Game: Web of Power

Thread: Re: In Print?

Liumas — 2008-05-14T14:02:19+00:00

mschacht wrote:
don’t know about a new US print run.
but perhaps there will be a special release next spring ;-)
Oh yeah, Baby!

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sightreader — 2008-05-04T18:17:23+00:00

Greek version (China components used)

Thread: Re: In Print?

mschacht — 2008-04-28T20:09:58+00:00

don’t know about a new US print run.
but perhaps there will be a special release next spring ;-)

Thread: Re: In Print?

leaxe — 2008-03-26T22:43:55+00:00

http://www.time2game.be

I got mine from here. Dutch, but only the rules are in Dutch...

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

NateStraight — 2008-02-28T16:04:12+00:00

This is a lot more elegant than the honky solution Schacht came up with in Das Duell.

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

dawnelamb — 2008-02-28T14:33:54+00:00

We tried it the other day and it works great!!

Just a side note: We do not play with the face up cards for the 2 player variant. A person's turn can be long enough sometimes. The face up cards just make one's turn longer due the time it takes to decide which card to take.

Also, the 2 player variant allows plays in 2 countries per turn. In most turns, 2 pieces can be played with the cards in one's hand. The face up cards are not really needed.

Thread: Re: Trade to cards as a wild for the same color?

clearclaw — 2008-02-26T23:42:03+00:00

kamf wrote:
In Web of Power, we play that you can NOT trade two cards as a wild for the same color, ie we do not allow players to "dump" cards. What is the official rule for this, it is ambiguous in the English edition of the rules.

I see no reason not to allow it in Web of Power or China.

Thread: Trade to cards as a wild for the same color?

kamf — 2008-02-26T22:44:56+00:00

In Web of Power, we play that you can NOT trade two cards as a wild for the same color, ie we do not allow players to "dump" cards. What is the official rule for this, it is ambiguous in the English edition of the rules.

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

dawnelamb — 2008-02-25T16:01:07+00:00

Thanks.

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

Verkisto — 2008-02-25T15:53:42+00:00

http://spiele-aus-timbuktu.de/downloadsb0.html

Also, you can download all the relevant files from the game entry. There's a translation of the images, and the rules are located in the Files section on the game page.

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

dawnelamb — 2008-02-25T15:47:39+00:00

What's the website address?

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

clearclaw — 2008-02-25T15:41:42+00:00

dawnelamb wrote:
Thanks for the info. I didn't realize this existed. I just added it to my wish list.

The images and rules to make your own copy are available at Schacht's website. It is not available for general sale.

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

dawnelamb — 2008-02-25T15:17:55+00:00

Thanks for the info. I didn't realize this existed. I just added it to my wish list.

Thread: Re: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

Verkisto — 2008-02-25T14:42:33+00:00

If you haven't yet, try Kardinal & König - Das Duell, a 2-player variant designed by Michael Schacht.

Thread: 2-Player Variant for Web of Power

dawnelamb — 2008-02-25T14:34:35+00:00

Unfortunately, this game is rated for 3+ players and my husband and I really wanted to play it ourselves before we tried it with others. We played the game as 4 players would. He was player 1 & 3 and I was the other 2. This was confusing so I came up with an actual 2-player variant. At the time of writing this, we haven't tried it yet, but I suspect it would work well. Please let me know what you think and if I should add/delete to it. I'll post the PDF file as well.

Web of Power – 2-Player Variant

1) Each player chooses 2 different colors and may use both colors during play (under certain conditions).

EX. Player 1 chooses blue & green. Player 2 chooses purple & yellow. (These are used in the examples below.)

2) CARDS: Each player gets 3 cards. Use normal card-playing rules to place cloisters & advisors.

3) PLACING PIECES: The normal rules apply for placing 1 or 2 same-colored pieces in the same country during a turn. However, if a player wishes to play in a 2nd country, he may play 1 piece in the 1st country and place his differently-colored piece in the 2nd country. Two different colors cannot be played in the same country on the same turn.

Ex: Player 1 plays 1 blue piece in Italien & plays 1 green piece in Aragon. Or plays 2 blue pieces in Italien and his green pieces are not used for this turn.

4) TOTALING SCORES: Each color scores separately as in normal rules. Points for each color are given to the corresponding player using that color.

For example: Player 1 has blue & green. Player 2 has purple & yellow. Italien contains 1 blue, 2 green & 3 purple cloisters. Player 1 scores 2 points for blue and 3 points green for a total of 5 points. Player 2 scores 6 for purple.

5) TRACK SCORING: When scoring on the track, stack the 2 colors of each player together & move these simultaneously when either color of the same player scores.

Ex: Player 1 scored 2 points then 3 points (in example above). His blue/green stack moves 2 spaces then moves 3 spaces for a total of 5 spaces. Player 2 moves his purple/yellow stack 6 spaces.

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Ceryon — 2008-02-01T22:01:34+00:00

Better cropped german box front

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henk.rolleman — 2008-01-01T10:29:41+00:00

Close up from the pointmarker by Fekno

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henk.rolleman — 2008-01-01T09:58:21+00:00

Close up from the Adriatic Sea on Italy

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henk.rolleman — 2007-12-27T22:06:02+00:00

The Action Card for some hard decisions

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henk.rolleman — 2007-12-27T22:01:22+00:00

Counting the Victory Points

Thread: Re: Can someone post a card manifest please?

