In the Shadow of the Emperor Review

A neat little game that I got in a trade is In the Shadow of the Emperor.

In the Shadow of the Emperor is an interesting political game in which the different players attempt to gain the most victory points by moving their house forward in different areas.  Each turn, the players start by collecting money based on what they control.  Next, all of the aristocrats (pieces) on the board "age," and if any of them die as a result, then they are removed from the board.  Third, all of the players check to see what kind of descendant they have produced - this is based on what action cards you selected in the previous turn.  Finally, the bulk of the game begins - the action phase.  Players alternate turns selecting from a limited number of action cards.  In order to take an action, you must first pay the amount of money listed, and then take the card.  These actions can help you get more people on the board, move people, place knights, build cities, marry foreign princesses, and attempt to become the new emperor.  After everyone has completed their actions, each of the different areas of the board is scored to determine if there is a new elector (thus giving the new player both the elector spot which provides an extra power, a vote in the emperor phase, and two victory points).  Once all the electors have been decided, then the players get to vote on a new emperor.  The winner of this election becomes the emperor (if he wasn't already), and he gets to take the emperor actions (which generally consist of collecting victory points, but may also give him another bonus).  At the end of five rounds, whoever has managed to score the most points through careful advancement of his aristocrats wins the game!

Different ages for aristocrats

The first thing that I like about In the Shadow of the Emperor is the aging mechanic.  Each aristocrat has the numbers 15, 25, 35, and 45.  When they come onto the board (aside from initial placement), they come in at age 15.  At the start of each subsequent turn, they will advance to the next highest number, and if they age beyond 45, then they will die.  However, there is also an action in the game (the "doctor") that allows you to either make a piece older or younger by one turn.  This can be very important as you can kill off some of your opponent's older pieces that are challenging you in various places (or protect some of your crucial pieces); and, since the number of actions is limited, you may even be able to take this action and prevent him from being able to retaliate.

The next series of pros that I have all center around the actions, and the different strategic elements that go into choosing which action you want to take.  First, I like that the actions are very limited.  Some of the actions only have one card, some have two, and some have more.  So, when performing an action, you must decide which one you want to take, and when doing so, you realize that there is a good chance that many of the other options will no longer be available by your next turn.  Additionally, actions cost money.  This gives you a bit more knowledge on what may be available on your next turn.  If you have significantly more money than your opponents, then you can expect that the higher cost actions may still be around on your next turn - so, you might be better off selecting a lower cost action that will run out instead of the higher cost action that is more critical (but will still be available).  Balancing these decisions is a wonderful aspect of this game.

But, there is another element that factors into making these decisions - the actions that you take determine what kind of descendant you will produce.  The actions are color coded either blue or pink.  If you select more blue actions than pink actions, then you produce a son, and you can place a new aristocrat on the board at the start of the next turn.  If you select more pink actions, then you produce a daughter, which you can attempt to marry off to one of the other player's aristocrats (helping them because a married couple is worth two influence instead of one, and helping you by scoring victory points), but if you are unsuccessful, then you get a few coins (as she becomes a nun).  Whereas I won't really judge how this works thematically, strategically it is brilliant.  It really encourages you to take actions that you might not otherwise consider.  In addition to their listed bonus, the different actions might also give you the bonus of a new aristocrat on the next turn.

Blue/Pink Actions

The last pro that I will mention for In the Shadow of the Emperor is that I like that you score two victory points when you become the new elector for a region.  Holding on to an elector position is still good - it gives you a vote for the emperor, and you can use the elector's ability (which can be very powerful).  But, because you gain victory points for taking an elector space, it really encourages you to move your aristocrats around and repeatedly take different positions (even at the cost of losing ones you already controlled).  Balancing taking the new positions, losing your old ones, and maximizing the benefits of whichever power you have at any given time are the keys to winning.

However, though I really like In the Shadow of the Emperor, there are a few cons that I will mention.  First, the rules are awful.  I will admit that I didn't learn this game from the rulebook - but I have consulted them throughout my games.  However, the person that I was learning the game from had several important rules highlighted in his rulebook so that he could actually find them later, as certain rules aren't where you would expect them.  Plus, the copy that I have came from a trade - and it included "How the game works: An explanation in plain English," as the previous owners of it had apparently also struggled with the rulebook.  The game is worth playing, though, so I'd encourage you to persevere through this issue.

