From: kcisnow@yahoo.com (Tom Vasel) Subject: [Review] Im Zeichen des Kreuzes I bought Im Zeichen des Kreuzes (In the Sign of the Cross) for one reason – the dice tower. The theme – the crusades, was definitely a draw, but I was really interested in playing a "German" style war game, of which there are few. After seeing pictures of the game and reading a bit more about it, I decided to purchase the game. So, was my purchase worth it? I believe that Im Zeichen des Kreuzes (Queen Games, 2001 – Ronald Hofstatter) is a very fun light war game. Oddly enough, the fun does not come from the goal, but rather from the actual combat. On the flipside, some have found an endgame problem, and the game feels a bit too "easy". Let me explain… First, I'll tell you how the game plays… A board is placed on the table, showing a map of the Mediterranean area, split into different territories and zones. Each territory is one of three types: water, mountains, or plains. Some territories also contain a city, with a symbol next to it in order to denote whether it is a Muslum or Christian city. Twenty-four city discs are shuffled and placed face down on each city. Each player is given a player mat. These mats show the noble that the player is playing, along with starting troops, treasure chests, and location. The player places a large wooden coat of arms piece on the board in their starting space. This coat of arms stands for the armies that are on the player mat. Each mat also has a motivation track on it, which ranges from "0" motivation to "10" motivation. Starting troops (cubes of that players colors), starting treasures (small wooden chests), and two purple cubes are placed on the mat. Four round tokens are placed on the board – two representing Muslim armies, and the other two representing pirate ships. The remainder of the pieces are sorted and placed in a tray that is accessible by all. The large cube tower is set up, and a deck of 140 cards is shuffled, and five dealt to each player. Fifteen green cubes (Muslim armies) are placed in Jerusalem, and the game is ready to begin. The player who is knight Gottfried goes first, and each player takes their turn in clockwise order. The first thing a player does on their turn is play one to five cards from their hand. If a player plays a mountain, water, or plains card, they may move their piece into that specific type of terrain. If the player plays a joker, they may move their piece into any type of terrain. If the terrain cards show the pirate symbol or the Muslim army symbol, the player may also move one of those pieces one space. If a player moves into a space with the pirates or Muslim army, or those pieces move into a space containing a player's piece, a battle occurs. A player can also play event cards, which do a variety of things to help the player or hurt his opponents. After playing cards, the player looks to see if he is in an unplundered city. If so, he may perform one of the following actions. - Troop enlistment. The player may spend his chests to buy troops. One chest = 2 troops. This may only be done in a Christian city. - Prayer. The player may raise his motivation by two points (maximum of 10). This may only be done in a Christian city. - Plundering. The player may plunder (attack) the city he is in. If the attack succeeds, the player flips over the city token, revealing a number from 3 to 7. This is how many treasure chests the player receives. The city token is then removed from the board. Attacks are all handled the same. Players never attack each other, but always fight the Muslim armies. When plundering a Christian city, two green troops defend. When plundering a Muslim city, or fighting pirates or a Muslim army, three green troops defend. Occasionally an event card will send a certain amount of troops to fight a player, also. The player decides how many troops he will commit to the battle off of his playing mat. These troops are taken, along with the defending troops, and are thrown into the top of the dice tower. The tower has different shelves within it that may catch some of the cubes, trapping them in the tower. A random number of cubes falls out of the bottom of the tower into the tray. Occasionally cubes from previous battles will be jarred loose and also fall into the tray. If more green cubes fall into the tray than cubes of the player's color, the enemy wins. All of the player's cubes are lost, while the green cubes stay in the tray, adding to future battles. The player must retreat to an adjacent space, losing 2 points of morale (3 if attacking a Christian city). If more of a player's cubes fall into the tray, the player wins. The amount of green cubes that fall into the tray are taken from the player's cubes as casualties, however. (For example, if 6 yellow cubes and 3 green cubes fall into the tray, yellow wins. However, they only retain three of their troops, as three of their cubes are lost to match the three green troops that fell out). Thus, it is possible to win a battle, and also lose all your forces. After a successful fight, a player's motivation increases by one point, unless they won a Muslim city, in which case it increases by two points. Attacking a Christian city causes the player to LOSE three points of motivation, whether they win or lose. If defeating an army or pirates, the enemy's piece is placed back on the space where it started. After this, a player may discard any cards they don't want, and draw up to three cards, filling their hand to a maximum of five cards. If a player's motivation is four or less, they may only draw two cards, and if their motivation is two or less, they may only draw one card. At any time in the game, a player may play one of their purple cubes to clear the cube tower of its contents. The goal of the game is to conquer Jerusalem. The first player to do this is the winner. However, many event cards add troops to Jerusalem, so by the time a player gets to Jerusalem, there are quite a few troops there. A player may not attack Jerusalem if their motivation is lower than "6", or if they have not already plundered two other Muslim cities. The attack on Jerusalem takes place in many phases. When attacking Jerusalem, one player takes the part of the defenders, deciding how many defending troops