Oriflamme

Oriflamme is a short card game of secrets and bluffing. Everyone has the same set of 10 cards and each card is a unique character with its own power. At the start of the game, everyone randomly removes 3 cards from his set. This means there will be variation in everyone’s hands. You don’t know exactly which cards are in play and out of play. 

During the game, players add cards to a common row. You always add cards to one of the two ends of the row. You add your card face down, so that others do not know what it is. After everyone has added cards, you do a round of execution. From left to right, the owner of every card decides whether to reveal the card and use its power. A revealed card can be activated to trigger its power, while a card that is still hidden will have a 1-point token added to it. 

Some cards can be used to attack and remove other cards at specific positions. However, some cards are traps so if you try to attack them, the owner gets a benefit instead. Some cards simply help you gain points more efficiently. Some cards manipulate the positions of cards which can affect the abilities of other cards. You play until everyone has played 6 cards, and the game ends. 

There is a fair bit of guessing the intentions of your opponents in this game. On average, a face-down card earns one point per round. You need to do better than that to defeat your opponents. It is through making the right guesses and the right attacks that will get you ahead. 

Oriflamme is a light and quick game. It is a melee and it is everyone for himself. 

Sheriff of Nottingham

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

Players are merchants (most of the time), and want to bring goods to the city to sell. Every round one player plays the sheriff, which in this game is more like a customs officer to me. The law says every merchant can only bring in one type of good. The merchant declares the type of good he is carrying to the sheriff, and the sheriff decides whether it is necessary to inspect the goods. If the merchant is caught bringing in other types of goods, or contraband, he is fined and the illegal goods are confiscated. The fine conveniently goes into the sheriff's pocket. However if the sheriff detains a merchant for inspection only to find that he is an honest trader (at least for the current round), the sheriff needs to pay the merchant instead. Think of it as compensation for not lodging a complaint to the king. The merchant can try to bribe the sheriff, asking him to close one eye, or even asking him to inspect another merchant's goods. It's all negotiable.

A number of rounds is played to allow everyone to have two opportunities to be sheriff. After that you compare wealth to determine who wins. You add up cash in hand (i.e. cash that changes hands through bribes and fines), the value of goods that get past customs, and bonuses for being the largest sellers for each of the four legitimate goods (chicken, cheese, apples and bread).

The player board is just a simple reference chart showing the steps in a game round, and also the bonuses for largest sellers. The cloth bag is for storing the goods you plan to bring into the city. It is nice, but not necessary. The number of goods must be declared truthfully. By having your cards face-down is already sufficient to hide what goods they are. You don't really need to put your cards into this bag.

There are two draw decks and two discard piles. At the start of every round, everyone draws back up to 6 cards, since most players would have attempted to transport some goods in the previous round. Before deciding which goods to transport for the current round, every merchant has one chance to discard some cards and draw the same number of cards. You can draw from a discard pile or a draw deck, or both. If you decide to draw from both, you must draw from a discard pile first, and then a draw deck; and there is no turning back to a discard pile once you start drawing from a draw deck.

When making a customs declaration, the merchant must truthfully report the number of cards and one good type. If all other cards are of this same good type, then the whole shipment is legal. But of course the merchant can mix in other goods and even contraband. Contraband goods are higher valued than normal goods, but the fine is also higher if you get caught. For goods that make it past the customs checkpoint, normal goods are turned face-up and placed next to your player board. This is to allow others to see how much sales you have made. Players compete with one another to sell the most of these four legitimate goods types. Contraband which makes it past the city gates are kept face-down, and are only revealed at game end. Some contraband cards count as two or more of legitimate goods, so there can be some surprises at game end.

Legitimate goods are placed face-up on both sides of the player board. Contraband is placed face-down above the player board.

