Small World

Just adding another positive review here. We play a LOT of Euro (mainly German) board games, and this is a fantastic addition to our gaming library. Smallworld seems a little silly looking, judging by the box, but I assure you, this is a smart and fun game for fans of Euro board games. I wouldn't recommend this as the first Euro game to try (Carcassonne and Samurai are worthy starter games in the Euro realm), but it's a great game that has multiple layers of complexity and strategy. Most of all, it's fun! And HIGHLY competitive. 2-5 players 30-80 minutes (not sure what the box says, but my partner and I can play a round in 1/2 hour) Ages 10+ ** I know the Amazon description says 10-14, but that is not what the manufacturer states on the box (which is 10+) ** Some folks compare this to Risk, but I would say this is to Risk as a bicycle is to a Ducati. In a nutshell, you and your friends take turns conquering territory and reassigning your units. So it DOES sound like Risk! But wait! You don't have a singe army or race, instead you shuffle several races, and bonuses and place 5 on the board. Players pick from these 5, paying Victory points to select further down the five (first one is free). Once the player chooses, another is drawn and placed while the others move up to fill the gap. What this means is that each time playing, players will have different races with different stats, and different bonuses. So you might end up with Elves with the Berserk bonus, or Ghouls with Seafaring bonus (seafaring ghouls lol!). There are tons of combinations, and each has ups and downs. There are four maps on two sided heavy cardboard fold outs: one each for 2, 3, 4, and 5 player games. This makes it easier to get competitive and combative instead of trying to have two players duke it out on a huge 5 player board! Setting up the map is easy once players get the hang of it. On the first turn players start by invading the land from the edge of the board, unless they are seafaring, then they can invade water to start. Once you start invading, you end your turn (with an option to roll the reinforcement die on your last attack) and then redistribute your armies. You have to leave at least ONE unit on a territory during your attack phase or you can't redistribute on it. Each territory you have gives you Victory points. So you REALLY want to control more territory at the end of your turn. This also means you REALLY want your opponent to control less. The other twist comes from balancing your civilizations. You can elect to allow a civilization to go into decline, thereby gaining the chance to start a new civilization on your next turn. You gain points for your declining civilization, but unless stated otherwise (such as ghouls), these declining civs have no more actions and can only hold a spot on a territory until beaten off. Since you only have a finite number of units to use, once you start losing units (from being attacked), you find you are spread too thin and MUST start a new civilization to keep gaining VPs. So a KEY part of strategy is deciding when to lose a turn to allow your current civilization to go into decline. Each player keeps their VPs hidden, so at the end everyone tallies and it's always a bit of a surprise. I've found a few times I thought I was surely losing and that I won handily. Other times the opposite has been true. Regardless, this is a fantastic, fun, and innovative game. Highly recommended!!!!

This has become a new favorite in our household. It is a lot of fun, with complex strategy decisions and infinite replayability. It's probably not for completely casual gamers, however, because it does come with a *lot* of pieces and can be pretty overwhelming the first time or two it's played. The game employs a lot of simple mechanics, but there are so many different ones that it takes a while to wrap your head around them. Luckily, the game comes with several cheat-sheets to pass out that makes everything a lot more manageable for new players. If you take them just one at a time and play a few games, it all starts coming together pretty quickly. Small World is a Risk-style territory conquer and control game with a few twists. First, you don't win simply by controlling all the territories (in fact, I'm not sure that it's even possible). Based on the territories you control and any modifiers you have at the end of your turn, you get gold pieces, and whoever has the most gold pieces at the end of the game wins. The interesting part comes with *how* you conquer those territories. There are a certain number of races and modifiers that get shuffled and stacked together at the beginning of each game. Each race has it's own special ability and each modifier adds something new and different to that race (more gold each turn, easier to conquer certain types of territory, better defence, etc.). There are only ever 6 of these random combinations available throughout the entire game, so the odds of you being able to play one game exactly the same as another are very slim. You're forced to play every game differently from the last and adjust your strategy and reactions accordingly. It's great for anyone who loves to play strategy games! If you're a big fan of board games but not a hardcore strategist, don't be discouraged because there are several ways to win. We've had several games be won by the mild-mannered player in the corner who's avoiding everyone but racking up steady gold while the rest of us are fighting amongst one another. For 2-5 players, it's a great addition to anyone's collection.

