From: Chris Fawcett Subject: Age of Renaissance Review We ran a one-day gaming convention, Mac-Con 96, this past Saturday here in the Detroit area, and one of the more popular items was AoRen. The review is provided by Scott Russell, who is an experience gamer extraordinaire. REVIEW by Scott Russell Age of Renaissance is a great, new game from Avalon Hill. Picture a cross between History of the World and Civilization and you will see Renaissance. AH takes many of the best elements of the two games, superimposes a flexibility not found in either and results in a very playable game that I think is going to provide superior playability for many, many sessions. There are also several cute gimmicks like using secret bids to determine turn order each turn and the neat new method of resolving combat thrown in. I played three games of this new gem at MacCon (Nov. 9) and all were very different. We did not manage to complete all three epochs in any of them, but we made it though or nearly through the second epoch on all of the games. Setting an "arbitrary" time limit seemed to provide a satisfying conclusion. The time limit has some advantages, because you cannot count on all of the cards coming into play. In one of the two six-player games, we were within a few turns of finishing after four and a half hours. Surprisingly, the game seemed to move quicker with six than with four players. This is partially because more cards are being drawn and played and also we reread the rules on boats. Changing to what we think are the correct rules, (starting with no boats) allows the first couple of turns to go by without much conflict and that also tended to speed up play. I think with people who had played the game a game is completable in four to five hours. The system allows for more flexibility than History and Civ for determining where to expand and the ship movement effectively makes the board smaller. The furthest separated powers are probably London and Venice, but in our last game due to an event card (War) London wound up with units in Italy. This means that diplomacy with everyone is more important because nearly everyone can reach out and clobber everybody. Fortunately, the rules specify that all negotiation must be done at the table, so the game does not get slowed by off-table negotiations. The flexibility also makes it easier to gang up on the leader, so it should prove difficult for anyone to just run away and leave everyone behind. While this doesn’t reward superior play as much, it does keep the winner in doubt until near the end. I do not currently own this game, but plan on acquiring it soon. This means I am writing this from memory, so I may use some incorrect terminology, but the concepts presented should be fairly accurate overall. VICTORY CONDITIONS The purpose of the game is to amass the most victory points at the end. Your total VP’s at the end are calculated by adding the value of your advances and your cash and subtracting your Misery Index. The full game would play through all three decks, but it can be called after Epoch I or II, or with a time limit. The time limit seemed to work fairly well, but I would like to finish all of the cards and maybe try ending after Epoch I or II before I select a favorite method. MAP AND COMPONENTS The game starts in Europe just before the Renaissance period. The map consists of seven areas that include Europe, the Mediterranean and Black Sea and two disconnected areas, the Far East and the New World. The Black Sea, the Far East, and the New World are not accessible for a player until he has acquired certain advances. With six players, all of Europe is available. As the number of players decline; Germany (Hamburg) and part of Scandinavia; England (London), the rest of Scandinavia, and Iceland; and France(Paris) drop out, respectively. Those areas are unplayable for the entire game. With three players the starting positions are Venice, Genoa, and Spain (Barcelona). Venice and Genoa share an area that is roughly Italy and the Balkans, The entire Mediterranean is available also. Each Area consists of roughly eight to twelve countries and some satellites. The areas are delineated by a relatively thick colored line. The thickness of the line caused one dispute over adjacencies, but it seems that no coastal space touches more than one country and no country touches two coasts on the same side of the peninsula. (Rome touches the Tyrrhenian and the Adriatic, but only one coastal space in each.) The countries have a market value from two to five and a commodity that they supply. The satellites have a market value of one and are useful only for defense of some of the adjacent countries. The three countries of the Far East and the two in the New World produce two commodities each. The countries are color-coded, but even the non-spectrally challenged had some trouble distinguishing all of the colors. Controlling a country gives you its market share in that commodity. The board also has tracks for market share, misery index, and shipping that show each players status in those areas. The market share chart except for its size is pretty well done. Each commodity has a number of boxes equal to the number of countries on the board that produce it. Each box has a country name and is color-coded to the area that the country is in as well as the amount to be collected. There is also an area to display the move order. Each player also uses a mat and a record sheet. Each player has 36 tokens and 30 (?) control markers. There are also chits to indicate position on the on-board charts. The box and map are similar in size and quality to History of the World. The player mat has a location for the player’s stock and a turn description. The stock area for the control markers doubles as a chart to indicate the income from the number of control markers. The player sheet (that you write on) has a summary