WARNING---THIS IS A VERY LONG REVIEW!



1. INTRODUCTION
Describing a game as complex as Revolution is not exactly an easy task. The rules are extensive, and there are so many interdependencies that any shortcuts immediately lead to questions elsewhere. If you already know the rules you can skip to section 4.

Revolution has the Dutch independence war, known to the locals as the Tachtigjarige Oorlog as its main theme. The war was fought between 1568 and 1648 against Spain, and saw the birth of the Netherlands as a seperate and independent nation at the end. The conflict had many sides: religious—--the Netherlands wanted freedom of religion and freedom from the abomination of the catholic Inquisition, financial—--rich cities being drained of their money for conquests they had no interest in, and social--—the local nobility wanted to stay in charge, but with a powerful middle class that was not exactly easy. Things were on a slow simmer for many years until they violently erupted in 1568.

Revolution casts between two and five players into the role of leaders of the five most important factions of that time in an attempt to recreate the tension, scheming, uproar and military manoeuvring of those days. Those five roles are Catholics, Habsburgs, Nobility, Burghers, and Reformers. A sixth faction is at the command of all players, and thus neutral. The game also simulates the support of many foreign groups and royal courts via an elegant mechanism unsurprisingly dubbed support. All players are represented by a number of beautiful square unit tokens which double for money. A much smaller set represents the armed forces at your command.



2. BASIC GAME ELEMENTS
The game lasts for five-and-a-half game turns. The first turn is a subset of a full turn, hence the half. Each full game turn takes twenty different steps, some of which can be skipped or resolved cocurrently, depending on the situation. The important steps are resolved in sequential play order; that order can be changed only at the end of a turn, but more on this later. The total playing time is very dependent on the number of players and their skill: I am inclined to agree with the numbers on the box (between 4 and 8 hours), with the addition that you add one extra hour for each player who is inexperienced. In other words, you’re in for a long session.

Revolution is a game without any luck whatsoever, and the complex interdependencies make it genuinely hard to develop decent strategies. Don’t suggest it to inexperienced players, and even think twice if your gaming group has Euphrates & Tigris or Java (just to name a few ‘Eurogames’ with above average demand for brain power) for breakfast.

The objective of the game is to score the most victory points after the final game turn. The first way is controlling a province or city by having a clear majority. This gets you a province or city card, fancy certificates of ownership. Very small provinces only give you points at the end of the game, so at first glance ruling them is not interesting. (Glances are deceiving, however.) The second way to obtain victory points depends on what faction you represent. Catholics get points for catholic bishoprics, Habsburgs for military presence, Nobility for countryside support, Burghers for control of trading towns, and Reformers for control of universities. Each faction therefore has different goals to pursue, and this adds quite a lot of variety to the game.

All points are added together at the end of a game turn, and then the new player order for the next game turn is established. This is done by laying down the faction cards in a row in descending point order. Since you can lay down your card anywhere, the ‘winner’ has no say of where he ends up, and the ‘loser’ can chose as he pleases. Being first in the player sequence offers you a few interesting tactical advantages, but these are offset by the fact that you have to go first.

Awarded points are reset to zero (meaning they are not cumulative across game turns) and a new turn begins.

The game is played on a beautiful, but quite crowded board depicting the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxemburg, and small parts of France and Germany in the late 16th century. Every square inch of the board is used, making for a rather difficult overview. (Civilization players will recall the mess that can occur in the Greek peninsula: this is similar.) You get used to it after a while, but it is tiring. The crowdedness is due to the depiction of all scoring and information tables plus the support boxes for the support from foreign groups. A separate board for these tables would not have been a great improvement, but it would have been improvement nonetheless.

The map is divided into large areas coloured in similar hues known as regions. Regions are subdivided into at most three of four provinces, and most provinces boast a number of cities and towns. Regions are home to armies, which are placed in a command block. Command blocks can contain a limited amount of armies. Armies of different factions are very likely to go to war, and whoever remains can peform military actions in the region: besieging cities or influencing towns.
Influencing a town is merely replacing a normal resource unit already present with one of your own, quite an insidious way of gaining a foothold. Because cities can hold more than one unit token, they cannot be influenced, but they can be besieged, which is just as damaging. In addition, cities are easily influenced by that most ancient of lubricants: money. Sometimes this even allows Catholics and Reformers to sneak in units of their own colour, in extreme cases even converting the entire city to one of their own.

Apart from victory points, provinces bring you a modest income in the form of taxes. They are also subject to a province limit, which puts an upper boundary to the amount of tokens that can reside in the area before conflict and overflow ensue. Cities give you much more taxes and new units, and must therefore be hotly pursued. Towns are for the most part a bit boring, but they can really boost the amount of new units you obtain if you control the associated towns mentioned on a city card.