Liumas — 2007-12-24T22:09:36+00:00

JeffyJeff wrote:
Interesting... the "China" re-theming version has 57 region cards... must correspond with differences in the map[c]

LOC. CHINA HOUSE WEB HOUSE
COLOR CARDS BITS CARDS BITS
[BGCOLOR=#FFCCFF]Red 13 12 13 12 [/BGCOLOR]
[BGCOLOR=#99FF99]Green 12 11 12 11 [/BGCOLOR]
[BGCOLOR=#FFFF00]Yellow 11 11 11 11 [/BGCOLOR]
[BGCOLOR=#FFCC00]Orange 11 9 10 9 [/BGCOLOR]
[BGCOLOR=#CC99FF]Purple 10 8 9 8 [/BGCOLOR]
TOTAL 57 51 55 51
[/c]

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henk.rolleman — 2007-12-24T17:24:09+00:00

Overview

Thread: Re: Can someone post a card manifest please?

JeffyJeff — 2007-12-24T05:03:43+00:00

RPardoe wrote:
55 playing cards
Interesting... the "China" re-theming version has 57 region cards... must correspond with differences in the map

Thread: Re: Can someone post a card manifest please?

RPardoe — 2007-12-24T04:30:47+00:00

What's wrong with the manifest at the beginning of the English Rules posted here?

Copying from that document:

55 playing cards:
[c] [/c]•[c] [/c]13 red denoting Franken and Aragon
[c] [/c]•[c] [/c]12 green for the territories of Bayern (Bavaria) and Burgund (Burgundy)
[c] [/c]•[c] [/c]11 cream for Lothringen (Lorraine) and Italien (Italy)
[c] [/c]•[c] [/c]10 orange for England and Schwaben (Swabia)
[c] [/c]•[c] [/c]9 purple for Frankreich (France)

Thread: Can someone post a card manifest please?

Duglis — 2007-12-24T04:19:06+00:00

Can someone post a detailed card manifest for this game, please?

Thanks in advance to whoever can do this! !!

-Doug

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saminurmela — 2007-12-02T11:20:04+00:00

End of three player game (I know, the scoremarkes are wrong)

Thread: Re: In Print?

Verkisto — 2007-11-14T02:01:21+00:00

I haven't heard anything one way or the other, but with China around, don't hold your breath. I don't know what uberplay's plans are with printing/reprinting, but so long as it remains in print, I expect that Web of Power will remain OUT of print.

Thread: In Print?

everlight — 2007-11-14T01:41:53+00:00

Does anybody know if this is ever going to be in print again. You probably can't answer, but I was just wondering if anyone has heard anything.

Thread: Re: How to spread advisors all over the board

MGBM — 2007-10-12T14:32:46+00:00

sightreader wrote:
You can play WoP with China rules, but you'll have to add a few more roads to keep chains important. I also created a Greece map you can go to for more variety (see Files).

Ok, thanks for the reply!

Thread: Re: How to spread advisors all over the board

sightreader — 2007-10-12T05:40:55+00:00

MGBM wrote:
I do wonder, though, if China is a better game than this. Perhaps someone would care to enlighten me on this point?

I find the rules to China to be much more elegant, balanced and interesting, but the China board is not as interesting, especially when it comes to advisors.

The Chinese board is landlocked, meaning that advisor relations are almost all with adjacent territories. This is bad because strong cloister and chain positions tend to result in dominating adjacent territories, and so controlling a little clump of territories also results in controlling the same clump of advisor relations. This ends up breaking the board down into little skirmishes that don't affect each other very much. In the WoP board, however, advisor relations often link territories that are far apart, meaning that the countries you have to bring together for advisor scoring are controlled by radically different sets of players, uniting all the separate little skirmishes into one or two fascinatingly complex wars.

The rules to China are much less clumsy than in Web of Power. Instead of using an artificial a "cloister only" phase to keep advisors from dominating the game, China introduces fortresses, a doubling mechanism that increases the power of cloisters by being played rather than by introducing a separate scoring phase. This means that players must balance cloister and advisor strategy right from the beginning, and it also greatly increases the power of chains, which were nearly useless in WoP because they only counted once and could not multiply themselves.

You can play WoP with China rules, but you'll have to add a few more roads to keep chains important. I also created a Greece map you can go to for more variety (see Files).

Thread: How to spread advisors all over the board

MGBM — 2007-10-11T23:36:10+00:00

[Sorry for my English, it's rather rusted]

So here I was, at Nelson's house, ready for a game of Web Of Power, a game that hadn't hit the tables in a long time.

I really enjoy this game, it plays relatively fast and is full of hidden depths. I mean, this game makes you think twice before you make an action, since all moves end up influencing all players of the game.

It is a solid, no-nonsense design which I delight in playing. It forces you to be competitive, leaving no quarters to your opponents, that is, if you really want to win the game.

Anyway, we took our places, me, Nélson and Rui, and started setting up the game. After a process of choosing who the starting player was, it ended up being me. The order of play was, me then Nélson then Rui. We hadn't played this game for quite a while, years in fact, so a brief overview of the game was in order. We decided to play without much agression in order for us to familiarize with the game, again after so many years.

After a brief rules explanation we began playing. I opened up hostilities by opening Frankreich into play by placing a single cloister there. Play proceeded and soon Rui was setting up cloisters in Lothringen in the north while Nélson was happily placing cloisters in Burgund. And soon after the first advisors appeared on the board, mainly Nélson at Frankreich and me and Rui at Lothringen.

And this proved to be a mistake, since we forfeited placing cloisters to placing advisors so early in the game. We ended up losing opportunities to score in the first scoring due to that. Still, the game moved on and it saw an incresing of activities to the west in the board. Everyone was placing cloisters there with one or two advisors in the mix. Nélson soon gained the majority of advisors in Burgund, a move which would garner him a few points.

