Five Tribes Review

There were a lot of great games released at Gen Con this year. Five Tribes, from Days of Wonder and Bruno Cathala, was one of the most talked about - and hardest to get.

Now that the game has finally hit distribution, does it live up to all that hype?

No "board" but still takes up a lot of space!
Looks good doing it, though.

Five Tribes is a part logistics puzzle, part action selection, part point salad game that pits players against one another, each of them trying to best maneuver the five tribes of the "Land of 1001 Nights" in order to become the next Sultan!

The game board is made up of 30 individual tiles, which are arranged randomly before each game. Meeples of 5 different colors are placed on these tiles, also randomly. Players will take turns picking up a group of meeples from any tile on the board, and dropping one off at a time, mancala-style, until they drop the last meeple they picked up. One important rule when choosing which tile to end up at - there must already be a meeple on the tile the player ends with that matches the color of the meeple she is placing on the tile.

Days of Wonder has included some large, but superb player aids.

Once the player finishes distributing the group of meeples she picked up, she performs two actions. First, she picks up all of the meeples on the tile she ended on that match the color of the meeple she placed there (always at least two because of the rule I mentioned above), and executes that tribe's action. If the player was able to pick up all of the meeples on a tile (because they were all the same color of the meeple she placed there) she gets to place one of her camels on the tile, and will score that tile's depicted points at the end of the game. Then, she also gets to perform the action of the tile she ended on.

The leftmost tile allows a player to
buy 2 goods cards for 6 gold.

The actions of the tribes and the tiles are quite varied and give players the opportunity to score points in a variety of different ways. Some allow players to get money right away, which can be used in game, or exchanged 1:1 at the end of the game for points. Some allow players to acquire powerful Djinns which can grant either in-game or end-game bonuses. And others will allow players to go to the market, and attempt to assemble sets of goods card which can be traded in for large amounts of points/money.

Gameplay continues until either one player places all of her camels or there are no legal moves left (no groups of meeples can be distributed in such a way that the final meeple to be placed will be the same color as one already on the destination tile).

The biggest potential problem for Five Tribes is how many options players are presented with, all at once. Five Tribes is not a game that starts off at a reasonable pace, and then ramps up as the game progresses. For the most part, from when the game begins, the number of choices for the players is gradually decreasing, as more meeples are removed from the board, and more tiles become owned by players. That not only can make the game intimidating and difficult to learn for new players, but it can also lead to a lot of analysis paralysis for experienced players. This can lead to awful amounts of downtime for the rest of the table. This also, however, means that player turns are almost never boring, and each point earned by players really feels like the result of proper planning and execution.



One of the most exciting parts of Five Tribes is something I haven't mentioned yet - bidding for turn order. Before each round, players will bid for turn order. There is a bidding track, like in Amun-Re or Vegas Showdown, where the values are fixed, and in turn order of the previous round, players place their bidding pawns on the amount of money they are willing to pay for turn order. This is interesting in itself and leads to a bit of bluffing and gamesmanship, but keep in mind also that at the end of the game, money is converted into points at a rate of 1:1.

The main mechanism of Five Tribes, the manacala-esque distribution of meeples is so much fun and super satisfying. Players are challenged each turn to both get as many points as they can (hopefully more than they bid for their turn order) as well as keep from setting the other players up to either take ownership or a tile or otherwise have a huge turn.

Five Tribes absolutely lives up to the hype that surrounded it during Gen Con. The game is a solid 9.0 in my book - one of my favorite releases this year.

Arimaa Review

A while back, I did a top ten abstract board games list. One of the comments spoke incredibly highly of an abstract that I hadn't tried yet - Arimaa.  So, of course, I hunted down a copy and tried it out!

In Arimaa, the goal of the game is to get one of your rabbits onto your opponent's edge of the board.  To start the game, you have an elephant, camel, two horses, two dogs, two cats, and eight rabbits (listed in order of power).  Each player can set these pieces up however they choose along the two rows closest to them.  Then, on each turn, players can make up to four total moves.  A move is always orthogonal (not diagonal), and these moves can be split up among as many pieces as you would like.  There are two special moves (that require two movement points) - you can push or pull an opponent's piece.  To do either of these moves, your piece must be stronger than your opponent's.  To push, you simply move your opponent into any unoccupied space adjacent to their current position and place your piece where they just vacated.  To pull, you move your piece to an adjacent vacant space and move their piece to the spot you just vacated.  These moves are especially important, as there are four black hole spaces on the board - if you push your opponent onto one of them, then they lose that piece.  Two more special rules - rabbits cannot move backwards, and a piece adjacent to an opponent's stronger piece is "frozen" and cannot move (unless the piece is also adjacent to a friendly piece).  Players alternate turns of four moves until one rabbit has crossed the finish line!  Or, until one person has made so much rabbit stew that their opponent no longer has any rabbits to attempt to win with.

Elephant getting ready to cause havoc

The first thing that I think is interesting about Arimaa is the elephant piece.  This is somewhat like the King in Chess - but at the same time, the complete opposite.  In Arimaa, the elephant is your most important piece (hence like the King), but your opponent cannot capture it (thus the complete opposite).  Your elephant is the strongest piece on the board, and so how you choose to use it will alter the game significantly.  Do you use it offensively or defensively?  You can use it offensively to attempt to slaughter as many of their pieces as possible, forcing them to simply run away with whichever piece they want to keep.  Alternatively, you can use it defensively to help guard a path for your rabbit to sprint across the board.  Since any piece that is adjacent to an opponent's stronger piece is frozen, you can set up your elephant so that it will freeze your opponent if they try to attack your rabbit.  (Of course, they can still attack it with their elephant, but you can counter that by putting your elephant in their way - they will be forced to use several moves to go around your piece, since your elephant is the only piece that they cannot push.)

The next element of Arimaa that I enjoyed was the black hole spaces.  I really thought that this was a nice way of capturing pieces.  Again, I will compare this to Chess, as Arimaa naturally gets that comparison (you play it on the same sized board, and with the same number and breakdown of pieces - in fact, you can use an Arimaa set as a Chess set if you prefer).  In Chess, you simply have to land on an opponent's piece to capture them.  I like that in Arimaa, it requires a bit more effort.  The push or pull requires two movement points each.  Plus, if the target is not adjacent to the black hole to begin with, it may require two push/pull maneuvers to capture a piece.  However, even with that extra effort, it still does not necessarily cost your entire turn to capture a single piece - you may be able to push a piece into the black hole, and then still have two movement points remaining that you can use elsewhere.  I really liked how the capturing worked here.  Another reason that this worked so well is that the black hole spaces are positioned on the board so that a piece is never very far away from one.  So, if you're not paying attention, you can lose a piece on almost any turn.

