What is Nations?
Nations belongs to the thematic category of civilization/empire building games, whose games use many different mechanics. So let's get this out of the way up front: This is not an area control game, nor is it any kind of “soldiers on a map” or 4X game. Nations is more of a worker placement game, where you get to build the tableau of cards on which you'll place your workers.
WAIT!! Stop yawning... Let me try it this way:
Nations is a game where you and your friends will fight tooth and claw over a bunch of cards that you are trying to add to your civilization. You’ll then pay resources to place workers on those spots only to have your friends take actions that basically force you to pay again to move those workers elsewhere. You’ll be racing to be first on military, stability, and knowledge tracks, and get really messed up by wars, time, and events if you don’t. You’ll sweat over your decisions, frantically attempt to maintain the resources you need, steam when your friends edge you out of the things you were going for, and get a satisfying rush once your engine starts working.
It’s worker placement with no direct combat, that manages to be highly competitive.
So I’ll spoil it a little up front: I love this game, and I do recommend it, but with some BIG caveats.
How it Plays
My reviews aren’t designed to be full rule explanations (There are plenty of walkthrough videos for that). So let’s do a brutally oversimplified look at play just to get a feel for the game. Nations consists of two main “community” boards, and a civilization board for each player.
The short description is that you buy cards from this board:
to place on your own civilization board:
You'll then place workers on your cards in order to gain resources (gold, ore, food). Your workers also advance you on the knowledge, military, and stability tracks found on this board:
At the end of the game, you will add up the number of your resources along with your progress on knowledge, military, and stability tracks. You’ll divide that total by 10, and add that number to your victory points as well.
A turn has several phases in which players do some initial housekeeping, choosing to take some resources or add an extra worker to their pool. Then an event is chosen to impact the round. An action phase follows, which takes the now common, “one action per player until everyone passes” approach, with the actions being mainly buying cards from the main board, and placing workers from your pool onto cards that you have already bought.
Finally, the event is resolved (usually benefiting the player with more military or stability), and players pay a food cost for the event’s “famine”.
The rows of cards to purchase are refilled and the cycle continues.
The game plays beautifully in eight rounds (two for each age). With experienced players who aren’t too AP prone, a two player game can be had in a little over an hour, and a four player game in 2-3.
So What’s Not To Like?
Let’s walk through the valley of criticism here (but please stick around to the end). Holy cow, this game looks bland! It begins with the stodgy, pale faces on the box cover…
...though the cards are the primary problem. I’m OK with a minimalist art style, but to me, the hand drawn images just look low-budget and sloppy. Worst of all are the depictions of people on the orange “advisor” cards.
Visit your local high school's art class. You’ll probably find kids who can draw better than this!
Yes, but could the publisher afford better production values at this game’s price point? Great transition into the second problem I have with this game.
89.99 retail? I normally don’t make price a big issue in a review, but given the low quality of the artwork, and the thin player boards, I feel it must be mentioned. Even at the discounted price point of most retailers, this game is almost at the bottom of visual appeal for similarly priced games. If I spend 65 to 70 on a game, I want it to look beautiful on my table.
To quote Emile from “Ratatouille”, however, “If you muscle past the gag reflex, all kinds of food (in this case game) possibilities open up!”. And that’s what I would encourage you to do.
Because I honestly don’t even notice the dull artwork, and have long forgotten the price I paid for this game because the gameplay is JUST THAT GOOD.
What’s Good (Great) About Nations?
Intuitive, Yet Deep Play: Nations seems medium/heavy at first, when you are wrapping your mind around the rules. Once you have grasped them, however, you’ll find you hardly reference the rule book. That’s the mark of a good “heavy” game: Complex, but comprehensible.
A Different Game Every Time: While each nation starts with a set of built-in buildings to place workers on, these quickly get replaced by the cards that get revealed on the purchase board. Unlike worker placement games that have the same common set of actions to choose from every time, Nations lets you build your own pool of placement options.
TENSE interaction:
The fact that you never directly interact with each other’s empires should make this game feel like multi-player solitaire, but it doesn’t!! Worker placement games often create tension by causing the players to fight over placing workers on the same action space. Nations does it a little differently.
Here are the tension points in that glorious, round-robin action phase.
Competing For Cards:
Here is an example of thought process for buying cards as an action:
Hmmm… Is my opponent ahead of me on the military track? Ugh, he’s gonna buy that military card, right? But he’s low on gold, so maybe he’ll ignore it. I don’t want him to get the granary though, because I need that food to try to pull workers out of my reserve. Oh, but he and I are both trying to build wonders, and there are only two architects left. Do I take the architect with this action, or go for that granary to fix my food problem? Or should I start the war as a defensive measure, or…. or…. or…. ARRGH!
There are sometimes no-brainer card buys on the board, but usually there are good alternatives if you miss out on that one card you really wanted. It’s not necessarily about what the best card is for your engine, it is about trying to find that balance of taking what your opponents need and getting your own needs met.
Wars and Military:
Nope, there is no direct combat between players' meeples, but if someone starts a war, they put a marker at their current military capacity. If by the end of the turn you don’t at least match that capacity, you will lose a victory point, and possibly resources (if you are low on stability). In order to gain military capacity, you are going to have to pull workers out of other production buildings to put on military buildings. Is it worth it? Grrrr….
Knowledge Track:
At the end of each age (two rounds), whoever is ahead on the military track will get a victory point for each person behind them. In four and five player games, this can really add up! Do you cut back on some of the resources you need, and allocate your workers to gaining knowledge?
Events:
At the beginning of the turn, before the round-robin action phase begins, an event is revealed. At the end of the turn, these events often reward the highest stability or military, and punish the lowest. Again, is it worth getting cards and allocating workers to gain knowledge?
Summary:
Nations is not an attractive game, and it’s an expensive game. If you can get past those two downsides, you’ll find a very smart, very tense game of strategic resource management, empire building, and tough decision making.
No, this game can’t claim the interaction of a tactical war game, but for a worker placement game, there is plenty of tension. You’ll need to read your opponents, predict their moves, and either take what you need before they get it, or out-think their plans for moving up the military or knowledge tracks.
The fact that you build a different tableau of cards every time to place workers on gives the game amazing replay-ability, and yet the card distribution (almost) always give you something meaningful to do, even if you miss out on the card you really wanted.
In the end, you don’t feel like you are conquering another empire through direct confrontation. Its feels more as if you are a king or general, making the tough, high level choices that cause the kings and generals in nearby nations to fume and scramble.
It’s a game well worth having in the collection, but I do hope for updated artwork and components in future versions, especially if that price point holds.