My second con is that I think that there is quite a first player advantage in this game.  Or, more specifically, I think that there is a last player disadvantage.  To start the game, a first player is selected.  That player becomes the emperor.  Then, in turn order, every other player gets to select an electorate to control.  After this, the game begins, starting with the first player.  So, the last player gets both the worst elector power and has the last choice on actions.  Whereas this disadvantage isn't large enough to cost them the game, it is still a bit more hefty than I would like.

Finally, I'm not sure how well this game plays with less than four players.  Why?  Because my group has played with less than that and refuses to do it again.  So, I take that to mean that it doesn't play especially well with less than four.  (And, looking at the game and how the tension plays out in a four player game, I can see how that would be true.)  But, again - my games were all four player; if you've played with less, feel free to relate your experience in the comments.

Overall, I give In the Shadow of the Emperor an 8.5/10.  I enjoyed the game quite a bit, but one of it's main drawbacks is that it is hard to get to the table.  However, each time that I have managed to play it, I've enjoyed it quite a bit.

If you're interested in other games with a political nature, you might also check out Twilight Struggle, Quo Vadis, and 1960: The Making of the President.

Chicken Caesar Review

Now is the time to rise up and crush our opponents!  And feed them to the people, fried!  Because that's (apparently my made up way of) how you do things in Chicken Caesar.

More correctly, in Chicken Caesar, your rooster family will battle it out with all of your rivals in an effort to be the most honored chickens in the coop.  (Though, lots of your roosters will be dead, and thus won't actually be in the coop.)  Each turn consists of filling up offices (by votes and bribery), performing the roles of those offices (like charging taxes, and then getting killed for it), collecting medals for your offices, killing off chickens (roosters), and then attempting to honor your dead chickens (again, roosters - though the game is named after chickens).   Ultimately, the goal of each of these actions is to get more medals (each office gives you a specific medal), because they are worth victory points.  But, moreover, you want to get a lot of the same medals.  Here's the catch - each rooster can only have one copy of each medal.  So, it is important to get as many of your roosters in the chosen office as possible.  And, when not possible, you will attempt to place excess medals on your dead roosters.  At the end of the game (when one player is out of roosters, or when there aren't enough roosters to fill all of the offices), whoever has the most money (including money earned based on the number of medals on your roosters) is the winner!

Overall, the biggest pro for Chicken Caesar is that it is a very enjoyable political game that plays in a relatively short period of time.  (Should I go on, or was that enough of a "review"?  No?  You want more?  Fine...)  Now, when I say "short," keep in mind that the length of the game is entirely up to your play group.  Since it is all about negotiations, if you let the bantering drag on forever, then the game will most definitely not be short.  Additionally, the speed of the game (how quickly chickens die, thus leading you to the game end condition) is also based on the tax rates that are set throughout the game.  However, the players setting the taxes have a large incentive to set the taxes high (they collect money based on the tax rate), and so normally games will have high tax rates and therefore high death tolls.  In most of the games I've played (including learning games), the game only takes 90 minutes or less.  But, with all of that, I have always felt satisfied at the amount of negotiation, bribery, and all around politicking that went on in our games.

Collect lots of medals on different roosters

Another interesting element of the game is how the scoring system works.  The more medals you get on different roosters, the more points you score.  So, for example, the "Consul" award is worth two points at the end of the game.  However, if instead of one rooster collecting a lot of "Consul" awards (thus they are placed off to the side and can be used to posthumously award other roosters), you are able to put your second Consul medal on a different rooster, suddenly you're getting six points for your awards - so the second medal was worth four instead of two.  And, the next one on a different rooster is worth six points, followed by eight, ten, etc.  So, if you are successful at getting a lot of your different roosters into the same office, you get a lot of points.  This really makes for some interesting decisions, negotiations, and bribes throughout the game.  (And, with the bribes, you have to be careful to make sure that you don't wind up benefiting a different player more than you help yourself!  I've definitely seen that happen.)