Pieces in order of power

My third pro for Arimaa is the mechanic that stronger pieces freeze weaker pieces.  Just as much as capturing your opponent's pieces, freezing them is an equally important component to master.  Yet, having a piece frozen isn't all bad, as you can unfreeze them with any of your other pieces - a lowly rabbit can unfreeze a piece that is adjacent to an opponent's elephant.  (I'm not really sure how this works thematically (granted, abstract games don't have theme) - are they planning to attack the elephant together?  That reminds me of some of the handicap matches that Andre the Giant used to fight.  Andre always won.)  This ability to unfreeze is especially important when trying to get your rabbit across the finish line.  Many times a player will leave their cat pieces behind (mainly because they're not very strong and would get slaughtered if they charged ahead), and these pieces can be positioned to freeze a rabbit that is attempting to cross.  It's easy enough to get around this by moving another piece along with your rabbit.  However, unfreezing the rabbit requires you to move the escorting piece as well, which costs extra movement points.  And, if you run out of movement at the wrong time, their cat might throw your rabbit into a black hole and force you to start over with another one.  Overall - freezing is really a beautiful mechanic in this game that adds a lot of depth to strategy.

My fourth pro for Arimaa is that I like the freedom that the game allows.  I like that you can setup your pieces however you want, and that you can split your movement points up among different pieces.  However, possibly due to this freedom, I must share my sole con for the game: players that are prone to think for long periods of time can make the game drag.  This is true in a lot of abstract strategy games (since the entire game is visible in front of you, if you can outthink your opponent, there is nothing that can stop you).  However, I have discovered that the more a game resembles chess, the longer that players will sit around and think.  And, Arimaa resembles Chess a lot (in looks, not in gameplay).  So, this is just something that you should be aware of - if your opponent likes to sit and think, then be prepared to have quite a bit of down time.

Overall, I give Arimaa a 9.0/10.  I really enjoyed the game, and I think that it is a beautiful example of an abstract strategy.  The motto of the game is "intuitively simple… intellectually challenging", and I would have to agree with this.  I would highly recommend that anyone that enjoys abstract strategy games try out Arimaa.

If Arimaa sound interesting, you might also want to check out Ploy, Gipf, and Brandubh.

Pax Review

A very interesting game that I recently was taught by one of my newer gaming friends was Pax (that link is to the publisher's site - it's not on Amazon).

In Pax, you are rebelling against Rome.  Well, at least most of you are.  To successfully rebel against Rome, you (as a collective group of players) must defeat Rome in 4 of the 7 categories.  Each turn, you will draw three cards, but you will see them one at a time.  One card goes in your hand, one goes on the bottom of the deck, and one goes under one of the "legion" cards.  Next, you may buy a group of "legion" cards by paying the cost of all of the cards in the pile.  Third, you may play cards from your hand in front of you - the first card is free, and each additional card costs one more than the card before it.  Finally, you collect income based on the pile you just added to that has the most cards.  Once all players have had a turn, whichever legion pile is worth the most gold goes into Rome's pile.  This continues until the deck has been exhausted.  At that time, players compare their strength in each category against Rome.  If Rome is stronger than (or tied with) all of the players in at least 4 categories, then Rome wins!  And thus, whoever has conspired with Rome (which means they have the most points in the "conspiring" category) is the winner!  Otherwise, players add up points (getting bonuses for various things like having more strength than Rome in a category) and whoever has the most points is the winner.

This is the person betraying you.

So, for everyone out there that enjoys games with multiple paths to victory, this is a game for you!  Now, "multiple" in this case mostly means two.  You can win by scoring the most and having the players defeat Rome, or you can win by sabotaging the players and conspiring with Rome.  I've seen both strategies win in both the two and four player games (I haven't played a three player game yet), so I know both are possible.  However, I think that in the four player game, (at least) one person has to be much more intentional about strengthening Rome's position by adding expensive cards to legion piles in order for the strategy to work.  Either way, I have found this dual victory condition mechanic to work very well, and it makes me hope that more games do something like this.

The next thing that I liked about the game is that each of the different categories was valuable.  With this, you could even argue that there are more than two paths to victory - within the "defeat Rome" strategy, there are different categories you can focus on.  Some of the cards give you points, others give you money, one type lets you buy legion piles cheaper, and one even allows you to draw more than one card at a time before deciding where they go.  Every category is useful - though some are much more useful at the beginning of the game, whereas others are much more valuable late.  Plus, the designer avoided making any of the categories unbalanced.  Specifically, the conspiracy cards could quickly become overpowered (they can give you instant victory), and to compensate for this, you don't collect any income on a turn that you play a conspiracy card!  That's a nice little touch that keeps the game balanced.

My final pro is that I like that your decisions in this game are simple yet challenging.  What do you do on your turn?  For the most part, you're simply looking at a card and deciding what to do with it.  But, since you have no idea what's coming next, it can be tough.  For example - if I draw a card that I could use, but isn't especially helpful, what should I do?  Should I bury it under the deck, even though I can use it?  Should I keep it, and hope that nothing better comes out?  Should I put it in a legion pile - but what if I don't buy it and it helps someone else (or even Rome)?  Pax gives you meaningful and tough decisions to make, and makes you decide how much you're willing to gamble on what you will draw next.

Your legion piles might look like this.

Now, the one con that I see for Pax is that there is a bit more luck involved than some people will like (so far I'm ok with it, but if I play it a lot more, it might eventually bother me more).  This luck primarily comes in two forms.  First, there are 3 cards given to Rome to start the game.  These cards are face down, and most of the time you will not know what they are (you can actually spend an entire turn to look at them, if you want).  So, when playing a close game where someone has been conspiring against Rome a lot, these three cards can determine whether the players win or whether Rome wins.  (One game that we played had 2 of the 3 cards give Rome a lead in a category, thus giving them the lead in 4 categories and having them win!)  The other way that luck plays a role in the game is simply in what you draw, and when you draw it.  As I said before, certain categories are valuable early, and others are valuable late (more specifically, are bonuses to scoring, so it doesn't matter when you play them, but they give you no in-game bonus).  If you draw a lot of scoring cards early, you will be at a significant disadvantage over a player that can get a lot of other bonuses in the first few turns.  The person with the victory point bonuses might officially be "winning" after a couple of turns, but the person with the discount on purchasing will have a better chance of victory.

Overall, I give Pax an 8.5/10.  It's a brilliant little game, and I look forward to playing it more.  I don't necessarily see myself getting together just to play Pax, though, so it doesn't quite crack the 9 threshold.

If Pax sounds interesting, you might also want to check out Atlanteon, Wizard's Gambit, and Orbit Rocket Race 5000.

I would like to thank iRon games for providing me with a review copy of Pax.

Scallywags Review

Today's review from the "children's game reviews by a guy with no children" series of reviews (I just made that up) is Scallywags.

