A player’s board showing their card slots.

The first thing that strikes you about Nations is that it’s a civilisation game without a geographic board.  Instead, Nations’ more abstracted approach to a civ-themed game delivers a very tight, and different, game for gamers.

Each player has a board showing a limited number of ‘slots’ where cards can be placed.  Each slot is colour-coded to show which type(s) of cards (Buildings/Military, Advisor, Colony, and Wonders) can be placed there.  There are also two central boards:  The progress board (showing the cards available for purchase this round where the row dictates the cost) and the main game board (showing the players’ military strength/stability/total books, plus events, available architects, etc.)

During the game, players take turns to either: Buy 1 card, Deploy 1 worker, or Hire 1 architect to build a wonder.  A purchased card must be immediately placed on your player board on a matching coloured slot – building over an existing card if necessary.  This adds tension to the game because, not only do you need to figure out which cards will work well with your existing cards, but you need to consider what cards your opponents will be aiming for too.  Also, the limited number of slots really makes you think about how to achieve lots with relatively little. (Note that Blue and Red cards share the same slots so more military means fewer buildings and vice versa.) Read the rest of this entry »

The full game of Nations is an excellent civilsation game which uses euro-style game mechanics and focuses more on building civilisations and indirect interaction plus has no landscape board.  It’s an excellent, tight and unforgiving game which I have enjoyed (and hope to review soon).

This year sees Nations: The Dice Game being released which looks very promising from reading the rules.  The dice game contains simplified and streamlined version of the core elements of the main game but, as the name suggests, it uses a dice mechanic.

Each player has their own board with limited spaces for tiles representing buildings, advisors, and wonders (colony tiles can be unlimited).  Each of these items can be built for a cost which then gives its owner a benefit.

Over 4 rounds (ages), players take turns taking actions.  At the start of a round, you roll the dice shown on your tiles (players start with basic buildings) and the results display the resources each dice is worth.  One action is to buy a tile from the common pool by spending resources (those shown on your dice as well as resource counters already earned).  Dice spent this way are ‘used’ so are unavailable until the next round. Read the rest of this entry »

Now that the dust has settled following Spiel in Essen (due to work, sickness, voting on some awards, and life in general), I am finally able to start writing reviews of the games released this year.  Unlike other years, I didn’t get to play many of the big releases until after Spiel, rather than during it; however, I have played many now (and there’s still a sizeable pile still to play too) and can report there were loads of great games this year.

However, in advance of all the full reviews, I thought I’d post briefly about what I’ve played so far.  Last week, was a busy week with a chance to play a lot of games.  I’ve played Russian Railroads with 2 and 4 players now and it’s an excellent meaty eurogame with some pretty tough decisions, especially as there are lots of possible ways to make points but spreading yourself too thinly across a lot of them is not likely to turn out so well.  S0, you need to have a plan as well as a plan on what to do if progressing the first plan isn’t possible because other players get in the way. Read the rest of this entry »