By the fourth round, everyone was starting to place advisors wherever they could, while the lands to the east were unusually empty of cloisters. Everyone was focusing their resources to the west, leaving the east completely deserted.

The game wore on and we reached the first scoring after the deck of cards was exhausted for the first time. The scoring:

me 11
Rui 13
Nélson 16

After reshuffling the deck we resumed play. By the eighth turn everyone was madly placing advisors everywhere but the east. We were tied for the most advisors in Frankreich and England, Nélson had the most in Burgund and Aragon while Rui was happily controling the majority of advisors in Schwaben and Lothrigen. Rui also expanded into Italien and started building happily cloisters everywhere.

I opened up Franken but still there wasn't much expansion in the east. All our focus was concentrated in the middle kingdoms of the board. We were building cloisters there like madmen. As the game progressed, the east started seeing some action and soon it was filled with cloisters everywhere, but not advisors though, everyone were saving them and placing them in the west. Still, Bayern was left with only one of Rui's cloisters.

And then it ended, the deck was exhausted for the second time, after a total of about thirty minutes. So, we started scoring. Lots of cloister chains for everyone.

The final scoring:
Me 54
Rui 55
Nélson 79

A runaway victory for Nélson who capitalized on the good placement of his advisors.

After some smalltalk we decided to play again, this time with no holds barred. The order of play turned out to be the same as the first game.

We started building cloisters in the east this time, making sure we cut off each ot paths to prevent cloister chains. Soon Bayern and Franken were filled with cloisters. By the third turn I opened up Frankreich and soon placed an advisor there. Everyone was playing more aggressively now and we played without much talk. By the sixth turn I had already used twice the discard a card action in order to draw the cards I wanted. I reaped some rewards and I was able to streghten my position on the board. Nélson was placing advisors to the east and had already gained the majority in Bayern and Franken, after I gave up placing advisors in Franken. Rui and me were tied in advisors in Frankenreich and England.

This time the eastern and western extremes of the board were filled up with cloisters, but the middle kingdoms were left untouched. So the deck came to an end so we made the first scoring. This time everyone improved from the first game.

Me 14
Nélson 18
Rui 19

We began the second half of the game. It soon saw action all over the board, everywhere quite literally. Empty cloister spaces were gobbled up in an attempt to get some points for second and third place. Most kingdoms were now filled up with cloisters, so we concentrated on advisors. Nélson had the majority in Franken, Bayern and Italien. Me and Rui were tied in Frankenreich, and while Rui won the majority of advisors over me in Burgund, I stole from him the majority in England. Still, Rui had the majority in Lothrigen.

By the end of the game, only Aragon had no cloisters, everywhere else was full, or almost full, of cloisters. So the game drew to an end after thirty-five minutes and it was time for the second scoring. This time there was only two cloister chains, both of them with the minimum number required to score. So the scoring was:

Me 53
Nélson 54
Rui 71

In the end we decided this was a better game than the first. It was more competitive and everyone played agressively. We enjoyed it a lot in fact.

So, what do we think of this game? Well, we think that this is a game that requires some plays to understand fully how the whole game works. It is incredibly deep considering how fast the game plays, and that left us a bit surprised since we didn't recollect our previous sessions. It's, indeed, a very nice game that we will be asking to play often.

I do wonder, though, if China is a better game than this. Perhaps someone would care to enlighten me on this point?

Overall, we greatly enjoyed this game, the second play more than the first, and we will be playing again this game soon. It is quite wonderful.

Our rating for this game, in a 0 to 20 scale, 20 being the best:

Me - 15
Rui - 16
Nélson - 16

Thread: Souvenir from Essen

raolsson — 2007-06-05T14:24:41+00:00

Last August, I had written about my Web of Power experience at the World Boardgaming Championship in Lancaster, PA, commenting that I hoped I could pick up a copy when I went to Essen, Germany in October for the Essen Spiele. I was good on this mission and had picked up Kardinal and Konig, which I hope to cart back to the WBC in August this year.

For the last seven months, however, the game had sat untouched. I had managed to play all of my other Essen acquisitions, so on a whim, I took the game up to Bobby Tweak's Wednesday Night Spiele and got it on the table in a four-layer game.

VuduJoie, Dan, Jared, and I set up the cards, monastaries, and advisors and began our game. Dan and Jared had never played before, and I was happy because I had been playing the online version and taking out the computer opponents on a pretty regular basis. Aiming for concentrating my advisors in the adjacent nations when I could, in the first round, I led scoring because of some lucky ties in majority with the monastaries. In the second half of the game, I figured it would be easy pickings to add more advisors while others went back to capture more nations.

This did not turn out to be the case. Dan had an amazing string of advisors that netted him over 20 points between Lotthringen, England, Frankreich, and Aragon. Each had between three and five advisors, so the points were massive, making him the winner. VuduJoie came in second because of a string of four and a strong majority in Franken. I held third and Jared come in fourth.

I hope to bring this game back a few more times before August to try to get my skills against human opponents back on par. Nevertheless, you have to appreciate the complexities of this game which appears so simple at first glance. I look forward to mastering the art of placing advisors!

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waterdeepflapjack — 2007-06-03T22:54:08+00:00

Web of Power on BSW. They call it Kardinal & Konig.

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itsmarty — 2007-05-17T14:38:46+00:00

Widescreen desktop (1440x900)

Thread: Re: Greek Variant?

sightreader — 2007-02-14T01:03:45+00:00

I found that the BMP version stretches to 18x24 better than any of the other versions and posted it to the FILES section. It's about 4 meg.

