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Avalon Hill, 3M Parker Bros. Business European Mystery Politics Space/Fantasy
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EXCERPTS FROM THE WINTER 2001 GA REPORT FROM "BITS & PIECES": LORD OF THE RINGS (Hasbro; $39.95) The fantasy trilogy of novels, Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien, has inspired legions of Middle Earth fans with is tale of hobbits, wizards and the ring, a mystical band of gold that grants the wearer power coupled with corruption. A movie is on tap for a 2001 release, guaranteeing a flurry of merchandising agreements. We might want to consider this one of the earliest of the crop: Lord of the Rings, a new game from popular designer Reiner Knizia. Lord of the Rings stands out from the rest of Dr. Knizia's designs... it is a cooperative game. Two to five players must work together to cross several treacherous regions. The goal: reach the top of Mount Doom and destroy the ring... The game comes with several boards, each illustrating a different location on both sides. Each player takes the role of a hobbit from the story and has a power usable once during the game. White cone-shaped pieces represent their travels across the different board tracks, tracks devoted to travelling, hiding and fighting. Players attempt to cross the travelling track to reach the next board and the next group of obstacles. On the master scoring track, players place plastic hobbit playing pieces and the dread Sauron...if a player reaches the space Sauron rest on of it Sauron reaches a player, that player is "corrupted" and eliminated from the game. If the player holding the ring is eliminated, the players lose. However, if the ring can be destroyed before Sauron can reach the players, good triumphs over evil and ALL players win. Players are dealt cards with various symbols (friendship, travelling, hiding, fighting and "wild"). Cards are also split into two groups: light and dark. During a turn, a player flips an even tile which dictates whether track movement will take place on the travel board or whether Sauron is testing the players. If the tile is a track movement tile, the players move a cone marker on the appropriate track and can next play cards to move along either the same track or other tracks. Along the way, players may collect life tokens (showing shields, hearts and rings). Some event tiles incur the wrath of Sauron. When one of these is flipped, players must refer to a test described on the left side of each travel board. A test may require players to work together...Other tests require individual players to drop particular cards... In the most dire situations, players may be required to roll the "dark die", a gambling cube that randomly determines the number of spaces you may move towards Sauron... At the end of a board, players that have not collected certain life tokens may again be required to roll the "dark die". In addition, the player with the most ring tokens may become the new owner of the ring. This is not necessarily a bad thing. The ring allows players to roll for movement rather than play cards. Players may also spend shield tokens to purchase Gandalf cards that help the players along...There are also cards that appear...during the cours of the game to represent allies to the hobbits. ... There is really a lot to recommend here. First, the art and components of the game are beautiful....Second, the game really captures the feel of the fantasy series....even I could appreciate Knizia's attempt to integrate portions of the trilogy into the game's design. Unlike some media tie-ins, this game works well. Third, the game requires cooperative play, a novel mechanic that runs counter to most current game designs. The game is not without potential weaknesses. Some players have proposed, and perhaps with good reason, that much of the game lies in the randomness of the event tile selection ....As well, to some, the game feels like a list of tasks to complete, one following the next. However, this group appears less vocal than the players who have suggested that these tasks really help to establish suspense during the ongoing game experience. Overall, Lord of the Rings is a game worth owning. The game certainly weaves an interesting narrative...Much of the fun comes from having to decide when to sacrifice your precious cards to help other continue their travels....Lord of the Rings is innovative... It will be interesting to see whether other game designers being to incorporate cooperative mechanics into their gaming themes. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Dave Rapp
