Game: Wongar

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itiswon — 2007-03-08T00:47:28+00:00

cards

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itiswon — 2007-03-08T00:38:03+00:00

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itiswon — 2007-03-08T00:36:39+00:00

cubes in game

Thread: Review by SOS (from 2000)

sos1 — 2007-02-09T17:18:48+00:00

Wongar is an interesting game in what I call the "El Grande" family: games that feature less than a dozen regions into which players play pieces via action cards to control by influence (rather than through military means). I like many games in this family, so I was looking forward to trying Wongar. Sure enough, I think it's an excellent game and recommend it if you also like such games.

It has some problems in the graphic presentation, and in fact some gamers I've talked with say the graphics bother them so much they don't play the game. This is too bad, as the game rewards repeated playing with deeper enjoyment. If you feel this way, I urge you to try it again - it's not so bad as it first looks, and is well worth another play.

Wongar has an Australian Aboriginal theme. The word wongar is usually translated as "dreamtime" (though it is not in universal use throughout all Aboriginal tribes). Another concept in the game is that of the tjurunga (sometimes spelled churinga). A tjurunga is a sacred wood or stone object that can have many meanings in Aboriginal culture. The artwork is heavily drawn from Aboriginal art, and I find it all fascinating - but then I've had a long love affair with the Aboriginal culture, and am always looking to buy or trade for books on Aboriginal myths and legends, in particular. (Please contact me if you have any for sale or trade - even children's books!)

Components

The game is certainly striking! A little too striking for its own good, though, as it's hard to make sense of all the components. The board would be very handsome, actually, if it weren't so busy. The largest part of the board contains ten regions. Each region is represented by artwork which corresponds to the backs of ten small decks of cards. Basically, this simply lets you know which areas to stack which deck of cards.

There is a scoring track around the outer edge of the board, and a time line that denotes both when the game is over and the change in scoring values as the game progresses.

There are two types of cards: Ritual cards used in Ceremonies (scoring rounds) and Area cards. Area cards are smaller, and are split into ten different decks. The backs of the decks match the art in the ten areas, while each deck is composed of an identical assortment of action cards.

There are some interesting wooden figures included with the game: two fairly large pieces representing the Ancestor, and two representing the Elder. There is also a wooden boomerang to show the start player each round. There is also a scorpion marker to mark the timeline, and scoring markers in five different colors.

Finally there are the tjurungas. Another strange graphic design choice, tjurungas come in three shapes. Each player has 18 disks in their color, 15 cubes, and 12 cylinders. The pieces unfortunately resemble craft beads you can buy at many craft shops. In addition, games should never have cylinders - these things roll, folks, and in a game where the most pieces in an area is very important, it's too easy for a piece to roll from one area to an adjacent one. Ah well, at least the cubes stay in place.

In the Beginning ...

To start the game, shuffle each of the Area decks and put them in their respective areas. Each player starts with three Ritual cards - two random cards and a "double." A drawstring bag is included in the game - put 12 of each player's tjurungas in the bag and mix them up. Randomly pull them out and put a number equal to the number of players into each of the starting areas. The two center starting areas each get a double amount, and one each of the double wooden Ancestor and Elder figures. Randomly determine the first Elder player and first Ancestor player, set the scoring markers and scorpion at zero, and you're ready to play.

A Typical Turn

The Ancestor begins by turning over the top card on each of the ten Area decks. If a scorpion appears, the scorpion is advanced. (After the 11th advance, the game will end.) The Ancestor then picks one of the Area cards (which really should be called Action cards), performs the action, then play passes to the next player, and so on until each player has taken a card. Pass the boomerang to the new Ancestor, and the next turn begins by turning up cards on any Area decks which do not have a face-up card on top. The game continues this way until the scorpion reaches the last space. At that point there is a final scoring for the players who collected the most tjurunga Area cards.

Area Cards

There are a few different types of Area cards:

* Tjurunga cards, which let you place tjurungas on the board or take Ritual cards,

* Triple Tjurunga cards, which just let you place three tjurungas of the same type,

* Ritual-Card cards, which allow you to draw more Ritual cards,

* Ceremony cards, which allow you to move either (or both) of the Ancestor or Elder figures to a region and declare a Ceremony (scoring in that region),

* Scorpion cards, which advance the time marker - place the scorpion card face-up on the bottom of the Area deck and draw another card.

Much of the first part of the game is taking the first three types of cards to increase your power, and only later taking the Ceremony cards when you're ready to score an area you've got the most influence in. However, this has to be planned carefully, as the Elder figure can only move two regions and the Ancestor one.

A Ceremony

Once you take a Ceremony card, you move the appropriate figure to an area of your choice. You may then play a Ritual card. These allow you either to bring tjurungas in from an adjacent region or remove tjurungas from the region back to someone's stockpile. (Ritual cards show an image of a single type of tjurunga - playing the card lets you move one tjurunga of that type in or out of the Ceremony area.) Only those with tjurungas in a region can play Ritual cards, so banishing an opponent's only tjurunga in a scoring area early in a Ceremony is a powerful move. Once you've played a Ritual card, the next player in the region has the opportunity to play a card, and so on around the table. Once you pass the right to play a Ritual card, you may not play any more - but if all others have passed, you can keep playing as many as you wish.

The point of Ritual cards is to give yourself the majority in as many of the three types of tjurungas in the scoring area as you can. Each region can be scored three times per Ceremony: the player with the most disks scores points, the player with the most cubes scores points, and the player with the most cylinders scores points. Ideally, you want to have all three majorities, but having two is better than one ...

How much you score depends on which figure you used to call the Ceremony: using both scores less than just using the Elder, who scores less than just using the Ancestor. Also, the further along the time line the scorpion is, the more you score in a Ceremony. This is clearly shown on the board and you don't have to remember any part of it - just look at the numbers next to the scorpion turn marker.

Calling a ceremony also gives you control over the relevant wooden figure. Controlling the Ancestor at the beginning of a round makes you the new start player. Controlling the Elder gives you an extra Ritual card.

Strategies

Oh, there are lots of routes you can take here. It's important to watch your opponents carefully - although a figure must move in order to score a region, if an opponent gets a lock on the majorities in two adjacent regions, he can simply go back and forth between them racking up points. So it's important to keep a few tjurungas in other's strongholds, while trying to build up your own areas. Never an easy choice!

Ritual cards are another aspect of the game you must consider. Once a ceremony starts, you can't add tjurungas from your stockpile - you can only move them in from adjacent areas by playing Ritual cards. So Ritual cards are power - but only if you have enough tjurungas in an area that they won't be kicked out before your turn!

So choosing which action card to take each turn is usually a tough decision: do you place tjurungas, draw Ritual cards, or begin a Ceremony? And if you do place tjurungas or call a Ceremony, where? Lovely decisions, lovely game!

Why Wouldn't You Like This Game?

Well, the graphics confuse the heck out of a lot of people. I was used to them before my first game was half over, but I've talked with gamers who said they still didn't understand which symbols were which by the end of their first game. My own advice would be to stick with it - you'll get used to it eventually, and the game is worth it. However, I admit some people are more affected by poor graphic design than I am.