Thread: Re: Greek Variant?

sightreader — 2006-12-28T15:17:11+00:00

After a very successful playtest, this map was updated to include more cities than the original. There were some minor improvements to graphics, and a key was included to help players translate card colors from Web of Power and China onto the new Greek map.

Thread: Re: Finally got to play it - 2 times

Warhammer — 2006-12-26T21:35:05+00:00

clearclaw wrote:
Warhammer wrote:
I absolutely HATE explaining this game. I LOVE playing it, but explaining it sucks.

Conversely I find it a simple teach. Area influence game... piece placement and limitations are like so...card drafting is like this...scoring is like so and so... twice through the deck... most points at the end of the game wins. The single big rule is to never play with more than three players.

Agreed. I should have said that I hate answering their question what is most powerful.

clearclaw wrote:
Warhammer wrote:
Still, this is a great game. But, don't fall in love with any one avenue of scoring. Games can be won in any way, due to advisors, monasteries, or chains. What I have found though, is that with players of unequal skill advisors are an easy way to pick up points because new players do not have the nuanced play of advisors mastered.

Huh? WoP is dominated by the advisors. The general pattern is simple: The players that don't start establishing their positions and placing advisors in the early game (first time through the deck) will lose. The player that most effectively establishes their position in the first half of the game, and then most efficiently exploits that position in the second half will win. Cloisters are nice, but they're really just a way to get advisors on the board. Cloisters not accompanied by placed advisors are either a) a way to get cheap points while stocking your hand more appropriately for the next turn, or b) setting up to take the lead in an area so that you can add more advisors, knowing that the other contending player's hand can't interfere. After that the game is all right/left binding: Play against the player to your left and make sure to never give them cards to draft that they actually want. (Yeah, this game has a healthy dose of Player to the left of the newbie wins)

I disagree. Advisors can be powerful, but I've seen plenty of times where people weren't able to use the advisors they placed. Someone nabs France, gets 4 advisors there, no one else places there. But, the other players play in Lothringen, Aragon, England, etc. and block that France player from gaining any alliances. Monasteries are often neglected in the second half of the game, and an astute player can capitalize on them. I've also seen chains play a big role when someone can get them up above 8 (rare, but it sometimes happens).

I rarely place advisors the first time through the deck, because most countries haven't been decided yet. If I place one early advisor in Burgundy when it hasn't been closed yet, I risk someone else placing two advisors in Burgundy. Is that critical? Not initially, but as time progresses, that is one advisor I can't place later. Plus, it is likely giving the other players additional points. That said, there are times when it is the right play to place advisors during the first run through the deck. If Burgundy (or any other country for that matter) is full, it is a no-brainer to place advisors there the first time through the deck.

Don't get me wrong, if you play your advisors right, you can crush the other players. I typically try to get control of France or Italy for that reason (I try for the Burgundy/France/Italy triumvirate, Aragon if I can get it). But, its not the end all be all that people make it out to be. It is very much like PR in that a general, flexible strategy is best, but any other strategy can beat you in the right circumstances. The reason why advisors work so well and appear to be so important is that you can score 20-30 points with them, if you know what you are doing and things break your way. Most often I see players getting 10-15 points from advisors (2-3 alliances worth 4-6 points each)

Thread: Re: Finally got to play it - 2 times

clearclaw — 2006-12-26T18:31:55+00:00

Warhammer wrote:
I absolutely HATE explaining this game. I LOVE playing it, but explaining it sucks.

Conversely I find it a simple teach. Area influence game... piece placement and limitations are like so...card drafting is like this...scoring is like so and so... twice through the deck... most points at the end of the game wins. The single big rule is to never play with more than three players.

Still, this is a great game. But, don't fall in love with any one avenue of scoring. Games can be won in any way, due to advisors, monasteries, or chains. What I have found though, is that with players of unequal skill advisors are an easy way to pick up points because new players do not have the nuanced play of advisors mastered.

Huh? WoP is dominated by the advisors. The general pattern is simple: The players that don't start establishing their positions and placing advisors in the early game (first time through the deck) will lose. The player that most effectively establishes their position in the first half of the game, and then most efficiently exploits that position in the second half will win. Cloisters are nice, but they're really just a way to get advisors on the board. Cloisters not accompanied by placed advisors are either a) a way to get cheap points while stocking your hand more appropriately for the next turn, or b) setting up to take the lead in an area so that you can add more advisors, knowing that the other contending player's hand can't interfere. After that the game is all right/left binding: Play against the player to your left and make sure to never give them cards to draft that they actually want. (Yeah, this game has a healthy dose of Player to the left of the newbie wins)

Thread: Re: Finally got to play it - 2 times

Warhammer — 2006-12-26T15:57:26+00:00

I absolutely HATE explaining this game. I LOVE playing it, but explaining it sucks.

The main reason is that everyone asks what the best play is, whether to go for advisors, monasteries, or chains. I always tell them it just depends on the flow of the game and to try to do well in all phases. My wife, who enjoys the game as well, is there trying to back me on this, but it never fails that someone gets ticked off that I wind up scoring big on one of the avenues. Then we play another game, where I wind up winning based upon another scoring avenue.

Still, this is a great game. But, don't fall in love with any one avenue of scoring. Games can be won in any way, due to advisors, monasteries, or chains. What I have found though, is that with players of unequal skill advisors are an easy way to pick up points because new players do not have the nuanced play of advisors mastered.

Thread: Finally got to play it - 2 times

Luk Van Baelen — 2006-12-26T10:55:23+00:00

At our weekly gatherings in the Beer pub in Beerse, I brought Kardinaal&Koning this time.

