A
GAME OF THRONES (Fantasy Flight Games,
3-5 players, 2-3 hours; $49.95)
There
are two basic approaches to game design. The
American school emphasizes theme and believes in tying the mechanics tightly to
that theme, even if the gameplay suffers. The German school, on the other hand, centers around
mechanics and gameplay and will often paste the theme on at the last minute.
(Obviously, these are the extremes—most games fall somewhere in
between.) For some time now, the
Holy Grail of gaming has been to wed
these two models together, to produce games
with a strong theme that have clean, straightforward mechanics that nonetheless
stem directly from that theme. Many
have tried to reach this goal, with limited success.
However, with the release of FFG’s A Game of
Thrones, I’d say that designer Christian Peterson comes as close to
sipping from that Blessed Chalice as anybody has.
It’s an American themed game that looks, feels, and plays like a German
game.
AGoT is based on the world described in George
Martin’s “A Song of Fire and Ice” series of novels.
It’s a medieval world, with a few elements of magic and fantasy thrown
in. It’s also a very nasty place,
where warfare, scheming, and betrayal are commonplace—in short, the perfect
setting for a game. AGoT
is basically a multi-player war game, but it’s the sort that should appeal to
many who don’t like standard war games.
The gameboard shows the land of Westeros, which resembles a somewhat elongated
Great Britain. The map is divided
into a bunch of land and sea areas. Scattered
amongst the land spaces are cities and strongholds (large cities), supply
symbols (barrels), and power symbols (crowns).
The object of the game is to control seven spaces containing cities or
strongholds, or to control the most of these spaces at the end of the tenth
turn. Each player 
represents one of
the major Houses of the land. There
are three types of units in the game (knights, footmen, and ships) and each
House begins with a small pre-determined number of these in play.
On each turn, every player secretly and simultaneously assigns orders to their
units. This is similar to Diplomacy,
but there are some crucial differences. For
one thing, you assign orders by placing a counter face down onto every space in
which you have units—this is considerably quicker than writing them down.
The counters have different orders on them and their distribution limits
how often you can do the same thing. (For
example, you can't order units on more than three spaces to move, because you
only have three "Move" counters.)
Having to work within this restriction adds considerably to the challenge
of the game. Finally, you don't
have to declare exactly what each unit is doing during the planning phase, only
what its order is. So you might
place a "Move" counter on a knight, but you don't have to say where
it's moving to until the move actually takes place.
There are five kinds of order counters: Move,
Defend, Support, Consolidate Power, and Raid.
Many of these have values on them, which modify the strength of the
action. The counter with the
largest value in each category is marked with a star (more about this later).
The effect of the Move order is obvious.
The only way to attack is to Move into a space occupied by an opponent.
Units that Defend get to add the value on the counter to their strength
if attacked. Supporting units can
add their strength to other combats in adjacent spaces. Consolidate Power adds Power tokens to the player's supply
(one for each crown in the space, modified by the value on the Order counter).
Power tokens have a variety of uses, including maintaining control in an
area when vacated (players who don't expend a Power token lose control when they
leave an area vacant). Finally,
Raids allow the player to remove an opponent's Support, Consolidate Power, or
Raid token in an adjacent space. Raids
are resolved before any other actions and can significantly affect play if the
player guesses an opponent's actions correctly.
Ships can automatically convoy land units across sea spaces as part of the land
unit's Move. In effect, the ship
acts like a bridge, regardless of what order the ship is carrying out.
This makes ships very powerful and maintaining an active navy is a big
key to winning the game.
After everyone has placed their orders, they are all revealed.
Raids are resolved first, then Moves, then Consolidate Power orders.
During each phase, the first player resolves one order, followed by the
second player, and so on, until all the orders have been resolved. When units move into an opponent's space, a combat occurs.
Combat is resolved as follows. The
strength of the attacking units is compared to that of the defenders.
(Knights have a strength of two; footmen and ships each have a strength
of one.) The value on the Move
order is added to the attack strength; if the attacked units chose the Defend
order, they add the value on that counter to their strength.
