Are you of Age?

Never too young to get started on Age of the Renaissance!

As you may remember from previous posts, this is a game of research, expansion and economics.

In this session, Dave, Tina Cathy and myself would be joined by new recruits Natalie and Jack.

Everyone is getting set, preparing for their capital bid.  That is, deciding which nation you want to play, and what you are willing to shell out to play it.  It is a very unique pre-game ritual.

I always go with $0 for my capital bid, which means I will likely end up with London or Hamburg.

Since my pre game card was the Crusades, I knew that I might have a chance with one of those more challenging nations.

In fact, I was very fortunate with my card draws.  When I needed leaders, I got them, such as this fellow..Rashid Ad Din.  I was also able to get the correct resource cards at just the right time.

This meant that I could afford to do high level research!  Normally that doses not happen with London, Paris or Hamburg.

The Crusades!  This would mean that I could get into the Lavant before everyone else, even though I had little more than meek caravels.

The early expansions are rapid and furious.  Once these territories are soaked up, however, things begin to get 'testy'...

Most early game commodities, such as wool, don't offer those big payouts, so you have a hard time keeping up with Barcelona, Venice, etc., who can reach those mid to late game resources far more easily.

There are a great many things to keep track of... your income, your level of ship upgrades, misery, commodities, research advances and so on.

That's why you see those player mats and score sheets in front of us!

Even at this stage, the misery is piling up.  It is that long bar on the right of the board, which goes from blue to yellow.  A variety of things contribute to misery.  Famine, wars, piracy, and other natural/man made disasters all conspire to make your people miserable.

Let this go too far into the red, and you will lose a lot of scoring points.  Even farther, and your people revolt!

Even with the Crusades, other nations quickly occupied the near and far East.

Due to a number of circumstances, I had to resort to the Religious research gambit.  This meant that I pushed things such as Holy Indulgence and Cathedral on the other players many turns earlier than usual.

Now they were forced to spend the little cash they had on keeping up with me, or risk giving me free tokens and even cities.

I was not after the usual mid to late game resource cards.  Instead, my interest was in good old fashioned wool!

If I could hang on to enough territories of wool and play my one payout card for that commodity, I would have a large amount of cash.

Being in possession of the dreaded Alchemist's Gold card, I would not have to be so fearful of a big pile of loot in front of me.

Using that wad of cash, and a huge hand of leader cards, I was able to streak forward in my research, narrowly catching Venice and Barcelona in the Far East.  These advanced technologies also reduce your misery index, thus providing additional points.

The Black Death struck the Lavant, which wiped out many English settlements.  However, the English had many nasty tricks up their sleeves.  These were unleashed on the southern Europeans without mercy, ensuring that they would not benefit from London's misfortunes.

We had to turn in early, but it was pretty clear that the Island Nation was going to reign supreme after all!  One more Age of Renaissance victory for the Wappels!!

Bitey was quite pleased, as London's tokens were the same green as his soft fur!  Very soft, especially for a dinosaur...

Gaming in another Age

Well, as some of you can probably tell, I don't often get the chance to play board games.  But, when I do... it's usually 'historical'.

You have seen a few posts now on History of the World, which I really love, and wish that Fantasy Flight would pick up and redo.

A few years ago, we picked up one of the Catan historical games, called Struggle for Rome.  I believe it is out of print now.

We thought it might be a nice change from the usual Settler's game, and it was!

We had lots of fun with it, as you can clearly see by Jeff's face!  I was surprised at how much depth there was, and how you actually felt like it was the time period, and you were, in a way, reenacting that era.

This is a game people have heard me talk about again and again.  That game would be Age or Renaissance.  It's another out of print game, and probably the most complex that we play.

It can take about 6-7 hours depending on how many people are playing, and how close the game is.

In this game of economic civic, scientific, cultural advancement, you play one of six 'countries', which you bid on before the game starts.  This mechanic was created because the six playable countries are not created equal.  Hamburg always struggles, while Paris and London are also challenging.  Genoa, Venice and Barcelona tend to have an advantage in the game.

So, if you want to play Barcelona, for instance, you would try to out bid your opponents to play it.

The downside of this plan is that you will now have less funds to start the game!

The early part of the game involves simple land grabs as countries expand.  A few of them run into each other right away, such as Genoa and Venice.

There are a number of other key features, such as resource cards and leaders.  The leaders can provide bonuses to your country by assisting you in researching new technologies.  Those new technologies are vital for your advancement, and even survival!!

The resource cards provide you with the funds to generate those advancements.  You never know when a commodity is going to pay out, however.  Someone may be holding it, or it comes up during a surplus or shortage, etc.  Depending on when it does, you can make a huge sum of money in a hurry.

This also puts a huge bull's eye on your back.

For whatever reason, the cats... like Boomer, love to curl up in my jacket as we play...

As I mentioned before, this is a very complex game.  You have a ton of things to take care of.  The ship chart in the upper left corner shows your exploration level.  That is, are you plying the seas in mighty galleons, or hugging the shore in rowboats.

The long strip on the right is your misery index.  That is influenced by disasters, technologies, loss of influence in the world, and more.  It will penalize you at the end of the game, or even throw your civilization into chaos!  That wipes you out of the game, as we discovered.

It is monitored even more closely after two players found themselves erased from the map in one game when the misery index reached critical!

Certain advancements in commerce, civics, science and exploration help with the misery index.

The very confusing chart on the lower left is the value of given commodities.  Is there a shortage or surplus?  I there's a shortage, and you have the most of that commodity, it's very nice.  You get a bonus card, and you can potentially make a ton of $$$ if that resource card is played!

You are also trying to expand your empire every turn.  You must balance your purchases between research, expansion, ship upgrades, card purchases, and more.  Unless you are very lucky, there is never enough for all of what must be done!

