Small World - Analysis

Last week we were assigned to play and analyze a board game of our choice in the course, Advanced game design. My group chose Small world and here is my personal analysis of the game.

The game

Small world is a turn based strategy game where your goal is to collect coins by conquering and holding areas of a map. You get coins depending on a number of different things like how many provinces you hold and you can also get bonus coins depending on your racial and special power abilities. The player with the most amounts of coins after a set number of turns win the game. The game can be played by 2-5 players and depending on the number of players the board that the game is played on is different and so is the number of turns.

Choosing a race combo

You start out with five coins. At the start of the first turn you can choose or buy a race you want to play. With the race there is also a special power card connected. The races you can chose from are random and so are the special power cards. From the deck with the races and power cards only the top five are placed on the table. (see picture below)

The first is free to pick. The second race cost one coin and the third two coins and so on. All the placed coins by previous players will become yours if you choose a race card with money on it. This is probably developed in such a way so if you are not allowed to go first you can choose a race with all the coins from previous players giving you some bonus for your start. And it’s not a bad bonus since the game is about getting the highest amount of coins before the end of the game.

Conquering

Now you have your race and are ready to go. Depending on the race and power card combo you’ve chosen you get a number of tokens that you can place on the map to conquer new areas. If you look at the picture below you see these big numbers in the lower corners of each card. this represent the number of tokens you are allowed to start with. So if I would choose Fortified Amazons I would get 6 tokens for being Amazon and then 3 more tokens for the special power card Fortified. And being Amazon also grants me 4 extra tokens that I can use when I'm conquering but that have to be removed from the board when my turn is up.

An empty province costs two tokens to conquer. An occupied province cost the original two tokens + one extra token for each unit occupying that space. When you have used all your tokens and conquered as much as you can, you can redeploy your tokens on the conquered provinces to increase the defence in certain positions. You then count your score and receive your coins depending on the number of provinces and special abilities you have. In this case my race won't give me extra coins but I have the ability to build a fortress each turn and that increase the defence in that area by one but also gives that province one extra coin per turn. So I would naturally do that. When I'm done the turn moves on to the next player. When the last player is done the game moves on to the next round.

Here on the picture to the left you see tokens of skeletons on the board. conquering this province would need two for the basic cost and then four extra tokens, one for each skeleton. At the end of the turn if you not have enough tokens to conquer a province you can chose to gamble with the special dice that comes with this game. The dice have three empty sides and when rolled you can get 1-3 extra tokens for that attack only.

Using your race to your advantage

If you want to win this game it’s quite important to play your race correctly. For example if you have Fortified Humans you get a bonus to holding farmlands so you should conquer as many farmland provinces as you can and try to fortify yourself there. Building forts and holding farmlands gives you extra coins.

On the other hand, if you have the Pillaging Ratmen your tactics should be to conquer as much as you can as fast as possible because you don’t have any other special abilities with your race other than the big numbers of tokens and the power card bonus for pillaging which gives a bonus to conquering .The next step would be turning your race into decline.

Turning your race into decline

In the start of each round you can choose to keep conquering and collecting coins or you can turn your race into decline. When you turn your race into decline you flip over your race card, special power card and all placed tokens on the board.

You can no longer use this race to conquer new provinces but you still get one coin for each province your declined race holds at the end of your turn. Then the next round you get to choose or buy a new race to play and you will get coins from both the declined race and the active race. The ability to turn your race into decline is really one of the things that make this game special. Comparing this to a normal game of Risk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_(game) ) where if you lose the last troops you control you will be out of the game. Well here you get a fresh new race and can begin conquering all over again.

Here is where the strategy of this game comes in. Timing the turn you go into decline can be crucial for your success in winning this game. If you overextend and ignore going into decline you will soon have your forces spread thin and you will be an easy target by other players and will quickly lose income. Also turning into decline at the right moment to be able to choose a new race with a powerful power card combo before your opponents is able to do the same is a game changer. You can go from losing the game to almost winning the game in a few turns.

The Good - Randomness

As I’ve just mentioned the ability to go into decline is really a great thing about this game. Another good thing about this game is the randomness of the races and how you get to pick a race. Each game is different because you and your opponents will have different race and power card combinations to choose from and you will have to apply different strategies each time you play this game all because of the different race combos available. Combining this with the decline system is what gives this game a unique feel with great replay value.

The Bad - Overpowered combinations

The only downside of this game that I can think of is that it sometimes lead to some combinations of race and power cards to come up that are really overpowered and with some luck one player can manage to get one powerful combo after another leading him to victory leaving a feeling of unfairness.

For example one round we played I had just finished conquering around seven provinces when another player picked a new race and steamrolled all over my province and conquered it all in one turn.

Also sometimes the rules weren't exactly clear on how some abilities was supposed to work so we had to fill in with what we felt worked best. It was only minor things and nothing game breaking.

Who this game is for

It says on the box that the game is for ages eight and up which is very broad. I believe this game is aimed towards people who enjoy strategy games but don’t have a lot of time to play too deep and complex games. This game is easy to learn and you can just pick it up and play but when you play it a few times you soon realize that there are some strategy involved here that can tip the scale in your favor. 

I myself am a strategy fan and it was a long time since I played a board game and I really liked this game. The game itself took around one and a half hour to play and it felt like an okay length for a game. This game could easily be played by a family with the father of the family having the interests in these kinds of games or by a group of friends meeting an evening to hang out.

So I believe the biggest target group is male in his 20- 40s with interests in strategy type of games. The secondary target will be friends and family of that individual.

Summary

At first glance this game looks complex but it’s quite easy to learn. It’s very easy to play with the hardest thing being to remember to count your score after each turn. It has some unique features like the system of going into decline and picking a new race to play which makes it a game where all players can play to the finish without being eliminated like in a Risk game. 

The way that this game also combines the randomness of the races together with the decline system really makes this game shine by forcing the player to always adapt to the game and planning your strategy well and then if a new racial combo appear, you have to rethink your whole strategy for the next round because everything changed. Overall I think this is a good game with light strategy elements to it.