JAVA (Rio Grande Games/Ravensburger; $34.95) Within moments of opening the box and perusing the rules to Java, the latest design from the team of Michael Kiesling and Wolfgang Kramer, the game's formidable lineage becomes apparent. Take the exploration and tile-laying theme of Tikal (Spiele des Jahres 1999, featured in the Spring 1999 GA REPORT), blend in the 3-D castle development and knight placement from Torres (Spiele des Jahres 2000, Fall 1999 GA REPORT), mix with the magic that this pair of designers have become known for and you have Java.... The theme is the development and expansion of the island of Java. Each player starts with 12 developers, three festival cards, three action tokens, a small supply of single hex tiles (three with rice paddies and three with villages), and a scoring summary card. Besides the board are the face down festival deck with the first card turned over to show the current festival symbol(s), the common supply of palace tiles, 16 single hex irrigation tiles and 56 triple hex tiles (two are rice paddies and a village). Each turn, a player has 6 Action Points (APs) to spend. (Action tokens can be used, one per turn to allow the player to have 7 Action Points instead...) With the understanding that a player must play at least one land tile per turn and hosting a festival must be the last action in a turn, players may spend APs any way they like. The choices include: Add a land tile (1 AP) When placing a land tile,... a tile may not be placed over an irrigation or palace tile...and may not...join two cities...A tile may be placed on top of other tiles as long as it is fully supported but can not be placed directly on the same size tile. Add a developer from the plains to an adjacent developed island hex (1 AP) Add a developer from the mountains to an adjacent developed island hex (2 APs) Developers are brought onto the island from the outlying plains and mountains. They must be moved directly onto a tile placed on the board... Move a developer from one hex to an adjacent hex of the same type ( 0 AP) Move a developer from one hex to an adjacent hex of a different type (1 AP) The movement of developers is different than in Tikal and becomes difficult to do as the game progresses, when many developers are on the island and everyone is trying ot get sole (highest) possession of the rapidly developing cities.... Only one developer per hex is allowed and you cannot pass through a hex with another player's developer... As movement becomes more expensive, you sometimes find yourself remodeling a part of the island solely to get a developer into an area cheaply. Erect/enlarge a palace (1 AP) As tiles are placed on the island, towns are created and enlarged. Once a town grows to two adjacent hexes or more, it is possible to erect a palace in the town. If a player has the highest ranking developer in a town, he may erect a palace of a value less than or equal to the current size of the town. Highest ranking is defined as occupying the highest uncontested level...Nothing can be built is there is a tie. Palaces come in values of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 10. The palace can be placed on any unoccupied tile in the town which now becomes a city. The player erecting the palace scores victory points (VPs) equal to the half the value of the palace. Enlarging a palace is done and scored within the same constraints...[but} the new palace must have a greater value than the old one and the new tile is placed over the old one.... Place an irrigation tile (1 AP) ...These [irrigation] tiles must be placed directly on an undeveloped hex...[and] are the second method for scoring VPs... When the final tile is placed that encloses one or more irrigation tiles, the highest ranking developer on one of the enclosed hexes scores 3 VPs per irrigation tile. Draw festival cards (a maximum of two per turn at 1 AP each) Hold a festival ( 0 AP) As the last action in a player' s turn, he may opt to have a festival in one city as long s the player has a developer in the city, at least one festival card matching the current face up card and the city has not yet had a festival at its present palace level. Festival cards have one or two of four different symbols on them... If a player card matches on symbol on the festival card, it is valued 1; if the festival card has two symbols and you match both, its value is 2. Once the player putting the festival on plays a card, any other player with a developer in the city (in turn order) can play a festival card of the same or high bid...If all players...have the same bid, they can agree to put the festival on together and each player scores a quarter of the palace value in VPs rounded up ( 0, 1, 2, 3, 3 ). If someone bids higher by playing another festival card and no one can or is willing to match the bid, they put on the festival alone and score half the palace value. All cards bid, winners and losers, are discarded so card holdings are critical. As soon as the last triple hex tile is placed on the board, the game ends and a final scoring round takes place. The player who places the last tile finishes his turn and scores. Each subsequent player also gets a final turn and scores as well..... After each player finishes his turn, each city in which he has a developer is checked. If the player possesses the highest ranking developer in a city (and, in final scoring, ties do not count), full palace value is scored. If the player has (or is tied for) second place, half palace value is scored. This allows every player a last chance to play tiles and/or move developers to score in cities that have already been scored in by previous players and is the perfect opportunity to hamper the efforts of players to follow. Highest player along the VP track is the winner! In our gaming sessions,... the first few turns, players were