Taking a Risk on Risk: Legacy
I started to just include this in the regular report that I'm writing for last and this week, but both because it might dominate that report and because people may be looking specifically for more information about Risk: Legacy, I thought I'd give it some spotlight time in its own article...
Risk: Legacy
As I mentioned before, Sceadeau made a proposal to us a few weeks ago to literally "buy into" a campaign of Risk: Legacy. I've been pretty interested in it ever since I first heard of the concept, and like many of us, I still have a lot of good memories from having fun with "regular" Risk from back before I knew any better, so I jumped at the chance to get in on it.
Just in case you haven't heard about it yet, Risk: Legacy is a version of the traditional war-themed game Risk with the really big twist that you make permanent changes to the game based on the outcomes of each play. You put stickers on the board, tear up cards, put new rules into the rulebook, name cities and continents, and do all sorts of other things. It's supposed to support 15 plays of the game, adding in more complexity along with lots of twists and turns as you go. And even at the end of the official "campaign" (after which the overall winner gets to name the planet), you could still continue to play the game in the world that you've formed (there just wouldn't be any other changes). Lots of people in the gaming community have expressed some really strong opinions about this whole idea, and I definitely wanted to check it out for myself to see if it's worth all the fuss.
Over the last 2 game nights, we've played through the first 3 games, and while I'm sure there's still a lot to discover about the game, I've gotten enough of a picture of already to share some thougts. But first, let me run quickly through how our first few games have gone.
Game 1
Before you actually begin the first game, there's a bit of ceremony that you're supposed to participate in. Each player signs the board, signifying that they are all accepting the responsibility for all that happens in this version of the world. It's a nice touch, both to make it a special event and add excitement to starting the campaign, and because it sort of formalizes the usually unwritten social contract around a game like Risk.
Sceadeau, Chris, Kenny, and Keith sign the board...
Sceadeau is actually in at least one other Risk: Legacy campaign, so once we got started, it was no surprise that he won our first game. He started off with his base down in Australia, and before everyone had taken their second turn, he swept through and captured the two other bases he needed to win.
You see, the first games (and maybe all of them, I just don't know...) are played to a total of 4 victory points. Each base you control (including your own) is worth 1 point, plus every player that hasn't won yet starts the game with a token that's also worth one point. So to win, you basically just have to take over 2 other players' bases.
As the winner, you get to choose either to name a continent (which gives you an addition army when controlling it) or establish a major city (worth 2 extra population towards getting bonus armies each turn) which you can even use as your starting location in future games. Sceadeau chose to found "The Tower", a major city in Indonesia. The rest of us, as losers, all founded Minor Cities. I placed mine in Central America and named it the "Trail of Tears" since I lost my Base (in the Northwest Territory) on turn 1 and then made my way south to instead attack Keith in Brazil.
Starting the game and making some progress, only to lose later on that round...
Making our first alterations to the board!
Game 2
Since the first game only took 22 minutes, we set up again and played another game right then. Sceadeau picked first this time and, of course, put his base on The Tower in Indonesia, but then Keith made a bold move and placed his base on Eastern Australia. On turn 1, Keith basically won the battle for Australia, and then went on in the next turn to take one more base and win the game.
Keith also chose to establish a Major City, in Eastern Australia, so it will always be a hotbed of controversy. I placed my Minor CIty in Argentina and named it "Stalwart" because it stood up to an evil and totally unprovoked attack by Kenny, but held firm.
On this rock did we found Stalwart!
The map after 2 games...
Game 3
After the craziness that was the first 2 games, our strategy definitely changed this week in our 3rd game. As a rule, we were all way more conservative early on. I had the chance to place first this time, and stuck my base in Western Australia to prevent both Sceadeau and Keith from using their Major Cities (since you can't place your base next to another player's base). But Keith was apparently hell-bent on ruining my plans by sticking his in freaking Southeast Asia, guaranteeing that it would attract a ton of attention with our 2 bases being so close together.
After just 3-4 turns of building and expanding, things went sort of crazy once again. Player after player launched ambitious attacks trying to burn across the map and, mostly, grab Keith's base (held by me most of the time) and mine (if they could). Something strange was going on in China, though, because regardless of who was defending it, attackers never made it across without suffering significant losses.
My big moment was in shooting out across Asia and into Europe in an attempt to grab Chris' base in Great Britian to win the game. Unfortunately, China took its toll on me, and while I sort of had one last roll to get the win (which I lost anyway), Sceadeau still had his missile (which previous winners get instead of the bonus VP) that he could have used to make Chris' roll into a 6 if he had needed to.
Soooo close!
In the end, Kenny made the last big run of the game by pouring down from eastern Asia and capturing both Keith's old base and mine to get the win. If that hadn't happened, Sceadeau would almost certainly won on his next turn, since (for some ridiculous reason most likely related to a Jedi mind trick or Mule*-like mutant power that he used to cloud the minds of those close to him) he had been allowed to control South America and then Africa for a number of turns and was about to turn in a ton of cards both to get another VP and then enough armies to take the win once again.
Before (after my first turn)... and after (when Kenny finally broke through and took my base).
Nothing much had changed after the first 2 games, but this time, we had all sorts of shenanigans to sort through and add to the game. First of all, since Keith was eliminated completely in this game, he had the priviledge of opening the "Open The First Time a Faction is Eliminated From the Game" envelope. I won't spoil things here, but it was pretty cool.
