I just got Paperback in the mail today, which I kickstarted awhile ago. It's attempting to be a deck building word game, where you have a hand of letters and the more complex word you can spell, you get points to buy better letters / other rewards. I haven't played it yet, but I'm hoping to try it out tomorrow.
I remember this. It was interesting to me, but I passed on it in the end. Let us know how it is!
Thoughts on The Ancient World (TAW) after watching the overview videos (but before reading the prototype rules)...
TAW is designed by the guy who designed Eight-Minute Empire, Eight-Minute Empire: Legends, City of Iron and Empires of the Void. All of them seem to have been done on Kickstarter by the designer/game company, so it's clear that he has the experience. All of these previous games are well-reviewed on Dice Tower, with especially strong praise for City of Iron on both design and production values. Incredibly, the artist is apparently the game designer himself.
Side notes on these other games: The Eight-Minute Empire games are mostly notable for being highly portable and quick while still being quite decent (15-30 minutes, so the name is a bit misleading
). Empires of the Void is a neat space combat game. I hadn't heard about City of Iron before, but now I kind of wish I had when the kickstarter was going. It looks like a great euro game, and the art there is also wonderful. On the flip side, it shares some mechanics with TAW and I am liking the theme for TAW a bit more, so maybe it's not a bad thing that I missed it!
The theme here is much more interesting than I had first thought. It looked like a general "ancient civilization" game, but that's not quite it. It's a mythological world that is overrun by titans, and the player's goal is to unite tribes in the land and defeat titans. I think that's pretty awesome.
The design look solid to me. It is a relatively simple worker placement game, with complexity coming in the variety of cards that you can use. There are some interesting mechanics. One thing I find intriguing is the way that the armies work. Army cards will provide the firepower you need to defeat titans, but you need to pay to activate armies, with the payment being left on the card. The cost is $1 more than however much is on the card, i.e. $1 initially, then $2, then $4, then $8... it's just a tidy, elegant little trick.
As the game progresses, you will recruit new armies and retire old ones (you have limited space for how many armies you can keep up). A retired army will confer a legacy bonus to whatever army replaces it, as depicted by an icon on the back of the army card. Usually that's more strength. This is another neat mechanic that lets you grow more powerful as the game goes on.
The worker placement is pretty neat. You start with 3 numbered workers. You can go to an occupied space by placing a worker with a higher number. Two exceptions to this rule are the spaces for recruiting new armies and for getting new empire cards (which offer a great variety of bonuses). These spaces are always accessible, but you must pay $1 if you use a worker that is differently numbered than workers already there. Together, this offers some interesting tactical decisions. Do you use your high-numbered worker to block a space, or to make it less likely that you get blocked? If you're the first to go get an empire or army card, which worker do you use to leave yourself the most options while also making others pay?
A final pro for this game is that, according to
a playtester, it can weigh in at just over an hour for 4 players. That sounds fantastic.
Some cons that I see:
- Although the setting is beautiful, the theme still seems somewhat pasted-on. The titans are threatening the tribes, but they are passive as far as your own empire is concerned. They won't attack you unless you attack them first.
- The damage they deal is random. You'll only attack a titan if you have the requisite military power, at which point victory is assured. But then you roll a die to determine how much damage you received during the battle. If you're lucky you don't take damage at all. If you're unlucky, the penalty can be pretty harsh. It'll take actual play to see for sure, but I fear it could be fairly swingy. Granted, this particular mechanic could be house-ruled to be less harsh. On the flip side, the potential devastation IS thematic, and it means less skilled players have a chance. I've got to play it before I can judge whether the tension and potential pain ultimately works for the game, and that's going to be a subjective thing.
- According to the overview video, no custom die for the titan damage.
- Pretty expensive, at least for Canada. $75 is kind of steep, and I'm not even sure if that's CAD or USD.
- AFAIK, no unique player powers at the start. With the mythological theme, I feel like this is certainly doable.
All that said... I'm backing it. It looks really good.
