Spotlight on Games
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1001 Nights of Military Gaming
- P -
- Panzer Armee Afrika
War game about World War II tank battles in Africa lacks flavor as
counters represent units which neither look nor seem to behave
like tanks. Plays more like one of the very earliest generic
war games after having been grafted onto this theme.
- Parts Unknown
Longish economic game in a horror setting. In a scene out of
Frankenstein, a doctor is wandering about a village
ghoulishly collecting body parts. Players take the role of
middlemen, trying to make as much money as they can by buying
and selling as supply and demand go up and down. The price
changes tread quite nicely the tightrope between predictability
and chaos. Winning is an interesting challenge. Buyers may
be surprised that a game in such packaging can actually last
four hours.
- Pass the Gas
Multi-player gas balloon racing game for up to six in which the
goal is to be the first to ascend above 5,000 feet. Play is
somewhat reminiscent of the Cheapass Devil Bunny Needs
a Ham (not described here), as is the component quality.
Players take turns tossing out ballast cards of varying weights
and rise by corresponding amounts. But a throw is also aimed at
another's balloon via a "to-hit" roll which if successful gives
the ballast card to that player and forces his balloon downwards.
In addition, it may hit a crew member, knocking him out and
forcing out a piece of ballast, causing the balloon to rise
again. Each player also has one dart and one dynamite which
may be launched at an opponent instead. With the latter, unless
the player happens to have nonflammable gas (the gas cards are
passed each turn), the balloon bursts and the team is forced to
re-start from the ground. May go on longer than expected since it
is relatively easy to knock down others' balloons. Rumors that
this was published by Pull My Finger Games are simply untrue.
[Balloon Aviation Games]
[Fun City
Games]
- Patton's Third Army
Two-player war game part of the Victory in the West series
depicting battles of the west at the end of World War II. This
particular battle depicts General Patton's advance into Lorraine
in November of 1944. The Axis are mostly on the defensive,
in many places behind impressive terrain. Allied forces most
focus on corps cohesiveness. Despite this, fairly balanced with
rules more straightforward than usual for games of this type,
without being "introductory". Other games in the series are
Operation Grenade and Sicily.
- Perikles
Multi-player Martin Wallace game on the conflicts of the
ancient Greeks before Alexander. Of course the main actors are
Athens, Sparta and Persia, but smaller states such as Corinth
and Megara also play a role. What's strange are what the
players represent, the answer being that even having played I'm
stlil not sure. See if you can figure it out. What happens is
that via a drafting session players acquire cards for various
city-states – no two cards can be the same, but there are
wild cards – which confer control tokens in the state.
At the end of all drafting the player having the most tokens
in each state likely takes control of thst state, but losing
influence for the next round in the process. A player who
controls nothing gets temporary control of Persia, one of the
three best military forces in the game. Controlling a state
gives points in two ways. The easier method is the "fame
award" which is automatically granted for simply controlling a
state for a turn. The downside is that these points are not
awarded until the end of the game, but every time the state
loses a battle, the award's value decreases. This brings up
the second method of scoring – winning battles. These
arise not player choice, but as a result of several tiles
which are turned up each turn. These battles have historical
names and specify and attacker and defender. (Some are a bit
ahistorical as not all the historical participants are
included or a main antagonist – Syracuse – is
not actually in the game.) There is no guarantee that a battle
will be fought – it all depends on where a state's
controller places the forces. If many of its battles come up
in tehs ame round several may end up being ignored, which will
be okay if the opposition ignores them as well. It's quite
usual for a few battles to be ignored in any case. Controlling
players receive all the armies and fleets for their nations
and allocate them face down, two at a time, to battles. Timing
and being able to place last can be very useful. Non-involved
states are permitted to join battles as well. Some battles are
land-only meaning that only armies are useful while others
first have a naval conflict, the winning of which gives a
significant advantage to the land portion. Combat is resolved
via "to-hit" die roll for both sides, based on one of the
strangest odds calculation tables ever seen. Those who prefer
their games more abstract and fair will find some annoyance
with this one. Why, they'll want to know is the draft pool so
small? Why isn't it just that all states are available? They
will probably also be annoyed with the random draw of battles,
which can have quite a large effect. By the way, the game
doesn't give this advice, but I will: lay out the battles yet
to come in plain view so that players have a good idea what
may be next. Another valid complaint is that by starting a
bunch of battles which he has no chance to win, a player can
become a kingmaker. So the system is a bit fragile and won't
be to everyone's taste. On the other hand, there are strategic
choices such as battles vs. fame, large countries vs. small
and many paths in between. This is one of Warfrog's better
offerings since
Empires of the Ancient World,
and
Liberte,
even if not quite eclipsing either.
