Sarah, Michael and I had our first game of the new Nations board game on Thursday. Sarah and Jon, upon seeing what was in my possession, were not surprised: I’m a sucker for Civilisation games, and this one has been getting a moderate amount of buzz on BoardGameGeek.com. It is quite expensive. Even with the recent MilSims sale, it had still cost me over aus$100, and it’s about that price in US$ as well. It has a lot of small cards, over 300 in all, some light card player boards, quite a number of cardboard tokens, and a number of meeples. It is also in a big box. All-in-all, the components feel underwhelming. On the other hand, Through the Ages also cost me over aus$100, and is one of my all-time favourite games, despite being in a relatively small box with small, if numerous, components. The quality of the TTA printing is better, however.
There are a few bad graphical design elements in Nations. In particular, there are advanced and expert cards, so distinguished by a small symbol on the bottom right-hand corner of the card. The symbol occasionally fades into the background, making it hard to see. To make things worse, the cards are erratically cut, and although all the major elements on them are visible, the expansion symbol in several of my cards is almost completely gone.
The other symbols on the cards work. The iconography is simple, but functional. The text on the cards (what there is of it) is generally easy to understand, but there are a few oddities of translation. Wonders are “ready” rather than “completed”, and there are some cards which are quite obscure. I was very glad that I could avail myself of a FAQ on boardgamegeek, which made the learning process a lot easier.
The game is somewhat similar to Through the Ages: you have workers which you assign to buildings and military, and which produce goods, money, food, learning, stability, and military might. There are several differences between the games, most notably that not all of the cards will appear in a game of Nations. This is somewhat true of TTA, as the military and political event cards are completely random. However, because your basic building upgrades are random, it’s very hard to plan for the future: there’s no reliable upgrade path. Instead, you have to be constantly adapting to the needs and opportunities of the moment. Oh, and it also plays a lot faster at 40 minutes per player rather than 60 minutes per player. You’re also not stuck waiting for other players to complete an entire turn; instead, each player drafts one card, hires one architect or employs one worker on their turn, so the game feels like it moves quicker as well.
Antiquity
Here’s my board at the end of the first turn (of eight):
You can see that there are 14 spaces for cards to go, some of which are preprinted on the board. I’ve upgraded my axemen into hoplites, which have a better military strength, and another building type into a Lighthouse. I have five workers (meeples) who are currently assigned as follows: Lighthouse x2, Hoplite x2, and Farm x1. My military allowed me to conquer one colony – that’s the green card to the left, which is producing 2 food for me every turn without the necessity of assigning workers to it. Finally, I have eight potential workers, which I can take whenever I feel my economy is good enough. At present, I’m making 3 wheat, 1 rock, 4 gold and no books each turn, whilst having a military strength of 6 and a stability of 1. To get those numbers, I multiplied the number of workers by the symbols above the cards they’re on – thus, my two workers on the Lighthouse are making 4 gold (2x2) and 2 rocks (2x1). All the building cards produce two resources, but military produces military and consumes something else; what it consumes differs by the type of military unit. Total production: Rocks 1, Food 3, Gold 4, Books 0, Military 6, Stability 1.
Large cardboard tokens are used to keep track of how much of each resource you have, so I have 7 wheat, 2 rocks and 4 gold. Books, Stability and Military are tracked on a main board, as they have an effect in relation to your opponents.
Sarah’s first turn saw her take Immortals and assign two workers to them (Military 6, Stability -2), get one farmer (Food 1, Rocks 1), and fund two caravans (2 Gold, 2 Stability). She also conquered Macedonia (2 military) and took Augustus as her advisor (1 Military, +2 rocks if most military). Total production: Rocks 3, Food 1, Gold 2, Books 0, Military 9, Stability 0,
Mick took Hatshepsut as an advisor (1 gold, +3 books when Wonder completed), built two Synagogues (4 golds, 2 books), two farms (2 Gold, 2 Rocks), and one Ziggurat (2 stability, 1 rock). Total production: Rocks 3, Food 0, Gold 6, Books 2, Military 0, Stability 2.
