Dewan

Dewan in Malay means "hall", and the boardgame Dewan has nothing to do with any hall. It's just the name of the game world. But I'm stuck with thinking "what the hall" whenever I say the name of the game. Dewan is a clean civ game. I am tempted to call it 4X, but it doesn't have all four X's, just eXpand and a bit of eXploit. No eXplore or eXterminate. You start with a little settlement, and you spread out to settle other lands and fulfil your destiny of greatness. The game ends when a player builds his 9th settlement. 

This is what a 3-player game looks like. There map tiles are randomly set up so there is variability from game to game. One key concept in the game is the region. A region is a set of connected hexes of the same terrain type. For example there are four grey regions in the map above. To complete objectives (here they are called stories), you need to have settlements in multiple regions. Normally you'd only place one settlement in a region, because if you have two, they still only count for one region that you have access to. 

On your turn, you have only two options. You either claim two cards, or you build a new settlement. You claim cards from a display of six (see above, lower row). You must claim adjacent cards. This is interesting. I can't think of any other game that has this rule. There probably are some. I wonder whether this will work with Ticket to Ride. My guess is it will be too frustrating. Here, it works well. 

To build a settlement, you pay cards. You must be able to trace a path from one of your settlements to a new empty site. For every hex your settler moves through, including both starting hex and destination hex, you must pay a matching card. Water cards are an interesting mechanism here. When you pay with a water card, you may move as far as the river (or lake) takes you. That's pretty thematic. 

The row of tiles at the top are your objectives (called stories). They give you points if you fulfil them. They require that you settle a specific number of regions of a certain terrain type, or that you control certain resources on the map, or that you have settlements on riverbanks, or some combination of these. You draft a story tile at the start of the game, and throughout the game you may claim up to three more. When you complete a story tile, you score points and also earn one free card. 

This is your player board. The settlements are placed along the bottom, and there is a reason for this. When you place your 2nd, 4th or 6th settlement, you unlock a story tile slot and you get to claim a story tile. When you place your 3rd, 5th or 7th settlement, you may tuck a card under your player board. These cards count as you having access to an additional region and possibly resource too. 

Those that look like star icons are berries. They are worth 2 points each. Other icons on the edges of hexes are resources you can gain access to if you build next to them. 

When playing the game, in a way you are just doing your own thing, planning how you want to expand and fulfil your story tiles, but at the same time, this is a land grab. Although you don't get to fight your opponents or steal their settlements, you are competing for a very precious resource - land. If you think they are aiming to settle a specific spot that you need, you'd better hurry. There is certainly some tension among players. It's not direct aggression, but you do have to watch what they are doing. 

Three of the story tiles I had needed red terrain. Getting story tiles which are similar saves much work. I use the cards I tuck under my board to help fulfil my story tiles. One nice thing about the component design is the story tiles are placed recessed slots. When you complete a story, you can slide the tile up to reveal a worship icon. It gives you a free card. 

The game I played against Han and Jon was mostly peaceful. I am not sure whether this is normal. We didn't seem to get into one another's ways too much. Possibly I got into their ways just that I was oblivious. 

Dewan is a pleasant family strategy game, at least based on my personal experience. I have a suspicion that it can be more cutthroat. I like that it is streamlined cleverly. You only have two options, drawing cards or placing a settlement. There are several scoring conditions you need to juggle at the same time. You want settlements that form groups, because groups score bonuses. You want to have more fires than others, because you get a bonus for that too. You need to manage all these while trying to make sure you can score all four of your stories. You probably should block your opponents sometimes, if it doesn't distract you too much from your own plan.