OUR REVIEW

Make a decision!

SPYRIUM

The second coup!

In the late 70ties the selection among possible decisions was as yet rather straightforward - Asterix or Mickey Mouse, Abba or Kiss, Diplomacy or Risk, Strawberry or Blueberry yoghurt? Since the millennium there is in the genre of board games, too, an unmanageable and confusing output of ideas, versions and implementations. A milestone and a beacon in the decade after the Millennium - and until today - was surely Caylus (and until today nobody seems to be really sure about how to pronounce this title correctly), even if the worker placement mechanism that reached a first peak in Caylus was not invented for this game (it is said that Keydom, also known as Morgenland from Hans im Glück in 2000, was at least a co-founder).

After roughly a decade worker placement games most and foremost cause a huge yawn, albeit some games, like „TZOLK’IN“ (Daniele Tascini and Simone Luciani; Heidelberger Spieleverlag/Czech Games Edition), „Keyflower“ (Sebastian Bleasdale and Richard Breese; R&D Games/Huch) und „Bora Bora“ (Stefan Feld; alea/Ravensburger), have enriched the genre recently with some nicely done and innovative detail mechanisms. And at the moment even „Russian Railroads“ (Helmut Ohley und Leonhard Orgler; Hans im Glück) meets with general approval, despite a concentration of the mechanisms in this game mainly on pure worker placement.

After "Caylus" (2005) William Attia created some attention with the card game version of the game, „Caylus Magna Carta“, the two word games created by him, "Djam" (featuring letter dice) and "Tai Chi Chuan“ (using letter cards) did not really get lots of attention outside France. So that Spyrium could be called the second "real" game of William Attia, and it again uses the mechanism of worker placement as integral part. The worker placement mechanism is supplemented with an ingenious auction mechanism that was first used by Stefan Feld in "Die Speicherstadt" (2010), where players place their worker markers in turn next to the desired offers, represented by cards. The respective first-in-line has the first right to buy, but would have to pay an amount equal to the total number of workers in the waiting queue. If that is or seems too expensive to you, you can deny and the second-in-line can buy, the price for him is one coin less. And so on, until maybe the last in line can buy for one coin only, albeit only if that last-in-line was not intended purely for pushing the cost up for the other players.

In "Spyrium" the nine cards for each of the rounds are, contrary to "Die Speicherstadt", not laid out next to each other, but in a rectangular grid of three times three cards, so that all players always place their workers between two cards. In this way you can express your potential interest in two cards at the same time, and this choice between two cards remains valid until someone else buys up one of those cards. Here, too, buying a card is the more expensive the more workers are placed next to this card. And due to the grid arrangement for the cards you can push up the cost for a certain card by placement of workers on two to four different positions. Instead of buying a card from the grid you can now use a worker marker also to bring home as many coins as there are workers in total placed around a card.

This mechanisms enhances the drama and dilemma of speculation and decision-making in a very elegant way: If I really want to acquire a certain card, I must of course place at least one worker next to the card. But I can place a worker next to this card even if I not want to buy the card at all, but rather the card next to it, which seemingly or hopefully is of no particular interest to another player. A nice side effect is that in this way the card becomes more expensive for the other player. Or I only place my worker there because I want to use him to generate money. As money is a very scarce commodity in the game, as a consequence a congregation of workers at a card of course results in additional worker placement there, as of course, the others also want to benefit from the respective additional income. And the poor guy who really wants to acquire the card can only gamble on the fact that the others will probably all retreat with the money and that he will get the card for the basic price and might as well bide his time. Or he buys it instantly and expensively but is sure to acquire it! And, furthermore, with a quick buy one can aggravate one's fellow players - remaining workers might, should both adjacent cards be bought up quickly, end up with nothing at all and must be taken back without card and without money.

Another very elegant and nice idea is that - contrary to many other games - all players do place their markers first and that then, instantly or later, the respective functions are used for all workers in the same sequence, but that placement of workers and buy or use of cards take place in two phases of each round that follow each other. During those phases a player, propelled by his personal tactical decision, can decide to enter into the second phase early, because he might want to buy a specific card very quickly. Of course, the fear to lose a certain card will not result in leaving several workers unemployed, but you might risk this "deficit" and leave one worker unemployed. Furthermore, the number of workers of other players does not raise evenly, so that the advantage of enhanced and improved choices due to a bigger work force is coupled to the disadvantage of late entry into Phase 2.

Furthermore, many of the cards that were acquired in previous rounds offer exclusive placement spots for remaining workers, which also only come to bear in the second phase, which is another reason for some players to feel earlier that the do not want to or are not able to rely on the general display of the round. So, as another fact in your decisions arises the question if you want to enlarge or improve your own display or would rather want to use cards that you have already acquired.

That was is for the moment on the essential mechanisms of the game; and what is the goal in „Spyrium“? Well, basically "only" to acquire victory points. The means for that purpose is the name-giving, fictitious green mineral that is sold for victory point. This is also the purpose of most of the cards: To produce Spyrium or to convert Spyrium into victory points, whereby the conversion ratio is improved by later cards in the game. To avoid that you sit on your store of Spyrium until close to the end to convert it at the best possible exchange rate, you are rewarded for reaching eight or twenty victory points with an additional worker or - once only - with five coins. Additional workers can also be bought with other cards, and there is also a type of card that increases your one status on the fixed-income track.