Also on the game board are the already mentioned support boxes. These tables allow players to receive aid from various external sources, like for example the Calvinists, the Jesuits, or the French Nobility. Support can come in pure manpower or money, or both, and each type of support is awarded to at most two different factions. There are certain restrictions to where you can place that manpower, but in many cases it is in interesting and otherwise hard-to-reach areas. In addition, having units in support boxes entitles you to new units as well, turning them into a long-term investment for new cannon fodder.



3. GAME MECHANICS
The rule book does a satisfactory job of explaining what happens during each phase in a game turn. There are a few omissions and minor inconsistencies, but most have been addressed in Phalanx’ official FAQ. However, the documents do not prepare you for the myriad of interdependencies and tough choices you will face in the course of the game. Everything you do affects everybody else, if not directly, then indirectly. And that will ultimately come back to yourself again. That does not mean that it is just all uncontrolled chaos, but it does mean you have to keep your priorities very clear in mind. Sidestepping is dangerous and very likely fatal.

For example, Habsburgs but especially Catholics need to be very careful with their armies, as they cost nearly twice as much money as it does for Burghers and Reformers. You need a healthy financial base if your fancy runs to conquest, but be careful not to overextend yourself. Burghers face other problems: the towns they must occupy are practically defenseless, so they can either decide for damage control, or adopt a more active role to prevent them from falling into enemy hands in the first place. Which means taking firm control of provinces and keeping out enemy armies, thus creating conflict between them and anyone else having a direct interest there, like the Nobility or the Habsburgs. There’s quite a lot more of these interdependencies around.

The rules allow for any kind of negotiation between players provided it is not conducted in secret and that it doesn’t break any rule. It makes most sense to do this between ideologically similar factions, but there is nothing prohibiting a Reformer and Catholic being the best buddies in the world.

Management of your supply of player units deserves attention as they double for money too. If you have lots of money, you are automatically short on units and vice versa. That is not necessarily bad, as you will be a force to be reckoned with in either case, but it may not be the kind of force you had in mind for yourself. Plus that it will take one game turn at least to balance matters, and makes you vulnerable to attacks in the area where you are lacking.

Burghers and Reformers can call upon the temporary aid of the partizans of the 16th century, the Water beggars. These fellows offer a number of very useful military services (for a price), from lifting city sieges to preventing enemy armies from moving or exerting influence. Their strength lies in their hit-and-run tactic, which can seriously delay a swift campaign.

The way in which control in a province is established resembles that of Civilization: If after placing new units on the board there are more units than the province limit allows, the excess is removed through conflict. The smallest faction removes one unit, followed by the next-smallest faction, and so on, until the number of remaining units equals the limit. If the opponents run out before the limit is reached, the remainder is allowed to overflow into neighbouring provinces. Rivers can be used here. However, overflow is rare; you tend to rely more on military encroachment and placement of support tokens in designated areas instead. Here is where the at first glance worthless small provinces may offer a strategical advantage. Since whomever controls such province can place as much units as he pleases prior to conflict and overflow, these provinces can serve as useful ‘breeding grounds’, especially when one considers they often have rivers running through them.

After overflow, the pecking order in a province is established. The person with the most units there is allowed to reposition his own units, as well as those of the neutral faction, at will. He can add them all to a city, or take others out of towns and replace them with his own. Then the player with the next-largest faction can position his units, but he is not allowed to touch the units already positioned. And so on. This very sneaky tactic can completely change the outlook of a player in a single turn.

However, keep in mind that there is still the phase of corrupting honest citizens before it is determined who truly has control of a city. It forces you to pay close attention to your own strategy, but also to the capabilities of other players. That is also the reason why players with lots of money are very dangerous: they can literally buy a city in a single bold stroke, after you went through all the dirty business of a military conflict.



4. OPINION
Writing an opinion about Revolution is not the easy task I envisaged it would be. The game is simply too complex to get a good idea after a single session. My current opinion is based on a total of six games: two with three factions, four with four factions. You will understand why I am so precise in a few moments.

When I first got the game, I began with reading the rules. They are fairly well-organised, but contain a number of small errors and omissions which need clarification before you begin your first game. Fortunately, the FAQ addresses most of them, so make sure you read that alongside the rules booklet. It is a small, but significant blemish: development took many years, and as far as I know, the publication was not rushed. Rule-writing is always difficult, and doubly so for a complex game like Revolution, but still.

I get a similar feeling when looking at the game board. The artwork itself is beautiful, but crowded and cramped. The tiny provinces along the river Maas are murder on anyone with big fingers, and Holland and Utrecht are so stuffed with cities and command blocks that there is no way to put in units without parking them in the sea or a different province. Then there are little oddities: for example, why have some names been translated into English (Generality, North Sea, Water beggars), when the rest is in old Dutch? (By the way, according to many history books the official English name for the Water beggars is Sea beggars.) Why is there a meaningless addition of 'province garrison' in the command block of Utrecht? And so forth. Again, small but significant little blemishes.