Each turn, an event card is drawn at its beginning, and resolves at the end. There’s always the potential of famine, which reduces your gold store, but the other events tend to pay attention to who has the most or least Military, Stability and occasionally Food. During the turn, one player can start a war. Wars are interesting: you mark the strength of the player who starts it at the time it begins, then resolve it at the end of the turn and it affects everyone with lesser strength… even the player who started it if they’ve reassigned workers away from their military! Wars cause the loss of one victory point and some resources; the resource loss can be reduced or even negated by having a high stability, but the victory point is always lost.
We had no wars this turn, but two events:
Yellow Turban Rebellion: Least Military: -3 food
Spartacus Revolt: Least Stability: Go last and -1 gold
The Famine ate 3 food from each of us.
The chief play of the game takes place around the drafting board. We each take turns drafting (and playing) one card from it each turn. Well, or deploying workers or hiring architects. You get to do one of those three actions on each of your turns, and we go around the table until everyone passes. The turn order is dictated normally by military strength, which means that having a low military is likely to see you gaining a lot of lesser cards than the player with the highest military. Here’s a look at the drafting board at the end of the second turn. At the beginning of the turn, we fill up the places (exactly how many columns are filled depends on player numbers), removing any old cards in the first or second rows and moving any remaining cards in the third row to the first row before refilling.
Left on the board are three wars (black borders), one building (blue border), one raid (gray border) and one wonder (brown border).
To take a card, you need to pay the gold cost, shown on the edge of the board. To assign a worker, you must pay a stone cost printed on the building you’re assigning it to, and to hire an architect, you need to pay the stone cost on the wonder you’re building. So, gold is needed for drafting, rocks for getting architects and assigning workers.
The second turn saw me hiring another worker. At the beginning of the turn, you can hire a worker, moving it from your potentials to your available supply. However, each one comes at a cost: -3 Stability or -3 Food per turn. Is it worth getting extra workers? We’re struggling with that. In Through the Ages, your economy can become good enough to allow the easy purchase of workers. It’s a lot harder in this game, and failing to feed workers will cause a loss of victory points and knowledge (books). Still, this was my first game, so I was going to try getting extra workers. If you don’t take a worker, you get bonus resources: more rocks, food or gold. The number you get depends on your difficulty level, from 1-4. You choose the difficulty level at the beginning of the game, and this effectively works as a handicap system for more experienced players. There are no scoring changes for the handicap, but it is significant.
This turn, I conquered Nubia (2 gold), took the advisor Saint Augustine (1 stability, if most stability, +2 books), and assigned my new worker as another farmer. So, +1 Food and +1 Rock compared to -3 Food for the extra worker. I don’t think taking the worker was worth it, somehow! Sarah moved a worker from a Farm to a caravan, conquered Israel (+2 books), and built the Hanging Gardens (+2 food, -1 rock, +1 stability). Michael upgraded to 2 Forums (4 Gold, 2 Food) and 2 Breweries (4 Food, 2 Books) and didn’t worry about military or stability.
Here’s the central tracking board with the war and event we had on the first turn.
The War caused a loss of four food to Michael, who had a lesser military than 6 (the black marker on the military track to the top is my strength when I started the war). Well, it might have – but his stability of 2 reduced the loss to just two food. Meanwhile, the events were as follows:
Assyrian Deportations: Least military: return one worker. That meant that Michael had to put one of his workers back in the potentials box.
Jain Asceticism: Most stability: Regain all VPs lost to War this turn. Unfortunately, this didn’t help Michael!
Famine was for no food… we were fine.
At the end of the age, that is, after two turns, there’s a scoring round where you gain 1 VP for everyone who has fewer books than you. In this first scoring, Sarah and I were tied for books and so took 1 VP each for beating Michael. Michael took no books.
