History Repeating

Sam’s call for Saturday four o’clock afternoon gaming was heeded by two other hardy gamers, myself and Ian. Sam had recently been indulging in a one-man craze over the game Historia, having played it solo three times since he got it. He was so keen to get started that at three o’clock he texted us to ask what colours we wanted to be before mentioning we could come earlier if we wanted.

The rules are pretty simple, once you’ve worked out what all the iconography means. War is a simple example of might makes right, with the best military always winning. Trade is how low-tech civilisations improve themselves. Expanding increases your presence on the map at the expense of cubes to do actions. Building wonders gives you repeating bonuses for certain actions and Advisors have super-strong one-time-only actions. All of which is guided by a Concordia-style card recycling method: playing a Revolution card gets you three cards currently showing in your tableau back into your hand.

My first leader: the lad who makes the tea

In our game I, perhaps muddled by my experience with Time Of Crisis, expanded my territory quickly. I was in South America, and I wanted to attack the grey civbot in Mexico. Ian was in Russia while Sam sat pretty in Europe. Two other civbots, red and purple, started in India and Southern Africa respectively.

Early days

Purple’s physical remoteness proved vital. These philosophers (since that’s was purple means) built up their military in double quick time without hassle and before we knew it, they commanded four prime territories, having unseated Ian. I was way behind in tech and military and points, with my only hope being that my two territories were so rubbish that no one would bother with them.

Once boats were invented, Sam and Ian swiftly crossed the oceans and wiped out the greys completely, meaning any hope I had of military conquests was now gone. Meanwhile, the purples continued their complete dominance, having now taken Europe from Sam, followed by a successful invasion of Patagonia.

Take that, Purple!

As Purple shot off further into the distance, the rest of us wailed in anguish at the injustice of it all. Not even our ability to choose three cards in one turn could save us. By then, it was all too late.

Purple civbot 148
Ian 103
Red civbot 95
Sam 86
Andrew 69
Grey civbot died on 27 points

Despite the sound thrashing we received, both Ian and I enjoyed it and were even amenable to the suggestion from Sam that, after a few lighter games as a sort of intermission, we could try it again.

After some fish and chips in surprisingly large portions, despite us ordering small, we played The Climbers, a kind of strategic mountaineering game where I think the idea is to be to last one still going up. Or the highest one when no one is able to go upwards. It was good fun and we played twice. In the first game, Ian and I built a sort of spiral staircase, chasing each other up a series of blocks.

Then this game was abandoned when we discovered we were playing a rule wrong (everyone playing the GNN drinking game has to finish their drinks now) in that the blocking piece is a one-use-only thing. In the second game, we were far more tactical, I think. And maybe Sam won. Not sure.

After this, we played The Mind, a game that generates more “you had to be there” anecdotes then any other game. We struggled through the usual absurd freaks of probability to round nine. Well done us.

Back to the main business, though, and Historia was swiftly set up. This time, we included the Event cards, and dialled down the difficulty on the civbots, down the Chieftain level except for Purple who – as current champion – was allowed to remain a Noble.

Of course, the first thing we did was improve military and attack the evil civbots before they could even move. I was far too pleased with myself for getting rid of Purple in the first turn.

I sped into an early lead with my territories and techness while Sam fought against the last standing civbot in the Americas. Ian seemed to think he was playing Risk, as he build a base of operations in the Asia-Pacific region.

Then at nine o’clock, Sam decided it was time for the lava lamp! This entailed moving quite a lot of flooring just so he could swap over the plugs, and it didn’t seem to make a huge difference.

On the board, things could hardly be closer. With red civbot not a threat, we turned our attention towards each other.

When it came to the final round Ian and I had expansion moves to complete. I tried to work out who was in the best position so I’d move into their region, but it was all so level, it was only because I saw that Sam had a Wonder that was about to score him three points that I plonked my cube into his North America. Ian also went after Sam, and those two decisions meant that Sam’s victory was dashed right at the end.

Ian 109
Sam 106
Andrew 101
Red civbot about 55
Grey and Purple civbots both died at 0 points

Then we wound down with some flicking fun. Push It was, for the most part, between me and Sam with Ian stuck on one point for ages. Then he mounted a stirring comeback, which was too late for victory.

Sam 11
Andrew 10
Ian 9

Then we played JamSumo, deciding on one round of each each and then combining the scores. In Jam, Ian was first to sink all his dice (scores Ian 0, Andrew -6, Sam -13) while in Sumo, I delicately nudged my opponents off the board the best (Andrew 13, Sam 6, Ian 0). Combining those scores:

Andrew 7
Ian 0
Sam -7

Then we played Love Letter. This well loved game with tatty cards and now not enough red cubes (we lost another this evening) to hold a proper regulation four-player game, is so familiar to us that I was able to eliminate Ian with the first guess of the game.

A recurring theme of this game was the King/Princess combo, where you are forced to swap the Princess for another player’s card who can then quite easily guess your card if they’re lucky enough to pick up a guard. A terrible situation and we all muttered about how bad a King card is.

Can’t actually remember who won, though. It may have been:

Ian 3
Andrew 2
Sam 2

And that was that. Seven hours of games, packed and done with. Nice to try Historia twice. It is, indeed, an epic spreadsheet. Thanks all.