Stratum Review

Since I've been playing ridiculous numbers of spatial reasoning games recently, I figured why not one more? And so I played (and am now reviewing) Stratum.

In Stratum, the object of the game is to have the most hexes visible (from above the board looking directly down at it) as possible when there are no legal moves remaining. To do this, the players take turns placing their pieces (4-wide hex pieces). When placing a piece, you must finish one row before moving onto the next one. You also cannot leave gaps when covering pieces; finally, you cannot completely cover once piece by placing another one directly above the previous piece. That's it. All the rules. Now you understand the whole game.

Now for the pros of Stratum - gaps! Stratum (to me) is all about making the most useful gaps possible. Whereas all of you "color inside the lines" people will try to make the lowest level be fairly filled so that you have more valid placements on the next level, I'm that guy that puts his first piece in some semi-random place in the middle that prevents you from being able to use about half of the bottom row. The more that I've cut off in this move, the better I feel. I like in Stratum that you have several ways of proactively being able to prevent other players from covering your hexes. There are some other ways of doing this, too, but my favorite way is by forming gaps.

Since the rules to this game are incredibly simple and my personal rule (when I feel like applying it) in reviews is to not be longer than the rules, it's time for the cons.

This may just be because I'm in spatial reasoning overload, but I didn't think the strategy was especially deep in Stratum. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely some strategy in the game, I just don't think it is as deep as that of some of my preferred spatial reasoning games (in case you haven't read all of my other posts, those are currently Yinsh and Dvonn). After a couple times through Stratum, I felt like I could safely move on from the game and not bother to play it again.

Overall, I give Stratum a 6.0/10. It is a respectable spatial reasoning game, and my opinion of you won't go down if you purchase it (because I'll never know - but go ahead and use my link to buy it if you're going to... pretty please.)  If I were to recommend a spatial reasoning game, though, this wouldn't be near the top of my list.

BattleCON Review

A sweet little game that I've been drooling over for a while is BattleCON.

BattleCON is a card game version of a 2D fighter (like the original Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, etc). Each player chooses one of the 12 fighters and also takes a set of "bases" (basic moves). Each turn, both players will choose a combination of a base (standard move) and a style (character specific modifier) to play. These two cards work together to determine the final move that each player is attempting to execute. Both players reveal their cards at the same time, and then they determine priority; whoever has the highest priority gets to attack first (but most likely has the weaker attack). If his opponent is in range, then the attack will hit and will do damage based on how powerful it was - and if it is powerful enough (and your opponent was arrogant enough to not prepare for it), you can stun him, thus preventing him from being able to attack back! The game continues like this until one player is dealt 20 damage, at which point the duel is complete. Then (like in all the other 2D fighters), you fight again. And again. And (if you're losing), you eventually walk away before wanting to actually punch your gloating opponent in the face. Or maybe you are nicer to your friends than I am.

The first thing that I like about BattleCON is the way the bases and styles fit together (yeah, this is the most obvious choice for a pro). Through this system, it both allows your characters to have personality (their character specific cards change how the basic cards will wind up executing), and also allows a large number of potential moves each turn. I don't remember the exact numbers, but there are about 6 bases and about 6 styles; since each style can be played with each base, this means that there are about 36 different moves that can be performed. Now, each player will have a couple bases and a couple styles in his "recycle" pile at any given time so it won't be quite 36 options each turn, but there are still enough options that there's a game of cat and mouse that goes on as you try to out-think your opponent.

The next thing that I liked about BattleCON (which I briefly mentioned before) is that each character is different. There are twelve different characters that each play differently. Keep in mind, by "different", I don't mean that each character will be a revolutionary experience - they each fight better either at range or in close combat. However, even within these confines, the characters still have different abilities that help them feel distinct. Some of the characters I can remember allow you to take on an Elemental Form, have an "iron body" that allows them to avoid being stunned, prevent opponents from getting bonuses, and set a "Gate Marker" (trap) on the board. I enjoyed playing with the different characters and figuring out how each one worked best.



The last thing that I will mention in the pro section for BattleCON is how "stun" worked. Being able to stun your opponent drastically changes the game (I know this because I didn't play it correctly for the first half of my first game). Since each turn you may be stunned (or able to stun your opponent), you are really forced to pay attention to both priority and your "Stun Guard." If you don't pay attention to both of these aspects of your cards, you can quickly find yourself losing because none of your attacks will actually occur. Therefore, the game isn't as simple as "play my biggest card each turn"; instead, it forces you to try to outwit your opponent to ensure that whatever you throw at him will actually get the opportunity to hit.