Medieval Era
A new set of cards (events and progress cards) came out for the Medieval era, and we were able to get progressively more effective cards.
Here are the types of cards you can draft:
Buildings – these play to your board in one of the Red or Blue bordered spaces. Any workers on the previous building are returned to your supply and must be reassigned. Buildings produce two types of goods.
Military – They work like buildings, except they give military strength and a penalty to one resource for each worker on them.
Wonders – Wonders are placed in the “Under Construction” box. As an action, you can hire an architect by paying the stone cost on the wonder. Once a wonder is built, it is moved to the appropriate part of your sheet and gives a bonus – either immediately or ongoing. They may be worth VPs at the end of the turn. The supply of architects is limited: each turn, you place a number in the available box dependent on how many players are in the game and the number that appears on the event card. In this three player game, we could have between 2 and 5 architects each turn. It was rare that we were really fighting for them this turn, but we have in other games.
Advisors – you can have one advisor at a time (the new one replaces the old). They give ongoing and conditional bonuses.
Raids – When these are taken, you take a number of resources (rocks, food or books) according to the Raid strength of one (your strongest) army.
Wars – Only one can be taken each turn; when taken, you mark its strength (as described above) and resolve at end of turn.
Golden Ages – These allow you to spend resources (1-4 depending on age) to take a VP, or to take 2 of a specific type of resource.
Colonies – These can only be taken if you have strength enough to conquer them, and normally give an ongoing bonus
I took no more workers in the medieval era, but built Sankore University (one-off bonus of 8 books), built a mosque (2 gold, 2 stability), which helped counter my 2 Camel Archers (10 strength, -2 stability)
Sarah took a new leader, Anna Komnene (1 book, no penalty for Military upkeep), and built two universities (4 rocks, 4 books) and took a second worker. She also constructed Notre Dame (2 books, +3 books if most stability).
Michael stayed with low stability and military, but started making a lot of resources with his three Windmills (9 food, 3 gold) and 1 Watermill (3 Rocks, 1 food). His books took a pounding from all the wars, but Sarah and I ended the Age tied on books (again!) so only took 1 VP each!
The Renaissance
As I concentrated on military, Sarah concentrated on learning and with Anna’s bonus, she pulled away from me as to the number of books, and my wars weren’t hurting her that much. Michael was upgrading his buildings as quickly as possible, but the rock requirement for reassigning workers was hurting him, and even more as the wars began to erode his resources. His biggest problem was not producing enough books, as they can have a major impact when it comes to the end-of-age scoring.
I was very pleased to build Machu Piccu (6 gold), which gave me a very nice amount of gold every turn and funded a lot of raids for extra resources. I took a second extra worker, hitting stability this time, and found that hurt greatly. The worker went to regaining the stability, through the Colleges I built (3 Stability, 2 Books for each one).
Here’s a look at my board at the end of the Renaissance:
I was definitely hurting for resources at this stage… except for gold! I had two workers I couldn’t assign… I needed to go raiding.
Industrial Age
The final age… and I did some really stupid things in the last turns. I got enough military through Redcoats to conquer the Aztec Empire and then the Congo, but then reassigned away my workers (and couldn’t reassign one of them!) despite military strength being worth victory points at end-of-game… and more points than what I assigned them to. I did manage to reach the South Pole, which would be worth three VPs at the end of the game.
Michael continued on his scattershot game, but at least he now was producing books. 16 of them by game’s end! He managed to finally build a military strength, with Hussars giving him the highest military when the game ended. I’d taken the war, however, when my strength was on zero, so I didn’t have to worry about a catastrophe affecting me. Michael had taken four extra workers throughout the game, and had quite a few resources at game’s end.
Meanwhile, Sarah dominated in knowledge, with a total of 55 books as the game ended! She had the highest stability as well, which gave her a VP from her culture being enlightened enough to grant Women’s Suffrage (one of the events for the turn). I lost 10 gold for least military and the Sick Man of Europe event. Yes, I definitely played stupidly in the last turn!