Then there's the type of game it is: allotting your limited stock of influence markers over ten regions. In this way the game is similar to El Grande, and some people simply don't like such games.

If you don't use a couple of the advanced rules, the game can be too random. In particular, we play:

* The double Ritual cards are dealt out one per player at the beginning of the game, and any excess returned to the box. Once a double is used, it's out of the game - don't shuffle them back into the Ritual cards. (Double cards let you move two tjurungas of any type with a single card - too powerful to leave to random draw!)

* Scorpion cards don't "sting" - they only advance the time line marker and cause the Ritual deck to be reshuffled. (In the basic game, turning over a scorpion card means you lose VP unless you're in last place.)

Using these two advanced rules reduces the luck factor considerably, making the game more skill-based. The fact that they're called "advanced" may put some players off from trying them, and thus may give them a poorer impression of the game than they might otherwise have. Use these rules right from your first game!

There can be a runaway leader for a game or two, until everyone learns some of the pitfalls of the game. I don't find this to be a problem with experienced players, though. Still, it means it's a tough game to introduce newcomers to.

There can also be some stagnation, if too many Ceremony Area cards are turned up at once. You don't have much of a choice on your turn in such a case, and games without choices are always less interesting than those with choices. And to be honest, this can occur fairly easily later in the game: as non-Ceremony cards are chosen each round, the Ceremony cards remain face-up. Area cards which are face-up at the end of a turn remain on top of their stack on the next turn. So it's possible to build up too many scoring cards gradually. I suppose you could institute a house rule that when all ten cards are scoring cards, remove five of them from the Area decks which still have the most cards in them - but I haven't found it necessary to do that yet.

Summing Up

All in all, a very fine game if you can get used to the graphics. I find the choices to be interesting and difficult - and rewarding when I make the right ones. It plays well with three or four players, but I haven't yet played a five-player game, to be honest, so can't comment on that. Although it hasn't been published in English, the rules are available on the web, and none of the components have any text on them at all.

Given the low net.presence of this game, I'd have to call this the sleeper of the year (2000) for me. That is, the best game with the fewest number of electrons devoted to discussing it.

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snicholson — 2005-08-22T15:05:00+00:00

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Airbear — 2005-07-05T19:29:56+00:00

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Airbear — 2005-07-05T19:29:29+00:00

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Airbear — 2005-07-05T19:24:29+00:00

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Airbear — 2005-07-05T19:21:07+00:00

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Airbear — 2005-07-05T19:20:28+00:00

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Airbear — 2005-07-05T19:03:42+00:00

Thread: Session Report

j-berman — 2005-03-12T15:30:22+00:00

Six players was a difficult number to accommodate tonight. Since we were anxious to try this Alan Moon release, we could only take five players maximum. To accommodate everyone, we occasionally "team up" so that everyone can play. In this case, Laura and Ellen decided to team up together.

I've been hesitant to purchase the newer releases of Alan Moon's. Most of the feedback I've read on the newsgroup points negatively towards many of his newer releases (including Andromeda, Wongar and Time Pirates). However, in this case, I'm glad I went against public opinion. This newer release is one of the better games released this year, and one I'm sure will be played often at Chambana Board Gamer sessions.

Essentially, players compete in ten different areas to maximize points by having the majority of each of three types of Aboriginal Indian tokens (represented by disks, cylinders and cubes). Each area contains fifteen area cards. One card in each area is exposed at the start of the turn by the player assuming the role of "The Ancient". Another player, called the "Elder", gets to draw a ritual card. Then, in clockwise order, the players may take one of the exposed area cards and complete the action indicated. The actions consist of players adding tokens of their colors, taking ritual cards or starting a ceremony. Ceremonies are the major scoring element in the game. Since 1/3 of the area deck contains ceremony cards in the basic game, lots of scoring will entail.

Ceremonies are certainly the highlights. During a ceremony, players play ritual cards to try to obtain a majority in the area where the ceremony is being performed. The cards allow the removal of an opposing player's token from the board, or a transfer of a token from an adjacent region to the ceremony region (or vice versa). Only players with tokens present at the ceremony may participate. Hence, if your one token is removed from the area, you are out the rest of the time. The ceremony proceeds until all players either withdraw or are eliminated from the site. The tokens that survived are then counted by color and scoring goes to the highest in each of the three token categories (ties resolve with the player closest clockwise to the "Ancient").

To make matters more interesting, you don't know when the game will end. This is resolved in a technique reminiscent of the card drawing in Get the Goods and Union Pacific. Two scorpion cards are mixed into each area deck and the ritual deck. When one of these cards is revealed, the time block is moved forward. When twelve scorpions have been revealed (or when one area card deck has been depleted), the game ends. In addition, the player who revealed the scorpion card gets "stung" and loses up to four points.

Laura/Ellen started the first ceremony. It was also a bloody one as Phil and I kept playing cylinder ritual cards to remove each other. The game turned out to be very combatish from then on. The scorpion also stung with a fury where Geoff was stung twice in a row for a loss of seven points total. In the end, Phil maintains a stash of ritual cards that could keep him in the lead during ceremonies. He also won the game.

Thread: Re:Clarified Rules

paevett — 2004-06-02T20:41:59+00:00

Big thanks to Geo Man for the PDF conversion!!!! It made the text colors kind of nappy but is available to all. Maybe this will help this great game! -- PAE

Thread: Re:User Review

paevett — 2004-06-02T20:39:15+00:00

TomVasel (#36532),
Check out the improved rules translation and player aids recently uploaded. Clarity helps game play tremendously. -- PAE

Thread: Re:Clarified Rules

GeoMan — 2004-05-25T20:33:51+00:00

sos1 (#37373),

PDF versions uploaded. Enjoy!

Thread: Re:Clarified Rules

sos1 — 2004-05-25T19:23:28+00:00

PDF would be great - I have two versions of MS Word and neither can read Peter's document correctly.

Thread: Re:Clarified Rules

GeoMan — 2004-05-25T18:27:57+00:00

paevett (#36986),

I already converted both to .pdf

Let me know if you want them.

Thread: Advanced Rules Comments

paevett — 2004-05-22T21:30:26+00:00

The advanced rules really improve this game and should be used from the start. Our group, however, suggests NOT using 2 advanced rules. We think placing Tjurungas at the start of the game is slow going, and like the random start. The selection of Ritual cards (not in the original translation) is perfect for the Elder, but is too fiddly for the regular acquisition of cards via Area actions. We simply draw those.

Thread: Clarified Rules & Aid

paevett — 2004-05-22T21:26:03+00:00

I uploaded a full color set of rules with translation clarifications (including some paragraphs not included in the original translation). I found the process made the rules MUCH CLEARER, and the artwork design choices more understandable. I've always been a fan of the game, but I think these will help players learn the game much more easily. Enjoy.

I think the Player Aid will also help both the first timer and the returner to the game.