You can see various countries attempting to expand into the near east.  This is very difficult for Hamburg, Paris and England.  There are some event cards that make it a little easier, but normally you have to hope for a few good resource outputs to generate cash for exploration!

Das Boats.  Having advanced shipping is not a guarantee, as the more religiously inclined nations can declare a Papal ban on such things!

It usually happens to me just as I am about to research a technology to allow me into the near or far East!

Thumper was always fond of curling up in my jacket.  It made it warm before I had to go home!

The board tends to fill up rapidly.  Remember, this is a game of commerce, not warfare.  Fighting is very difficult, and very hazardous.

You can stack up some bonuses on your side, but when you buy lots of 'troop', the other civs take note, and try to thwart your invading hordes.

As the game moves on, certain commodities become less valuable, and others take precedence.  Silks and spices are the biggest let game resources, and those are found in the far east, of course!

The victor (in this case London!) can usually be identified by being at the top of the misery index, a completed Advancement Chart, and a big pile of cash!

This can be a laborious game... and if you are down early, you are pretty much done.  The early front runner is usually hammered and weakened enough for the second place player to take over in the end.

There are absolutely no guarantees in this game, however.  Even before the game starts... the game begins. :-)

Another History lesson... and the Monument Run

After the last game of History of the World, where victory was achieved by me (while Cathy was out of town), there was a desire to rematch this particular game.

Cathy would be playing this time around.  The standard saying is that "Team Wappel" always wins.  It's usually more like "a" Wappel wins.  Not usually due to helpful actions of the other :-)

Right off the bat, Cathy's blue guys start beating up on the forces of black... or moi.

Tina (red) had a nasty event card that allowed her to take more territories with free armies.  Those event cards can be very nasty, or horribly inconsequential. You only get so many of them, and some are also "epoc specific".  So, you must use them wisely.

They can be particularly effective in this instance, where you don't have many armies to begin.  

Hank (in orange) would end up being master of India for quite a while.

That is unusual, since normally what you build on a given turn is wiped out in the next.  You never know which Civilization you might get from turn to turn.  It might be the Romans... it might be the Guptas.  Or the Cholas.

Some civs are far superior to others, but the order in which they are played can, at times, be more important.

For instance, the ideal positioning is to be the last to play your civ... and then first to play on the next turn.  If you play first and last, that is horrible, since almost everything gets wiped out by the time you play again.  This can cut your score on a given turn 30-60%.  Ouch!

Here the civs are more spread out.  It's not unusual (especially with less than 6 players), that civs arise right on top of each other.  

As this follows the history of the world, civs arise in the Tigris valley first, and move out from there.  The chart on the left side of the board shows how the value of various areas change over time.

There are seven epocs.  By the final epoc, civs are trying to fight over the New World.

Three 1's.  Gee, who rolled those?  It couldn't possibly be me.  Yes, it was.  Particularly painful, because those ones destroyed territories via another event card.

By the way, I called those 3 ones in advance.  Then I rolled more.

Hank and Tina struggled over India for a good chunk of the game.  This was another event card result.  One of the things you are fighting over are those spaces with the axe and shovel.  Those resource centers allow you to build monuments, which boost your score.

To win, you don't necessarily have to have the most territories.  The value of those territories is more important.  This means you can do a lot with very little.

However, this puts a big target on those resource centers, as well as monuments and cities.

India would be the site of an unusual amount of monuments in a very small area.  Lots of bloodshed over those!

In this view, you see that civs are emerging in Europe, as well as those monuments and cities I mentioned.  The target grows!

Cathy uses a Palestine revolt card to blast my Euphrates empire.  This would happen quite often.

Not a lot of black pieces on the board.  Yes, that equates to a low score.  I can only hope that I end up with either a major civ such as the Romans, or a number of mid-size civs such as the Byzantines.  These middle of the road civs are handy, since they don't put as big of a target on your back, and they have just enough punch to do some damage.

I believe this was the first of those Monument Runs.  Notice how I have taken over that string of monuments in the Middle East (the triangle pieces).  I attempted to use a special event card that would make it easier for me to do even more damage with this middle of the road civ.

Unfortunately, the card only works if you don't roll like me.  I should have gotten 2-3 more territories with it.  This would prove costly later on.

Did I mention the Romans?  And how one Wappel usually wins?  That would be Cathy marching through Europe with the Romans, one of the most powerful civs in the game.

Not only does she do tremendous damage with them in Europe, but she also has holdings in India.  This resulted in a huge score.  Also a big target.

Remember, you rarely, if ever get to choose your own civ on a given turn.  If you are way out front, you will be dealt a very weak civ.  It's the biggest balancing mechanic in the game.

You can see the civ cards out on the board.  These show you the relative strength of each one, where they arise, and the order in which they are played.  Never forget how important that order of play is!  It's how I won the last game.

I went first on the final turn, and that made all the difference as I cam from behind to win.

Dave did a lot of damage in Europe this turn (purple), and would even take a lead in the game.  I had the Vikings, which was not a lot of points, but did allow me to establish things in the New World.

Five epocs played out of seven, with Tina way out in front.  She was able to establish a large empire in China, and hang onto it for a while.  Again, with fewer players, there are some civs that never arise.

As an example, the last two games saw no Mongol empire!  Had they shown up, Tina and I would have been wiped out.  However, they need to "Get over the wall", so to speak.  Just ask Jeff how that went for him. :-)

Epoc six is played, and my only hope rests with the New World.  I wanted to get out there early, since it's even harder to fight out there.

You can see that my Spaniards are rulers of the New World!  Sadly, it just wasn't enough, as I fell short of the victory by 5 points.

Who was the ultimate victor?  That would be Cathy, of course!

There is no "team" in Team Wappel... just a Cathy. ;-)