William Terdoslavich - Dec 22, 2004 10:04 am (#7966 Total: 7977) I'm tired of playing Euro games. I want to kill! OTT last night: Friedrich--the cards of fate are shuffled again. (Did I get that complete title right?) It's a Euro-treatment of the Seven Years War. Very PtP, using bastardized playing cards to resolve battles. Each area has a suit (spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs). Only battle cards in those suits are useful in those areas. Battle starts with army strenght, and then players lay down cards of the right suit to add to that number--highest number wins. We had one fight between Russia and Prussia that burned through 10 cards. To some extent, its a resource management puzzle, which is at the heart of many Euro-game mechanics. There were some good design points in this game. National objectives are printed on the map, and running your army over them allows you to flag them for control. This keeps players focused on what they must do, instead of catapulting armies on crazy, gamey marches all over Mitteleuropa. Armies are supplied in their home countries, but must be able to draw supply from a slower-moving supply train up to six spaces away. My outlook on the game is colored by past Freddie games that I have played, where the quality of the generals is taken into account in terms of likelihood of movement, speedy movement, and battle. None of that is present here. All generals are the same. They can command up to eight factors (or armies). Up to three generals can stack. Where the game goes DFE is by giving Prussia more battle cards and more strength points to apportion among more leaders (32 factors, eight leaders, seven cards per turn). Prussia, Austria, France, et al. have to get by with fewer SPs, leaders and cards. One limiter on the game, (which we did not hit but should be interesting) are the Fate Cards. A major player may find himself removed from the game because of the death of a monarch (Russia) or exhaustion of national will and budget (France, Austria). Or Prussia may find its card draw crimped (time to go in for the kill?). Our game ended too soon to see these factors really come into play, as Russia managed to flag all of its objectives. I'd play it again.