of all the advances and an area to track the other player’s advances. Both the sheet and the mat are two sided and slightly less than 8-1/2" X 11". (Only one side of each is used in each game, one side of the mat is for 3-4 players and the other is for a 5-6 player game.) There are also three decks of cards, that seem to be the standard AH quality. Since there is not much shuffling, they should hold up OK (as opposed to Guerrilla or Road Kill). It has the AH-standard 20 pager rule-book. PLAY DESCRIPTION A turn consists of drawing card(s), playing cards, purchasing, expanding, and bookkeeping. The players all complete each step in player order before proceeding to the next step. The bookkeeping is done simultaneously. Cards There are three decks that represent three Epochs. Some of the cards are recycled, while others are only used once. The cards consist of three main types: commodity payoffs, events, and leaders. When the payoffs are played, everyone that has any market share in that commodity is paid. The eleven commodities have base values from one to nine and holding more increases the payoff exponentially. This system works like the trade cards in Civilization, so holding one stone is worth only one, two would be worth four, three worth nine, etc. There are approximately two total cards for each commodity, but some are not added until Epoch II or III. The events can be helpful to the player, harmful to a target player, or harmful to everyone. There are types of weaponry, like stirrups or armor that give a benefit in combat for the turn. Some reduce other players’ control markers to single tokens, or reduce his treasury. Others increase the misery index for everyone with or without certain advances or areas. For example, famine raises the misery level of everyone by four spaces minus one for each grain or agriculture advance that they own. Leaders give the playing country, and sometime others, a credit towards certain advances. For another example, Marco Polo gives twenty credits towards Overland East (which allows a player into the Black Sea region) and Cosmopolitan. The country that plays the leader is automatically allowed to use the credits. Each leader after the first (which is protected from Patronage) that is played in a turn is subject to Patronage (an advance that allows countries to use leaders that other countries played, for a fee). Early leaders tend to give credit for the cheaper advances, while later leaders are for the higher priced ones. The leaders are all discarded permanently after one turn. The commodities are all recycled. Some events like Crusade and War are recycled, while the weapons are discarded permanently. When the Epoch I deck is depleted, the recyclable cards that have been played are shuffled into the Epoch II deck. The same procedure is repeated for the Epoch III deck. So an Epoch I card could be played up to three times. There is no hand size limit, but as described below, there is a cost associated with holding cards. It seemed that as we finished the first epoch, most of the countries were controlled, so Epoch II seemed to have more conflict. Epoch III saw expansions into the Far East and the New World as well as continuing jockeying in the old country. Purchasing During the purchase phase, the players, again in turn order, make all of their purchases for the turn. The possible purchases are advances, ship improvements, misery relief, and paying for your hand size (stabilization). None of the purchases are mandatory, but there is a penalty for not paying for your hand. The stabilization cost of your hand is cumulatively $1 for the first card, $2 for the second, $3 for the third, etc. So holding four cards would cost $10. If this stabilization is not paid, the player’s misery index increases by one step. Ship improvements allow your country to increase the range and payload of your fleet, this will be further described in the expansion paragraphs. Misery relief allows you to reduce your misery index. Advances can also be purchased in this phase. Advances Advances are a key part of the game and are very similar to the Civilization cards in Civ. There are six areas of advances; Science, Religion, Commerce, Education, Exploration, and Civics. Each discipline has four advances, but I am only describing the ones that I remember. Science includes The Heavens (allows sea transit in a non-coastal sea space), the Human Body (reducing your misery index by one step). Religion has Patronage (allowing use of other player’s leaders), Holy Indulgence (allowing the owner to take two tokens per from all players without it), Proselytization (wins ties on the green die in combat), and Cathedral (one automatic combat win per turn against players without it). Commerce consists of Caravan (allows tokens to move through one uncontrolled area), Watermills (possible allows a forced trade after conquering a control marker), and Middle Class (providing $10 per turn) Education has Something (increases leader bonuses by ten), Written Record (allows cash “rebates” for playing leaders that give credit for already owned advances), Master Arts (allows one discard every turn) and Renaissance (allows player to trade turn order with an adjacent player). Exploration has Overland East (allowing access to Black Sea), Seaworthy Vessels (allows landing on any coast), Ocean Travel (access to Far East), and New World (access to New World and reducing misery one per turn). Civics contains Urban Ascendancy (allowing a card purchase each turn), Nationalism (bonus to combat in home area), Institutionalized Research (ten credit for any non-Civic or -Religion advance) and Cosmopolitan. As mentioned these are close, if not exact. Each advance has a value, a credit for other advances from that discipline on later turns, and a one time misery reduction usable that turn only in addition to the special effects described