Strategy: High; Theme: High; Tactics: High; Evaluation: Low; Personal Rating: 6
Martin Wallace;
Warfrog; 2006; 3-5
- Pax Britannica
War game about late nineteenth century imperialism for up to eight
players. Players expand into the less-industrialized areas of the
world seeking to enhance their status and profitability, meanwhile
attempting to avoid starting World War I. This very different
simulation includes hefty samplings of diplomacy and negotiation.
It is difficult to get this many players together for such a
long period, but if managed, the experience is quite satisfying.
Despite this, there are a few quibbles. The original rules need
a lot of help and the rewritten rules that are out on the web
are indispensable. Also, the simultaneous placement phase with
players racing in real time to accomplish things is really a
bad idea in retrospect. It would be much better to have players
go around the table placing markers one a time with each player
able to see what the others have done. Not to redesign the game,
but modern studies have found that in most cases colonies cost
their owners more than they earned. While this is sometimes true
in the game as well, colonial expansion remains the sine qua
non. But wise old heads like Bismarck realized it even then.
As he said, "My map of Africa lies in Europe." It's just too bad
that the game doesn't permit nations the alternative of investing
in economic development at home as was the case historically.
In a website, the author admits that he got the plural of the
Latin term casus belli wrong; he apparently has not
yet noticed that he also go the word "codominion" wrong – it
should be "condominium". On the other hand, not many rule sets
try to do anything interesting with language in the first place.
[more]
[notes]
- Pirat (Korsar)
Early Reiner Knizia card game about piracy on the high seas
offers the promise of an exciting topic, but turns out to
be one of the designer's few fairly weak productions. With
mechanisms obviously sharing lineage with Digging and Goldrausch, the luck of
the draw is too dramatic to provide much fairness. Additionally,
it is far too easy for a player to put on not the pirate,
but the kingmaker hat as well. 2002 re-release Korsar
features much nicer packaging and Franz Vohwinkel card artwork.
Other changes include addition of two 7-point and one 8-point
treasure ships whereas previously the high value was 6. The pirate
ship mix has been changed as well. Formerly: 1x1,3x2,3x3,2x4;
now: 2x1,4x2,4x3,2x4. New partnership rules don't work very
well because the ability to examine the player's hand takes out
all the challenge. But disallowing this would swing things too
far the other direction. Untried would be a solution involving
not looking, but allowing each player one card trade per turn.
Overall result of the new edition is very minor leavening.
By the way, one can now see in this the then future Taj Mahal.
