Components and Setup
The game components consist of 1 “plague piece” wooden black pawn, 80 wooden cubes in 4 colors, 49 “rat tokens” round tiles, a game board depicting a map of Europe divided into 12 regions, and 6 curiously large “class cards.” All of the components are well made, and the artwork by Alexandre Roche is appealing. It is nice to see a game that uses something other than the highly detailed, realistic, and rather homogenous artwork that seems to be becoming an industry standard. The game materials are language-independent, and the iconography on the class cards is good.
The 12 purple-bordered rat tokens are shuffled, and 1 is placed face down in each region on the board. The other 37 rat tokens are shuffled face down and put into a draw pile. The plague piece is placed into a board region at random. Players take turns placing 2 of their cubes into regions of their choice, first in clockwise order, then in counter-clockwise order, so that all players start with 4 cubes on the board.
Gameplay
Play passes clockwise each turn. At the start of her turn, the active player may take any 1 class card, including class cards currently held by other players. Each class card conveys a unique player power. The player may use the power of the class card she took that turn, as well as those of any she has held from previous turns. The class card powers seem well balanced, although some may not be useful every turn, and some work best in combination with particular other class card powers. The active player then may place cube(s) in any one region on the board. The number of cubes placed is equal to the number of face-down rat tokens in the region. The Peasant card enables the player to place 1 extra cube in her chosen region. Most of the other variable player powers are used before or after cube placement. The King card allows the player to move 1 of his own cubes, from a region on the board with no rat tokens, to the “palace area” - a board region where cubes are safe from the plague. The Merchant card allows the player to move 3 of her own cubes from 1 region to 1 adjacent region. The Monk card allows the active player to move 1 plague token to an adjacent region. The Witch allows the player to look at any 2 plague tokens, usually in non-adjacent regions, and then swap them. The active player then must move the plague piece from its current region to an adjacent region. The plague then spreads. Depending upon the number of plague tokens in the current plague-piece region, 0-2 new plague tokens are added to adjacent region(s). No region can have more than 3 plague tokens in it, which restricts the way the plague spreads to some extent.
Then the plague ravages the region with the plague piece. Plague tokens are turned face-up by the active player, one at a time, and resolved. The number at the top of the plague token, ranging from 1-6, determines the total number of player pieces in the region that must be equaled for the plague token to go into effect. The Knight card allows the active player to move the plague piece up to 2 regions. The Knight may also make the plague piece count as 2 cubes in the plague region, for purposes of reaching the population threshold of plague tokens. The lower part of the plague token lists various plague criteria. If the population threshold is met, then each player in the region must remove one cube for every plague criterion listen on the token which they meet. There are plague criteria for each of the 6 class cards in the game; thus having more class cards puts a player at greater risk for loosing cubes to the plague ravages. There are also plague tokens which affect the all players in a region, or just the player with the most cubes in the region. Plague ravages continue until either there are no more player cubes, or no more plague tokens, in the plague region.
Game End and Winning
The game ends if one player gets all her cubes on the board at one time, or if the last rat token is placed on the board. The latter condition is much more common. The game then has a curious, counter-clockwise final round, during which players can only apply the powers of their currently held class cards. The plague then ravages all regions on the board, one at a time. At the end of the ravages, the player with the most cubes on the board, including cubes in the palace area, is the winner.
Game Design
Rattus is essentially a very light wargame, where players use the plague as their weapon. The game plays similarly to El Grande and some of its descendants, but isn’t really a part of that game-family because it doesn’t involve any form of majority control. The ability to simply take the class card you want on your turn reminds me a little of Canal Mania, and because of this ability the game has a very different feel from most variable player power games. This is the first game by the Berg’s I have played, so I cannot compare it to their previous efforts: Oregon and Galapagos. I really admire the simplicity and parsimony of this game’s design; it has very few moving parts, and they all carry their weight. In that, it is a game after my own heart so to speak. The rules are short and easy to teach. The game sets up and plays very quickly, and is not subject to analysis paralysis. The game is not terribly strategic, and there is a lot of randomness to which players get hit by the rat tokens; however if the game were more strategic and less random it would probably be longer, slower and less enjoyable overall. However, the tactical aspects of the game provides for enjoyable and mildly-challenging decision-making. In particular, that small number of player powers creates a surprising number of permutations when used in different combinations. For example, I might use the Monk to move an extra rat token into a region, so that I can place 3 cubes there, and then use the Merchant to move all three into a neighboring region with no rats. Expansions for the game are simply additional sets of class cards, and I think the design will probably take expansions well. Indeed, they may be necessary to keep the game interesting with a lot of play. I think gamers who are looking for a short, combative game, and who don’t mind a little luck, will definitely get a kick out of Rattus.