will fight each round. If a player defeats all the forces in Jerusalem, they win the game! Otherwise, they must retreat and build up their forces and/or motivation. The first attacker of Jerusalem gets the "pope's bonus" – five wooden chests, while the next two attackers get three chests and one chest, consecutively. Each player who remains in the same space as Jerusalem, but does not attack, loses 2 points of motivation. Finally, one player defeats Jerusalem, and the game ends. Some comments on the game: 1). Components: The components for this game, as with many Queen games, are top-notch. My only difficulty was the lack of English. Fortunately, there were English cards at www.boardgamegeek.com, which I was able to download, print, and glue on the cards. The cubes are nice, though one must be careful not to lose them, as there are few or no extra pieces. The coat of arm tokens are outstanding, as are the little wooden treasure chests. The player cards are nice, and although they are in German, they are quite easy to figure out. The cards are small, about half the size of a normal playing card, and are very easy to use and shuffle. If the paste-up cards become a problem when shuffling, there is a variant of using two decks of cards in the rules, one special, and one for the land terrain cards. The board is quite large, but is very nice looking, and the borders between territories (often a problem in war games such as this) are very easily defined. The box is very large and sturdy, and has a plastic insert that (barely) holds everything in. Everything, especially the cube tower, gets an A+ component-wise. 2). Rules: The rules are beautiful and are printed on 8 full-color pages with variants and examples. Not only that, but another small booklet is included that provides the background for each noble in the game. Unfortunately, neither of these are in English. The good news is that translations are available online (again at boardgamegeek). The bad news is that the translations are okay, but often have to be cross-referenced with the German rules to see pictures and such. I also had to read the rules a couple times to make sure I understood them, as the layout was a bit confusing. Also, some very important rules were mentioned at odd places in the rules (like how something should be setup was mentioned near the end) and could easily be overlooked or forgotten. The game isn't hard to teach or learn, but the rules weren't the best. 3). Cube tower: The reason I bought the game. Of course, a system could have been devised that produced the same results with dice – but the cube tower is so much more fun! There are several "shelves" in the tower, that the cubes can land on, causing them to stay in the tower where they might be dislodged in future battles. This always causes an uncertainty when attacking cities. [example] How many forces should I attack this city with? It only has three defending forces, but I know that there are around 4 green cubes in the tower. So I decide to attack with eight of my red cubes. The cubes are thrown in, and 4 green cubes come out in the tray, along with four red cubes and one blue cube. Since it's a tie, I win! However, because four green cubes come out, I lose the four red cubes that came out, also. My only consolation is that the blue cube (another player's) is like a freed prisoner, who joins my army (I switch it for a red cube). [example] So one never really knows how many forces to throw in the tower, and that's a lot of fun. The purple cubes must be used wisely, as you want to empty the tower of its cubes when it's beneficial to you and not another player. 4). End game: There are many complaints about the end game of attacking Jerusalem – namely, that the first person to attack Jerusalem invariably does not win the game. I have not found this to be true in our games. We found that the first person to attack Jerusalem could pull back after only a couple rounds, and gain the treasure chest bonus. This would allow them to attack even more strongly later on. Games often turn into a race for Jerusalem, and it's great fun to try to impede your opponent's progress with the pirates and Muslim armies. 5). Motivation: The motivation factor is a neat idea, and works okay in practice. I only found that it was too easy to raise one's motivation. Besides praying in a city, there are many, many cards that raise your armies' motivation. Rarely was my motivation below six, and if it was, I would immediately raise it through praying and/or cards. I like the idea, but it should have felt "harder" to motivate armies – closer to real life. 6). Variants: There are several variants suggested in the rules, mostly to make the game harder and/or more historically accurate. The variants seem to work well, and I will often use some, if not all of them. There are also several "fixed" rules or card sets available on the web. I haven't personally used any of these yet, as I don't think the game is broken. 7). Fun Factor: The theme is really prevalent in this game in most of the details (except motivation). I especially liked the rule about sacking Christian cities, as that is a historical certainty. We all had a blast playing the game. I have to admit, most of our fun came from using the dice tower, but the game itself was a blast. Decisions were not too hard to make, and it was really fun to pray in a Christian city one turn, buy troops from it the next, then sack it the third turn! The event cards were also fun (especially when played on other players!). A bit of strategy, a bit of tactics, a lot of luck, and a lot of cube tower made for a very fun game! 8). Time: Our games lasted about 90 minutes, and there wasn't much downtime between turns, so time passed quickly for us. I have to recommend this game to anyone who likes unique mechanisms in games, and to those who like light war games. It's not inexpensive, to be sure, but the components are worth the price in my opinion, and the game is a whole lot of fun. The game plays easily, and you'll find yourself promising death to the infidels quite a bit. It's fun to loudly denounce other players when they sack a Christian city and laugh at them when they are defeated by pirates. The game is a jolly bit of fun, so give it a whirl! Tom Vasel