase its value. Naturally others will try to award you stinking gondolas.

The building powers are all quite handy. I think they are very much worth the investment. You need to remember to maintain a stash of cash to trigger their powers though. Some scoring is done during the game, but most is done at game end, so you need to always keep in mind the end goal. The game is a constant manipulation of the end state, while you score some supplementary points along the way.

In the sixth and last round I made a mistake of underestimating Allen's determination to beat me in the turn order track. I was already 5 steps ahead, and I didn't think he would commit so many cards to try to overtake me. Even so, I kept one turn order card just in case. To my surprise, he committed 5 cards. That meant he moved six steps (taking into account the bonus) and I moved one. We landed on the same space, but since I moved first, his disc was atop mine, and he gained the lead. Aaarrgghh! This affected the end-game scoring of two districts, where he claimed first place while I had to settle for second, gaining half the points he scored. That was about a 13pt different - he gained 13pts more and I gained 13pts less. He won the game by a huge margin while I came a distant third. If I had committed more to maintain my turn order lead, I might have won, or at least come second place.

Game end. The doge track with the hat icon is the turn order track. Allen (blue) and I (green) were on the same space, but because his disc was on top, he had the advantage. The outer track is the score track. Allen outscored us by a mile!

The Thoughts

Rialto teases. There are many things you want to do, but you can't do everything. You are forced to choose. Turn order is certainly important. In this game I maintained the lead position most of the time, and didn't have to feel much pain. However I imagine it is painful for Heng and Ivan. They had fewer choices when picking the card sets, and during the card play, they were also disadvantaged when there was a tie for most number of cards played. Even as start player, picking a card set is painful. You not only have to think about what you want to do. You also have to consider that the card sets you leave behind will be used by your opponents to compete with you.

What makes Rialto stand out is how the district values are determined during the course of the game. This presents an interesting challenge to the area majority competition. The game is constant positioning and manoeuvring to set yourself up for the end-game scoring. Other scoring methods are not unimportant, but are supplementary. You need to always keep the end in mind.

My impression of Rialto is: cute. It is quite clean and succinct. It's a medium weight game, with still enough meat to chew on. It doesn't feel overburdened with multiple different mechanisms, like I feel there is in some other Stefan Feld's designs. Rialto is not bad. Crisp.

Dominant Species: The Card Game

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

Dominant Species: The Card Game is played over 10 rounds, and in each round the players compete over a biome card. On your turn, you play a card or pass for the rest of the round. There are two types of cards. An animal card has a number on it (called the food chain value) and some icons (called elements). The number lets you compete for dominance (scoring you a number of points equal to the round number), and the icons let you compete for matching icons on the biome card (worth between 1 to 4pts). Some animal cards let you suppress another animal card in play, by rotating it to the weaker side, or even discarding it if is already weakened. The other card type is the event card - just follow instructions on it. E.g. boosting the food chain value of your cards in play, forcing everyone to pass immediately, allowing some players to draw a card(s).

Once everyone has passed, scoring for the round is done. Other than dominance scoring (total food chain value) and elements scoring (matching icons), the player or players with the highest dominance score get to advance on the survival track. This is quite important, because before the tenth and last round, instead of drawing 2 cards like previous rounds, you draw a number of cards equal to your position on the survival track. Also at game end, you gain 5pts for having the highest survival position or lose 5pts for being lowest.

The biome for the last round is preset, so everyone knows what's coming. At any one time, both the current biome being fought over and the next one are known, so you can plan ahead a little. Each biome card determines whether a certain animal type (e.g. mammals, insects, birds) gains some advantage or disadvantage, which will also help you plan how to spend / conserve your cards.

And that's almost all there is to the game. Sounds simple? And completely different from the predecessor?

The game board is small, and is only a tracker. This is purely a card game. The cards with white backgrounds are tundra cards, a type of biome card. The icons on the cards indicate elements that can score, and the two species icons on each card show species that gain an advantage / disadvantage for the round.

My animal cards. The number is the food chain value, used for competing for dominance. The icons are the elements. Some cards have icons of a stop sign on top of another species. That's the suppression icon. You can suppress one already-in-play card of that species. The bottom half of an animal card is its weaker side, to be used if the card is suppressed.

An event card. Some events take effect immediately. Some are in effect for the rest of the round.