In Scallywags, the goal is to get the most loot.  However, unlike most games with this goal, you cannot win by gaining the largest number of coins - you play until everyone has exactly six (or eight) coins, and so your goal is to have the most valuable coins.  To setup the game, you dump all of the coins out on the table and then spread them out so they're not stacked on top of each other - and you leave them how they fell, face up or face down.  Next, each person gets three cards.  On each turn, you may play a card, take a face-down coin, or discard a card and draw.  Play continues like this until everyone has the correct number of coins.

The first pro for Scallywags should be obvious.  It's great for kids.  It really fits well into the Gamewright mold - games that are great for kids, inexpensive, and have high quality components.  One thing that I've started paying more attention to with Gamewright's games is what you can use the game to teach kids.  According to the box, this game focuses on teach kids addition and strategy.  Whereas I don't think there's especially much addition in the game (except adding up the final scores), I can definitely agree with the strategy part.  The game is simple, yet I think that it would be engaging for kids, and there is enough strategy in the game that (most likely) the person with the best strategy will win.

My second pro for Scallywags is really an off-shoot of the first one.  (To be fair the first pro included several: kid friendly, inexpensive, great for kids.)  I think that the theme is one that kids would enjoy.  The theme is essentially cartoon pirates.  None of the theme is very serious or gritty - it essentially allows pirates to be fun and lovable.  Now, unfortunately, if I know kids (which I don't), this means that you will also have to hear phrases like "Avast, Me Hearties!" well after the game is over.  

When playing Scallywags, I really only came up with one main con - the game can stagger a bit if too many coins are face up.  When you look at your actions, you can either play a card or take a face down coin - otherwise you have to just discard and pass.  Well, many of the cards only work with face down cards.  So, if a lot of coins wind up falling face up, you can run out of face down coins in the middle, thus rendering a lot of cards useless.  So, you can get into a situation where a lot of people have to pass in a row.  (I'm guessing this happens if 75% or more of the coins are face up?  It is much more noticeable in a six player game where you have more total coins taken.)

A very minor con is also that not all of the rule questions that we had were addressed by the rules.  Now, it's pretty simple, so it's impressive enough that we even had a rules question.  However, there is a card "Hands Off Me Booty" that prevents another player from taking coins from you.  But, when do you draw back up after playing this card?  At the end of their turn, your turn, or never?  We went with "at the end of every turn all players should have 3 cards" - but we didn't actually see it addressed in the rules anywhere.

Overall, I give Scallywags an 8.0/10 as a kid's game.  I think that if you were a parent that bought this for your kids, your kids would really enjoy playing with you.  Be aware, though - I think the strategy is simple enough for a 4 year old to be able to play, but there is enough text that your kids will need to at least be able to read in order to play the game.

If you are looking for kids games, you might also check out Hey, That's My Fish! (my all time favorite kids game... for now), Rory's Story Cubes, and City Square Off.

I would like to thank Gamewright for providing me with a review copy of Scallywags.

Ploy Review

Another classic 3M game from my large box that I bought at GenCon is Ploy.

In Ploy, the object of the game is to capture your opponent's commander, or all of his other pieces. It has a very Chess-like feel. Each of your pieces has 1-4 lines on the top of it. On your turn, you are allowed to move 1-3 spaces (depending on the piece), but only along one of the paths that the piece is pointing towards. Conversely, you may take your turn to re-orient one of your pieces instead. Play consists of taking turns moving a piece either along a line or by re-orienting it until all but one of the players (it can be played two or four player) have lost their commander or all of their pieces other than their commander.

Commander

The first pro for Ploy is that it is very simple to teach (as is the case with most 3M games), as it is designed to be able to see what is going on. Each piece is able to move as many spaces as it has lines on it - aside from the Commander who can only move one space (though he has four lines). I really like that the 3M series had a great balance of complexity and depth through gameplay and not through rules. I have not played any 3M games that were more than a page of rules. And yet, the game is engaging and quite challenging.

The next thing that I like about Ploy is how the movement works. I think that it is neat. I don't really know how to describe this pro better. Seeing the board and orienting your pieces, then moving them to where they need to go as you try to strike while your opponent's pieces are facing the wrong direction just has a "neat" feel to it.

However, though I think that Ploy is neat, there are definitely some cons. First of all (disclaimer - I don't like Chess), Ploy embodies everything that I hate about Chess. It is a game of positioning and patience. I like thinking in games, but I do not have the patience for constantly protecting each of my pieces as I attack my opponent at a glacier's pace. That is how I feel about Chess, and that feeling is carried into Ploy. If you like Chess, I think that you will actually love this aspect of Ploy, and it may put you on a level footing with your friends - if you enjoy playing Chess with them, but have not studied the game as much as they have. Playing Ploy may be a way of getting a similar feeling game without feeling like someone wins because they've studied the game more.

The last thing that I will mention about Ploy is that it is "fiddly." Since the pieces spin, and do not lock into place, it is very easy to accidentally nudge them and have them facing between two lines with you not knowing which ones they are supposed to be facing. If you are a gamer that constantly need things to be neat - your always stacking discard piles, etc, then you will probably find yourself spending a lot of time in Ploy fidgeting with the pieces on the board trying to make sure that they are always lining straight up with the lines that they point towards.

Overall, I think that each person's enjoyment of Ploy will be directly related to how much they enjoy Chess. Therefore, I give Ploy a 6.5/10. I have debated this quite a bit - I think that Ploy is a very good game. Unfortunately, I also think that it is horribly boring, in the same way that I think that Chess is horribly boring. If you disagree with me on this one crucial point, then you should definitely check out Ploy, because it is a game that you might love!

If you like vintage 3M games, you should also check out my reviews of Acquire, Quinto, and the (non-3M game that might appeal to a similar audience) Ploy.

Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos Review

A game that came to me highly recommended by some of my fellow bloggers is Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos (not currently available on Amazon).

I was told that because I liked the Game of Thrones: Living Card Game, I should try out Existenz.  However, I found Existenz to be much more like Magic: The Gathering.  If you're familiar with Magic, most of this will sound familiar, but I'll go ahead and give an overview for anyone else.  On your turn, first you re-activate (untap) all of your cards, you draw a card, and then you can play cards from your hand.  You may play one Crystal (Land) per turn - these give you Energy (Mana) which you can then use to play other cards.  You can play Summons (Creatures) from your hand, and there are about six different types.  You may only have one summon of each type in play at a time, and it must be summoned onto either a warp dot or a start dot.  There are also Catalysts (Enchantments) that can be played that affect gameplay, and Flux (Instants) cards that can be played at essentially any time, but are discarded after use.  On your turn, you may move and attack with your Summons, as each has a speed and range - all damage they inflict goes onto the targeted summons, and once a summons takes more damage than it has defense, it is destroyed (think of defense as hit points instead of damage they can prevent).  The game is played until one player's Life Base (a summons type that starts in play) is destroyed, reaches an end dot, or one player runs out of cards in their deck.

