Since the New Year, I’ve been going about gaming a little bit differently. A few years back I was buying any and all games that I thought was interesting. As I shuffle through my collection these days I keep asking myself what I was thinking buying games that at best could be average. There was a period where I would have actually classified myself as a “game collector” rather than a gamer. But as 2008 drew to a close I made my resolution to actually play the games that I own rather than buying new games that would gather dust. Sadly a side effect of that is I haven’t been trying many new games these days and the ones I’m playing more and more these days are ones that I’ve already wrote upon.

One game that I have tried (sorta) recently is Conquest of Paradise (CoP) by GMT Games. But at this point I’ve only managed to give it one go so I wouldn’t call this a “review” but more of an “impressions” article.

CoP covers the exploration and expansion of Polynesia circa 500AD. This is a topic that I personally knew little about before the game and I will say that I only know a little bit more afterwards. But, the game does provide a pretty nice historical guide to the period along with the game, which I will admit that I’ve only skimmed, and provides more details about various culture and lifestyle aspects of the peoples during this time period.

For the most part the game revolves around exploring the unknown and unmapped Pacific Ocean looking for islands which were large enough to support life. Each player has a scout ship that they move around a hex board. Each hex they enter to explore causes the player to draw a chit at random from a cup. This chit will tell you if you found an island or open ocean and how long your voyage took in the form of knots on a rope on the back of the counter. There is an entertaining push-your-luck element in the form of the amount of knots you accumulate during an exploration turn. If you gather up too many knots you could be delayed a turn or even worse, lost at sea.

After exploration you gather your resources from the islands that you population and start buying troops or expand existing settlements. During our first game what we found out is expanding the village seems like the way to go. To us running a military campaign and attacking opponents, after looking at things like unit costs, chances of success and what other logistical elements are needed to move these troops around just seemed too costly.

Overall my impressions on this game are mixed. Sending the scout ship out to sea looking for new land to conquer and islands to hop is very fun. The push-your-luck element is fun and shouldn’t case much in the way of problems unless someone just refuses to bring their scout ship in for a turn. Combat on the other hand fell flat. As I mentioned the cost for units and setting up the infrastructure to move them to where they need to be just didn’t work during that game. What also didn’t help the matter was once we were at a point where the map was mostly explored and we could start getting a sizable navy built due to producing a good amount of resources, the game ended.

GMT markets this game as a family game on their site and after playing the game I can see why. Conflict in this game is low because the cost for a military operation did not seem to be surpassed by the benefit of a successful operation. It was one of those things where it just didn’t feel right, and usually with that feeling comes a misreading or missing of a rule. A missed rule was not the case here.

What is also nice for the family is the historical references and notes that are included with the game. I’m sure many kids (and I’d even venture to say adults) have little exposure to this period in history and the game provides enough resources to help familiarize people with this interesting point in time.

Where I stand with this game is at a crossroads. As I’ve mentioned, the combat feels lacking which is snuffing out the fire to play this game again, but the exploration is exceptional and very fun, albeit random and a little luck-of-the-draw. It almost seems as if the game should be longer and it took a page sadly out of many other Euro/Family games where right when I feel the game starts to get interesting it is over.

To me, Conquest of Paradise just feels like it is off balance; not only the balance between exploration and combat but the balance between the board size and the victory conditions. I feel as though if the board was smaller it would cause people to be more packed in and create an environment that would cultivate more confrontation between players, or the flipside where if the victory conditions (a number of victory points determined by the number of players) were higher there would be a period between the time exploration for the most part is complete and people need to have conflict if they want to expand their borders.

The game is full of potential (which is a topic I was thinking about writing later) yet feels like it fails to deliver. As I said at the beginning though, this is just one game that I’ve played and my thoughts after that one game and at this point I couldn’t even tell you if I’d recommend the game to people. At the very least I’d say it is worth taking a further look if it sounds like something that you have some interest in.

‘Til Next Time - Happy Gaming
LvT

Filed under: Conquest of Paradise, Games - Historical by LordVonTush
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Today is dank and wet in my neck of the woods…Perfect gaming weather, of course this damn 8-5 job really puts a damper on days like today where I just want to sit inside and push to plastic guys around a table. Oh well…So I guess I’ll do the next best thing, talk about games. Today I’m just going to talk about a card game Family Business (FB) published by Mayfair Games.

Rarely these days do you find a game that comes in an actual box for less than $20 so when I saw this game with a MSRP of $14.99 I decided to break one of my rules of game purchases and make an impulse purchase. After a few years of making many impulse purchases I’ve found that 9 times out of 10 the game sucks (Deacon might remember Abuse! The Final Insult). They either never make it to the table, since I had no drive to play it until I saw it checking out so once I get it home that lack of drive is still present, or if it does hit the table it is usually a bust and then sits on my shelf instead of the retailer’s shelf where it belongs.

