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This article was initially posted in Essen 2009 - Strategic Gamer's review.
Please consider that my observations are 1st impressions only !
In Albion, the players represent the Roman Empire and try to gain influence in England. Their first settlers were shipped to South-England and now the remainder of the country has to be colonised. The 1st player who has build and developed 3 cities to the 4th stage wins.
In Albion, England is divided into 13 regions:
- 4 resource regions (4 different resource types)
- 2 Roman Empire friendly regions (starting regions)
- 7 native regions: inhabited by the friendly or unfriendly "Pikten" - tokens placed face down in each region at the beginning of the game placed (also well known from AH's Britannia).
Per Roman Empire friendly and native region the players can build one type of development:
- cities: ultimately leading to victory, but also providing settlers and soldiers
- fortifications: increasing the defensive strength of developments
- castles: increases the movements per turn
Per resource region, the players can build a resource supply centre.
All buildings are initially build at stage 1 and can be developed successively up to stage 4. Stage 1 buildings cost any 1 resource. Stage 2 costs 2 different resources, up to stage 4 which costs 4 different resources.
Each player starts with 2 settlers and 2 resource centres.
In the player's turn, he can decide to either take resources (amount per resource type equivalent to the stage of the resource centre) or to move his settlers (or later soldiers).
If a settler reaches a region in which the player wants to build/develop, he selects the type of development (if stage 1), pays the related resources and has to return the settler to the staring region (why ?).
If the development is built in a native region, in which another/other player/s has/have already build a development, then those receive each 1 of the resources which were used for building. Further the unrest of the "Pikten" is determined by flipping over one or of the Pikten tokens. If it is a friendly tribe, it is removed, if unfriendly, then it stays and all players in the region have to defend themselves against the unrest. If their defensive strength (overall fortifications level plus local soldiers) in the respective region is equal or higher than the unrest level, all is fine, if not, they need to reduce the stage of their development by 1.
We played the game for several rounds with 3 players (haven't finished it). The game play is easy and intuitive:
- do I have enough resources to build another development ?
- yes: I move my settlers to the respective region and build.
- no: I take resources.
The decisions to be taken are related to
- the order of developments and
- the appropriate selection of a development for a respective region (some regions ahve more hidden Pikten tokens than others.
Once this optimisation problem was solved, the game plan is written.
Ok, ok, I forgot to consider that being first in a region also provides additional resources - but in fact in our game the benefit was well distributed, as each player had one of these regions where he was ahead of the others.
So the game is a kind of never-ending movement of the settlers plus building and resource collection. Interaction is really limited (well ok, I forgot that soldiers can move a hidden Pikten token from one field to another... wow).
We finally decided to abort the game. It really provides too few strategic options and is too repetitive. Could be interesting as a family game. But is it really fun to play - I have my doubt.
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Brokito wrote: So the game is a kind of never-ending movement of the settlers plus building and resource collection.
That's like saying that Chess is never-ending movement plus captures. In a sense, it is.
Brokito wrote: Interaction is really limited (well ok, I forgot that soldiers can move a hidden Pikten token from one field to another... wow).
Neither I get the reason for moving Picts around, however there's interaction by tribute payment and assaults on all buildings in the region. While this interaction may seem very limited, ignoring it is a sure way to lose.
Brokito wrote: We finally decided to abort the game. It really provides too few strategic options and is too repetitive. Could be interesting as a family game. But is it really fun to play - I have my doubt.
I'm afraid the game gets repetitive after a few plays (I'm a newbie as well), but surely not before a single one gets finished. What seems to be trivial proves not to be if you give it a chance.
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