You have to be in position to attack

The first thing that I like about Existenz is that, through the board, it adds a spatial element to Magic.  Instead of everything being in some ethereal realm where everything is conveniently adjacent, summons actually have to get near each other in order to fight.  This makes sense.  However, one of the rules is that you cannot move over "sharp turns" (acute angles).  This is a really neat mechanic, and allows for the board to not require tons of icons representing when you can and when you cannot move (though the board is still pretty busy).  However, it also makes most creatures' movement speeds not matter very much, and it also makes the combat much less frequent - especially considering that you're only allowed to have a few summons in play at any given time.

The biggest pro to Existenz is probably that the publishers of the game are listening to their fans.  Specifically, the game was initially launched as a Collectible Card Game (where you have to buy packs of random cards).  In fact, the back of the instruction manual encourages you to buy extra packs in order to expand your gameplay.  Their fans apparently hated this (I can't blame them, I hate the CCG model, too), and so they have changed it to the "Living Card Game" model, where you still buy packs, but the packs are not random.  I appreciate any time that a company listens to their fans like this, so kudos to X610Z for doing so.

Now, there are a couple of things that I need to mention before moving on to the cons - these are just points of note.  First, my copy was mis-packaged.  I had four decks, but two of them were the same (though the boxes for each were different).  I have contacted the publishers, and they are fixing the problem - but this is something to be aware of, as I don't know how prevalent this problem was.  Secondly, as I said before, this game is very similar to Magic.  I don't know why this is - I don't know if the designer was trying to "fix" Magic, if they were trying to appeal to Magic fans, or if this really is a giant coincidence (this is my least likely scenario), but I don't think that anyone who has played Magic more than twice will see this game without immediately making the comparison (and, in fact, when I teach the game to Magic players, I teach what is different, instead of the full rules).  Honestly, though, my biggest frustration with Magic is the mana system (I inevitably draw too much Land or not enough), and so I don't understand why Existenz kept this flawed mechanic!

This is a Crystal - yet no colored background on "H1"

Now for the cons - first, the game is hard to visualize.  There are several elements that go into this.  First, the iconography is both bad and inconsistent.  Instead of having an icon to represent what type of mana you need (again, like in Magic - maybe I'll stop this reference soon), energy is represented with a letter and a number, and sometimes this has a colored background, but sometimes it doesn't.  The inconsistency of the coloring makes the coloring essentially useless.  So, you have to remember what Crystals gain H, B, R, and M.  There is also a "C", which stands for Colorless - this is not intuitive, though, as it has a white background, and the cards don't all show the background color for Energy.  In our first game, one of the players kept hoping to draw a Crystal that would give him "C" Energy.  Also, the cards in general just seem very busy so that it is hard for me to quickly see what I need to know at any given moment - I don't know if this is because of the layout of the card itself or because I have not played it enough to be accustomed to it.  I would guess that it is both.

The next thing that adds to the difficulty in visualization is that all of your summons are represented on the board with a marker that shows their summons type.  However, when looking at the board, because of the "sharp turn" rule, it takes a few moments to see what can attack and where.  Next, you have to figure out where each card is on the board - and then what your opponents pieces represent.  Nothing intuitively associates any given card with something on the board.  Part of this might be more iconography problems - instead of my card saying "dragon", and then having a picture of a dragon on the playing piece, maybe both the card and the piece should have a picture of a dragon.  Ultimately, I'm not really sure how to easily fix this problem, but it definitely caused us to have confusion when we were playing.

Who is who??

One of the biggest cons that I found is that there is a strategy that makes the game horrible.  I haven't played it out enough to know the full ramifications, however.  Surrounding all of the "start dots", there are "no attack dots."  A summon (including your life base) cannot attack or be attacked while on these dots.  So, here's a basic strategy - don't move your life base off of the no-attack dots.  Sure, you're not going to win by having your life base reach an end dot, but if you kill your opponent's life base, you win just the same.  And he can't kill yours!  However, envision what happens if both players use this strategy - nobody can attack their opponent's base.  So, you are basically playing the game until someone runs out of cards!  I will confess that this isn't entirely true, as there are some cards that allow you to attack a summons that is on a no attack dot, but I think that these cards are infrequent enough to cause this game to be wretchedly boring if two players decide to use this incredibly basic strategy.

The last couple of things are that the basic decks aren't very basic, and some of the rules seemed a bit artificial.  In Magic terms, each of the starting decks was a "three color" deck - this means that in order to play all of the cards in your deck, you had to have three of the four different kinds of crystals in play.  This really makes the decks slow - though fortunately, there are several Crystals in the deck that can give you two types of energy.  When it comes to artificial rules, the "sharp turn" rule, though neat, doesn't really seem to make much sense to me thematically.  Also, the fact that you can only have one summons of each type seems to be because otherwise you couldn't tell which piece on the board represented which summons, instead of having a thematic reason.  This rule also means that you can't always play the cards in your hand - even if you can afford their energy cost.  And, once you finally can play something (because you lost a summons), you have to play them on a warp dot or a starting dot, so they are horribly out of position for the fight that you need to reinforce (and because of the sharp turn rule, it will be several turns before they can get in position).

Overall, I give Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos a 6.0/10.  There are definitely people that like it (that's why I tried it), but I'm not really one of them.  But, don't just read my review and discard the game completely - check out what other people have to say and decide for yourself.  If you like Magic, this game is worth trying, just to see the spatial element of the game, but for most people I would recommend trying Existenz before buying it.

If you like games like Existenz, you might also want to check out Warhammer Invasion, Summoner Wars, and Game of Thrones: The Card Game.

I would like to thank X610Z for providing me with a review copy of Existenz: On the Ruins of Chaos.

Dungeon Lords Review

A game that I traded for a while back on BoardGameGeek since it looked quirky (and I didn't want the other game) was Dungeon Lords.

In Dungeon Lords, you, evil genius ("evil"? slanderers!) are trying to protect your home, which some stupid townspeople are calling a "dungeon." In fact, those townspeople are really annoying and you'd like to eat them, but for the most part, you're leaving them alone. Though you're hungry. Anyway... you are simply focusing on building your glorious underground mansion - and then you hear that the obnoxious townspeople have hired people to come attack you! So, as any good home protector would do, you also hire monsters and set traps to keep people from breaking in. After all, you would protect your home if people tried to break in, right? How this plays out is that the game is played in 2 "years" each consisting of 4 rounds. In each round, you get to send your minions out to do tasks for you. These tasks include collecting food, convincing the townspeople that you're nice (which I find highly amusing), mining gold, digging tunnels, recruiting imps, building traps, hiring monsters, and building rooms. After the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th rounds, adventurers will come towards your dungeon, and at the end of the 4th round they will attack it (how rude!). Hopefully you have collected traps and monsters! When they attack, you are able to use your traps and monsters to defend against them, and fighting is fought over a series of up to four rounds. Each round, if there are surviving adventurers, they will conquer one part of your dungeon (fortunately they will suffer fatigue first, which will injure and possibly even kill them). At the end of the four rounds, if there are any adventurers left, they give up and go home (claiming total victory over the "Wimpy Overlord" - I told you that they are slanderers!). After two years, you count up your victory points based on things like "Most Evil" and "Most Unconquered Rooms" along with negatives for having had tiles conquered and other bonuses for things like number of adventurers captured.