A completely different, second category of cards are the so-called "Patents" - there are seven different ones. Those patents not only offer an exclusive advantage for the rest of the game, but also an order that you have to fulfill and which, if completed, can be worth up to seven victory points at the end of the game. At this point, the respective bonuses and conditions for acquiring them do not seem completely balanced, albeit the basic price for all those cards being always the same - so that it is left to all players not only to grudge such a bargain buy to another player, but to take active counter-measures by enhancing the price for it. There is also no balancing element or taking into account of the fact that, in case of four or five players in the game, not everyone will have the same number of opportunities to function as the starting player of the round.

As a third card category there are the "Specialists". Contrary to the other two types of cards those specialists are not bought, but remain in place in the general display until the end of the round. Then all their functions can be used by all of the players, basically also several times, but the price for this is again the higher the more additional workers are still in place next to the respective specialist.

In a game of three players, and even more clearly in a game of two players, the general scarcity of money is rather painfully evident, as it is not really possible with those numbers to create substantial amounts of money by placing workers and the rise in fixed income does not seem to relate in any way at all to the expenditure that is necessary. As the card display of nine cards per round is independent of the number of players in the game, you must discard a lot more than in a game with four or five players. On the advantageous side, in a game of two and three you are not as much in each other's way when buying cards than in a game of four and five; in those cases you must take good care that no frustrating starvation of one of your workers happens in the general display, thus causing loss of an action.

Surprisingly, you can, in a game of two players, create amounts of victory points that are absolutely comparable to a game with more players. It probably might cause no difficulties to double the fixed income rates at the start of a round, at least in a game for two and three players. You would not be rolling in money when doubling the income, but you would be a bit freer in your decisions.

As in a game not all cards come into play and those that come into it do come in varying order, some, albeit to a lot, of variation is provided. Noticeably more necessary is the adaption of your own tactics due to the order in which the event cards appear that change in each round. And in relation to this, too, you should not underrate the acquisition of patents cards, as you not only want to use the advantage provided by them, but also want to generate the extra victory points. But I must state that "Spyrium" cannot score due to an always different and new game experience or the possibility to try completely different strategies. It does, rather, draw on the very high interaction among players and the different ways they do play which also have a strong reciprocal influence on the respective tactics.

Juxtaposed to the a little dry atmosphere - due to the lack of a "real" game board and the rather abstract use of Spyrium - is the huge positive effect that players enter relative quickly into the game due to the relatively small effort necessary for the rules and due to the easily understood symbols on the cards.

Even a later re-play does not demand the effort to painstakingly call to mind details from the rules, the re-entry into the game play is without real problems. What you might have to check again are the functions of the patents and of the event cards. To newcomers to the game the entry is easy, too, the uncomplicated concepts are quickly explained and newbies have the same chances to win as players that are already familiar with "Spyrium". But that does not mean that the rules are well-written, unfortunately they are even written a bit circuitously, probably you will have read through them at least twice before your first game.

Card graphics and other illustrations come across a bit dire and drab, but go rather well with the background story of an industrial age in Victorian England. On the board, which is only used for marking your victory points, already acquired, and your fixed income, there is a short version of the rules, which is of less intuitive design; the backsides of the cards, too, do not have lots of graphical "presence".

A basic characteristic of most worker placement game is also noticeably a little bit in "Spyrium": Longer waiting times until all players have decided on placement of their workers. Nearly all cards and choices for placement seem to be important and interesting; one wants to have everything and this makes decisions on which advantages should be given priority not easy at all, also due to the fact that you need to avoid certain mistakes, which one, all the same, tends to repeat: For instance the intention to buy a card and then the realizing that you do not have enough money to act on this intention; or that you make cards unnecessarily expensive for yourself by placing too many of your workers in adjacent position, or the placement of all your workers into the general display grid instead of leaving some of them free for putting to use your already acquired cards in Phase 2; or - believing that one has got the hang of it - reserving workers for Phase 2 despite acquiring an additional worker by buying a card or winning a bonus, and so on, and so on, and so on…..

Some pondering, some ruminations, some optimization and some nitpicking, hair-splitting and counting of coins is definitely necessary before placing your worker in order to avoid being your own worst opponent in "Spyrium" in the end; the players will provide enough opposition. The merrier the outcome when the decisions taking at long last were the right ones, after all or notwithstanding!

Harald Schatzl

Players: 2-5

Age: 12+

Time: 120+

Designer: William Attia

Artist: Arnaud & Neriac Demaegd

Price: ca. 25 Euro

Publisher: Ystari Games 2013

Web: www.ystari.com

Genre: Worker placement

Users: With friends

Version: multi

Rules: de en + fr

In-game text:

Comments:

Relatively low rules effort

Lots of interaction

Card symbols are quickly understood

Rather dark graphics

Box size still larger than necessary

Compares to:

Die Speicherstadt for auctioning, other worker Placement games

Other editions:

French and English edition, Ystari

My rating: 5

Harald Schatzl:

Yet again a well-done example for a worker placement game by the designer of Caylus. The very clear structure of the game guarantees a quick (re)-entry into a game that features en excellently integrated price-rigging and income mechanism and that can fortunately also be played by five people.

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 0

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0