Since the other losers also placed the last of the Minor cities, I was able to open the "Open When All 9 Minor Cities Have Been Founded" envelope. It's the biggest of the add-on packs, and let us add more rules to the rulebook and established an Event Deck (which I won't spoil further, especially since I don't really know what it does anyway).
The last thing we did was vote on whether to open the "Do Not Open. Ever." envelope. Let me go on record to say that I (and the other Chris) were firmly against it, but Sceadeau, Kenny, and Keith couldn't keep from meddling in things that no man was meant to know, and despite it being hidden below the box insert and clearly labeled to never open, we did it anyway. It was not good news...
***Spoiler Below!***
It's not going to be good, but it will almost certainly be interesting.
Spoiler Over - Go about your business...
The neat thing is that Sceadeau has alredy opened the "Do Not Open. Ever." pack in his other game. And he's read online about other people opening their envelopes as well, but none of them (so far) have been the same. Some are good and some are bad, but there are apparently a good number of them. That's why I didn't feel so bad about spoiling ours, since the one you get in your game may be completely different.
Time: 22, 19, and 58 minutes
Game 1: Sceadeau 4, Norton* 2, Keith* 2, Chris* 1, Ken* 1
Game 2: Keith 4, Norton 2, Ken 2, Chris 1, Sceadeau 0
Game 3: Ken 4, Chris 2, Norton 1, Sceadeau 1, Keith - Eliminated
Ratings: Sceadeau 8, Keith 8, Ken 8, Chris 6.5, Norton 7.5
So far, I'm pretty ambivalent about Risk: Legacy.
The best thing is definitely the whole big concept of making permanent changes to the game. We've totally bought into the coolness that is writing on stuff, applying stickers all over the place, and even tearing stuff up! There's a real excitement both to find out what the next changes will be as well as to see how they change the game.
I know that most of the vehemence about the game so far has been in opposition to the whole idea of "defacing" a game in this manner, but it's just so dern cool! You know, games aren't really permanent anyway. They wear out or you lose interest in them or your kid eats some of the bits and makes it unplayable, so why it is such a big deal to choose to guide this along and make it cool in the process? And honestly, if I get 15 plays out of a game, I'm pretty darn satisfied with my return on investment at that point. Plus, like I said earlier, there's no reason that you can't still play with the game after 15 plays, it's just that the shtick of the game would be over at that point.
I also like the theme of the game. It's main conceit is that humanity has learned to create alternate realities with completely virgin and untouched copies of planet Earth. They were hoping to make humanity all peaceful, but instead, it just gave us new battlefields to fight over. But beyond that, you get to sort of bring whatever you want to the game in terms of naming things and all. For instance, so far I've named my minor cities based on some semi-serious thing that's happened in the game. "Trail of Tears" and "Stalwart" as I mentioned above, and my last city (in New Guinea) is named "Eden" because it nevers gets touched by conflict. Kenny, however, always seems to look for a pseudo-historical allusion to real world politics or geography. And I've heard of a lot of people just naming things after themselves ("Bobville" or "The Vasel States of America" for instance) or just some silly and otherwise unrelated thing.
Along these lines are also things like that ceremony of signing the board before the first game. Risk: Legacy works hard to create a whole experience and make playing it a real event that you don't want to miss. The procedures for signing things and placing stickers and tearing up things feel like a big deal, maybe even because we all have some level of taboo against doing things like that in the back of our minds. And seeing if you qualify to open a new packet and then actually doing so is really exciting because of the anticipation that having this hidden/forbidden information shoved in your face from the first moment creates in the players. It's pretty brilliant, really.
The biggest drawbacks for Risk: Legacy so far, however, are related to the actual gameplay. I totally understand that the first few games are mostly about setting the stage, establishing a baseline for play, and teaching the rules, but they've come across to me so far as also being pretty pointless and unsatisfying. When you literally only have to score 2 more points to win, it drives players into taking stupid risks to blow all their effort in making one big push to sort of "steal" the win. Even in this last game where we were taking our time a little more, all it took was one person making a "move" that left them looking a little weak, and then once the blood was in the water, the rest of the game was just a series of "see how far I can go" turns until one player is able to go far enough to win.
And at this point in my gaming life, I'm also comfortable saying that the other issue I have with the game itself is that it's still, at its core, just Risk. The designers made a conscious choice to keep the map the same as it always has been, which is sort of neat and all, but also encourages players to fall back into patterns and strategies (good or bad) that we all developed back when most of us were 9 or 10 years old. Plus, it continues to use the whole 3 dice attack vs. 2 dice defense that is very simple and (again) familiar, but isn't all that satisfying tactically.
But, so far at least, I'm still glad that I got involved with it. The low time investment in the games helps to mitigate weakness in actual play, and while so far I've looked forward more to seeing what new things happen after the game than to the actual playing of the game, the promise of more interesting play and just wanting to see what else happend is going to keep me coming back for more.
Plus, I can't let down the other dudes in the campaign at this point, which is another really cool thing about signing the board, since we all sort of made this commitment to each other as well when we did it.
* Reference to Issac Asimov's Foundation trilogy, of course
People leave me alone because I'm friendly, and would never do anything to harm anyone.
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Yep, I should have picked this up at Sci-Fi Genre the other day when I had the chance. This would be perfect for a nice two- or three-week lunchgames group campaign.
Really nice review. Even with your reservations, I still want to play - if only to find out what's in my Do Not Open. Ever. envelope.
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Is Sci-Fi out of stock? Hypermind still has about three copies...
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