A few weeks ago I kicked off an investigation of a small genre of games that I call “role civilization” games. These are “role selection” card games that were inspired by San Juan. My initial article defined the genre through four mechanics that all debuted in San Juan: phase (role) selection; card building; multipurpose cards; and card economies.
This week I’m going to continue my look at the genre by seeing how it’s evolved since the advent of San Juan and by investigating two Imperial successors to the game.
A History of Role Civilization: 2004-Present
Andreas Seyfarth’s San Juan (2004) could have dramatically changed the board gaming field. Not only did it make the very popular mechanics of Puerto Rico (2002) more accessible, but it also introduced a new style of dense filler that played quickly in a short period of time while still allowing for real strategic decisions. Unfortunately, San Juan was held back by the fact that Alea games tend to be somewhat underproduced and until very recently didn’t get supplements. The best San Juan ever managed was a few mini-supplements in Treasure Chest (2009), one of which reappeared in the second edition San Juan (2014).
Despite that, a few related games trickled out.
That began with Glory to Rome (2005) by Ed Carter and Carl Chudyk. It was “the super-complex San Juan“, which took the original games mechanics and cranked them up to 11, while also introducing a new “role following” mechanic. Though Glory to Rome wasn’t supplemented either, it enjoyed a couple of editions (2007, 2012). More notably, Chudyk seemed totally won over by the role civilization mechanic of multipurpose cards. Not only did he redevelop Glory to Rome as Uchronia (2012) and Mottainai (2015), but he also made other interesting uses of multipurpose cards in games like Innovation (2010), Impulse (2013), and Red7 (2014).
However Race for the Galaxy (2007) by Thomas Lehmann was the game that really showed the possibilities of the role civilization gaming style. It’s “the tough-icons San Juan” — and it was actually produced in parallel with San Juan, as I’ll talk about in the next article. It was beautifully produced and highly successful; it felt like it was on the verge of taking over the gaming field before it ran smack dab into Dominion (2008). Still, it’s done very well for itself, and even reinvented the field one more time with Roll for the Galaxy (2014).
Finally, Eminent Domain (2011) closes out the major entrants to the role civilization field to date as “the deckbuilding San Juan“. It’s a little further afield than the other San Juan-based role civilization games, but it’s an interesting example of how game mechanics evolve and meld. It’s also been expanded and even a spin-off of its own, Microcosm (2014).
In this article, I’m going to give some attention to the two empire-based games, Glory for Rome and Eminent Domain, which both use the same role following variant of role selection. Then, down the road I’m going to return for a final article where we Race and Roll.
A Look at Glory to Rome: 2005-Present
Despite its success, designer Carl Chudyk felt like San Juan (2004) was barely a game. He thus created a prototype of his own role-selection, resource-management game. Glory to Rome (2005) soon became one of the first games published by a new small press called Cambridge Games Factory, founded by Chudyk and Ed Carter. Glory to Rome was sufficiently successful that it was updated in a I.V edition (2007), then in a Kickstarted Black Box edition (2012) — which unfortunately was one of the early Kickstarters that misjudged shipping, costing Carter a house after he was forced to pay out tens of thousands of extra dollars to fulfill the game.
Chudyk had a messy parting from CGF and went on to publish a variant of Glory to Rome called Uchronia (2012), which caused a major Internet kerfuffle because Carter felt that it used too many of the design elements he had contributed to Glory to Rome. More recently, Chudyk has released a third Glory to Rome game, Mottainai (2015), which divorces itself from the theming of Glory to Rome, to create a more obviously distinct publication.
(If you want to know more about Ed Carter’s impressions on Glory to Rome, you can read his articles on its origins and on the Uchronia problems at BGG.)
So, how did these games vary the model of play created in San Juan?
Role Selection. The core conceit of role selection and worker placement games alike is that specific actions are exclusively available: if someone takes a role, no one else can. Puerto Rico (2002) and San Juan softened this though a phase selection variant: if a player took a role, then the other players got to take it in a lesser form.
Glory to Rome now offered its own innovations for how phased role selection worked.
First, roles were no longer sitting out, available to be taken. Instead, a player had to play a card from his hand to activate a role. Call this variant role playing. This method sacrificed the exclusivity of the mechanic, but it very cleverly incorporated roles into the game’s core card play, making it both more integral and another tough decision point.
Second, other players no longer automatically got to participate in the phase created by the role selection. Instead, they had to play a card themselves to “follow”. Call this variant role following. This added yet more tactical elements to the game, as players had to decide whether it was worthwhile to take advantage of a phase, or if they’d rather do the alternative (which was to draw a card).
Third, a selected role could be activated multiple times. Call this final variant role multiplication. This is done through clients of the appropriate type which had previously been played to his tableau using the Patron role. If role playing and role following both gave the game tactical depth, then role multiplication added strategic depth, as a player could introduce long-term plans that encouraged the use of certain roles.
Role selection is really the heart of the role civilization genre, so it’s no surprise that Chudyk continued to revamp the mechanic in his two Glory to Rome variants.