Which ones are the good guys?

The first amazing pro for Dungeon Lords is the theme. The theme is utterly brilliant, as I have never played a reverse dungeon crawler. In fact, after the first year, you deal with harder adventurers - because of some magic called "Leveling Up." I find the theme to be incredibly enjoyable, and whereas you might be able to take these mechanics and make a different game out of them, I don't think that it would have the sheer amount of fun as Dungeon Lords.  (So, another pro - Dungeon Lords is fun!)

Second, I really like how the minion placement works. This is really the crux of the game, as it is how you build your dungeon (thus this is a "worker placement game" or, more specifically, a "minion placement game"). Any given round you have two actions which you cannot perform (based on what you performed in the previous round). From the remaining actions, you select three and place them in order on your board. All players reveal, and then in turn order all players place a minion on their first choice, then all place on their second, and finally on your third choice. After this, all of the actions are performed in order, and normally the last person to place a minion on that action has the biggest benefit. However, there are only three slots on each action - so in a four player game it is possible to not get to place your minion if you wait too long. So, you need to balance waiting with making sure that you will get to perform an action. You also have to balance when you want to place various actions - after all, you can't have the best position on all of the different actions. And while you're trying to position yourself to be able to buy the best monster, your opponents are probably doing the same thing! This flows very well but adds a lot of depth to the strategy of the game.

The third pro that I will mention about Dungeon Lords is that fighting the adventurers (once you understand the rules) is straightforward yet engaging. Essentially, every round they attempt to take over one section of your dungeon. You can place a trap and a monster to try to kill them. After your trap and monster damage them, they might heal or cast magic (if they have a priest or wizard) and then they experience fatigue. If they're still alive, they conquer a room. There's no dice rolling or complicated comparisons. Each monster does a certain amount of damage; each trap does a certain amount of damage (though this can be reduced by an adventuring Rogue). Yet, with the system put in place, there are still different types of adventurers, each adding an important and different element to the game.

Worker imps look awesome!

The final pro that I will mention is that the design of the gameboards is amazing. Having not played Dungeon Lords in a few months, I was able to pull out the game and remember 97% of the rules from the boards themselves - it's all there! I think many other games would benefit from looking at how Dungeon Lords laid out it's components in a compact yet helpful way.

With all that said, my biggest con for Dungeon Lords is that there are a lot of rules that you can easily forget. If you're like me, then you will often have a few months between two plays of any given game (because I have "a few" others to choose from). Whereas the gameboards really help to jog your memory in Dungeon Lords, chances are that you will forget some of the smaller rules - like moving one step towards the "nice" side of the evil-o-meter after having a dungeon tile conquered. That one, specifically, is clearly marked on the gameboard, but there are enough small rules that unless you play it on a regular basis, some will probably be missed.

Overall, I give Dungeon Lords a 9.0/10. I almost slipped this score down a bit, but eventually decided not to. I really like Dungeon Lords - I think that it has a solid theme and mechanics that flow very well. And, even as a Dark Overlord, the game doesn't have a dark or creepy feel, so it's theme is really open to everyone.

If you like Dungeon Lords, you should also check out Age of Empires III, Cookie Fu (if you like quirky themes), and Through the Ages (which is by the same designer as Dungeon Lords).

Carcassonne Review

When a game truly defines a genre, I think it is only appropriate that I give it a try. And so, I wound up buying Carcassonne.

Carcassonne is the tile placing game. In Carcassonne, players take turns drawing and playing a tile. When playing a tile, it must be be placed in a "valid" position (which means that whatever is on the tile matches up with what is on the tiles next to it - no dead-ending roads, castles without walls, etc). After placing the tile, a player has the option of placing a meeple (yes, I believe Carcassonne also brought us meeples - wooden people shaped pieces) on the newly placed tile. Placing meeples is where much of the strategy of the game takes place, as it is what drives the scoring of the game. Meeples can be placed on roads, farms, cloisters, and castles. Whenever one of these things (other than a farm) is "completed" (the castle is completed, the road becomes a circle, etc) then the meeple scores points and becomes available for the user to re-place. Play continues like this until all of the tiles are placed. At this point, farmers score points, and so do all of the meeples on incomplete roads, cloisters and castles. Then, gasp, the player with the most points wins.

What's good and innovative about Carcassonne? Well, we will start with innovative - the whole game is innovative (to me). I had never seen a game where the actual playing of the game is based on placing tiles. Yes, there is a possibility of games before Carcassonne being based on tile placing (feel free to tell me about them in comments), but Carcassonne still managed to define the genre, as it brought it to the gaming market in a big way.

Now that I've told you that it's innovative - is it good? Well, I think that the best aspect of Carcassonne is that it is a nice, simple game. When you want to play a game but don't want to obsess about every move and debate whether it is the best strategy, Carcassonne is your game. It is easy to teach people (though I recommend not beating the snot out of them like what happened to me the first time I played), and can be played by almost anybody - gaming background or not. It is long enough to be engaging, without being so long that you get bored with it (though if you play too many expansions, you might argue that it gets too long).

However, though Carcassonne is very innovative and simple... it didn't click for me. I like to say that I don't care what genre a game belongs to, as long as it does that genre very well. Tile placement may be my exception. I have tried several tile placement games including Carcassonne, Alhambra, Architekton, and a few others. I haven't found any that I think of more highly than "they're ok." Carcassonne falls into this range for me. I can play it, but it's not really one of my preferred games - I would play it when friends want to play it.

Now, for a more objective con, I dislike the reactive nature of Carcassonne. Each turn you must draw a tile, assess the current state of the game, and then place it. There is very little that you can do to form a continuing strategy throughout the game. No matter how well you place things, if you don't draw the correct tiles to allow you to score, there is very little that you can do. I think that this does add to the lightheartedness of the game, and indeed many people will like this. However, this isn't an aspect of games that I am particularly fond of.

Overall, I give Carcassonne a 7.0/10. It is a respectable game that I understand why people enjoy. However, with that said, it appears to have defined a genre that I have discovered that I dislike.

