Richard Simon  - Jan 16, 2010 7:02 pm (32002.)  
I'm Not as Good as I Once Was. But I'm as Good Once 
as I Ever Was! 	 

On the Table at The Chitkickers today was a pretty fair variety. There
was Fast Action Bulge, a playtest (or three) of Pax Baltica, Dominion, a
Fantasy Game of some sort at the next table, and Maria. 

We played the latter with four (initially), with one player taking the
Pragmatic Army. This takes away from the game a little but we're a
sociable group so that didn't stop us. The game is a follow-up to
Friedrich and uses the same basic mechanisms. The game is point to point
with the map broken down into squares, each of which noted by a suit.
Any combat within the appropriate square is handled via cards played of
that suit (more or less). Unlike Friedrich, there is no recognizable
power that everybody needs to jump on. 

Instead, there are three main powers: Prussia, Austria, and France. Each
has subsidiary powers although it's a bit more complicated than just
that. The map is split into two areas: Central Europe and Flanders, with
very little movement allowed between the two (and only by the French).
The Prussians starts out with a schizophrenic game position, as they
control their own and the Saxon forces (on the Central Europe map) and
the Pragmatic Army (on the Flanders map). The thing is, the Prussians
oppose the Austrians on their own map but are allied to them on the
other (via the Pragmatic Army). So in a sense, you're playing against
yourself. The other two powers are a little more straightforward. 

Unlike Friedrich, there is a diplomatic phase, with players bidding for
random events. the Austrians also get two Hussar counters that can f**k
up opposition supply quite nicely (using costing them a card every
trun). 

We made the usual beginner mistakes (myself, more than most). Typically,
the game does suffer from the same problem that many card games do: if
you don't get decent cards, you are effectively screwed. For instance,
Prussia starts out the game with a chance to occupy (and annex) Silesia,
which not only gains them better supply and VP's but they can then go
neutral and pick their spot to intervene. The problem our Prussians had
was that two of the fortresses occupied spaces that the Prussian never
got any cards for (I had a total of three spades in nine plus turns).
While the idea is to force combat in the suits you do have, the Prussian
communication led through Spade land and with no spades to play, that
route was effectively closed (doubly so since Mark Herman was playing
the Austrians). 

Still even with miserable card draws, the Prussians began top claw their
way back into the game (which has an interesting victory mechanism) but
the French finally took the gong. 

We all enjoyed the game a lot. It has many of the strengths of the
original and fewer of the weaknesses. It moves along quite well with
little down time and there are some interesting decsions to be made.
There aren't many three-player games out there so this qualifies on that
score. It's pretty good on its own, however.