A Dicey Proposition

A lot of companies publishing German board games here in the U.S. have taken to numbering those games so that they're part of a series. The games usually have no mechanical or thematic connections; they're rarely even designed by the same designer. But once you collect a couple, you feel the pull to have them all. So goes the theory.

I think the first company to do this was Alea, with their "Large Box," "Medium Box," and "Small Box" game series. And the collection theory has totally worked with me, at least for the "Medium Box" games. I hang on to #3 in that series, Augsburg 1520, even though I don't think highly of it and hardly ever play it. And now, the collection bug pushed me to buy #5, the newest entry -- Alea Iacta Est. (Translation: The Die Has Been Cast.)

It took that collection bug to get me over the hurdle, because the game honestly sounded like something I wasn't sure I'd like. There's a lot of dice rolling involved, and I'm not usually a big fan of too much randomness in my strategy games. I've slowly soured on The Settlers of Catan over time, for example, because the fickle dice rolls of the opening few turns can often set the path of the entire game.

But then #5... had to have it! And dice aren't a complete deal-breaker for me in a game; I love Perudo (Liar's Dice), for example. Plus, the Alea games (of any size) haven't typically featured too much chaos, so there was certainly the possibility the game would turn out decent.

That about sums it up -- it's decent. Maybe even a little better than that. Each player has eight dice in his own color, and rolls them all when it's his turn. He then arranges his roll in certain combinations that can be assigned to different spaces on a "game board" -- for example, sets of the same number or straights of consecutive numbers. But you only get to assign dice to one space at a time. When your next turn comes around, you roll only the remaining, unassigned dice you have, and a round continues until one player assigns all his dice.

The assigned dice are then the measure by which different point giving chips are handed out to players, which at the end of the game will be maximized in the best possible combinations to produce a winning score. Players with unassigned dice left over at the end of a round get consolation in the form of "reroll chips," that let you reroll any number of dice you wish from a roll you don't like. Pretty straightforward stuff.

It turns out that while there is randomness, the game has some things going on to break that up and inject more strategy. First of all, there are those reroll chips I mentioned. Secondly, a "bad roll" can still be useful. Some areas of the "board" only want one or two dice, and there's a balance of places where low numbers are best and where high numbers are best. In other words, you can often assign your dice in ways that minimize the ill effects of a "bad roll."

It's fun, but not flawless. There's not a lot of variety in the gameplay; the main thing the game has going in its favor is that it's short enough that you enjoy yourself while playing it. A game that took longer might wear out its welcome for such randomness, but this one doesn't, clocking in usually at 30 minutes.

That said, there is another game we play regularly that hits some of the same areas, but that I like better. It's in Sangediver's collection, not mine: Yspahan. It also uses dice as a major mechanic, but in a way I find to be much more balanced for all players, and with much more room for strategic maneuvering. The game is also quick; it tends to take only 45 minutes. Basically, though I did find Alea Iacta Est to be a decent game, I'd probably never choose to play it in any situation where I also had a copy of Yspahan handy.