Pretty easy to explain as I made it simple for this first time play [4 players].
I only explained how to score points with monasteries - in a region as well as with chains of minimum length 4.
That simplified the gameplay for the first round.
Scores were very tight when we counted.
Then I explained how Advisors are used, the rules and how points are scored with them.
Immediately a very different atmosphere could be noticed - more intense, looking for the best oppurtunities, sharper.
The game ended more quickly than everyone expected - and for sure wanted as they all still had great ideas how to score additional points.

So we decided to play it again [5 players]. Very very very different behavior this time. We all knew the rules, we all knew how the scoring works.
Surprisingly, not a single advisor showed up in the first round. What we did notice is several players putting one monastery in a bigger region, to score a few points both times.
It became more difficult to build a chain of at least 4 monasteries as everybody was watching that.
So end of round one came, not really big differences.
Bells for round 2 ... and whistles from the players as they were brooding over their next turn. Advisors is the name of the game and the way to win. Everybody has learned that from out first gameplay ... so all players were exploiting this.
Aahhh decisions, thos awful decisions we each had to make: 3 things we wanted to do, only 1 region can be populated though. What is Jean going to do when I put 1 advisor and 1 monastery in Italy? And Nick certainly is going to put a 2nd advisor in Franken. Oh and Filip can put 2 advisors in France.
More careful looking at the card deck now > all very conscious when the game will end.
All good things come to an end including this game, as expected the players with the best advisors placing won. Allthough the player with good scoring for the monasteries and 1 chain of 7 [how did we miss that one?] came very close.

This one most certainly will hit the table often because:
1. simple rules
2. plays in less than 1 hour
3. tactical
4. limited luck factor - drawing the cards can favour you

Thread: Re: Greek Variant?

sightreader — 2006-12-26T04:40:16+00:00

OK, I just submitted a Greek Variant (450 BC) to the FILES section. It's a JPG that you print out on 18x24. Just an initial version: I'm sure it will require refinement.

Thread: Re: Greek Variant?

sightreader — 2006-12-16T01:22:18+00:00

sdiberar wrote:
Sounds pretty cool to me. What would be the equivalents of the monasteries and advisors?
I actually would just make a map that you can play with existing rules, so I suppose that it's up to your imagination what your pieces represent. I'll put "monasteries" roughly where temples, ampitheaters, or other archeological sites have been found. Roads would probably be more fanciful, as their location would be more driven by gameplay rather than any historical data. As a matter of fact, a map that generates interesting games would be my primary design goal, but I'll strive to stay as close to history as I can.

Thread: Re: Greek Variant?

sdiberar — 2006-12-15T19:09:41+00:00

Sounds pretty cool to me. What would be the equivalents of the monasteries and advisors?

Thread: Greek Variant?

sightreader — 2006-12-15T17:01:33+00:00

I was thinking about making an ancient (450 BC) Athens/Sparta map for Web of Power and China. Any interest in this?

Thread: Web of Power: my view.

RobM — 2006-09-27T16:51:29+00:00

Web of Power: my view.

Preamble.
I bought Web of Power about 5 years ago. The look of the game intrigued me, it played in under an hour and reviews were positive, so it looked like a good investment. Since then I’ve played it many times. Now it’s available online and as the new game China. With this in mind, I thought it might be useful to revisit the original.

Components.
The game comes with an excellent rulebook: very clear, well laid out and illustrated appropriately. The other components are equally good. The board is a thick mounted fold out style and has worn very well indeed. It details 12th century Europe, with each country clearly defined by colour, and containing sketches of the key cloisters, joined by roads. Each country also has a round coat of arms for placing advisors. Finally, there are numbered connections drawn between allied countries. The artwork is really nice, and together with the unusual colours, it gives the game a unique early medieval feel. My only gripe with the board is that the victory point track around the outside needs numbers. There is a starting square marked zero and then every fifth square is a little darker than the rest, but it would have been better to have had every fifth or tenth square numbered. There are 55 cards that correspond to the countries. The colours of the cards match those of the board really well, which is not something that manufacturers always manage to achieve. Most of the countries on the board (and cards) are paired up, but the most influential power, Frankreich, is the only purple country. Finally there are wooden cloisters (houses) and advisors (cylinders) in five colours (yellow, red, green, purple, blue), together with scoring markers and a black place marker. The blue and green pieces are perhaps a little too close in colour (black or white would have been better). Overall, the components are very nice indeed.

Gameplay.
The aim of the game is to build the most influence across 12th century Europe by placing cloisters along the roads and advisors in the courts of kings to control alliances (so creating a ‘Web of Power’). The players choose a colour and elect a starting player who takes the black place marker. If there are 3 players, two cards of each type are removed from the deck. If there are 4 players, one card of each type is removed from the deck. The starting player then deals three cards to each player and then places the deck next to the board, drawing the top two cards and placing them face up next to the deck. The players then take turns. On a turn, a player must do one of the following:

1. Play 1, 2 or 3 cards from his/her hand and place cloisters or advisors in the appropriate countries, then filling his/her hand to 3 cards.
2. Discard 1 card and draw one card.

When the deck is exhausted for the first time, there is an interim scoring phase. The second time the deck is exhausted, there is a final scoring phase and the game ends.

