So three of us sat down yesterday and tried the Eve: Conquests board game. Here are my first impressions of the game:
Parts and production value:
First, as a picture is worth 1000 words, lets start with that
As you can see, you get a whole lot in this box. The artwork is very nice and the production value, while not as high as some of the Euro titles, is very good. This is definitely a visually appealing game, albeit a bit muddled for new players.
Each player gets a stack of 60 chips that represent "Units" and "Agents" (if you are looking for little plastic space ships with big guns, look at Twilight Imperium) The main board is large and actually well laid out, once you get used to the jumble in the middle that represents the systems. There are a goodly number of "Outpost" markers in one of the three colours for Development (blue), Logistics (orange) and Production (Gold). These are independent of players colours and are owned by the player with Unit chips underneath them. 30 custom 10 sided dice represent your tactical choices in combat being, Damage, Shields and Tactics. You divide these into 2 sets of 15 dice (5 of each kind) and those dice are placed into one of the branded bags that comes with the game. Each player has an Empire card where you keep reserve resources and allocate or remove resources from your Project Schedule to increase or decrease the time spent and actions gained. There is also 12 additional Calendar Icons (3 of each empire symbol) that are used to keep track of who does what when. Last but never least, three decks of cards, again Development, Logistics and Production, and 3 sets of small square system cards round out the components. All in a nice vacu-form vinyl tray that actually fits the pieces and is easy to sort and put away. Very nice, I always appreciate that.
Game Play and Rules:
The rules are not all that difficult to learn, although that is one of my complaints about the game, the rulebook is not written very clearly when you first read it. I am very picky when it comes to rule sets, I want them to be clear, concise and provide easy to follow examples. Unlike some games (Race for the Galaxy anyone?) you can learn to play by sitting down with the rulebook and hashing things out. I recommend that first time players do just that, follow the steps in the setup instructions and just Dive into the game to figure things out. The rules are quite a bit more clear when you have the board and pieces in front of you.
Victory conditions and Impending Doom are both interesting. You can choose to play for a fixed game length (2, 3 or 4 years) or to a set VP number (recommendations in the rule book vary this for the number of players). Impending doom gives the game an interesting variable ending which at first does not sound at all appealing but after playing I can see how it would work well. I like being able to choose the conditions of victory and the variability in game end makes for interesting play choices.
Game play is quick and smooth. Not a whole lot of stick points or analysis paralysis here. You get three different kinds of turns (and this is one of the mechanics I really loved about this game). You get Development turns in which you can expand into adjacent unowned systems or plant agents into opponent controlled systems (agents give you an advantage in combat), Production turns where you can build new units and place them in your HQ or outposts and Logistics turns where you can move units, attack opponents or draw your choice of the three types of cards. This makes Logistics turns very useful as depending on the cards you draw (development, logistics or production) you can either influence the game, the turn order, victory points, other players cards, and so forth. The cards can also be discarded in a like named phase (without activating their effect) for extra actions of that kind. So if I have three production cards and my production turn comes up and I get 8 actions, I can spend my cards to get one extra action each. This way you can turn Logistics turns into advantages in development and production turns.
The game play varies considerably between aggressive expansion and pacifist building, totally dependent on board position, victory conditions and what your opponents are up to (never anything good).
The mechanics I thought were very good and the stuff I have seen before:
The Calendar:
Now, before I heap love on the calendar mechanic, one complaint. The arrow wheel in the center of the calendar is not affixed to the board. Not good foresight. Pin it down or use some form of clip to attach it. OK. The calendar. On each empire card are three different areas corresponding to the three kinds of turns you get. If you allocate resources to these areas you can increase the number of actions at the cost of more time in the case of Development (blue) and Production (gold). Logistics gets more actions as well however unlike the other two the number of steps decreases. For example, Production at level three means 8 actions and 6 months between phases. At level 1 it is 1 action and 2 months between phases. Here is where a player can really manipulate things. If you need one of your phases to come quicker you can sacrifice actions to decrease the number of months each turn has between them. This was used in the game we played to allow the winner (not me by the way, I got slapped about pretty soundly) to shorten the time to his final development phase where he captured the last system cards he needed to win by VP's. An excellent mechanic and one that adds great depth to the game.
The political landscape. This is the 3 by 3 matrix in the lower left of the board. here is where the systems available for players to gain victory points appear. Again, if you are strong in a specific region of the board you can use this area to your advantage by choosing to reveal cards that are more likely to fall within your sphere of control. Sometimes you also had 2 systems over to your opponent (yes Thomas, you are welcome). Good mechanic, gives the game great re-playability.
Battles: Battles are simple and fast. One logistics action equals one attack to an adjacent opponent controlled system. You get the number of battle dice equal to the number of Units you are attacking with. The person with more agents gets to ask one question after their opponent chooses what combination of dice to use. They can ask how many of one type of dice did you pick, Eg: How many attack dice. This lets you customize your attack or defense based on their choice. Attack dice do damage, 1 hit equals one eliminated unit, Shield dice absorb incoming damage again on a 1:1 basis and Tactics dice allow you to absorb an incoming point of damage (just like a shield), eliminate a point of shields or withdraw a unit of yours to an adjacent sector, IF AND ONLY IF you roll more tactics points than your opponent. You can preform one of the three listed actions of each point of tactics you roll in excess of your opponent, so ties get you nothing. If you manage to invade a system (eliminate all units belonging to your opponent) and it has an outpost you can knock off one of that kind of resource produced from your opponents reserve supply or from their upgrades. In addition you can steal a system card which lowers their VP's and increases your own. Don't think this is Risk in Space, it is not. Conquest is expensive and not easy, however it can be very very lucrative.
Impressions:
I really liked this game. The simplicity in the rules belies an underlaying depth of strategy. Making unwise choices or presenting too juicy of a target will get you in deep trouble fast, however you are never out of the game, your HQ is impossible to remove from the board. I will play this game again, and more than once as I really want to explore the depths of strategy that we only started digging into. Well worth playing and well worth playing again.
"Youth ages, immaturity is outgrown, ignorance can be educated and drunkenness sobered, but stupid is forever" -- Aristophanes
"NO!!! No capes!!!" E. Mode
Rome did not build the greatest empire the world has ever seen by holding meetings, they did it by killing all those who opposed them.
Real Warmachines weigh more than 20 tons and carry PPC's
Zombie Research Society Because what you don't know
CAN eat you.