Here’s a picture of Sarah’s nation at the end of the game:
For those who can’t see the blurred writing, she’s got:
Terrace Farming x2 (6 Food, 4 Rocks), Sawmill x2 (6 Gold, 4 Food), Samurai x3 (21 Military, -3 Gold), Railroad x2 (6 Rocks, 6 Stability)
Anna (1 book, +2 books for most stability)
Tibet (3 stability), Grand Duchy of Finland (5 rocks, may skip turn as an action once/round)
Hanging Gardens (2 food, -1 rock, 1 stability), Notre Dame (2 Books, +3 Books if most stability):
Four extra workers (-9 Food, -3 Stability)
Sarah’s Production: 3 Food, 14 Rocks, 3 Gold, 8 Books; 21 Military, 7 Stability
Michael’s Production: -1 Food, 7 Rocks, 5 Gold, 10 Books; 18 Military, 6 Stability
Merric’s Production: 2 Food, 12 Rocks, 18 Gold, 6 Books; 0 Military, 4 Stability
However, when you get down to it, production isn’t everything…
Final Scoring
There are a number of factors that count towards the final score. The first is the victory points you’ve gained during the game. Depending on your culture, you may start with differing amounts (we were all playing the basic cultures, and thus all had identical stats). You gain and lose VPs mainly from Wars and Events, and you may lose additional points if you have to lose resources and don’t have enough! And, of course, you gain 1 VP at the end of each age for every player you have more books than.
Sarah 11, Merric 9, Michael 0
Colonies are also worth VPs, as printed on the card. Generally, the better the card, the fewer the VPs, with later cards being worth more VPs.
Sarah 3, Merric 3, Michael 1
Wonders are also worth VPs – these can vary quite a bit, again from the same basics as colonies, where some wonders are mainly built for the VPs (like the Polar Expedition), and others for an ongoing benefit.
Sarah 2, Merric 5, Michael 0
Buildings and Military are worth VPs as well, depending on how many workers are on them. It isn’t a simple multiplication: each building shows the VPs it gives for each specific worker. For instance, Sarah’s Terrace Farming gives 2 VPs for the first worker, 1 VP for the second worker, 1 VP for the third worker, and no VPs for any additional workers. (There are buildings that give more VPs for the third worker than the first!)
Sarah 15, Merric 12, Michael 11
Finally you add up the number of resources you have: Food, Rocks, Gold, Books, Military and Stability, and divide the total by 10 for even more VPs. Yes, Books are tremendously important, especially as you can end up with 50 or more of them, as Sarah did this game!
Sarah 15, Merric 8, Michael 7
So, once all of those values are totalled, you can work out who won the game. To no-one’s surprise, it was Sarah this game, with a score of 46 points. I scored 37, and Michael scored 18. Was Sarah’s score a good one for a three-player game? We don’t know.
Thoughts on Nations
Nations is a tremendously challenging game. I’ve now played it three times with other players (there’s also a solo option), and each game has been a struggle. I’m yet to win one, which is quite unusual for me. Jon won our last game – a four-player one – without taking extra workers at all. At the easiest difficulty level, perhaps that’s the right strategy! I can certainly say that I haven’t played the game enough to say for certain. I find it a lot more approachable than Through the Ages, but TTA still remains a game I like more.
There are a lot of cards in the game we haven’t used yet. We’ve just been using the basic cards (which are enough for up to four players). A fifth player requires cards from the Advanced and Expert sets, which – as far as I can see – provide more options and a few cards that are more complex in their effects, although not terribly so. This is not a particularly complicated game, rules-wise, but there are always interesting choices to make.