When playing cards, a player may place cloisters and/or advisors in the corresponding country. There are several restrictions:

1. A player can only place pieces in one country each turn.
2. If a player is the first to play in a particular country, he/she can place one cloister only.
3. A player may play one piece per card played
4. A player may play two cards of the same colour together as a joker to play a piece in any country.
5. Cloisters can only be placed on unoccupied cloister spaces.
6. Advisors are placed on a coat of arms. These can contain multiple advisors belonging to any player, but the total number must not exceed the number of cloisters in the country held by the player with the most cloisters (e.g. if one player has 3 cloisters and another 1 cloister in England, then a total of 3 advisors could be placed in England).

This means that players use 1-3 cards to play 1-2 pieces.

When a player draws cards, he/she can draw face up cards or from the deck, or a combination of both. Face up cards are replenished after all draws are made. If a player cannot or does not want to play (rare), he/she can discard one card and draw another.

Interim scoring occurs immediately the draw stack is exhausted for the first time. At this stage, players score for cloisters only. For each country, the player(s) with the most cloisters score points equal to the total number of cloisters in the country. The player(s) with the second most cloisters score points equal to the number of cloisters that the player with most cloisters in that country has. The player(s) with the third most cloisters scores points equal to the number of cloisters that the player with second most cloisters has etc etc. Points are recorded on the victory point track around the board and then the discard pile is shuffled to make a new draw deck, and play continues where it left off.

When the draw stack is exhausted for a second time, players continue until everyone has had a turn in the round (using the black place marker to check who is still to play). At this point, the game ends and final scoring occurs. The end of the game is also triggered if all cloister spaces and possible advisors have been played (rare).

Final scoring begins with cloister scoring in the same way as interim scoring. Following that, advisors are scored. Players work their way through the numbered alliances shown on the board. For each one, if a player has the most (or equal most) advisors in each of the two countries joined by the alliance, he/she receives points equal to the total number of advisors in the two countries. Finally, cloister chains are scored: a player who has 4 or more of his/her cloisters in a continuous chain scores points equal to the length of the chain (branches are not counted).

The winner is the player with the most points at the end, with ties broken in favour of the player with the most pieces left in stock.

So What Do I Think?
I like Web of Power. Once you get the hang of it, it plays really fast. Regardless of the number of players, it plays out in about 45 minutes. It is one of those games that has very simple rules, but seems to take a while to explain, and new players often take one game to get to grips with it. Some people might find it a little dry or abstract, but I don’t. For me, the theme fits well and the game makes sense. There is some luck in the draw of the cards, but there are plenty of different strategies that players can use to achieve victory. Best of all, because it is quick, you can easily play several games in an evening, trying out different strategies. Overall, I give Web of Power a very commendable 8 out of 10. I wish it would get to the table more often but unfortunately there are one hour games out there that everyone in our group finds more exciting (e.g. Ticket to Ride), so that is unlikely to happen.

UPDATE: After numerous further plays, this one has lost some of its shine, so I'm dropping it to a 7 out of 10. It starts to feel a little too dry after a while.

Thread: Re: First time out

sightreader — 2006-08-26T05:55:35+00:00

What I tell first time players is that cloister scoring puts the most points on the board, but on the other hand tends to come out relatively even between players. Advisor scoring, on the other hand, doesn't result in as many points, but the advisor score tends to be VERY lopsided, which is why it often determines the winner.

The other thing I tell people is that this is a "mooching" game. If you're too dominant early, then everyone is scared away and you can't take advantage of other pieces to add to your score. You must entice other players to play in your zones so that you're getting points even when THEY are moving. What you then hope for is that you can do a last second coup and cut them off from the huge bounty of points that have built up.

Thread: First time out

nextinline — 2006-08-20T02:55:11+00:00

I had long debated whether to take this game out of shrink. My family can never be accused of speeding through our collection, but we had been doing much better lately than at any other time in our history so I decided to take the chance and hope that they would really like it. Both my husband (a new member at this time: PepsiFree) and my daughter (Atlantean_Tauri) would both be going back to school next week. It's always been more difficult to get them to play new games with me when they're busy with their education and work. Now was my chance, I thought, or it would have to wait for a few more months.

Web of Power has a really pretty and well-made board. The rules are clear, offering plenty of examples of in-play situations. We set it up and got going fairly quickly. The cloister scoring had us a bit confused at first but it sunk in and, as we discovered, added significantly to the strategy of the game. We don't always play an 'open' game for learning - this is where we lay our cards out (or whatever) so that we can help each other make optimal moves to make sure we're all up to speed (ultimately, this is so that feelings don't get hurt... it's just not worth playing if someone feels at a disadvantage so soon after being instruduced to something new), but we did for this game.

I placed an advisor on the board about halfway through the first deck before I decided that it wasn't my most optimal move so early in the game. Timing seems to matter quite a bit. My daughter had already figured this out and wisely decided to concentrate on connecting cloisters. By the end of the first scoring she and I were tied, with her dad trailing quite aways behind.

I was surprised at how quickly the second deck seemed to disappear so I pointed it out for the others. I saw a fast way to pick up 5 points in Franken and my daughter thought to grab some points in three other countries. She neglected to place advisors until the last minute, to her detriment, resulting in her loss.

My husband surprised me by coming in at a very close second (I won by one point) which proves that placing the most advisors can help quite a bit in final scoring.

My overall impression is that the game has some things going for it. Resources, such as cloisters and advisors, seemed readily available. Had we begun placing advisors earlier, however, it may not have seemed so. Some games leap out to the front and recieve an instant rating from me. I'm going to have to play this one a few more times before I add any ratings or comment.

Thread: 2006 WBC Game 17

raolsson — 2006-08-08T13:14:19+00:00

My fifth game of Web of Power at the World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, PA was my first final at a WBC ever. Charles was there, megliman was there, and a new player for me named Matt who was the only undefeated player coming into the round. We selected our colors, posed for pictures, and got the game started.

