The following are my thoughts and opinions on the components, major mechanic and theme of Clans. Those readers looking for a comprehensive “how to play” will not find that sort of information penned here.

Clans is an area control type strategy game designed by Leo Colovini and published by the Venice Connection in 2002. Clans is currently distributed by Rio Grande Games in the USA.

Clans is manufactured in Germany and bears the trademarks of quality German-style games. The box is sturdy with linen wraps and colorful artwork that conveys the game’s theme. The game’s pieces rest in the well of single compartment cardboard insert with the game board lying over the top.

Clans’ primary components, 60 well-painted wooden huts, were included in a single resealable plastic bag. Clans also includes a small number of die-cut cardboard bits on single counter sheet. One must allow these to lie loose at the bottom of the box or supply his or her own bag or tuck box for storage.

I realize this observation will be deemed by some as pure minutia, however, I mention it as the trend in my most recently published game purchases is to include storage supplies where individual storage compartments for bits are absent. One must conclude that either publishers are feeling magnanimous and including such swag because they have big hearts or consumers want them and this has compelled publishers to budget them into their production costs.

As someone who has been known to do some bean counting I will assume the decision to add such costs are market driven. So for the frugal gamer know that this publisher has saved you some cash. For the lavish gamer or at least for those obsessive-compulsive game organizers know that Clans is BYOB or bring your own bags. For those gamers whose eyes glazed over as this most-boring topic we move on to some sort of actual point.

Having set up the numerous colorful huts for many games from the single resealable plastic bag I can attest that it is somewhat tedious. However, I will confess that it is not so tedious as to cause me to avoid playing. I just know there is some wargamer out there, a true grognard with calloused fingers from moving thousands of half-inch chits with a pair of tweezers and just so happens to casually play German board games and prompting him to read this is asking himself, “What kind of whiny bastard complains about setting up a few dozen wooden pieces and has the nerve to call it tedious? Why in my day…”

So, anyway, I think it is a big help if the pieces are sorted into sets of 5 for set up. The game board is divided into 12 regions each containing 5 territories. Players will place 5 huts in each region, 1 of each color, so a different colored hut sits in each of a region’s 5 territories. I suppose that opening a bunch of resealable bags and sorting sets into them either before or after a game would also be tedious. So perhaps my campaign to fight tedious set ups will remain a cause in search of a ribbon or possibly a Monty Python skit. I will pause a moment here to take my medication and continue with the following paragraph.

The board for Clans is well done. It is a six-section fold-out that puts down a board much larger than I think one would expect for the relative compact size of the box. It lies nice and flat and is easy on the eyes. I particularly appreciated the generously-sized spaces on the board for the individual territories. There is more than enough room to avoid anyone from having to ask, “In what space is that piece supposed to be sitting?” save perhaps for the ridiculously careless or those that play with unattended cats around their games. You know who you are.

The major mechanic used for Clans is an easy one. As mentioned earlier each territory starts with a single colored hut in it. On a player’s turn he or she moves a hut of any color to another territory with a hut of any color including one that could have the identical color. As the game develops a player might be moving up to six huts to another territory with one or more huts. The caveat is one can never move any amount of huts to an empty territory and every move creates an empty territory. Whenever a territory becomes completely surrounded by empty territories it effectively becomes a permanent settlement and is scored. Every color represented in the territory scores points equal to the total number of huts in the territory regardless of their colors. For example, a territory with 3 blue huts, 2 red huts and 1 green hut would score 6 points for blue, red and green.

What keeps Clans from being some sort of bizarro mutant version of Chinese Checkers with strange meandering huts is a trio of very cool gimmicks that play off the movement mechanic. The first comes into play before the game begins when each player is dealt a concealed card depicting one of the 5 colors of huts. The color one receives is that player’s color for the game and the one that must score the most points for that player to win. The gimmick is that none of the other players know what color any other player was dealt. So players attempt to not give away their color as they move huts about the board.
The second uses the game’s cardboard bits. These are placed on the board and create what is essentially a game clock and give dynamic bonuses for permanent settlements formed on territories of certain types at certain times and remove all the pieces from settlements formed on other territories of certain types at certain times. I am convinced the third gimmick comes from consciously or unconsciously observing the behavior of teenage girls and could make for a new theme should the game ever be considered for a revised republication.

My oddly dubbed “teenage girl” mechanic works based on the following observation: Take a group of 5 teenage girlfriends and put any number less then 5 in a room. The ones in the room will always talk about the ones that are absent from the room. This is normal. Put all 5 in the same room for long enough and they kill each other. The killing each other part is only a slight hyperbole. Same principle works for Clans. As long as only 4 or less colors of huts are represented in a territory everything is just fine. Add the fifth color and they all kill each other and players remove them from the board.

I have an odd fascination with Clans that I think stems from the fact that I can’t seem to ever win the game. I think this is a good sign that the game has genuine strategy paths that at least others have discovered and grasped. I hope to find one of them myself someday and exploit it for my own victory. Until then the search continues as does my desire to play. What concerns me is that the game’s strategies might be so convoluted or chaotic that it becomes a game of chance instead of a game of skill. This is a serious charge to make as luck minimization is a pillar of most German-style game designs. Thus, I am not willing to level that accusation, especially as our group’s big loser. However, I must ask if my failings could be a game breaker?

Could a player, like myself or a new player who has not grasped the game’s strategies, become a force of chaos that despoils that strategies of fellow players as other overly random game elements do? I think “yes” is a possible answer here. If one were to just randomly move pieces and hope for the best at the game’s end then the game does fall apart in my opinion. A player doing this as a malcontent is just displaying poor gamesmanship and could thwart the strategy and enjoyment of nearly any game. In the case of the sincere, but unskilled player, the game could just be diminished by a wide disparity in player skill. This compels me to ask the question, “Does Clans need a handicap system to adjudicate for player skill level?”

If one’s intent for Clans was to play as a deep think game of high strategy then a handicap system might be required. As a relatively fast-moving breezy game with some genuinely cool gimmicks attached to an easy concrete game mechanic I would have to say the answer is, “No.” So what does one do with weak player like me. I think the answer is play more Clans. Despite my chronic inability to win I really enjoy the game. I think playing more frequently deepens the player interaction, increases skill and by consequence lessens the chaos factor. So a little player commitment to log some repeat play time will make for better games then the casual, infrequent, throw down sort of play that I think magnifies the less desirable aspects of the game. Unless of course one allows the game to be played by 5 teenage girls in a confined space.