Heads of State (a review of 7 Wonders: Leaders)

Civilizations may be built on the sweaty backs of the workers, but they stick around through shrewd management at the top. You may be in command of the chariot of your civilization, but the the wheels of your victory will spin faster with the right foremen and -women in place. Micromanaging is what your workers need.

The Leaders expansion to 7 Wonders allows you to put powerful overseers like Caesar and Cleopatra to work for you.

Boldly Going... (A Guide to the 4X Genre)

I see many bright stars in your future...

When we dig into the details of board games beneath ground level, we often talk about mechanisms and theme.  Mechanisms to a board game are kind of like the rules of grammar to a book; they are tools to help a designer (or author) connect with the end user to create an experience.  Authors attempt to create emotional connections or communicate ideas, game designers try to create enjoyable game play, but the tools do not inherently create great end products.

Theme in a board game equivocates to the setting of a book; time, place, context for the activity that is going on.  In a book, setting is usually pretty important to the story, although we've all seen remakes, fan-fictions, and retellings that change the setting of a story.  Theme in a game gives context to a players actions; in some cases, theme is central to a game experience.  In others, it simply facilitates the connection between the mechanisms that make up the game.

But there certainly more levels that we can dig into.  Something we haven't really talked about before is genre.  In books, genres are very closely related with settings; science fiction, drama, romance, historical - these all imply a sense of location, at least on the surface.  However, the genre simply defines certain characteristics of a book and sets up expectations for the reader.  What kind of book is this going to be? In the same way, board game genres define certain characteristics of the game, characteristics that are not necessarily tied to the theme directly, nor are they tied directly to mechanisms.  Yet the three can be somewhat intertwined.

So the genre I"m going to talk about today is the "4X" genre, one of my favorites.  This genre is not a set of mechanisms, and it is not directly related to a specific theme (although many 4X games are set in space).  It is simple a set of expectations and characteristics of a certain type of game.  What type of game is that? Well, read on to find out.

Shedding Some Light On All This Darkness (A Review of Ascension: Darkness Unleashed)

I like explaining the plot to Ascension because no one seems to realize that there is one.  Come on guys, this stuff is important!  Way back in Return of the Fallen we climatically got to face the first god that needed to be slain, Samael.  Well turns out he had a son who was being held in a crystal prison in the Void.  When Samael died his son got kind of mad about it and shattered his prison.  Now wouldn't you know it, those shards starting showing up all over Vigil.  I guess people began to figure out that something wasn't right when the dark energy shards started appearing.  That's about when Erabus, son of Samael showed up to unleash some darkness.  Or he is the darkness and he's being unleashed?  Either way, it's time to slay another god!

Level Up! (A Review of Smash Up: Awesome Level 9000)

Smash Up, a clever little card game designed by Paul Peterson and published by AEG, turned out to be a smash hit last fall and it was no surprised when AEG announced the first expansion pack, adding 4 new factions.  This time Ghosts, Plants, Steampunk… people, and the Bear Cavalry (yes you read that right) join in the fray.  But is it worth adding these factions to the base game?

Alpine Excursion (a review of Ticket to Ride: Switzerland)

The Alps! Everyone loves the Alps, especially train enthusiasts. And what better Alpine vista is there than Switzerland's? The chocolate! The cheese! The lederhosen! (Though those are more in Germany. No matter.)

Such good cheer, and so widespread--so why is it so hard to get around? And why is Zurich so mired in bad train traffic? And why are the cards you need so very, very hard to find?

Ticket to Ride: Switzerland captures none of the feelings of Alpine goodwill but all of the excitement of a dangerous mountain train journey.

(Note: Ticket to Ride: Switzerland has been rereleased as part of volume 2 of the Ticket to Ride map collection--India/Switzerland. However, I have the original release, which is the Switzerland map all by itself.)

An Energizing Experience In Deckbuilding (A Review of Ascension: Rise of Vigil)

Everything was peaceful in the land of Vigil until Samael, the Fallen God, appeared with a terrifying army.  Thus begins the story of Ascension as presented in Chronicle of the Godslayer, a game that contained neither  the aforementioned Fallen God nor his slayer.  By the time Samael did show up in the first expansion, Return of the Fallen, there was much deckbuilding that had been done in preparation and he was easily dispatched with.  Unfortunately that didn't end well and so more deckbuilding ensued as the rebel godling, Kythis, caused a Storm of Souls.  By this point Aaron, the Godslayer, finally arrived but was dismayed to find out that Kythis hadn't shown up yet.  When Kythis finally arrived, all sorts of new mechanics had been discovered in the land of Vigil and some Immortal Heroes messed him up.  With his defeat, Vigil has once again entered an era of peace... but mysterious shards have started appearing throughout the land and much rising is now in order.

Bad Days Ahead (a review of Dominion: Dark Ages)

It's no secret that we here at iSlaytheDragon are big fans of Dominion and its many expansions. I think we may have logged more plays of that game alone than all our other games combined, especially if you count online play.

So when Dark Ages, the seventh expansion and fifth big-box expansion was announced, we were excited and yet filled with reservations. With hundreds of cards already in the mix, what new could Dark Ages bring that wouldn't toss the game over the edge of the cliffs of insanity? Would this be the expansion that finally jumped the Dominion shark?

