But it's pretty different from Risk for several reasons.
- More deterministic. You don't have to roll dice every time you attack. You simply have to move enough of your markers into a territory to automatically conquer it. If you don't have quite enough markers to guarantee victory, then you roll a die to see if you get lucky and win it anyway. (Since three sides of the die are blank, odds are you won't win, but occasionally you will.)
- Play for points, not conquest. At the end of your turn, you get a victory coin for each territory you hold. The winner is whoever has the most coins after a set number of rounds. So you don't have to play for hours and conquer the entire map. In fact, your game will probably take just 10 to 20 minutes.
- Combos. This is what I mean by "Frankenstein," and is what truly sets Small World apart from other strategy games. Before the game starts, you choose from a set of random pairings of races and special powers. Here's an example.
The first choice, Fortified Ghouls, gives you Ghouls, which all stay on the map when going into Decline (moron that later). Because they're Fortified, you can put a Fortress in one of your regions for extra coins and defense. The second choice, Flying Humans, can invade any region on the map without being next to it (because of Flying) and get extra coins for occupying farmland (because they're Human).
Say I want to pick the Commando Halflings, though. I could, but then I have to put one coin on each of the above combos that I skip. So I lose four coins. And a rival player, if they choose one of those combos I skipped, gets the coin I placed on it. - Decline. Your faction will grow weaker with each round. You will have fewer markers to place on the map, so you won't be able to attack and defend as well. After a few rounds, you'll want to go into Decline. This basically skips your turn; you still get coins for your territories, but can't do anything on the map. Then, at the beginning of the next turn, you get to choose a new combo and re-enter the map at full strength. Going into Decline at the right time is a key strategy in the game.
With so many different combos, you're probably wondering whether how well the game is balanced. I'm not sure what the answer is. On one hand, some combos are much more powerful than others. On the other, because of Decline, each player will probably get the chance to use one of these super-combos at some point during the game. I will say, though, that occasionally a player will be powerful enough to conquer half of the map, and if the other players fight each other instead of uniting against that player, that player is going to have a runaway victory. This can be a problem in the solo game, since AIs can't ally with each other or with the player. I've only see this happen once or twice, though.
The AI is otherwise really good. It knows what it's doing. It took me many plays to win games against 2, 3, and 4 AI opponents.
Small World is a good, quick, just-one-more game kind of game. Thanks to Unagi for recommending it!
