OUR REVIEW

The Trap Is Sprung

"The Mystery of the Templars"

– Many Questions Remain, Though

“al des grâles pflihtgesellen

von in vrâgens niht enwellen."

(“The grail knights did not like to be questioned furthermore.”)

Wolfram von Eschenbach, "Parzival"

The military as well as religious order of the “Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem” (Pauperes commilitones Christi templique Salomonici Hierosalemitanis), better known to all of us under the name of “Knights Templar” or simply “Templars”, was founded in 1118 or 1119 in Jerusalem, and disbanded by the pope in 1312. According to Wikipedia this decision was confirmed by the Vatican in 2006 and again in 2012. The boardgame "The Mystery of the Templars" is about the growth throughout (Western) Europe of this at times most powerful of the mediaeval military orders, about its withdrawal from the Holy Land and eventually about the arrest of almost all brethren and superiors in the Kingdom of Philip IV of France – then without Burgundy, Alsace, Lorraine and without the remaining French parts of the Angevin Empire, ruled by the Plantagenet kings of England and stretching from Brittany to the Pyrenees. The game is also about some of the legends and alleged hidden treasures of the Knights Templar. Almost all of these legends and treasure troves have been invented as late as the XVIIth century and later on, though.

In order to get started, first of all you need quite a large area for playing. The game board by itself measures 72 cm by 104 cm (two halves each 72 by 52). Then there are stacks of cards (Event Cards, Mission Cards …), Player Sheets and also numerous markers / tokens. After having cleared the game area of all obstacles (such as crates, boxes, sofa and TV-set) start setting up the game. The board gives a simplified map of mediaeval Europe (as far North as Scotland, Denmark and the Baltic Sea), the Middle East and the North of Africa including adjacent sea areas. Regions of no significance in the game, roughly speaking east of the Vistula River and North of the Danube, are used for placing decks of action cards. A Victory Point Track runs around the board’s corners. There are rectangular fields for each of the (nine) Provinces, containing storage spaces (commanderies, in some cases chapels) for players’ tokens and a provincial coat of arms to place a marker indicating whether the region is already a Templar Province – fees for acquisitions in such Provinces are lower. Moreover, there are five spaces for event cards regulating the transportation of goods by land or water (see below).

There are no individual pawns. Instead players receive 15 wooden seal tokens each (in a colour of their choice – blue, green, red, yellow – corresponding to their Player Sheet) to mark their possessions on the game board, since Player Sheets provide only temporary and little storage space. Each player gets a small amount of start money and two Knight Templar action markers. Finally treasure tokens (money, Novices and artefacts) are distributed randomly and face down on the city spaces.

After a maximum of fourteen rounds in three Periods the Event Card “1307, The Persecution” will be revealed and trigger eight additional special rounds to the end of the game. These final rounds represent the escape of some Knights Templar with parts of their fortune. Whoever scores most Victory Points (add your money and valuable relics) will be the winner.

Rounds are usually divided into five Phases. In Periods I and II at the start of the first Phase players secretly choose from their set of 5 Knight Templar Cards what Valour to invest into the missions they will have to undertake. The cards’ Valour always sums up to eight, but each one is divided into two fractions from “7/1” to “4/4”. This will determine how much Valour will be spent on each of the Missions later on and what rewards can be gained. Only when every single one of the Knights Templar Cards has been played, the entire set is available again. There are two Missions to fulfil in each round during Periods I and II: Escort (nothing dirty here, just protecting pilgrims on their journeys in the Holy Land) and Excavation for miraculous relics (e. g. biblical scrolls, the house where Jesus’ mother Mary allegedly had been born or even the Holy Grail). Players now decide, again secretly, whether they want to engage in one or both tasks and mark this on the corresponding space of the Mission Chart with one of their two Knight Templar markers: double helmet symbols = the total Valour for the selected mission; single helmet symbol = the Valour is divided according to the Knights Templar Card between both Missions, the higher value being spent on the Mission beneath which the marker has been placed. During choosing of Templar Card and marker, the Mission Cards remain face down, which means that your decision definitely is pure speculation in the very first round at least. Only then the Mission Cards are revealed, first the Escort Mission, then the Excavation. The Valour points of all players involved will be added and compared with the number printed on the Mission Card. To claim the reward, you need to tie or exceed the Mission Card’s Valour goal. For the Escort Mission you always get at least a compensation in money and, if successful, an additional reward (for some or all Knights on that mission). For the Excavation you are awarded victory points or (for the knights having employed most Valour points) the corresponding artefact. The penalty for failure is always a loss of victory points.