Any units in adjacent areas with a Support order (regardless of who owns
them) can choose to add their strength to whichever side they wish.
(Incidentally, units with a Support order can influence multiple attacks
on the same turn, another significant departure from Diplomacy.)
Each player then secretly and simultaneously plays one of their House
Cards. The players begin the game
with seven House Cards. Each shows
a character and has a strength from 0 to 3.
Some cards also have special abilities.
Each player adds the strength on their House Card to their combat total
and the larger total wins. Some House Cards kill an opposing unit (some also block these
kills), so the loser may suffer some casualties. But the usual result is that the loser simply retreats his
units (the rules for retreat are straightforward and logical) and the winner now
controls the space.
Played House Cards are discarded and can't be reused until they've all been
played, so players need to be careful not to use their best ones up too quickly.
Because the range of values on the House Cards is so narrow, combats
rarely come down to a guessing game (although a player with a guaranteed win can
gamble that a lesser card will do the trick).
Rather, they interject a little variety into what would otherwise be a
deterministic combat system.
At the beginning of each turn, some Event cards are revealed.
Some of these limit the player options that turn (for example, one of
them says that Defend orders may not be played).
But many of them are tied to some of the game's most fundamental
mechanics.
When a Supply event card is revealed, each player checks to see how many Supply
symbols are on the spaces they control. This
Supply level will remain in effect until the next Supply card shows up.
Supply levels determine the types of groups of units each player can
have. For example, a player might
be allowed to have one group of three units in a space and two other groups of
two units on the board; all her other units must exist singly in their spaces.
A low Supply level can make it extremely difficult to enlarge or maintain
a kingdom. I'm not what you would
call a seasoned wargamer, but in my limited experience, this is probably the
best supply system I've seen: it's
clean and easy to implement, but it has a significant effect on gameplay and
really gives the feel of the importance of supply in battle.
Another event card is Mustering. Players
can only build reinforcements after a Mustering card is revealed.
Each player can build two strength points worth of units in each
stronghold they control and one point in each city they control. However,
they still must obey their supply requirements, which can often limit the number
of units they can build. In
addition, they are limited by the number and types of units of their color
provided in the game.
The Game of Thrones event card lets each player add
a Power token to their supply for every crown they control.
And those Power tokens will come in handy for the Clash of Kings event
card. There are three Influence
tracks on the board and the players are rated from first to last in each one.
Each player’s initial ratings are based upon the identity of their
House, but whenever a Clash of Kings comes out, the game is interrupted while
they bid for their positions on the three tracks.
Bidding is done with Power tokens (this is their principle purpose) and
takes place via three “in the fist” auctions.
The first track determines the turn order; in addition, the player ranked
first gets to resolve all non-combat ties (even if he isn’t one of the tied
parties). The second track is used
to break ties in combat and the top spot lets the player add one to their combat
strength once a turn. The third
track determines how many of the starred order counters the player can place a
turn (and since these are the most powerful orders, this is quite significant).
The player ranked first in this track gets to swap one of their counters
on the board with one they hadn’t placed after
they get to see what orders everyone has placed. Each of these rankings is important and becomes particularly
crucial during the endgame.
The game ends immediately if a player gains his seventh city/stronghold.
Otherwise, whoever has the most cities and strongholds at the end of the
tenth turn wins the game.
I know it's reverse chauvinism, but as I was playing my first game of A
Game of Thrones, all I could think was, "I can't believe this is an
American design!" The game is
full of clever touches and the design feels meshed, streamlined, and fully
complete. The supply rules are a
stand-out for me, but they're just one of the game's many admirable mechanics.
For example, the event cards don't overwhelm things, but they do do a
very effective job of ensuring that the game doesn't fall victim to standard
openings, a common malady for such strategy designs.
They also mean that virtually no two games of AGoT are ever the same.
The order selection is the heart of the game and it works very well.
One of the principal lessons of German design is that reducing choices
can increase the skill level and Peterson definitely takes this to heart.