The Play

We played a 4-player game, which seems to be a good number. Not too many players that the competition becomes too brutal, and not too few that it becomes boring. We quickly discovered the importance of, ahem, "sharing". When two players tie for dominance scoring (or element scoring), both earn the full points. So if two (or more) players are leading, and they can agree on a joint victory, they can stop spending cards to compete with each other. This is attractive because cards are scarce. It is painful to have committed many cards, only to be outspent by others and win nothing. It is important to learn when to concede, when to fight, and when to negotiate. And maybe when to backstab too (although that didn't happen in our game; not that I was thinking about it mind you).

The race on the survival track is tense. The 5pts for being on top is lucrative, and the -5pts for being behind is scary.

In the last round everyone will go all out, since you don't need to save cards for the future anymore. There is a twist though. A round can end in two ways - when everyone passes, and when a player passes while holding no more cards. That means in that final round you won't be able to play all your cards even if you have many more than your opponents. You are restricted by the player who holds the fewest cards. So having many cards for Round 10 only means that you have more cards to pick from, and hopefully that means you will be able to play better quality cards than others.

Our game came quite close. Everyone was within striking distance when Round 10 started. Round 10 felt like the final big boss battle in many computer games. It was the culmination of 9 rounds of hard work. No more Mr Nice Guy cooperative nonsense. It was Highlander time - there can only be one! Lots of suppression occurred, even causing animals to be killed off. All the most powerful cards had been saved for that climactic fight. I won Round 10, and eventually the game.

My hand of cards for Round 10.

The Thoughts

The card game version of Dominant Species is a very different animal from its predecessor, but I was pleasantly surprised that it has some similar feelings - especially how important the last round is and how you need to keep it in mind throughout the game. The game also reminds me of Taj Mahal. You usually draw only two cards per round, and you can't afford to compete fiercely every round. You need to pick your battles. Getting tied up in a long, brutal fight can be disastrous. Win or lose, you come out resource-starved. What also surprised me is the game can have a fair bit of negotiation and cooperation, because sometimes it's win-win to agree with an opponent to tie for dominance. You both score the full points, and you can conserve your cards by not prolonging the fight. However there is also a risk of getting betrayed - the opponent who ties with you and promises to not continue playing any card after you pass may have a sudden change of heart after you pass.

I like how the dominance scoring escalates. You really cannot allow yourself to miss out too much in the second half when the dominance score is 6pts and above. In the early rounds, the dominance scoring has few points, but it is still important because you need to advance on the survival track, which has a big impact in setting up for Round 10 and in game-end scoring.

It's a card game, so there is luck. But there is enough information to allow planning ahead and strategising. This is meant to be a quick (and sometimes nasty) game, just don't expect a summarised version of Dominant Species.

the excitement of 3-player games, and Tammany Hall

From late 2010 to early 2012, most of my boardgame sessions were 3-player games with Han and Allen. This period started after Allen's first child was born (he was more house-bound than usual so Han and I decided to play at his place to keep him sane), and lasted until Han's overseas work assignment (and I'm pretty sure we'll continue as before once he returns). During this period I easily settled down to this comfortable routine, and became lazier and lazier to organise bigger boardgame sessions. Jointly, we had many games suitable for 3 players, more than we could play. I think we developed a kind of play style together. We tend to be brisk in playing (and we often quote our 50-minute game of Merchants and Marauders); we sometimes take turns simultaneously and end up confusing ourselves whose turn it should be; we often do that "attack-him-he's-the-leader!" thing. I've found that 3-player games have a unique type of excitement, especially when the game being played has some, but is not purely, direct confrontation. Not being a fully confrontational game means you have a choice of taking an aggressive action or taking a peaceful or self-development action, and when you decide to take the aggressive action, it makes the offensive intent more pointed and much clearer.

3-player games have a delicate balance, because any apparent leader will quickly be targeted by the other two players, and he will have a tough time maintaining his lead going one against two. However, the temporary alliance between the other two players is often fragile, because once the alliance achieves the objective of bringing the leader back in line, it will be every man for himself again. So even during the period of alliance, each ally will be trying to better position himself to come out stronger after the dust settles. Distrust your enemy, distrust your ally even more. 3-player games often become a tricky balance of doing well but not appearing too strong, or finding the right opportunity to push for a quick victory before your opponents gang up on you. It's a bit like that scene in Reservoir Dogs - every player holding two guns, each pointed at one of the other two players.

I was reminded of all this when Han, Allen and I played two games of Tammany Hall at www.slothninja.com. We have played this game in its physical form before, quite some time ago, but never got around to play it again until recently. The game has been out-of-print, but is now on Kickstarter trying to achieve the funding goal. The games we played were turn-based and we didn't need to be online at the same time, so the pace was more like a PBEM (Play-by-E-Mail) game. It took us about 5 days to complete a game. I was amazed how exciting and tense the games were. Allen would agree that they were downright stressful. I want to write about these two games. I won't describe the rules (which I've covered before). I'll just jump straight to the session reports and what I was thinking and feeling during the games. You may want to Ctrl-click to open the screenshots in a separate window while you read the descriptions that accompany each screenshot.

