Preview: Ankh-Morpork – an Early Peek at the City

There's a lot of buzz around Ankh-Morpork, even though the game isn't due out until late in 2011, but the reasons for this are clear, of course: a new Martin Wallace design themed in the Discworld settings. Gamers who are also Terry Pratchett fans are champing at the bit to see how this combination will work.

I was lucky enough to play Ankh-Morpork three times recently thanks to Martin sending two copies of the prototype for hands-on testing at PLAY: The Games Festival, Italy's largest event for board gamers. (Advance preview copies at conventions are another big reason for the buzz!) Note that this preview is based on a prototype version of the design, so things might change in the published game. Let's start with the setting:

Quote:

Lord Vetinari is dead!.. or on holiday, or the victim of a kidnapping – or possibly all three. What you do know is that he's not around at the moment and the city is calling out for firm leadership. Trouble, as ever, is brewing among the streets of Ankh-Morpork. Through the careful placement of your many and various minions you can guide the city towards making a sensible choice about its future!

The game is set in Ankh-Morpork, with the game board showing the city being divided into twelve areas. By placing minions and buildings into various areas, the players try to fulfill the victory conditions displayed on the secret personality card they received at the start of the game. With seven personality cards in the game (and at most four players), you'll have to work to decipher what other players are looking for.

The game is played in turns, and on each turn a player plays one or more cards from his hand, then refills his hand to five cards. As you might expect then, the core of the game is all about the cards, of which there are 110 divided into two colors: blue cards for the first half of the game and red cards for the second half. (Blue cards have fewer actions and fewer events than red cards so you have time to set up strategy and build toward more in the later game.) You have to plan your actions, build your hand to prepare for particular moves, and check what other players are doing. As Martin stresses in the rules, it's important to know the different objectives of all seven personalities so that you can prevent other players from winning.

Each card displays one or more action icons, and when you play a card, you carry out some or all of the actions indicated on the card in left to right order, with the only mandatory action being the draw event. Cards allow you to place or remove minions, place buildings, remove trouble markers, take money or draw a random event card. Some cards allow you to immediately play another card, allowing you to build combos in your hand, then spring them on others. Most of the cards are played during your turn, but there are also interrupt cards and a lot of cards with special text. The theme of the game is reproduced well in the action cards, the event cards and the general flow of the game – and naturally there are demons and trolls!

You can place minions in any area where you already have minions or any area adjacent to one where you have a minion. If another player's minion is in that area, you place a trouble marker on that location (unless one is already present).

To place a building in an area, you must pay money and have a minion in the area; in return, you receive an area card that grants you a special ability that you can use once each turn. Areas bearing a black trouble marker are under contention, so no one can build in them. To remove a trouble marker, you must remove a minion from that troubled area.

The game flows well and easily, with the trouble marker rule being a big plus. When you're alone you can build, but as soon as another minion enters, the area becomes "troubled". Sure, you can remove the minion (and the associated trouble marker), but then you usually need to wait a turn before being able to build, so sometimes you look for other things to do.

Placing buildings is important but not essential, and the special abilities given by controlling the different areas combine well with the different secret winning conditions, examples of which are to have a minion in X areas (with X dependent on the number of players), control Y areas by having more bits in the area than any other player, collect a certain amount of money or have a certain number of trouble markers on the map. Commander Vimes messes with everyone by winning if no one else has won before reaching the end of the action deck.

Playing Ankh-Morpork feels like you're reading one of the city chronicles or a report from Lord Vetinari's spies. If this design is the beginning of a new series of games based on novels (as Martin told me in an interview for Opinionated Gamers) Ankh-Morpork is a good start and I'm eager to see the other chapters of the series!