In the second Phase of each round (during all three Periods) Goods can be bought and sold. Purchases take place in the Holy Land, sales wherever there are market places (identifiable by a barrel-like icon).

Third Phase is the Event Phase. During all periods now the top two cards of the Event Cards deck are revealed, and resolved in Priority order (printed upon the cards). There are four types of events: Development – new Provinces are formed, Buildings built, Donations collected or market values increased; Transport – maritime and caravan routes are created and may be used on the same round in Phase four; Enemies – brigands, pirates and Saracen warriors appear (place appropriate counters) and must be fought if encountered; Incidents – historic events from the time of the Crusades are influencing the game in Periods II and III; as soon as the incident “1307, The Persecution” is revealed (at any random time in Period III), the regular game ends immediately, the eight final rounds commence.

The fourth phase is dedicated to transport of possessions (and possibly knights). Here battles can take place – Templars against pirates, brigands or Saracens. Such fighting is decided by comparing the according Attack Strength. Enemies have a basic strength (listed on the Event Card) and add the result of a die throw (1 – 3). Defenders (their Attack Strength is given on the respective Transport Event Card) may strengthen their forces by using knight markers. If the Enemies succeed, the defenders will lose a number of goods (listed on the Enemies Event Card). Saracens may also ransack the Player Sheets. All Enemies’ loot is returned to the general stock. If the defenders fend off the attack (tied or higher combat value), the Enemies lose one counter. If no enemy counter is left, the area is safe again.

The last phase of each round is Resource management. Rewards from previous phases may now be distributed to the players’ buildings. Display relics in chapels to get more victory points, recruit knights (replace novice markers with knight markers) or move money between your own commanderies. Knight(marker)s may explore cities in territories they are both in, meaning they may look at (and take) face down treasure tokens. For own seals in territories (outside your commanderies), for example because a transport could not be completed in the corresponding phase, maintenance must be paid.

As soon as the persecution of the Templars by King Philip IV is revealed (Event Card Incident “1307”), instead of the regular Phases eight rounds of Transport and Resource Phases will be played. Each player is assigned to a refuge area (Scotland / Edinburgh Haven, the State of the Teutonic Order / Marienburg Haven, Cyprus or the Port of Tomar in Portugal). Starting in Paris, more and more adjacent areas in each round become off-limits for the Knights Templar, they are now trying to get as much money and artefacts to their assigned asylum. Whoever is most successful wins.

Two additional variants – individual skills for each player’s Templar faction and individualized enemy Attack Strength – are offered in the rulebook, but we were not able to test them.

“The Mystery of the Templars” is at first glance a strategic resource management game, devised by Silvio Negri-Clementi. He also created “Ventura” in 2010/2011, published with Stratelibri and Fantasy Flight Games as well. The rules seem, again at first glance, appropriate of a balance between gameplay and historic references (more on that later). There are some rather great irritations, though. In our opinion, the system does not work satisfactorily. Battles – quite realistically – and, even if doubtful in their historic foundations, “archaeological” excavations, may with some justification be subject to chance. There is no reason, though, that this should also apply to other tasks and especially to the territorial expansion of the Templars or even Goods Transport. Also, the occurrence of the four given Incidents – the taking of Jerusalem by Sultan Saladin's troops in 1187, the conquest of Acre under Sultan Khalil and his Mameluks in 1291 and last but not least the raids in France in 1307 (the fourth incident, the Albigensian Crusade 1209 – 1229, had except in various modern conspiracy theories no detectable effect on the activities of the Templars) – may have been rather random. The chronological order of these incidents was, by any means, not accidental. Without the expulsion of the Templars from the Holy Land, the French king would have had little opportunity to destroy the Order and, moreover, get a charter of consent (even if by blackmail) from the Pope, he being legally the only superior authority for these monastic knights. Incidents should remain incidents. Those may, by all means, include the advent of brigands or any other enemy troops. Such encounters affect the transport routes considerably anyway. Although the formation of new Templar Provinces mainly occurs in the first Period, the chance of revealing Event Cards more often than not leads to the situation that there are transport routes open but no-one had had the opportunity to get enough goods for transportation and selling them on the market places. In fact, at the beginning of the game only France is open to explore and to sell goods. The solution here could simply be: more events, from which a random selection could be made during setup. In the first Period, for example, more market shifts (although inflation as we see it nowadays was not known in the Middle Ages, price fluctuations were) and more donations should pop up. During the second Period there might well be more and stronger Enemies and various Incidents that had an impact on the Knights Templar. If so, then the last Period could remain untouched, especially the sudden revelation of the nasty surprise of 1307.