Game 1: 23 - 27 Apr 2012

A game of Tammany Hall has 16 rounds, with every 4 rounds culminating in an election. That track at the top shows that we were at Round 4. This being a 3-player game, only Region I (the bottom bit) was in play initially. Regions II and III would open up in Q2 and Q3 respectively. I was red, Allen was yellow, Han was purple. The most defining moment of the Q1 election was the fight for Ward 7. In this screenshot, only Allen (yellow with 3 bosses) and I (red with 1 boss) were fighting for it, but before the election started Han placed one boss to enter the race. I gave up on it and didn't spend any favour chip. Allen and Han were both determined to win it and spent as much as they could. Unfortunately for them, they tied, so both of them lost, wasting many chips in the process. I became mayor.

Being mayor earns you 3VP, which is nice, but it has its drawbacks, because once you become mayor, you must assign special abilities to your opponents, which they can use against you afterwards, while you don't get any special ability. Also the mayor is first in turn order, which makes it hard to defend against others, especially slandering. The rulebook tells you not to complain though, because you are already given 3VP. After the Q1 electcion, I was the apparent leader with a big red target painted on me.

This was just before the Q2 election. Q2 was less eventful than I expected. I actually managed to hold on to the mayor post, although I wasn't really eager to do so. Allen had been using his Precinct Chairman power to shift immigrants around to strengthen his influence, often diminishing mine at the same time. Han had been using his Deputy Mayor power to collect favour chips. Although I won the most wards, many were sparsely populated, i.e. they didn't help much in becoming most influential in the four immigrant groups. Becoming mayor twice in a row meant my score was far ahead now.

Q3 elections had just started. I (red) made a deal with Han (purple) so that I'd let him win Ward 6 and he'd let me win Ward 4. This way we could both conserve some favour chips.

Near the end of the Q3 elections. Han (purple) later won Ward 10, which meant Allen won 6 wards, I won 5 and Han won 4. Allen became the new mayor. In Q3 he had majority influence over three immigrant groups - the Irish, the Germans and the English! That's 9 favour chips going to him. My score was still in the lead (18), but Allen was close behind (15), and Han was further behind at 10. Allen had a lot of favour chips, and would be powerful going into the final Q4 election. It looked like Han and I would need to gang up on him to prevent a runaway leader.

Q4 elections had just started. Ward 1 (bottom left) had just been resolved. Allen and I competed for it, both spending many chips, only to end up tied. This was painful for both of us. I was very badly positioned going into this election. In the final round before the elections, I slandered away Allen's bosses in Wards 3 and 5, so that I could win both wards uncontested. However, Han, whose turn was after mine, swooped in and did the same to me, claiming those two wards. I had expected Han to slander Allen's bosses in Wards 8 and 15, since Allen was the bigger threat. In hindsight, I should not have left myself so vulnerable. Throughout Q4 Han and I had been mostly focusing our attacks on Allen, and I built a false sense of security that Han wouldn't target me. I should have tried to compete with him in some wards, e.g. 6, 7 or 10, so that he would be forced to play more defensively and would not have such a free reign.

Near the end of the Q4 elections. I would eventually lose in Ward 17 too. I didn't have as many favour chips as Allen, so I lost to him in Wards 2, 4, 9, and 17. Han had a magnificent come-from-behind victory, winning 10 wards! That's 10VP. He also gained 6VP for most Irish, English and Italian favour chips left, and 3VP for mayorship.

Final score: Han (purple) 30VP, Allen (yellow) 22VP, Hiew (red) 19VP.

Game 2: 27 Apr - 3 May 2012

In our second game, we were assigned the same colours as before. Han was purple, Allen was yellow and I was red. This screenshot was taken during the Q2 election. Earlier, in Q1, I had become mayor uncontested. All three wards that I competed in were won uncontested. Han and Allen competed in two wards and each won one. That meant I, again, became the big fat target, not just because I was ahead in points, but also because I had conserved the most favour chips.