The artwork of the playing pieces is great. There could have been more contrast between the figure and the coloured background, as under certain light it is difficult to tell colours apart. But they are sturdy, well-centered, and of good quality. They are a little slippery, so take care not to pick up a stack of them between thumb and forefinger!

After reading the rules, I got the impression this would be one corker of a game. So much to do, so much to take into account. Elegant Tresham-like mechanics. Asymmetric starting positions. Different faction objectives, yet all comparable in terms of victory points. And yet... After playing with it for a few times I’ve come to the conclusion that that wonderful game doesn’t appear. It remains hidden in your mind. It will take a while to explain this conclusion, so please bear with me.

The first thing which immediately struck me when I began my first game is that Revolution is difficult. Not because of the simple, elegant, and very Tresham-like rules of the various phases, but simply because of their sheer number and the fact that for the first few games you really don’t have a clue as to what you are doing. The fact that the rules of the very first, half-complete game turn are slightly different from those that follow is not helping at all. I have lost count of the times people exclaimed in frustration that had they known X would not occur before Y, they would not have done Z! And that despite the player guides. Fortunately, once you have the rules in your head that feeling subsides. But then comes the really hard part: the myriad of interdependencies makes it difficult for you to develop a strategy which will secure you the victory. The fact that the different factions have various goals in mind and demand their own style of play means that you will have to play for a long, long time before you have truly mastered this game. All in all, in my opinion the complexity in Revolution is bordering on the unmanagable: it is without doubt the most complex game I have ever played or owned. It will take dedicated, persistent and enthusiastic people to crack the game.

Enthusiasts will immediately point out that here is finally a game which has richness and depth in spades, so perhaps it is my inexperience with complexity which is tripping me up. Could be, could be. I still say it a tough nut to crack and chew.

The rules state that Revolution knows no ideal number of players. During the first games with four factions, I and my fellow players noticed that playing the Reformers is not a fun job at all. In fact, it is a miracle if they survive: the resource presence and financial power of the Catholics and Habsburgs combined is so great that the Reformers are forced to the edges of the game board. Their only hope is a permanent alliance with the Burghers. Negotiations like this are explicitly allowed by the rules, but it gets so little attention that you more or less forget it once you get to the important bits. So we forgot all about it and tried to do well on our own. This is, admittedly, a blunder, but in my defense I would like to point out that it is very hard to forge interesting alliances when they are not allowed to be made in secret (as in Diplomacy). Negotiations complicate an already complex game, and quite frankly, I find the idea that you actually need them worrisome. I did not anticipate to be playing a negotiating game.

Now play a game with three factions, in other words, take out Burghers and Habsburgs, and add the Nobility. Yowza! The Reformers steamroll across the board, and things for the Catholics look very grim indeed at the end. They need help from the Nobility, but as ill luck would have it, the hinterland of Nobility and Catholics is overlapping, so they are fighting each other with the Reformers acting as the lucky dog who got the bone. Plus, and this is really insidious, if the Nobility take charge of a city or town where a Reformed university stood, that university is not abolished, nor does it change alignment. In other words, the Reformers can happily neglect their former base of power, proceed to make life really, really difficult for the Catholics, and still get victory points for it! Err.

I haven’t played the game with all five factions, so I don’t know what will happen if you do. I expect another major shift in power, with the Reformers holding out better than in the four-faction game, and the Habsburgs and Burghers doing somewhat less due to the fact that the Nobility is competing with them. It is very well possible that only in the five-faction game you can get away without any negotiation whatsoever. However, this is still speculation on my part.

So now we have the situation that not only do you need to adapt your strategy according to what faction you play, but also to the number of players. That is normal in boardgames, but I have never seen the extremes of Revolution. You can think of it as a brilliant design on behalf of Tresham, to make sure that his game has tremendous variety. You can also think of it as unstable design, as the game is fluctuating all over the place. You can go as far as to call it imbalanced with, perhaps, negotiations applying the necessary stability. But since I never played with negotiations, I am not using that word. (It seems like nitpicking, but I hope you understand my line of thought.)

I also noticed that games had a tendency to show similar standoffs and conflicts. For example, a Catholic in the high north is a rare sight, as is a Reformer in the deep south. There always seems to be fierce competition over Utrecht, Gelderland and Flanders. Köln, Artois and Hainault are Catholic strongholds. With four factions, it is the Burghers who seize control of Holland. Friesland and Groningen tend to be glued to the Reformers. There are a number of reasons for these nearly programmed similarities, and these sum up the main gripes I have with Revolution.

