Empire Building Filler Thriller

Eight-Minute Empire could be described as wargame. It has armies, their leaders contest for territory, and at the end of the game, the leader who holds the most territory wins the game. It is though not a wargame—certainly not in a traditional sense—but is instead a Eurogame that combines area control and card drafting mechanics with a set collection mechanic. It is a little game with big themes that can be played through in the eight minutes of the title with just two players, but just twenty minutes with the maximum number of five players.

Published by Red Raven Games, inside Eight-Minute Empire’s small, square box can be found one double-sided map board, a four-page rulebook, forty-two cards, and five sets of armies, forty-four coins, and ten Goods Tokens. The map board depicts various continents broken up into regions, connected by safe sea routes. At the centre of the map stands a city—this is the starting point for the game. At the top of the map is a line of numbers—[0], [1], [1], [2], [2], [2], and [3]. These are the costs that a player will have to pay for the cards placed in the corresponding line placed at the top of the board. The cards are marked with an order that the leader will give his armies and with a Good such as a Carrot, Pine Tree, or a Gem. A leader will gain more Victory Points if he has managed to collect these symbols in sets by the end of the game. The five armies—in blue, green, pink, red, and yellow—each consist of fourteen cubes (the armies) and three discs (the cities). The coin tokens are used to purchase cards and the Goods tokens replicated the symbols on the cards and are used as part of the game’s advanced options.

At the start of the game, the cards are shuffled and six laid out at the top of the board face up. Each player receives his armies and some coins. Initially he will use these to bid on who goes first in the game, but their primary use is to purchase cards. He will also place three armies in the starting region. On his turn, he will purchase one of the cards at the top of the board, the cost being determined by its position in the line. Cards towards the left are free or cheap and get progressively more expensive to the right.

Purchasing a card gains a player its Goods symbol and an order that he can give his armies. This order may be to place armies (from his reserve onto the board), move armies (already on the board), move armies by sea (already on the board along a sea route between continents), destroy armies (remove an army from the board), or build cities (in a region where a player has armies). Some cards give a choice of options, others two options, while others give the player the choice of Goods symbol at the end of game to add to the sets he is collecting.

Each player has two aims in the game. The first is to dominate as many regions as possible—a player needs to have the most armies in a region to hold it, though having a city in a region will also contribute towards the number of armies in a region. The second is to collect sets of Goods tokens. At the end of the game, a player will receive a Victory Point for each Region he controls and for each Continent he controls. He will also receive Victory Points for each set of Goods cards he has, the number varying from one Good to another. For example, three Carrots scores a player one Victory Point, five Carrots two Victory Points, seven Carrots three Victory Points, and eight Carrots five Victory Points, whereas one Gem scores a player one Victory Point, two Gems two Victory Points, three Gems three Victory Points, and four Gems five Victory Points. The player with the most Victory Points is the winner.

The Eight-Minute Empire rulebook does feel a little cheap, but it is clearly written. The other components are all of a high quality. It could be argued that the auction at the start for first player delivers little given its potential cost. One way to balance this would be to have an auction at the start of every turn, but the game does not include enough gold for this. If it did, it would also mean that the players might have too much gold with which to purchase their cards. Another issue might the game’s lack of theme. My suggestion would be that the Emperor’s sons’ rivalry threatens to erupt into civil war, so he directs his sons to take their armies and compete for dominance without course to open conflict.

Interestingly, the game’s feel and flow will be influenced by the cards drawn. For example, the lack of Sea movement cards would limit travel to other continents, concentrating the contest for territory to a limited area, whilst lots of them, would enable the players to spread their armies and vie for wider regions. Balance this against the need to collect Goods for sets and limited gold to spend, and a player has some tight choices to make over the course of cards he must choose—varying according to the number of players, more players means fewer cards. Eight-Minute combines tactical play in its armies and area control with strategic decisions in the Goods needed for sets in a pleasing presented and re-playable package. The result is that Eight-Minute Empire is a rather charming little filler.