To employ one’s Valour on speculative grounds in the first or even second round of Missions, when you do not know what to expect, seems somehow logical. That you are obliged thereafter to play all the remaining Knight Templar Cards before having greater choice again, is simply mean.

The rules booklet (and some of the rules themselves) would have needed better attention, too. As so often, there is no register and no index, not even a table of contents this time. Many sections are rather not clear, even awkward. We suspect these facts are mostly due to the translation, both German and English; our understanding of the original Italian version is limited). Some rules seem contradictory, e. g. about the purchase of buildings, transportation or actions in Provinces. On the other hand, simple and logical things are often unnecessarily explained in great detail or even repeatedly. These shortcomings are hardly mended, neither by the good basic idea nor by the beautifully designed game material (exceptions: there are typos on some of both Relic Markers and Relic Cards; markers for Enemies are far too small, actually, they are tiny!).

Some notes on historical accuracy: at least they tried! The game makers apologised for the map being rather not precise in representing some two hundred years of European history, which is fair enough. But why leave out the areas under control of the English crown? During the times the game is set in, those amounted to nearly half the territory of present-day France. This part of the “Angevin Empire”, mainly the Duchy of Aquitaine, came under the control of the French kings only in the course of the Hundred Years' War (1328/1337 – 1453). Moreover, most coats of arms to identify the Provinces spring from a vivid imagination or from much later times. For example, a coat of arms of the German Empire (1871 – 1918) is used for the mediaeval Holy Roman Empire. The name used in the game, however, is more accurate: Templar Province of Germania.

The game box provides an additional booklet of “Historical Notes” about the history of the Knights Templar – unfortunately poorly translated as well. It is an entertaining mix of historical facts, later legends and wild speculations. Books of serious historians like Alain Demurger and Jonathan Riley-Smith are listed in the bibliography next to pseudo-historical (although great fun nonetheless) works (e. g. “The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail”, by M. Baigent, H. Lincoln and R. Leigh, published in 1982). Quotes stem from all these books, sometimes with a slightly ironic distance. Legends, for example concerning maledictions against king and pope by the last Grand Master of the Order, Jacques de Molay, when he was executed in 1314 as a relapsed heretic (nothing else could be proven against him, but that was good enough for the verdict of death by burning at the stake), and the exclamation by the executioner of Louis XVI, “Now thou art avenged, Jacques de Molay!”, are also mentioned. Both, however, are very likely inventions of the XIXth or even XXth century. Ten objects or artefacts (“Relics” in game terms) that are often connected with the Templars are presented in detail as well. Some of these things do actually exist, some of them had even been revered by believers, some of them, though, derive only from fantasy or folklore. There is, however, no evidence for an at least halfway serious archaeological interest of the monk-knights (or for people of mediaeval Europe in general). Even if about that time the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa claims to have discovered the body of semi-mythical emperor Charlemagne and King Richard I the Lionheart claimed to have found the tomb of King Arthur. Exaggeration founded on religious calculus in the hope of commercially profitable relics; do not trust in such claims!

Martina & Martin Lhotzky, Marcus Steinwender

Players: 2-4

Age: 12+

Time: 120+

Designer: Silvio Negri-Clementi

Artist: Gianluca Santopietro, Demis Savini

Price: ca. 43 Euro

Publisher: Heidelberger Spieleverlag 2013

Web: www.heidelbaer.de

Genre: History, strategy

Users: For experts

Version: de

Rules: de en it

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Good historic approach

Nice components

Illogical since random sequence of historic events

Strategy and tactic undermined by too much chance

Compares to:

Im Zeichen des Kreuzes and other historically based strategy games

Other editions:

Italian and English editions

My rating: 3

Martina, Martin & Marcus:

There is much room for improvement in the rules of this artistically / graphically well designed game. Even expert players should expect a quite long gaming night. The random factors ruin pretty much every strategic reflection.

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0

Reviewers’ comment: