Quick Hits: Alien Frontiers and Britannia

Alien Frontiers

(image by CleverMojo @ BGG)
I enjoy a dose of luck in my games and especially love clever dice mechanics. Alien Frontiers had a lot of buzz leading up to its release, in part due to it being funded through Kickstarter and also due to the high component quality. The game saw a fairly limited release but a friend of mine got his hand on a copy and we were able to table it up the other night.

First off it is a beautiful game, especially for a small publisher. The artwork is a little goofy but nice (sort of retro sci-fi-esque) and doesn't distract or muddle up the cards or playing area. I thought the game board was very clean, easy to understand and overall rivaled productions from larger publishers on the market.

Players are trying to colonize a new planet, using their spaceships to gather the resources needed to build new colonies. The game ends when someone builds a target number of colonies (based on the number of players), earning points for each colony built and for regions on the planet where they have the most colonies. Dice represent your ships and on the start of your turn you roll to determine which actions you can take. Each space station on the board requires different sets of dice to activate; some areas need pairs, triplets, or a straight while others will accept whatever you have available. Stations generally gain you energy and ore which are needed to build colonies on the planet.

(image by soosy @ BGG)

In a typical worker placement game, players go around the table placing workers out one at a time and resolving them once everyone has placed. Alien Frontiers plays with that formula a bit. When a player places their ships (dice) they immediately take the corresponding action. The catch is that you don't pick your dice up until the start of their next turn, meaning those spaces are tied up for everyone else. It's a pretty clever system and I wouldn't be surprised to see it used more in future worker placement games.

While the dice mechanic is fun I found the area control portion of the game lackluster at best. The four player game ends when someone builds their sixth colony. There are eight regions on the planet so you will likely end up focusing on only a couple of regions. Usually area control games have some interesting back-and-forth for domination of an area but not so in Alien Frontiers. Player colonies are too limited for there to be any interesting jockeying of position.

Unfortunately this led to an underwhelming gaming experience. The dice action mechanic is clever but there didn't lead to interesting enough decisions, both in ship and colony placement. Granted my rolls were fairly poor overall which may have impacted my feelings toward the game but I think more competition in the colony placement portion of the game would help a lot.

Alien Frontiers does play quickly, though (under and hour) so a little lack of depth is forgivable for faster play time. There are options to use more colonies in the game which would help address my issues with limited area control but I'm afraid the game might outstay its welcome with increased play time. It certainly doesn't feel like a bad game but there are other diced-based games (Yspahan, Kingsburg) that offer up more interesting decisions for the players. Maybe future plays will result in a better understanding of the mechanics and better competition for resources as well. I'm interested to see how the game holds up under repeat plays.

(image by Toad @ BGG)
Britannia

It's been quite awhile but we finally managed to get in another game of Britannia. Players control different nations as they invade the island of Britannia over the course of one thousand years or so. It's long, epic and seriously fun.

I'm most impressed by the game's balance. I've played several games now and never does one nation seem too powerful or the game too predictable. Every player is strong at different points in time, giving them a chance to shine (where shining results in destroying lots of opposing armies). Some nations are destined to be very populous on the map while others are generally minor players serving as an annoyance. Even with such asymmetry and lots of dice rolls it always feel like every player has a chance to win and it's all about the choices they make.

By no means am I a history buff but I enjoy the balance Britannia has found between historical accuracy and replayability. Nations come into play and receive reinforcements at specific points during the course of the game, leaders rise and fall and players earn points for holding specific territories during scoring rounds. Everything matches up nicely with the small bit of history I do know but the game gives you plenty of room to play. Nations get most of their points for holding territories that were historically significant to them but there are plenty of extra points to be earned by bending history to your will. I've seen games where a starting nation only lasts a handful of turns, others where they survive until the very end of the game. There are always certain nations that act as major forces in the game but the decisions players make and the outcomes of battles result in a highly dynamic game.

(image by filwi @ BGG)

I do have a couple of small complaints,. First, the first edition by Fantasy Flight has some print errors on the board. They are easily accounted for but are still irritating. Thankfully if you are picking up a new copy it should be corrected. Next, there can be a fair amount of down time for some players. Everyone has high and low points during the game and the low points may see you doing little for a turn or two. Some nations - like the Caledonians - are going to do little over the course of the entire game and may cause some frustration for their player. Finally, the game does take awhile. Our games often clock in near six hours, relegating it to weekend play. An experienced group of players could likely play in four hours but I doubt we'll ever get to that point.

Britannia isn't a game you'll see hit the table every week but if you enjoy epic, well-balanced games and marching armies around to smash your opponents you will find a lot to love. I would encourage everyone to play it at least once for the experience. It's one of those games you will think about for days and weeks after you finish!