Small World (2009)

20120901:
I recommend that anyone looking to play this game skim through the rules on their own, in addition to whatever anybody else has to say about the rules. Maybe that's just me, but I find there are many games for which not knowing some little rule can put you at an unfair disadvantage. While such a disadvantage is typically accidental on the behalf of the person explaining the rules, but it still taints the game experience.


Anybody who has already played the game already has the advantage of knowing about most race and powers. As such, they can better choices as to what combinations are worth spending money on. For example, Merchant Ratmen is a powerful money-making combination. Or that mountain trolls are a pain to deal with (I couldn't do anything about Sven's mountain trolls). Thus the least that can be done for a new player is ensure they know all the rules and any basic tips that should be kept in mind.

One of these rules is that you only get to keep one active race at a time. You may get a new one by putting your current one into decline. The current race which is in decline gets removed from the board. More simply, each player may have only one active race and one race in decline at a time. On a related note, only the active race gets to use its power, and furthermore, the power only applies to the active race.

While ideally you would just want to replace your opponents' units with yours, sometimes to expand you must replace your previous units. This is because expansion must be made adjacent to your currently occupied territories, unless an ability allows otherwise.

In any case, the game is solid. The dynamics and choices that must be made in the game were interesting some of the time. The game probably would be better as a 3 or 4 person game.

[20121224]
20120901 Sven(first)[91] me[120]. I won.
Small World (2009)


Relevant Links:
Small World (board game) (Wikipedia.org)
Small World (BoardGameGeek.com)

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