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Track or Share II

If you like train games, then the name Winsome Games might be familiar to you. If you are a true devotee then you may have picked up some of the publisher’s games, either direct or at the Internationale Spieltage SPIEL, also known as Essen. Alternatively, you may have purchased one or more of its designs in the international editions published by Queen Games. For example, Winsome Games’ 2007 Wabash Cannonball became Queen Games’ 2008 Chicago Express and Winsome Games’ SNCF from 2010 was republished by Queen Games as Paris Connection in 2011. More recently in a follow up to Chicago Express, in 2011 Queen Games republished the Winsome Games’ 2008 Preußische Ostbahn as German Railways, the first entry in its Iron Horse collection.

Designed for three to five players, aged twelve plus, as its title suggests, German Railways is all about German railways. More specifically, it focuses upon the period between 1832 and 1872 when some two hundred or so railroad companies were founded and helped connect the then innumerable Germanic states, forging economic and cultural ties that would further foster the drive towards unification. Even more specifically, German Railways is about eight railways and their share values. In most games about railways, the game’s focus is on building tracks between one city and another and then transporting either passengers and/or goods between them. In German Railways, the players do not transport either goods or passengers, but rather they invest capital in each railway and then expend that capital to increase both its network and its share value. Whomever makes the most from these shares by game’s end wins the game.

The game consists of three sets of Railroad Shares, a matching Railroad Income marker, and a set of rolling stock for each of the game’s eight railways. The rolling stock consists of ‘Iron Horses’ or Locomotives, similar to those found in Paris Connection. There is also a set of Player Turn Order markers and a Player Income marker for each player; ‘Talers’ or coins in various denominations; plus the board. The latter depicts a map of Germany – its towns and cities, rural, hill, and mountainous regions – overlaid with a hex grid, plus three tracks; the first for the Player Turn Order, the second for the Railroad Income, and the third for the Player Incomes. Each railroad also has a space on the edge of the board to hold its current capital. The game comes with rules in Dutch, English, French, and German.

At game’s start, the share value markers and the player income markers are placed on the appropriate tracks. Then a locomotive of the matching colour is placed on each railway company’s starting city. Each player also receives a certain amount of Talers, the amount depending upon the number of players – more players have less money. Lastly the shares are auctioned off in order – 'Preußische Ostbahn', 'Niederschlesische-Märkische Eisenbahn', 'Königlich-Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen', 'Königlich-Bayerische Staatseisenbahnen', 'Main-Weser-Bahn', 'Großherzoglich Badische Staatseisenbahnen', 'Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft', and 'Berlin-Hamburger Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft'. The shares are also auctioned off in three waves, each wave consisting of one share from each Railroad, and all of the shares in a wave have to be auctioned off before the shares in another wave can be put up for auction. 

Once all of the eight shares in the first wave have been auctioned off, the players determine their current income. This is done by adding up the value of their shares and adjusting their marker on the Player Income track accordingly. Then player order is determined. This is done by drawing five Player Turn Order markers from a provided cloth bag. These five are placed as drawn on the Player Turn Order track. To seed the bag, the player with the highest current Player Income puts a single Player Turn Order marker of his colour into the bag; the player with the second highest current Player Income puts two of his Player Turn Order markers into the bag; the player with the third highest current Player Income puts in three; and so on. What this means is that the player with the highest Player Income has a high chance of not even getting a turn this round because he only has one Player Turn Order marker in the bag, where players with lower Player Incomes will greater chances because their Player Incomes are lower and they will have more markers in the bag. This is a balancing mechanism. 

On his turn a player can do one of three things. He can choose to pass, he can put up a Railroad Share up for auction, or he can build track. To do the latter, a player selects a Railroad in which he owns one or more Shares in and spends the capital invested in it to add Locomotives to that Railroad’s existing network. Usually this is three Locomotives, but may be more or less depending upon the Railroad. Each Railroad has a special feature. For example, the Preußische Ostbahn was efficient and so can build four Locomotives rather than three, whilst the Cöln-Mindener Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft focused on Share Dividends rather than expansion, so can only spend a maximum of five Talers on building track.