So, admittedly, I'm not a huge fan of tile laying. So, instead of only reading my biased opinion, you might also check out Board Game Family's Carcassonne review, or another Carcassonne review on Games With Two. Or, if you're looking for other gateway games, you might want to check out Tsuro, Cargo Noir, Shadows Over Camelot, or 7 Wonders.

Babel Review

A nice little two-player game that one of my friends introduced to me was Babel.

In Babel, the players are competing to try to build the largest temples. On any given turn, a player will draw three army cards, perform any number of actions (such as building temples, playing armies, using army powers, or once per turn doing a "migration" which consists of moving a group of 3 armies), and then draw two new temple cards that are available for either player to build (placing the lowest numbered one on top of the stack). In order to build a temple, they must have a corresponding number of armies cards present at that location - for example, in order to build a level four temple, they must have four army cards present. However, each of the army cards represents a different race of people. If three of a given race are in consecutive order, then the player may discard one of the three cards to perform that race's special power. Play continues in this way until one of the "game end" conditions is met; basically the game ends when one player has 15 points of temples and the other player has less than 10, or when one player gets 20 points of temples (or if the temple draw stack runs out, whoever has the most points wins).  Did I make that crystal clear?  Well, there's a reason it's called a "summary" and not an instruction manual.  Oh, you didn't see where I called it a "summary", because I didn't use headers?  Well, that's just whining...

For the first pro in Babel, I really liked the different races and their powers.  Granted, I have not played this game enough to determine if one power seems "better" than any of the others, but in the games that we have played, each race's power had times in which it was crucially important.  The Persians (which let you skip a level when building your temple) I initially thought were the weakest of the powers, but I used them to secure victory in one of the games!  Some of the other powers are much more directly offensive (one of them lets you rob the top level of your opponent's temple, another lets you "emigrate" (kill) their troops), but finding the correct time to use your powers, while preventing your opponent from capitalizing on his (and maintaining enough units to actually build temples!) is the crux of the game.

The next major pro for Babel is simply what the game itself is - it is a fairly quick, somewhat deep, easy to learn two-player strategy game.  There are some of these available (I think this was actually part of a product line several years ago of two player games).  However, none of the other ones that I played from that group seemed to actually gel as well as Babel does.  It claims to be 45-60 minutes, but I would think that around 30 minutes would be a bit more realistic.  To actually learn the game from the rules takes about 15-30 minutes, and to teach it takes about 5 minutes.  And yet, while playing the game, you feel like you're actually engaged in a strategic experience where one person legitimately wins primarily based on skill (and there's enough depth to it that the game won't be "mastered" after a couple of plays through).  And, to go with all of that, the box is also compact enough that it could pretty easily be slipped into a backpack to be played at a coffee shop or, better yet, at an airport!  (Yes, I'm back to really liking games that can be played at airports.)  Setup time is incredibly short, and so it is an ideal game for these kinds of situations.

When it comes to cons for Babel, nothing truly jumps out to me like in many other games.  That by no means is the same as saying the game is flawless.  It simply means that its cons seem more nuanced.  For example, I have questions about the replayability of the game.  Whereas I have enjoyed my plays of it, I'm not really certain that it will be a game that I will really think "I really need to play that" about, nor was I immediately motivated to start a new game after completing the previous one.  I definitely wouldn't go out of my way to get a game of it in.  I think this really starts relegating it to the filler category - something that you play because you want to play a game, and often that you're playing while waiting for a different game to be played (such as if several people in your gaming group are regularly late).

Overall, I give Babel an 8.0/10.  I debated between a 7.5 and an 8.0, really thinking that this one isn't quite as good as Hive (which I also scored at 8.0).  Eventually, I determined that I think I simply should have given Hive a higher score, as this one seems to fit in perfectly at 8.0  I think that it is a solid game, and would truly be ideal for someone looking for a game that they can carry around with them and teach whomever might be interested in gaming.

Blood Bowl: Team Manager Review

One of the games that I drooled over until I convinced my friend to buy it (thanks!) was Blood Bowl: Team Manager.

In Blood Bowl, each player starts with a team representing his race, and attempts to gain the most fans. The season consists of five weeks, and in each week there are a certain number of "highlights" which the players compete over. (Terminology gets confusing here. So, along with the game's instructions, I will call you (the player/reader) "managers", and the cards you play are "players.") Managers (you) take turns placing a single player next to a highlight that is either empty, or where they have already placed a player. When placing a new player, that player may be able to gain the ball, cheat, [attempt to] tackle his opponent [sometimes ending in falling on his face], and sprint. Once all of the managers have placed all of their players, all of the cheat tokens are revealed (which could help players, but could also get them ejected). Now, whoever has the most "star points" at each individual matchup wins the prize - but each manager collects a smaller prize for every matchup where he had players. These prizes can be Star Players, Team Upgrades, Staff Upgrades, or Fans. These upgrades can be used in all of the following weeks of the season (so it is best to get them at the beginning of the game). Play consists of five weeks, and at the end of the game, whoever has the most fans is the winner (just like in real sports - whoever has the most fans is the real winner, because they make tons of money regardless of if their team actually wins any championships).

The first thing that I love about Blood Bowl is the ability to upgrade your team. I'm that guy that loves sports simulation games, but doesn't actually play the actual games in them. I'll buy Madden and play Franchise mode - simulating all of the games, and just enjoying the trading, drafting, etc. that goes into running the team. I loved Football Mogul, and have played similar games for baseball, football, soccer, etc. This is really what appealed to me the most about Blood Bowl. The back of the box made me drool! I'm not a huge fan of improving your team in a deck building fashion, but it doesn't really detract too much from the game for me - especially since your new "Star players" are always placed on top of your deck instead of in your discard pile - it lets you immediately show off your new free agent signing!

The next thing that I like about Blood Bowl is that it scales well between 2-4 players. (Obviously, it does take a lot longer with 4 players than with 2, though.) You use a number of "highlight" cards (the cards you fight over) based on the number of players - 2 player, 2 highlights, and so on. This means that you are normally going to be fighting over 2 highlights (and possibly a tournament) regardless of how many people are playing. With more players, you occasionally have the opportunity to try fighting over a third highlight, but this normally stretches you so thin that you lose all of them. There's also not much sense of "ganging up" on players since each highlight can only have one player on either side.  Overall, it balances player interaction very well, and prevents much of the normal "everyone against the leader" gameplay that is in many other games. 

A third pro that I think is brilliant is a very minute rule in the game. After each person collects all of their booty at the end of each week, they take turns reading their new cards and their abilities to all players. This is really a trivial rule, but it is one that I think more games should implement. It cuts down on most (if not all) of the reaching across the table to grab each other's cards to see what they do. Brilliant! It's amazing how useful such a minor rule can be.