The earlier Kanzler
is also a relative. [Pirate Games]
- Piratenbucht
Another entry in one of the most popular game themes – will the
market ever tire of one-eyed, one-legged men with smelly beards
and pet parrots? "Pirates Bay" uses the tried-and-true "select
a location" mechanism à la Adel
Verpflichtet, here via a dial rather than cards. The six
island locations include one for each of the four different ship
attributes (hull, crew, cannon, sails) one wishes to enhance,
one for drawing special cards and one for burying treasure,
i.e. scoring points. In addition, each island provides
randomly-determined free goodies such as gold, treasure and
cards. But peril rears its head when players run into one
another and either shoot it out by playing cards and rolling
plenty of dice or flee – fortunately, flight or defeat still
provides a nice consolation prize. On the positive side, all
the dice, battle, booty and randomness do feel appropriate for
a buccaneering outing. The wooden sloops and very attractive
artwork (by Markus Wagner & Swen Papenbrock) add quite a lot
to this feeling. Everyone will want to try this one for the
first time. But will it be worth repeated plays? Now we sail
into more troubled waters. Ignoring the wise precedent of The Settlers of Catan,
which featured only five types of special cards, here there is a
wide variety, making matters rather unfair for first time players,
also for those who tend to go a while between playings. So this
is targeted to the wizened gamer. But is this group really going
to keep playing when there is so much chaos? This is apparent not
only in the dice, but also in special cards which are not very
well balanced, some being extremely powerful, e.g. six cannons,
but others, e.g. one victory point, being rather useless. The
result is a mixed message and at the end of the day, the colorful
theme will be the only shoulders on which a sustained audience
can be built. The wide variety of card texts presents something
of a problem to players not having German. There are some rules
ambiguities to work out as well. But the most annoying factor of
all may be the boredom induced while waiting for other players
to complete their battles. [Pirate Games]
- Pirate's Plunder
Card game about piracy on the high seas has players competing to
be the first to collect three thousand pieces of eight.
First they
must steal a ship by rolling six pips or more on two dice. Once
they have a ship they are allowed regular turns, otherwise
the turn is at an end. During a turn, play exactly one card
– save for the "play any time cards" which can be problematic
to resolve when races are involved. Then if the player survives
another roll, either draw from the treasure (which also contains
enemy ships) or combat an opponent by rolling against them. This
is pretty much all there is apart from a wide variety of cards
designed to hobble one's opponents.
Seems to go on much too long
considering the small amount of decisionmaking, particularly
with more than four players. System has been seen many times
before in games such as Nuclear
War, Naval War, Enemy in Sight, the publisher's
own Plague & Pestilence,
and several others. Card artwork is passable, occasionally
even eye-opening, but in no way as professional as that
produced by the collectible card game industry. If the idea of
a pirate card game is still too irresistible, suggest at least
moving the draw cards phase to the end of the turn to speed
up matters. [summary] [Pirate Games]
[Take That! Card Games]
- Plague & Pestilence
Essentially a watered-down version of Nuclear War,
transported to a medieval setting. The interesting
tactic of the anti-missile which changes the turn order
as in Mah Jongg is absent here. Monochrome line
drawings made to somewhat resemble period woodcuts look nice.
[Take That! Card Games]
Hillary's Toy Box
- Planet Busters
Science fiction vehicle, essentially a card game,
originally seen in a 1982 issue of The Dragon magazine,
this was re-published in 2004 without any apparent cognizance
of 22 years of advances in game technology. Cards are drawn at
the start of a turn rather than the end. Resources, which
depend on luck of the draw from the deck, come in three
varieties: ships, fuel to power them and planets (i.e. victory
points). A player's only real decision is which opponent to
attack. But if the draw inclined too much toward fuel there
will be no point in attacking with such a puny fleet. On the
other hand, be there too many ships and there's not enough
fuel, one unit of which is needed to move and another to
attack. An attack itself is a rather chancy affair. The
defender lays out his cards face down so that the attacker may
assign ships to them without much rhyme or reason. Resolution
is via dice as modified by comparing ship strengths. Torpedoes
are resolved by a "what number am I thinking of?" mechanism. A
successful invader grabs planets which grant more card draws,
probably leading to the rich get richer syndrome. Of course
the potential for kingmaking is present as well. A unique
feature is the cardboard player stand which is meant to hold
cards in an upright position. They word so long as nobody
breathes. There are a fair number of special cards and
everyone knows when someone has got one as a rules lookup is
necessary. The Tom Wham artwork, colorful and cartoonish, is a
joy to behold, but what's the point in such game? Avoid.