Every time track is built into urban and city hexes, it increases the value of the Railroad Share by one and thus the Player Income of any player who owns shares in the Railroad, though some cities increase the value by more than one. If track of one Railroad is built into an urban or city hex where there is the track of another Railroad, then a connection is made and Dividends are paid out on all Shares currently owned. Anyone who own Shares in the railroad that made the connection receives a double Dividend because it made the connection. Only a limited number of connections – one condition for ending the game is if all Railroads have made two connections to two other Railroads.

Initially, because the players are each investing with a set amount, each Railroad will receive a limited amount of investment capital with which to Build Track and increase its value. Thus Dividends will be low, but as the game progresses Railroads expand, the value of their Railroad Shares increase and more connections are made, so leading to greater Dividends. Thus the players gain greater money with which to purchase more shares. Towards the end of the game, the Dividends are even greater, but because the winner of the game is determined by whomever has the most Talers, a player must choose carefully between purchasing shares or keeping his money towards game end. Also during auctions in the later part of the game, there also comes a point where it no longer becomes worthwhile purchasing shares because the potential Dividend of a share is less than the price it can be purchased for. 

Whilst German Railways is for the most part well designed and presented, it is unfortunately beset by some poor colour matches. The problem is that the colours of the shares and their corresponding trains do not always quite match. Plus the colours of some of the share certificates look very similar. In particular, the colour of the brown, orange, and yellow shares are all so washed out that they are difficult to tell apart. This is a real problem in the game and it is even worse if any player has colour issues with his sight.

Another issue concerns the means of determining turn order. The mechanism is clever and innovative and designed as means for the player who is trailing those in the lead to have more turns and thus have a chance to catch up. As I said, it is clever and innovative. Some players though, dislike the fact that they can spend a whole round without taking a turn. That though, is their problem, not that of the game’s as they can still participate in share auctions and they will still benefit from Dividend payouts. Lastly play time is listed as sixty minutes – it is more like ninety minutes.

Ultimately, whether you like German Railways or not depends upon whether you like this Turn Order mechanism. It is the game’s divisive design feature. Some gamers may also have an issue with the fact that the game is a share manipulation game rather than a railway game. That said, so is Paris Connection with which German Railways shares the same publishers. German Railways is more complex than Paris Connection, but not by much and the complexity comes in determining share values. Get that right and you will be the master of the German Railways.

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Wizards Go Euro

As the owners of the great Avalon Hill brand, it is no surprise that the board games published by Wizards of the Coast to date have fallen into the “Ameritrash” category. To label them as such is not denigrate them, for their emphasis has been highly developed themes, characters, heroes, or factions with individually defined abilities, combined with player-to-player conflict and a high level of luck. The publisher’s latest title has proved to be anything but an “Ameritrash” board game, but is instead a classic style “Eurogame,” which means relatively simple rules, a short playing time, a degree of abstraction rather than simulation, player interaction, player competition rather than player combat, and attractive physical components. What is more, this is a game based on Dungeons & Dragons, and specifically on the Forgotten Realms setting. Its title is Lords of Waterdeep.

Most Dungeons & Dragons deal with the themes inherent in those two words – “dungeons” and “dragons.” So they focus on delving into dungeons, facing dragons, and so on. Not so, Lords of Waterdeep. It is set in Waterdeep, the City of Splendors, the most resplendent jewel in the Forgotten Realms and a den of political intrigue and shady back-alley dealings where powerful, but masked lords vie for control of the city through of the region’s organisations that include the City Guard, the Harpers, the Knights of the Shield, the Red Sashes, and the Silverstars. They send out their Agents to acquire Buildings and access to better resources; gain Gold to make the many purchases necessary to ensure their rise to power; the means to Intrigue with their fellow Lords; and hire Adventurers whom they can send out on missions or Quests that once completed with spread their influence and gain them true power.