Small World is a very good transitional game. New board gamer will find similarities to risk and seasoned players will find enough variation and strategy to keep them occupied. OVERVIEW: Small World is played on a series of maps (depending on how many players) that players will compete to take over territories and defend from other players. Players choose from available races and power ups to play as and will end up most likely having 2-3 over the course of the game. Players enter the map from one of the locations on the board and expand by placing two of their race tiles plus whatever defenses are on that territory and score on coin (VP) for each. Between the races and power ups often certain territories will cost less to take over or pay out more. The power ups are randomly assigned to the races and players bid on which race they want when it's their turn to choose. When you've done all you can (or wish) to do with your race, you put them into decline and start over with a new one. Games are 8-10 rounds depending on how many players and should take about an hour - hour and a half. PROS: Because the concept of expanding and defending territories is similar to Risk inexperienced board game players seem to be more apt to try this game out. The experience board gamer will find a lot of fun in trying to maximize synergies and out maneuver the other players. It has a limited number of rounds which keeps the game at a great length. This is at it's core a fun light hearted game that even if you are getting creamed you never really feel like you are losing. The game is never boring even if certain races or power ups may be. The boards are designed for how many players and are just small enough that you constantly are tripping over other races so no one can just hang back and stay out of the battles. CONS: Without expansions the initial race and power combinations is limited. Many of the special abilities are just bonus points for owning particular types of land which is kind of boring. There are a ton of expansions so this is easily remedied.

Days of Wonder has done it again with Small World. If you're looking for a fairly fast-paced game with little randomness and significant versatility, Small World is the one for you. Short Version: The game consists of a few basic mechanics. You choose from a group of starting "races" ("races" is a strange word for them, but I guess that's what they are - ghouls, ogres, orcs, ratmen, gnomes, elves, etc.) and "professions" (merchant, diplomat, plunderer, etc.). You don't have total freedom in choosing, though; the "races" that are available (only a few of the couple dozen are available at a time) are already paired up with particular professions. The races and professions have particular benefits built-in like they're better defenders or they can take secret underground passages on the map or they benefit from conquest, and so on. You then place units on a board divided up into territories and score points based on how many territories you have and your racial/profession bonuses. When you're placing units, you can choose to place them in territories containing opponent's units (in which case you have to place more units there than the opponent has placed). After several turns, the game ends and whoever has the most points wins. The game potentially changes each time you play because different races and profession combos can lead to slightly different strategies. More Info: There are a lot of race and profession combos that can come up in Small World. After you've controlled a particular race/profession combo for a while you send that race/profession into decline/recession and pick a new race/profession combo from those available. Your in-recession units are still on the board, scoring you some points, but you mainly are focused on your newly-chosen race/profession combo. The key to the game is knowing when is the right time to send your current race/profession into decline and knowing what combo to select for your next series of turns. There is also a bit of strategy in determining whether to invade opponent's territories or focus on taking uncontested territories (or territories filled with units that are NPCs, units that don't attack anyone and aren't controlled by anyone but that defend against any invading players). The upside of this system is that there are a lot of combos of races and professions which makes for diversity from game to game. The downside is that a few of the professions seem really powerful comparatively, like the Merchant. Not so powerful as to imbalance the game consistently, but powerful enough that it's hard not to choose them when they turn up as available. There's also some strategy to be had in figuring out what the value of a given combo is. Normally a series of race/profession combos are "available" for you to select from while the rest of the races/professions are still in a stack waiting to be flipped up. But among those combos that are current available you have to pay more coin for them depending how low (far away) they are in the combos currently available. The coin you use to buy things is the same coin that counts as your victory points at the end - so in order to pick a race/profession combo that is far away you have to use up slightly more of your victory points. This adds an element of trying to predict who will take what race/profession combos, because each time one combo is chosen it pushes all the other currently available combos up the totem pole, making them cheaper to obtain (and flipping over a new combo from the stack, which goes at the bottom/most expensive end of the totem pole). In full, the game is pretty easy to learn and yet also has a lot of diversity. This makes for an accessible game with pretty good replay value. Four stars!

If you have done any research on this game before purchasing you know that it plays similar to Risk. The only similarity is that you have a faction that is conquering territory, but the actual battle mechanics are different, to the point where you don't even use a dice except in isolated incidents. You might also have discovered that some board game geeks complain that there isn't enough strategy or too much diplomacy. Ignore them. Pro: You don't "die." You as a player stay in the game for the entire time. The varied races are awesome. Artwork is gorgeous VERY EASY TO LEARN Enough strategy for it to be fun. Con: Game is more diplomatic Simply put: there is enough strategy for the game to be interesting: imagine a diceless risk. The outcome isn't as determined by the throw of the dice, but by your good strategy. However, as others have complained, winning or losing does indeed get swayed by diplomacy a little too much; often in one turn horrible things can happen to your newly acquired race all because someone decided to stomp you instead of another guy. When I first purchased this game, I didn't know about that and since I don't like games with a lot of diplomacy involved I was nervous upon discovering that complaint before I actually played it. But the group I play with are a bunch of swell players so in the end that little "flaw" didn't make much of a difference. Forget its supposed faults; just PLAYING it is fun, whether you win or loose! So if you looked at places like boardgamegeek.com and saw the complaints about not enough strategy or too much diplomacy, remember that the people writing those review are BOARD GAME GEEKS; they love strategy and a LOT of it. Small World rocks because it appeals to every one else. And besides, it's a world of slaughter, after all :)