To begin with, they are a direct consequence of the way the board was set up in the beginning. Catholics are predominantly located in the south, Burghers are located in Holland. Since moving out of your own little area into someone elses is difficult, you tend to stay put, and remain loyal to your roots. But there is more. Support, the mechanism which gives you the opportunity to go for a surprise attack, is limited to a certain number of areas. Reformers can only do this in a province where a university is located, and those are mostly in the north. The Nobility get support only if they attack from Germany or France. And so forth. So the game more or less forces you into certain prescribed attack strategies from which deviation is almost impossible. As a result, players can concentrate much more easily on their own little world, knowing they are relatively safe from outside attacks.

Yes, indeed, you are. Unfortunately. The way the attack mechanisms are set up means that it takes a tremendous amount of effort in order to dislodge a player from a province once he owns the province card. The reason: he can add any number of his own units to that province; you, as assailant, can only add the number you already have present. (With additional support to that province, as described above.) In practice that means that if someone wants to keep you out, he will manage to do that, quite easily. Only a direct support invasion from Reformers, or an attack from various sides (hopefully resulting from a negotiated agreement?) has a chance of succeeding. But since that ties up all of the resources of the attackers and defender, it is usually someone else who benefits.

So you try military measures first. Armies can besiege cities, but only if they survive their own conflicts. More often than you’d like, you’re stuck in a stand-off: a situation when two opposing armies occupy the same command block. You cannot do anything useful in this situation, except move away. However, if you do manage to hold on to an army, you can do a lot of damage. But that attack must immediately be followed by another, otherwise you are forced back out due to the ability of the defender. In other words, military conquest, while promising at first, is expensive, slow and problematic.

The rules allow for an action known as overflow: if at one point in the game you have more pieces in a province than the limit allows, you can move these to other neighbouring provinces, provided they have room. At first glance this offers the solution to the slow encroachments, but alas, it is quite ineffective in practice. Provinces are nearly always filled to the brim, and you cannot overflow into an already full province. There is one exception: if the neighbouring province is filled to the limit, but not completely by player resources, it still has room. This rule change was proposed by Phalanx Games to make the game more dynamic, but I doubt you will see overflow happen often in four- or five-faction games. Neutral pieces are a nuisance, so you kick them out as soon as possible, and after that overflow disappears. You can apply a little trick to force neutral units in there, but that requires the defender to not have a particular interest in that province in the first place. Which really says a lot about the effectiveness of overflow.

And then, once you have succesfully beaten the odds and taken over an important city... you discover that the alignment of its citizens is all wrong, had forgotten to save up money, and thus lack the financial resources to keep the original owner out who happily buys his way back in. Not a pleasant moment, I can assure you. It is here that the presence or absence of the Nobility is felt most greatly. The Nobility can work against or for the religious factions, and in practice that means that they make it harder (read: more expensive) for the catholic factions to buy their way back into cities. Without the Nobility, the Habsburgs and Catholics use citizens allegiance as a weapon to force out unwanted intruders, and prepare key cities for their arrival.

To make a long story short: the game grinds to a halt and becomes slow and suffocating. Playing aggressively is suicide for all factions except the Reformers because of very strong defenses. Successful attacks require players to gang up on a single victim. Players build up a stronghold, and then proceed to pick off interesting bits of other empires. Conflicts run along predictable lines, irrespective of the factions playing the game. In the fifth game turn you see some daring movements in order to secure points, and in the final game turn, everyone pours armies, units and what not onto the board in the hope of keeping others from scoring. After so many hours of plotting, difficult maneuvring and complex attack plans, it comes as an anti-climax. The stark contrast between carefulness and recklesness is painful to see.

After re-reading the above which, let’s be honest, is not pretty, I get the uneasy feeling I am missing something very important. The fact that numerous other people have also noticed these issues is worrying to say the least. If ‘negotiations’ turn out to be the answer, then you should really look at Revolution with a completely different mindset than I had when I began playing. The question then becomes, how can I entice other players, who are just as frightened of doing something as I, into doing something which benefits me, and perhaps someone else? Revolution turns into a very complex Diplomacy in that case. But does that justify the entire machinery of armies, support, citizens allegiance and what not? I am still hoping to find an answer to this question, but I fear it won’t be answered as my gaming group is not the negotiating type.

Another possible explanation is the fact that the phase order for overflow and conflict is reversed with respect to Civilization. That means that you cannot invade a province by simply stacking a lot of units in a neighbouring one, move in, and then fight it out. Such a change would make attack a whole lot easier, weaken defense, strengthen overflow (and turn river cities into interesting strategical spots) and make the tiny worthless provinces extremely dangerous neutral zones. I am still puzzling whether this would be a Good Idea or not. Some changes would have to be made to make sure armies are not neglected (movement only to areas where you have armies?), but with a game of this complexity it is hard to say in advance what will happen.

