A few weeks back, I wrote about the board game based on The Pillars of the Earth, giving it my thumbs up. But it's not the only game to be based on a Ken Follett novel. The same game designers have tackled one of his more recent novels, World Without End. I'd also heard good things about this game, including a very enthusiastic recommendation from FKL. It had enough accumulated praise that when I happened to pick up a gift certificate to a place that sells board games, I knew exactly which game I was going to buy.At its most basic level, World Without End is another resource gathering/management game. The game takes place over four "chapters," and at the end of each, you're required to have certain specific resources to avoid nasty penalties. In addition, other resources along the way can be spent to earn you victory points in a variety of ways. The thing that makes World Without End stand apart from the mass of resource games is a pair of central mechanics that governs how you gather these resources.
First, the starting player of each round turns over a small, diamond-shaped card with a resource of some kind printed on each corner. It's up to that player to orient the card on the game board as he chooses, and each player will wind up with one corner pointed to him. Whichever resource is aimed at you is the one you get for the round. And the game does an excellent job of throwing multiple factors at the "chooser" that might influence the best way of pointing the card.
Second, players have a hand of 12 cards, each representing a different action he can take. In the course of a chapter, a player will play 6 of these cards, and discard the other 6. But the tricky twist is that in each round, after choosing one to play, you must also choose one to discard. So you have to look a little ahead and try to guess which actions you probably won't want to do at all for the chapter; you must narrow your options as you go through the chapter.
Together, these two clever mechanics give the game a lot of meat and interest. I've quite enjoyed it every time that I've played. There are two minor points of concern for me, though neither so severe that I'd call them "flaws."
First, there's a "house building" mechanic that allows players to draw down specific income with one of their actions cards. While there is a variety of things one can choose to receive as this income, there is a particular combination of points and money (as opposed to other resources) that seems especially potent. We're still exploring strategies at this point, but thus far, the player to obtain this combo early has won every game I've played but one. (But I was encouraged by the one. Furthermore, players can get wise to this approach and block it.)
Second, there's another mechanic about gathering medical knowledge to cure plague throughout the land, earning victory points in the process. Compared to other ways of scoring in the game, this approach feels like it requires more effort than other paths, for what seems like less reward. (And a particular event that can randomly occur in just over 50% of the games can prematurely close off the plague-curing strategy entirely.) I'm not yet prepared to dismiss this as a viable strategy, but I've yet to see anyone do well with it.
Still, these two points are minor to me, and there are plenty of other things going on in the game that I like, and so I remain fully enthusiastic about playing it. It was a solid recommendation, one I'll pass on to any game lovers reading this.
4 comments:
So your guy basically builds one house on "2 victory points" and one house on "2 gold" and racks up both for the whole game?
I haven't seen that be a problem so far, but I'll try and concentrate on just that next time we play.
As for medicine, I've often had a lot of success with that. 2 points + a bonus each time you cure someone is nothing to sneeze at, but I tend to gather medical knowledge through "alternate means" (i.e. I almost never build a house to get that). I usually end up starting chapter three with two or three books, and I cure whatever I can -- if the associated bonus is something I need (sort of like performing two actions in one).
I really like this game.
FKL
Yes, in chapter one, you build one house on 2 points and one on 2 gold (with your privilege card), and then use the privilege card for the rest of the game to take house rent twice each chapter. That works out to 14 points and 14 bucks throughout the game. And you pretty much never have to do anything related to wool or cloth to make money.
Like I said, I think the strategy can be thwarted a few ways -- in the handing out of resources if people keep stone and wood from going to the same player repeatedly; or if EVERYBODY builds houses on the first round or two to make it difficult or impossible to get both of these houses.
Anyway, I know we'll be playing more, so we can put this and other strategies to the test.
All right.
So in chapter 1, the guy spends one action on Building Resource, then one action on Build House, then (assuming he managed to get another building resource as personal incone) he uses his Privilege to build a second house. That leaves him with two actions to get 2 grain and 2 piety. Really not as easy as pie.
Then, in chapter 2, he needs to spend two actions getting House Rent (with help from the Priviledge), which leaves him four actions to get 2 grain and 2 piety. That's not a given, considering he already blew his Privilege. And can he manage to build something at all?
I just don't see how this can be viable. How many points does that guy end up with? We almost lap the score track every single time we play, and we never go for an all-out House Rent strategy.
FKL
It might be a little short sighted, but it does seem like you can rely on at least 1 grain or 1 piety (or sometimes both) to just sort of "drop out of the sky" on you. You'll get it from personal income, or from text of an event, or by making a donation to a building that gives you that as the payout. So I generally assume that using the piety and grain action will be enough... I'll probably (but I agree, not definitely) get the two I need.
But there could be some "group think" going on here, since this was the strategy that someone crushed with the first time we played, and someone has pursued it in every subsequent game.
Anyway, I'm certainly not going to declare it THE strategy to the game. But I am also waiting to see/hear other viable approaches in action.
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