Hopefully both are accurate. If anyone would like to transfer them to PDF that would be great. -- PAE

Thread: User Review

TomVasel — 2004-05-19T14:20:42+00:00

I picked Wongar (Goldsieber 2000, Richard Borg and Alan Moon) up in a trade I made with Richard Borg. I had never really heard of the game before, and since it was one of Goldsieber’s big box games, I was immediately intrigued, as I had had good success with them in the past. The theme, that of Aborigine dreams (or something) was a unique one, and coupled with the massive amount of beautiful pieces, inspired me to try out the game as soon as possible.

My first impressions, however, were not good. So much confusion occurred (much of it from the theme – or lack thereof), and a lot of the game seemed random and pointless. Wild point scoring occurred, and general impressions were not good. But, I saw under this layer of insanity an excellent game – one with the opportunity to be a great game. At its core, Wongar is an area control game, and with three different types of tokens, the gameplay is unique and exciting.

A large board with ten joining areas is placed in the middle of the board. A pile of 15 cards that match each area is shuffled and placed face down in the area. Each player also receives a pile of tokens (called “tjurungas”) of one color – 18 discs, 15 cubes, and 12 cylinders. Each player places four of each type in a cloth bag which is shuffled around, and then tokens are randomly put into each of the ten areas – one for each player playing the game, and double that amount in the middle two areas. A stack of cards, called the “Rite” deck, is shuffled, and two are dealt to each player with the remainder being placed face down next to the table. Each player places a score token on the first space of a scoring track that goes around the board, and one player is randomly chosen to go first. That player receives the boomerang and an ancestor figure (brown), and the second player receives the elder figure (tan). Another matching ancestor figure is placed in one of the two center areas, with a second elder figure being placed in the other. A yellow time marker is placed at the bottom of the time track, and the first round begins.

Each round starts with the player who has the boomerang, who then passes it to the player on their right at the end of the round (along with the ancestor figure if they have it). The start player turns over the top card of every area pile that is currently not showing (which is all ten in the first round). For every scorpion revealed, the time marker is moved up one spot on the time track, and the active player is “stung”. This simply means that they lose one point for every player currently behind them on the score track. If two scorpion cards have been revealed from the same pile, they are shuffled back into that pile, along with all other discarded cards. Any scorpions are replaced with the next card in the deck. Once all scorpions are resolved, the player who currently controls the elder figure gets the top card of the Rite deck (if it’s a Scorpion, they get “stung” instead).

After this, each player, in clockwise order, picks one of the face-up cards in one of the areas and follows the action on it.
- Card cards: This card gives the player that takes it four Rite cards.
- Single Tjurunga cards: These cards show one disc, cube, or cylinder. The player MUST (if possible) place one of their tokens of that type in the area the card was drawn from. The player then has three choices: They can place two of the same type tokens anywhere on the board, place one token and draw a card, or draw two cards. Players keep single tjurunga cards for scoring purposes at the end of the game.
- Triple Tjurunga cards: These cards allow the player to place three tokens (all the same type) anywhere on the board.
- Ancestor card: The player takes the ancestor figure from the player and then moves the ancestor figure on the board into an adjacent territory (mandatory). A ceremony is immediately performed in that territory. All players who have tokens in a territory participate in a ceremony. Starting with the player who took the ancestor card, and going clockwise, each player may play a Rite card or pass. Most rite cards show a single token of a certain type, allowing the player who played the card three choices: They can take another player’s token of that type out of the area and return it to that player, or they can move one token of that type of their color into an adjacent area, or they can move one token of that type of their color into that area from an adjacent area. Some Rite cards show double tokens, and allow a player to do the above options twice. After all players pass, the ceremony is over. Each type of tokens scores, with the player who has the majority of that type receiving the points for the ancestor (as noted on the score track – the points change over the course of a game.) Ties are broken by whoever controls the ancestor token, or whoever sits closer to them.
- Elder card: This card is identical to the ancestor card, except that the elder figure is moved one or two spaces on the board, and a ceremony occurs there.
- Ancestor/Elder card: This card allows the player to take both figures from the players who have them, and move both figures on the board to the space the card was drawn from – performing a ceremony there.

Once each player has taken a turn, the round is over, and the boomerang (and possibly the ancestor figure) is passed. If, during the round, the time marker is moved to the final space, that round is the final round. After the round is played out, all players reveal their single tjurunga cards. The player who has the most cards of each type gets a bonus eight points – and then the player who has the most points is the winner!

Some comments on the game…

1.) Components: I enjoyed the components in Wongar – they were one of my main attractions to the game. Remarks about the artwork were varied from those who played, with some liking it quite a bit, and others taking the opposite view. I found it bizarre, but not entirely unpleasant on the eyes. The box, of course, is of the large sturdy type that all Goldsieber games are stored in. The box is nigh indestructible, but the large size makes the game more unwieldy and slightly annoying to transport. The board is large, and the pieces move about it fairly easily. Speaking of the pieces, I enjoyed them quite a bit – an attractive assortment of wooden counters – although it does look like they are all necklace beads. The boomerang, as well as the two “elders” and “ancient” pieces were beautiful, large wooden tokens (we did mix them up a lot, but it wasn’t that big of a deal.) The area cards are small and easy to handle, but have strange artwork on them that can distract from the card’s function. The ceremony cards are large, which helps distinguish them from the area cards (a nice touch). Overall, I liked all the components; they were visually stunning, but not entirely user-friendly when learning the rules.

2.) Rules: The rules looked nice, but I had to download an English translation (why, oh why did I not take German in college rather than Spanish!?) from the web. The rules as written were fairly clear – but the components, especially the cards, didn’t really help with ease of play. Therefore, even with only five pages of (translated) rules, we found ourselves constantly referencing them and frequently playing things incorrectly. The biggest offenders were the cards, but remembering which piece (elder or ancient) did what was often quite confusing.

3.) New People and Theme: My first playing of the game was with a group of experienced gamers, with hundreds of “German” games under their belt. And yet there was still rampant confusion. The game is frankly not intuitive; and this is certainly not the fault of the mechanics, but because the theme is weird and detracts from gameplay. I’m sure that the dreams of Aborigines sounds like a good, unique theme; but how is this helpful to the gameplay as is? I read that the designers’ original theme was changed, and that’s a shame – because the new theme simply does NOT work. A theme is added to many of these “abstract” games to help people better associate pieces with the rules and mechanics. I am a big fan of adding themes to games, but this is one case where they should have just left it alone.

4.) Strategy: Once gameplay is actually understood, however, some interesting strategies present themselves. Most area control games use only one type of unit (a la the caballeros in El Grande). Here there are three types of units, each with a different level of rarity. This, combined with the initial setup should determine one’s strategic drive for the remainder of the game; but if a player hoards cards, they can possibly pull off a coup in a certain area. A player can try to maximize their hand, or they can try to maximize their presence on the board. To my chagrin, I quickly found out that making a strategy out of collecting card sets might serve well as a tiebreaker, but that it wasn’t very viable as a main strategy. Knowing when to score a territory is also crucial; and if it wasn’t for the scorpions, the game’s strategy would be elegant and superb.