So is there anything good about the entire current machinery? Well, if anything, there is tremendous subtlety involved: you should really look very carefully at the board to decide the best course of action. Pure power is probably just as important as intelligent maneuvring and negotiation. Attacks, if succesful, are hard-fought and well-earned. Winning the game by a masterful plan is a crowning achievement.

Too bad there’s just so much opposition against you excecuting your Master Plan...



5. CONCLUSION
You can take my opinion two ways: you can either say ‘flawed design’, sell off your (perhaps still shrinkwrapped) numbered copy, and vocally speak out against Revolution whenever people ask about it. You can equally well say ‘brilliant design’, pointing out that there is now finally a game which really excercises the brain, requires completely different strategies in order to win, depending on which faction you play and how much factions there are, and some shrewd political manoeuvring in order to cut others short. And, well, people were always complaining about simple games, and now that they have a complex game, it’s over the top... There’s just no pleasing people, right?

In the end, I think that it depends on what you and your friends plan on doing in the time that you play Revolution. If you have lots of spare time, don’t mind the long and steep learning curve, enjoy the fact that things are always slow and subtle, victories are always well-earned, negotiations are probably just as much a weapon as your mind, then Revolution is for you. In all other cases, give it a whirl just to say you’ve seen and played it, and try not to think about it too much. You simply must have experienced the feeling of sitting behind this truly complex boardgame.

Of course you are now wondering about my opinion, which should be fairly obvious by now. I don’t think Revolution is a great game in its current form. It is certainly not bad, but it is too complex for what it does, too stagnant for what it promises after a thorough rule reading. I have tried to remove all comparisons to Civilization (the only other Tresham game I have played) from this review, as it creates completely wrong expectations. If I compare them both now, I guess the fact that I will play Civilization any day, and shy away from suggesting Revolution says it all. The former is easier to learn, has more variation thanks to the somewhat random disasters, and simply gives the player a feeling of control. Revolution works much more against the player, to the point where you feel the game is playing you: the script has already been written, and you are allowed to make a few minor changes as it unfolds before your eyes and those of your opponents.

I will try my hand at negotiation and the phase reordering suggestion and see what happens. Best of all would be of course if a Revolution guru came along, explained Where I Went Wrong, and turned it into the corker I had imagined it must have been all along.

Maarten,
Thank you for the very thorough review and for your well thought-out opinion! It was worth the wait.

cymric (#88969),
Tremendous review! My group has played the game 3 times now, and most of us come away shaking our heads, not really knowing what the hell happened, but it sure was fun!

We're going to give it another go soon. This game amazes me, but I don't know WHY yet. Very weird feeling.

Enthusiasts will immediately point out that here is finally a game which has richness and depth in spades, so perhaps it is my inexperience with complexity which is tripping me up. Could be, could be. I still say it a tough nut to crack and chew.
• No denying that this game requires a serious study of the rules, and I think at least two games to capture and understand the mechanics involved. If you do however, it becomes a superb game!! That requires you to think ahead at least one turn, for bad planning can put you in a bad position. (Static)

During the first games with four factions, I and my fellow players noticed that playing the Reformers is not a fun job at all. In fact, it is a miracle if they survive.
• Sorry to tell you this, but this is a typical problem of an inexperienced Reformed player. If well played Reformers should at least be able to conquer and hold Utrecht first turn, put one unit in Friesland or Groningen and with a bit of luck maintain one city in Holland. Well played, the Reformers are one of the toughest faction to cope with. Problem is that it’s very hard to compensate a bad opening with Reformers.

Now play a game with three factions, in other words, take out Burghers and Habsburgs, and add the Nobility. Yowza! The Reformers steamroll across the board, and things for the Catholics look very grim indeed at the end.
• Same problem, though Catholics might have a problem if they don’t succeed in securing Brabant/Hainault! But usually Catholics should be able to hold onto Utrecht! Reformers have an option to roll over the board if the Nobility player gives away Holland. The main issue here is denying the Reformers conquest of Holland and Flanders, and preferably keep them out of the Southern part of the Netherlands. If that happens, oops… if they stay up in the North, well let them, there are not that many points up there any way. And each resource locked on the board is one less problem! Nobility is sort or less in between the two parties, prevent easily capture of Holland and if possible Brabant by the other parties and hold onto Aachen. You can reach most parts of the board, except North-East, use this wisely. And Catholics.. they are up for a challenge, but usually 5 of your 6 bonus victory points are secured!

I haven’t played the game with all five factions, so I don’t know what will happen if you do.
• I think I like the game best with five. Most interaction between players, and hardest situation to predict the outcome. Although Nobility can be very annoying if they use one money to prevent your conquest of a city in Flanders!

