Players: 3-4
Time: 1 hour
Difficulty: 4 (of 10)

* General consensus seems to be "4" only.

The Components

As with most Adlung Spiele games, this one just contains a deck of cards--66 cards to be precise. They're all printed full-color on medium-weight glossy card stock with rounded corners. They'll hold up, though they'll show wear because they have black borders. There's very nice, evocative, and period-appropriate artwork on all the cards, also apparently by Marcel-Andre Casasola Merkle. The deck includes: 12 landscape cards; 23 supply cards; 16 player cards; 6 action (role) cards; 3 marker cards; and 6 information cards.

Landscape Cards: These cards form the "board" on which the game is played. Each one features a name with accompanying artwork, a conflict value (marked in a square box, as all conflict values are in the game), and a set of four different victory point values (marked in circles, as all victory point values are in the game). Each card is also two sided, one for the eagles and one for the roses, so you know who's currently in control of a landscape. Overall, a great and intuitive way to transmit a lot of information.

Supply Cards: These cards are the medium by which the conflicts in the game are fought. They run in value from "2" to "8" (each again marked in a square box); there's also a piece of unique artwork for each different value.

Player Cards: Each player receives one allegiance card, which shows a rose on one side and an eagle on the other as well as three two-sided office/estate cards, which can be placed on the game board. These cards are all clearly marked with the player colors (red, green, orange, or blue).

Action Cards: These cards show the different roles players can (secretly) take during each round of play. Each one is very clearly marked with icons to display what the card does.

Marker Cards: Markers for the start player, the strategist, and the current conflict; quite handy.

Information Cards: A set of 6 cards overviewing the various game system; they look to be quite well done, but they're in German. Board Game Geek has some fine English-language references which are a very acceptable alternative.

Rulebook: There's also a teeny little rule booklet, again useless to me because it's in German. It unfortunately breaks the game into a complex 13-phase sequence, which is much of what makes the game seem intimidating.

Overall the cards in Verrater are beautiful enough that they're not just fun to play with, but also catch the attention of passersby. Their use of icons is also quite good, and as a result the cards are very easy to use. Combine that with the great pricing ($8.95-$9.95, even given current atrocious exchange rates) and there's no doubt that Verrater earns a full "5" out of "5" for Style: suberb.

This is a German-language only game, and so it's worth mentioning the "German angst" level; unfortunately, it's medium high. The cards are great, and really easy to use once you get into the game. However, the game is complex enough that not having all those informational cards in English is quite intimidating. You also lose some of the color not knowing what a "Fluss", "Dorf", or "Kontar" is. (They're "River", "Village", and "Trading Office", respectively.) On the whole, I'd be happier with an English-language version of this game, but it's entirely playable in the German, once you get past the initial intimidation.

The Gameplay

The object of Verrater is to gain victory points through successful military conflicts & the taking of strategic roles.

Setup: The setup of this game is somewhat complex, since it essentially creates a board game from a deck of cards.

First, the 12 landscape cards are taken out, and half of them are put on each side (eagle or rose), then they're shuffled. Then they're laid out into a circle.

Each player then takes his set of four cards. Every other player initially starts out as either rose or eagle, and places their allegiance card appropriately. Then each player takes one of their estate/office cards and places it under one of the landscape cards, estate side up. Only one estate/office card can be placed on each landscape.

Each player is finally given an initial hand of supply cards. The start player is selected, and the player clockwise from him is given the "strategy" and "conflict" marker cards.

Play begins.

Order of Play: In brief (ignoring the 13-phase sequence from the rules), during each round of play the players simultaneously take the following actions:

• Select Conflict Site
• Select Roles
• Play Supplies
• Resolve Conflict
• Build
• Draw Supplies

Select Conflict Site: The current player with the strategy & conflict cards takes the conflict card and places it on the board between two landscapes, which must be of different allegiances. This is where the battle will be fought this round.

Each landscape card has a conflict value, which is added to its allegiance, and also a victory point value, which shows how many points the opposing team gets if the landscape is taken, but has a variable value based on how many attackers there were. In short, the harder the terrain is to take, the more VPs it'll be worth.

Select Roles: The role cards are then shuffled and one is randomly placed face-down in the middle of the table. In clockwise order, starting with the start player, each player now secretly takes one of the remaining roles. There are 6 total, which means that there will be an unused card (or cards, for 3 players), which are placed in the middle of the table afterward, again face-down.

The roles each have a special effect. They are:

• Traitor. Flips sides before the conflict; also gains 1 VP.
• Farmer. Draws 3 supply cards.
• Builder. Builds 1 estate or office.
• Strategist. Takes the strategy card to determine next turn's conflict; also gains 2 VP.
• Diplomat. Worth 5 conflict points.
• Diplomat. Worth 2 conflict points; also draws 1 supply card.

Play Supplies: Starting with the start player each player now plays 0-5 supply cards from his hand. These will be used to support his side of the conflict, eagle or rose. But, one of the players may be the (unrevealed) traitor, meaning his cards will actually go to the other side than the one that everyone expects.

Resolve Conflict: Now all players flip up their role cards. The traitor (if there is one) flips over his allegiance card.

Then the conflict total for each of the two allegiances is determined. This is based on: the conflict point value of each landscape; the value of the supply cards played by the members of each allegiance; and the +2 and +5 point bonuses for the two diplomats.