The last couple of pros that I will mention are that I like how the tackling works, and I like the different abilities that players have (and how this gives each race a much different feel). When tackling, you always have the chance of falling down. However, those odds are adjusted based on how big your player is compared to theirs - if yours is bigger, roll two dice and pick your result. If they're the same, roll one die. If yours is smaller, roll two dice and they pick the result (a die has 3 tackles, 2 misses, and 1 fall on your face). With the different factions, each faction seems to be better at different aspects of the game. Skaven are good at Sprinting, Dwarves are good at Guarding, Chaos get fans for injuring players (tackling a downed player - it removes him from the highlight). Plus, they included six races for a four player game. I love it when game companies provide you extra things out of the box to enhance replayability instead of always trying to force you to buy expansions.

Yet, with all that I love about Blood Bowl, there is one main con that I have about the game - it feels much longer than it should. When you read about the game, look at the game, and see the game, it looks like it should be about an hour long game. Unfortunately, it normally takes two hours (or more). There's not a lot of down time, so I'm not saying that the game drags on a long time and feels boring. It simply takes longer than you think it should - and occasionally you will feel that the game is dragging. Of course, the more you play, the faster you will be - since you'll be familiar with all the cards and rules, but it still seems like it should take an hour.

My other con, that I touched on earlier, is that I wish that they hadn't implemented the building of your team with a deck building mechanic. It doesn't really detract a lot from the game, but I think I would have preferred each team having "positions" (like in real sports), and when you get a new Star player, you are replacing the one in that position. This would also mean that getting a Star player isn't always beneficial - if you gain one for a position where you already have a star, then your new player doesn't help.

Overall, I give Blood Bowl: Team Manager an 8.5/10. I enjoy the game, and I am debating whether or not I need to add it to my collection!  It's hard to explain who all would like this game.  So, I guess I'll simply say - if you've been looking at this game and it looks appealing to you, go out of your way if needed to try it.  I think you'll find that it is a very good game, and, though it might not fulfill all of your wildest fantasies, you probably won't be disappointed.

If Blood Bowl: Team Manager sounds interesting, then you might also check out Star Wars Living Card Game, Race for the Galaxy, and Glory to Rome.

Le Havre Review

Some games you just hear so many good things about that you are forced to try them yourself. Le Havre was a game like that for me.

Le Havre is all about money. Whoever has the most money at the end of the game is the winner. Each round consists of seven player turns. Each player (on his turn) will move his ship to the next "supply tile", thus adding more goods to two of the "offer" piles. After this, the active player can perform a single action - he can either take all of the goods from a single offer pile, or he can move his piece to a building, thus performing it's action (you must move your piece - thus you cannot use the same building twice in a row). Other things that a player can do on his turn (that don't cost an action) include buying a building, selling a building, or repaying a loan. After the player has performed his action, play moves on to the next player. Once the seven player turns are completed, the round ends (notice that each player will not get the same number of turns each round), and the players are forced to pay a certain amount of Food (or take out a loan to cover the missing Food). Play continues with the next player's turn and the game continues until all of the rounds are played. After all the rounds are played, each player gets one final action (in which they make as much money as humanly possible and can use a building that has an opponent's piece in it). Finally, all that remains is adding up how much money a player has between cash on hand and value of buildings owned.

The first thing that I like about Le Havre is that all player's don't have the same number of turns each round. I don't think that I've ever played a game with this mechanic. Yes, it may feel a bit unbalanced if you don't get as many turns in a round where you are desperately trying to accomplish something. But, the game is setup so that each player has the same number of turns in which he gets an extra action, so the game does actually balance out fairly for all of the different players. Learning to capitalize when you have an extra action (or still manage to get enough food when you are short an action) is a key factor in winning the game.

The next thing that I like about Le Havre is that all of the options available to you for your action are good actions. The key is in finding which action is the best action. For example, there will be some turns in which you are able to collect six or more Fish (one of the goods, which also provides one Food) from the "offer" space. However, do you need six Fish? They help to feed your people, and that is crucial - but does having six Fish right now help more than using a building that allows you to get different kinds of goods? Or the building which lets you build more buildings? There are very few "bad" options - but whoever is able to capitalize the most on his opportunities will ultimately become the victor.

The third pro that I will mention for Le Havre is how carefully balanced the game (and even it's setup) is. The game is setup differently based on the number of players and whether you want to play with the "full" or the "shortened" version of the game. This ensures the balance of the game, and also ensures that the buildings that are needed appear in a timely manner. You can really feel the hours of playtesting that went into the game. And, speaking of different variants, I really like that you can play a "full" and a "shortened" version of Le Havre - and that both feel like good gaming experiences (you don't feel like you're playing a broken version of the "real" game if you play the shortened version). You can tailor which version to play based off of how long you want to play the game, but either game that you choose will still give you a high quality gaming experience.

The last (detailed) pro that I will mention is the option to both buy and build buildings. This is an example of Le Havre having "multiple paths to victory." (This means that players can have completely different strategies, and yet each strategy has a very valid chance of winning.) The buildings, as an example, can be built by a player who has done a good job of acquiring different resources - which can be challenging. And yet, a player who has done a good job of acquiring money (which is also hard) can just buy the building, and thus still gain the benefits of it (though without having an immediate net gain of victory points - buildings are never worth more victory points than their cost to purchase).

There are several other pros to Le Havre that I really enjoyed and could write about at length - but that would make this review much longer than I would like. So, briefly, I also like:

• Food requires your attention, and yet doesn't have to be your only focus in the game
• The Special Buildings (only used in the full version) help ensure a varied game experience
• The "offer" spaces work well and encourage people to eventually take even less useful goods since they continue accumulating
• The game components are designed well so that each "goods" piece represents two different "goods"
• Forcing players to pay resources to use other people's buildings incentivizes acquiring buildings
• Not being allowed to re-use the same building twice in a row forces gameplay to be varied
• Being able to "block" use of a building by leaving your piece on a building is a nice mechanic

However, with all of that said, Le Havre has a glaring con: Analysis Paralysis. (This is the slang term for when a player has so many options that he can't decide what to do, thus horribly slowing down the pace of a game - and often annoying all of the other players.) I personally am normally not one to subdue to Analysis Paralysis, but I have found myself struggling with this in Le Havre. Early in the game there are only a few options, and thus there isn't much of an issue. However, starting about halfway through the game, there may be 20 or more options. And, do you remember that I said that all of the options are good options? This is really what causes the paralysis to occur. It's pretty easy to eliminate most of the options as "less good", but that still leaves 3-4 very good options that a player will have to decide between. Though each player is only performing one action on his turn, the amount of time to decide on that action may take quite a while to determine. Maybe we should play it with a chess timer... but then I'd have to get a chess timer.... which could be cool in itself.