The Play

Gameplay is all about player psychology. The sheriff needs to guess whether the merchants are sneaking in any undeclared goods or contraband. Is that loud and righteous-sounding guy who refuses to pay any bribe really an honest merchant? Is that poor scoundrel offering a tiny bribe really doing so badly in business that that is all he can afford? The merchants can pull off (or attempt to pull off) all sorts of tricks. When you are transporting fully legitimate goods, you can pretend to be seedy and lure the sheriff into inspecting your perfectly legal shipment. When all you have are weapons and jewellery under your top layer of apples, you can try to bluff your way through, scoffing at the idea of bribery. How you draw cards can be used against your fellow players too. When you draw from a discard pile, everyone sees what you are taking. You can use this information to mislead them, which was what Heng did in our game. Since the game is played over a number of rounds, you can use your track record to trick others. Being clean for a few consecutive rounds may allow you to get away with one big shipment of contraband. Playing smuggler for a few rounds can help set a trap for the sheriff when you suddenly go clean.

One thing I tried to do was to offer "honest" bribes. I offered large bribes which were calculated based on how much I would get fined if I were caught. I hinted that if the sheriff caught me, he'd earn less than the bribe amount. So why not go for a win-win? This worked somewhat. But sometimes the sheriff may not trust you and may suspect you are going to make even more money. Also sometimes the sheriff may just get annoyed with your smug look and decide to inspect your stuff just to show you who's boss.

This huge stand-up marker is to indicate who the sheriff is in the current round. Obviously the sheriff is a corrupt official.

The convention I used was to put my bribe on the bag. The sheriff can easily see how much is on offer at a glance.

The Thoughts

Sheriff of Nottingham is all about player psychology and player interaction. It is a game where you are gaming the players and not gaming a system. You need to watch your opponents closely and guess their intentions. There is no downtime. The rules are simple and this game can be easily taught to casual gamers and non-gamers. It works well as a party game.

Wars of the Roses: Lancaster vs York

Plays: 3Px2.

The Game

Distilled down to its fundamentals, Wars of the Roses is an area majority game. You try to control locations and personalities, which give you control points. These control points determine who scores victory points for each of the six regions on the board.

There are cities, towns, ports, nobles, bishops and ship captains that gradually come into play at the start of every round. Players simply take turns drafting them into service. They provide both income and control points. Money is important for raising troops for battle and for bribing and anti-bribing. Control points determine area majority and thus scoring. In the same round that a personality or location enters play, it can already be bribed away or attacked.

The game map. Set up and ready to go.

At the start of a round, cards are revealed, and then picked by the players one by one. We put the cards on the board so that it's easier to see which is which.

What's most interesting about the game is the secret planning phase, where you plan to attack enemy locations or defend your own locations, bribe enemy personalities to join your side or protect your own personalities from being bribed, and move your personalities around the board, which will impact where you can attack and the strength of your presence (control points).

The personal board and shield for secret planning.

The personal planning board is actually a mini version of the game board. You move your people on this mini map. You mark your assets with cubes or cylinders. You place soldiers where you want to attack of defend. You place black cubes on enemy personalities whom you want to bribe, and white cubes on your own personalities whom you want to protect from bribing.

Battles are simple. Every soldier kills one enemy and whoever has soldiers left wins. If two different players happen to attack the same location, the player who has a higher score attacks first and resolves the first battle against the defender. Whoever wins will have fewer troops left and will then have to face the second wave. So, like Power Grid and Inca Empire, there is a catch-up mechanism.

Bribes work in a similar way. You secretly spend money to protect your people from bribery. If someone else wants to try to bribe your personality, he would have to pay double of what you'd have to pay. Your anti-bribery incentive only protects against the first bribery attempt. If more than one opponent bribes the same personality, the last player to bribe gains the personality. Similar to attacks on locations, trailing players do bribing last.

Scoring is done at the end of every round. Presence in each region is compared and points are awarded. In the full four-player game, there is a parliament phase to elect the king, and players from the same side as the new king (York or Lancaster) gain bonus points. There are a few other ways of earning bonus points, e.g. having the most ships, controlling the most bishops. These are handled in a similar way as the largest army / longest road in The Settlers of Catan. This aspect creates another cause for competition.

The map of England (and Wales). Owned assets are marked with player colours. Those not marked are not owned.

Soldier head icons beside locations mean the basic defense values.

"Good girls go to heaven, naughty girls go to London".

