Hadara

Hadara is is civilisation building game. It is a tableau game in which you collect cards, which represent various types of citizens. There are cards in five different colours, and they have different characteristics. They form different aspects of your empire, like military, economy and agriculture. 

The game is played over three eras, and there are two distinct halves per era. In the first half, you will draw two cards and pick one. You do this for each of the five colours. When you pick a card, you may buy it to add it to your empire, or you discard it for money. The card not picked goes to the board, and it will be used in the second half of the era. The way you choose cards is different in the second half. Players take turns choosing a top card from one of the five face-up stacks. You may buy that card, or you discard it for money. Just like in the first half. 

When buying yellow, red, blue or green cards, generally they let you advance on the corresponding track on your player board. Yellow means economy. This helps you make money, which you will need for buying cards. Red is military. If you have enough military strength, you can conquer new lands to establish colonies. Blue is culture. If you have enough of that, you get to build nice statues. Green is agriculture. You need to produce enough food to feed your population. Otherwise you will be forced to discard cards. This is checked at harvest time. 

You can buy medals to score points. Gold medals give you points for every complete set of five different colours. Silver medals give you points based on your position on the track of a single colour. So one is breadth and the other is depth. You need weigh these options carefully and choose wisely. 

These are colonies. They are worth points and also give other benefits. You have opportunities to establish colonies only at specific times. If you want to grab more land, you need to increase your military might in time. There is some time pressure here. 

It is beneficial to have many cards of the same colour, because each card gives you a discount for future cards. Cards in the second and third eras become more expensive, so the discounts help. Purple cards do not have a corresponding purple track, but they give various benefits, including extra scoring opportunities. 

Hadara is a simple civilisation themed game. Having played the game, I don't find it particularly outstanding, because I don't find any new-to-me ideas. However if I think deeper about this, Hadara is actually somewhat similar to 7 Wonders, which I enjoy. They are both about collecting cards in different colours, and the different colours are different aspects of your empire. 

The Vale of Eternity

The Vale of Eternity is quite popular. It is a card drafting and tableau building game. There are five different types of creatures, and each every creature has a different power. You draft two cards every round. You may discard it for coins, you may claim it into your hand, or you may play it into your play area by paying the cost. You may have only as many cards in play as the round number. If you have no more slots and want to play a card, you must first remove an existing card. 

One challenge this game poses is coin management. You may have at most fours coins. Coins are in denominations of 1, 3, 6. When you pay for a card, no change is given. Sometimes it can be painful to overpay. 

Card powers vary greatly. Some are single use, some can be activated every round. Some cards attack other players. Mostly you are managing your own combo of cards. 

I didn’t find the game interesting. Nothing really new or unusual about it other than the coin management. Unfortunately I found that more annoying than fun. 

It's a Wonderful World

I have played the other game in the series, It’s a Wonderful Kingdom, which is also a card drafting and tableau building game. That is for two players only. It's a Wonderful World can support more than two. I find both to be rather generic games about constructing buildings to produce resources and then using those resources to construct more buildings. However, there is one aspect which I do enjoy and I find it quite clever.

In It's a Wonderful World, the drafting is simple. You get a hand of cards, and you must select one, then pass the rest to your neighbour. This repeats several times. Once the drafting is done, you’ll have a hand of cards and you need to decide what to do with them. You either place them as buildings to start construction work on, or discard them to gain a resource, which can then be used for constructing buildings. Buildings require different quantities and types of building materials to complete. Some may need as low as just two resources, some can require seven.

Buildings once completed usually produce resources for you every round. Some buildings also give you victory points. The interesting part of the game is how resources are produced. The are five resource types, and they are produced in five separate steps. When you produce the first resource type, you can immediately use these resources to construct buildings. If a building you complete produces the second resource type, then you are lucky. You are just in time to produce that in the current round. This is a fun puzzle to figure out. If you can get the right buildings completed just before the specific production steps, you can get a lot more done. 

