|
Saga is a "card game that plays like a board game" by Wolfgang Kramer & Horst-Rainer Rosner.
Players: 2-4
Playing Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: 2 (of 10)
The Components
Saga comes with:
- 60 knight cards
- 6 kingdom cards
- 32 fame chips
- 1 rulebook
The Cards: The cards are all printed on regular-sized medium-heavy cardstock, with rounded corners. They're printed full-color, which shows the cards' attractive, almost full-sized artwork off very well.
The knight cards come in 5 decks of 12 cards each. These are the individual decks used by players during the game. Each card features a knight in a specific color (green, blue, red, yellow, purple, orange) and with a specific value (1-4).
The kingdom cards each show a kingdom with three characteristics: a fame value; sometimes an in-game power; and sometimes an end-of-the-game power. This is all displayed iconically.The vast majority of the icons are very intuitive, making the game easy to play. Additionally, each card is double-sided, allowing you to choose which kingdom to use during the game, which is well appreciated because it adds a lot of variety (and thus replayability) to the game.
Fame Chips: These double-sided chips are printed on heavy, linen-textured cardboard. There are a number of denominations, from 1 to 20. Besides having different numbers, each is also easy to distinguish thanks to different colors. These were generally fine, though there should have been more "1" chips, since they're collected the most often (and, in general, the constant exchange of chips was quite fiddly; I would have much preferred a chart which you could move a marker up and down).
Rulebook: A five-panel, double-sided rulesheet. There are some examples and illustrations which make the rules pretty easy to read. The whole back side of the rule sheet consists of reference, mostly of the various cards' special powers. It was highly useful when we had questions during the game.
Box & Tray: The box is a small, square box, the same as used throughout the rest of Uberplay's Small-Box series. It also contains a same tray, which has two slots for cards and one for other bits; it works fine for this game, though there's a fair amount of empty space.
Overall, the quality of the components is above average, and the cards and fame chips are attractive, earning Saga a high "4" out of "5" for Style.
The Gameplay
The basic goal of Saga is to gain fame from the successful conquest of kingdoms--but keeping them can be a bit more difficult.
Setup: A game of Saga starts with the selection of which kingdom cards will be played. There's just six of them, but they're double-sided, multiplying the number of possible combinations. There's a suggested side to play for a starting game, but afterward they can be largely randomized. The kingdoms are placed in the middle of the table where they're initially "neutral". (Players will want to conquer the kingdoms for a variety of reasons. Each of the kingdoms offers a fame reward to its owner every turn--usually "1". About half of the kingdoms had an in-game power, and about half had an end-game bonus. )
Each player is also given a set of 12 knight cards. Each card set has a selection of cards in the six color-coded suits (red, green, blue, orange, purple, and yellow, matching the six kingdom colors). Every set is different (e.g., one suit has a 2-2-3 in blue, a 1 in yellow, a 1-4-4 in red, etc; while another has a 2-4 in blue, a 3 in yellow, and a 2-2-3 in red), but they're also balanced. Basically, the colors are just switched around in each different set.
Finally, an additional set of knight cards is distributed among the 6 kingdoms, 2 knighs per kingdom, one of whom matches the color of the kingdom. These are the initial defenders of the kingdoms.
Order of Play: Each round a players take the following actions:
- Collect Fame
- Play Knight
- Enlist Knights
Collect Fame: This must be done first. The player collects fame for all the kingdoms he currently holds, which is 1 fame for each kingdom other than orange Goldland, which is 2 or 3, depending on which side is used.
 Play Knight: Each turn a player may play one knight to an attacking force. To start an attacking force he plays one knight from his hand to his playing area. He now has defined a force attacking the kingdom with the same color as the lead knight. To improve an attacking force he plays a knight to one of his attacking forces already on the board.
There's one catch: only one knight of the same color can be played to each force.
When the total strength of an attacking force exceeds the defending strength of a kingdom (that's initially those two knights on a neutral kingdom, and later the strength of the last attacking force that took the kingdom) the kingdom is taken. All knights formerly defending the kingdom go back in the player's hand (or, if it was still in the middle of the board, the knights become free knights); the kingdom is given to the attacking player; and the attacking force becomes the new defending force.
It's worth noting that during this play you can do some clever things, like play knights to attack your own kingdom, usually because you expect to lose it soon and want a new force ready to go; or play knights even when you don't plan to attack, just to get them out of your hand.
Enlist Knights: Before or after playing his knight, a player may also enlist a free knight (this was a formerly neutral knight who's kingdom was lost). He pays an amount of fame equal to the strength of the knight and adds the knight to his hand. (This can be a good thing if it's a high value knight that fills in a color you were weak in, but can be a bad thing if you take them too late in the game.)
