More about Zhanguo

The most important aspect of a euro (at least to me) is having a fun and unique take on action selection and Zhanguo: The First Empire hits the bullseye with that.
We previously wrote a few thoughts about the gameplay, but here is a quick recap: 🥰 In each of the 5 rounds you get 2 white, 2 black and 2 green cards, representing writing, currency and law - the different efforts in the unification of China. Then during the round you will play those 6 cards, either choosing 1 of 6 actions to perform, or upgrading future actions by tucking in cards under your player board.

You might think that in the first half of the game people are just tucking in cards to get stronger fast, but you actually have to strike a nice balance with your actions. ☝️ If you only tuck in cards, you may miss out on limited spots on the game board for bonuses or end-game scoring opportunities. Besides, tucking cards is the main way of getting unification tokens, which are used to determine who gets the powerful end-of-round bonuses. In later rounds those bonuses become even better, so it’s worth it not to max out your player board with cards too early.

I really enjoy the indirect and methodical way you interact with the game. You can’t just flat out do things, you have to build up “ingredients” on the regions of your player board, as if you were cooking. 😅 Want to build a palace? Then you’ll need an Architect and 2 workers in a region, plus 1 worker from somewhere else. To hire workers you need a General. Hiring workers also raises Unrest, which could cause problems in the future. So you really have to plan forward, while at the same time trying to stay in the present and react to the plays of your rivals. Very hard to do! 🥵 At first everything seems very telegraphed, as you see in which regions people start recruiting officials, but later as player boards get more full, it’s not easy anymore to deduce.

Zhanguo has a very fun flow, especially as you get going after a round or two. 🙂 Choosing which cards to play and when is a skill to be honed too, just as observing what card types your opponents hold - their values could be vital when choosing actions. A real brain burner to play, but very rewarding and enjoyable.