review

Time travel at high speed

Nations Das Würfelspiel

Increase resources by collecting dice

If you already know Nations the board game, you will probably be able to access Nations The Dice Game rather quickly. Here, too, you find the game component of „big brother“, albeit in a very simplified version. In the dice version, players also travel across history and time to build up their empire. But you cannot take too long to to so, because a game Nations The Dice Game is over very quickly. And if the necessary luck of the dice role is missing, some of your intended targets might fall on the way.

The course of history is divided into for eras in Nations The Dice Game. The course of the game is the same in all four eras. Players have a certain number of dice in hand - white, yellow, blue or red - and roll them at the start of each era. The result of that dice roll determines the options that players will be able to make use of in this era. Then, players use their dice to expand their empire or save them for later in the game to amass victory points or the avoid famine or war. In his travel across time, as a player, you will encounter new, colored dice, which differ from his white starting dice in the symbols on their dice faces; players will also be able to collect chits, so that they are not completely at the mercy of the luck of the roll; those chits either correspond to an additional die with a certain result or allow a player to re-roll dice.

Each player starts the game with his personal player board, which provides slots for the placing of tiles, the so-called Progress tiles, which a player can acquire during the game and use to expand/upgrade his empire. Five of those slots are reserved for Building Progress ties, which always give a player one or two dice of a certain color. On the player board, progress is already marked next to those slots, each of them a gives a player one and only one white die, so that a player begins the game with five white dice.

Contrary to the colored dice that are introduced later in the game, white dice show all possible resources of the game as a possible result, so that players can acquire one gold, one food, one Strength, one Book or one Stone.

Each player, in addition to the dice, receives two chits - one chit for one gold and one chit with the action option ro re-roll, and then we are ready to begin.

At the start of each era, the progress tiles of that era are laid out on the central Progress board. On this board, there is room - depending on the number of players - for three or four progress tiles in three rows. Thus, there are nine or twelve progress tiles in play for each era out of the total number of 15 tiles for each era. Similar to Nations, each row has varying costs of between one and three, either gold or strength. The available tile itself determines the “currency” which is necessary for payment. There are always only tiles of the current era on the Progress board; should some be left over from a previous round, they are removed at the start of the era.

Progress tiles come in different types. Progress tiles Buildings must be placed on your player board after you you acquired them and cover a progress tile Building already in place or the pre-printed Progress. Building tiles always provide dice for a player, albeit only in a kind of exchange: You receive the dice provided by the new tile for your stock of dice, but must give back the dice provided by the Progress tile that you covered.

For progress tiles Wonder under Construction, a placement slot is also provided on the game board, which is restricted to one tile only. When you acquired a Wonder, you must construct it, before it can contribute to the expansion of your empire by either providing victory points at the end or chits. To construct a wonder, you need varying amounts of stone, marked on the wonder tile. The necessary amount of stone must be payed on total. Wonders give a player either chits, victory points or both. When a wonder is completely constructed, you take it off the board and set it aside next to it, so that the construction site on your player board has room again for a new progress tile Wonder. 

Another type of progress tiles, Advisor, is also limited to a single placement slot on the player board. Similar to Wonders, those Advisor tiles also provide victory points and chits. In analogy to Buildings, chits of an Advisor that is replaced by another Advisor, must be discarded.

A type of progress tiles of which a player can hold an unlimited number, are Colonies. Colonies also provide chits and victory points and are deposited next to the player board.

When the new progress tiles for the current era have been put on the Progress board, all players roll all dice that they currently own. Besides the white dice, there ale also yellow, red and blue dice. The colored dice are limited to certain types of resources - thus, a yellow die can provide up to three gold or two food, a red die up to three strength and blue dice are able to provide books and stone. A disadvantage of that limited special yield is, that colored dice do not provide all types of resources, a yellow die will always only give you gold or food.

In the rounds that now follow the rolling of dice, players make use of their dice and chits until all players have passed. In those rounds, players use chits and dice with the symbols of gold, strength or stone; food and books are only needed in the next phase of the era. The active player executes one action or passes his turn. An action can be the acquisition of a progress tile or a player can use one of his chits for repeating a roll to re-roll dice not yet used, he can decide which dice he wants to re-roll.