The last pro that I will mention is the posthumous award of medals.  Though this element of the game hasn't played a big role in the games that I have played (because we killed so many roosters that the game ends about the same time that we have extra medals to award), this aspect of the game still adds a nice twist.  For example, if you don't have any dead roosters, then guess what - you can't award them with anything posthumously!  So, though it is good to keep your roosters alive so that they can hold a lot of offices (and perform the corresponding actions), it is also sometimes good to kill off one or two of your roosters so that you can give them extra medals.  Plus, the awarding of these extra medals to dead roosters makes the Consul role very powerful - but only during certain times during the game.  So, it is important to strategically choose when to promote your roosters into this role to get the most out of your opportunities.

Does this remind anyone else of a squirrel with a nut?

Now that I've covered the more prominent pros, I'd like to mention a couple "points of note" about Chicken Caesar before moving onto the cons.  First, relates to backstabbing.  Chicken Caesar allows you to backstab your opponents.  Sometimes.  Specifically, the rule is that you are only required to honor your word if money changes hands.  This means that, if your group wants a lot of backstabbing, then you can play it that way and constantly expect people to break their promises.  The games that I have played, though, have had very little backstabbing (it's not really a mechanic that we get excited about), and yet the game has still been fun without it.

Second, since this is a negotiation game, be aware that perception is much more important than reality.  So, if someone looks like the weakest player, they will often be able to get favors from other players that are looking to avoid helping one of the "strong" players.  This is simply the nature of political games - but I know that this is something that might bother certain people, so I wanted them to be aware of it.

So, with all of that said, what did I find in Chicken Caesar that I consider a con?  Well, first and foremost, there is a lot more "king making" than I would like.  (If you're not familiar with the term king making, it is a term for one player deciding who wins the game, or gets a very favorable position, without actually helping themselves in the process.)  I think that one reason for this is how points stack up towards the end of the game.  So, getting a fifth consul medal is worth 10 points?  Then there is a good chance that the censor will exile the rooster that is about to get his fifth medal, thereby costing him ten points.  In a game where scores are often in the 30-40 range, 10 points can be the difference between winning the game and coming in last.  As another example, if you are a Consul, then you get to choose whether a posthumous medal is awarded successfully.  Now, obviously, the goal is to get your own rooster in position to be able to approve your posthumous offer.  But, if you can't do so, and you attempt to nominate one of your deceased birds, then chances are that a different player will be making a decision that will drastically affect your final score.  Some elements of king making I think come with the territory when you make a game all about negotiation between players, but I feel like it is a bit more noticeable in Chicken Caesar.

Fighting for positions

Second, I felt like the rules are a bit confusing initially.  Honestly, the game is pretty straightforward and simple once you start playing it.  But, every time that I have taught the game, I have gotten a lot of confused and inquisitive looks.  And, I can't really blame them, because I'm sure that I looked very similar when I first learned the game (though by the end of it, I was enjoying it).  I don't know what the reason is for this con, since the rulebook seems well written and understandable, but something about the game just leads to confusion.

The last con that I will list is that the Consul role is neglected more than I would like.  Now, let me caveat this con - this was in the games that I played.  In the games that I played, we constantly had high tax rates, because the people setting taxes liked having hoards of money (after all, money means victory).  But, because of the high taxes, we were having several roosters die each round which causes the game to only lasts a few rounds.  The Consul role literally does nothing the first two rounds.  (The first round you have nobody that is dead, and you cannot collect a second medal with the same rooster until the "Award" part of the second round.)  So, at the earliest, the Consul role will actually make decisions in the third round.  Practically speaking, it will probably not do anything until the fourth or fifth round in most games.  And, when the game only lasts about five or six rounds (this part I'm guessing at, because I didn't keep count), then the Consul role will not do much for most of the game.  Now, when the Consuls do make decisions, they are super, crazy important and worth tons of points.  But, for most of the game you ignore them.  (Unless you play with low taxes, in which case they can become much more important.)

Overall, I give Chicken Caesar an 8.0/10.  I had heard mixed opinions about the game before getting to try it for myself, but ultimately, I have truly enjoyed my plays of the game.  The king making element leaves me a touch disappointed, but I would be happy to continue playing it more if my game group suggests it.

If you're interested in Chicken Caesar, you might also check out Quo Vadis, Zombie In My Pocket, and Family Business.

I would like to thank Nevermore Games for providing me with a review copy of Chicken Caesar.

Washington's War Review

One game that I was incredibly excited to receive a copy of was Washington's War.

Washington's War is a Revolutionary War board game.   One player takes on the role of the British army, and the other takes on the role of the Americans.  The game is played over a series of rounds - each round representing a year between 1775-1783 (in a long game).  On each turn, both players get to draw 7 cards.  These cards can be either "Ops" cards, or Events.  Events simply do something to alter the game, or a phase of the game.  They can help in combat, determine when the game ends, move the French closer to a treaty with the Americans, have Benedict Arnold betray the Americans, and many other things.  There are two types of events - Mandatory and Optional.  With Ops cards, a player can bring in reinforcements, move a General (possibly to attack), or gain Political Control in different regions of the board.  At the end of each round, many troops are lost to winter, and Political Control can shift if certain parts of the board are isolated from others.  After a certain number of turns (based on which events are played), players check for victory conditions - and whoever has Political Control over enough of the colonies is declared the winner!

The first thing that I like about Washington's War is that a lot of the elements of the game give it a nice historical theme.  Specifically, some of the things like winter attrition, though incredibly challenging in gameplay terms, make complete sense in the setting of the game.  One of these elements is the fact that, even in battles, you generally don't kill especially many troops.  I think that this really depicts the inaccuracy of the muskets used during this time - it's much more likely that you will destroy a large army by catching them in a place where they can't flee (thus getting them to surrender) than it is to wipe out them out on the battlefield.  Honestly, this element of a war game where you are pushing armies around instead of killing them reminds me of the Game of Thrones Board Game and, though I didn't really like it especially much in that game, I think that it works well in Washington's War.  (It helps that you can wipe out an entire army if you can force them to surrender.)

Ok, I thought the flash made this picture look cool.

My next two pros really are very intermixed, so I'll talk about them at the same time.  First, I liked that both sides had significantly different advantages and disadvantages (this also works with the historical feeling to the game), and second, I liked how "Isolation" and placing Political Control markers worked.  The two sides in this game play quite differently.  And, if you want to win, then you truly have to capitalize on your strengths and find ways of exploiting your opponent's weaknesses.  Specifically, the British player gets a lot of troops, especially early, and has major combat advantages to start the game.  The American player, however, is able to quickly get small armies positioned on different parts of the map in order to gain Political Control and isolate the British player's control - and winning the game is about Political Control (and not killing things), so this is a very useful ability.  One of the elements of the game that you check at the end of each round is called "Isolation."  Basically, it means that if you can't find a way to connect your Political Control markers to some troops or some neutral areas of the board, then you will lose your control in those areas, as the people will feel isolated from your influence.  It isn't generally very easy to isolate your opponent's political markers, but successfully doing this at the right times during the game can really determine which player wins and which player loses.

Now that I've mentioned several things that Washington's War did very well, there were a few areas that I disliked.  First, this game is overly complex.  One of the reasons that I was so excited about this game is that it has a 90 minute playing time - and, for the most part, I've found this to be accurate.  However, it also has a 24 page rulebook that is very text heavy (there are a lot of diagrams and such - I'm more focusing on the length than the quality), and also has another 14 page book for examples of play, strategy tips, and design notes.  To read through and really understand the rulebook will probably take around an hour.  I read it three times before my first game.  And then, I referenced it repeatedly every time that I played.  Basically, here's how it reads, "the British player performs this rule like X, but the American player does Y.  Exception: in Z situation, everything is different."  There really feels like an exception to every rule.  Oh, and the French armies (obviously) work differently than either the American or the British armies.  Yes, I realize that much of this is attempting to capture the historical feel of the Revolutionary War, but it seemed quite excessive.  Additionally, I thought that, though the rules covered everything, they weren't one of GMT's better rulebooks.  Rules weren't laid out in the actual order that you would encounter them in the game, and I often wanted to look up rules, but wasn't able to find what I needed in the index.  This led to flipping pages and trying to remember what section covered that exception.  The complexity and the rules will definitely be your biggest hurdle in enjoying Washington's War.