Overall, I give Le Havre a 9.5/10. I debated only giving it a 9.0, but I do think that it deserves a 9.5. When I think about the number of pros that I am able to name for the game without really even pondering for very long (and the fact that the only con I came up with is "people think too long"), it's hard to not give it a score that is almost perfect. If you're a fan of games like Puerto Rico, Agricola, and Caylus, I would definitely suggest Le Havre.

Eminent Domain Review

One of the hottest games that's been "abuzz" on the Internet recently has been Eminent Domain (that link takes you to Tasty Minstrel's store, or this one is for Amazon.

In Eminent Domain, each player represents a galactic overlord that is attempting to build his fledgling empire. He can do this by conquering or colonizing other planets (once he has surveyed them). He can also build up his trade network and research new technologies. How this works out in game-terms is that each turn a player is allowed to take one action (by playing a card and doing whatever it's "action" text is), then he must choose a role. When he chooses a role, he takes a card for the corresponding role (Warfare, Survey, Colonize, Research, Produce/Trade) from the middle of the table (if the pile has not run out), and then he is able to "boost" that role with any cards he has in his hand that have the same icon (such as previous cards that he gained by doing the role). After he finishes with his selected role, all of the other players have the option of following his lead - also performing that role, but without the bonus. If they choose not to follow him, they can "dissent", which allows them to draw a card. Finally, he can discard as many cards from his hand as he would like, and he draws back up to his current hand limit (which starts at five cards). Play continues until the victory point chips or a certain number of piles of cards (depending on the number of players) are exhausted. At this point, whoever has the most points between victory point chips, planets, and technologies is the winner. (There really should be more games like Golf and Hearts where you don't want points. I get tired of typing this last line.)

The first thing that I love about Eminent Domain (which I have never seen in any other game), is that you get better at your role as you keep doing it! Yes, this is implemented in a deck building mechanic, but I think that Eminent Domain feels much closer to Race For The Galaxy than it does to Dominion. The deck building is really just a means to an end. What is actually happening is that the game is rewarding you for continually choosing the same role. Are you a warmonger? If you repeatedly select this as your role, then you will gain more Warfare cards - which, in turn, allows you to have more at your disposal in future turns. This means that when another players chooses to play Warfare, you will quite likely be able to gain more Fighters than they do, even though they selected the role! This is a really awesome mechanic, and yet it makes complete sense.

Another inventive mechanic in Eminent Domain is the option to dissent. I love this! In every other game that I have played that has "roles", one of the best strategies is to select a role that helps you and nobody else. Whereas this is still a sound strategy in Eminent Domain, everybody else in the game will still get some benefit on your turn, it just might not be as much. Also, because of the option of dissenting, it adds another layer of choices to the players that are not the leader. If a player in front of me chooses the Warfare role (and I was planning to as well), should I follow suit, allowing me to select a different role on my turn? Or would it be better to draw an extra card and hope that it is a Warfare - thus making it more effective when I select the role? I like these additional decisions.

The next thing that I like about Eminent Domain is that the planets that join your empire help you in various ways. This is honestly why the Survey is important - it allows you to look at more planets to select the one that most fits into your plans. Planets can help you by giving you victory points, allowing you to research more technologies, allowing you to produce resources (to trade), increasing your hand limit, and by displaying icons for the various roles (thus acting like you had played a card with that icon, even if you don't have one in your hand). I really like this added level of depth to the game.

The final that I like about Eminent Domain (that I will tell you about) is that the Research action can be incredibly valuable, but it does not seem overpowered. I have played a lot of games in which there are new technologies available.  Normally, if a player does not focus on getting the best technologies he has no hope of winning the game. Eminent Domain is not like this. In Eminent Domain, Research is very valuable - it can give you bonuses like allowing your Research cards to act like any role card, and also give you victory points. However, since it is slower to get started (each research has a number of explored worlds that you must own before you can acquire it), it is simply one option when trying to win - not the only option available.

Ok, two more final pros - but I'll be brief, I promise.  I like that when selecting a role, what is in your opponents' hands are secret - this means that you have no idea what the other players will be able to do after you select your role (as opposed to Puerto Rico where all information is public).  I also like that the more success you have on other people's turns, the more limited your options are on your own turn - thus it's not always beneficial to use all of your Colonize's on an opponent's turn - having one left may be important.

One thing that you should know about Eminent Domain (before moving on to cons) is that it plays quite differently based on the number of players playing. It supports 2-4 players, and I have tried it with each of these configurations. I have enjoyed all of the games, but they really work out quite differently. In 2-player, you have much more influence over your own destiny - you get to select half of the roles in the game! In 4-player, you are often dissenting, as you will often not have the card(s) to make it worthwhile to follow the leader's role. Research is quite easy in 2-player, whereas in 4-player, it is hard to get the Research working, since you have to still acquire the planets before you can research (and by the time you acquire enough planets to gain good technologies, one of the piles (Colonize or Warfare) is probably close to exhausted). Again, I like the game with any number of players, but the feel is quite different between them - almost like playing a different game that uses the same pieces.

My biggest con about Eminent Domain is that my copy wasn't quite to the level of production quality that I would have liked. A few of the starting planets were scuffed when I opened the box (not a big deal, though somewhat annoying), but more importantly, my cards shuffled, but not especially well - which is a major nuisance in a deck building game! It makes me sad to have to tell you this, since I know that production quality is at least as important to Tasty Minstrel as it is to the people that buy their products, but it is true. Since I know the importance they place on quality, I imagine that this will be fixed in a future print run, so it shouldn't be a problem going forward. In all honesty, I just went ahead and sleeved all of the cards that could be placed in my deck (roles and technologies), and this helped with the shuffling problem (and probably extended the lifetime of my game). If I can spend about $5 to fix the biggest con in a game that I love, that's not a bad trade.

The final thing that I will mention (and I will list as a con, though I'm not sure it shouldn't be a "point of note") is that some of the roles (such as Produce and Trade) do not receive a leader bonus in 2-3 player games. Specifically, they get their leader bonus when the deck runs out. However, in a 2-3 player game, this is the end of game condition. I thought that this was odd - it didn't really hurt the gameplay, and all I can imagine is that in playtesting they determined that these roles were overpowered if you got a leader bonus too early on them. It was weird - again, not a major thing, just something that I found strange.

Overall, I give Eminent Domain a 9.0/10. I really enjoyed this game. I thought it was innovative and took mechanics that I already enjoyed and made a fresh and unique gameplay experience from them. I would highly recommend that everyone try Eminent Domain if you have the opportunity - whereas even if it does not become your favorite game, I think you will at least enjoy the time you spend playing it.

If you like Eminent Domain, then you might also enjoy Puerto Rico, 51st State, and Star Trek: The Next Generation Deck Building Game.

I would like to thank Tasty Minstrel Games for providing me with a review copy of Eminent Domain to play.