From:        kwan@cs.cornell.edu (Alan Kwan)
Subject:     REVIEW: AH's History of the World
Date:        Sat, 10 Sep 1994 20:04:42 GMT


Ah's History of the world is an innovative /extension/ of Risk.  It's very 
enjoyable.  It's a moderately long game (takes like 6 hours to play).

I've played the game only once, but I studied the rules and drew some 
inferences about the game.

Basic system:

The game's goal is victory points.  The game is played for exactly seven 
turns, and whoever has the most VP at the end wins the game.

The mapboard is structured like a Risk board, but water spaces are 
accessible.  Each turn, you draw an empire card (special drawing sequence for
game balance).  The empire card lists your start space and your useable 
strength this turn.  It also states which water areas you can enter.  Say if 
your strength this turn is 6, then you get 6 armies (/navies/forts) to place 
on the map.  You start from your start space, and expand by placing armies in
adjacent spaces, or reinforce your occupied spaces.  If you put an army in an
enemy-occupied space, combat ensues (attacker in general has as advantage).  
In this part of the turn, your armies from empires on previous turns are 
/not/ (really) considered "friendly" units.  Armies once placed on the board
are generally not moved.  You continue placing armies in "reachable" spaces 
until you've placed your allowance this turn.

Scoring is at the end of /your/ player turn.  The mapboard is didided into 
areas like Risk.   There is a VP chart besides the map giving the value for 
each area for each turn.  But scoring is not like Risk; you score [area 
points] x1 if you have any unit in the area.  You score x2 if you occupy at 
least three spaces and more spaces than anybody else.  You score x3 if you 
occupy every space in the area.  The rules generally encourage widespread 
expansion rather than concentrating in one area.  You also score points for 
sea spaces, capitals and cities (some start spaces) and for monuments (built 
by occupying resource spaces).  During scoring, all your units from empires 
on previous turns /are/ considered friendly units.

The main advantage of the game system is that player interaction is 
regulated.  You can try to kick back the leader by attacking his on-board 
units, so that he will not score so many points on his turn, but even if you 
wipe out all his armies, he'll still get his allocated strength on his turn, 
and get some score.  You can't gang up on the leader to wipe him out as in 
Civilization.  You can also build forts in his path (if you know where he's 
coming) to hinder his expansion, but he can choose to expand in another 
direction if you're going too far.  So there is always /some/ degree of 
player interaction, but you can't count on ganging up to overturn a well-
played game.  As already stated, a player's on-board strength affects his 
scoring, but not so much his expansion.

The game is /extremely/ well-tested and balanced.  You usually have a 
reasonable chance of catching up to the leader (unless you've played badly or
were unreasonably unlucky and are really behind), but the leader does have 
some advantage.  Some of the rulings show a delicate effort to maintain game 
balance; for example, the event cards are divided into types (minor 
empire/leader/calamity etc.) and in the beginning of the game, each player 
draws one card from each type.  This ensues that no one gets too lucky or 
unlucky on cards.  Also, there are no "ridiculus" cards.

Also,because of the fixed length of the game, playing time is quite constant, 
so you can schedule your sessions easily without messing up your life.

This game is simple, but it is the most playable game I've ever seen.  Play 
is very varied, because the possible combinations of empire cards are 
astronomical.  Highly recommended.

Alan.