Great Wall of China is another offering from Reiner Knizia published by Fantasy Flight Games. This game casts players as Chinese rulers building the Great Wall of China. When a player impresses the King by having a majority in one are, he scores a victory point chip. This is a game with simple mechanincs yet agonizing choices.

Rules

Great Wall of China is a card game. Each player (from 2 to 5, more on this later) has a deck of 20 cards. Every deck has the exact same cards, with a different color background to identify who's is who's. For each player (2,3, or 4) there is a wall section containing two victory point chips. If there are 5 players, only 4 wall sections are used. The chips are number from 1 to 8 and are drawn randomly. The goal is to have a majority in a wall section at the start of your turn. Majority is determined by highest total score of the cards you have in that wall section. If you have a majority, you take one of the wall tokens and place it on one of your cards in that section. Your score in that section is then reduced by that many points, making it very difficult to win both tiles. Once the other tile in a wall section has been claimed, the cards are cleared, point tiles claimed, and new tiles are put out, starting that wall section from scratch with new point tokens.


Components

There isn't much in the way of components, but what there is has a nice appeal. The victory point chips are about the size of a nickel. They are made of a sturdy cardboard with a nice Chinese style font for the numbers. The backs feature some nice Chinese letters. The quality of these is largely inconsequential as they don't really do anything besides sit there. The cards are perfect for this sort of game. They are a standard playing card stock and have a nice matte finish, making them easy to shuffle and reducing glare when they are played on the table. Each player has a 20 card deck of identical cards, each in a different color. The font on the cards is large, making the numbers easy to read. The artwork is solid, with some nice Chinese symbols and colors. I think these cards will probably end up getting sleeved because I see this game getting played quite a bit. No matter how good the cards are, cards get ruined. Greasy fingers and repeated shuffling beats up card stock pretty quickly.


Gameplay

Great Wall of China plays pretty quickly and is full of agonizing choices. Each player starts the game with 5 cards in hand. On your turn, you first check to see if you have a majority in any of the wall sections. If you do, you take one of the VP tiles and place it on one of your cards in that section, reducing your score by the VP score. It is possible to claim several wall sections in one turn, but not possible to claim both tiles in one section in one turn.

Players then have two actions. An action can be draw a card or play a card/cards. To play a card, you may place one card in any of the wall sections. If you have multiples of a card, you can play them all in one section for one action. The cards must be identical in every way. This is important because there are several versions of the 1 card and 2 card. Your other option is to draw a card. Once you have taken both actions, your turn is over.

The limit on the number of actions you can take in a turn is where the decisions really become paramount in this game. You do not get to draw a card for the turn. You must use one of your actions to do so. But by drawing a card, you forgo the option to play one. If you play multiple cards in one action, your hand is greatly reduced. The options are simple but the consequences of your choice are immense. It is absolutely crucial to manage your cards. Since the game ends when one player is out of cards, the choices you have are magnified. It doesn't take very long to burn through 20 cards, leaving you precious little time to recover from a mistake.


Compare it to...

I like to think of this game as Caeser and Cleopatra for multiple players. The random element of the voting in C&C is absent, but the way you almost bid for the sections is wonderful. There are two special cards in Great Wall that add the "take that!" feel of C&C by eliminating or manipulating your opponents cards. While the box says Great Wall works for two, C&C is a much better choice. Mechanically, Great Wall does work, but it doesn't work nearly as well as it does with multiple players.


Overall

I think Great Wall of China could be considered among Knizia's best non-auction games such as Through the Desert, another of his games with huge consequence to your choices. Much like TtD, I feel this game is best with either 3 or 5 players. TtD works for 2, but Great Wall does not. I think the odd player number forces players to watch two fronts simultaneously while a 4 player game could easily resolve into two seperate 1-on-1 matches.

If you are a fan of Knizia games such as Through the Desert, Rheinlander, or Battle Line, this game certainly deserves a spot in your collection. I rate this game a 9. It has very quickly become a game I can't wait to play. If it worked as a 2-player, it would get a 10, undoubtedly.