Age of Mythology
by Eagle Games
Review by Russ Lockwood
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Age of Mythologyby Eagle GamesReview by Russ Lockwood |
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Usually, boardgames are converted into computer games. In the case of Eagle Games' Age of Mythology (AOM), a computer game was converted into a board game. This is not the first time--Eagle's Civilization (Civ) comes to mind--but AOM found the key to unlock the secret of translation: time. Civ is a great boardgame, but it just takes too long for a single sitting. On a computer, you can save and resume later, but the dynamics are different around a table. AOM, from sit down to end of game, took about 4 1/2 hours, including the variety of "first-timer" game stoppages as we looked up one rule or another. For an Eagle game, that's practically lightspeed. Add another hour for set-up, which mostly concerned clipping out the marvelous array of 300 plastic miniatures from their sprues and punching out the cardboard markers. In comparison, Civ takes 15-16 hours, War: Age of Imperialism about 10-12 hours, and the other Eagle games, about 6-8+ hours. Scheduling the same people to start and finish a lengthy game is the prime difference between computer game and boardgame. Now, Eagle games provide exceptional play value, and AOM is no exception. The interaction between cards, miniatures, and markers make for a challenging strategy game, with decisions at every turn. It's a "building" style game, in that each player tries to build up his culture (evidently, they didn't want to use the word "civlization") by grabbing and manipulating resources, building a capital city, and perhgaps bashing a few heads along the way. Yes, play is all cleverly integrated and involved.
Key is the 30 Victory Point blocks (1/4" wooden cubes). Each turn, each player assigns one to one of three end-of-game victory conditions: biggest army, biggest capital city, and built a "Wonder of the world"; and one turn-by-turn victory condition: won the first battle of a turn. Thus, a three-player game lasts 10 turns (which we completed in the aforementioned 4.5 hours), while a six-player game lasts five turns. Two of the VP conditions. Think about that: you can align VPs with your game strategy and they also act as a timer. Clever! Components Unlike most board games, AOM has no single common board/map. Instead, each player gets his own three-section game board (land areas, capital city, and resource/holding area). Each gets a deck of cards displaying a variety of actions, such as collect resources, explore, build a building, raid a neighbor, etc., and sometimes a specific bonus, such as collect extra resources, get a bigger army, etc.
Sample cardboard land areas with the four resources: favor of the gods (blue), food (green), wood (brown), and gold (gold). The idea, of course, is to gain land areas, gather resources, spend resources to "buy" buildings and troops, and optimize the entire process in some sort of coherent strategy to grab all those VPs.
Sample cards for Egyptian (brown), Greek (green), and Viking (blue) players. Battle What turns a spreadsheet exercise into a fascinating game is the big randomizer event: battle. You are not forced to attack anyone, but with VPs potentially available every turn, it's an interesting way to pick up VPs--if you're successful. Those 300 marvelous miniatures come in three styles: Egyptian, Greek, and Viking, and each style has about a dozen different types, each with specific attributes: mortal, giant, myth creature, flyer, hero, etc. Ala rock-paper-scissors, certain types do better against certain other types--part of the decision making is to get those mismatches. Sample Egyptian Cards and Miniatures (slow: 86K)
Combat is simple. The "Attack" card launches an attack on another player and specifies how many miniatures you can bring with you as your army. Different cards offer different numbers. An "Armory" building adds one extra miniature to your army. The defender gets four miniatures (modifiable) to protect his domain. The attacker specifies one of the three areas (land, capital city, or resources) to attack. Success means grabbing land or resources, or smashing enemy buildings. If you are the first to win in the turn, you get the VPs (if any). Each player picks a type of unit secretly and lays down the respective card. Flips the cards and the two battle it out mano-a-mano, or mano-a-monstero, or...well, you get the idea. It's all one-on-one. Each card specifies the number of d6s to throw, along with additional dice to toss if you manage to get the rock vs. scissors et al combat match. Only 6s "hit" and the most hits wins, killing the opponent. Ties are re-rolled, except in some cases, ties go to a particular monster or hero. Combat is quite exciting due to the fickle nature of rolling dice. Even those with overwhelming advantage (say 6 dice vs. 3) can lose because the three dice generate two 6s (hits) and the 6 dice get only one 6 (hit).
