Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 16, 2007 10:49:57 GMT -5
I think FF bought the rights to ever game Mr. Kniza ever wrote.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary: [/glow]My take on this one would be that Mr. Kniza wanted to see if he could do a card game like the ever popular CCGs. This game is a non-collectable cardgame with some collectable aspects. Players are each vying for controll of part of Egypt. There is a central board divded into 7 spots. Players play cards in columns from these spots. The middle spot if for playing God cards. The other 6 spots consist of 2 areas, lower Hekmut (sp) and upper Hekmut, each consisting of three columns on either side of the god. Upper and lower are identical and contain a spot for Commerce, Religion and War. The player who controlls 2 columns in each of the regions (upper and lower) wins.
The game is played in turns with each player turn having 4 phases. Phases 0, 1 and 2 are where you play the majority of your cards. The cards themselves list what phases they can be played in. In phase 0 a player can play any number of cards. Phase 1 and 2 the player can play only one card (or remove a scarab counter). The final phase is a status phase where the player determines who owns each column. At the end of this phase for each column owned the player can do a special move. For example by controlling a commerce row you can draw a card and play any number of Special cards, for controlling Warfare you can make your oponent discard cards.
To control a column you play Minions, Leaders and Monuments. Each has an infuence number listed on the card. The hightest total controlls the column. In addition to the infuence number many cards can only be played into certain rows (ex Merchant minnions go in the commerce rows). Many of the card also have special rules on them that affect the game play greatly. There are instant actions that occur when the card is played and Action: actions that you can chose to use instead of playing a new card in a specific phase.
The god cards are played a bit differently. These generally include Action: actions that give the player a great advantage. A player can only have 3 gods in play at once. Once the other plays a god, the other player must discard all of theirs.
Cursing and uncursing cards: Many cards come into play cursed. This is represented by placing a scarab counter on the card. Having religious supremacy in a column also allows you to curse an oponents card. While cards are cursed they count as no longer having influence or having any text on them. There are of course a wide variety of cards to remove curses as well as being able to skip playing a card to remove one.
The CCG aspect: once you play the advanced game a great ccg type rule is introduced. The game now becomes best two out of three. When the first round is over both players have the option of removing 5 cards from their decks. These then go into a third deck with a set of white cards that are included with the game. The player who lost the first round can pick 5 cards out of this deck to add to theirs. The other player then gets to add to their deck from the 'neutral' deck. The most interesting part is they could add cards that were in their oponents deck last time. The third round follow the same process, with the looser of the second round picking first.
As usual it's harder to explain in text then the game actually is.
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow]
Very much feels like a good CCG, but there aren't any more cards to buy. No collectable aspect is a good thing to me. The game is really quick to learn and after the first hand you will pretty much be an expert on the gameplay. The strategy, that's another story. As is typical of Kniza the mechanics are rather simple but still leave a ton of room for strategy. I love the way you use the third neutral deck to modify the play decks. This is another nice quick game, it really doesn't take long to play one game, and playing 3 doesn't take a whole lot more time. You may spend more time trying to 'fix' your deck then playing. Nice pieces included, including wooden markers for showing who has supremacy in each area.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]
A little too simple. Really most of this one boils down to just adding up numbers and playing a slightly higher card then your oponent. I expected a bit mroe strategy then there was. Not as portable as a CCG. One of the nice things about Magic was I could cary a deck around in my pocket, and if I met someone else with one in their pocket we could start up a game. This game includes counters, wooden tokens and a board for the middle of the play area making it much less portable.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly[/glow]
Nothing really Ugly about this one. Oh I thought of something, the packaging. The box this comes with isn't really designed to hold 3 decks of cards, which is really odd as it's obviously designed specifically for the game.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow]
Really not a bad game, I'm sure I will play it again sometime. For the price (it's a silverline game) it's probably worth picking up for Card game fans. It also combines with Fantasy Flights Minataur Lords which could add some variety to the game.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary: [/glow]My take on this one would be that Mr. Kniza wanted to see if he could do a card game like the ever popular CCGs. This game is a non-collectable cardgame with some collectable aspects. Players are each vying for controll of part of Egypt. There is a central board divded into 7 spots. Players play cards in columns from these spots. The middle spot if for playing God cards. The other 6 spots consist of 2 areas, lower Hekmut (sp) and upper Hekmut, each consisting of three columns on either side of the god. Upper and lower are identical and contain a spot for Commerce, Religion and War. The player who controlls 2 columns in each of the regions (upper and lower) wins.