Winning the Game: A game of Saga ends when one player plays the last knight from his hand. This ending point is never quite set in stone because of the fact that players get cards back into their hand when they lose a kingdom. Each player then totals up his fame:
- Adding the value of any Fame Chips
- Adding the value of the defending force for any kingdom
- Adding any bonuses from kingdoms
- Subtracting the value of any knights in his hand
- Doing nothing with the value of knights in attacking forces (they're neither plus nor minus)
The person with the highest total wins.
More on the Kingdom Powers: The game is really made on the individual attributes of the different kingdoms, which may have different values to different players.
Briefly, here's what some of the in-game powers do:
- Add a card to the kingdom's defending force (once)
- Take back any one of your cards from the table
- Kingdom has +1 defense
- Kingdom has -1 defense
- Enlist a knight for free (once)
- Play a knight face-down to an attacking force (once)
And here's the end-game powers:
- +5 Fame
- Score Fame for one attacking force
- Cards in hand count as zero
- Defending force of one kingdom is not counted
- Defending force of one kingdom is worth 15
- Add a knight to any attacking or defending force
- Take 2 Fame from each opponent
Relationships to Other Games
Saga (2004) is a rather unique majority-based area control game, where the areas are actually individual cards rather than spaces on a board. Its uniqueness stems from the fact that you wipe out a formerly leading majority when you exceed it, forcing your opponent to start again from scratch. This introduces some wide swings and chaos into the game that you don't find in most of the genre--which generally tends toward much more plodding and constant increases. Wolfgang Kramer is, of course, also one of the authors of the definitive majority-based area control game: El Grande (1995).
Really, I suppose you could also look at Saga as an auction game if you wanted (majority control games and auction games are really the same thing, with the first usually defining their units as troops and the second as money), or even a set collection game, where you're trying to collect unlike sets, rather than the more typical like sets. The fact that Saga is card-based really throws the whole mechanic into a new light.
Saga is also a member of Uberplay's new small-box set of games. They're all nice compact games, largely based on card mechanics, but their demographics have less in common: Manga Manga (2004) is a kid's game while Oh, Pharaoh! (2004) is more aimed at families. I haven't played the final release, Spy (2004), yet, but I'm guessing it's a more family/casual game.
The Game Design
Saga is an interesting tactical game. Here's some of the stuff I liked:
Great Tactical Decisions: There's some nice strategy in the game, as you make big plans about how to advance in the game, but it really shines at the tactical level. Things change a lot every four or five turns, as kingdoms rise and fall, but on each individual turn you can make very clever and very meaningful decisions about how to: take a new kingdom; get cards back in a the hand of a player threatening to go out; prepare to retake a kingdom you're about to lose; and more.
Nice Brinkmanship: The game also has a fun sense of brinkmanship, as you try and outwait other players to take a specific kingdom (or free up knights) and as you try and hold on to a kingdom just long enough.
Good Interactivity: The game is all about interactivity, and you have ample chance to try and beat up a winner and otherwise outhink your opponents.
Good Replayability: Particularly because the kingdoms are double-sided, there's some nice replayability to the game.
Very Expandable System: Although I don't expect to see expansions, this is a game that could be very easily expanded with new kingdoms with different powers. This adds to replayability, and is pretty cool in and of itself.
Here's some of the downsides of the game:
Overly Chaotic at End: The last round of the game has the possibility of deciding the game, mainly if a a large defending army goes back to a player's hand at an inopportune time. On a second playing of the game, I decided that this was somewhat controllable through very careful playing and careful watching of who had the least cards, but it still does remain a bit of an issue. (I'm tempted to adopt a house rule which says that knights from a lost kingdom don't go back into your hand until the start of your turn--which means you can never be penalized by a lost batch of knights without a chance to ditch at least one of them.)
Scoring Non-Transparent: Somewhat related is the fact that it's not entirely obvious who's winning until after the scoring is done, particularly as a result of late lost kingdoms.
Overall, I think you need to play Saga either very lightly or very seriously for it to work. In the first case, you don't care if late-game chaos dumps you from first to last; and in the second case, you probably have an opportunity to avoid it. In these cases I give Saga a "4" out of "5" for Style.
Conclusion
Saga is an interesting combination of majority-control mechanics with card gameplay. There's some possibility for late-game chaos to sneak in if you're not careful, but otherwise the game is an interesting, unique, and thought-provoking experience.
|