There is competition to be the biggest producer in each of the five resource types. When you are the biggest producer, you gain a leader. In this game, a leader is just another resource type, which is worth one point each at the end of the game. No fancy powers. However, some buildings use these as building material, and some buildings give you more points based on your leaders. 

Everyone starts the game being able to produce some resources every round. From these humble beginnings, you need to plan how to grow your empire, and which kind of resources you want to produce more of. Some resources are harder to produce than others. You do need to deliberately plan how to expand your production and which resource types to prioritise. Different resource types will give you access to different types of buildings. The game involves a lot of planning ahead. You want to fully utilise the resources you can produce to construct buildings that either get you points or help you produce even more resources.

I prefer It's a Wonderful World to It's a Wonderful Kingdom. I like the simplicity. It captures the fun of planning your resource production. In It's a Wonderful Kingdom, I did not like the traps and needing to guess whether your opponent has set a trap. It felt rather arbitrary. It's a Wonderful World is a cleaner design. 

MESOS

The Game

MESOS is a tableau game. You collect cards with different abilities to form your prehistoric tribe. This is before the dawn of human civilisation. The different cards are tribesmen with different specialties. You play for a fixed number of rounds, and at the end of that the highest scorer wins. 

The core mechanism for collecting cards is in the second row above. You have a small board for tracking player order for the round, and then a large board for determining how many cards you can collect and from where, the upper row or the lower. During a round, players move their pawns in player order from the small board to claim a spot on the large board. After all spots are claimed, you take cards following a new turn order which is based on the position of your pawn, from left to right. Notice that the spots on the right let you take more cards. If you claim those spots, you will go later in turn order, and you will have fewer choices by the time your turn comes. The positions on the large board also determines the turn order for the start of following round. In addition to that, whoever goes first earns extra food, and whoever goes last loses food. 

At the end of a round, the lower row of cards is discarded, and the upper row is moved down. The upper row is then refilled. This means every card will be available for at most two rounds. If no one wants it, it will be lost forever. 

This is a game of collecting cards, i.e. your tribesmen. There are six types, and they have different abilities. 

Some cards are event cards. You can't take them. They take effect when they are discarded from the lower row. Some events are opportunities to score points. In the picture above the event on the left gives you one food and 3 points per hunter that you have in your tribe. Some events penalise you, for example when it's time to eat and you don't have enough food for your tribe, you lose points based on the shortage. 

These are building cards. They are handled a little differently. They only get moved down once per era instead of once per round. So they stay available for a little longer. You have more time to prepare to buy them. You can't take them outright. You need to pay food for them. Buildings give you points and may also provide other benefits. The one on the left is worth 6 points. It also gives you one food per painter when there is a cave painting event. 

Buildings are randomly set up every game, so there is some variety from game to game. There are three eras in the game, and there are different buildings for each era. The later era buildings are more expensive, but also more powerful. 

The Play

What a lovely little game with so much angst! There is nothing complicated about the game, but it presents so many tough decisions. The events keep you on your toes. You feel like you need all the types of tribesmen to do well or even to survive. But then you also need to worry about feeding them. You want shamans because during the shaman event, the player with the most powerful shamans gains points, while the player with the least loses points. This creates competition. The core mechanism is simple yet effective. You want more cards? Be prepared that you may not have many choices, and you won't have a favourable turn order next round. There is one card which is very good for you, and it'll work splendidly with another card? If you are desperate enough for that first card, maybe you have to claim a position which guarantees you'll get it, and forgo the other card. Apparently simple actions, but these are not simple decisions. 

Among the six types of tribesmen, you will probably need to make some compromises. Generally the more tribesmen you have in one particular type, the more powerful that group will be. So you want to have big groups, and that means you probably have to forgo some other groups. 

I assembled a huge team of builders, and they gave me a deep discount when buying buildings. They helped me buy three buildings, which gave me many points, especially the third one. I did not completely neglect my hunters or gatherers though, because otherwise the penalty from not having enough food would be too painful. 