You can think of it as a brilliant design on behalf of Tresham, to make sure that his game has tremendous variety. You can also think of it as unstable design, as the game is fluctuating all over the place.
• Wouldn’t call it unstable, though there is some room for improvement! The fact that there is no option to move populace to a neighbouring province seems illogical. Fact is that a different number of players, requires a different style of play.

I also noticed that games had a tendency to show similar standoffs and conflicts.
• Opening is standard, power base of Burghers and Habsburgers are also standard. Although the interesting thing is, if you somehow manage to kill these bases of power, these factions become quite powerless.

So the game more or less forces you into certain prescribed attack strategies from which deviation is almost impossible. As a result, players can concentrate much more easily on their own little world, knowing they are relatively safe from outside attacks.
• Point taken, it takes some serious planning to conquer a province on the board once occupied. At least two turns I’d say. But there are no positions on the board that are impenetrable. Habsburgers, if well played can also threaten Holland!

In practice that means that if someone wants to keep you out, he will manage to do that, quite easily.
• Nope, see previous answer.

So you try military measures first. Armies can besiege cities, but only if they survive their own conflicts. In other words, military conquest, while promising at first, is expensive, slow and problematic.
• Conquest costs money, which in reality was one of the reasons Spain didn’t manage to conquer the whole of the Spanish Netherlands to begin with. Through it can cost a lot of money, especially if you’re Catholic, but gains can be substantial.

The rules allow for an action known as overflow: if at one point in the game you have more pieces in a province than the limit allows, you can move these to other neighbouring provinces, provided they have room. but I doubt you will see overflow happen often in four- or five-faction games. Neutral pieces are a nuisance, so you kick them out as soon as possible, and after that overflow disappears. You can apply a little trick to force neutral units in there, but that requires the defender to not have a particular interest in that province in the first place. Which really says a lot about the effectiveness of overflow.
• True, overflow is useful in the early game, to occupy positions on the board.


And then, once you have succesfully beaten the odds and taken over an important city... you discover that the alignment of its citizens is all wrong, had forgotten to save up money, and thus lack the financial resources to keep the original owner out who happily buys his way back in. Not a pleasant moment, I can assure you. It is here that the presence or absence of the Nobility is felt most greatly.
• Fun thing is, that alignment of citizen is especially powerful for the reformed factions, which in the beginning usually don’t have the money to capitalize on this. OK this can be an annoyance for reformed factions, but as long as you allocate three units to a city there’s not that much of a problem. (ie. For Burghers this means in Holland you have to invest in ONE city, to secure control of cities and the province)

To make a long story short: the game grinds to a halt and becomes slow and suffocating. Playing aggressively is suicide for all factions except the Reformers because of very strong defences. Successful attacks require players to gang up on a single victim. Players build up a stronghold, and then proceed to pick off interesting bits of other empires. Conflicts. After so many hours of plotting, difficult manoeuvring and complex attack plans, it comes as an anti-climax. The stark contrast between carefulness and recklessness is painful to see.
• Such is the game, final round means serious defence if you have it, serious offence if you don’t. All in all, good positions on the board usually means more resources and more power, so come and get it, I’d say!
• Other thing is that the moment the game threatens to come to a halt, support box movement in combination with military action becomes very important.

Revolution turns into a very complex Diplomacy in that case. But does that justify the entire machinery of armies, support, citizens allegiance and what not? I am still hoping to find an answer to this question, but I fear it won’t be answered as my gaming group is not the negotiating type.
• Revolution can be played very well without the negotiations, although you’re usually better of if you bring actions in line with one another. But also here the point applies that you need to know the rules of the game, what actions and options are available.

Well, if anything, there is tremendous subtlety involved: you should really look very carefully at the board to decide the best course of action. Pure power is probably just as important as intelligent maneuvring and negotiation. Attacks, if successful, are hard-fought and well-earned. Winning the game by a masterful plan is a crowning achievement.
• AGREE, if you like something more than pounding away on your opponent, let’s say risk, Revolution might be the game for you. Politics, economics, military power and citizen support all play an important role. Or so to say, this game has many layers, and to truly appreciate it you’d need to know and master each and every one of them!

Conquer Utrecht on the first turn? I find that quite an amazing feat, to be very honest. In any case, you describe exactly the situation I don't like about the Reformers---and don't forget, this is a 4-player game! Friesland, Groningen, 'with a bit of luck' one city in Holland, and 'with more than a bit of luck' and an unattending Catholic player, Utrecht. This was not as much caused by an inexperienced Reformer, but rather by the other factions seeing the size of the Calvinist support box and the price of their armies and cutting short very rigorously every move they made.

