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viktor_haagThis weekend, at the Old Huron Redoubt, we managed to field a group of six (sic!); it's been months since we had so many, and so briefly suffered an embarrassment of riches (which game to play?). Consensus was to play two medium-length games, rather than one long one, so my beloved Civilization never made it off the shelf as an option: maybe next time.
Rather we played a relatively new game (Imperial) and an older one (Liberté), both at the top of their "players-allowed" range, to see how they would handle six players.
Imperial: So, instead, we first put Imperial on the table. This is an excellent, medium-length, stock market game akin to Indonesia or the 18xx series. The setting is late-nineteenth century Europe; players assume the roles of shadowy, filthy rich industrialists, lending money to nation states to fund the growth of their industrial power and military aggression. The winning player at the end of the game will have invested the most money into the most successful nations.
While this game uses the same action control mechanism as Eggert-Spiele's previous game (it shares the innovative "rondelle" found in Antike), the game is much more well developed I think. The tension throughout the game is more even, and while the end-game does rush up, it doesn't seem to rush in an unseemly fashion. Because all the nations in the game are always used, the game scales slightly better over the whole range of players.
One caveat: the set-up instructions in the rules don't imply that the standard method for handing out bonds should really only be used for your very first game. Frankly, if you have any experience playing board-games as complex as this one, I highly recommend you skip right to the "advanced set-up variant" where bonds are "bid on" during the start of the game, and not use the "standard" method of having them handed out in a set fashion. Secondly, there are two ways to control investment in the game: the standard method is with an "investor card" role that circulates around the table (whenever a nation's control marker passes the "investor" spot on the rondelle, the current investor card holder and anyone controlling no nation, may invest). I have played once with this method, and it's really not to my taste at all. The variant we use (described in the rules) is to allow investment in a nation whenever that nation takes its turn, starting with that nation's controller, and going around the table. You should probably try the game with each of these variants turned on and off to see which version you like: I'm not sure I'd ever want to play the game again with the standard set up or the investor card.
I wouldn't say this game is as fun or involved as Indonesia, but it's certainly cheaper and shorter. If you like games of investment and money management, then I would recommend you give Imperial a try: I've played with four, five, and now, six players and it's been fun and involving each time: you can play with two or three as well, but I haven't yet tried that.
Liberté: Martin Wallace's venerable game of French Revolution politics supports three to six players and those of us who had played it, had never played it with six, so we decided to use it as our second game. This game is an involving game of card management and region-majority that's obviously influenced by El Grande. What makes this game a rich and engaging experience is the well incorporated theme (the game has the abstractness typical of the euro-style board-game, but nevertheless, the theme integrates elegantly and subtly with the game: as the game goes along player resources and reach grow, but so does the chaos as more powerful and wide-reaching cards enter the game).
While the game has a random element inherent in the card draws, it helps balance this with mechanisms that force people to change their available cards (resolving ties by discarding cards, power-cards that can force others to discard cards, a discard-and-draw phase at the start of each turn). It also helps balance the randomness by giving cards multiple vectors of utility (cards that are really useful at placing blocks are balanced by cards that are useful at prosecuting "battles") and building multiple paths to victory into the game. There are not one, but two mechanisms of "instant victory" that have very little to do with accruing victory points: a careful player can seem to be lagging behind on the VP track, and be working the entire game towards an instant win, so the rest of the players at the table must be cognizant of this.
Like Imperial, the players assume the roles of shadowy figures of power who struggle for victory by controlling political forces: in Imperial, it was nation states and their industries; in Liberté, it's the political factions jockeying for position in revolutionary France. In Wallace's game, successful players will slowly accrue victory points by ensuring that the political factions they back win elections. You get points if your flunkies win more regional elections than other players, and end up running the government, or the opposition. Each region's election is worth a single "vote" in the government, except Paris, which is worth up to three votes. Thus, the fight for Paris is often tense and violent (this ties well into the theme, especially as the most notorious historical figures are the ones allowing you to put control markers into the area containing Paris). But you can also win instantly if a Radical landslide election occurs and you have more Radical support (cards plus elected members) than any other player. Or if Royalists manage to control a minimum number of key regions on the board and you have more Royalist support (cards and would-be-elected members) than any other player -- the Royalist instant-win is especially sneaky since it can occur at any time, while the Radical instant win can only occur immediately after an election.
There have historically been two big knocks against this game: first, Warfrog's print-runs have traditionally been small and one-time (so if you don't own the game, you're unlikely to, unless you can find it used or trade for it); secondly, as with most Warfrog games there was a printing error, and a particularly bad one in this game (there was a colour matching problem between the game board and some of the cards). However, recent news has Valley Games (the reprinter of Die Macher) reprinting Liberté, so no doubt fixing the colour matching problem is high on their priority list. The pre-order price is almost 20 dollars off the final retail price, so that represents a bargain.