Now for the cons... do you remember when you got the latest new fighting game (like Killer Instinct), but none of your friends liked it because they still wanted to play Mortal Kombat? I had this problem a lot with BattleCON. I taught the game to a handful of people, and only one of them seemed to like the game anywhere near as much as I did. Because of this, though I do enjoy the game, they really prevented me from having a good experience with it. The greatest positive and negative about playing board games instead of video games is the social aspect of them. If the people you play with really make a game enjoyable, it can be immensely better than any video game ever made, but if they make the game miserable, they can make it worse than playing through a video game that's scratched so that you can only play the first 5 minutes over and over.

The next con that I will mention is actually related to gameplay. Whereas each character plays quite a bit differently, I often felt a bit too constrained in what I could do. I don't know how much of this is the game itself, and how much of it is how much I stunk at playing the game, but I was often in a situation in which I didn't really have very good moves that I could execute. The guys at close range didn't always seem to have enough cards to get them close enough to really start dealing the major damage; and with the ranged characters I couldn't get far enough away to capitalize on my range. For example, one of the ranged characters could wind up with a range of 4-10 on one of his attacks... but the game is only 7 spaces wide - which means this is a combo that will rarely, if ever, actually be useful.

The final thing that I will mention I will classify as a "point of note." Some of the characters are significantly easier to play with than others. Some players will love this, because it adds depth to the game - you feel like you've accomplished something if you master a difficult character. However, other players will get frustrated with this, especially if they randomly choose a character to play when they first try the game (like we did), and they get a hard to master character. I believe this is what skewed the opinions of several of my friends that I played the game with.

Overall, I give BattleCON a 7.5/10. I really enjoyed a lot about this game; unfortunately, I don't think that it's going to have very much long-term table time because of how it went over in my group.

Since this game is still in a preorder state, you currently cannot buy it at any of the sites I'm associated with (which I normally link to here).  If you are interested in getting a copy of BattleCON, check out their site here.

If you like fighting games, you might also check out Yomi.

I would like to thank Level 99 Games for providing me with a prototype copy of this game to demo.

Cityscape Review

 
Another spatial reasoning game that I've played recently has been Cityscape.

In Cityscape, each of the players chooses one side of the board to play, and then secretly decides what the skyline should look like (from their vantage point). However, since each of the players is using a different side of the board, the skyline that one player is attempting to build may directly contradict the skyline of a different player. Once each player has selected his skyline "goal", each of the players takes turns placing a building piece (there are several sizes of these) on one of the places on the board (thus adjusting the skyline). This continues until the entire city has been built (there are no more pieces remaining). At this point, each of the players reveals his goal and scores points based on which of the 4 aspects of his skyline were correct (if any).

There are two main things that I like about Cityscape - the planning and the execution. (Isn't it good in any game if you like these two things?) First for the planning. I like that there are several different options here. You can select for each row whether you think there will be 1, 2, 3, or 4 buildings visible, or you can select that you want two (or more) buildings to be the same height or, finally, you can select that row to have the tallest building. Each of these options is a different number of points - the harder the option, the more points it is worth. (After all, it's pretty easy to make sure that you can only see one building on that row; just make the one in front incredibly tall.)

Now for the execution. This is really where Cityscape shines the most. Since you have a different vantage point from all of the other players, what is in your best interest will normally range from "not helpful" to "outright contradictory" to your opponent. Consider the situation in which you and the person sitting across from you both have decided that you will have 4 buildings visible in the same row. You will probably both fail miserably at this and get frustrated at each other in the process (and, if you're lucky, annoy the other players, too). However, if you've decided that one row has the tallest building, and the person opposite you has decided that they want to see all four buildings in that row, they could be helpful to you... as long as you're gigantic skyscraper is the one in the back! I could go on and on, because I really like this aspect of the game.

The only real con to Cityscape is that, to me, it is a bit of a filler game. Since each round of the game is so short (around 5 minutes), I do not envision myself playing it for hours on end. I think it would get repetitive at that point. With that said, playing it for 30 minutes could be a fun endeavor.