My next con was that I really disliked Mandatory Events.  More specifically, I really disliked that Mandatory Events made your hand significantly worse.  Some Mandatory Events are fairly neutral - they set what year the game will end.  However, other Mandatory Events would actually help the other team!  I've played card based political games (like Twilight Struggle) where you might draw your opponent's cards and you have to make the most of a bad situation.  However, in Twilight Struggle, there are ways of mitigating the impact of these cards.  In Washington's War, if a British player draws one of the strong American Mandatory Events, then he is forced to play it, and he doesn't get to redraw a card.  So, not only does it help his opponent, it also hurts his hand because he has one card that is functionally useless.  If you draw an opponent's Optional Event, then you can at least use it to give yourself an advantage in combat, or discard it to perform a political action.  With the Mandatory Events, it's like having a card in your hand that says "Pass."

Playing this card helps.  A lot.

The final con that I will mention for Washington's War is that I felt that it was far too luck based.  This luck came in what cards you draw and how important single die rolls were.  Now, I'm really okay with luck in games.  However, I feel that there is a disconnect in Washington's War - rule intensive games have a highly strategic feel to them.  Generally, the longer it takes to learn a game, the more I want random factors of the game to be mitigated.  Here's an example of a card that is amazing - "Baron von Steuben Trains the Continental Army."  To start the game, the British get a +1 advantage in every combat.  Why?  Because the American troops are horrible and throwing pitch forks at them.  However, this card permanently removes this bonus from the British.  See how this is useful?  So, if an American player draws this card early, then he will have a much easier time than if the British player draws it and is able to discard it during a combat.  Another element of luck is in determining your General's combat rating.  To start a fight, each player rolls a die.  On a 1-3, the General's rating is cut in half for that battle.  That hurts quite a bit.  But, then the battle is also determined by a single die roll (with modifiers).  I can outnumber my opponent by 3-4 troops (5 troops is a massive army in this game, and is the most that you can ever attack with), have the better General, and discard a card to give myself an advantage and still lose the combat.  Yes, this represents the fact that things go horribly awry in battle.  But, the winner of a battle coming down to how players roll a six-sided die became frustrating to me.

Overall, I give Washington's War a 7.0/10.  If you can get through the rules and start playing the game, then there is quite a bit to like about the game.  However, with the very steep entrance barrier mixed with the fairly high luck factor for the game, it didn't quite live up to the expectations that I had for it.

If Washington's War sounds interesting to you, then you might also want to check out 1989: Dawn of Freedom, Game of Thrones, and Twilight Struggle (really, everyone should check out Twilight Struggle if you haven't yet).

I would like to thank GMT Games for providing me with a review copy of Washington's War.

Campaign Manager 2008 Review

In the series of political games by Christian Leonhard and Jason Matthews (all of which I've played and enjoyed), the lightest weight one seems to be Campaign Manager 2008.

I feel like I shouldn't have to tell you the point of the game, but for my readers that aren't in the US, I will anyway - the object of the game is to become president.  Specifically, it is to become president in 2008 (and, no - a time travel machine is not provided; and so this is much more difficult than you would think).  Specifically, one player takes on the role of John McCain, and the other takes on the role of Barack Obama, as you fight over the swing states from the 2008 election.  At any given time, you will have four states that you are fighting over.  Each state has an issue that they currently care about - Defense or the Economy and a Demographic that you can pander to.  On each turn, you have the option of either playing a card or drawing a card.  When playing a card, you will often be able to place influence for your candidate on a certain issue.  If placing this influence allows you to capture all of the influence on a state's currently "hot" issue, then you win the state, select a new state, have an event occur, and re-convene the campaigning.  Once one player wins enough electoral votes to win the election, he is declared the new president-elect of the United States!

So, the first thing that I like about Campaign Manager is that it has an element called "going negative."  Why?  Because it's a game about politics, and politics haven't been about issues at any point during my life.  After all, why bring up issues, when you can say mean things about your opponent?  (Wait, wait - I'm tripping over a soap box, here.  I was talking about a game, if I remember correctly.)  In the game, there are several cards that are incredibly powerful.  They represent saying mean things about your candidate like that he enjoys punching elderly people, or something equally despicable.  However, there's a slight chance that this negative campaigning could come back and haunt you.  (After all, what if they can prove that they didn't really take away popsicles from little children during the heat of summer?)  This backlash is represented by rolling a die and, depending on what you roll, giving your opponent a bonus.  For example, you may be able to gain two influence in a single state with a single card - but, this may allow your opponent to draw two extra cards.  I like this element in the game, and I think that it does a good job of allowing you to have powerful cards, while maintaining a gameplay balance.