The Play

So far I have played two games. The game starts slowly, since there aren't many locations and personalities at first. There isn't much to ponder over. You don't have much money to spend on bribery or battles anyway. Things get more interesting as the game progresses. There's more to think about when picking the newly available assets, in picking where to bribe/fight/defend, and in how to move your personalities to compete for control. The secret planning phase means there can be a lot of double-guessing. When I played I tried not to think too long. This is an aspect which can really drag if the players over-analyse. You'll never have enough money to protect all your assets or to make all the attacks that you want. So you need to be selective. I decided to mostly spend my money on offense, because it was just too hard to anticipate where attacks would come. Money spent on defense can easily be wasted when all the assets you protect don't get attacked/bribed. I spent on defense only when I knew I was counting on a particular asset to control a particular region that I wanted to win.

Maybe it was because I was the rules explainer, I did OK in round 1 (of 5), and then suddenly in round 2 things went very very bad. That was the result of being perceived as the biggest threat. One good thing is if you are very far behind the leading player, you can use a once-per-game French aid token, which gives you money depending on how far behind you are. I received $21 for this. That's how far behind I was. The money did help a lot. I even managed to bribe a very expensive noble, which I don't think anyone else expected. I gradually crawled back up, and later in the game it was Allen who fell behind and received a wagon of French francs.

In Round 2, I (green) was left far far behind.

Close-up of the personal planning board. I put money here as well just to make sure I counted my expenditure right.

Towards end game, we realised the importance of gaining the most points with the least effort possible, e.g. earning a second place score with minimal presence. We also prioritised, and even vacated some areas which we knew would be very difficult to win. The mobility of the nobles and ships was quite important. Also nobles tended to have very high control points. I won the game at 138pts. Han had 133pts, Allen 102pts. This was close.

Close-up of the northern region, just next to Scotland.

This little chart shows the tiebreaker sequence if players are tied in control points for a region.

You do your secret planning behind your own little castle. Every man needs a castle.

This place is so very very blue (Allen).

Battles breaking out. See those many stacks of soldiers. I (green) attacked York but was repelled by the defenders (blue). Allen (blue) had put additional soldiers to defend Pontefract, but noone attacked it.

Our second game was nowhere near close. Han focused on money-earning assets early (ships, towns, cities), and by mid game sprinted far ahead of both Allen and I. Allen picked up many mercenaries early, but delayed using them until mid game, when he launched many attacks simultaneously. However it might not have been a good idea, because by then he had lost most of his holdings except for some in the northen kampung (backwater) region, which scored very low. He fell behind in victory points and never managed to catch up. By the last round, Han was so far ahead that we knew it was hopeless to try to catch up. So I decided to instead focus my attacks on Allen, just to make sure he didn't overtake me. I spent all my money on bribing two of his very senior nobles, which he hadn't expected. By game end I was happy enough to retain 2nd place.

In that particular game session Han was really on fire, winning game after game and by big margins. Allen and I joked that he must be wearing red underwear (it is a superstition that red underwear brings good luck and negates your opponents' good luck). Final score: Han 177, me 106, Allen 82.

See the two black cubes near the top left. I spent all my money to bribe two high ranked nobles belonging to Allen.

Game end. I (green) was not the winner. Han (yellow) was the winner. He had almost lapped Allen (blue). Complete slaughter.

The Thoughts

Although I generally don't fancy area majority games, I enjoyed Wars of the Roses well enough. The secret planning and double-guessing (of attacks, defenses, bribes and also very importantly movements) is the most unique part of the game. It's not all about lucky guesses. You do know roughly how much money your oppenents have and from looking at the board you can try to guess where they may want to compete. The choice between offense or defense is interesting. Offense is expensive, but defense can be a complete waste of money if you don't guess right. The overall package is pleasant and interesting.

I have thought about designing a game with a betrayal element. You manage a group of characters to do various tasks for you, but other players can bribe them away from you. You can spend resources to make them stay loyal to you. I never went far with the design. I think Wars of the Roses implemented this loyalty / betrayal aspect elegantly.

I think the game will be best with 4 players, because of the additional aspect of electing the king. There is a little team play aspect.

Kakerlaken-Poker and Kakerlaken-Suppe

On Sat 19 Sep 2009 I played two quick and funny games with Chong Sean at Carcasean boardgame cafe while waiting for Han to arrive, Kakerlaken-Poker (Cockroach poker?) and Kakerlaken-Suppe (Cockroach soup?). They don't sound exactly appetising, but when you see their colourful and funny artwork, you'll realise they are light-hearted fun.

