Thoughts on… Age Of War
The Shogun has dispatched his Daimyos to bring the feuding Japanese warlords back under control. Say, is that why it’s called feudal Japan? (Oh my that was bad…) You will be one of those Daimyo’s aiming to capture the warlords’ seats of power, their palaces and castles, to bring peace to the land. Capturing a castle requires a specific selection of troops though, and honestly the logistical set up back then was simply terrible, because you never really know what’s going to turn up on the day of battle!
Age of War is a dice game, from the God of maths Reiner Knizia, and the temple of component quality Fantasy Flight Games. So straight away there are two things we can say. One, the game will probably be thoroughly balanced (it is). And two, the artwork and components will be superb.
And of course they are! Although you might be surprised to see how few components there actually are: just 7 custom dice and 14 cards, lovingly illustrated with the actual castles you will be trying to capture. Heck, you can barely believe that Fantasy Flight, better known for monster games like Twilight Imperium and Arkham Horror, could have produced such a tiny game, but it’s true!
The rulebook itself is similarly slim. Each turn you roll all 7 dice and then decide which of the 14 castles you will attempt to liberate. The dice feature the different troops you might need to capture a castle, the samurai, archers, cavalry and commanders, and each card has a series of rows picturing these troop types that need to be completed. You will take a couple of these dice and use them to fill up a single row. Then roll again, filling up the other rows and steadily making it harder to succeed as you run out of dice. If you fail to complete a row at any point, you may discard a die and roll again. But you are going to run out of dice eventually, desperately throwing cavalry into the moat while you desperately wait for your archers to turn up…
I wouldn’t exactly describe this game as thematic, although all the artwork is suitably evocative. I mean just look at that daimyo on the box. You don’t want to mess with him! But the different troop requirements and how that links to a dice rolling mechanism is lost on me. But there is one system in this game that is gloriously thematic, and that I absolutely love: stealing castles. Once a player has captured a castle from the centre, anyone can try and capture it off them, albeit requiring an extra line to be completed. Given the difficulty of capturing some of these castles in the first place, this additional requirement can make some castles next to impossible to steal, but that just makes success all the more glorious doesn’t it?
Given the increased risk, you might be wondering why you would bother trying to steal at all? The reasons are simple. First it’s funny. Second, that player might be in the lead and you want to knock them down a peg or two. But thirdly, and most importantly, the castles come in sets (according to which clan was originally in control of them), and completing a set of castles earns you bonus points and locks that set down, so that no one can steal them from you anymore. Now everyone has a very good reason for fighting each other! The Shogun will be shaking his head in exasperation.
Whether you think it is worth the risk though is the core of the game. Once you have started your siege of a castle there is no going back, and failing to capture a castle hurts. Each decision is difficult and generates the tension for the rest of your turn. These decisions reach a peak as the game is coming to an end, and you are desperately trying to calculate what castles you need to take to come out on top.
For a game about conquest and control, however, the game never delves into anything that can be mistaken for strategy. It is a game of luck and tactical decisions. Which is fine, because just like during a real war, watching your friend failing to take that castle again is just funny! You can picture the daimyos sat around the war tent, sipping sake or perhaps some tea, laughing, “Poor Moeseph-san, he still has not learnt the value of archers.”
Someone will steal a castle off the leader, and everyone will cheer. Someone will fail to take a castle for the second, or third, or fourth time, and you’ll all laugh. Somehow, you’ll pull off exactly the roll you needed on the final dice and you’ll cheer as everyone else groans. Push your luck games like Age of War are great at building up tension to be released like snapping elastic in sudden emotional bursts, then repeating immediately.
I can definitely recommend Age Of War. It’s not a deep game, but as the light filler it is designed to be, it is fulfils its role perfectly. Obviously there is luck involved, and this can be a big issue for some people. But this game is more about the emotion than it is about the result; enjoying laughing at your friends’ misfortune, cheering at someone’s good fortune. And it’s these releases that make it the perfect light relief after longer, more serious games.
Rating: Age of Laughter
I would like to acknowledge Board Game Geek users joeincolorado and punkin312 for their images.
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