At least someone campaigned in Montana.

The next thing I like about the game is that I think that it fits the theme well.  Specifically, I imagine that you have to make some decisions in the game that are similar to what candidates actually make during the campaigning season (obviously with far less on the line).  For example, when you start losing horribly in a state without many electoral votes, you have to decide - is this state worth fighting for, or would I be better off using my cards to gain an advantage in more populous states.  But, spending too much effort in a larger state and then having it taken away from you can be quite devastating, as you may have spent so many resources on the lost state that you're not positioned well in any of the others.  By the way, I need to take a moment to address Montana.  Montana, I'm sorry.  I've never bothered to campaign in your state.  You have three electoral votes.  It's not that I think that Ohio is prettier, it's just that she has so many more votes.  I know you have land; but much of that land is apparently empty.  I hope that you accept my apology.

My third pro for Campaign Manager is the drafting element.  What drafting element, you may be asking?  Well, the drafting element that I didn't tell you about.  To start each game (assuming you're not playing the intro game), you draft the deck that you will draw from.  Specifically, there are 45 cards available for each side in the game, and each time you play, you will only use 15 of them.  So, to set up your deck, you go through the cards drawing three of them and selecting one to keep until you have exhausted your entire pile.  This element of the game allows you to focus your strategy and remove a lot of cards that do not factor into that strategy.  For example, if you choose to focus completely on the economy, you can draft those cards and throw out the others.  If you decide to focus on demographic groups, you can keep the cards that work with that strategy.  And, if you decide to run a slander campaign, you can keep all of the going negative cards.  I really enjoyed this mechanic, and it really adds a bit of a game-within-the-game as you attempt to draft cards that both work well for your strategy and give you the edge when attempting to thwart your opponent's strategy.

Rude things to say about your opponent.

However, with this drafting element, there are some cards that are just flat out better than others.  Every card available can be very useful at the right time, but some cards are useful at all times, whereas others are useful occasionally.  A lot of the game (possibly too much) is determined in this initial draft - if I draft very poorly, then I may lose before we even start placing influence.  And, drafting well can be a factor of strategy, but can also be a factor of luck.  There are three cards that I can think of that I would want in the Obama deck every time that I play, because they are that good.  If I draw them all at the same time and only get to pick one, then my deck will be greatly weakened.  At the same time, if I draw three cards that all do similar things, and that thing doesn't fit well into my strategy, then I will have a junk card cluttering up my deck. 

The other con that I found for Campaign Manager 2008 was that the game is fairly repetitive.  Your deck only consists of 15 cards, and so you will see them over and over.  In addition, some of these cards do the same thing.  Not similar things - the exact same thing.  So, your deck may only have 12 different cards in it.  And, the strategy isn't overly complex - win states when you can, capitalize on advantages, get bigger states if the opportunity presents itself.  Oh, and don't let your opponent have the big states.  Whereas I enjoy the game, this con will keep me from playing many times in succession - it's a game that I will need to spread out in order to continue enjoying it.

Overall, I do enjoy Campaign Manager 2008 and give it an 8.0/10.  I would recommend it to someone that's looking for a lightweight political game, or that just loves drafting elements.  I anticipate playing it more, but I will keep some time in between plays, to keep the game fresh.

If you like political games, you should also check out 1960: The Making of the President, 1989: Dawn of Freedom, and Ideology.

Ideology Review

Next up on the review block: Ideology. (Note: my copy is the 1st edition, and the link is for the 2nd edition).

In Ideology, each player is trying to control a super-empire of countries around the world.  This can be done by adding influence in foreign controlled or neutral countries, or by warring with another player's influence and (if successful) flipping their influence to yours, in addition to developing your own countries. Each turn, all of the players will draw cards based on the amount of countries they control and the development level of these countries. There are 3 types of cards - Military, Economic and Cultural Influence. After drawing, each player has the option of discarding and redrawing a number of cards equal to the number of countries they are currently influencing. Next, players can develop their own countries or purchase new developments (which primarily make it cheaper to play your own influence or more expensive for others to play their influence against you). Next, players add influence to countries they don't own, conflict over influence markers, and then determine their diplomatic stances and turn order for the next turn. This cycle continues until one player has a strong enough empire to rule the world (12 influence points).

