OUR REVIEW

Develop your Nation

20^th CENTURY

Reduce garbage to a minimum

20^th CENTURY is a game for expert players: You start as the President of a small area and you should develop a complete Nation adding new towns and factory sites, connecting all of them by railway and take care of the garbage and pollution that your population will produce building recycling centers.

The box includes a central board where the auctions are handled and the victory points are marked, personal boards where each of the 5 players will adjust his properties and the garbage/pollution situation of his nation, 45 regional tiles and 30 technology tiles (all similar to the classic “Carcassonne style” tiles), a set of wooden chips for each player, a bag of black “garbage” plastic cubes, two decks of cards (money and technology) and a few extra items (garbage cards, wooden sticks, etc.). A well fitted box indeed. 

Each player receives 10 money and 10 technology points (all of them in cards), he places his “starting tile” (showing a small railway net connecting two towns and a recycling site) in front of him to start his Nation, then he put one of his “chips” (colored small disc) on each of the two towns; finally he places another chip on each track of his personal board (level 3 for the money, level 2 for the technology, level 0 for the Victory Points (VP) and case “0” for the pollution). Adding new tiles means that the player will increase his territory step by step (following his strategy), adding new town and thus gaining more money and/or technology; he will adjust the level of each track accordingly, thus earning more money (which is necessary to buy new territory tiles), technology (necessary to get the technology tiles and to avoid the worst garbage/pollution penalties) and VP.

New territory and technology tiles are added on the main board (how many of each depends on the number of players) and the game starts. There are 5 regular turns and a final special 6th turn to complete the game. Tiles are printed on the back (turn I-II, turn III-IV and turn V) in order to add increasing values as long as the players proceed with the game.

The first step of each turn is an auction for the territory tiles: you bet to try to get the tile (or tiles) that you need in order to follow your game strategy. The minimum bet is 2 money units (turns I-II) but this increases on the following turns. Each tile goes to the last player who remains in the auction, who pays the offered money and takes it together with one colored chip from his reserve and one garbage cube: then he selects another tile and launches another auction. Alternatively he may retire from the auctions and take one of the available technology tiles, paying the actual price in “technology points”: the earlier you retire from the actions the more you pay the technology (but you have the best choice of tiles).

Auctions proceed until all players retire or all tiles are assigned: being the last to retire means that you will pay only the minimum cost (and very often the last player is able to buy 2-3 tiles in a single turn) but you will find available only the worst technology tiles.

At this point is it important to underline a few hints: all the territory tiles show one or more towns with symbols (money, technology or VP) or a recycling center. It is really important to try to decide a strategy from the beginning in order to concentrate your effort only on those tiles that are in line with this strategy. For example you may try to make the most money possible in order to always be the richest player during the auctions, thus acquiring even better tiles; or you may try to concentrate on technology in order to get few or no penalties at all on the pollution board, thus avoiding to lose VP at the end of the game; or you may go for the VP, so you need to concentrate on few tiles with a lot of VP and on special technology tiles with extra VP available. Of course we tried all those strategies during our first games, but none seems really “the winning one” even if the “combo” of the VP (territory and technology tiles) seems very strong, but only if you are able to follow it strictly, keeping a minimum of technology cards to avoid severe penalties on the Pollution board.

Once the auctions are finished the players have to “bet” again on the pollution/garbage table (a five column table with each column going from “0” to “25”): a garbage card is turned over at the beginning of each turn and it will show the penalties assigned to each column of the table (for example: no penalties on column 1, one garbage cube on column 2, 1 garbage cube and 1 pollution point on column 3, etc.). In turn players put their indicator on one case of the table (for example case “0” of column 1) and they remain on this case until someone else put his indicator on a higher case of the same column (for example on case “3” of column 1), at this point you may increase the bet (example: case “5” of column 1) or change column (example going to case “1” of column 2), and so on until we will have only one indicator on each column. Now everyone must PAY a number of technology points equal to the case number where his indicator was placed and takes the eventual penalties of that column. The player who got the worst penalty will be the first to auction in the following turn (and this sometimes will be vital for your strategy, so do not hesitate to take a bad penalty, paying it ZERO technology points, if you want to be first. You will have the opportunity to select and get the best needed territory tile: note also that offering ZERO technology points you will save all your technology cards for the next turn. Of course this strategy is possible only once in the game, because no one may support too many pollution points).

Going for territory tiles with a lot of technology points will help you to avoid a lot of penalties (especially the terrible pollution points) but this is not so vital if you are able to get the special technology tiles with positive pollution points: so, again, an initial strategy is very important to define your “tactical” moves in each turn. Once you decided how to proceed you will have to concentrate only on what is necessary for your strategy: you absolutely need that technology tile? Well, make a good offer for an interesting territory tile and immediately retire from the auctions and buy your target. You want to go for the territory tiles with the most VP? Well, you need to accumulate money on the first two turns and then you will be able to bet high when the VP tiles arrive in play later in the game.