5.) Randomness: But those scorpions are extremely random and annoying. They often cause the game to feel close to a total luck fest and can destroy one’s carefully placed strategy. Yes, they will keep the scores closer together; but who wants to gain a pile of points, just to lose them again – solely because they are in first place. This is a game that “bashes” the leader, no help from the players necessary. Fortunately, however, the game includes “Advanced” rules. They include:
· Scorpions no longer sting. This is the biggest and most important change. Let’s keep the scorpions as a time mechanism, but that’s it!
· Players can place their initial token setup on the board. This will probably appease some – although I personally like dealing with how the initial setup turns out.
· Remove one ancestor card and one elder card from each pile giving one card of each type to the players. On a turn, a player can play one of these cards instead of the card from an area. This changes the game a lot, but for the better.
· Remove the two Scorpion cards and five double cards from the Rite deck. Each player starts the game with one double card. This really helps eliminate randomness from the deck and keeps play fair and balanced.
I really like these “advanced” rules; in fact, if you play the game with me, they are “required” rules. They make gameplay so much better, and I can’t imagine playing without them. I would go so far as to recommend that all four of them should be implemented into gamers’ first games – there’s just no point into playing the basic game.

6.) Fun Factor: When I play a game with people who’ve never played “German” games before, Wongar is not on my list. Its theme (an important factor for new players) is retroactive, its mechanics are slightly complicated, and good strategy is fairly elusive in it. Yet, for those who love El Grande, this game is slightly similar, but with a touch of other mechanics thrown in. When played with the advanced rules, Wongar can be a lot of fun; but only with experienced gamers.

And that wraps up my view on Wongar. I like the game, and will gladly play it again; but only with the advanced rules. The theme, which doesn’t have to be present, is not just laid on top of the mechanics, but overshadows them, confusing all. The game is beautiful, and plays well – so if you don’t mind the strange theme, and like area- control games, this is one of the best, rules wise. The combination of Borg and Moon has produced a fantastic game for us here. If only Goldsieber had left it alone.

Tom Vasel

Thread: Session Report

Jim_P — 2003-04-06T04:22:58+00:00

I like this game. Even though the set up is random, there are a lot of choices to be made every turn.

Every player starts with a set of tokens, called Tjurangas, in three shapes (Cubes, Cylinders, and Discs) and two ritual cards (to be used during scoring Ceremonies). Each player then throws four of each type of token into a bag, which are then mixed and randomly 'salted' to the ten areas on the board. These ten areas each have a small deck of 15 cards, which contain token reinforcements and scoring opportunities.

The last part of the set-up involves two figures: "The Ancient One" and "The Elder" (at the start of the game these figures are determined randomly). The player who controls the Ancient will automatically go first in the next game round and, more importantly, wins all ties in which he is involved. The player controlling the Elder will gain one Ritual card at the start of the following game round.

The game has one more little quirk... the Scorpion. Shuffled into each area deck and the main Ritual deck are two Scorpions. If a player draws a Scorpion, the game advances one turn closer to the end. Whoever drew the Scorpion loses a number of points equal to the number of players who are behind him on the scoring track. As the lead players are more than likely to be the first player in a round, this has a great balancing effect on the scores, making most games very tight.

On his turn, a player chooses one of the face up actions from the ten area piles. If an Ancient or Elder card is chosen, the player will take the figure and a scoring "Ceremony" will occur. Players who have tokens present in the contested area have the opportunity to play Ritual cards to eliminate their opponent's token, reinforce themselves, or retreat. When all players have 'passed' their chance to play a card, the area is scored. The player with the majority of each type of token gains the points listed on the game turn track.

The game ends when the 12th Scorpion is drawn or the last card is taken from any one area. Bonus points are scored for the players who hold the majority of each token reinforcement card... the player with the most points wins.

Only Sean and I had ever played the game before, so I quickly went through the rules for Trent, Mark, and Hoky. The random setup sent most of my tokens scattered across the board, but Hoky and Mark each had a large number in the centre from which they could quickly form a power base. Trent and Sean each had clusters on opposite ends of the board.

The initial card display had a lot of reinforcement cards, which were quickly gobbled up. Each of us tried our best to solidify at least one or two areas. Because there was no scoring the first round, and because a player can't go first two turns in a row, I had to "pass the boomerang" to Hoky, who got the Ancient.

The first scorpion turned up in round 2... Hoky did not have to lose points because there was no one behind him. He then took another Disc reinforcement; Sean drew four Ritual cards; Mark and Trent took the last two reinforcement cards; I was forced to choose an area to score. I took the Elder card and moved into an area where only three of us had tokens... after card play, I had one Disc left. I scored the first 3 points of the game.

The next four rounds saw very few Ceremonies take place. Most of us were trying to build our hands for the big score and get tokens on the board. Four more Scorpions advanced us into the next points value level. Hoky, Mark, and I swapped the lead two or three times... Sean continued to trail the pack.

Round 7 was unusual... all areas showed Ceremony cards! Five scoring opportunities and everyone was down to their last one or two Ritual cards, except for Hoky who had six. Because Hoky was also in the lead, it was 'avoid purple at all costs'. In the end, the only Ceremony that Hoky fought was the one he started, and when the dust settled he was only ahead of Mark and I by two points, Trent was three points behind us... and Sean continued to trail the pack.

Reinforcements and Ritual cards were at a premium over the next few rounds. Hoky and Mark passed 50 points, Trent and I weren't that far back (I was in 4th spot)... then I got my big score.

I had just drawn two Ritual cards and reinforced an area with one of my cubes, Trent had scored with the Ancient in the prior round and was to go first (he was sitting behind me). I had one area with only three opposing tokens. When Trent did not reinforce, I took the Ancient, moved it into the area. Trent, with only one card, withdrew from the ceremony. I played a card and eliminated Trent's only cube. Sean reinforced with a second cylinder. Because I now won ties, being closer to the Ancient, I played my last card and eliminated Sean's cylinder, Sean was out of cards and withdrew and I scored 21 points... I now had a 15 point lead, but no cards in hand.

Hoky drew a reinforcement and took two cards... Scorpion! There was only one more to go and the game was over. Sean took the Elder and scored enough to actually put him two points ahead of Trent; Mark gained another five. Mark took the Ancient away from me and scored seven more, putting him six points behind me.

THe first card flip to begin the next round... Scorpion! Mark back three points and the round ends the game. Everyone took a ceremony card in the last round. With no cards in my hand I could only watch as my lead started to crumble and fall when Mark tied and then passed me by seven points. My only ace was the 8 bonus points that I had for the most Cube cards.

When the final tallies were done, bonuses were paid to Hoky, Trent, and I... to put me one point up on Mark... just barely enough for a win! I should note that if Mark had taken a cube reinforcement on the last round instead of a Ceremony, he would have won... we would have been tied for cube cards.

The final totals:

Jim 82
Mark 81
Hoky 76
Trent 63
Sean 57

A well fought game with a lot of tactical decisions. Some don't like the penalties for the Scorpion cards, but I find them to be a great way to balance the game... and it adds a little risk when you take the Ancient or draw an extra card.