above. Except for the credit for future purchases, all of the effects are immediate. So, for example, if you purchase patronage, you can immediately use the leaders that were played that turn during the card play phase. Some of the advances also have prerequisite advance that must be purchased before they are available. (Prerequisites can be purchased in the same turn.) For example to get Far East, you must have Seaworthy Vessels and The Heavens. The values of the advances range from 20 for Caravan and The Heavens to 170 for Cosmopolitan. (Renaissance may be 200.) No one was close to purchasing all of the advances in the games that we played, but in a game without a lot of extra card purchases, I think that it would be possible. Misery Index The misery index starts at zero and is incremented for some events, not paying stabilization costs, and purchasing some advances. The value of the first ten steps on the misery index are 10, then eight at 25, a six at 50 and the last four are 100. If you reach 1000, you are eliminated form the game. It can only be reduced with some advances and by purchasing reductions. You must have one advance of each discipline for each step that you reduce your misery per turn. So if you have two advances in each discipline, you can reduce your misery two steps per turn. To reduce misery you must pay the difference to the last step minus any misery reduction credits for advances that you purchased that turn. Expansion (and Combat) The expansion phase follows the purchase phase. Each player in order uses his tokens to control new countries and satellites and perhaps buy cards. Tokens can move one space by land from any previously existing control marker or token. (With the Caravan advance the tokens can skip, by land, one uncontrolled country or satellite.) Ships allow coastal and eventually sea movement. The first $10 spent on boats allows movement of two coastal spaces and allows up to two tokens to be transported to any country within range. The next three steps increase the range and token capacity by two each up to eight. To progress further, the Seaworthy Vessels advance must be purchased. This immediately allows access to any coast with up to ten tokens per turn. The cargo capacity can also be upgraded as before. Ocean Travel allows near unlimited movement on the map and to the Far East. To control a country, tokens equal to at least the market value of the country must be present. Less can go in and exist (and be expanded from on following turns), but the country will not be controlled. To expand into an occupied or controlled country, a sufficient amount of tokens must be risked and then a die roll is made. The amount of tokens necessary is equal to the market value of the country plus the number of tokens (or the market value if a control marker is present). Any adjacent satellites controlled by the defending player add one to the number of tokens needed. This total can be modified by weapons or Nationalism also. After sufficient tokens are allocated the attacker rolls three colored dice. If the Green die is larger than the attacker’s turn order, the attack succeeds. If the black die is larger than the white die, the attack succeeds. Otherwise it fails. This scheme calculates out to a 90% chance of the first player winning his attacks, decrementing by 10% for each additional turn position. So the sixth turn position (not necessarily the sixth player) has only a 40% chance. (The actual percentages are 90.3, 80.6, 70.8, 61.1, 51.4, and 41.7%) If the attack succeeds the defender removes his tokens or control markers, and the attackers tokens remain to be turned into a control marker. If it fails, the attackers loses the attacking tokens. The attacks are resolved as they are declared and may be tried again if the attacker has sufficient tokens and, if appropriate, ship capacity. Similar to History of the World, once a token is successfully placed, it does not move again. Control of a territory may not be voluntarily relinquished. The first player that chooses to each expansion phase, may expend three tokens to purchase a card. Each succeeding player must spend three more tokens for a card. So the fourth player to purchase a card would have to pay 12 tokens. After everyone has expanded, the new tokens are flipped to the colored side and the new commodity acquisitions are marked on the market track. The player with the most new control markers for the turn (ties go to the player moving earlier that turn) gets a card for a bonus. (This is regardless of how many were lost by that player.) Income Then income is collected. Income is equal to $15 plus the number of the player’s control markers on the board times the number of players. During this phase, the dice are rolled twice. For each roll, the sum of the black and white determine the commodity affected and the green die determines if it is a shortage or a surplus (equal chance). If a shortage happens, the player with the most of that commodity gains a card (if tied, no one gets one). If a surplus, the player with the most pays $1 per country that he owns with that commodity (ties also negate this). During the subsequent card play phase, if a card is played on a commodity with the shortage everyone is paid as if they had one more of that commodity and the shortage is removed. If a surplus, everyone is paid as if they had one less and the marker is removed. The first player during the card draw phase may remove one of the surplus/shortage markers by paying the base value of that commodity. Bookkeeping and Turn Order During the bookkeeping phase everyone totals their income, remaining cash and any money that they collected from commodity card plays. Then each player secretly allocates the number of tokens ($1 each) that he is purchasing for the next turn and the remainder of the cash is recorded as cash. Turn order is very important for