Once the garbage cube and the pollution points have been assigned you may finally assembly your newly gained tiles to your Region: as in Carcassonne you must connect side by side the tiles (never in diagonal) and follow the territory features: if you connect a tile that has a railway on its side you MUST use another tile with a railway, etc. All the chips are then assigned to the towns or recycling sites of the new tiles and the black cubes are placed on the different tiles. If you got technology tiles with a train you may also move ONE chip per train, if you wish, from towns connected by a railway line (remember: once placed the “chips” cannot be moved without trains, so it is very important to get at least one of them to shift some chips from town to recycling centers or other richest town in the 4^th, 5^th and 6^th turns, when the most powerful tiles appear).

At this point you may discard one black cube for each active recycling center and that is connected to a railway arriving on a tile with garbage cubes (a center is active when you place a chip on it).

Finally each player check what his towns offer to him now (money, technology and VP) and adjust his board’s tracks accordingly. A new turn starts, distributing new tiles, etc.

The 6^th turn is a shorter one: no auctions, no new tiles, and no garbage/pollution penalties. You may still move chips with the trains, use recycling centers to eliminate black cubes and gain money, technology and VP.

Then you make the final calculations:

- for each territory without black cubes you will get 2, 3 or 4 VP (this depends on your pollution level)

- for each territory with ONE black cube you get 0 VP

- for each territory with TWO cubes you lose 5 VP

- for each territory with THREE cubes you lose 10 VP, and so on

- you add or subtract the VP indicated on your pollution track

- the player with most money get 8 VP (5 to the second and 3 to the third)

- the player with most technology points get 8 VP (5 to the second and 3 to the third)

The player with most VP, of course, wins.

The pollution track of each player has 13 cases, going from -28VP to +34VP: therefore it is VERY IMPORTANT to continuously check it in order to avoid a severe penalty at the end of the game: most of our test were won by the player having the best value on his pollution track, so if you are obliged to “pay” a severe penalty on the garbage/pollution board you need to try to get a few technology tiles that give you positive pollution point (they have “daisies” printed on them).

Technology tiles, as you surely guessed, are very important: some of them allow you to acquire an “extra chip” to place where you like in your nation, others give you a “bridge” to connect two tiles that do not have a railway, others offer a train (used to move a chip from a town to another place, via railway) but the most valuable tiles are those that gives you positive Pollution points (allowing you to move your chip to the right on the pollution track) or extra VP (they show railway connected factories that have VP on each entrance and give you those points for each active adjacent town). Of interest are also the tiles that transform items in positive Pollution points or VP (example: instead of receiving 3 money you may move your pollution indicator one case on the right ; instead of getting 3 technologies you may take 5 VP, etc.).

The game offers also a variant: I cannot claim to have enough experience because we tested it only twice and then we decided not to use it anymore. At the beginning of the game the players may randomly take TWO “BONUS CARDS” from a small deck and place them on turn II and IV: if you accomplish the requested characteristics you get bonus VP (for example if may get VP for each money or technology produced in this turn, or get 2VP for each active recycling center, etc.). Those cards add extra … thoughts to an already “busy” game and for that reason we did not like too much them (but this is just a matter of personal feeling).

I cannot suggest this game to novice players nor to families, but hard core gamers will get a very interesting and brain storming evening. Turn ONE is the base of your future strategy: once you see what you were able to get in the first auctions and which kind of penalty you paid on the garbage/pollution board you may decide how to proceed in the following turns. This means that you will absolutely NEED “that” particular territory tile, so you must bet high on it and therefore you have to make money before; or you MUST take “that” technology tile; etc. Do not forget to pay the maximum attention to your pollution track and try to keep your chip always on the right sector (the one that assign positive points) for two main reasons: the first is that your territory tiles will get 4 VP each and the second is that each right sector case gives only positive points. It is impossible to take all the technology tiles with the “daisy” on them, but you must try to get at least 3-4 of them if you took too many bad penalties on the garbage/pollution board.

OUR REVIEW – PLAYED FOR YOU

Pietro Cremona

Players: 3-5

Age: 12+

Time: 120+

Designer: Vladimir Suchy

Artist: Milan Vavron, Michael Murmak

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: Heidelberger / CGE

Web: www.heidelbaer.de

Genre: Development game

Users: For experts

Version: de

Rules: cz de en fr

In-game text: no

Comments:

Overall strategy is essential for the game * fortuitous implementation of the eco topic into the game * compact, attractive components

Compares to:

Other development games with territory development and auction mechanics

Other editions:

Rio Grande Games, USA; Iello, France

My rating: 6

Pietro Cremona:

Another very thought development game and another hit from Czech Games Edition

Chance (pink): 0

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 3

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0