Designed for play by between two and five participants, aged twelve and over, once learned, Lords of Waterdeep can be played in an hour, no matter what the number of players. The box contains a game board, a rule book, five player mats, one hundred Adventurer cubes, one-hundred-and-twenty-one Intrigue, Quest, and Role cards, thirty-three wooden pieces that include the game’s various Agents and the score markers, and one-hundred-and-seventy card tokens that include the Building tiles and Building control markers, and plenty of Gold. All of which fits easily and neatly into the game’s insert tray that holds all of the game’s components almost perfectly.

Lords of Waterdeep’s game board measures 20” by 26” and depicts the city port of Waterdeep in Faerûn. Besides the Victory Point track around its edge and the spaces for the Intrigue and Quest cards, most of board has spaces for various Buildings that include Aurora’s Realms Shop, Castle Waterdeep, and Waterdeep Harbour as well as empty spaces where the players can put up Buildings of their own. Each of the Buildings provides a specific benefit. For example, the Aurora’s Realms Shop gives four Gold; the Builder’s Hall lets a player purchase an Advanced Building and bring it into play; Waterdeep Harbour allows a player to use an Intrigue card; the open-air stadium that is the Field of Triumph is where you can hire Fighters; new Quests are available to take at Cliffwatch Inn; and taking control of Castle Waterdeep lets you go first on the next round and draw an Intrigue card.

Besides the nine Basic Buildings marked on the board, Lords of Waterdeep includes twenty-four Advanced Buildings. These work in a similar fashion to the Basic Buildings, but the benefits provided by each are usually better. For example, when a player visits the Smuggler’s Dock, he can spend two Gold in order to hire four Adventurers, although only Clerics and Fighters; The Waymoot accumulates Victory Points that any player can visit and collect; and when at The Palace of Waterdeep, a player can direct the Ambassador at the beginning of the next round – and the Ambassador always acts before anyone else can take their turn. A side benefit to owning an Advanced Building is that when another player uses it, the owner gains a small benefit. For example, when another player uses the Smuggler’s Dock, its owner receives two Gold, and with The Waymoot or The Palace of Waterdeep, he receives two Victory Points. (This does not happen when a player uses his own building).

Like the game board, the twenty-four page rulebook is done in full colour. It is well written, with quite a lot of information that includes plenty of examples. There is also a reasonable amount of background information too; enough that fans of the Forgotten Realms will appreciate the references, but not enough to overwhelm the casual player who does not roleplay, or who does not play Dungeons & Dragons. Overall, the rule book requires a careful read, but the rules themselves are fairly easy to grasp.

There is a player mat colour coded to each of the game’s five organisations – the City Guard, the Harpers, the Knights of the Shield, the Red Sashes, and the Silverstars. Each mat has spaces for his Agent Pool and other resources, plus his Completed Quests, as well as indications around the side to place his Active Quests, Completed Plot Quests, and his Lord of Waterdeep card.

The game’s one-hundred Adventurer cubes are divided into four colours – white, orange, black, and purple – representing Clerics, Fighters, Rogues, and Wizards respectively. These are the game’s primary resources, which along with Gold, are what a player will need to complete Quests.

At the heart of Lords of Waterdeep, and what the players are trying to complete, are its Quests, represented by the Quest cards. There are sixty of these and they come in five types – Arcane, Commerce, Piety, Subterfuge, and Warfare. Each Quest card gives the requirements necessary to complete and the rewards it grants when completed. For example, the “Domesticate Owlbears” Arcana Quest card requires one white and two purple – or one Cleric and two Wizard cubes, and rewards the completing player with eight Victory Points, one Fighter or orange cube, and two Gold. A second type of Quest card is the Plot Quest card, which when completed gives an extra reward throughout the rest of the game. For example, the Skulduggery “Install a Spy in Castle Waterdeep Castle” Plot Quest card requires four Rogue or black cubes and four Gold to complete, and when done do so, not only rewards a player with eight Victory Points, but for every subsequent Skulduggery Quest completed, rewards him with another two Victory Points.

