Our Review

fight for survival

SMALL WORLD UNDERGROUND

in a new underground world

Another good box from Days of Wonder, full of colorful components, fantastic graphics and a couple of double sided maps that allows 2-3-4-5 players to fight for a new “underground” world but my first question, opening the box was … as I already own SMALL WORLD do I really need to go UNDERGROUND?

The answer is a clear NO, unless you wish to add those 15 news races to your collection, even if some of those races cannot be used on the surface, as well as some of the original ones cannot go underground!!!

This is of course my personal answer, but … why then I bought this game? Well the reason is simple: if you owns both games AND the expansion SMALL WORLD TUNNELS you may play a “big” game using both maps and the 12 expansion counters (the “tunnels”) to connect them and pass from the underground to the surface and vice-versa. The rules booklet of the expansion also gives you a certain number of set-up maps, with the exact position of the tunnels and of some monsters are ready to … receive you.

All that said let’s go back to the game and let’s try to see the differences between INDERGROUND and his elder brother! The components are very similar: 2 double sided maps, 165 counters and 15 banners for the new races, 21 special powers, 14 monsters, 1 volcano, 24 counters for mountains, relicts, etc., a handful of special tokens, the usual victory coins (VC) and the special die. The box also includes 5 large players summary aids and a game summary sheet.

The game is played exactly like Small World with the following differences:

- Instead of the “lost peoples” you initially place some monsters on the map

- You also place some “bonus” counters (Popular Places and Relicts) on the map at the set-up: they will give you bonus tokens or special powers when you win a fight against the monsters. Both kind of counters must always remain in the region where they were initially placed and cannot be moved.

- There is a river in the middle of the map and you may cross it using one of your units: when redeploying you must take that unit and place it in another area as the river must be empty at the turn’s end (unless you have a special race with the possibility of stay …wet).

Of course you cannot use tokens, bonus counters, etc. in Small World if they make nonsense (example: Flames are used to place the Volcano on the map where a special symbol is printed and this cannot be done on Small World maps). Otherwise you may consider the terrains as equivalent: the “black mountains” are equivalent to the Mountains of Small world, “mushroom forest” correspond to the forests, etc.

Excluding the above notes the two games are played exactly in the same way: you select a race (paying VC if you want to jump over some races) and you take the number of units listed on the banner and the special power badges. Then you invade the map starting from a bordering area (on the edge of the map) and you conquers an area using two units plus additional units if monsters, mountains, enemy units, etc. are already there. (Difference: if you get control of a region after defeating the original defending monsters you discover a special token (Popular Place or Relict) and you may use it to get some bonus: the “Froggy’s ring” gives you 1 VC per race adjacent to his area, the “Shiny Orb” let you get an extra unit of your people at the place of one of your opponent, the “Diamond Fields” gives you 1 VC for the region where it is and all the regions of the same type that you control, etc.).

When you fight an enemy race and you win the battle your opponent permanently discard one unit and places the others (if any) on any other area currently occupied by that race. (Difference - if you conquer a region where Popular Places or Relicts already exist you take control of them and it is your turn to profit of their bonus).

You may also try to conquer a region if you have less units than necessary using the special die and hoping to get the necessary number of “pips” (three sides are empty and the others have 1-2-3 pips respectively).

Once you stop your advance you may redeploy your units as you like and then you should calculate the VC that you were able to get: 1 VC per occupied area and extra VC depending on the special powers of the race (or Popular Places and Relicts).

When you see that your race cannot conquer any more areas you will decide to put it in DECLINE and you leave just one unit in each area, overturned, to show its new status: these areas will still give you VC each turn until they are conquered by another race.

When the game arrives to the end and the players have played the final turn, all discover their VC and the player with the higher score wins.

The game is easy to teach and to learn, but I do not agree (as it is written on the box) that 8 years old children may play it without some adult help, at least at the beginning. In my opinion they should change this information to 10 years and up.

We played only twice the version with two maps and the “tunnels” so I cannot give you any special hints, but of course you have to add 40-50 minutes to the length of the game, mainly because you have to better program your invasion on one world or the other (always keeping an eye to the areas where the tunnels are), you have to decide if and when you want to use the tunnels to pass underground or vice versa, and you must pay high attention at the possible attacks from one of the two worlds to the other.

But, of course, we are all “old hand gamers” and we bought SMALL WORLD UNDERGROUND mainly for this opportunity!!!

Pietro Cremona

Players: 2-5

Age: 10+

Time: 90+

Designer: Philippe Keyaerts

Artist: Miguel Coimbra

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Days of Wonder 2011

Web: www.daysofwonder.com

Genre: Placement, areas, development

Users: For experts

Version: de

Rules: de en es fr it pl

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Good components

Very similar to Small Worlds

Good variant when combining both games and the Tunnel expansion

Compares to:

Vinci, other editions of Small World

Other editions:

English and French at Days of Wonder; Edge Entertainment, Spain; Rebel.pl, Poland; Giochi Uniti, Italy;

My rating: 4

Pietro Cremona:

If you liked Small World this game may give you extra races and opportunities

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 2

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