If you like area majority games, and you like games with an excellently incorporated theme, and you have a fondness for games that have some player action ("auugh! you just killed my most important card!"), then I would highly recommend picking up this game when it's reprinted or taking it off your shelf to play again.
It played very well with six players.
Rather we played a relatively new game (Imperial) and an older one (Liberté), both at the top of their "players-allowed" range, to see how they would handle six players.
Imperial: So, instead, we first put Imperial on the table. This is an excellent, medium-length, stock market game akin to Indonesia or the 18xx series. The setting is late-nineteenth century Europe; players assume the roles of shadowy, filthy rich industrialists, lending money to nation states to fund the growth of their industrial power and military aggression. The winning player at the end of the game will have invested the most money into the most successful nations.
While this game uses the same action control mechanism as Eggert-Spiele's previous game (it shares the innovative "rondelle" found in Antike), the game is much more well developed I think. The tension throughout the game is more even, and while the end-game does rush up, it doesn't seem to rush in an unseemly fashion. Because all the nations in the game are always used, the game scales slightly better over the whole range of players.
One caveat: the set-up instructions in the rules don't imply that the standard method for handing out bonds should really only be used for your very first game. Frankly, if you have any experience playing board-games as complex as this one, I highly recommend you skip right to the "advanced set-up variant" where bonds are "bid on" during the start of the game, and not use the "standard" method of having them handed out in a set fashion. Secondly, there are two ways to control investment in the game: the standard method is with an "investor card" role that circulates around the table (whenever a nation's control marker passes the "investor" spot on the rondelle, the current investor card holder and anyone controlling no nation, may invest). I have played once with this method, and it's really not to my taste at all. The variant we use (described in the rules) is to allow investment in a nation whenever that nation takes its turn, starting with that nation's controller, and going around the table. You should probably try the game with each of these variants turned on and off to see which version you like: I'm not sure I'd ever want to play the game again with the standard set up or the investor card.
I wouldn't say this game is as fun or involved as Indonesia, but it's certainly cheaper and shorter. If you like games of investment and money management, then I would recommend you give Imperial a try: I've played with four, five, and now, six players and it's been fun and involving each time: you can play with two or three as well, but I haven't yet tried that.
Liberté: Martin Wallace's venerable game of French Revolution politics supports three to six players and those of us who had played it, had never played it with six, so we decided to use it as our second game. This game is an involving game of card management and region-majority that's obviously influenced by El Grande. What makes this game a rich and engaging experience is the well incorporated theme (the game has the abstractness typical of the euro-style board-game, but nevertheless, the theme integrates elegantly and subtly with the game: as the game goes along player resources and reach grow, but so does the chaos as more powerful and wide-reaching cards enter the game).
While the game has a random element inherent in the card draws, it helps balance this with mechanisms that force people to change their available cards (resolving ties by discarding cards, power-cards that can force others to discard cards, a discard-and-draw phase at the start of each turn). It also helps balance the randomness by giving cards multiple vectors of utility (cards that are really useful at placing blocks are balanced by cards that are useful at prosecuting "battles") and building multiple paths to victory into the game. There are not one, but two mechanisms of "instant victory" that have very little to do with accruing victory points: a careful player can seem to be lagging behind on the VP track, and be working the entire game towards an instant win, so the rest of the players at the table must be cognizant of this.
Like Imperial, the players assume the roles of shadowy figures of power who struggle for victory by controlling political forces: in Imperial, it was nation states and their industries; in Liberté, it's the political factions jockeying for position in revolutionary France. In Wallace's game, successful players will slowly accrue victory points by ensuring that the political factions they back win elections. You get points if your flunkies win more regional elections than other players, and end up running the government, or the opposition. Each region's election is worth a single "vote" in the government, except Paris, which is worth up to three votes. Thus, the fight for Paris is often tense and violent (this ties well into the theme, especially as the most notorious historical figures are the ones allowing you to put control markers into the area containing Paris). But you can also win instantly if a Radical landslide election occurs and you have more Radical support (cards plus elected members) than any other player. Or if Royalists manage to control a minimum number of key regions on the board and you have more Royalist support (cards and would-be-elected members) than any other player -- the Royalist instant-win is especially sneaky since it can occur at any time, while the Radical instant win can only occur immediately after an election.
There have historically been two big knocks against this game: first, Warfrog's print-runs have traditionally been small and one-time (so if you don't own the game, you're unlikely to, unless you can find it used or trade for it); secondly, as with most Warfrog games there was a printing error, and a particularly bad one in this game (there was a colour matching problem between the game board and some of the cards). However, recent news has Valley Games (the reprinter of Die Macher) reprinting Liberté, so no doubt fixing the colour matching problem is high on their priority list. The pre-order price is almost 20 dollars off the final retail price, so that represents a bargain.
If you like area majority games, and you like games with an excellently incorporated theme, and you have a fondness for games that have some player action ("auugh! you just killed my most important card!"), then I would highly recommend picking up this game when it's reprinted or taking it off your shelf to play again.
It played very well with six players.
