OUR REVIEW

Three become one

Fremde Federn

Poaching in someone’s Games

Franz, Ferdinand, Fabian and Friedemann would like to play something decent at the games evening. “I would like to play something long like “Through the Ages”, states Franz; Ferdinand would like to play the old classic Agricola again. “That hasn’t been on the table for quite some time”, he says. Fabian would prefer to play Dominion, because he is hooked on deck building. And then Friedemann clinches it all by announces “that is all water under the bridge, we play all three games at the same time” and places “Fremde Federn” on the table. Astonished stares from all those present! „All three at once“, that’s not possible, those three games are totally different, after all, but Friedemann thinks it will work all the same. Take I look, I will explain it:

The board depicts ten printed election campaign offices, depending on the number of players some more will be added, and in each of the maximum of eleven rounds that will be played one more office will be added. This element of the steadily growing number of available choices has been taken from Agricola, albeit not for husbanding our farm, but for helping corrupt politician to win an election by accruing most victory points using up to seven campaign workers and a worker placement mechanism. President and winner of the election as well as the game will be who will have most victory points after eleven rounds or four sold PhD degrees (those are the four last cards that come into play) or who will be first to achieve 95 victory points.

Victory points are collected by being present in the respective offices but also by playing victory point cards from your hand. Naturally, the election campaign offices offer – in addition to victory points – different other possibilities, for instance a shopping permit (you may take a new card from the display), virtual money that enables you to pay for those shopping sprees or drawing additional cards from your own draw pile.

Which is slowly but surely taking us to Vaccarino’s ingenious idea of deck building in Dominion, because each player starts with a set of ten cards in hand, seven of them show a coin and three of them show one victory points (these cards do not plug up your deck, but are scored in each and every round!) and as in Dominion you draw five cards from your own stack at the start of each round. One of those cards is used to determine the order of play by comparing a number that is printed on all cards and is not used for the remainder of the round. The higher the number the more valuable the card is in the course of the game.

In the determined order of play each player puts one of his campaign workers into an office; usually each office can only be occupied by one player, but there are several cards that allow exceptions for this, too. Should there be wooden victory point markers in the office, left over from previous rounds, you take them and mark their value at the end of your turn, on the victory point track. The valuable offices, like the ones for doubling of a played card, double shopping permit, two money or two victory points, are of course taken first, so it is important to keep an eye on the order of play as not to have to end up in one of the worst offices as the last one to play. This is like a real campaign, if you are late, life punishes you, or in this case, the voters do. It is also essential to secure a shopping permit because without such a permit you cannot buy a card from the eleven possible choice on display, regardless of how much money in the guise of cards in hands or virtual money from offices you would have in hand, because, usually, you cannot take cards in hand into the next round, but for this, too, there is a card which allows you to do so.

When all players have placed their three campaign workers it is the turn of those players who did secure additional campaign workers for themselves (card ability), yes, these workers can be acquired or bought, too. Frank sends his regards (funnily enough this name, too, begins with an “F”, how fitting).

In the next phase – again in the determined order of play – all players activate all offices that are occupied by one of their own campaign workers and then you play all cards in hand or discard them without using them. The most important thing in this phase is to secure at least one good card from the possibilities on display (e.g. higher money cards, more valuable victory point cards or other fantast election campaign cards with different possibilities, like “inside information“, “use your elbows”, “collect donations” or “going on the campaign trail”; all cards have their different advantages (with the exception of the red cards, which you sometimes are forced to also pick up), but also fatten up your deck. So you must remember to get rid of some less valuable cards on time (e.g. as action from an office) so that you can recycle valuable cards much faster, because – as in Dominion – all that you acquire ends up in the discard pile first, that is, in some sort of discard pile. The cards available for shopping from all come at a price, and in addition, for the cards that are displayed further to the right (which usually are the more valuable newly added cards to buy) there is an additional cost of up to two coins. Which now has made us arrive in “Through the Ages”, that is, on the shopping track of Trough the Ages. The next phase is only used for cleaning up and to prepare the next round, which comprises shoveling together cards that were not bought, re-filling of shopping choices and placing of wooden victory point markers into those offices that are not occupied by campaign workers.

Conclusion: What Friedemann Friese has mixed up here, is fun. A certain learning curve as in Dominion exists, too. When do I switch from shopping for cards that earn me lots on money for additional buys to shopping for cards with high victory point values? All this needs good, exact timing? Will I apply maybe an extreme strategy and thin out my deck with a few valuable victory point cards remaining, that are recycling quickly, or do I try to acquire more choices for action with lots of additional campaign workers (you do not have those additional workers on a permanent basis, you must acquire them by playing the corresponding card)?  After one or two games you have by no means seen all the possibilities offered by the game. The design is rather functional and very nearly frightens off game aesthetics. For all fans of Dominion who do not mind to use a few additional established and proven mechanisms I can wholeheartedly recommend Fremde Federn, all others should at least take a look at it.

Gert Stöckl

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 95+

Designer: Friedemann Friese

Art: Harald Lieske

Price: ca. 27 Euro

Publisher: 2F Spiele 2012

Web: www.2f-spiele.de

Genre: Deck building

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: de en jp kr nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Fantastic mix of three games

Just try it

High element of chance

Compares to:

Mainly Dominion and other deck building games

Other editions:

Copycat, Rio Grande Games, USA; Arclight, Japan;  Korea Boardgames, 999 Games, Netherlands

My rating: 6

Gert Stöckl:

An extremely good mix of well-known elements taken from three world-class games; deck-building dominates, towards the end a big element of chance is introduced whether the high victory point values will appear after shuffling or not.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 1

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 1

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0