Find out below as both @Futurewolfie and @FarmerLenny share their thoughts on the latest, biggest Dominion expansion.

Carcassonne: Traders and Builders

So you’ve mastered building cities and roads, and even a few churches here and there. You’ve even attracted tourists with your beautiful cathedrals, enough to support a number of lakeside inns scattered across the countryside. But now that’s not enough; the name of the game is progress, man! And what better way to speed up progress than to hire more workers to build your cities and roads faster. On top of that, why don’t you build an economy of trade with the outside world?

Carcassonne: Traders and Builders is an expansion for Carcassonne (if that wasn’t clear) that adds new ways to score points, new tiles, and a way to build more tiles more quickly. But is this new era of prosperity worth claiming?

Bullies, Buildings, and Beauty (a review of Carcassonne: Inns and Cathedrals)

What comes in the box

[Editors note: The following is a Nemesis Review, featuring opinions from our in-house eurogamer, @Farmerlenny, and his deadly enemy the thematic space-loving @Futurewolfie.  Make sure to read both opinions to get a better overall picture of the game!]

It's hard to imagine a time when Carcassonne didn't have a million expansions available, but seriously, there was one. There was a time when medieval city-building enthusiasts were drumming their fingers on their gaming tables, waiting for the next Klaus-Jurgen Wrede brainwave. And before Carcassonne jumped the shark, there was Inns & Cathedrals.

So what do I think of this expansion-before-the-others? Find out below!

A Cosmic Expansion (A Review of Cosmic Encounter: Cosmic Incursion)

The box is small enough to fit inside the original

[Editors note: The following is a Nemesis Review, featuring opinions from our in-house thematic-loving @futurewolfie and his ferocious opponent, the stodgy euro-loving @Farmerlenny. Make sure to read both opinions to get a better overall picture of the game!]

The original version of Cosmic Encounter was the first board game that had expansion packs, and with a subtitle like "A game of infinite possibilities," it's no surprise to see Fantasy Flight's current edition of the game get some expansion love.

Cosmic Incursion is the first expansion. Does it add more for fans of the original? Does it make the game appeal to those who didn't like the original? Find out below!

In the Distant Lands... (a review of Dominion: Hinterlands)

If you haven't heard of Dominion by now, clearly you haven't been reading this blog enough, because we talk about it all the time. But just as a quick refresher, Dominion is a card game that exploded onto the scene back in 2008 and quickly became popular and highly regarded (including a Spiel des Jahres win), for good reason. It's easy to learn, accessible, and fun for almost anyone—and yet it holds within it strategic depth and almost infinite variability. Oh, and it invented the deck-building genre of games, which is cool too.

Dominion was followed up with a number of expansions that only increased the quality and fun of the game, and now we're here with yet another expansion—the sixth of eight, Dominion: Hinterlands—which brings us cards thematically featuring elements of distant travel, exploration, discovery,  far-off lands, and valuable foreign goods.

Is this expansion worth adding to your collection? Find out below!

I'll Tell You a Tale... (a mini-review of Small World: Tales & Legends)

 
Tales and Legends is yet another mini-expansion for Small World, but this time instead of new races and special powers, you get a deck of Event Cards.  Like the others, Tales is definitely mini - about the size of a deck of cards, so look carefully when you're at the gaming store - and it comes at a low price.  This time it's $15, a little bit more than Cursed! and Grand Dames.  Is it worth it?

Cursed! (a mini-review of Small World: Cursed!)

 

Small World: Cursed! is a mini-expansion to the game Small World that adds a few new races and a few new powers. Much like Grand Dames, "mini" is definitely an accurate description—this expansion is essentially the punchboards with the races, their tokens, and the special powers wrapped in a paper sleeve. (Also like Grand Dames, it's so small it was hard to find on the shelf of my FLGS. Be warned.) Fortunately, it also comes at a mini-price of only $10 (and if you look you can find it discounted even further).

Is Cursed! worth it? I think so.

Here Come the Ladies... (a mini-review of Grand Dames of Small World)

Grand Dames of Small World is a mini-expansion to Small World, adding three new races and two new special powers. "Mini" is an accurate term, as this expansion is essentially a few punchboards with the tokens wrapped in a sheet of paper, coming in at about 1/4 inch thick. It was hard to see on the shelf of the board game store, it's so tiny. Fortunately, it comes at a low price of $10, and if you look around, you can find it discounted even further. Is it worth the price?

Now You've got a Ticket to Ride!

In lieu of an FDQ today, we've got something a little different going on.  You may notice we've been reviewing Ticket to Ride games this week.  And you may notice something else... a new "GAMES" tab up at the top of the page.

We're happy to announce that we finally completed our own personal TTR custom map design!  We originally started this design for for the Days of Wonder design-your-own-map contest, but clearly, we didn't win that.  Still, we felt like we had a solid idea and our playtests were great fun, so we decided to produce some high-quality Print-and-Play files to share our little expansion with the world.  Hit the jump for more details and a little behind-the-scenes!