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Main Catalogue | BOARD GAMES & CARD GAMES | Czech Games | 20th Century

20th Century

Price: £19.99

RRP = £49.99, our price - £19.99

Boardgame for 3-5 players, ages 13+, from Czech Games Edition In the 20th Century, every country strives to develop and improve, each in its own way. Some become financial leaders. Others become centers of learning. Both science and commerce serve to propel nations toward the future – but toward what kind of future? Growth produces waste, and the greatest advances may come with the greatest cost to the environment. How will these countries mitigate the inevitable ecological catastrophes? ----------------------------------------------------- COUNTER MAGAZINE REVIEW: ----------------------------------------------------- 3-5 players, 75-120 minutes designed by Vladimír Suchy reviewed by Simon Weinberg Hot on the heels of last year\'s commendable Shipyard comes another game from Vladimír Suchy involving auctioning tiles and putting them together in meaningful ways. However, this year\'s offering is themed around the building of environmentally sound lands where citizens may work in peace and harmony and all rubbish is recycled. If that sounds like a cross between The Apprentice and X factor you\'re on the wrong track, it\'s actually a deft game which is worth looking into. 20th Century comes in a Puerto-Rico sized box which once popped is only half full. Components for the game are relatively poor compared to other games: the two sets of `coin\' and `science point\' cards are pretty thin, and the main board and individual player boards are almost half the thickness of many of the other games coming out at Essen. The coloured wooden `citizen\' counters are very small, like Puerto Rico people counters, although to be fair this is in keeping with the need for them not to dwarf the tiles on which they are placed. The tiles themselves are fine, but overall the game doesn\'t look great or feel that money was spent on luxurious production values, despite the fact that the game will probably sell for around 35 Pounds in the UK, at least initially. Having said that, the rules are lavish and glossy and contain many good illustrations, which slightly make up for the economies made elsewhere, and I don\'t expect the game will fall apart. In this game players are each responsible to build up their own country using Land tiles while minimising pollution and maximising industry. Three kinds of resources can be generated by populated cities: gold coins, science points and victory points, and the total capability of each player\'s country is monitored on each player\'s own board as well as a measure of the pollution or cleanliness of their land. In addition garbage cubes are accumulated and distributed across the Land tiles and players will gain or lose points for clean or dirty tiles at the end of the game. Part of the skill of the game is joining together the right tiles to maximise generated resources. Land tiles show rail links between cities: there is no obligation to match together the tiles, but doing so allows you to transport citizens when you wish to move them to new cities, and also allows the movement of garbage from an adjacent tile to a garbage recycling centre, which is the only way to clean up your land. In addition to laying Land tiles, players may buy Technology tiles for science points. Some of these are used like land tiles, containing factories or hospitals, and these tiles can be linked to multiple cities on other tiles, when they enhance the production of one type of resource. For example, a Laboratory tile may show 3 links to three sides, and three science point symbols. Each of the three sides, when linked directly by rail to a city on another tile which produces science points will produce one additional science point, i.e. 3 additional points can be earned altogether with correct planning and layout. Technology tiles also come in other flavours, such as railway bridges which allow one additional rail link between tiles; locomotives which allow transport of citizens, and various special cards which allow rapid recycling or clean-up of lands. 20th Century is played in 5 rounds plus a special reduced scoring round, and only certain tiles are sold in each phase, allowing the more complex tiles to be appear later in the game in a staggered fashion. In each round there are a number of phases as follows: Setup Land tiles and Technology tiles are laid out on the board ready for the round\'s auctions; the number of tiles varies with the number of players. Auction Phase The start player can now choose a Land tile to auction off, the starting price (in gold) of which is predetermined according to the round number. A standard round-the-table auction follows, in which players may bid, pass, or drop out completely. If they pass they may bid on the next tile up for auction. If they drop out, they will have the first opportunity to buy one of the Technology tiles up for grabs, but will pay more for it than if they wait, since the Technology tile price drops every time a Land tile auction is concluded. The last player to remain in the Land tile auction gets the smallest choice of Technology tile (usually for nothing) but may go first in the following phase. Meanwhile the winner of the Land tile auction takes the tile and a garbage cube. He may then choose another tile to auction or drop out himself. If he wins a second Land tile, this one will come with two garbage cubes. These cubes are fixed on the tiles they come on but the player may later use rail links or technology cards to move them. Each Land Tile bought will show 2-3 cities and/or a recycling centre and comes with a new citizen token, which must be allocated to one of the cities. This