|
Alexandros by Leo Colovini : (Winner of the March Bash Spiel de Weekend)
In a disastrous shopping campaign brother Phil has still not managed to acquire a birthday present for Kendall – now almost five weeks ago and rising (damned Post office!). Kendall, on the other hand, has done the honours and produced what turns out to be a little gem by Signor Colovini. Friday night sees Phil ripping the cellophane asunder, skimming the rules and then putting them aside for Saturday morning.
Arising with the lark (7.30ish) the Elder Kendall is appalled to discover the rest of the Ragnars slumped in a Rip van Winkle-like stupor. Drawing himself a cup of tea, slipping out to the conservatory between the sleeping forms of Slade and Ellis, Phil settles himself for an early-morning rules read. And very pleasantly they read too – it’s always nice to come across a rule that makes you think “ah! Interesting!! I wonder how that plays?” and that is the case here.
Several hours and a large breakfast later, Alexandros is put to the test. This is a small game. It comes with a pleasant mounted map-board representing the Middle East of the 4th century BC. There though the resemblance ends. For burning deserts, range upon range of mountains and some of the most exotic cities of the Ancient World read instead a triangular grid showing five colour-coded symbols. Yes, it’s “Hello folks and welcome to the world of the abstract historical game”. To the board add the aforementioned (very nice) 6 page folded rules booklet, a small pack of 55 cards showing eleven of each of the map symbols, a score marker and four guards per player, and a mass of black and red matchsticks (for want of a better word). The components are not extensive. Oh, plus a large yellow wooden Alexander. Like he was. (Or was that Colin Farrell?)
Howe does the game work? The answer is ‘curiously’. The current player begins by moving Alexander to the nearest triangle showing the same symbol as one of two face up cards. He chooses a corner of the triangle and makes a path there, along the edges of the triangle grid, using the matchsticks (alright – ‘boundary walls’). This eventually begins to divide the map up into provinces, and in the second part of his turn, the player can take advantage of this by carrying out two actions. Very often he chooses extra cards, but can also take over provinces (empty or belonging to another player) using the cards in his hand or occasionally tax (usually when marking out a decent ‘province’). And that is more or less it!! The game finishes when the last of the . . . black boundary walls have been placed.
And how did it actually play? Remarkably well. All four players tend to be involved all the time, usually in the best Ragnar tradition of providing advice, welcome or not, to the current player. The simple play system ensures the turns whiz around. The ‘combat’ system does enough to make the players feel they are making choices, and the wanderings of Alexander provide plenty of food for gossip. Indeed, the Alexander movement provides a fascinating element to the game. Quite what the historical basis is anyone’s guess (the idea that Alexander wandered around thePersian Empire with the sole purpose of creating provinces for his generals is a strange one). And yet it somehow seems to work. For such an abstract game, you do feel yourself to be a general trying to grab the biggest slice of the pie for yourself. Great fun!!!
A few points, however.
1) Never, in the history of boardgaming, has there been a game in which the Ragnar’s fail to misinterpret at least one rule. Do not fall into the same trap. Clever tactic though it is, you cannot simply remove a player’s guards from a province to deprive them of the points. You have to be able to go in and occupy it yourself.
2) As with Vinci and various other games, the score track around the board is measured in multiples of five, with the intervening squares blank. This is deuced annoying when so much of the game involves moving score markers. Why do they do this? Eh?
3) As with Ian Rankin novels and probably the England-Australia Ashes series, the ending is very disappointing. In both games, the player in last place ended up finishing the game and basically having the choice as to which player will win the game (except for themselves of course). This felt very anti-climactic. Perhaps we were unlucky, but methinks maybe not.
4) And finally, the Phil Kendall scoring tip. Use a second (smaller) scoring marker to keep track of the value of each player’s possessions (e.g. Green takes a 3-point province off Blue; increase green’s possession marker by 3, and reduce Blues by the same amount). If you’re thinking about taxing then you don’t have to spend five minutes counting up the values of each of the other player’s empires. Just look at the second scoring marker. Brilliant, Holmes. (But again – why wasn’t this suggested as part of the rules, As far as we could see, it is unplayable without it).
But all things considered, a cracking little game. Thanks, brother!
Go to top of page
|
