Shrapnel Games Blog

Over the weekend a friend of mine who had relatives over wanted to introduce them to some gaming, and since inducting non-gamers into the cult is never a bad thing I was all for it. Problem was that we were going to be stuck with six players (which actually ended up being five, as two decided to tackle it as a team), and while there are games out there for five or six players they probably wouldn’t go over with the crowd. For example, Arkham Horror works great with large groups but I could only imagine the non-gamers reaction upon seeing how many components there are. Hell, even long time gamers tend to get that shoggoth-in-the-headlights look when you start pulling out a hundred and fifty decks to draw from. I recently talked about my new favorite zombie game, Last Night On Earth, which works great for the player count but these weren’t zombie folks. What to play?

Introducing relatives to games like Diplomacy or Machiavelli isn’t a good idea, after all you’re probably going to have to see them again in your life. There are Eurogames that can handle the player load but no one I know is going to be caught dead with a Eurogame in their collection. In the end we decided on an oldie (not too old) but goodie: History Of The World.

If you’re not familiar with History it’s a light game on the rise and fall of empires throughout history up until the first World War. A turn represents hundreds of years and is called an epoch; there are seven epochs in the game. History is all about scoring points and denying them to your opponents. You get points for controlling areas and building monuments and cities.

Gameplay is easy to grasp and perfect for non-gamers. Each player is assigned a card that dictates where their empire starts in an epoch. The card lets the player know how many armies they get, and typically each epoch has one bad ass empire with a massive force. For example, when Rome rises they get twenty armies (average army count hovers around ten). From your starting location you move into adjacent territories, gaining control if empty or after a victorious battle if occupied by an opponent. Combat is dirt simple, with the attacker normally rolling 2d6 and the defender 1d6 and comparing rolls with high roll winning. To control a territory you must leave an army in it, and thus how far your empire can expand ultimately depends on how many armies you have, and how well they do.

That’s about it. At the end of your turn you can build monuments based on how many resource centers you control, and there are also event cards you can play during your turn that can affect other players or provide you with bonuses. But the heart of the game is simply about creating a chain of controlled territories. When your turn is done you score and then the next person cranks up his empire.

Since it’s all about the score the key strategy is where you expand. What’s worth what changes over time so while Northern Europe, a wilderness home to barbarians in the early days, is worthless in the first half of the game, it becomes quite valuable in the later epochs. North Africa, a great territory to control in the beginning, slowly fades in prestige. Sometimes it’s worth expanding into a relatively worthless territory in the current epoch to ensure a strong foothold in an upcoming epoch.

With scoring done at the end of your turn, and not at the end of everyone’s turn, the order you go is also something you must consider. A player who goes last in one epoch and then first the next has a huge advantage, as no one has had a chance to loot and pillage their empire in the between years. Assignment of empires is semi-random. When drawing empires players have a chance to draw, look, and then pass the card to someone else if they don’t want the empire. If you pass your card though you end up with being stuck with whatever someone else gives you (or possibly a random draw). This is an interesting gamble, as while you want to stick an opponent with an empire that will hinder them, you do so at the risk of landing yourself in the same predicament.

The scoring system creates some interesting play dynamics. While occasionally I’ve seen games in which one player was able to luck out with playing all the powerful empires, or the opposite with someone being stuck with the worst, overall everything seems to average out. A strong empire in one epoch turns into a weak empire the next, and a tiny empire lasts into a thousand year reign thanks to careful card play and a healthy dose of luck.

In terms of scoring there is no such thing as a safe lead. A couple of good epochs and suddenly the player who had the least number of points has overtaken everyone else. This is great, because there’s nothing worse than trailing in a multiplayer game with no hope of catching up and having to spend the next couple of hours going through the motions. History Of The World, thanks to the peaks and valleys in scoring, avoids this and keeps everyone interested right until the final army marches out under their banner of manifest destiny. While there are other games that allow players to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (quite feasible with any of the Commands and Colors games), there are few that do so as elegantly in a game of such length as History Of The World.

On the drive home I started thinking about how the evening went. We started around nine and ended around two, with the same number of player we started with. Considering how many non-gamers probably think a game of Uno lasts too long the fact that History Of The World kept everyone interested was a surprise. I think that could be squarely attributed to the fact that the victory point carrot was a tasty treat. Why drop out of a game when the very next turn you could be leader of the pack?

So, if you’re looking for a strategy game to introduce non-gamers too, one that involves history and even bloody conquest, dig up a copy of History Of The World. I think you can find the “new” Avalon Hill version readily enough, and the “old” Avalon Hill version should be fairly common. The rules are pretty much the same, although there are minor changes between the two editions.