Review

Alternative Politik

Dynasties

Marry & Rule

Bellum gerant alii, tu felix Austria nube. Wars may be fought by others, you, lucky Austria, you marry! This motto of the Habsburger, allegedly by Hungarian King Matthias Corvinus, based on a first line by the Roman poet Ovid, must have been taken to heart by Matthias Cramer, as he has forgone any martial confrontation in his game. And yet you find a lot of interaction due to using a special mechanism in the game.

To begin with the designer: Matthias Cramer entered the stage for the first time in 2010 with „Glen More“, Published by alea, and has since then published games with Kosmos, Pegasus, Lookout Games und Queen Games and has - with Helvetia, Rokoko, Lancaster or Pi mal Pflaumen, to name only o few - created notable games. Two nominations for Kennerspiel des Jahres confirm his success. Already in Helvetia, marriage has been one of the central game elements. In Dynasties from Hans im Glück Verlag it becomes the main topic, even mentioned in the sub-title.

What is in store for us?

The relatively big game board (60 x 60) - illustrated by Claus Stephan - is bordered by the obligatory scoring track and shows four countries in its left half, which are Britain, France, Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. France is provided with four cities; the Holy Roman Empire is represented by six cities and the other countries have five cities each. The time setting is the Age of Renaissance. The individual cities show bonuses, both openly and in the guise of face-down tiles which are distributed randomly at the start of the game. That’s a bit buying like the cat in the bag. The open ones can give you victory points, randomly determined commodities or the status of a crown, this status gives you points at the end of the game. Next to each country there is a slot for Country Scoring cards, where, at the start of the game, you place tiles with varying high amounts of points. This also will demand different strategies in relation to the arrangement.

The right side of the board displays several options that can influence the course of the game. There is, for instance, a track which - in the case of passing - determines the starting player for the next round and, at the same time, determines the order in which players can choose one seven various bonuses. See later for a more detailed description.

Then there are eight personalities, whose support can be acquired by different sums of money. Before each of the three rounds, those personality tiles are shuffled and displayed again, so that a new cost situation is created for each round.

Finally, the board shows three ships, each of which has room for five commodities. At the start of each round the ships are provided with commodities, randomly drawn from a bag. The bag holds 72 commodities in five colors. Those commodities are, besides the 34 action cards, the central governing element of the game. Each commodity color is assigned to the implementation of one of five actions.

The colors are black, white, yellow, blue and pink and are assigned to the following action options: Black is needed to place a Prince in a city of the four countries. White is the color reserved for the Duchesses. In some of the cities sometimes the male part is more expensive, costing up to three commodities, in some others the costs for the female regents are higher. The price is depicted in the slot where the regent marker is placed. Yellow is necessary to implement special actions and Blue is necessary to make use of the support provided by the various personalities. Pink has two options for use: It is either used as currency when determining the starting player or as a joker in the relation of 2:1 for any other color.

Now to the game play.

Each player receives 18 markers in his color and a commodity for each color as his starting capital. You also receive two green scoring cards, every scoring card always shows two cities of different countries, promising points to players who are represented in those cities at the end of the game. Other scoring cards, which reward you for various majorities in countries, personalities or commodities, can be acquired during the game. Depending on the number of players, each player also receives a certain number of action cards. Those are used to indicate which of the five options a player wants to implement in this turn.

In your turn, you need to consider which of the five options you choose. One is acquisition of commodities. To do this you place your marker on of the three ships carrying commodities. If the ship is still empty, you place your marker on the biggest available slot. When any marker is already on the ship, of another player or even one of your own, trade is triggered immediately. The five commodities are split into two sets - 2:3 or 1:4 - and the splitting is done by the player in second place, while the one in first place, who arrived earlier, then selects one of the sets. If you trade with yourself, that is, both pieces on a ship are your own, you simply take two commodities. This cake-dividing mechanism - one cuts the cake and the other chooses his piece - is a core game mechanism in Dynasties and propagates interaction. You will to have consider carefully how to split the commodities, as you can acquire a much-needed combination, but must keep in mind that the other player maybe has his eyes on the same commodities. The eternal dilemma, provided by the question of how to split so that I get what I want!

