Though the Cult of the New ever dominates eurogame play, I increasingly find myself returning to the classics at least once or twice each month. That’s what brought me back to Reiner Knizia’s Amun-Re a few weeks ago.
I’ve always liked the game — with its combination of bidding and resource management — but during my last play I was really struck by how well Knizia has designed the game’s auctions.
So, I wanted to talk about that briefly this week, to highlight what I think is some cool game design that I’d love to see more of.
The Province Auction
The heart of the game is the province auction, where the players bid on the a number of provinces until each player is the sole winner of one of them.
Here’s some of the stuff that I think really works in the auction:
Simultaneous Auctioning: The most obvious element of the auction is that you actually have several (“n”) auctions going on simultaneously, where n is equal to the number of players. This is a big change-up from the one-at-a-time auctions that most games use, though I’ve also seen this mechanism in Evo,Homesteaders, and probably others.
I think it results in some very interesting dynamics, because you’re no longer evaluating a single item, but instead simultaneously valuating a variety of items. I have a suspicion that this results in better pricing than one-a-time auctions do, because players innately need to think comparatively — though I certainly don’t have any proof of that. It certainly makes for a more involved playing experience because you’re thinking about so much at the same time. To a certain extent, that makes the province auction not feel like an auction.
No Rebidding: When you get overbid on an item you can not immediately rebid on the same item (unless you have a certain power card). This is a really interesting game design element because I think it starts to push efficiency. You no longer start bidding low and hope to get a deal. Instead you’re more likely to bid what you think an item is worth to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if this shaves off 50% of the time that would otherwise be spent in the province auction, because many otherwise pointless (low) bids are omitted.
Stepped Bidding: The game does a similar thing with its stepped bidding. Bids are printed on cards, and you must follow their sequence. As a result, the values of bids rapidly increase: 0 / 1 / 3 / 6 / 10 / 15 / 21 / 28 / 36. Without those gradations you might have to step through all those numbers while bidding: 10, 11, 12, etc. Because of the stepped bidding, efficiency is once more rewarded and game time is decreased.
Everyone Wins: Finally, we come to the end of the auction, and it’s once again interesting: everyone is guaranteed to win one of the provinces. As a result something happens that doesn’t usually occur in auctions: one item is purchased for a dramatically undervalued price. This introduces some interesting tactics that you don’t usually see in auctions. However, I think getting away from the tyranny of everything-selling-for-its-value is a big plus in and of itself.
The Sacrifice Auction
Amun-Re contains a second auction: players make closed bids of money to determine how fertile the land will be. It’s a relatively normative closed-fist auction with one particularly interesting twist:
Special Bids: You can bid money cards, but you can also bid two other things: a theft card or an adjust-offer special power card. The theft card is effectively a -$3 bid, which is unusual but not groundbreaking. The adjust-offer card, on the other hand, is a special-power card that you play secretly with your bid. It then lets you change the final results a bit. You can hide the card in your bid because it has the same backing as all of the money, which is pretty clever in itself. Beyond that, the idea of playing cards during a bid that do other things is, IMO, quite undeveloped in the euro field.
Conclusion
Though it’s 8 years old, I think that Amun-Re remains a very innovative game for the auction field. Beyond that, it shows how much a very carefully designed auction can improve the game that it’s a part of by decreasing play time, increasing tactics, and likely any number of other things.
And that’s my bit on Amun-Re.
Now that my book, Designers & Dragons (link to a recent interview) is done, I’ve finally gotten back to my board game writing and reviewing. You can read my long-delayed review of London as well as my review of Defenders of the Realms: Dragon Expansion, both recently posted. If you’re RPG fan, I’ve also recently published reviews of The Backwards Mask by Matthew Carson and The Backwards Mask by Paul Brunette — two pieces of Traveller fiction, each of which completes the same trilogy.
I’ve got plans for fun new articles here as well, including continued exploration of two game subgenres I’ve recently been delving into: deck building and cooperative games. I think deck building may be next, since Resident Evil Deck Building Game just appeared in my mailbox. That should be in two weeks.
Author’s Note: A year later, I don’t have much to add. I don’t think I’ve played Amun-Re again since I wrote this article, but I’d be happy to if it hit the table tomorrow. I’m sorry that Knizia isn’t making many (any?) games like this any more but I certainly understand why the time-expended-to-return ratio might be poor for a complex strategic game. —SA, 6/19/12