city then is is able to produce the resources indicated which will be one or two Gold, Science Points, or VPs in the first phases, and in general more mixed resources later in the game. It\'s worth noting that any player can choose not to buy any tiles and take a small amount of money instead, in compensation. Preventing Catastrophes Each round one catastrophe card is turned over, each one being associated to a particular phase so that catastrophes get worse as the game progresses. Several Catastrophe cards are supplied with the game, so that every game can be different, which is a nice touch. Catastrophe cards are split into a number of columns, with one column per player, and show varying degrees of disaster from no impact to catastrophes of the BP oil spill level. An auction ensues where players may bid science points on one of the columns, and when overbid can move their bid to another column. The result will be a high bid for the best catastrophe and a zero bid for the worst disaster. Because disasters can be particularly penalising, it is important that players save and generate Science points to prepare for this phase. The results of catastrophes are additional garbage cubes, which can be allocated on any Land tile by the player (who will look to allocate them on an empty tile or recycling centre), and pollution points. Pollution points are recorded on a scale on the player mats and can only be negated by buying technology tiles worth ``flower\'\' points. At the end of the game negative (pollution) scores lose a lot of VPs, whereas positive (clean) points gain even bigger points. For example, 4 accumulated pollution points give -15 points and 4 clean points give 19 points. In practice, most players will hover around the zero point mark. The player taking the worst catastrophe will become the new start player in the next round. Upkeep and Technology Use Once all the buying and auctioning is over, players get to place and use their tiles. Garbage from catastrophes is allocated, new tiles are joined together, and citizens are placed on them. Technology tiles such as the locomotive, Workers (which give you an extra Citizen token), Parks (which give you one `flower\'), Recycling (which allow you to pay gold to recycle one garbage) etc are used. Then a player looks at the overall production coming from populated cities, and enhanced by connected technology buildings, and updates his Gold, Science Points and his Victory points on his player mat accordingly. Production and Recycling In this phase, each player receives income in the form of cards in keeping with his country\'s new output. Gold and Science Points are taken as income, and Victory points generated are scored each round. There is no limit to income and a bit of runaway is possible if a player gets all-powerful in Gold or Science auctions, but this is difficult to achieve whilst balancing all three types of production and your garbage count - for example, buying many Land tiles and accumulating a lot of garbage means that more recycling centres are required which themselves require citizens to be diverted away from Production. Here the flexibility given by the Locomotive card to be able to move a worker is particularly useful as the game evolves. Recyling also takes place in this phase, whereby populated recycling centres can be used to remove one neighbouring garbage cube each. Scoring Phase In addition to the VPs scored every round during the previous phase, every 2 rounds is a scoring round, with the scoring in rounds 2 and 4 being determined by a card taken from a small stock of three to ensure each game is different. In Round 2, Victory points are awarded for production, lands without garbage, or for victory points, depending on the card drawn. In Round 4 you score VPs for recycling centres and Coins; Flowers (clean countries) and VP production; or tiles without garbage and Science Points, again depending on the card. In the 6th and last Round, only the Upkeep and Production phases are played through, and the victory point awards are permanently written on the board and slightly more complex. The points indicated on the Pollution scale are scored as previously described; then 8 points are awarded for highest Coin and for highest Science Point production, 5 for second highest, and so on depending on the number of players. Then players are awarded or penalised points for the amount of garbage they have accumulated on their tiles: between +2 and +4 points (depending on your Pollution status) per Land Tile with no garbage, and -5 points for tiles with more than one garbage. Since players may have between 6 and 18 tiles on the table, these points are significant, as they should be. In the games we have played so far, scores have varied vastly between different players, but this can possibly be attributed to the fact that none of us have played enough! 20th Century is an interesting game. The combination of multiple auctions with different currencies, the VP production scoring at the end of each round, and the (varying) scoring in rounds 2, 4 and 6, together with the spatial aspects of putting tiles together in an optimum way and trading off where to place citizens, all make for a satisfying low-luck gamer\'s game in which you will searching for a way to optimise your country and your production while keeping money back so as not to get stung by catastrophes. 20th Century, like Shipyard before it, breaks through the smoky haze of derivative mechanisms to reveal a good clean game which feels decidedly different. If you\'re a fan of deep games it\'s worth buying, despite the thin board.

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Main Catalogue | BOARD GAMES & CARD GAMES | Czech Games | 20th Century

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