Let’s move to the 2^nd action option, the placement of Prince or Duchess, the basic idea of the game. Can you afford do establish yourself in the country of your choice in one of its cities? If you have sufficient black or white commodities in stock, you place Prince or Duchess - if you are alone, that is, first in this city, you use the respective bonus, which can be a face-down bonus tile or drawing a commodity from the bag or two victory points. But if in the city of your choice there is already a partner, a marriage will take place immediately. Three dice symbolize the dowry that can be acquired and which is distributed again by the cake-sharing mechanism. The player with a marker on the cheaper of the two position rolls and divides, the other player chooses. The dowry is subject to the luck of the roll, and can range from up to six victory points. More commodities, a country crest - used in determining majorities - or a permission to trade and maybe even a child. Such a child can be placed with a married couple and helps to expand or secure the majority in a country.

The 3rd option you can choose is to use one of the personalities and her advantages. The cost for this option are one or two blue commodities, one offer is even free of charge. This option is one with lots of bonuses two offer - a nearly cost-free lightning marriage or additional commodities from „plundering“ the three ships up to the acquisition of a further scoring card, which you choose from three cards, and lots more.

Your 4^th option would be to pass or to skip a turn. Skipping your turn has its advantages, you discard an action card without using it, but receive a commodity from the bag. With this choice, you remain in play and can be active in the next turn. When you pass for good for the round you place your marker on the corresponding track more in front, depending on the cost in pink commodities, or free of charge in last place. When all have passed, there are more bonuses depending on the position on the track. The choice is determined by the ranking - you can place an additional city in a country, upgrade a country for the final scoring, acquire an additional action card for the next round or acquire a bride or bridegroom free of charge. There are seven criteria for selection, which, in certain circumstances, might result in a twist of the game.

The selection of the special action is the 5th option. For this option, I need to mention the action cards. Each action cards carries three options in its upper half. A crest with sword indicates the placement of a Prince, a crest with a rose the placement of a Duchess; the ship indicates trade and the blue symbol the use of a personality. In the bottom half of the action card, special actions are listed, which must be paid for with one to three yellow commodities. This could be the placement of a marker in a given city, in this case the three yellow commodities replace the usual black or white ones for regular placement. Other options could be a double trade action or to acquire the starting player position free of charge.

When one round has been completed - that is, all players have passed - the round is scored. Members of a family that are alone in a city, that is, are single, score points in relation to their position on the big or the small case. Then you can, if applicable, play scoring cards; you must remember that you can only carry over two cards into the next round. After the second round, single markers score more points, but are, however, then shunted into a monastery, that is, removed from the board. You can avoid this removal by discarding one pink commodity for each single marker. After the third round, at the end of the game, the country scoring is put to effect and presence in crown cities is taken into account. The game then ends with playing of eventually remaining scoring cards.

Dynasties definitely comes under the heading of “frequent player game”, but I can easily image that families with same gaming experience might have fun with it. Components and rules are perfect, which is no more than to be expected from publisher Hans im Glück. The mixture of interaction - the gambling in the splitting mechanism, the demands of strategy and tactic, the plethora of options from the number of bonuses, mixed with an element of chance from rolling dice and the equipping of the ships, put Dynasties into a top game in its category, at least for me.

A word on the publisher: The fairy tale “Hans im Glück” only shares the beginning with Bernd Brunnhofer’s company of same name. In the Brothers Grimm’s fairy tale, Hans is given a lump of gold after seven years of work. Bernd, too, received his first “golden” award in 1991 for “Drunter und Drüber”. While Hans, however, loses his gold in the fairy tale, did the publisher Hans im Glück earn 15 - if I counted correctly- gold lumps in the shape of Deutscher Spielepreis und Spiel des Jahres over the years, with El Grande, Dominion, Russian Railroads and especially the three-million-times sold Carcassonne and many more. For me, Dynasties, too, seems to have a suspicious golden glitter.

Rudolf Ammer

Players: 3-5

Age: 12+

Time: 90+

Designer: Matthias Cramer

Artist: Claus Stephan

Price: ca. 40 Euro

Publisher: Hans im Glück 2016

Web: www.hans-im-glueck.de

Genre: Trade, area control

Users: With friends

Version: de

Rules: de en nl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Historical Topic

Compares to:

Das Vermächtnis, Gonzaga

Other editions:

White Goblin Games (nl), Z-Man Games (en)

My rating: 7

Rudolf Ammer:

With the mechanism of cake sharing, Matthias Cramer provides a lot of interaction and, furthermore, manages to offer a plethora of options for varying games.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 1

Strategy (blue): 1

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0