Other complaints have been with the opening random setup... I find that it makes your initial tactical decisions that much harder. e.g - "Do I reinforce early?", "Do I give up 3 points, but withdraw my cylinder?"

I think that both points, while valid, don't make a difference in the long run... I'll stick to the basic rules.

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2002-06-06T21:57:58+00:00

That was Dan with the first part of the session report. Thanks, Dan! This is Rick now taking over for the final part of your session report.

After our first game of Alles im Eimer we split into two groups. Corwin, Dan and Joe went off to play Die Magier von Pangea and William, Patrick, James and I tackled Wongar. William, Patrick and I played the game for the first time a few weeks ago and were itching to try it again. This was James first time playing.

The first time we played the game, we played the basic rules which was fun, but was a luckfest. This time we tackled the advanced rules. Having played both of them, I wouldn’t ever bother with the basic rules – the advanced rules make the game so much better, and there isn’t really any additional rules, it’s more like a variant which removes the big luck factor in the basic rules.

We brought James up to speed and got started. The first time we played was a bit of an uphill battle as we felt our way around the game, but this time things went very smoothly. I took an early lead, scoring a few areas on one side of the board where I had most of my pieces. James roared back, moving the Ancestor and the Elder to the other side of the board where he was strong and I had nothing. There were a few pitched battles for points, with James eventually taking over the lead.

Towards the end of the game, I wasn’t really concentrating on winning ceremonies too much – I concentrated on picking up rite cards and trying to get disc and cylinder area cards for the game end bonus scoring. William did start a ceremony in an area and I was able to use my accumulated rite cards to score points to put me right behind James.

I ended the game by picking up the last card in one of the areas. William, Patrick and I got 8 points apiece for game end bonus scoring. With the bonus, I was able to squeak by James for the victory.

Score:

*Rick* - 67
James – 65
Patrick – 55
William - 46

Ratings:
Rick – 8
James – 8
Patrick – 8
William – 7

We all liked the game and thought it was much more strategic and balanced using the advanced rules.

Thread: Session Report

Deleted User 1 — 2002-04-30T18:55:35+00:00

Wongar is a game that I’ve had kicking around for a while that I never had a chance to try. I brought it to our sessions the past few weeks but wasn’t able to get anyone interested in trying it. This week, Patrick expressed an interest in the game and William joined us. We were all newbies.

One thing about Wongar, we found the rules a bit difficult to plow through. I don’t think it’s that difficult a game, I think the translation is a bit unclear at times. Fortunately Patrick knows German and was able to clarify some of the sticking points by reading the German rules.

Once we got started it was pretty much mass confusion for the first turns as we figured out how the mechanisms worked. We eventually got the hang of it and began seeing the strategies. William took a huge lead early mostly due to him having four of the double Rite cards while Patrick and I had none. It turned out later in the game he drew three more doubles but didn’t play them as it would have unbalanced the game even more. I never did pick up a double card. Next time we’ll use the variant the distributes the double cards evenly – doing it normal way gives the player who luckily draws the double cards way too much power.

Patrick and I were able to close the gap somewhat, but William was still able to finish with the victory.

Score:
*William* - 143
Patrick – 112
Rick - 109

Ratings:
William – 9
Patrick – 9
Rick – 8

A very interesting game. We had a lot of fun with the game (perhaps yelling ‘Wongar!’ every two seconds had something to do with it) , even though we were confused half of the time. William mentioned on our way home that he found similarities to San Marco. I agree, they do have similarities. We all liked the game and are looking forward to our next playing.

Thread: Session Report

davekohr — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

(Bruce, Gordon, 3 more) :

Gordon: "We played with at least two significant errors.

Ritual scoring has 'closeness to the ancient' as a tie-breaker, so only one player scores for each 'shape'.

When a player selects a 'cube', 'disk', or 'cylinder' card, they must place a matching piece in that area and has the option of either drawing 2 cards, placing 2 matching pieces, or one of each, these matching pieces can be placed anywhere on the board."

KenT: "I thought the matching pieces had to be played in a region adjacent to the region which held the card or in that region itself."

Thread: Session Report

davekohr — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

(LarryS, *Gordon*, MattC, Rick)

Rick: "Three of us had never played before. We modified the rules by not enforcing VP penalties for drawing Scorpion cards. As I was one of the new players, I'm not sure how this affected things. I was the only one to get a 24-point bonus at the end, but to no avail as I tied for last place. Larry seemed to be winning for most of the game with a big pile up of purple pieces in the center of the board that scared everyone. I'd say Gordon helped in the group perception of Larry as the leader, i.e. the place one never wants to be. As a result there was a general group effort to stop the purple with the eventual result that Larry was tied with me for last and Gordon won."

Gordon; "This game is rather abstract. Each player gets pieces of 3 shapes in their color. The board consist of 10 areas, with 2 side-by-side in the middle, the other 8 around them. A pool of pieces is created by mixing 4 pieces of each shape from each player. Pieces are randomly drawn from the pool to seed the board. Each outer space receives 1 piece per player in the game. The 2 center spaces receives 2 pieces per player. Each space also contains a small deck of [shuffled] cards. One of the ancestor figures is placed in one of the center space, one of the elder figures is placed in the other center space. Each player also receives 2 cards from the ritual deck plus a double ritual card. Randomly select one player to receive the other Ancestor figure [and the boomerang which serves as the first player marker] and another player the other Elder figure. We were playing with 2 out of the 3 advanced rules [1: the double ritual cards given one per player rather than shuffled in the ritual deck. 2: scorpions don't sting, normally the player who draws/reveals a scorpion loses victory points equal to the number of players who are behind them in victory points.] [the other advanced rule is to remove 2 ritual initiation cards from each area deck and give each player 2 of them]. There is a scorpion [time] track with three regions of 4 spaces each. The game ends after the current round when the scorpion reaches the last space on the scorpion track.

The play proceeds in rounds, the holder of the ancestor reveals the top card in each space where necessary, if a scorpion is revealed, advance the scorpion marker and reveal next card in that space. The holder of the elder receives one card from the ritual deck. Each player, starting with the holder of the ancestor, takes a face up card from one of the spaces and performs the action associated with the card. There are cards corresponding to each of the shapes which allows you to place a piece of the corresponding shape in that space and you then must either place 2 additional pieces of that shape in any combination of spaces on the board , draw 2 ritual cards, or one of each. There are cards showing 3 pieces of all three shapes which allows you to place 3 pieces of any one shape in any combination of spaces on the board. There are cards showing 4 rectangles which requires the player to draw 4 cards form the ritual deck. Finally there are the cards which trigger rituals. The elder card requires the player to take possession of the elder figure from its current holder and to move the elder figure on the board to an adjacent space, triggering a ritual there. The ancestor card similarly requires the player to take possession of the ancestor figure and move ancestor figure on the board to an adjacent space, triggering a ritual there. The ancestor and elder card requires the player to take possession of both figures and to move both figure on the board to the space the card was taken from.

Scoring: At the end of the game points are awarded for collected the most cards in a shape. For each shape, the player(s) with the most cards of that shape gets 8 points. During the game players receive points from rituals.