We played Kakerlaken-Suppe first. This is a reflex game, very ideal as a party game, and probably will be very noisy too. Cards are distributed evenly to all players, and whoever gets rid of his or her cards first wins. On your turn, you take one card from your deck, turn it over and put it at the centre of the table. Then you say the name of the vegetable shown on the card. However, if the previous card(s) showing has the same vegetable, you can't say the name of that vegetable, and must say the name of another one. Also, you can't say the name of the vegetable that the previous player has just said. The previous player may have said a name that didn't match the previous card played (e.g. because it was the same vegetable that his previous player had named). If you are lost for words, or say the wrong thing, you are penalised and must collect all the cards at the centre of the table. Then you start another round.

There's more. There are some soup-tasting cards. When these cards turn up, you say "Slurp!". These cards show one of the four vegetables. Once one of these soup-tasting cards are in play, whenever that vegetable shows up, you must say "Slurp!" instead of the name of the vegetable. Remember the rule that you can't say the same thing as the previous player? If he has said "Slurp!", whether due to the soup-tasting card or a vegeable matching the previously played soup-tasting card, you must say "Mmmm!" (i.e. the cockroach soup tastes so good).

The four types of vegetable cards - carrot, pepper, leek and mushroom, and two of the soup-tasting card.

So the whole game is about making sure you say the right thing - pepper, mushroom, leek, carrot, Slurp!, or Mmmm!, while remembering all the rules and exceptions and exceptions to exceptions. Play it very quick, and someone is bound to make a mistake.

This is a party game like Halli Galli, and I think it's a bit tricker, because you have to say something (and make sure you say the right thing) rather than just hitting the bell. This is probably pretty good with children and with new players / casual players.

Kakerlaken-Poker is by the same designer, with similar artwork, but it is quite a different game. And it's nothing like poker, other than that you need to keep a poker face. This game is probably best played with a larger group. Chong Sean and I played a 2P game, which was still alright, but probably not as funny as (and I do mean "as funny as", not "as much fun as") a 4P or more game.

In this game, there is only one loser and the rest are all winners. The moment someone collects 4 pests of the same type, he loses and the game ends (and he does something silly or embarrassing or illegal if your group had agreed on some penalty beforehand). A player starts a round by passing one card to the player on his left, and declares what type of card it is. He can lie if he wants to. The player receiving the card can decide to challenge or to pass on the card. If he decides to challenge, he makes a guess on whether the previous player has lied, and then flips over the card. If he is right, the first player takes the card and puts it in front of himself face-up. If he is wrong, he takes the card himself. If the receiving player decides to pass the card on, he looks at the card before passing it on. He can declare the card to be what the previous player has claimed it is, or declare it to be something else. Then the next receiving player has to decide what to do - to challenge or to pass on the card. This continues until someone issues a challenge resulting in someone taking the card, or until the card reaches the last player. At this time the last player must challenge, since he is not allowed to pass the card back to the start player.

So this game as all about lying and tricking your opponents into taking unwanted pests. When you lie, you want to do it so convincingly that your opponent will believe you. When you tell the truth, you want to do it in such a way that others won't believe you.

6 of the 8 types of pests in Kakerlaken-Poker - bat, cockroach, stink bug, fly, toad, rat.

In our 2P game, there are some special rules. And of course there is no card passing at all. When I give a card to Chong Sean, he must challenge me immediately, and vice versa. So it all comes down to who is the better liar (or guesser). As I played the game, I found that there is another layer to it, in how to pick a card to play, and what to lie about when you do want to lie. There is also some thought when you challenge a card passed to you. If you already have many toad cards, and the guy giving the card to you says it's a toad, it may be better to say you believe it, because if you don't, and it turns out to be a toad afterall, then you'd have to take it, which is bad for you. You can also observe what pests the other players are afraid of, and pick your cards (and your lies) accordingly. So the game isn't as simple or thoughtless as one may initially be lead to believe. But of course you can play it mindlessly if you want, and this is probably how you should play it when in a party environment. This is a laughter-generating game.

One thing that I really like about both Kakerlaken-Poker and Kakerlaken-Suppe is the artwork. I think it's excellent.