James Ward &
Tom Wham;
Troll Lord Games; 2004; 2-4
Strategy: Low; Theme: High; Tactics: Medium; Evaluation: Medium; Personal Rating: 4
[Buy it at Amazon]
- Plunder [Laughing Pan]
Multi-player card game of the classic Caribbean pirate
era is a maddening combination of brilliant and disastrous
mechanisms. Starting in Tortuga, players create the map as they
go with a very good repeating move - draw - play mechanism. There
are rules for buying and selling at ports, discovering treasure,
taking merchants, ship upgrades, wars, letters of marque and
inter-player combat. This is all quite generous for a card game
– in fact it feels like the original idea was to reproduce
Blackbeard in card
format. There's also a wise rule that a ship can sail as far as
it likes, but turn only once, which is exactly the right level of
limit. Another probably good one is that a player's last turn
act is to send an encounter card to the next player – at least
this is much better than the kind of kingmaking that goes on in
completely unfettered "take
that!" card games. Rounding out the highlights are a great
presentation that starts with treasure box packaging and include
lots o' cards, attractive artwork and a feel for language and
layout that is deceptively hard to achieve. All of these things
make one feel great about the game, for the first hour. It's only
after that that that old sinking feeling comes on. For one thing,
there's the downtime issue. That same good feature of drawing more
cards during the turn should have put the cards aside until the
turn is over so that the player isn't reading while others are
waiting. It's even worse when a player is sunk and must draw a
whole new hand and play one. That most of these cards are unique
and chock full of text doesn't help. There's also an issue of
card balance and power. A lot of cards are rather devastating
to others, but at least allow a card play in defense. This is
bad enough since playing a game lasting more than an hour implies
one is planning and building up to something and having to use a
carefully saved card works rather against that. But even worse,
some very devastating cards don't even permit a defense and
the victim loses just about everything. At that point it's
a fair question whether it's the game or the player who is
being played. When the maximum four players are trying to wreak
as much havoc as they can, this could go on for three or four
hours, i.e. much too long for this level of randomness. So it's
with a certain wistfulness that I must warn you away from these
waters. Alas, it is not even easily fixable as many card texts
would need changing. But it sure would have been nice to borrow
some Pirates of the Spanish Main minis and have at. One
final issue: why is it that Germans can produce such nice,
easy to shuffle linen-finish cards and Americans can't? [Laughing Pan Productions]
[Pirate Games]
Strategy: Medium; Theme: High; Tactics: High; Evaluation: Low
- Polis: Fight for the Hegemony
Too long for the amount of randomness of just a few rolls –
don't believe the quoted 90 minutes (card combat is also quite
random). More like double that. A lot of running around to levy
taxes is probably just wasted motion – could have saved time
by just instituting a single income phase. Ironic that while you
have to run your troops around to collect taxes, once they are
levied they just show up exactly where you need them as if by
magic. Athens appears to have the advantage with its Anaconda
strategy (American Civil War reference).
- Power Play [Task Force]
Card game about trying to take power in a government via coup.
Based on luck of the draw and worse, a player who fails the power
play is out and must wait for others to finish, which may take
quite some time. Very disappointing.
- Proroctví (Prophecy)
Fantasy adventure game very much in the mode of
Talisman.
A reasonable encapsulation of the difference would be while the earlier
game used dice to determine both movement and combat, the present one
uses it only for the latter. Each player runs a titled character, e.g.