There are several good aspects of Ideology. The first aspect is in the balance of the game. Each player must decide whether it is more beneficial to develop his empire or to expand. He must also weigh the pros of developing his countries against purchasing new developments. Another balance in the game comes because of the limited number of influence cards each player has. If a player starts doing very well and influencing a large number of countries, he must contend with exhausting his influence deck, which will then prevent him from being able to expand on his next turns.

The next thing that I like in Ideology is how the alliances work. Each turn, you can negotiate political stances with each player. If you are at war, you can attack each other with any of the 3 influence markers, if you are neutral with each other, you cannot attack militarily, and if you are at peace, then you can only attack using cultural influence. Whoever takes the more aggressive stance determines the current diplomatic level (after all, if I pretend we're at peace, and you tell me that you're waging a war against me, I'm pretty sure that a war will be waged whether I like it or not). However, once these diplomatic stances are set, they cannot be broken or renegotiated for the whole turn. This causes the diplomacy to play an incredibly crucial role in the game!

The main con in Ideology was that the game was not as engaging as I would have liked in relation to the time it takes to play. The game is about 1-2 hours long, but the mechanics are very simple. If you enjoy negotiating and having a back and forth game in which you are able to influence countries, they are re-taken from you, you re-take them, etc, then this will be no problem. However, in games of this length, I generally prefer to have different ways of taking over - if I am not gaining any ground in one area of the game, I like to be able to advance my position in other areas in the hopes that they will help in the long term. Ideology really only has a few different aspects, and so it does not allow something like this to take place.

Overall, I give Ideology a 7.0/10. It is a game that I will keep in my collection and will play occasionally, but it will not be on the monthly list of games that I need to break out and play. However, on a semi-regular basis, it would be fun to try to use my influence to take over the world.

If Ideology sounds interesting, you might also check out Twilight Struggle, Washington's War, and Glory to Rome.

Quo Vadis Review

While reviewing some of the games from my collection, I decided to replay Quo Vadis and then do a review of it while it was fresh in my mind.

Quo Vadis is a fast-paced political game in which you are trying to get the most points by getting your potential senators into higher ranking positions and by helping your opponents get their pawns promoted (when it is to your advantage). On each turn you are able to move a pawn onto the board, move a pawn up to a higher rank (assuming that you can get the majority of the votes from his current position), or move the Caesar (which allows you to get promoted without having enough votes). The two ways that you can score victory points are by 1) getting your pawn promoted from a 3 or 5 member committee (you get the number of victory points shown on the path that is crossed) or 2) lending votes to another player's pawn so that it can get promoted (here you get 1 point per needed vote). If you are unable to move any of your pawns, then you are able to move the Caesar - he allows you to get promoted without the correct number of votes, but does not provide any reward for doing so. You must also be careful not to just be a "yes man", because at the end of the game, if you have not gotten any of your pawns promoted to be a Senator, then you lose - no matter how many points you have earned.

The first thing that I like about Quo Vadis is the political aspect of the game. It is very important to know when to allow other player's pawns to be promoted (and gain your victory points) and when it is important to prevent this. In addition, it can be just as profitable to be the swing vote in a committee as it is to get your own pawns promoted.

The next thing that I like about Quo Vadis is the depth level. The game is strategic enough to make for an engaging game but is simple enough to introduce new players easily. A normal game of Quo Vadis should only take about 30-45 minutes, which makes it very manageable to play in most gaming situations.

The main con with Quo Vadis is that I think it would be difficult to find enjoyable people to play it with. Because of the depth level of the rules, the real strategy in the game involves interacting with (manipulating) your opponents. Whereas this is fun, it is often hard to find the type of individuals that make a game like this enjoyable.

In addition to finding the correct group of players to play this game, I am also unsure of how replayable it is.  I believe that it could be replayed several times, but overall the game will play pretty similarly each time through, and this prevents it from really being on the top rung of the board game world.

Overall, I give Quo Vadis a 8.0/10. This is a simple yet engaging game that I enjoy playing. I would definitely recommend checking it out if you have the opportunity - and the more players, the better I think it should work.