Overall, I give Cityscape an 8.0/10. It is a fun spatial reasoning game that wound up exceeding my (very small) expectations for it. If you run into this game or if you're a fan of the spatial reasoning genre, you should try to check it out.

As a final note: the 6 options for each row are represented by 6-sided dice.  A rule variant that we have tried and enjoyed is to force the players to roll their dice to select what their skyline will look like instead of selecting what is on each die.  This will force experienced players to make the best of some potentially bad situations.

If Cityscape looks interesting, you might also check out Gipf, Pentago, and Punct.

Age of Empires III Review

One of the worker placement games that I have kept in my collection for a while now is Age of Empires III. (Just as a note, Age of Empires III has absolutely nothing in common with the computer game except for the picture on the front cover. I'm guessing that they branded it this way to try to pull in more players, but it actually made me avoid the game for quite some time.)

Age of Empires III is played in 3 different Ages. At the end of each Age, the players will score points based on how many colonists they have in the new world (and the available buildings will change and go up in price). On any given turn, the players will take turns placing colonists or specialists (if they have any) in order to gain the most victory points. They can use them to gather trade goods, improve their turn order, send them to the new world, discover new locations, and a few other things. The specialists can be placed just like colonists, but if utilized in certain places, they will give extra bonuses (for example, if a Merchant goes to the new world, the player who controls him will get $5). After all of the units have been placed, the board is resolved from top to bottom. Play continues like this for 8 turns (which is 3 Ages), and then the players add any bonus victory points they have from discoveries, buildings, etc, and the player with the most victory points is the winner.

Getting specialists for next turn.

The first thing that I really like about Age of Empires III is how the specialists work. First of all, there are two ways of getting specialists - you can either purchase a building that gives you specialists, or you can place a colonist on one of the spots on the board, which will give you a specialist for the next round. When I first read through the rules of this game, I didn't really think that specialists would be very important - but after playing, I have realized that careful placement of specialists may be the most important aspect of the game. Captains can help you discover or get a "merchant ship" (which helps you with income). Merchants can get money or help with the "merchant ship". Soldiers can shoot opponents in the new world, or (when discovering) can earn money. Missionaries bring extra people to the new world. Understanding when and how to use these (and how your opponent will use them) is critical to the game.

The next thing that I like about Age of Empires III is how the placement works. (This is related to the specialists.) In Age, players take turns placing units (colonists or specialists) until they run out. This allows a player with a large number of specialists to get several placements in a row after the other players have all run out of units; this can be a very powerful thing to do. Whereas some places on the board reward the first player to place there (such as trade goods and purchasing buildings, because the first person there gets to pick first), other places reward the person with the most units. If you are the only person placing units at the end of the turn, it allows you to easily take over all of these places.

Fighting for a merchant ship

The final pro that I will mention about Age of Empires is the different paths to victory. It is always nice in a game when you can try out completely different strategies and still have a chance at victory - and Age falls into this category. Players can really score a lot of points through the collection of trade goods. They can also score tons of points through settling the new world (and potentially shooting other players out of it). Finally, discoveries can also be worth a lot of victory points. I like that Age allows a player a chance to win by doing any of these strategies, or by balancing them through the course of the game.

My cons to Age of Empires are fairly minor. The first one that is almost too trivial to mention is that the box is too big. The board folds up quite nicely, and then fits in about 3/4 of the box. This is one of those things that you don't realize that you miss until it's gone; I really like my board fitting snugly inside the box.

The next con with Age of Empires is that the buildings aren't all balanced. Now, this may be on purpose to encourage players to want to be the first one in the building area (thus getting first pick), but it can really punish players for going last at the beginning of the game. And one specific building seems especially overpowered - it is an Age I building (thus costing $10, which is the amount you start with), and it gives you $20... so basically, it allows you to purchase 2 more buildings on the turn you buy it. None of these buildings are single-handedly so powerful that you cannot win without them, but they are powerful enough that you feel that you have a disadvantage by not purchasing them.

Overall, I give Age of Empires III a 9.0/10. As I said at the beginning, I was very reluctant about the game because board games based off of video games are often atrocious, but this game pleasantly surprised me - I plan to keep it in my collection for years to come.

Other worker placement games that you may be interested in include Caylus, Stone Age, and (not completely "worker placement", but still very good) Princes of Florence.