Druid, Paladin, Ranger, etc. who does not have any special powers, but
is differentiated only by strength, willpower, gender, free guild
memberships and starting location. These stand-up cardboard characters
in plastic stands traverse a star-shaped board, being able to move one
space free, two spaces by paying a gold or teleporting if in the right
location to do so. At the start of each player turn a card is drawn to
place monsters and artifacts on a type of board space or otherwise
change the board state. Defeating a monster gives experience which is
exchanged at the five inner points of the star in exchange for a
special ability from one of the guilds, which are fighting, monastery,
forest, magic and thieves. Collecting one from each gives the basic
game victory while the longer game involves defeating demons hanging
about the outside. Interaction isn't high as most inter-character
combat is probably useless, but there is some in that players may try
to defeat a monster or pick up a skill or item before another can do so.
The thieves guild also offers an ability permitting stealing from
characters. Somewhat unrealistically, but usefully, there are rules
limiting the total amounts of gold and abilities a player can amass as
well as an annoying card which halves a player's gold. Players quickly
learn to spend as soon as possible, especially as other cards reward
those having the least gold and health. (Well, being Czech, this game
does come from a former communist country.) All of this finishes in a
couple hours for the basic game, the longer version probably being
closer to three. Downtime is probably too much if the number of
players exceeds four. Production and communication design are
reasonable if a bit bland (cartoonish in places) and include
candy-like gems in several colors. This is not a bad entry
for this style of game, especially as it tries to limit length
and preserve fairness, but what's lost are the many individual
touches which
Talisman
players have come to love so well. Though it does far better than
Runebound,
it does not match the grand sweep of
Return of the Heroes.
But this must be seen as a welcome alternative for those with different
priorities. Two expansions are already available at the time of
this writing:
Prophecy: Water Realm
and
Prophecy: Dragon Realm.
Strategy: Low; Theme: High; Tactics: Medium; Evaluation: Medium;
Personal Rating: 5
- Prussia's Glory
Traditional tactical war game for two depicting four battles
of Frederick the Great (Zorndorf, Torgau, Rossbach, Leuthen).
Treatment is fairly standard going back to the old SPI/AH
conventions with rigid and active Zones of Control. Some
additional wrinkles include: (1) Stacking is in steps, but only
the top four participate in battle; (2) Activation rolls; (3)
Command radius; (4) Rout movement; (5) Morale rating and checks.
Spillover effects from a serious defeat appear overly strong.
Say two or three equally good units are stacked up in a hex. The
top unit has an unlucky die roll and gets decimated. Its flipside
numbers being quite weak, on the opponent's counterattack this
unit gets hurt to an extent far beyond that of its ability
to take damage. Under the rules, all of the extra damage is
automatically applied to the still quite robust unit stacked under
it. Sure, it's as if the line ahead of the second line troops
just melted away, but shouldn't the second line get a chance to
prove itself? It doesn't even get so much as a morale check.
Another rules issue is a failure to fully address complications
around multi-hex combat. Then there are the typically wargamish
arithmetic gymnastics as every combat involves all kinds of
modifiers which must be toted up before the die is rolled.
It needs to be asked whether the many conventions of this form
are still worthwhile and meaningful. In all of these odds and
movement point calculations, are players truly experiencing
the decisions Frederick did or are they simply trying to
optimize a mathematical situation? The Combat Results Table
is forty years old too – isn't it time to come up with
something better? Are sheer numerical odds really the most
important factor in determining combat results, especially if
the difference is slight, as in this game where one is often
looking at the difference between a 6 to 6 attack (treated as
1-1) versus a 5 to 6 attack (treated as a much more dire 1-2)?
The counters are nice artistically, but it would have been
better had the numbers been more clearly defined. While the
strength number is nice and large, making its identity clear,
it is ambiguous which is movement and which morale. Overall,
this will mostly be of interest to fans of Freddy the Great and
his somewhat obscure era, of which this is a fine representative,
although some of these battles have been done before, (by Clash
of Arms, Vae Victis and GDW) of the tactical war game tradition
going back now four decades.
- Punic Wars, The
Military game on the Second Punic War has too great a balancing
mechanism as it it is possible to play for nine hours and still
wind up with a tie. I have always thought it amusing that leaders
could walk (alone) across any body of water.
- Q -
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