The Thoughts

Some games are a delight to play, even when they are not particularly innovative. MESOS is a game like this. It is simply well made. The core mechanism is clever and gives you plenty of angst. That's what a good game should be. MESOS is a pleasant experience and it is a game I'd happily recommend. 

Castle Combo

The Game

Castle Combo is a simple tableau game. You take turns buying cards from a market to place in your own 3x3 grid. The cards score points in different ways and also have various powers. You try to create a combination that works well together. You start with some money, and you will spend money buying cards. Some cards help you earn money. At game end, leftover money may help you score points if you have the right cards. The game ends once everyone has his 3x3 grid filled. 

The market at the centre of the table consists of two rows. Cards from each row come from their own deck. One row is characters living inside the castle, like the nobles and the soldiers, and the other is those living outside, like the farmers and the labourers. There is a messenger next to one of the rows. You can only buy cards from the row he is located. If you want to buy a card from the other row, you need to pay a key to move the messenger. Some cards when purchased move the messenger. 

When you buy your first card, you don't need to decide yet where exactly in your grid you want to place it. As you add more cards, you just need to ensure you don't go beyond the 3x3 grid. Cards have various powers. Some generate income, some give you discounts for future cards. Every card scores points based on a specific criteria. You may score points based on how many of a certain icon that you have, or if you don't have a specific icon, or where the card is positioned in the grid, or what kind of cards you have in the same row or column. Everyone's collection of cards is public information, so you can look at what your opponents have and tell what kind of cards will be useful to them and what will not be.

The game ends once everyone has nine cards.

The Play

This is a simple tableau-building game. You do your best to collect a set of cards which together score many points. You have to pay some attention to your components and try not to leave good cards for them. Most of the time you probably want to take care of your own scoring. You can work on denying your opponents, but if you are too busy trying to deny everyone you are probably not maximising your own score. Money can be tight. There was once I could not afford any card and I had to spend that turn taking a face-down card. A face-down card has no abilities. It just lets you take some money and keys. 

At game end some cards let you to store money to score points.

The Thoughts

This is an introductory tableau-building game. It won't be interesting for seasoned gamers, but it can work for non-gamers as a gentle introduction to modern hobby games. 

Res Arcana

Plays: 4Px3.

The Game

Res Arcana is designed by Tom Lehmann, designer of Race for the Galaxy, which I am a big fan of. It is published by a new company, Sand Castle Games, and it is their first product. Production quality is excellent. These guys know what they are doing. After I read about the game, I became interested. Unfortunately it is not being distributed in Malaysia, so eventually I ordered it from Amazon.

In this game you are mages competing for glory. This is essentially a card game. Most game components are cards or tiles. There are many types of items in the game - artifacts, magic items, places of power and monuments, and they have various powers. You produce resources and spend them to buy items, which help you produce more resources and do many different nifty things. Your end goal is to score 10VP. Whenever anyone reaches or exceeds 10VP, the game ends.

Most items in the game have some power, and usually you get to use the power once per round. Some items are worth victory points. The first row is the places of power. There are always five in the game. They are double sided and you randomly pick a side to play during game setup. Places of power tend to be expensive (cost is in top left corner), but their powers are strong, and they are worth victory points. Usually their victory point value depends on some criteria, e.g. how many gold resources you manage to place on them. The second row is the magic items. You get to pick one for free every round. They are not particularly strong, but still useful. Every round you must pick a different one. The third row is the monuments. Only two are revealed, but you may choose to buy from the top of the deck, because all monuments cost four gold. Monuments are worth 1-3 VP. There are five resource types in the game.

Every player gets his own deck of artifacts, 8 artifacts per deck. You are randomly dealt the 8 artifacts at the start of the game, and you get to examine each one before shuffling them to form your deck. You then draw 3 artifacts to form your hand. At the end of every round you draw 1 artifact. The cost to put an artifact in play is in the top left corner. A grey hexagon means any resource. The artifact on the right is worth 1VP - the red wax seal means victory points. The artifact on the right has a dragon icon and a beast icon in its top right corner. Some powers are applicable only to dragons or beasts. Dragons are the main means of offense in the game. They force all other players to lose life (green resource). If the victims run out of life, they have to discard other resources instead, substituting at a 2:1 ratio. This can be painful.