The game is played in turns with each player turn having 4 phases. Phases 0, 1 and 2 are where you play the majority of your cards. The cards themselves list what phases they can be played in. In phase 0 a player can play any number of cards. Phase 1 and 2 the player can play only one card (or remove a scarab counter). The final phase is a status phase where the player determines who owns each column. At the end of this phase for each column owned the player can do a special move. For example by controlling a commerce row you can draw a card and play any number of Special cards, for controlling Warfare you can make your oponent discard cards.
To control a column you play Minions, Leaders and Monuments. Each has an infuence number listed on the card. The hightest total controlls the column. In addition to the infuence number many cards can only be played into certain rows (ex Merchant minnions go in the commerce rows). Many of the card also have special rules on them that affect the game play greatly. There are instant actions that occur when the card is played and Action: actions that you can chose to use instead of playing a new card in a specific phase.
The god cards are played a bit differently. These generally include Action: actions that give the player a great advantage. A player can only have 3 gods in play at once. Once the other plays a god, the other player must discard all of theirs.
Cursing and uncursing cards: Many cards come into play cursed. This is represented by placing a scarab counter on the card. Having religious supremacy in a column also allows you to curse an oponents card. While cards are cursed they count as no longer having influence or having any text on them. There are of course a wide variety of cards to remove curses as well as being able to skip playing a card to remove one.
The CCG aspect: once you play the advanced game a great ccg type rule is introduced. The game now becomes best two out of three. When the first round is over both players have the option of removing 5 cards from their decks. These then go into a third deck with a set of white cards that are included with the game. The player who lost the first round can pick 5 cards out of this deck to add to theirs. The other player then gets to add to their deck from the 'neutral' deck. The most interesting part is they could add cards that were in their oponents deck last time. The third round follow the same process, with the looser of the second round picking first.
As usual it's harder to explain in text then the game actually is.
[glow=red,2,300]The Good:[/glow]
Very much feels like a good CCG, but there aren't any more cards to buy. No collectable aspect is a good thing to me. The game is really quick to learn and after the first hand you will pretty much be an expert on the gameplay. The strategy, that's another story. As is typical of Kniza the mechanics are rather simple but still leave a ton of room for strategy. I love the way you use the third neutral deck to modify the play decks. This is another nice quick game, it really doesn't take long to play one game, and playing 3 doesn't take a whole lot more time. You may spend more time trying to 'fix' your deck then playing. Nice pieces included, including wooden markers for showing who has supremacy in each area.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad:[/glow]
A little too simple. Really most of this one boils down to just adding up numbers and playing a slightly higher card then your oponent. I expected a bit mroe strategy then there was. Not as portable as a CCG. One of the nice things about Magic was I could cary a deck around in my pocket, and if I met someone else with one in their pocket we could start up a game. This game includes counters, wooden tokens and a board for the middle of the play area making it much less portable.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly[/glow]
Nothing really Ugly about this one. Oh I thought of something, the packaging. The box this comes with isn't really designed to hold 3 decks of cards, which is really odd as it's obviously designed specifically for the game.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow]
Really not a bad game, I'm sure I will play it again sometime. For the price (it's a silverline game) it's probably worth picking up for Card game fans. It also combines with Fantasy Flights Minataur Lords which could add some variety to the game.