The “B” sides of each of the nations differentiate them greatly. You lose one of your building slots in exchange for a special ability, plus perhaps other changes, such as buildings available. (China can only take one colony, but has an extra worker at the beginning!) Military is tremendously important, and remains important – and quite fluid – throughout. This, in many ways, is preferable to the surprise “you don’t have enough military” events of Through the Ages, but it isn’t without its drawbacks, either.
I’m tremendously happy that I purchased Nations; it’s proving to be a game that I enjoy playing, and I’m going to enjoy exploring the strategies of the game.
There are a few bad graphical design elements in Nations. In particular, there are advanced and expert cards, so distinguished by a small symbol on the bottom right-hand corner of the card. The symbol occasionally fades into the background, making it hard to see. To make things worse, the cards are erratically cut, and although all the major elements on them are visible, the expansion symbol in several of my cards is almost completely gone.
The other symbols on the cards work. The iconography is simple, but functional. The text on the cards (what there is of it) is generally easy to understand, but there are a few oddities of translation. Wonders are “ready” rather than “completed”, and there are some cards which are quite obscure. I was very glad that I could avail myself of a FAQ on boardgamegeek, which made the learning process a lot easier.
The game is somewhat similar to Through the Ages: you have workers which you assign to buildings and military, and which produce goods, money, food, learning, stability, and military might. There are several differences between the games, most notably that not all of the cards will appear in a game of Nations. This is somewhat true of TTA, as the military and political event cards are completely random. However, because your basic building upgrades are random, it’s very hard to plan for the future: there’s no reliable upgrade path. Instead, you have to be constantly adapting to the needs and opportunities of the moment. Oh, and it also plays a lot faster at 40 minutes per player rather than 60 minutes per player. You’re also not stuck waiting for other players to complete an entire turn; instead, each player drafts one card, hires one architect or employs one worker on their turn, so the game feels like it moves quicker as well.
Antiquity
Here’s my board at the end of the first turn (of eight):
You can see that there are 14 spaces for cards to go, some of which are preprinted on the board. I’ve upgraded my axemen into hoplites, which have a better military strength, and another building type into a Lighthouse. I have five workers (meeples) who are currently assigned as follows: Lighthouse x2, Hoplite x2, and Farm x1. My military allowed me to conquer one colony – that’s the green card to the left, which is producing 2 food for me every turn without the necessity of assigning workers to it. Finally, I have eight potential workers, which I can take whenever I feel my economy is good enough. At present, I’m making 3 wheat, 1 rock, 4 gold and no books each turn, whilst having a military strength of 6 and a stability of 1. To get those numbers, I multiplied the number of workers by the symbols above the cards they’re on – thus, my two workers on the Lighthouse are making 4 gold (2x2) and 2 rocks (2x1). All the building cards produce two resources, but military produces military and consumes something else; what it consumes differs by the type of military unit. Total production: Rocks 1, Food 3, Gold 4, Books 0, Military 6, Stability 1.
Large cardboard tokens are used to keep track of how much of each resource you have, so I have 7 wheat, 2 rocks and 4 gold. Books, Stability and Military are tracked on a main board, as they have an effect in relation to your opponents.
Sarah’s first turn saw her take Immortals and assign two workers to them (Military 6, Stability -2), get one farmer (Food 1, Rocks 1), and fund two caravans (2 Gold, 2 Stability). She also conquered Macedonia (2 military) and took Augustus as her advisor (1 Military, +2 rocks if most military). Total production: Rocks 3, Food 1, Gold 2, Books 0, Military 9, Stability 0,
Mick took Hatshepsut as an advisor (1 gold, +3 books when Wonder completed), built two Synagogues (4 golds, 2 books), two farms (2 Gold, 2 Rocks), and one Ziggurat (2 stability, 1 rock). Total production: Rocks 3, Food 0, Gold 6, Books 2, Military 0, Stability 2.