The round token is the start player marker. It is worth 1VP to whoever is holding it. If you are first to pass in a round, you claim this marker and you will be start player next round, if there is a next round. Sometimes that 1VP can be a matter of win or lose. You may need exactly that 1VP to reach 10VP. However if you pass early for the sake of that 1VP, you need to consider whether others who fully utilise their actions for the round can surpass your 10VP.

There are five resources (called essences) in the game. Yellow is gold, and it is more precious than the rest. You have to spend gold to buy monuments. Green is life. It is what dragons attack. Often you need to have life to sacrifice to dragons in order to preserve your other resources. Black is death. Red and blue are elan and calm, but I call them fire and water. The resources do have some character, and are not completely generic and interchangeable.

The card at the bottom right is a mage card, i.e. your character card. Every game you get to pick one from two drawn. You get to examine your artifact deck, shuffle it to draw three, then examine your hand of three, before deciding which mage to play. There is much consideration you need to make before the game starts. This particular mage lets you collect a water or life resource at the start of every round, and also protects you from one attack. The magic item card at the top right is tilted 90 degrees, which means it has been used in the current round and cannot be used again till next round.

These are monuments. There are always two face-up for you to pick from, and you can do lucky draw and buy the top card from the deck too, because they all cost exactly 4 gold. Monuments have point values (number in red wax seal). Both these face-up monuments have single-use per round powers - see that rotate-card-90-degrees icon.

The Play

I would describe Res Arcana as condensed and intense. It's a game you can play in a short time, and at a brisk pace, but it is also a game in which you need to think a lot and consider many factors. It is thoughtful and deliberate. At game setup you already need to analyse your personal deck of artifacts and your two mage options. You have to consider which places of power are in play, and what the two starting monuments are. You should have a rough plan already even before the game starts. If you can identify a good combo, right off the bat you should already be executing your strategy with a laser sharp focus. Often you need to race to grab the place (or places) of power that is needed for your game plan. You do need to react to what others do too. If the game is an aggressive one with may dragons, you'll need some protection. If someone else is clearly running faster than you, you probably should work with others to trip him up. The main way to interfere with others is the dragons. It is a simple mechanism, but it is very effective. Not defending against dragons can be very costly.

I did two games back to back with Allen, Dith and Ivan. In both games, one player sprinted ahead and crossed the finish line well ahead of the rest. If you manage to find a strong combo, and execute it efficiently, you can run away with the game if others are unable to stop you or run as fast as you. 10VP feels distant at first, but once you get your engine going and your are in an efficient action execution cycle, 10VP is suddenly very achievable. No wonder some people call this medieval Race for the Galaxy.

When you have a lot of green (life), you are less worried about dragons. Dragons don't only target green. Every dragon allows you to take some other form of penalty in lieu of green, e.g. another resource type, or discarding a hand card. Sometimes you want to save other things as dragon protection. If you are the aggressor, you want to attack when many opponents do not have what it takes to defend. By forcing them to discard resources to substitute for green at a 2:1 ratio, you will be severely punishing them. When dragons attack, they attack everyone else. If many people do attacks, it will be a tough game for everyone. You will be forcing one another to discard resources, slowing everyone down.

This mage on the left is an alchemist. He transforms regular resources into gold.

13 Sep 2019. This was the third game I played, this time with Allen, Jeff and Tim. It was Allen's third play too, but Jeff and Tim were new to the game. The game went differently from my first two games. In my deck I had two artifacts which would have helped me with dragons, but unfortunately I did not have any dragon. I had artifacts which helped me produce fire and gold, so I decided to go for this particular place of power in the photo above - the Cursed Forge. I feel that places of power are almost a necessity if you want to win. You need to plan to get one, save resources for it and beat others to it, then utilise it to go for your 10VP. My play was still a little messy. The Cursed Forge was not exactly an ideal fit for me, it was just the least bad. Others were worse. In the final round I had to pass hurriedly for that 1VP on the first player marker. I needed that 1VP to get to 10VP. However both Allen and Tim were able to reach 10VP too that round, and both of them had more leftover resources than me. Allen had 7 and Tim 6. Allen was the eventual winner.