I felt that in this game I had a balance between the monastaries and the advisors going through the first turn. In a majority of the territories, we had an alliance of advisors where three were allowed and three of us had advisors in there. Frankreich was going to be the tricky area. If I could hold onto the advisors there, I had connections that would make the triangle of the previous two games I played look small by comparison.

I was in last place coming out of the first round, but we had four advisors in Frankreich. I had half of the advisors in England as well as a connection to Bayern where I held an equal number, so I was looking at a 13 point leap... until Matt put down his fifth piece in Frankreich and broke our advisor stalemate. I was internally kicking myself, because I could have done the same thing. Matt was the leader coming out of the first half of the game, and it looked like this move had secured the "wood" for him.

But it hadn't. Megliman, who had a number of the allied advisors, had also managed to lock down equal footing in more territories as an advisor than anyone else and ended up winning by over ten points. I want to say closer to 20, but my notes are dim on this point. It was highly appropriate that he win the game because he had come dressed for the part in a WBC shirt with Web of Power as the only game logo (the shirts could take up to three games).

He had chosen the title Royal Advisor, Second Class, but as Matt pointed out, he will now have to upgrade his shirt for next year.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that Web of Power is still available in Germany when I cross the ocean to go to Essen in October, because I would love to have a copy of this game.

It was a great final with three great opponents. I am looking forward to trying my luck in this game next year. Congratulations again to Jay on his win.

Thread: 2006 WBC Game 16

raolsson — 2006-08-08T13:04:48+00:00

As I went into my fourth game of Web of Power at the World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, PA, I was happy to have one win under my belt, one second place, and one third place position. I was also happy to see Charles at my table, as we had had a good time playing in the first game.

I was also gaming with Bruce who has finished second to me in the El Grande game. And Keith from my second game. As you can tell, the crowd of players was shrinking at this point.

Based on my success in the last game, I decided to go with the advisor triangle again in the Schwaben, Franken, and Bayern areas. Well, I say that I decided, but more accurately the opportunity presented itself again and I went for it.

The beauty of the triangle is that you score twice on each of the regions as you count through the advisor scoring.

And in this case, the strategy worked again, putting me in first place with Charles a close second, followed by Keith and Bruce respectively.

What really surprised me was that with this victory, I was catapulted into the finals for Web of Power. It would have been the semi finals, except they decided that if there were fewer than 32 players in the tournament they would go directly to the finals. I suppose there may have been a few others who could have been placed ahead of me, but at the WBC, winning is half the battle to get in a semi. The other half is showing up.

Thread: Re: 2006 WBC Game 15

raolsson — 2006-08-07T21:35:55+00:00

And thank for the kind words, Jay! We shall reveal the stomping you provided in two short reports (which will have to wait until tomorrow).

Thread: Re: 2006 WBC Game 15

raolsson — 2006-08-07T21:33:11+00:00

Just trying to use the sick time wisely!

Thread: Re: 2006 WBC Game 15

megliman — 2006-08-07T20:04:43+00:00

Rob looked like he needed a win, so I laid down and gave him his advisor triangle. Thats just the kind of guy I am.

Not.

Rob earned that one as he kicked our butts. But the lively talk was fun. In fact, all of my WBC games were pleasant affairs. No sphincters this year.

Jay (megliman) Fox

Thread: Re: 2006 WBC Game 15

malloc — 2006-08-07T18:36:06+00:00

hey your supposed out sick today!

Thread: 2006 WBC Game 15

raolsson — 2006-08-07T17:49:55+00:00

In my third game of Web of Power at the World Boardgaming Championship in Lancaster, PA, I met megliman (aka Jay), another fellow Boardgame Geek. We shared a table with Ann and Dave and commence play.

In this game, I was better able to get a handle on the advisors, jumping in to add a monastary to increase the number of available advisors and placing an advisor of my own in the same country. With the cards that turned up, most of us were able to place two pieces on a turn.

This was a fun table to play at because megliman, Ann, and Dave kept up a lively conversation. I was probably taking the game too seriously anyway, but I did well enough to win. Megliman pointed out that I had an advisor triangle between Schwaben, Bayern, and Franken, which ended up being the center from which I brought in a heap of points in the final scoring. Enough to give me first place in my first Web of Power win. Dave took second, megliman took third, and Ann took fourth.

The number of people in the room had reduced to about half of what it was before, and I knew that I had missed out on a couple other games that I had wanted to play that afternoon, but I decided to stay on and see if I could do better in my fourth game.

Thread: 2006 WBC Game 14

raolsson — 2006-08-07T17:35:31+00:00

For my second round of Web of Power at the World Boardgaming Championships in Lancaster, PA, I played with Brad, Keith, and Jason.

In my first game I felt that I got the handle of the game again and was ready to compete. There was a wonderful moment throughout the game where I actually thought I was going to win this one, but Jason managed to pull it out with advisors in the end. Final score Jason 60, me with 56, Brad with 55, and Keith with 46. Any one of our scores would have played very well in our previous game, where the winner had 47 points.

Working out the advisors and monestaries seem to be the key to this game. It is not important to fill up a nation with monastaries, as that only tends to give your opponent more points. What you want to maintain is the balance between two many and not enough monastaries to control the number of advisors in any one nation. This is what I was getting the handle on in my second game.

I was ready to move on to the third game with a better idea, but with a third and a fourth place win, I was confident that I would not be playing in the finals at this point.

