Nucleum

The Game

Nucleum (2023) from Simone Luciani and David Turczi is a currently hot game. There has been many positive reviews. Recently when Han was coming to KL and we planned to play, he asked what I wanted to play, offering several titles he could bring. I picked Nucleum because I was curious to see what it was like. 

Nucleum is set in a fictional industrial age Saxony, where a mineral called nucluem, a source of nuclear power, has been discovered. The game map is an abstracted version of the Saxony region. There are multiple cities, each with a limited number of spaces for different structures. Cities can be connected by building railroad tracks. During the game you can build mines, turbines and buildings. Mines produce nucleum. Turbines allow power generators to work more efficiently. Power generators consume nucleum or coal to generate electricity. The electricity is used for upgrading buildings. You want to upgrade your buildings because this gives you benefits and also it is an important source of victory points.

Every city only has a handful of slots for structures, so you will need to build in multiple cities. You will need to transport resources to power generators and when you run power generators they need to be connected to the buildings which you want to upgrade. So you will need to build railroad tracks to connect cities. You will be doing much construction work in this game. Railroads, buildings, mines, and turbines. This is a game of network building. 

This is the player board. Here you can see the various structures you can build. The first three columns are the buildings. The 4th column is the turbines and the 5th column is the mines. The core mechanism of the game is the action tiles. These are small rectangular tiles, two of which you can see at the top of this photo above. At the start of the game every player gets a unique set of starting action tiles. Every action tile has two parts, representing two actions you can perform. When you use an action tile, you place it in a notch along the top of your player board. This tile will be temporarily unavailable until you do a reset and take all action tiles back into your hand. When you do this reset, you also do some production. You generate money, workers and victory points. Some actions in the game increase your production during these resets. 

Besides the starting action tiles that you get, there are many better action tiles available in the game. You will be able to collect these better action tiles to augment your abilities. When you need to build a railroad track, you actually have to sacrifice an action tile. The back of an action tile is a railroad track. Since you are going to be building railroad tracks, you will need to get more action tiles to replenish those you spend as railroad tracks. When using an action tile as a railroad track, you might be able to execute the actions on it one last time. Both ends of an action tile has a colour. If this colour matches the city when you build the railroad track, you get to perform the action on that end of the tile. This is an aspect you can plan for.  Why waste the opportunity to perform one or two more actions? 

You spend money to construct buildings. You spend workers to construct turbines and mines.

These are contracts. They are missions you can complete. Whenever you claim a contract and put it next to your player board, you gain some benefits. When you complete the mission, you get a reward. 

These tiles on the left are technology tiles. Every player has their own set of unique technology tiles. There are certain things you complete during the game which will give you a technology as a reward. Some technologies are one-time benefits. Some are permanent abilities. They will affect your strategy. 

The Play

Nucleum is a rich game. It is a development game. You build lots of stuff, expand your network, and improve your abilities. You need to not only construct the buildings, but also upgrade them. You need to fight for space, and you need resources. You don't directly attack or damage your opponents. The nature of the competition is more along the lines of claiming spots and resources before your opponents do, i.e. the usual heavy Eurogame style. There is actually some possible collaboration. Players can work together to build railroad tracks to link up cities. When you do that, all of you involved gain a small reward when that link between two cities is completed. 

One thing I found interesting is every player has his own set of action tiles and technology tiles. This is like roleplaying a different character. You have different strengths and you will have a slightly different play experience. This is a game with many details to juggle. You'll be kept busy enough handling your own cash flow, resources and construction projects. 

The Thoughts

Sometimes when I introduce squad level battle games, party games, or collectible card games, I state a disclaimer that because they are not a genre I like, my personal dislike of a specific game doesn't mean it's not a good game. It's just my personal preference. I never expected that I would be doing this kind of disclaimer now for heavy Eurogames, a genre I used to love. I used to think the heavy Eurogame was my pinnacle of gaming, a kind of landing point for a gamer. Gamers go through different stages, likely beginning with gateway games or light games, moving on to trying different types of games, and eventually they settle down with something they really like. It can be collectible card games, roleplaying games, wargames, 18XX games and so on. I had thought my landing point was heavy Eurogames, but in recent years the newer titles don't excite me any more, not even the universally loved Ark Nova. I still enjoy the older games in the genre, like Indonesia which I played again recently. Gosh I have become that grumpy old man. I only like games from my "youth" days, and all the new games nowadays are rubbish. 

Nucleum is packed with many interesting challenges, and it is definitely the type which heavy Eurogamers enjoy. There are no direct attacks, but there are many aspects you need to compete in. It is a complex project management exercise. I would even say this is programme management (a programme is a collection of multiple related projects). You have to do a lot of planning. There is a ton of things to consider and prioritise. This kind of complex problem solving is what makes heavy Eurogames fun and satisfying. 

The reason the game does not excite me is I feel I have seen all the mechanisms before in various different games. When you go in, don't expect any ground-breaking idea, but you can expect many challenges put together in a compelling package.