Small World is like a better Risk. Depending on your number of players, there are four different maps to use and you'll play 8-10 rounds. While it's a similar concept to Risk, this game is very much strategy and your ability to win is based more on the choices you make during your turns. You start with a race that's been randomly paired with an ability. Certain abilities give advantages around the board, but inevitably the race you start with becomes overextended and it's time to put them into decline. You'll pick up a new race with a new ability in order to continue conquering the board against your opponents. You'll have to decide the best time to go into decline, the best race/ability combos to grab, and the best moves to make to successfully rule Small World. In the end, the person with the most victory coins is the winner, so even if someone has most of the board in the last round, there's always the possibility someone else comes out ahead. The first time we played, we played with the max of 5 players which honestly may have been too many. 3 or 4 is probably more ideal, but the great thing is that this game also works with only two players. It was easy for a group of adults to learn, but would be difficult for younger kids. An 8 year old would probably have difficulty understanding it all without adult assistance. There are also a lot of pieces, which can be cumbersome. Overall, this is a great game to add to game night with a lot of replay value.

After reading some of the other reviews I war really excited to receive this game, and was not disappointed! The game is much what you would expect from the cover. Players take on common fantasy races (elves, giants, wizards, halflings, trolls, etc.) with various special powers and abilities (dragons, heros, flying,...) and duke it to be top dog of piece of land much too small to contain everybody. The rule book explained everything fairly clearly, I'd say it takes maybe 15 minutes to read and digest it all. The theme is great, and leads to some really enjoyable artwork. The randomly drawn combination of powers and races make the game fun and different every time. There are two things, in my opinion, that makes this game really shine though: 1) There are different sized boards for different number of player, which keeps the world feeling cramped and basically forces people to attack each other (which is where all the fun is) and 2) If your current race gets beaten down too harshly, or over extended you can easily give it up for another race and get back in the game. In fact, this is half the fun. Over the course of a normal game you get to try at least 2 to 3 different races. This really keeps people from feeling too bad when they get attacked, because they can just try another race. I'd give this game an easy A+. I have over a dozen games in my collection (Settlers of Catan, Dominion, Puerto Rico, etc.) and I foresee this getting the most play time out of all of them for a while. It's great both for hard-core gamers and to entice new people into gaming. If you think you might like it, you're probably right!

Only in this game can you get such a bizarre combination as Underground Giants, or Historian Skeletons . . . we've played it with multiple groups of people and all have enjoyed the experience! It does have a learning curve . . . the first game tends to be all about figuring out strategy and what to do. You get to have multiple races within the course of a game, so you aren't stuck with any if you don't want to be. Positives: Varied play - no game ends up using the same races. Humor and artwork. Game play is unique. Lots of expansions that add a lot of interesting races and abilities. Comes with blank race / power tiles so you can add your own ideas to the game. Different boards for different numbers of players. Can play with more than 4 people. Issues: Takes awhile to remember race abilities -- there's a lot of looking things up in the beginning. Games are on the longer side, especially with new or more players. Some races / powers are just not worth much. The box for the main game is a pain to get all the little tiles out. Has a LOT of pieces to keep track of, especially with the expansions, but most fit in the box. The expansions are fun, and worth getting -- except the Necromancer's Island one. Haven't played it. We've played this with our 8 year old, and he liked it, but got bored by the end, however, our 11 year old daughter loves it.

Really like the game. Fun to play with friends. All the pieces arrived intact and neatly packed. Nothing to complain about

A caixa veio levemente danificada, mas nada que comprometa o produto em si. O jogo é muito bom para jogar entre amigos ou mesmo com a família.

great for 2 players,all the way to even 5 players. id like to see more of the board expanding further to handle more players of up to 8 if possible..but this one is very enjoyable.

Très bon produit !

AMAZING !!! We bought the game because we were attracted by the art and the little funny looking characters and reading the description we thought the game would actually be fun, but it rapidly became one of our favorites. We bought all the expansion and already brought in some new races and we just love it. Not super long to set up once you get the hang of it, game is strategic and yet really funny. The pace is nice and a game is just long enough to really enjoy yourself but not so long that you can't wait for it to be over because it feels like you've been sitting there forever (Risk sometimes does that to me and even Monopoly, just as examples). The possibility between the races and their powers are numerous and if you add some of the expansions races in there you really get a ton of possibility. I would recommend a 1000 %. It's fun, intelligent, strategic and yet easy enough to learn and play plus the art is really beautiful.