In addition, admittedly, I have never seen the Catholics holding on to Utrecht over the course of a game, but they made it an expensive and complex procedure for anyone wanting to conquer to province nonetheless.


Funny how the number of players influences the capability of a faction to hold onto a province, because now Utrecht is a Catholic stronghold all of a sudden. In any case, in my games the Nobility did not 'give away' Holland. They held as tight as they could, yet the Reformers still slowly wormed their way in thanks to their tremendous support ability. (We are talking 20 to 25 resource pieces of two factions each fighting it out. That's not giving away, that's all-out-winner-takes-all-war.) There was no stopping them, even if you wanted to. Unless, of course, you are prepared to give up your entire hinterland. Just like I said: when two factions are fighting a grim battle, it's usually someone else who benefits/profits.


Reformers will never stay in the North precisely because of the reason you mention: there are no points to be had there. Unless they are held there. And you cannot easily reach other parts of the board to a meaningful extent if your position is threatened; the rather crappy selection of areas where you can get support take care of that. With the exception of, of course, the Reformers, who can waltz into interesting provinces. For other players there are too many things to balance for a campaign to be effective.


But that's precisely the point, isn't it? You cannot kill bases of power, unless you play the Reformers and have managed to build up a nice hammerfist of support.


If well played and not too much bothered elsewhere, that is. And you are correct about the two turns. Which means: two turns bitter fighting, not strengthening your position just to gain a defensible position in a province. That is quite an investment to make.


I should have phrased that better. It takes a well-coordinated and really all-out attack to enter a province, otherwise the effort is effectively wasted. Anything less, and you're in for a world of hurt.


'As long as you allocatie three units to a city.' How do you do that, when you also have to pay for armies, require every man you can muster on the board to prevent someone from entering your province? Mind, you really need to have the Nobility present, otherwise it is open season for the catholic factions.


Which is still a very great and stark contrast to the 6 hours of strenuous and complicated plotting which preceeded it.


There is little else you can do, but as you already noted, it takes two turns for you to enter a province.

Despite my criticism, I appreciate your comments. You suggest the obvious things, which is good, means I'm not a total klutz with this game . However, what I miss is the fact that you have to make a choice between various evils, and that there really is very little reward coming with each of them. If you go for support, you lose out on immediate unit placement. If you really try to keep someone out of your province, you lose out on financials and citizen's allegiance. If you go for armies, prepare to spend a lot of money, and make sure you have the manpower to back it up. If you go for money, you lose out on immediate defense, but gain strength for armies, sea beggars or corruption. It is a devillish catch-22, and in all of my games, the problems became of such magnitude noone did anything interesting any more.

I will admit that if you manage to get the Reformers off to a good start, the opposition is in for a world of hurt. But let's not forget why that is the case: they can invade a province to a degree no other faction can; their armies are cheap; their bonus points for universities are pretty much in the bag once they've occupied a university city as it takes invastion of either Catholics or Habsburgs to undo the influence; and if they manage to get a city to Reformed alignment, it becomes entirely theirs. No other faction comes close in their abilities. The only problem they have is their difficult starting position, but if all other factions conspire to keep them down, they don't stand a chance. And that is precisely what people did in my 4-player games. Only in turn three were the shackles loosened, but by then they were too far behind to cause too much damage.

cymric (#88969),

Very thorough review. So thorough, in fact, that I see little point now in writing one of my own! I do disagree with some of your points, and certainly have reached different conclusions about the game. But I can address them here. However, I believe neither of us has played this game enough to really assess it fairly. I've played no 3-player and only one 4-player game (and the latter was not as satisfying as the two 5-players games I've played). So maybe I would reach the same conclusions as you have if I'd played only 3 and 4-player games. On the other hand, you may find the game is very different with 5-players.

My limited experience suggests that the game plays very differently depending on the number of players. That means that are a total of at least 12 different positions you can play (any one of the 3 factions in the 3-player game, 4 in the 4-player, 5 in the 5-player) - more if you consider using the Habsburgs and Burghers in the 3-player game. Depending on your point of view, this could be either a negative or positive aspect of Revolution. It is good in that each game could present you with a new challenge - finding a suitable strategy for that particular set-up. It is bad in that it is very difficult to develop experience, unless you always have the same number of players each time.

Another apsect of the game could be regarded either as good or bad - the "pre-programming" and the natural strength of factions in certain provinces. I find that this element of the game narrows down the scope and possibilities to manageable levels. For example, when I played the Nobility in my last game I ignored what was happening in most of the northern provinces. Even so, I had a number of choices to make regarding which provinces and cities I focussed on.

One part of the game which you may find to be significantly different in a 5-player game is that of holding and attacking provinces. In a 5-player game, each player only has 32 resource pieces. That means that it is expensive just to contol a large province and even more expensive to hold control against a strong attack. Maybe you won't even have enough resource markers available to defend. In my last game, I only had 7 or 8 resource markers available as new units in each of turns 3-5.

