Wealth of Nations is a great game. It's a great game because it so accurately models real world economics. I've played one game with my daugthers and fully intend to play more with them as part of their homsechooling. It would be a great benefit to our society if most high school economics classes just spent a few weeks playing WoN. The way the markets measure the supply and demand of the various commodities is brilliant and accurate! But enough game comments...on to this session as an illustration of the foregoing.

Matt (Showa Republic), Dad (Anglica) and I (Bolshevia) played. We told Matt to take both food packages so that there was a sprawling farm complex on the board. I took Academies and Generators, a combination I don't think I've started with before. That left Capital and Ore for Dad.

Despite the abundance of corn, Dad and I automated our industries rather quickly. It's not that it was necessarily cheaper but it meant that we didn't have dependence on "foreign corn." That left corn essentially useless to Matt. The market was flooded and corn was down to $3 a block. In fact, corn was so depressed that there was not one new farm laid the entire game!

Here's the problem, though. On the first turn, both Matt and Dad built generators. Matt, in fact, ended up with four or five; Dad had a couple. By about the third or fourth turn, all the generators were on the board. The first turn, Dad building generators hurt the entire game because his refusal to extend his mine or expand his factories meant ore and capital went up in price.

I continued to hold the monopoly on Labor. Now, labor is generally important, but because ore and capital were so high, and energy and corn were so low, the actual value of labor in trade was much reduced. At one point, it was around four labor just to get a capital and ore.

We all had a note or two at some point in the game, and, greedy as we are, we all ended up building banks. I had finally had enough of the high price of ore and capital and so built two mines to start supplying my own. Labor was low, too, almost to the bottom row. At this point, Dad had five flags left. He traded me the ore and capital I needed to build mines and run my automated academies. But that gave him the ability to scarf up the land around him by laying the rest of his flags, all five. He didn't even build anything on them!

Matt had just built a bank but it's first printing of cash was all owed to Dad. I now had my mines but all that did was give me a few bucks in the final sell-off. Dad didn't even need to build anything on those flags. Sure, he gave up 20 VPs, but he had so much cash, and expensive ore and capital, that he easily won.

Final scores
Anglica (Dad): 114
Bolshevia (Me): 75
Showa Republic (Matt): 66

We had some good laughs too. For a couple of turns, Matt had forgotten to feed his generators. That in part explained the really large food surplusses and why corn was at such a low price (though our automation really killed demand for his corn).

At one point, I forgot to power my generators. It's always quite funny when someone (not you) gets to the Produce Phase and has forgotten to leave enough goods to feed and/or power their tiles. It's not funny, however, when you need what they have and instead have to buy it off the market, as the price goes soaring.

The real lesson of this game is that if you alone have what others need, you'll make lots of money. I believe we call that a monopoly. Now, in WoN, you can cure that effect by competition. Dad had the lock on ore and capital. I could have mitigated that advantage by building factories or mines earlier. Matt should have built factories or mines, too, instead of a huge power grid. It's one thing to be self-sufficient; it's another thing to flood a market someone already has built up so that neither benefit from the expansion.

One of the key challenges of WoN is the challenge of when to diversify. Sure, you could make all of your own commodities. Or, you could try for a monopoly on something. The problem with diversifying, is that you don't really produce enough of something for it to be valuable to others beyond what you supply yourself. On the other hand, a monopoly can easily be dashed by others breaking into those markets.

I think banks are tempting because they spit out raw cash. While that is important, I'm not sure it's always enough to win the game. I think the real key is to control and produce commodities in such a way that the price rises steadily over time. Don't flood the market and kill the price.

This was an unusual game, I think, because Matt and I, for whatever reason, didn't crack the ore and capital markets. I'm not sure why we didn't. Matt went for energy. I was puffed up with self-importance because I owned all the labor. Again, that was made less important because of how many it took to get any capital or ore.

If there is one concrete lesson I walked away with from this game it is this: In a three player game, do not allow one person to take ore and capital. (Not as an artificial rule, just somebody else pick one of them!)

Another factor I should have considered is to use corn instead of automating. Corn was so cheap, there was no reason not to use it. It was silly of me to keep struggling to buy ore for my acadamies when corn would have cost half the price. Well, you live and learn.

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Game Comments:

As I said above, WoN is really an outstanding game.

I've read several complaints about the time it takes, particularly in the trade phase. Well, maybe for some groups, but with the serious gamers I play with (friends and home and Dad and brother on vacation) that's not a problem. There are certainly little tricks to help speed things up (for example, selling or buying multiple blocks with the permission of the other players, when they aren't buying or selling the same). Also, the whole "nickle and diming" thing is pretty silly. It's jut not worth haggling over the trade price. If an offer is within a few dollars on either side (to your advantage or not) it's better just to take it. I haven't seen any games won or lost because of a few dollars in trade value of goods.

The way in which the markets reflect the actual value of goods in the game is really cool. It still can't get over how accurate it is, measuring supply and demand. It is really neat to watch how the actions of the game produce real life results: Automation leads to lower demand in food; not enough energy leads to higher prices in other goods. It's all very realistic.

Wealth of Nations is a game that is fun to play, realistic in its economic engine and worthy of a deep-thinking game session and/or playing with kids, to teach them how the economy actually works. This was a particularly good game we played where, even though I lost, I learned a whole lot.

I know some folks like to see life as a large overlap of gray areas where nothing is set in stone. But in last night's game, where ore and capital dominated, everything in that little world was Black and White!