combat and sometimes in playing cards and breaking ties. It is determined by ascending order of tokens purchased. So the person who spends the least on tokens moves first, and the player who spends the most moves last. With four players there is no turn position 2 or 4, (so the player moving last never can win combat on the green die); in a three player there is no 1, 3 or 5; and in the five player there is no player 6. (Those positions may be off.) It is possible to take no tokens and spend money to obtain a lower turn order. It is possible that the number of tokens can be changed before the expansion phase due to event cards or the Holy Indulgence advance. The victim of the Civil War event card moves to the last position on the turn order during the expansion phase (in addition to losing half of his tokens or cash on hand and reducing his capital). Country Selection To determine countries, everyone receives their initial card, ranks the countries in order of preference, and then allocates part of his original $40 as a non-recoverable bid. Then the bids are revealed and ties are resolved by a dice roll. The high bid gets his first choice, the second highest gets his highest choice that is still available, etc. During turn order determination, ties are resolved in favor of the player who “chose” his country later. All of the countries seem quite playable and in all of the games almost everyone got his first or second choice. England and Barcelona are somewhat isolated and have good areas nearby. England has four wool areas in the British Isles alone. Genoa is probably the most crowded, and I think has to work closely with Venice, or will be in real trouble. France in a five or six player game is also kind of crunched. I believe that all of the countries have a good shot. The selection is probably going to be based how your initial card can be used than on the map alone. GRIPES Although the game is playable, there are some definite ambiguities in the rules. These were readily resolved for play, but it sometimes remained unclear what the intention was. The Advances are detailed on the player sheets, on the last page of the rule book, and embedded in the rules in the (usually) appropriate locations. Unfortunately, the text in all three places is nearly identical without further clarification. For example, Advanced agriculture lessens the effects of Famine, but we were unable to determine how much. (We settled on one step on the Misery Index.) Speaking of indices, this rulebook cries out for one. There are nine pages of rules and the rest is taken up by a sample game and notes. In all fairness, I have not played through the sample game and that may clear up some of the ambiguities. The nature of the game requires that information be readily accessible. There also is no further description of the Event Cards and there were a few questions after reading the text on the cards. The boat movement rules are somewhat ambiguous and perhaps too powerful. We only concluded the intention by reading an example, and I am still unsure that we used the correct interpretation. I am confident that when the errata and FAQ’s come out in the General, most of these problems will be solved. (Do I see a plot to increase subscribers here?) The chits that indicate market share are very small and there is not sufficient room between the commodities for the fumble-fingered to move them easily. This was a similar problem on the misery index, but it was not as pronounced because the chits are larger and there is only one track. I do not have a constructive suggestion for this problem, short of replacing the chits with plastic interlocking pieces, perhaps. The board is pretty full, so making the tracks larger is not an option. The colors of the pieces could be better differentiated from each other (again even the non-colorblind agreed). There are symbols on each piece representing the coat of arms of the countries that help somewhat. The board and cards are of flimsier material than I would expect from a $55 dollar game, but I admit that I have been playing a lot of the German games where the components are very well done. A spectator commented that the color scheme of the board resembled someone’s breakfast, but I think the general consensus was that it was OK-looking. (I actually thought it looked pretty good.) Based on my limited play experience, some of the cards seem too powerful. Crusade and Black Death come to mind. Crusade allows the playing country to play a control marker in the mideast and simply remove all of the pieces currently on the country. Black Death removes all of the tokens and reduces all of the control markers in an area. They are recyclable cards which helps unless the same person gets them both times. They are nice catch-up cards, but if the leader gets them, it could really widen the gap. Crusades is available starting in the first Epoch and I think that without it, it would take the closest country (Venice) at least three turns to get there. So if it were played in the first turn, it could be really overpowering. In the games that we played, the player that got Crusade first won two of them. In the other game, the player that got it, lost all three of his existing control markers on the second turn just before he played Crusades to the War card. These are all relatively minor gripes. All in all, I think that AH has produced another winner. SUGGESTIONS I feel that the boats are almost too powerful and I might try to limit them somewhat. If playing only the first Epoch game, I probably would remove some of the more powerful event cards. I also think that it would be interesting to just shuffle the deck together and then divide it into halves or thirds and randomly designate them Epoch I, II, and III. I am guessing that the next several times that I play, we will play straight rules, though. It is pretty well balanced now.