Rituals are performed in a space. Participants of a ritual is always only those players who currently have pieces in that space. [When your last piece in the space is removed by another player during the ritual, you are no longer a participant.] Starting with the holder of the ancestor and working clock-wise, each participant may pass [passing also removes you from the ritual] or play one ritual card do one of the following: a) remove an opponent's piece matching the shape on the card in the ritual space, b) move one of his pieces matching the shape on the card to/from the ritual space from/to an adjacent space. When all participants have passed, victory points are awarded for each shape to the player with the most pieces of that shape in the ritual space. Ties are broken by closeness to the ancestor. The number of points depends upon the type of card used to trigger the ritual and the 'time' region the scorpion is on.

For most of the game I had a slight lead in points. However Larry and Matt were dominating most of the spaces on the board, Rick was scooping up the shape cards (good for a 24 point bonus at the end). I felt my long term prospects were very poor. The space best for me only contained 2 of my pieces making for a very fragile position. Fortunately for me, noone decided to contest me for that space! Towards the end, everyone else spent all their ritual cards and I hadn't (can't spend your cards if you don't have pieces there). That was the difference because I managed to score for all 3 shapes in the last ritual for the win, edging out Matt.

Thread: Session Report

davekohr — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

At the May 24, 2000 SVB session about 21 people attended.

On to the games. Winners are *starred*.

(Rick, DaveO, *Gordon*, ChrisO, DaveK) :

DaveK: "Wongar is wonky. I don't know how else to describe it. Whatever the game claims to be about, it doesn't feel like it's about anything. I have a rule of thumb that if a game really doesn't match its theme, or doesn't purport to have a theme, then it had better be simple. Wongar clearly violates this rule. And for me, the gameplay doesn't make up for this.

I think we played with the "advanced" rules, but it's hard to be sure since there are so many different rules out there.

Anyway, vaguely speaking the game involves trying to dominate the regions on the board in each of 3 different categories (disks, cylinders, and squares). An area is scored after a player declares a "ritual" there. A "ritual" is a sort of battle that's resolved using an auction-like tactical subsequence. Like Condotierre, you bid ("fight with") cards, and you don't refill at the end of the battle. So hand management is a huge part of the game.

On each player's turn, he gets to take actions based on what cards are face-up in the different regions (some let you start battles, some let you draw cards). Control over who gets to go first (and ties in battles are won by whoever is closer to the first player, which is very important) is also determined by picking up certain cards. Control over the game end is unpredictable, since it hinges on the appearance in the regions of special cards that advance the game-turn track.

These are generally all mechanisms that I enjoy. Unfortunately, in Wongar they're mish-mashed together, and not in a way that favors skill over luck and diplomacy. In our game, I leapt ahead to a big early lead with no effort at all, due to the random initial setup and luck of the draw. Then I got pounded all the way back into last place. This was surely my fault in part for painting such a big bullseye on myself, but the ease with which I grabbed the lead, and the ease with which others colluded to bring me down, was alarming. I two other rules of thumb about games: if they're abstract, they had better be extremely well-balanced, and if luck is a significant factor, they had better be short. Like Andromeda, Alan Moon's other major recent effort, Wongar falls far short on these counts. It's a shame, because the artwork and bits are quite nice."

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

I was on business travel for a week, then Laura joined me at the end of the trip to start our Southeast coast vacation. Couple that with the move to a new house we just completed, and we have been gone or busy for about a month. This has been one of my longer times without playing games. My absence from nearly a month of gaming and the fact I just received a shipment from Funagain Games, It was eager to join everyone for Saturday evening gaming.

ROLL CALL: Justin Berman, Laura Berman, Geoff DeWan, Ellen Green, Brian Keenan and Phil Swim

Six players was a difficult number to accommodate tonight. Since we were anxious to try this Alan Moon release, we could only take five players maximum. To accommodate everyone, we occasionally "team up" so that everyone can play. In this case, Laura and Ellen decided to team up together.

I've been hesitant to purchase the newer releases of Alan Moon's. Most of the feedback I've read on the newsgroup points negatively towards many of his newer releases (including Andromeda, Wongar and Time Pirates). However, in this case, I'm glad I went against public opinion. This newer release is one of the better games released this year, and one I'm sure will be played often at Chambana Board Gamer sessions.

Essentially, players compete in ten different areas to maximize points by having the majority of each of three types of Aboriginal Indian tokens (represented by disks, cylinders and cubes). Each area contains fifteen area cards. One card in each area is exposed at the start of the turn by the player assuming the role of "The Ancient". Another player, called the "Elder", gets to draw a ritual card. Then, in clockwise order, the players may take one of the exposed area cards and complete the action indicated. The actions consist of players adding tokens of their colors, taking ritual cards or starting a ceremony. Ceremonies are the major scoring element in the game. Since 1/3 of the area deck contains ceremony cards in the basic game, lots of scoring will entail.

Ceremonies are certainly the highlights. During a ceremony, players play ritual cards to try to obtain a majority in the area where the ceremony is being performed. The cards allow the removal of an opposing player's token from the board, or a transfer of a token from an adjacent region to the ceremony region (or vice versa). Only players with tokens present at the ceremony may participate. Hence, if your one token is removed from the area, you are out the rest of the time. The ceremony proceeds until all players either withdraw or are eliminated from the site. The tokens that survived are then counted by color and scoring goes to the highest in each of the three token categories (ties resolve with the player closest clockwise to the "Ancient").

To make matters more interesting, you don't know when the game will end. This is resolved in a technique reminiscent of the card drawing in Get the Goods and Union Pacific. Two scorpion cards are mixed into each area deck and the ritual deck. When one of these cards is revealed, the time block is moved forward. When twelve scorpions have been revealed (or when one area card deck has been depleted), the game ends. In addition, the player who revealed the scorpion card gets "stung" and loses up to four points.

Laura/Ellen started the first ceremony. It was also a bloody one as Phil and I kept playing cylinder ritual cards to remove each other. The game turned out to be very combatish from then on. The scorpion also stung with a fury where Geoff was stung twice in a row for a loss of seven points total. In the end, Phil maintains a stash of ritual cards that could keep him in the lead during ceremonies. He also won the game.

Scores: Phil 58, Justin 49, Geoff 45, Brian 41, Laura/Ellen 30

Ratings: Brian 8, Ellen 8, Laura 8, Justin 8, Phil 7.5, Geoff 7

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

After the other group finished their game of Stephenson's Rocket, the others split up again. On that side of the room, Anand, Geoff, Mike, and Phil Parker sat down to a game of Wongar. Having played the previous week, Brian knew the rules well. He was curious to see how it played with four (and is usually drained after a game of E&T), so he sat out and explained the rules.

The first time we'd played, it seems we had a couple (major) things wrong. First, we had played that if a player started as part of the ritual, he/she was in the ritual for the duration (even with no pieces), which the rules say is not the case. Second, we had played that during a ritual, a player could pass playing a card and still play one later, which the rules seem to imply is wrong, but since we weren't sure, we played the second game this way, too. The first thing Brian noticed was that, contrary to the first game, rituals didn't come up often at all. Also, the rituals that did show up went by much faster since there were only four players and participants were removed early before they had a chance to reinforce their position. Anand even managed to score one area twice where he had removed all opposing pieces.