My interest in the mafia, especially the Chicago Mafia, has been a part of me as long as I remember (but for whatever reason I still haven’t seen any of the Godfather movies) so as I mentioned I threw my impulse purchase ban to the wind and walked up to the counter with the game I wanted in hand (Fields of Fire) and this small box stacked on top of it and for once an impulse purchase actually turned out to be quite a blast.

FB was originally released circa 1982 so it is a game that has been around for a while but one that sadly gets lost in all the noise surrounding this hobby these days. The concept is simple, you play as the leader of a crime family and the goal is to conduct your business in a way that will leave you as the last family standing and all others dead. There are two types of cards in this game, the action cards and the gangster cards. The gangster cards act as your “life” while the action cards you play during your turn and provide things like police protection for your gangsters or contracts to put a hit out on another player’s gangers. Each player starts off with nine gangsters which are placed in front of them (here I should note that though each gangster has a unique drawing and name based off of real people, there is no difference in terms of gameplay, they just act as a mechanic to keep track of your “life”). Players are also dealt a starting hand and setup is complete.

The process during your turn is simple; you draw a card to your hand and play a card from your hand. There are three types of cards: Red Cards are your “attack” cards; Blue Cards “counter” red cards; Green Cards act as “rescue” cards. The majority of the red cards are what they call “Contract” cards and are the means to winning. When you play a contract you nominate a player and then anyone has a chance to cancel out the contract via a blue card. If the contract goes thru then the person named takes one of their gangsters and places in the “Hit List”. What the Hit List is, is a line of gangsters in the order which they were placed on the Hit List and once the Hit List reaches six gangers then a Mob War breaks out…More on the Mob War in a bit.

So as play proceeds more and more gangsters will show up on the Hit List. Here I will talk about the green cards for a bit. Often what those cards do is allow you to swap the gangsters positions on the Hit List, pull members off the hit list…etc. Basically it is stuff that allows you to manage who and where people show up on the Hit List. Once a Hit List reaches six gangsters a Mob War begins. When a Mob War starts game play continues as normal, but at the beginning of every player’s turn (before they do anything) the gangster in the first position on the Hit List is whacked, that gangster is said to be up against The Wall and removed from the game placing them in the R.I.P. pile. This happens at the beginning of every player’s turn until all the gangsters are killed or a card is played that cancels out the Mob War.

Well that is the game in a nutshell. What I really like about the game is the interaction. With a larger group (the more players the better in this game) possibilities open up where alliances can be formed with other family leaders or unsteady truces can be established. Players not only have to rely on good card play (and a lucky draw here or there is nice as well) but they also have to negotiate with people to strengthen their positions in the game. FB is a game where you have to be aggressive and a passive player, if not forgotten by everyone else, is bound to have a family which isn’t one of the last remaining.

The card design and graphics are nice but create a little too cartoon-y of an atmosphere but perhaps that is to gloss over the fact that in a five player game at least 36 gangsters are found dead in the streets. One thing I wish Mayfair did was include a little paragraph that explains the cards a little bit better. Once players get a feel for the game the one line makes sense, but if you’re playing for the first time the short description at times adds more confusion to a person trying to figure the game out. A little paragraph would have helped a lot in this case.

The other “problem” with the game (I use quotes because I don’t see it as such, but the current environment frowns upon this) is player elimination. The point of the game is to be the last person with gangsters left in front of them. Meaning, players will be eliminated from the game. If this is a problem and your group requires all people to be participating then not only would the player elimination be a problem, but chances are the aggressive nature of the game would not work for your group either. For me though, the game is short enough that there isn’t much time that a person is sitting around while the game finishes up, also combine the fact that if you’re out of the game, chances are just about everyone else is teetering on that brink.

For me, this game was a perfect fit into my collection. The card based nature (with no other components needed) makes it assessable to new people because you won’t be scaring them off with all sorts of bits and piles of cards. The theme is one that many Americans have a romance with due to particular movies like the aforementioned Godfather as well as Casino and Goodfellas to name a few others. As I mentioned though you have to go after people in this game, it can be downright mean at times if alliances form and someone is ganged up on, so if you have a person or persons in your group that takes things like that personally then I wouldn’t bother with the game. If you do have a group of people that have an arsehole streak in them or just like to have a good time, then chances are this game will be a success.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

‘Til Next Time - Happy Gaming
LvT

Filed under: Family Buisness, Games - Card Games by LordVonTush
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