The allegiance with the higher total wins and flips the landscape card belonging to the losing allegiance to their side. Each member of the winning allegiance then gains victory points for the round depending on the value of the landscape and how many members there were in the victorious allegiance (basically, the more strongly defended the landscape, and the fewer people in the winning allegiance, the more points the winners get). In addition the traitor and the strategist automatically get 1 and 2 VPs respectively.

Used supply cards are discarded & roles are returned to the middle of the table for usage in the next round.

Build. Afterward the builder gets to either flip one of his estate/office cards already on the board or else place a new one on the board, flipped to either side. Estate cards give supply bonuses in play while office cards give end-game victory point bonuses. Each player has a limit of 3 office/estate cards, and only 2 of them may be used as offices.

Draw Supplies: Each player now draws supplies. Players get 1 supply card for each estate they own on a landscape card currently controlled by their allegiance and 1 supply card if they had the correct diplomat and 3 supply cards if they had the farmer. They can draw a maximum of three supply cards, to a maximum hand size of five.

Afterward the start player card is given to the next clockwise player and a new round of player begins.

Winning the Game: The game ends after 8 rounds of play (or 9 with 3 players).

Each player then gets bonus points by multiplying their number of offices times the number of supply cards they have in hand, to a maximum of three (and this limit, along with the limit of 2 offices noted earlier, seems very awkward). Thus a player can get a maximum bonus of +6 VP.

The player with the most victory points is the winner.

Relationships to Other Games

At heart Verrater (1998) is a conflict game; it just happens to be conducted via strength shown on cards rather than little plastic or wooden pieces grouped into spaces on a board. The abstraction of the conflict into cards shows how close any type of battle is to auction games (or for that matter most majority-control games or even trick-taking games). In each case, the highest total wins.

The conflict aspect of this game reminds me the most of Condottiere (1995), another conflict game conducted with cards, but with a more sophisticated playing mechanism.

The other notable element of Verrater's gameplay is of course its role selection mechanism. This exact same mechanic is used in Merkle's own Meuterer (2000) and was used to perhaps the best effect in Bruno Faidutti's Citadels (2000).

Since the release of Citadels many more role-section games have been published (though they don't use the Verrater/Meuterer/Citadels hidden-selection method). These include Puerto Rico (2002), Age of Steam (2002), Age of Mythology (2003), and San Juan (2004). They all have some of the same feeling as Verrater, since the roles are selected in order and have special powers.

As with all the other hidden role-selection games, there's also innately some element of bluff, as you try and figure out what your opponents might be doing, and what you should thus do in return.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that this is one of Adlung Spiele's "card games that play like board games". They've put out a number, all in these tiny little tuck boxes. You form circular landscapes, much as the one in Verrater, in several of the games.

The Game Design

There's no doubt that Verrater should be lauded for its role-selection mechanism. It's the most interesting element of Verrater, as you try and figure out what might be useful to you, and which roles your opponent may or may not take. I've heard that the same system works quite well in Meuterer too, and without a question Citadels' use of it is a classic. Verrater should be lauded for its first introduction of such a great system that encourages deep thinking, bluffing, and fun tactical play.

Beyond that, ignoring the overly complex set of phases written up in the rules, the game is fairly simple, particularly for its depth of strategic gameplay. In addition, there's some nice variety of strategy, particularly in deciding: whether to win a conflict; or just grab VPs with the Strategist or Traitor; or work toward end-game victory points with the Builder. Finally, I'd also note a nice balance of roles (though I think the diplomats are often weak) and a set of hard choices (mostly in that role selection).

However, the rest of the game leaves me fairly cold. Admittedly, it's a very serious strategic game, and that's not always my preferred category of game. Nonetheless, I'm unconvinced by a lot of the mechanisms. Here's some of the things that, in particularly, gave me problems:

Obsessive Summation: The mathematics required in this game go far beyond the level that I think a game can enjoyably support. Any time you play a set of supply cards you have to add up how each side is doing already. Plus you have to figure how people after you might play. Plus you have to determine who might be the traitor and what their swing of conflict points might do. I suppose you could ignore this, and not spend the time every single turn doing this counting, but that would kind of defeat the purpose of playing a more complex game.

Random Conflicts: The conflicts allege to give players real power to decide the outcomes by careful usage of supply cards. However, more frequently than not, they instead become all-or-nothing affairs. Players don't play any cards or else everyone is forced to play everything. Now, maybe real pros at the game could figure out some more refined gameplay, but in one face-to-face game plus at least a half-dozen hacks at the computer version, this seems to be the strategy that the game leans toward, and it results in an outcome that's pretty random, based on how good the cards you drew were. A game like Condottiere offers a much more sophisticated system that I felt worked much better.

Degenerative Play: The play can really degenerate if everyone ends up on the same side, and the gameplay seems to encourage this type of clumping.

Despite those complaints I wouldn't say that Verrater is a bad game. But I do think it's overly complex and doesn't really have as much strategy as it promises. On the whole I'd give it an average "3" out of "5" for Substance, primarily for the brilliance of the role-selection system and the fact that there's an acceptable conflict system built around it.

Conclusion

Verrater must innately bear comparison to the role-selection games that followed it, particularly Citadels. I have absolutely no doubt that Citadels is a vastly superior game for those looking for casual play. For the serious gamer, it's a bit harder for me to make that assessment, though Verrater really didn't excite me personally. Verrater is sufficiently (and in my opinion overly) mathematical & complex that I can't consider it a great game; at the most I'd say it's an interesting milestone in the evolution of German gameplay and potentially an occasional change of pace for serious players.