Each turn, an event card is drawn at its beginning, and resolves at the end. There’s always the potential of famine, which reduces your gold store, but the other events tend to pay attention to who has the most or least Military, Stability and occasionally Food. During the turn, one player can start a war. Wars are interesting: you mark the strength of the player who starts it at the time it begins, then resolve it at the end of the turn and it affects everyone with lesser strength… even the player who started it if they’ve reassigned workers away from their military! Wars cause the loss of one victory point and some resources; the resource loss can be reduced or even negated by having a high stability, but the victory point is always lost.
We had no wars this turn, but two events:
Yellow Turban Rebellion: Least Military: -3 food
Spartacus Revolt: Least Stability: Go last and -1 gold
The Famine ate 3 food from each of us.
The chief play of the game takes place around the drafting board. We each take turns drafting (and playing) one card from it each turn. Well, or deploying workers or hiring architects. You get to do one of those three actions on each of your turns, and we go around the table until everyone passes. The turn order is dictated normally by military strength, which means that having a low military is likely to see you gaining a lot of lesser cards than the player with the highest military. Here’s a look at the drafting board at the end of the second turn. At the beginning of the turn, we fill up the places (exactly how many columns are filled depends on player numbers), removing any old cards in the first or second rows and moving any remaining cards in the third row to the first row before refilling.
Left on the board are three wars (black borders), one building (blue border), one raid (gray border) and one wonder (brown border).
To take a card, you need to pay the gold cost, shown on the edge of the board. To assign a worker, you must pay a stone cost printed on the building you’re assigning it to, and to hire an architect, you need to pay the stone cost on the wonder you’re building. So, gold is needed for drafting, rocks for getting architects and assigning workers.
The second turn saw me hiring another worker. At the beginning of the turn, you can hire a worker, moving it from your potentials to your available supply. However, each one comes at a cost: -3 Stability or -3 Food per turn. Is it worth getting extra workers? We’re struggling with that. In Through the Ages, your economy can become good enough to allow the easy purchase of workers. It’s a lot harder in this game, and failing to feed workers will cause a loss of victory points and knowledge (books). Still, this was my first game, so I was going to try getting extra workers. If you don’t take a worker, you get bonus resources: more rocks, food or gold. The number you get depends on your difficulty level, from 1-4. You choose the difficulty level at the beginning of the game, and this effectively works as a handicap system for more experienced players. There are no scoring changes for the handicap, but it is significant.
This turn, I conquered Nubia (2 gold), took the advisor Saint Augustine (1 stability, if most stability, +2 books), and assigned my new worker as another farmer. So, +1 Food and +1 Rock compared to -3 Food for the extra worker. I don’t think taking the worker was worth it, somehow! Sarah moved a worker from a Farm to a caravan, conquered Israel (+2 books), and built the Hanging Gardens (+2 food, -1 rock, +1 stability). Michael upgraded to 2 Forums (4 Gold, 2 Food) and 2 Breweries (4 Food, 2 Books) and didn’t worry about military or stability.
Here’s the central tracking board with the war and event we had on the first turn.
The War caused a loss of four food to Michael, who had a lesser military than 6 (the black marker on the military track to the top is my strength when I started the war). Well, it might have – but his stability of 2 reduced the loss to just two food. Meanwhile, the events were as follows:
Assyrian Deportations: Least military: return one worker. That meant that Michael had to put one of his workers back in the potentials box.
Jain Asceticism: Most stability: Regain all VPs lost to War this turn. Unfortunately, this didn’t help Michael!
Famine was for no food… we were fine.
At the end of the age, that is, after two turns, there’s a scoring round where you gain 1 VP for everyone who has fewer books than you. In this first scoring, Sarah and I were tied for books and so took 1 VP each for beating Michael. Michael took no books.
Medieval Era
A new set of cards (events and progress cards) came out for the Medieval era, and we were able to get progressively more effective cards.
Here are the types of cards you can draft:
Buildings – these play to your board in one of the Red or Blue bordered spaces. Any workers on the previous building are returned to your supply and must be reassigned. Buildings produce two types of goods.