Uchronia largely does away with the concept of role following, replacing it with a cheap alternative: if a player doesn’t select a new role on his turn, he can instead repeat a role selected by a player since his last turn, if he also has a client to match that role. I’ll admit that I’ve never played Uchronia because I was concerned over the disputes about the game (and I say that without making any assertion about who’s “in the right”; it sounds to me like a classic clash between a designer and a developer). However, this change sounds subpar to me, because it robs the game of most of its interactivity. Not only are players no longer able to act on other players’ turns, but much of the time they won’t even care about those turns!
Mottainai finds a middle ground. Players still don’t act on each others turns, but now each player automatically uses all of the roles played by other players at the start of his own turn. The ability to keep players constantly active is still lost, but it’s replaced with a neat tactical puzzle that each player gets to solve at the start of his turn. Meanwhile, play is probably faster.
There are some other variations between Glory to Rome, Uchronia, and Mottainai, but none that impact the main mechanics I’m discussing in role civilization games, so I’ll be sticking with the original from here on out
Card Building. The building cards in Glory to Rome are divided into six types, some of which are easier to build and some of which are harder. Each building tends to provide some type of special power, small or big, which was a big change from San Juan, where half of the cards (the production buildings) were all pretty dull to build. The variation and the improved evocativeness both benefit the game.
Multipurpose Cards. Just like in San Juan, cards can be buildings or they can be material (money), used to build buildings. However, cards can also be played as roles or they can be turned into clients (who benefit future role play), or they can be thrown in the vault (where they can provide victory points). This over-the-top expansion of the multipurpose cards idea is probably what makes you either love or hate Glory to Rome. It supports a lot more depth, but also adds a lot of complexity.
Card Economies. Glory to Rome doesn’t have the typical role civilization economy of trying to figure out how to fill your hand with cards. Instead, players simply draw cards with the Think role. However, there’s still an economy — or perhaps you should call it an ecology of card movement. Cards played as roles go into a central pool, then those cards can be moved from the pool to a personal stockpile with a Laborer. Structures then can be built with an Architect (who uses material from the stockpile) or an Craftsmen (who uses material from the hand). Unlike most role civilization games, buildings are built one card at a time, changing the strategy of the game from managing card flow to managing the use or roles and clients.
As was the case with the extra-multipurpose cards of Glory to Rome, this card ecology adds a lot of complexity to the game. It’s definitely the hardest thing to teach, but it’s what provides the dense strategic base that makes Glory to Rome a more serious game than San Juan.
I called Glory to Rome the super-complex San Juan and that’s really where it fits into the spectrum of role civilization play. Chudyk (and/or Carter) did a lot to make the game denser, showed how role civilization could be cranked up to the next level, for better or for worse.
A Look at Eminent Domain: 2011-Present
Eminent Domain (2011) is the third major game to use San Juan’s role civilization mechanics, but I’ve opted to list it second because it clearly follows on from Glory to Rome’s design; in fact, designer Seth Jaffee has said that Glory to Rome is one of his favorite games. Since its publication, Eminent Domain has been actively supported with two expansions, Escalation (2014) and Exotica (2016?), plus a two-player microgame, Microcosm (2015), and another game set in the same universe, Battlecruisers (2016?).
The two expansions/variants already out, Escalation and Microcosm, don’t lie too near the role civilization core, so I won’t be focusing on them. For that matter, Eminent Domain moves pretty far from role civilization too. Though it contains the core role selection mechanic, most of the rest of the game is about deckbuilding. Still, its’ worth touching on it all briefly as a member of this small family of games.
Role Selection. In large part, the role selection of Eminent Domain matches the methodology of Glory to Rome: the active player leads and the other players follow. There are, however, two major variations:
First, The players doesn’t lead the card from his hand, but rather from a central pile of cards in the middle of the table. This takes away the cool element of tactical selection found in Glory to Rome, but it’s done to allow the role selection to effortlessly meld into the deckbuilding — which is the topic of a whole other article.
Second, players can follow at variable levels of power by playing multiple copies of the card that the active player led. This is a pretty neat variation of role multiplication that allows for synergy between players. Synergy has usually been at the heart of the role selection genre, focusing on taking advantage of the phases that other players activate. Here, you can more than take advantage: you can excel.
I wouldn’t say these variations are good or bad; their purpose is clearly to adapt role selection to deckbuilding, so that the role selection builds the deck and so that the deckbuilding can benefit the role following. But, they’re definitely an excellent example of that sort of adaption.
And that’s the extent that Eminent Domain fits into the role civilization family. The rest of the mechanics are actually fairly different.
- Card Building comes from conquering planets in a different deck of cards. The idea of using Colonize cards to build a planet actually isn’t that different from the way that Glory to Rome lets you lay down materials one at a time, but between the origin of the “buildings” in a different deck and the fact that their special effects are minimal, it all feels very different.
- Multipurpose Cards just barely exist: cards can be used for their role or a very similar action.
- Card Economies don’t really exist; they’re replaced by deckbuilding.
As a whole Eminent Domain shows how to prune down the role civilization genre to use just what’s best for you. Its another innovative member of the family.
Though Glory to Rome and its spinoffs continue to be pretty small press, Eminent Domain has clearly become TMG’s most successful line. I think it shows how successful the role civilization genre can be — something that is only upheld by the final entries in the genre, the R*** for the Galaxy games, which will be the topic of my final article in this series.