After playing this third game, I imagine Res Arcana to be a cross-country obstacle team race. Your artifacts and mage are your starting team. They are what fate deals you and you have to live with them, using their powers as best you can. Even the "useless" ones can be discarded for 2 resources a piece. Magic items are temporary helpers for your team, who can be very useful in the right situations but are generally like interns. Places of power and monuments are star players that your team and everyone else's teams are competing to recruit. You need to pick those who work well with your existing team.

The Thoughts

Res Arcana is a fight among kungfu masters - victory is decided swiftly, but behind every kungfu move there are years of training and generations of refinement. The fight is short, the pace is fast, but behind all the seemingly thoughtless execution there is actually much consideration and deliberation. You need to be able to assess the situation well and take into account many factors in order to play effectively. You need to have a plan, and you also need to be nimble. Basically you need to know what you are doing, or you'll be lying in the dust in no time, wondering what your opponent has done to you. This reminds me a little of how Splotter's games are like.

I think it is possible that win or lose is already decided once the cards are dealt. If you get a killer combo, and none of your opponents have anything half decent, as long as you don't do anything stupid, you will cruise to victory on autopilot. I don't think this is a serious problem though, because I don't think it happens all that often.

Res Arcana, once it clicks, gives me that delicious feeling of an unspoken understanding among rivals. Ooh I know what you're thinking and what you're trying to do, and I know what I should be doing to stop you, and I know you know that I know. When everyone understands what's going on, you all enter the zone together. One innocent-looking card play, and you start to grasp what the fellow is trying to do, which place of power he is probably working towards, or which monument he's eyeing. It is very satisfying to play at this level.

Replayability feels low. There are only 40 artifact cards. With 4 players, 32 of them will be used. There are 10 mage cards. With 4 players, 8 will be viewed, and 4 will be used. The five places of power will always be in play, the question is only which side you use. After my first two games, I felt I had seen all the cards in the game. So I instinctively felt things were samey. However if you do the math, there are actually many permutations of artifacts and mages you can get. Add to that the permutations of places of powers and initial monuments, and you get many possibilities. The biggest part of the game is analysing the scenario and devising a plan. Then when the rubber hits the road, you make tactical adjustments as you learn what your opponents have and what they are aiming for.

Expansions for Res Arcana have been announced. I see the box insert certainly can accommodate more cards and tiles.

Era of Kingdoms

Plays: 3Px1.

The Game

Era of Kingdoms is a card game. Each player develops his own kingdom mostly independently. You draft cards from a common pool. You play cards into your kingdom to increase resource production, which then allows you to play better cards and further improve. You level up your kingdom to gain access to better cards, from basic to intermediate and eventually to advanced cards. After a certain number of advanced cards are drawn from the deck, the game ends and you compare scores to see who wins.

This is a town hall card. It is just a reminder for when your kingdom reaches the intermediate stage. You place this card onto your player board when you enter the intermediate stage.

If you flip over the town hall card, you convert it to a castle. This is also just a reminder - for when your kingdom reaches the advanced stage.

You start the game with an empty player board. The nine spaces on the left are for your buildings. Well, strictly speaking you only have eight. The centre space is reserved for your town hall and castle, i.e. glorified status indicator. You can't place any regular building at the central spot. The three spaces on the right are for your heroes. Space is limited. Once you've constructed a building, you can't simply decide to tear it down for something else. However you can upgrade the building to something else of the same category. As for heroes whom you recruit, if you use up all three slots, you may fire one of them to make way for a better hero.