Military – They work like buildings, except they give military strength and a penalty to one resource for each worker on them.
Wonders – Wonders are placed in the “Under Construction” box. As an action, you can hire an architect by paying the stone cost on the wonder. Once a wonder is built, it is moved to the appropriate part of your sheet and gives a bonus – either immediately or ongoing. They may be worth VPs at the end of the turn. The supply of architects is limited: each turn, you place a number in the available box dependent on how many players are in the game and the number that appears on the event card. In this three player game, we could have between 2 and 5 architects each turn. It was rare that we were really fighting for them this turn, but we have in other games.
Advisors – you can have one advisor at a time (the new one replaces the old). They give ongoing and conditional bonuses.
Raids – When these are taken, you take a number of resources (rocks, food or books) according to the Raid strength of one (your strongest) army.
Wars – Only one can be taken each turn; when taken, you mark its strength (as described above) and resolve at end of turn.
Golden Ages – These allow you to spend resources (1-4 depending on age) to take a VP, or to take 2 of a specific type of resource.
Colonies – These can only be taken if you have strength enough to conquer them, and normally give an ongoing bonus
I took no more workers in the medieval era, but built Sankore University (one-off bonus of 8 books), built a mosque (2 gold, 2 stability), which helped counter my 2 Camel Archers (10 strength, -2 stability)
Sarah took a new leader, Anna Komnene (1 book, no penalty for Military upkeep), and built two universities (4 rocks, 4 books) and took a second worker. She also constructed Notre Dame (2 books, +3 books if most stability).
Michael stayed with low stability and military, but started making a lot of resources with his three Windmills (9 food, 3 gold) and 1 Watermill (3 Rocks, 1 food). His books took a pounding from all the wars, but Sarah and I ended the Age tied on books (again!) so only took 1 VP each!
The Renaissance
As I concentrated on military, Sarah concentrated on learning and with Anna’s bonus, she pulled away from me as to the number of books, and my wars weren’t hurting her that much. Michael was upgrading his buildings as quickly as possible, but the rock requirement for reassigning workers was hurting him, and even more as the wars began to erode his resources. His biggest problem was not producing enough books, as they can have a major impact when it comes to the end-of-age scoring.
I was very pleased to build Machu Piccu (6 gold), which gave me a very nice amount of gold every turn and funded a lot of raids for extra resources. I took a second extra worker, hitting stability this time, and found that hurt greatly. The worker went to regaining the stability, through the Colleges I built (3 Stability, 2 Books for each one).
Here’s a look at my board at the end of the Renaissance:
I was definitely hurting for resources at this stage… except for gold! I had two workers I couldn’t assign… I needed to go raiding.
Industrial Age
The final age… and I did some really stupid things in the last turns. I got enough military through Redcoats to conquer the Aztec Empire and then the Congo, but then reassigned away my workers (and couldn’t reassign one of them!) despite military strength being worth victory points at end-of-game… and more points than what I assigned them to. I did manage to reach the South Pole, which would be worth three VPs at the end of the game.
Michael continued on his scattershot game, but at least he now was producing books. 16 of them by game’s end! He managed to finally build a military strength, with Hussars giving him the highest military when the game ended. I’d taken the war, however, when my strength was on zero, so I didn’t have to worry about a catastrophe affecting me. Michael had taken four extra workers throughout the game, and had quite a few resources at game’s end.
Meanwhile, Sarah dominated in knowledge, with a total of 55 books as the game ended! She had the highest stability as well, which gave her a VP from her culture being enlightened enough to grant Women’s Suffrage (one of the events for the turn). I lost 10 gold for least military and the Sick Man of Europe event. Yes, I definitely played stupidly in the last turn!
