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The Lord of the RondeL
Navegador
One, two or three
(Fettdruck beibehalten)
… take a decision, three spots are free! This motto from the well-known TV Show for children very neatly also describes the innovative mechanism which Mac Gerdts has come up with for choosing your actions: The rondel. Viewed in the abstract this is a circle divided into 8 pieces like a cake, each of those slices represents one action. On this circle players move their markers like the hands of a clock and decide themselves which action they want to implement next. But, the rondel is not only another method to choose your action, it also introduces a more dynamic feel to a game, as most of the possible actions (earning or spending money or resources) take very little time to implement. Just as a film is made up from individual scenes, here many short actions create a stirring flow of the game that barely creates any waiting time – unless there is one of those diehard brooders around.
This speeding-up effect is reinforces by this distinctive feature: The aim is less to use your resources efficiently but more to optimize the actions themselves; you should reach an intermediate goal with as few actions as possible to be have a chance to win at the end of the game.
So the sometimes agonizing question of „it is my turn, what should I do?” moves in time to „it just was my turn, what will I do next“ – which it should be possible to answer while it is the other players‘ turn, especially as only advancing for up to three steps on the rondel is free of charge. Leaving out those steps and jumping to a „later“ action must be paid for, which makes the use of those much rarer. At the same time this rule can be used for an attempt to guess at the possible next actions of the other players.
In addition to the atmospherically intense implementation of a topic in all the rondel games there is the very nice service of providing a booklet with historic background information, which again intensify the experience. All other components of the rondel games are also noteworthy. From among other similarities the lack of chance elements must be emphasized; that this does not result in chess-like feeling is thanks to the rondel and the interaction of the players. The rules usually are rather streamlined; most of the details are harmoniously put together and easily comprehended. The rules are not complicated, but nicely and stimulatingly complex.
Antike: Companions in sandals
In the first game where it was used the rondel is endowed with puristic beauty: Three places for receiving resources – marble, gold or iron -, three places to spend these resources and two places to move armies and fleets. This creates a complete world in a game, comprising small skirmishes as well as complex campaigns for up to six civilizations developing around the Mediterranean or – at the back of the board – in the region where Alexander once grew greatly. All the same, Antike is not a war game or a pure “boys game”, especially as peaceful strategies are also possible. As the result of a campaign can be more correctly predicted than the answer coming from the sibyl at Delphi the end game can take a while. Furthermore the optimization factor of the game is very strong so that newcomers do barely have a chance against experienced generals.
Imperial: Two dimensions
At first glance „Imperial“ feels like „Antike“ having travelled through time to World War I, and at the start it seems as if players would start the game in the role of King of Italy, Tsar of Russia or “We are Emperor” of Austria-Hungaria. In reality we are anonymous investors, who fill the war coffers of the Super Powers and for this not only receive IOUs but take over the government similar to the majority shareholder of a business. The right timing, using of the action at the individually best time is the deciding factors in this combination of share speculation and war-faring elements in the game. The balance between stock market and war works out felicitously, furthermore none of the countries offers a starting advantage. The success or failure of a country depends on the interactions of all players, so that in the end even a newcomer to the game can win. Contrary to the Rondel Parable from Lessing’s „Nathan der Weise“ Imperial must be preferred among the rondel games. Imperial 2030, published last year, offers a version of the game on a map of future times. Conspicuous on this board are the non-even geographical starting positions of the six super powers, some are kind of sitting on top of each other, others have a certain safety distance to others.
Hamburgum: The return of the double sided board
The preliminary finish of the rondel trilogy surprised with the absence of the military. But in 17th century Hamburg the joint construction of six churches offers enough possibilities to spoil someone’s plans. The trading law for the Hanseatic rondel reads as follows:
§ 1 Produce
goods (beer, sugar or cloth)
§ 2 Sell goods with your own ships (Kontor)
§ 3 Buy construction material (wood, bricks, bells) (Kontor)
§ 4 exhange construction material (for ships, buildings, church
donations)
With these four basic rules everybody really forges his own church bell – or his own fate in the game – and you need not suffer an overthrow of your careful tactical considerations on construction of buildings by unpredictable chance in the shape of – for instance - the misleading statistics of dice. And in this economics simulation it is rewarding to turn over the board, “swinging Londinium” not amuses the Queen- Unfortunately these boards were not well-drawn. Since Essen 2010, finally, with Antverpia there are two very beautifully designed versions with slight rule changes including the possibility already offered for Lisboa to download them from boardgamegeek.com and print them yourself ). And if you amend the new game board for Hamburgum with the borders of the city districts this board can be played using the basic rules.
The Princes of Machu Picchu: Rondel re-invented
In this South American setting each player moves his principal figurine around the 15 urban districts of the ancient Inca town and thus triggers an action. In this way the rondel is somehow involved in an invisible way and only its advantages are featured – fast, dynamic play due to short turns and actions – and not the mechanistic and dry feeling of the game that some criticize in the rondel mechanism. Furthermore, Machu Picchu features an intensified degree of interaction. With the drawing of Sacrifice cards, which in the end score the victory points, for the first time a chance element is introduced into a game design of Mac Gerdts, which can also result in a rather frustrating final result. But this is countermanded by an alternative condition for the end of the game which rises tension, taking its cue from a Monty Python sketch: “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition” – and Lamas are nearly as omnipresent as in the opening credits for “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”.