Cymric,

I'd like to address some of your points more directly, based on my experience with 5-player games.

Playing aggressively is generally not wise, but it can work in certain cases. You certainly don't need to gang up on a victim to make a successful attack. In our games players rarely worked together and certainly didn't make joint attacks. But there were a number of successful attacks against players possessing province cards. You can never be sure of success. But often the defender is only willing to put so many of their limited number of available resource markers into defending the province. Choose your target carefully and attack in sufficient force and the defender will probably surrender the province to you.


I agree that the final turn is too important and that there too stark a conrast between the slow and cautious earlier turns and the rather more decisive final turn. But what you describe bears little relation to the games I've played. By turn 5 (the final turn) there are not enough resource markers available for everyone to pour markers and armies onto the board. Rather, each player launched one or two selected attacks (such as besieging a city or taking one through Allegiance of Citizens), or used their armies and markers to defend one or two key provinces/cities. You can use your money (if you have enough) to buy 2 or 3 armies, but often players can't make effective use of extra armies in turn 5. Or if you already have 5 or 6 armies on the board, you'll need to spend much of your money on their upkeep. You might save your money to use in the Influence phase, particularly if you are the Reformers faction or are vulnerable to losing a city to the Reformers.


Again this description doesn't bear much resemblance to the games I've played. The games have been quite slow in turns 1-4, but only because some players spent a lot of time thinking or hesitating before making moves. Nevertheless interesting and sometimes surprising developments occured fairly often. The position of players on the Score Track changed quite significantly during the course of play, even before turn 5. And, yes, players developed "strongholds" but a number of provinces (and many cities) changed hands in each game.

We had a five-player game last Saturday wiht a full set of newbies. I had studied and solitaired the game a bit and so helped manage thingsm rahther than play myself. What I saw was about what I had seen in my solitaire excursion. Constipation occurred about mid game and endured through the end. All the players were wargamers and immediately went the military route. The result was that it was very difficult for anyone to break into someonr's base area. (Ethnic cleansing run amok.) Even the Calvinist parachutists are defanged when half of them are converted to Hapsburgs by three Austrian armies in Flanders. The Nobles broke the code very well and built an impregnable fortress stretching from Koln to Liege, holding the gray and green regions with full command boxes of green armies and walking away with the game. The Hapsburgs might have been able to find a solution but were perhaps a bit slow at recognizing the danger and so were unable to position armies in many areas. This game definitely needs some additional study.

FWIW, I've played the game twice. The first time was with 5 players and I had no idea what was going on. The second time was with 3 players, and I can honestly say that for an intense multiplayer game, this has got to be one of the best.

I only hope that they will issue a second version of the rules.

Phalanx is working on it. I look forward to it.

Wonderfully thorough review - thanks. Though I'd be very interested to hear if your opinion changes after a few five player games.

Does anyone who's played a few times know enough of the history to say how much the course of the game matches the actual or potential historical events?

Bought Revolution yesterday, & can't wait to inaugurate it. This current thread, & the leading review, are among the most stimulating & knowledgeable I've yet read on BGG.

Bottom line of the whole debate seems to be:

1) Play With a Full Five Players
2) Play With a Full Five Players
3) Play With a Full Five Players

Corollary a): Then, after many games of 5, and with a better understanding of the mechanics, tentatively move to a lower number of players.

Corollary b): Look forward to updated rules, &/or Second Edition of the Game.

I've played with 5 players, 4 players and 2 players and enjoyed them all. 2 players was much better than I expected going into it and is a good way for a couple of players to learn the game and the mechanics. It is also a GREAT way to see how valuable cooperating with your "ally" really is. Many players don't do enough dealmaking in the multiplayer games.

As for corollary (b), don't hold your breath for a Second Edition of the actual game. It was a good sized print run the first time and didn't sell quick enough to justify another print in the forseeable future. The updated rulebook though, is being worked on and will hopefully be out soon.

Actually I was considering to try and buy this game, it drew my attention for the single fact the subject is the 80 years war,
but after reading all the above, I'm not to sure if I should bother.

It all seems very, very complicated and to me sounds like a game you can only enjoy when you are in a game-group.
Allas, as I am not that lucky, I'll have to rely on the wife and kids to give it a go and from all I've read I get the impression it simply is far to complicated to play with the family.

I can just see us all shake our heads in dispair and in the end try and come up with our own (simple) set of rules to at least get some fun out of the purchase.
So maybe I shouldn't bother at all.

Thanks anyway for the very interesting report and comments, not to mention eductional. I never knew 'geuzen' were called 'sea-beggars', I reckon it was not something you'd call them to their face.