Asmodee Small World Board Game - Fantasy Area Control & Strategy Game with Magical Creatures, Special Powers, Family Game for Kids & Adults, Ages 8+, 2-5 Players, 40-80 Min Playtime

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 players30-80 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!!!!

Conquering a map is so satisfying. I don't know why, but it is. Small World is a great game, as long as you know what you are getting. It's a low-to-mid-weight Euro-style strategy game, easy enough for kids to learn, but with enough strategy in it to appease adult strategists. It is not, however, a deep strategy game that will excite people looking for another version of Twilight Struggle, Puerto Rico, Agricola, etc.PREMISEThe idea of Small World is to take a group (elves, trolls, humans, etc.) and randomly pair them with a special ability (flying, seafaring, commando, etc.) to get a unique combination of special powers, and then dominate your way across the map. Naturally, you will suffer from the "spread too thin" phenomenon of Risk, and your opponents will eventually plow through your pieces like an NFL player on a Pop Warner team. BUT, better than Risk, you don't have to stick with that group. You can give them up, selecting a NEW combination from the table, and start re-plowing through the opponent that just plowed you. (Or, you can conquer a different part of the map.) This keeps the game feeling fresh.REPLAYABILITYAs I mentioned in the premise, the various combinations of groups, combined with a blank group card and a blank special power card, give this game a high amount of replay factor. It's also a GREAT game for 2 players. You can even control two different groups each and play on the four-player board, as I've done, for a different, more challenging, and zanier experience.STRATEGY LEVELThis is a low-to-medium-weight game. It has strategy along the lines of games like Settlers of Catan and Ticket to Ride. Those looking for a good family game with more strategy than average (almost no dice-rolling!) will love Small World. If you're looking for map conquering, this has got it. If you're looking for a long-term strategic, deeply contemplative game with lots of planning, seeing a visionary strategy through to completion, this is not your game. However, I am a lover of the Puerto Rico-type deep strategy game, and I absolutely love Small World to play as a "break" game in between long strategic sessions. It has enough strategy to appease my appetite for that kind of game, but is fun and lighthearted enough that I don't have to think too hard about what I'm doing.TIME COMMITMENTYou can vary the amount of rounds that you play, using house rules, if you want. If you play the full game, it will take 45-60 minutes for a 2-player game. The first game takes a bit of getting used to, what with the rules and the specific special abilities of every type of group, but the mechanics are easy enough to pick up, and after one tutorial game, you should feel confident. Setup takes a few minutes, and there are many small pieces, so make sure you account for that.OVERALLI play it 2-player with my girlfriend all the time, and we love making up various house rules as well as playing it according to the rulebook. I've also played it multi-player, and it's even more zany and fun. A good addition to any game shelf.

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.