Navegador: Back to the Rondel Roots?
The title of the new game in the series introduces its topic at the same time: Navegador means Seafarer in Portuguese. The topic of the game are the discoveries and explorations as well as the Colonial proliferation of Portugal in the 15th and 16th century. The very beautiful board shows – among other things – a section of a map of the world showing Portugal, Africa, Brazil, parts of South Asia over to Japan, which lets us renew our acquaintance with former games or at least their titles – Zanzibarm, Goa, Macao and Vasco da Gama).
The mechanisms of the game primarily offer the opportunity to sail your own ships across and around the ocean regions. On the one hand, you want to discover hitherto unknown regions; on the other hand, you want to found colonies or plantations in due course of the game. Your own colonies allow you to sell sugar, gold or spices on the general public market: Those sales earn you money, but lower the price for further sales. Factories to the contrary make the prices for goods rise again and earn their respective owners the more money the lower the actual prices are. Besides factories players also can invest in shipyards for low-priced ships and churches for low-priced workers; because besides money you need workers to erect buildings, the more the better.
The rondel itself in this game is made up from the following actions:
Build ships, sail, found colonies, hire workers, erect buildings and two times market for selling your goods or to use your own factories. The eighth place is called “Privilege”. If you use this place you receive tiles that work as multiplicators for victory points. the sailing around including exploiting foreign countries in the early capitalistic area is, understandably enough, not self-serving but you want to earn victory points with it. And victory points can be had for everything: Each discovered land, each colony, each factory, each shipyard and each church ears a basic value of one to four victory points at the end of a game. With each privilege this basic value can be increased: The colonies can be only increased from one to a maximum of four points, but usually you can collect more colony tiles than shipyards which can result in a nice total when multiplying values. Only ships, workers and the remaining money cannot be increased in value, but they are basically and primarily only meant as means to a purpose and not as score creators themselves.
Contrary to the earlier rondel games one notes that the rondel in Navegador shows more distinctive different actions, and nearly all them must be used on a regular basis. Without building ships there is no discovery and also sailing and founding of colonies is not very effective with the mere to ships at the start of the game. And then again, without workers you will not acquire buildings or privileges. But as even with several shipyards and churches on hand new ships and new workers still cost a lot of money one can really not afford to neglect visiting the market twice in a Rondel round. For the founding of colonies and the construction of buildings you need lots of money as a matter of course; without colonies or factories respectively you will become economically dependent from your fellow players.
These combined facts lead to the result that players – at least in the first third of the game advance more or less only step by step on the rondel, only after the development of a sufficient monetary basis you can try to establish priorities or to develop your own strategies. This results in an atmosphere of the game somewhat different to the earlier rondel games. You might even get the unpleasant impression that you are being played by the rondel, especially since out of the three possible free actions always only one presents itself as the most feasible. An additional fact is that it never was as expensive as in Navegador to advance more than three steps on the rondel: For each additional step you must sink a ship already in the water! This fits the topic and adds to the flair of the game but in reality results in the loss of one victory point each as well as the loss of earlier and even later actions. This gives the rondel a feeling very similar to a tight corset that barely leaves you room to breathe to – as in the earlier rondel games – lightheartedly jump over several places to surprise your fellow players with a well-executed move. The mechanisms of the game also lack an element that balances out the advantage of the players that are in the monetary lead at the start of the game, and these advantages cumulate during the course of the game. If you make the “mistake” of trying to use the actions build ships or hire workers more effectively you will finally probably have to content yourself with one of the last positions.
But that does not mean that Navegador is a bad game; the transformation of the historic topic is done very well and the idiosyncrasies described may even lead to an even faster game than in the other rondel games – there is a rumor that a game could be finished in an hour. A small element of chance is present, too, but this should only have an influence on the outcome of the game in exceptional cases.
Especially due to the “somewhat easier approach” intended by the designer the inclusion of abbreviated rules would be welcome; parts of the rules are represented by symbols on the board and on the player boards, but for the first games a printed support would be a lot of help.
Harald Schatzl
Spieler : 2-5
Alter : ages 12 and up
Dauer : ca. 90 min
Autor : Mac Gerdts
Grafik : Marina Fahrenbach, Mac Gerdts
Titel : ident
Preis : ca. 35,00 Euro
Verlag : PD-Verlag 2010
Genre : Development and resource management
Ziegruppe : With friends
Mechanismen : Discover board areas
Kommentar:
Harmonious interplay of topic and mechanisms
Beautiful components and design
No abbreviated rules
Vergleichbar mit:
Hamburgum
Harald Schatzl
The fourth „real“ rondel game again offers a beautiful and challenging game, but will probably not advance the „evolution“ of the rondel itself.
Meine Bewertung: 5
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