With only three of each kind of order (and a limit on how many starred
orders can be played), there's an interesting tactical problem facing you every
turn. Limiting the advance
programming only to the order type not only speeds the game, but introduces some
very nice maneuvering. Finally, the
choice of orders gives the players some deliciously tense choices.
Do you order a space facing a certain attack to defend or do you support
it from elsewhere? What if your
opponent tries to break that support with a raid?
And how can you find the time to Consolidate Power to pick up some badly
needed power tokens? Very good stuff indeed.
The board play is equally inspired. The
different land features (cities, supply, power) are well balanced and give the
players different temporary objectives. Each
House has different strengths and weaknesses imposed by the geography of their
starting position. Navies can be
incredibly powerful and make lightning attacks a real possibility.
Despite the reasonably simple rules, surprise moves are not uncommon,
giving the game a very welcome dynamic feel.
And the House Card combat system works very well, with the cards' special
abilities adding just the right amount of spice.
Before you run out to nearest game store and grab a copy, I should note a few
things. This is quite an intense
game. You're liable to play most of
your first game in a fog, as the positions rapidly get complex and the number of
choices can seem bewildering. The
light bulbs should go off after a while, but it may take a couple of games
before you become comfortable with the strategy. In addition, this is a fairly long game.
Count on at least three hours for your first game and even those familiar
with the system will probably take that long for games that go the full ten
turns. I've played with both four
and five players and the game works fine with both numbers, but I'm not sure how
well the three-player game would play. On
the positive side, it is by no means necessary to have read Martin’s books in
order to enjoy the game. Those
familiar with the novels will no doubt appreciate the familiar names they
encounter, but the game is certainly good enough to exist outside of this layer
of chrome.
Another thing A Game of Thrones has in common with
most German fare: it looks great. The board in particular is a treat—a beautiful oversized
affair that shows all the many features of the map (as well as the Influence and
Supply tracks) clearly and stylishly. The
combat pieces are stylized wooden figurines and look quite nice.
The only problem with them is that when the board starts to fill up,
it’s hard to see the different symbols in the spaces (particularly when the
order counters are in place). Until
the players become familiar with the board, the only real option is to pick
things up and check. The rest of
the components are all top notch as well. Best
of all, the rules are clearly written, with numerous examples and
illustrations—another lesson learned from Germany.
I have but one complaint. In
order to keep your orders secret, it’s necessary to keep them hidden (either
face down on the table or in your hand) while you assign them to your spaces. Searching through fifteen different counters is time
consuming and frustrating and can make the Order phase drag unnecessarily.
FFG really should have included some racks or cardboard shields so that
the players could keep all their counters in view while they assign them.
I highly recommend that anyone playing AGoT
steal racks or shields from another game and give one to each player.
You’ll find it really helps the game to move along.
If you do pick up the game, there are a couple of variants you may want to
consider. The first is actually now
the official way to play the five-player game and has been blessed by FFG:
switch the starting positions of Tyrell and Greyjoy on the last influence
track (King's Court, which dictates the number of starred orders you can play),
leaving Tyrell in fourth position and Greyjoy in fifth.
Without this change, it's possible for Greyjoy (Black) to make a
devastating attack against Lannister (Red) on the first turn, effectively
putting Lannister out of the game. The
simple switch on the King's Court track seems to take care of this possibility.
The other thing is that if the Event cards come out in a crazy order at
the start of the game, it can skew the gameplay (since this might mean the game
goes several turns without new supply levels, reinforcements, or different
influence track placements). Probability
being the unintuitive science that it is, these crazy orderings occur more often
than you'd think. Not everyone
agrees this is a problem, but there have been several suggestions for dealing
with this. If you're interested,
here's a link to one that I think should work pretty well: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/20759.
One of the most encouraging aspects of the game industry today is how many new
American publishers are releasing quality games. Most of these are reprints from Germany, and having English
language versions of these fine games is certainly a good thing.
But even better is the fact that the U.S. is creating completely original
games like A Game of Thrones.
If events continue at this rate, the synthesis between American and
German style gaming may very soon be something less than The Impossible Dream -
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- - - - - - - Larry Levy