Thread: 2006 WBC Game 13

raolsson — 2006-08-07T17:25:01+00:00

Web of Power was another one of those games I had not seen for a few years at our Working Lunch Games events, so when I sat down for the tournament at the World Boardgaming Championship in Lancaster, PA, I was happy to have someone explain to me how to play again. It is a simple game to learn and I was happy to play it again.

The tournament was a trial at the WBC, meaning it was the first or second time that the event had been run at the WBC. There would be four games in a row, and depending who was left there might be a semi final or they might go right to the finals. I sat down at my assigned table and prepared for the next three games.

I sat down with Mike, Dave, and Charles. Charles and I would end up playing in two more games together in the event as the crowd thinned out.

I had forgotten how much I enjoyed Web of Power. The first part of the game was a mix of rushing to get to the last spot in Frnakreich to collect eight points and trying to get the advisor advantage in as many countries as possible. And for my part, I did not do too well in either of those categories, coming in last place. What benefited me was that the two people ahead of me had the same score, so I ended up coming in third place for the purpose of tournament points.

Mike won with 47 points, Dave and Charles tied with 40, leaving me with 27. Still, it had been a quick game so I decided to hang on for another.

Thread: PC Version Language Settings

Big Bad Lex — 2006-07-06T00:13:12+00:00

NB: I posted this here originally but someone moved it to the El Grande page. This query is not about El Grande but Kardinal & Konig. Please leave this here:

I recently saw a German PC version of K&K and had to decide quickly whether to grab a barguin or not. I jumped but now I've installed it I wonder whether it can be tweaked to talk and script in English.

I have a PC copy of El Grande and that too defaulted to German but by accessing the .cfg files it was easy to switch however no such obvious facility here. Does anyone know of a fix or should I start my German crash course now?

Thread: Re: Two basic strategies

sightreader — 2006-06-16T08:44:16+00:00

Der Ubermolch wrote:
It is possibly far more lucrative to drop only individual cloisters judiciously than to try to build long chains, particularly when there are three or more players acting in between your turns.
From my experience, this parasitical approach is the primary concept of this game. Basically, you need the help of others to bolster your score, so you deliberately invite them to do all the work then jump in to score big at the last second. Chains aren't very useful since they're only scored once, although this problem is fixed by the fortess mechanism in the companion game, "China".

Der Ubermolch wrote:
The other strategy is either to invest heavily in advisors or not at all.
I would suggest that this is probably not the best way to approach the advisor game. Rather, it's an approach more like what you suggested for the cloister game. You need the help of others in building up the advisor numbers. Basically, invite others to join you in playing advisors in as many networked countries as possible, making sure you are always in a position to at least tie for first place. If you're tied for first in a lot of different regions, then you'll at least double (and perhaps even triple) the contribution those regions have to your score. Then, at the last possible second, take outright control of a critical country in the network, disconnecting everyone else's web and turning all their moves into a huge score for you and ONLY you.

In my experience, the cloister scoring tends to even out between players, so it's not decisive, even though it contributes the most points to your total. The advisor scoring, on the other hand, tends to be extremely lopsided, and thus it tends to decide the winner unless you made that disconnecting advisor move too early and scared everyone off from contributing to your advisor score.

Thread: Re: Two basic strategies

clearclaw — 2006-06-16T03:13:44+00:00

Der Ubermolch wrote:
And despite a heavy element of luck, there's some thinking to be done.

I'd argue that the luck element is relatively small. Experienced players will invariably slaughter novice players. The core of the game is playing off the draft pool against the player on your left while also fighting against the player on your right.

The luck element, in a weaker game, would be fatal. You can only play in the manner prescribed by the cards you draw.

While true, you have considerable influence over what cards you draw when, as well as over what cards you make available for the player to your left to draw. Add in a little card counting (how many cards have been played for each territory) and you have the core of the game right there.

Only one of us complained about the lack of options available to him, and he claimed to have drawn very few card pairs, denying him wilds.

While possible in extreme cases, this is quite unlikely. An example may illuminate. Consider the case in which you've just played three cards and thus have to draw three new cards. Let's say that the draft pool is full of single colours (ie three different colours). As there are 5 colours on the board a draw from the face down set will usually give you a double with one of the face up cards, and in the very few cases it doesn't, a second face down draw will either match your prior draw or one of the draft pool. The odds of the second face down draw filling out the full five colour set is quite remarkably low.

The other strategy is either to invest heavily in advisors or not at all.

Invariably Web of Power is won and lost in the advisor fight. That simple.

The first game we played was won with four groups of two advisors each in alliance with two others, combined with a big minority score in Frankreich. The second game was won with five advisors in Franken scoring three alliances. I expect that successful strategies along these lines would consistently be big winers.

Yep.

Thread: Re: Two basic strategies

GaryP — 2006-06-16T00:01:48+00:00

I'll not claim to be an expert on the game, but you're certainly learning some of the tricks of the game. As in many area control games with second and third place scoring (El Grande, Mexica, etc.), it is very often better to be in second place in many regions than to focus on being the leader in a couple.

For advisors, you want to try to focus on "triangles" of connections. For example: Frankreich, Italien, and Aragon. All but one such triangle (Franken, Bayern, and Schwaben) involves Frankreich, so that is the key location for advisors. Still, you don't want to invest too many cards there. Also, you usually don't want to bother making sure you are the only player with a majority of advisors. Just try to tie for majority, when possible.

Chains, to me, are just bonus points. They are are usually easy to block, so you cannot afford to rely on them for points. Plus, unless they bridge at least two regions, they are rarely worth playing, as you would usually be better off playing advisors in that region or cloisters in a different region. If they happen to work, great, but chains do not win games in my experience.

It really is a great little gem, isn't it?