Dice and chits that were used in an action, are placed in the „used“ slot on the player board. Dice and chits in that slot cannot be used again in the current era.

If a player receives chits or dice as the result of a progress tile acquisition, he receives them immediately and can already use them in his next turn. If he covers a progress tile Building or replaced a progress tile Advisor with the newly acquired tile, he is allowed to take the dice and/or marker he needs to discard also from his “used” slot.

Contrary to gold, food, books and stones, for all of which there is only one way to use them, you can make use of strength in several ways. A player must make a tactical decision, if he wants to acquire progress tiles with strength in the action phase or if he wants to save up his strength for use in player turn order or for waging war.

When a player passes his turn, he is no longer taking part in the current era. When all players have passed their turn, books are scored, turn order it determined and players must cope with famine and war. For those stages in the era you also need dice and chits not used so far.

Books represent the knowledge that a player and his nation acquire over the course of the game. Books are marked on the second central board, the scoring board, on the Culture track. On this track, the respective positions of player tokens in relation to each other are important. Each player decides how many of his dice and chits with book symbols he uses and advances as many steps on the track. This happens in reverse turn order. Then each player receives the number of victory points equal to the player markers that are in positions behind his marker on the Culture track. Victory points are marked accordingly on the victory point track which is also found on the scoring board.

Now players must cope with famine and war, but at that point you cannot lose anything, you can only win something. In each era, there are three event tiles, of which one is in play. This event tile is revealed at the beginning of the era and indicates the resources that will be necessary to fend off famine and war in this era.

When a player, at that point, has unused dice or chits showing food symbols, in a number sufficient to ward off famine, he acquires the victory points marked on the tile. Player cope with war in the same way; to be successful in this, you must have available unused chits and dice showing strength symbols. When the available amount is equal to the necessary amount, you can again mark victory points on the victory points track.

Before war is resolved, the turn order sequence for the next era is determined. The player with the highest amount of strength symbols on chits and dice still unused, will be the starting player of the next round, the player with the second-highest number will go second, and so on. The strength counting towards this turn order determination is not spent, but can be used in resolving war.

The game ends at the end of the fourth era. Now players add their victory points marked on the victory points track to the victory points collected on progress tiles. The player with the highest total wins the game.

Nations The Dice Game is an entertaining game with a high chance element in it. The luck of the rolls can be influenced a teeny-weeny bit by collecting markers, but a suitable dice result is essential and a deciding element. Chits for re-rolling dice are rather important, as they might help to change the one or the other dice result into a more useful one.  But even if the element of chance is big, it must be mentioned as positive that, regardless of how the dice result turns out, one is nearly always able to make use of one’s markers and chits in a meaningful and useful way. But, here other players can interfere - it can happen that the last progress tile is snatched up before you can acquire it with your gold. Turn order is very important here.

The Culture track with the mechanism of collecting book seems a bit forced, this could have been left out as well.

The game is very tactical, and there is not enough playing time for strategic consideration; the four eras pass rather quickly, so that the game can absolutely end with the wish to go on playing to go on using the achievements in useful ways. And this in turn, of course, provides replay value and the incentive to put the game on the table again soon.

Bernhard Czermak

Players: 1-4

Age: 14+

Time: 40+

Designer: Rustan Håkansson

Artist: Jere Kasanen, Ossi Hiekkala, Frida Lögdberg

Price: ca. 35 Euro

Publisher: Lautapelit 2015

Web: www.lautapelit.fi

Genre: Dice, development

Users: With friends

Special: 1 player

Version: multi

Rules: de en

In-game text: no

Comments:

High amount of luck involved

Elements of the board game nicely transformed into a dice game

Plays very quickly

Compares to:

All dice game with transformation of dice result for various purposes

Other editions:

Lautapelit/Asmodee (en)

My rating: 4

Bernhard Czermak

Despite topic and game components being similar to the board game, you cannot compare both games, this game is a tactical game of luck and chance.

Chance (pink): 3

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0