Brian suggests that the next time we play, we use the advanced rule of removing some of the rituals from each area (and giving one of each to each player), as well as playing the way we did the first time - if a ritual starts with you as a participant, you remain in it even without any pieces.

Scores: Anand 52, Mike 40, Phil 35, Geoff 29

Ratings: Anand 8, Geoff 7 (with rules addition), Mike 7, Phil 6

Thread: Session Report

Jonathan Degann — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Well, I finally cracked open Wongar, which as I have said, I purchased in spite of Mik's favorable recommendation 8-b. And in spite of mostly negative reviews from others. And the verdict is... this is a very good game, which I think is getting dissed only because people are playing with the beginner's rules.

Aware of some of the problems, I immediately had us play with all of the "advanced" rules:
-manual, not random setup;
-scorpions don't sting,
-take all duplicate scoring cards out of the decks, give each player a pair and set aside the others;
-remove the double rite cards and give each player one
-remove the scorpions from the rite deck

I've reviewed as many of the comments on the internet that I could find, and I believe that nearly all of the gripes can be traced to problems inherent in not playing with the rules as above. Most significantly, these rules eliminate the lions share of the objectionable luck from the game.

There are lots of features here that many will like. We found the use of rite cards, which allows players to regain control of a region by either moving in more of one's own pieces, or removing others, to have a delicious "dare you" bid component, not unlike the bidding phase in Taj Mahal. It was always a treat when two players got into a pissing match, tossing away card after card in yet another attempt to take control. It was always agony moving in pieces to a region, only to have some scumsucker tell you to take it back - again and again and again.

Similarly, the battle to control the elder and ancestor was frequently a tricky proposition. Time after time, I'd try to grab the Elder (?), whose possession grants the bearer an extra Rite card at the beginning of each turn, only to have someone take it away before I got to use her.

Peter was the first to notice the tactic of targeting the player to his left (me!). Since ties are broken in order of position to the left of the Ancestor, a player will have the tiebreaking advantage 3/4 of the time when in a contest with the player to his left. So there is a round-robin of advantages to exploit. Peter wanted to target me; I wanted to target Glenn; he wanted to target Mike (had he figured out this ploy), and Mike wants to target Peter.

The attractiveness of being able to control when and where a scoring takes place is nicely balanced by the fact that doing so means you don't get to bring more pieces on the board, and the fact that you can't say for sure how your scoring will turn out (or at what price in Rite cards).

The one problem we had with the game was the fact that the scorpions seemed to all be buried at the bottoms of the decks. The consequences were that the game dragged on, in the low scoring region. (Players caused it to drag on at times, but experience and unkind words should remedy that). I'd recommend that players consider sticking one or both scorpions back into the Rite deck if they want a shorter game.

The lead was extremely variable. Indeed, this might be a gripe - since scoring takes place at the will of the phasing player, it can have an unbalancing effect if players set out to hose the leader. In it's favor though, no one was complaining that they could never catch up. At the end, I expected to seize the lead over Mike with my large set of action cards (having the majority in any of the three flavors affords an eight point bonus). Imagine my surprise to discover that I was one down in EACH of the flavors, gaining no bonus points, and falling back from second to third position. Mike ended with a decisive lead. That makes two for our Marvelous Main Man Mike Mechler.

Meanwhile, Mark Johnson and others were whipping each other with Mit List und Tuecke.

Don't give up on Wongar, folks. Play it the right way and come back with your thoughts.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

(Debbie, Alan, Torben, Asher)

It was a night of new games at Billabong this week, with Silberzwerg and Nicht die Bohne at the other table, and Wongar and Castle at ours. We started with Wongar, which I'd wanted to try since hearing about it from Nürnberg this year. We ploughed into the rules (the ones on Brett & Board, and made a start.

Right away we got rules wrong about the scorpion cards, which meant that the game went veeeery slow at first. Asher picked up the mistake eventually and we decided that the scores were likely way off, and that we should just play the rest of the game to get the mechanisms right. By the end of the game we'd figured out those and were just starting to learn some of the strategies, after which the game was all over.

The scores evened out nicely after we got the scorpion rules right, and at one stage all four of us were in adjacent spots on the scoring track. Through luck I managed to be almost the only player present in a board space when a double-ancient-elder card popped up there, netting me a very healthy number of points, enabling me to hold on for a Not Really A Victory after the final bonuses were tallied.

I definitely want to try this game again, and unless I have seriously misjudged the game, I don't see what all the fuss is about with the game being broken. I put this game in the same category as a lot of the other Alan Moon creations, of light-hearted family fare with more than a modicum of luck.

No final scores (they weren't remotely correct), but I rate the game a 6 after a first half-playing, meaning that I'll gladly play it again, and possibly even suggest it.

Thread: Session Report

PBrennan — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Played Wongar for the second time last night, again using all the advanced rules. In fact each of the 5 players had a game under their belt which made for some interesting group-think dynamics. Everyone started hoarding cards from the beginning, the 'pick up 4 rite cards' card being the favourite, until there were no cards left by the time we were in the second scoring table.

Then the phoney way began. Each player was waiting until the scorpions hit the third scoring table where maximum points from the ceremonies could be achieved before using their rite cards. The phoney war was lengthened by a number of negotiated settlements (we allowed table talk, if you pass, I'll pass, we get to keep our cards and both score) which meant few rite cards were returned.

As the wait for the scorpions lengthened, I baled out of the phoney war first, running my cards down, controlling an area, scoring it a few times and getting out to a decent lead in the hope that the final scorpion cards would come out in a hurry and I wouldn't be caught. It almost worked, but sadly I was equalled and then surpassed on the final turn by our very own RichardV. In retrospect, I wish I'd been taking notice of which areas hadn't had scorpion cards appear yet and focussing on turning cards from these.

But the question I had was ... do you allow table talk and negotiated settlements? Our first game seemed much tenser and more enjoyable where it wasn't allowed. Last night seemed, well, anti-climactic really, gathering rite cards and going through the motions until the end-game came along. There was little point being the elder as there were no cards to pick up.

The post-game critique centred around the imbalance of value in the area cards (the 'pick 4 rite cards' card being the most favoured) and the chaos factor - its difficult to plan too far ahead as the tjurunga's are continually moving in/out and off/on. I know I'm still struggling with the best way to play this (which is a good replayability thing) but there is the fear that the chaos factor may be too high. Actually, thinking back, maybe its only an issue with 5 players as I don't remember thinking that with 4.

It was a meaty 2 hours though. We promised ourselves a 'speed' Wongar, but we couldn't do it ... too much re-analysis to do to play well. By the way, while the artwork does use a few recognisable Aboriginal motifs, the consensus was that creative license has been employed liberally :-)

Thread: Session Report

cwmassey — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Wongar: Pat, Dave, Carrie, Richard, and myself: My first playing of this one. I won't go into much detail other than I liked the game and will have a much better idea of what I'm doing on the next play. Dave and Carrie weren't so enthusiastic. Dave was left behind early and never was able to get back into it. Pat and Richard dueled for the lead with Pat taking an impressive win. Pat and I enjoyed it and I definitely want to play again before giving it a more definite rating.