Tripe and Snipe Upon opening the box, you find six boards, six sprues of plastic miniatures, card decks for six players, and cardboard markers and wooden blocks. So, how many can play this game? Six, right? No, four. If you want six, which needs extra markers and wooden blocks, you need go to the Eagle website and order them. FYI: The box on the outside says 2-4 Players, expandable to 8. How many pennies could it possible cost to add 60 1/4-inch wooden blocks (the game comes with 150) and a page of cardboard markers to a $50 game? It would make 6 players, which can then be advertised on the box. I should point out that Eagle previously did a similar cost cutting with its Civ game. There were no Medieval bombards for artillery in the game--you have to double use Ancient catapults. Go figure. I suppose you could say they added two extra sets of sprues, boards, and cards at no charge. But let me tell you, when I invited my fellow gamers over to test AOM, I didn't know it was only four players for the box. Fortunately, I only had three to play, but I expected to be able to accommodate six players based on an inspection of the components. If six had actually shown up (or 8 as the box disingenuously suggests), I would have been quite embarassed to have to turn them away. Of course, it also could be just an evil PR trick to get you to go to the Eagle website. This is the sixth game produced by Eagle, so I don't really believe that, but it's a snipe point. Either way, be forewarned! This brings up the three cultures in a box motif. Perhaps this was constrained by the licensing agreement. However, wouldn't it have been great to put a fourth culture (Chinese or Japanese come to mind) in there and just say it's a two- to four-player game? True, it would add about another $1 in raw production costs for new miniature molds, new artwork, and another deck of cards. Currently, in a four-player game, two players would have the same army. I don't know. That's just a bit odd. As gamers, we like differences. Would it sell more copies? I don't know, but this is me as a consumer talking, not me as bean counter. How Does it Play? Cleverly. It moves quickly, and we had no trouble learning the basic system by the end of the first turn. Sure, we did play incorrectly at times--typical on a first excursion. For example, when someone played a Gather card to collect resources, all players are supposed to collect resources. In the beginning all players collected not only the resources from the land areas, but also those "bonus" resources generated by some of the buildings. In actuality, only the player actually playing the Gather card can collect from building bonuses--the rest collect from land areas only. We all enjoyed the trade-offs you had to make, sometimes by selecting one course of action, and sometimes because another player chooses a course of action. For example, under the Explore card, every player gets a new land area, but the clockwise play means that on occasion the last player will be unable to take a land because some land areas are scarce in a particlar player board. For example, the Egyptian has plenty of deserts, but no mountains. If only a mountain land area is left to take, the Egyptian player can't take it. This also means that when a player chooses to collect resources from a specific type of terrain, another player may be out of luck. The Viking player would often grab resources from mountains, and then the Egyptian player is out of luck again. The differentiation between the cultures in subtle ways is a big plus. Conclusion AOM generated considerable enthusiasm. It offers an exquisitely clever play process, tremendous replay value, and superb physical properties of miniatures, cards, artwork and so on. Eagle delivers a solid hit with AOM and we can't wait to try this again. Back to SciFi/Fantasy Game Review List Back to Master Game Review List Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2003 by Coalition Web, Inc. This article appears in MagWeb.com (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other articles from military history and related magazines are available at http://www.magweb.com |
Key Victory
A "bank" (so to speak) consists of colored 1/4-inch wooden cubes represent the resources of the world (wood, food, gold, and favor of the gods), cardboard land areas, and cardboard building markers (house, gold mine, monument, tower, wood shop, etc).
The interaction of cards and buildings, which often provide bonuses in one aspect of play or another, is up to you, although your opponents may have ideas about disrupting your carefully planned campaigns.
In our limited play, one of the most powerful units in the game is the pharoah, who gets to see his opponent, then select another type (the Wadjet) to battle it--almost, but not quite, ensuring rock-scissors et al matchups in his favor. Fortunately, the pharoah comes in a little later in the game, so the Egyptians have to survive before he can be bought. The Egyptians seem strongest later in the game, the Greeks seem the baseline, and the Vikings seem to be in most need of careful army creation.