Spotlight on Games
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1001 Nights of Military Gaming
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- La Vallée des Mammouths (Valley of the Mammoths, Das Tal der Mammuts)
This Bruno Faidutti-invented game captures a fantasy of caveman
life. Players hunt, fish, forage, breed and engage in tribal
warfare, always empire-building towards victory. They never
really help one another, but war is usually infrequent as well
since simple food gathering activities mostly preclude. Overall,
it's not realistic, it's probably sexist and there's plenty
of randomness in the events, animals and cards, but even so
succeeds simply on the basis of presenting a richly-flavored
fantasy. Be aware also that some players may be eliminated before
the end and that event card interactions may be ambiguous,
the inventor's unhelpful response of "these kinds of little
specific situations are impossible to completely describe in
advance, so you must chose what sounds 'realistic'" seeming sure
to provoke fights. Some graphic-design factors unfortunately
mar the 2001 editions. Some of the warrior counters resemble
too closely the woman counters and can cause unintended illegal
moves. In addition, the animal counters do not state the speed,
food value and terrain restrictions of the animal, which could
have helped a lot. The use of upper and lower case letters for
board coordinates does not help either.
- Viceroys
European exploration and colonization of
the world in the 15th and 16th centuries. This game is more
drenched in flavor than just about any one can mention including
a map based on a "wrong", i.e. historical, one and a wonderful set of
event cards that seem to cover just about every dimension of
the period. Happily, the underlying game system is also quite
impressive with plenty of opportunity for strategy and negotiation
as well as an appropriate level of chaos. On the other
hand, its detractors point out that it can take many hours to
complete. Another is that sometimes play gets rather nasty.
Here you've had a great expedition, but just on your
way home there are a bunch of enemy fleets just waiting
for you to pass by so they can try to intercept and
steal all your honestly-gotten gains. The instructions are
rather long, although there's nothing complicated in
them. The map, being a copy of an antique one, can be a
bit hard to decipher as well. But even unexpected areas of
the world are included such as Asia and the Antipodes. Players may
even take on the roles of Russia and Turkey and colonize overland.
Just be sure not to let anyone colonize the fish!
Mark McLaughlin; Task Force Games-1986; 1-7; 300
In the
very successful Viceroys Expansion: Columbus,
published in 1992 to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the
event, points are given not just for ending colonies, but also for
discoveries made. China is even added as a power with the proviso
"Chinese fleets may only move along coasts and island boxes. They
may not move into all-sea boxes." If Gavin Menzies' 2003 book
1421: The Year China Discovered America
is correct however, this rule should be obliterated.
Mark McLaughlin; Task Force Games-1992; 1-8; 300
- Victory in the Pacific
Early war game about World War II activity in the Pacific Ocean
treats its theme in a very loose way as ships move by area and shoot
at one another individually. There is relatively little reflection
of different ship capabilities, but there is a great deal of dice rolling.
Also seems to be slightly imbalanced in favor of Japan. For
these reasons some have suggested that a short version of the game be played
by having each player roll one die and the Japan player adding 1. High roller
wins.
- Viktory
(For a print and play game that can be played with this game's
tiles, see
The First War.)
Light game of 19th century warfare for two to four
on a variable board composed of hexagonal tiles. Four types of
terrain are available, though none but water impact tactics –
instead they determine what types of units are built. As in
Diplomacy,
there is 1:1 correspondence between the number of centers one
owns and one's forces. But in terms of resolving combat, the
model is more that of
Risk
with its sequential turns and many dice castings. In the
system's most interesting feature, combined arms are reflected by
giving a player an extra die roll for each type he has present
(infantry, cav, artillery and frigates making up the set) while
sheer quantity only helps in taking losses longer. The attacker
has an advantage in that he gets lost units back in his cities
at the end of his turn while the defender gets the benefit of
extra dice for his city, so this is balanced. But there are
fundamental problems as well. For example, whom should one attack?
Axis and Allies
solves this by use of historical background.
Risk
does it via the importance of continent control and capturing
cards to prolong the turn. But here there is no visible means of
support whatsoever. Likely you'll pick on someone for completely
arbitrary reasons and then after a few turns hope he builds up
again as your now former ally starts looking too strong. Barring
a really disastrous case of dice rolling, the multi-player
version just has no convergence toward any ending. Of course,
there is still the two-player version, but there another problem –
which also affects the multi-player setting – obtains. Since the
map is variable, the player with the more favorable terrain
is bound to win. Terrain could be made symmetrical, but then
there would be an advantage to the first player who can expand
into the empty terrain first. You'd think that maybe tying
the setup to a more historical setting as Battle Cry
does would solve some of these problems, but here one discovers
that the links between the economic and military systems just
don't make any real world sense. One is just left with mindless
randomness of the dice. In addition of course, this game of
elimination violates the principle that every player has a
chance to win until the very end. By far the best feature of
this independent production is its generous set of bits. There
are 127 very nice hex tiles and plastic pieces in four colors,
including a rather unusual artillery-plus-artillery-man
piece. But unless Peter can come up with new rules at his https://www.viktorygame.com
website, I predict they'll only be of interest to tinkerers
and those inventing their own systems.
A complimentary copy of this game was received for purposes
of review.
Strategy: low;
Theme: low; Tactics: medium; Evaluation: low; Personal Rating: 4
- Vinci
Innovative "third generation" board game about generic
civilizations conquering Europe. In the style of
Britannia,
players represent
successive groups represented by two randomly-drawn characteristics.
This ensures that every game will be quite different. (The game could
be made more different still using the suggestions of Mike Siggins
that two sets of tiles from Die Siedler von Catan be used to
randomly create a map.) Another nice feature is that players bid victory
points for their civilizations, but must give up victory points to bid
for a more desireable choice, and these points are given to the player
who does eventually take that choice. The generic setup is a weakness as
well as a strength since no actual history (or even much geography) is learned in the
process. More seriously, the game has considerable downtime as there is
virtually nothing for the player to do when not his turn. Suggest that
four be the maximum number of players. The endgame
reveals problems as well as players may tend to overanalyze. There is
a lot of politicking as well as leader bashing and thus some inherent kingmaking
tendency.
On to W
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