The cards that the players will use throughout the game are the Intrigue cards. These tend to grant a player extra Adventurers or extra Gold, or penalise rival players. For example, the “Spread the Wealth” Intrigue card gives both its player four Gold and another player of choice, two Gold; whilst the “Assassination” Intrigue card forces every other player to discard a Rogue or black cube from his tavern on his player mat. If a player cannot discard a Rogue, he must pay two Gold to the player who put the Intrigue card into play. Another type of Intrigue card is the Mandatory Quest which when given to another player forces him to complete that Quest before any of the others before him. For example, the “Stamp Out Cultists” Mandatory Quest Intrigue card forces a Lord to expend a Cleric, a Fighter, and a Rogue cube to complete it before moving onto his other Quests. Sadly, he only receives two Victory Points for completing it.

The first card though, that each player will receive is a Lord of Waterdeep card. Each one of these depicts one of the members of the secret council that governs the city, along with their name, some flavour text, and an effect that in providing a benefit at the end of the game will influence a player’s actions during the game.  For example, Nymara Scheiron gives a player an extra four Victory Points at the end of the game for each Commerce and Skulduggery Quest completed, whereas Larissa Neathal gives six Victory Points for each Advanced Building she controls at the end of the game.

At the start of the game, each player receives a player mat, the Building control markers, and Agents, all of the same colour. The number of Agents received varies according to the number of players. With fewer players, each player receives more Agents; with more players, they receive less. This is the game’s core balancing mechanic. However many Agents a player starts with, every player receives a further Agent at the start of the second half of the game. Each player receives two Quest cards, two Intrigue cards, and a single Lord of Waterdeep card. This last card is kept hidden until the end of the game when everyone works out their final score. Lastly each player receives some Gold, the amount varying according to play order. The player who goes receives just four Gold, the next five, then six, and so on until the fifth player – if there is one – receives eight Gold. This is the game’s second balancing mechanic.

The game is played over the course eight Rounds. In each Round, the players take it in turn to assign a single Agent and then if they can, complete a Quest. Each Agent is assigned to a space on the board in an available Building or Advanced Building space. When he does, the Agent gives the player the benefit from that Building. Most Buildings have a single space, so that once an Agent has been assigned there, no Agent can be sent there to make use of its benefit, though some Intrigue cards allow a player to assign an Agent to an already occupied building. Thus if a player wants to purchase and construct an Advanced Building, he must assign an Agent to the “Builder’s Hall” before anyone else, or wait until the next Round. In which case, he probably wants to assign an Agent to Castle Waterdeep gain the opportunity to go first at the start of the next Round. Otherwise, a player must assign an Agent to another Building.

Two Buildings – Cliffwatch Inn and Waterdeep Harbour – have multiple spaces, so that more than one Agent can be assigned there, even by the same player. The former is the source for new Quest cards, while the latter allows a player to use an Intrigue card. Once an Agent is assigned, if a player has sufficient Adventurers, and sometimes Gold, to complete the requirements given on a Quest card, he can complete it and score Victory Points for doing so.

Lastly, and after all of the Agents have been assigned, any player with an Agent assigned to Waterdeep Harbour can reassign that Agent to any remaining unoccupied Building. This rewards the player for his cunning in sending an Agent to Waterdeep Harbour and playing an Intrigue card. The Round is over, everyone receives their Agents back, and a new Round begins until all eight have been played. At game’s end everyone counts up the Victory Points gained form completed Quest cards, plus unassigned Adventurers and unspent Gold, and the person with the most is the winner.