Here’s a picture of Sarah’s nation at the end of the game:
For those who can’t see the blurred writing, she’s got:
Terrace Farming x2 (6 Food, 4 Rocks), Sawmill x2 (6 Gold, 4 Food), Samurai x3 (21 Military, -3 Gold), Railroad x2 (6 Rocks, 6 Stability)
Anna (1 book, +2 books for most stability)
Tibet (3 stability), Grand Duchy of Finland (5 rocks, may skip turn as an action once/round)
Hanging Gardens (2 food, -1 rock, 1 stability), Notre Dame (2 Books, +3 Books if most stability):
Four extra workers (-9 Food, -3 Stability)
Sarah’s Production: 3 Food, 14 Rocks, 3 Gold, 8 Books; 21 Military, 7 Stability
Michael’s Production: -1 Food, 7 Rocks, 5 Gold, 10 Books; 18 Military, 6 Stability
Merric’s Production: 2 Food, 12 Rocks, 18 Gold, 6 Books; 0 Military, 4 Stability
However, when you get down to it, production isn’t everything…
Final Scoring
There are a number of factors that count towards the final score. The first is the victory points you’ve gained during the game. Depending on your culture, you may start with differing amounts (we were all playing the basic cultures, and thus all had identical stats). You gain and lose VPs mainly from Wars and Events, and you may lose additional points if you have to lose resources and don’t have enough! And, of course, you gain 1 VP at the end of each age for every player you have more books than.
Sarah 11, Merric 9, Michael 0
Colonies are also worth VPs, as printed on the card. Generally, the better the card, the fewer the VPs, with later cards being worth more VPs.
Sarah 3, Merric 3, Michael 1
Wonders are also worth VPs – these can vary quite a bit, again from the same basics as colonies, where some wonders are mainly built for the VPs (like the Polar Expedition), and others for an ongoing benefit.
Sarah 2, Merric 5, Michael 0
Buildings and Military are worth VPs as well, depending on how many workers are on them. It isn’t a simple multiplication: each building shows the VPs it gives for each specific worker. For instance, Sarah’s Terrace Farming gives 2 VPs for the first worker, 1 VP for the second worker, 1 VP for the third worker, and no VPs for any additional workers. (There are buildings that give more VPs for the third worker than the first!)
Sarah 15, Merric 12, Michael 11
Finally you add up the number of resources you have: Food, Rocks, Gold, Books, Military and Stability, and divide the total by 10 for even more VPs. Yes, Books are tremendously important, especially as you can end up with 50 or more of them, as Sarah did this game!
Sarah 15, Merric 8, Michael 7
So, once all of those values are totalled, you can work out who won the game. To no-one’s surprise, it was Sarah this game, with a score of 46 points. I scored 37, and Michael scored 18. Was Sarah’s score a good one for a three-player game? We don’t know.
Thoughts on Nations
Nations is a tremendously challenging game. I’ve now played it three times with other players (there’s also a solo option), and each game has been a struggle. I’m yet to win one, which is quite unusual for me. Jon won our last game – a four-player one – without taking extra workers at all. At the easiest difficulty level, perhaps that’s the right strategy! I can certainly say that I haven’t played the game enough to say for certain. I find it a lot more approachable than Through the Ages, but TTA still remains a game I like more.
There are a lot of cards in the game we haven’t used yet. We’ve just been using the basic cards (which are enough for up to four players). A fifth player requires cards from the Advanced and Expert sets, which – as far as I can see – provide more options and a few cards that are more complex in their effects, although not terribly so. This is not a particularly complicated game, rules-wise, but there are always interesting choices to make.
The “B” sides of each of the nations differentiate them greatly. You lose one of your building slots in exchange for a special ability, plus perhaps other changes, such as buildings available. (China can only take one colony, but has an extra worker at the beginning!) Military is tremendously important, and remains important – and quite fluid – throughout. This, in many ways, is preferable to the surprise “you don’t have enough military” events of Through the Ages, but it isn’t without its drawbacks, either.
I’m tremendously happy that I purchased Nations; it’s proving to be a game that I enjoy playing, and I’m going to enjoy exploring the strategies of the game.
