|
From:Eurogames / Descartes USA
Cost: $30
Players: 3-6
Playing Time: 120-180 minutes
Type of game: Gamer Strategy
Skill level: 8
Complexity: 4
Reviewed by: Peter Sarrett, Issue 6.2 (22), January 2000
|
If I didn’t know better, I’d think Vinci (as in “Vini, Vidi…“) had been published by Avalon Hill. It’s got that feel to me, with sheets of counters to punch, a colorful European map, provinces to conquer and numerical modifiers to add. Only the wooden bits and the rulebook, conspicuously lacking in charts or numbered subsections (but rife with its own failings, unfortunately), betray other origins. Even its gameplay has been compared to AH titles, described as History of the World-Lite and Civilization-Lite. And that’s what’s causing the buzz- Vinci plays in under three hours, yet packs the punch of a far more involved game.
The basic idea is nothing new. Players expand empires across Europe, scoring points for each province they occupy at the end of their turn. Combat is deterministic- move in the required number of tokens and take over. Tactical planning is paramount since the fickle fortune of dice or cards will not salvage a poor leader’s empire.
What elevates the game is its clever system for granting empires special abilities and phasing those empires in and out of play. Six pairs of civilization counters are drawn at the start of the game and placed in a row, each pair representing a potential empire. Each counter carries with it a strength and a special ability. Empires gain the combined attributes of both counters in the pair.
A player can choose any of the six pairs but marks each pair leftward of his choice with a chip at a cost of two victory points per. As pairs get skipped, more and more chips build up on it. Someone finally choosing that empire gains two victory points for each chip it has accumulated. This elegant and effective drafting system makes less powerful empires increasingly attractive, automatically balancing them according to player perceptions of their strengths. Old pairs slide left whenever an empire is chosen, with a new pair filling the most expensive spot. When two counters that work well together are paired, Vinci becomes a game of chicken as players try to hold out for opponents to take cheaper empires and make the prime one less expensive.
Each player will play multiple empires over the course of a game. When an empire is spread too thinly to gain much more territory, a player can forfeit his turn to send his empire into decline. All but one token are removed from each of that empire’s territories, making them easier for other empires to conquer. A declining empire loses most of its special abilities which can result in quite a dramatic decrease in its value. Timing an empire’s decline can is a subtle art requiring the careful balance of that empire’s growth and scoring potential against the replacement empires currently available.
The declining player now chooses a new empire from the array of six on offer and will bring that empire onto the board at the start of his next turn. Any territory he touches which is part of his declining empire is immediately lost, so new empires typically launch on opposite sides of the board from the old. Opponents can therefore plan somewhat for the onslaught. Each player can have only one empire in decline at a time. When a second one goes into decline, the first one immediately vanishes. Until then, however, it continues to earn points for each territory left unmolested by opponents.
We made two rule changes to improve the game. We play to twenty points less than what the rules recommend. The game takes less time but is no less satisfying. When someone is close to reaching the victory point goal, everyone else starts ganging up on him and hyperanalyzing each move to make sure they’re doing the most damage they can. This bogs the game down just when it’s reaching its crescendo. We play with hidden victory points (using chips or money from other games) to solve this problem.
Like most games of conquest, downtime between turns can be an issue with slow players. You might also feel a sense of sameness to each turn, as Vinci is more about short-term gains than long-term planning. Also, be sure to download the rules errata from www.mcs.net/~tool/vincierr.html. Vinci is the first game of conquest to hold my interest since… I’m not sure there was another. Worth a look.