getting a feel for placing hexes and content to develop different towns and cities, scoring a festival now and then when no one else was involved. That doesn't last too long! Once a player jumps to a lead in an area, developers start invading from everywhere. Festival card retention becomes important so as not to be shut out of too many festivals.... You tend to get so caught up in planning your strategy and next move that the game does not drag. Since you can change the size and shape of cities, breaking them apart so perhaps you can build a palace in the newly created town that suddenly has no palace (cutting someone else's developer out in the process, of course), the game can get fairly cutthroat towards the end. I loved it! A few tactics became clear...building the irrigation tiles early. At 3 VP per tile for the highest developer when enclosed, they were too good to pass up. Using some of your developers to block easy movement paths or hexes can cause players to use precious Action Points later in the game, hampering opponents' options. The single and double hexes allocated to each player are very, VERY valuable towards the end of the game and in the final scoring. Since the palaces are scored full value at the end, the final scoring turn makes up a large portion of each player's final score. Being able to use the small tiles to get too a higher position - or cut someone else off from a palace - is critical. ... While the comparisons to Tikal and Torres are obvious, there are significant differences in game play and scoring that make this a challenging game in its own right. Recommended. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - - - - Ward Ahders
FROM "K-BAN'S KORNER": COSMIC ENCOUNTER (Avalon Hill/Hasbro; $39.95) In 1979, Bill Eberle, Jack Kittredge, Bill Norton and Peter Olatka, known collectively as Future Pastimes, released Cosmic Encounter, under the Eon Products banner, as the "science fiction game for everyone!". Cosmic Encounter was one of the most innovative and creative games of the past 20 years and has had several incarnations after Eon folded... The
original Eon edition spawned 9 or 10 expansion sets that added cards,
Aliens, equipment for a fifth and sixth player, currency
("lucre"), flares and other lunacy. The new Cosmic Encounter was always, at its core, a relatively simple game of space colonization. In this edition, two to four players take turns as the offensive player, attacking planets in other systems by risking up to four tokens, recruiting allies, and adding their collective quantity of tokens to the value of attack cards, played face down. The total is compared to the total of the defensive player and his allies (once the attack cards are revealed) with high total being the winner of the "encounter". This simple resolution is further complicated by the Negotiate cards which result in concession (conceding defeat), consolation (loser blindly drawing cards from the victor's hand) or possibly requiring that a deal be worked out subject to simple constraints of cards and/or bases being traded. Artifact cards modify the outcome of an encounter but are not used directly in attack or defense. If the offensive player is successful, he and his allies jointly occupy the opponent's base. The first player to establish five bases on planets outside his own system is the winner, with shared victories possible... What always made CE unique and unpredictable were the Alien powers that allowed each player to break one key rule of the game - in effect, legal cheating! Each player receives an Alien card and assumes the role of that Alien race for the entire game (or until his opponents cancel that power by causing him to lose three or more home bases). The mix of Alien powers in a given game test the resourcefulness of each player as one's strategic use of cards, tokens and alliances are determined by the power of the Alien chosen.... The new Avalon Hill edition includes 20 Aliens, most of which from the original Eon allotment.... Every game of CE is different, as the interaction of the Aliens gives each game a different feel.... Few games elicit as much fun and laughter as Cosmic Encounter. Play is very interactive... A four player session can last from 30-60 minutes... No two games every play the same keeping Cosmic Encounter fresh after all these years. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Steve Kurzban
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Avalon Hill/Hasbro
set has been painstakingly designed to introduce CE
to a new audience with the opulent components being the obvious hook.
The tokens are 3D plastic spaceships instead of flat, cardboard, disks.
Attacks are carried out using a molded plastic "Mothership"
for the offensive player and allies and "Carriers" for the
defensive allies instead of using the original cardboard cone. The
planet systems are colorful and swirl around the central
"warp" while evoking an attractive space motif. The Eon
Destiny pile, for determining attack order, is now known simply as
"orders". Some of the cards have been renamed in an
effort to maintain a colonization theme: "Edicts" are now
"Artifacts", "Compromise" card are now
"Negotiate" cards. In short, the set is absolutely stunning.