The main board displays 6 basic cards, 3 intermediate cards and 1 advanced card. When you are to take a card, you may pick from these face-up cards, or blind draw from the relevant deck.

The "B" at the top right corner means this is a base card, which must be played onto an empty space. It can later be upgraded, i.e. have other upgrade cards played on top of it.

This card on the right has an upward arrow in the top right corner. This means it is an upgrade card, and must be played on top of another card or stack of cards of the same family. Icons at the top left are the resource requirements. Icons at the bottom are the resources being produced. The number at the bottom right is the victory point value. This card on the left, Wall, has numbers at the bottom left. These two numbers are attack and defense values respectively. In this game you may attack your opponents and attempt to rob them.

This is a player reference card. On your turn, you get three actions. You spend them to either take a basic card, or play a card. That's all. Once you are done, you may discard any number of cards from your hand, and then redraw up to your hand limit (usually 5). Depending on which level your kingdom is at, you may get to draw intermediate cards or advanced cards during the redraw phase. With the basic action you can't take intermediate or advanced cards.

The second card in the top row is an event card. When you play such a card, you execute what the text says and discard the card.

The card at the top right is an advanced card. The other three are intermediate cards. These cards are much more costly to play than basic cards. Look at all those icons along the top.

Everyone starts the game with three such Treasure cards. They are worth 1VP each. If you are short of one resource to play a card, you may buy the missing resource from any other player by paying him a Treasure. He can't refuse. You are effectively giving him 1VP, which is a lot. VP's are not easy to come by. When you conduct an attack by playing an Attack event card, you attack every other player. Anyone who fails to protect himself must give you one Treasure. Attacking can be lucrative. If you run out of Treasures, you no longer need to fear attacks, but you will have less flexibility when you have no Treasure.

The Play

From the rules, Era of Kingdoms does not seem like much. However, in play, I find the game smooth and pleasant. You are purposefully upgrading your kingdom, and being constantly progressing is a positive and encouraging experience. You are always competing with others for good cards on the main board. There is a race element in trying to grab all the good cards. Not every card will have the same value to every player, but often a good card is a good card and there will be more than one player eyeing it greedily. There is aggression. Not a lot, but enough to make you think. Stealing treasures is lucrative enough to make you want to attack others. Yet if you are militarily weak and decide not to do anything about it, the worst case is losing 3VP to the warmongers, and losing some flexibility. I think this is a clever balance.

On the card backs of the basic, intermediate and advanced cards you can see the crests of four kingdoms. They are simple on the basic cards, but get prettier and more elaborate on the intermediate and advanced cards. I like this.

In the early game I had buildings producing all four types of resources. I placed them in the four corners of my kingdom, because I noticed there was a type of building which increased production of adjacent buildings. I wanted to leave space for such buildings. Unfortunately for the rest of the game I never managed to get such buildings. Wasted effort.

My top right and bottom right buildings were Level 2 buildings now. Both my heroes were Level 2 too. With a total of four Level 2 cards in play, I qualified for intermediate kingdom, and that was why my town hall card was now placed in the middle of my player board.

All three of my heroes had attack and defense strengths (bottom left corners of the cards).

A 3-player game. I had 5 Treasure cards on the right side of my player board now. This was because I had launched an attack, and managed to rob one Treasure card each from Allen and Ivan.

In our late game, almost every single advanced card was claimed by whoever it was taking his turn. They were all valuable, and we could all afford the resources. It felt like a no-brainer. I wonder whether this is an imbalance problem, or it just so happened that all three of us managed our resource production well enough to be always able to build any advanced card that came up. In late game, it was all about maximising efficiency and squeezing out every VP that we could out of our kingdoms. We no longer needed to bother with improving production. Late game was a little dull, but thankfully it was not long.

The Thoughts

Era of Kingdoms doesn't do anything groundbreaking. It is a light and pleasant game in which you are purposefully progressing and constantly improving. It's equivalent to a feelgood movie - don't expect anything deep, just relax and enjoy the process. This is a light-to-medium weight that will work for non-gamers and casual players.