In this second game, I tried to be more aggressive in pressing my advantage. Instead of trying to go for the less populated (and thus less attractive) wards in order to appear weak, I wanted to fight for the more densely populated wards, so that I could gain majority influence with more immigrant groups. In this screenshot, Ward 1 had just been resolved. Han (purple) and I (red) competed for it. He spent all favour chips he could afford and won it. I hadn't expected that, so the favour chips that I had spent were wasted. It was a right decision for Han, because eventually he gained majority for three immigrant groups, greatly helped by the immigrants in Ward 1. He also won the most wards and became mayor.

This was during the Q3 elections. Noone bothered to contest for Wards 17, 11 and 13 on the right, because they had few immigrants, and I think also because noone was keen to be mayor going into the last election.

This was the start of Q4, i.e. it shows the outcome of the Q3 election. Han (purple) won Ward 1 (but his token was cut off from this screenshot), 8 and 9. Allen won three wards too, and I won four. Ward 4 was tied between Han and Allen. Ward 15 was tied between Han and I. I became the reluctant mayor going into Q4. I was leading in points, but Han and Allen were not far away. At this point Han had very few favour chips, much fewer than us, so he'd be at a disadvantage when he had to compete during elections. I gave him the Council President power which let him lock up wards. This would be useful to him because he could quickly lock up a ward with only his boss present to make sure he'd win it uncontested, without needing to spend favour chips. I wanted to keep him in the competition so that he could still be a threat, and Allen couldn't focus his attacks (and defenses) only on me.

Final round before the Q4 elections. I had many English (white) favour chips. However Allen used his Chief of Police power well and removed English immigrants from many wards where I wanted to fight for (3, 5, 7), rendering my English favour chips useless there. Han made good use of his Council President power and locked up Wards 1 and 4 for himself.

Q4 election had just started. Contested wards were 3, 7, 9 and 14. All of us had the chance to become mayor, and that 3VP bonus would be a big factor in determining the final winner. The 2VP for having the most leftover favour chips for each of the immigrant groups could also determine victory. It was going to be a very close game.

I knew I (red) would lose to Allen (yellow) in Ward 3, and Han (purple) would lose to him too in Ward 14, because neither of us had enough of the right coloured chips to fight with him. So it all came down to what would happen in Wards 7 and 9. Han already had 5 wards in the bag, and if he won a 6th ward, he would became mayor. That would be 9VP, for the wards and the mayorship. I too wanted mayorship, because with my current lead, that would likely seal my victory. However I would need to win both Wards 7 and 9, and also have more favour chips than Allen (because we would be tied at 5 wards each).

This was the favour chips situation. Han was purple, I was red. If I wanted to safely win Ward 7, I'd have to spend 4 chips. If Han conceded Ward 7 and didn't spend any, then the favour chips he had left would be enough to tie me in Ward 9, denying me Ward 9. If Han gambled that I would take a risk in Ward 7 and spend fewer than 4 chips, he might spend all he had to try to win Ward 7 and secure his mayorship. It all came down to one crucial decision. Would Han try to win Ward 7? I gambled that he would, and this was what followed...

Han didn't spend any favour chip in Ward 7. I won it having spent four, when I could have won it spending just one. We tied for Ward 9, so neither of us won mayorship. Han (purple) and Allen (yellow) both had 5 wards, but Allen had tons more favour chips, so Allen became mayor.

This was the favour chip situation at game end. After all the scoring was done, Allen (yellow) won the game with 26VP. I (red) had 23VP, Han (purple) had 19VP. I retraced our game, and found that if I wanted to win, I would have needed to spend either 1 or 2 favour chips to fight for Ward 7. Only then I could tie Allen with 5 wards, and also have more favour chips than his 12. That would have been a perfect storm, but I guess one should not expect such perfect alignments to happen easily.

Thoughts on Tammany Hall

These two games of Tammany Hall had been tremendously fun and tense. Allen said he needed a break from such stress. This reminded me of my two PBEM games of Axis and Allies Anniversary Edition against Han in 2009 (Game 1, Game 2). I reread these session reports and enjoyed myself reliving the wars.

Tammany Hall is a perfect information game. The types of actions you can take is low, but there are many possibilities and implications. In theory you can work out all the possible outcomes, but in practice it is quite daunting. In a PBEM-like format, you can take your time working out all the possibilities, but when playing face-to-face, that can become analysis paralysis. There is still some uncertainty. What new immigrants become available after the immigrant pool is exhaused is random, but you don't refresh immigrants very often. The blind bidding (committing favour chips) during elections is not random. You need to guess your opponents' intentions. The elections can be very tense. I am very impressed that with not many rules and with few action types, the game can create so many possibilities and opportunities for clever play, and also bring out the theme convincingly.

I hope the Kickstarter project works out well. This is a game that deserves more attention.

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