Lords of Waterdeep plays at reasonable pace, once the rules have been grasped, and offers a decent amount of game play and replay given how simple the rules really are and how light the game is. This is helped by the variety available in the Quest and Intrigue cards, but mostly in the Advanced Building cards. With twenty-four available, it is unlikely that all of them will come into play. The game also scales well, playing as well with two players as with five.

In terms of game play, Lords of Waterdeep rewards careful planning. Each player needs to be looking at what he needs to complete the Quests that he has in front of him. Of course, he also needs to get to the Buildings that he wants, but with rivals competing for the same space, this is not possible, so a player should also try and get the best out the available Buildings that he can. This can be alleviated if a player goes first, but in general, the closer a player is to going first the better. There is also some advantage in purchasing and constructing the Advanced Buildings as they provide more spaces where an Agent can be assigned. Further, if another player uses one, then the owning player also gains a small, but sometimes important benefit.

All of the Buildings in Lords of Waterdeep can play an important role during the game, but three tend to be more favoured than the others. They are the Builder’s Hall, because it allows Advanced Buildings to be purchased and constructed; Waterdeep Harbour, not just because an Intrigue card can be played, but also because an Agent assigned there can be reassigned; and lastly, Castle Waterdeep as it grants a player an Intrigue card and means that he can go first in the next Round.

Agents though, are in short supply, even after the extra one is gained at the start of the game’s second half. This means that the players must assign them with care so as not to waste their action.

Physically, Lords of Waterdeep is very nicely put together. All of the playing pieces have been done in wood and the rest of the pieces in sturdy card, though the Intrigue, Quest, and Lord of Waterdeep cards have been done slightly too thin a cardstock. The rulebook itself is bright and attractive and easy to read. For an American game, the look and feel of Lords of Waterdeep is anything but that. It has the look and feel of a Eurogame.

In terms of theme, the grimy fantasy of the Waterdeep of the Forgotten Realms does not feel pasted on, a common complaint with this type of game. This is not to say that the mechanics behind the rules of Lords of Waterdeep could not be taken and have a new theme applied to them. It would take some effort, but in the meantime, the Dungeons & Dragons theme is applied with great care, and it is a theme that avoids many of Dungeons & Dragons’ clichés, primarily because it removes the concept of going on adventures and down dungeons. This is done by placing the players in the role of hiring the adventuring parties rather than being part of them – as in so many other games.

What is telling about Lords of Waterdeep is that Wizards of the Coast describe the format of this game as being “Non-traditional.” This is an odd claim for the publisher to make. Lords of Waterdeep is not a Non-traditional game. It is more or less, a traditional Eurogame, with worker placement and resource management mechanics similar to those found in well-known Eurogames such as Agricola, Caylus, and Puerto Rico, amongst many others. All games and mechanics that the designers at Wizards of the Coast and in particular, the designers of Lords of Waterdeep will be familiar with to some degree. The only way in which Lords of Waterdeep is Non-traditional is that it is not a classic American or Ameritrash design, and to describe it as “Non-traditional” is to belittle both this design and Eurogames in general. Certainly, it shows a wilfil ignorance upon the part of the publisher.

Although its various bits and pieces and possibly the business of the rulebook make Lords of Waterdeep look more intimidating than it really is, Lords is really a medium to light Eurogame that is just a step on or two up from introductory games such as Settlers of Catan or Ticket to Ride. Certainly, it is much lighter and less complex than similar games such as Caylus and Agricola. Similarly, the game’s Dungeons & Dragons theme might be off-putting, but it never imposes itself on the game or its players. What is pleasing about the game is that the designers have achieved a balance between the theme and the mechanics that will attract both Eurogame players and players of Dungeons & Dragons players, but whilst both will be attracted to the game, Lords of Waterdeep is still more Eurogame than a Dungeons & Dragons game. Above all, Lords of Waterdeep is an enjoyable, decently themed Eurogame that uses familiar – almost traditional – mechanics to good effect.

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