Thread: Session Report

BoardGameGeek — 2001-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Stewart showed up with a armful of games of which I coveted at least one. With 5 people we jumped into a game of Wongar, one of Karen’s favorites. As a three-player game it is great but a little less satisfying with five. It
was still a good game but there were a lot of ceremonies that involved only half the group. Marianna sat out most of the battles. Good thing she was the cook (I’ll pay for that). This game has been maligned on the web but I think it is a fantastic game. I can not buy that luck plays such an important part in the game. Except for a draw 4 cards card everything is pretty balanced. It has also been stated that it is an ugly game but I feel it is one of the most beautiful out there. The board is busy without being
distracting and the cards are drop dead gorgeous. With three types of counters in five colors each scattered over the board the game was visually striking and pleasant to look at during the game. We all had to pay close attention to the game due to Karen and Stephen’s frequent attempts to cheat by using ritual cards to bring extra men from their stockpile into battles. I have a funny feeling that this mistake is made quite often. We took a brief timeout (pun intended) to eat and watch the last six minutes of my
beloved Kings loss to the Lakers. The ending to the game was less then satisfying and I do need to check if I missed a rule. On my last turn I had the elder and ancestor and was stung 3 times by scorpions that took me out of first place and ended the game. Marianna won and was quite surprised by it, as she was not really involved in it that much. As I have said the end game may have been unsatisfying because of a missed rule (of which I am
infamous for), pure luck or just not being a good five player game. This game is still highly recommended by me.

Thread: User Review

BoardGameGeek — 2000-08-09T12:46:07+00:00

I've been hesitant to purchase the newer releases of Alan Moon's. Most of the feedback I've read on the newsgroup points negatively towards many of his newer releases (including Andromeda, Wongar and Time Pirates). However, in this case, I'm glad I went against public opinion. This newer release is one of the better games released this year, and one that is often enjoyed at Chambana Board Gamer sessions.

Essentially, players compete in ten different areas to maximize points by having the majority of each of three types of Aboriginal Indian tokens (represented by disks, cylinders and cubes). Each area contains fifteen area cards. One card in each area is exposed at the start of the turn by the player assuming the role of "The Ancient". Another player, called the "Elder", gets to draw a ritual card. Then, in clockwise order, the players may take one of the exposed area cards and complete the action indicated. The actions consist of players adding tokens of their colors to that area, taking ritual cards from the ritual card deck or starting a ceremony in the area. Ceremonies are the major scoring element in the game. Since in the basic game 1/3 of the area deck contains ceremony cards, lots of scoring will entail.

And ceremonies are certainly the highlights. During a ceremony, players play ritual cards to try to obtain a majority in the area where the ceremony is being performed. The cards allow the removal of an opposing player's token from the board, or a transfer of a token from an adjacent region to the ceremony region (or vice versa). Only players with tokens present at the ceremony may participate. Hence, if your one token is removed from the area, you are out the rest of the time. The ceremony proceeds until all players either withdraw or are eliminated from the site. The tokens that survived are then counted by color and scoring goes to the highest in each of the three token categories (ties resolve with the player closest clockwise to the
"Ancient").

To make matters more interesting, you don't know when the game will end. This is resolved in a technique reminiscent of the card drawing in Get the Goods and Union Pacific. Two scorpion cards are mixed into each area deck and the ritual deck. When one of these cards is revealed, the time block is moved forward. When twelve scorpions have been revealed (or when one area card deck has been depleted), the game ends. In addition, the player who revealed the scorpion card gets "stung" and loses up to four points (actually the number of loss points equals the number of players behind the existing "stung" player - basically a way to slow players that are ahead). As the scorpions advance, the scoring for a ceremony increases. It also varies depending on whether the "Ancient", "Elder" or "Ancient/Elder" combo cards are selected from an area.

Upon initial play, we played with slightly incorrect rules. However, this greatly improved the game in our opinion. During a ceremony, if a player qualifies for competing in the ceremony, but eventually has all their tokens removed from the given area, we still allow them to play ritual cards. This raises the tension for combat in a given area and forces players to balance struggle for an area versus ritual cards to keep. We also recommend you play using the advanced rules. This limits the number of "Ancient" and "elder" cards found in each area deck and allows the players to plan a little more in advance on where an effective ceremony can be held.

If you haven't played this one, it deserves a closer look. With the first three variants suggested on our Variants page, the game is vastly improved and deserves a solid 8.5.

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BoardGameGeek — 2000-07-09T18:09:37+00:00

Wongar is an excellent "placement game," not unlike El Grande in the sense that the main object is to put tokens into regions in a way that will score the most points.

The theme is the rituals of Australian Aborigines, but the theme exists only for atmosphere as the game itself has as much to do with Australian Aborigines as El Grande does with Spanish Cabelleros. The board consists of 10 regions; the tokens come in three types - cylinders (the most scarce), cubes, and discs (the most abundant). Each of the regions contains an identical deck of cards. At the start of a round, the top card in each of the 10 regions is turned over. These cards become the "action cards" available to players on that round (note: the cards contain only symbols; there is no text on them). Some cards allow placement of one or more of the various types of tokens. Some allow cards to be drawn from the ritual (battle) deck, a set of larger cards used to resolve conflicts in a region for scoring. Some cards allow combinations of token placement and ritual card drawing. Still others allow movement of male and female elder figures between regions.

It is the movement of an elder into a region that triggers a ritual battle. These are resolved by the play of ritual cards, which allow players to eliminate opponents' tokens from the region or to move their own tokens into and out of the region. When all players have elected to play no more cards, the ritual battle is over and the region is scored. Points are awarded to each player who has a majority in one of the three types of tokens. The number of points can depend on which elder triggered the battle as well as whether it's early or late in the game (with the points available increasing as the game progresses).

Control of the elders also yields benefits. The player who controls the male elder is the start player each turn, while the one who controls the female elder gets an extra ritual battle card, which can be scarce. The game ends after a certain number of "scorpion" cards is turned over - these can come from either the region decks or the ritual card deck.

My one experience with Wongar to date was in a three-player game and it worked extremely well. Plusses: A good number of decisions available in terms of which region (action) card to take, where to place which tokens, how many cards to commit in a ritual battle; works well in the category of a resource management game, as you always want more cards and tokens in play than you have, so you have to be very careful how you use what you do have; nicely competitive in that there always seems to be courses of action open to players to keep everyone in the game. Minusses: This is not one of the German games that will wow you with the components. Although the artwork is very original and makes the theme, the bits are mostly refugees from a bead factory clearance sale and some will tend to roll around; I've heard comments that the ritual battle deck may be unbalanced in that the cards either let you move one or two pieces in/out of a region, and if you don't have any "doubler" cards you have a decided disadvantage. While this is obviously true, I didn't see it as a crippling problem as there seemed to be enough "doubler" cards in the deck that this should usually even out through the course of a game.