Tags
England, Richard III, Richard III: Wars of the Roses, shakespeare, The Expanse, Wars of the Roses
More than once, I’ve raved about Columbia Games’ Hammer of the Scots. It might be surprising, then, that I’ve never picked up the follow-on* title, Richard III: The Wars of the Roses. For what it’s worth, while Hammer of the Scots is far more popular and therefore ranks considerably higher on BoardGameGeek, the actual user scores are pretty durn’d close.
One of the reasons I’ve demurred is that if I did buy the game, I wouldn’t have anyone to play with. Honestly, $70-plus-shipping is a lot to fork over for a box of blocks onto which I’ll probably never get around to affixing the stickers. With that in mind, the computer version looks like a bargain – even at the full price of $25 on Steam.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/rosesgrow5.jpg?w=1024)
The computer incarnation of this game was released in October 2019 (which I’ve recently established makes it “new” in my book). It was the first in a series of Columbia block game conversions released by Avalon Digital, a development effort backed by the marketing support of Columbia games themselves. It is a straight-up conversion of the physical product and can be played either against the computer or as on-line multiplayer through Steam. So far, it seems to perfectly fit the bill.
The game gets a “mostly positive” rating on Steam although (in a very bad sign for multiplayer) that’s made up of only 45 ratings. Worse yet, if you actually read the reviews, some of the criticisms are pretty damning. But who is right? Some love it, some hate it – so which one will you be?
The multiplayer issue is probably a big one for potential sales. As a board game simulator, your biggest audience has got to be existing or potential players of the board game. Providing that feature was a great idea but its benefit is hamstrung if the “lobby” is perpetually empty. Now, the lack of multiplayer isn’t a big turnoff for me personally. I’d prefer to have a quick game here or there on my own time and on my own terms. Even if online match-making is easy, I don’t know that I want the added stress of doing the coordination. So as long as the game offers a decent single-player experience, I don’t care if I’m the only person playing it.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/rosesgrow6.jpg?w=1024)
Going back to how I found this game, remember that I was particularly pleased with how Hammer of the Scots handled the seasons – forcing armies to return home for winter before resuming campaigning in the spring. Richard III also uses a similar mechanism. In the case of the Wars of the Roses, though, the concept being simulated is a little different. As the Lancasters and the Yorkists vied for control of England, the actual “war” consisted of brief punctuations to a thirty-two-year running tale of politics. Richard III, then, is split into three “campaigns” with complete reset between each round of fighting. These are separated, historically, by a decade or more of down time. From a purely gaming standpoint, and notwithstanding the shift in focus, with few exceptions the mechanics are more-or-less what I was used to, and liked, about Hammer of the Scots. This should work.
When it comes to this computer implementation, though, I’m less than enthusiastic.
First impressions were good. The game presents as virtual-blocks moved about a fair facsimile of the printed board set upon a table. The interface suitably approximates the physical game. Additionally, the computer adds its own number-crunching capacity to the mix. As indicated in the screenshots (both above and below), the computer keeps track of the alignment of nobles (the metric for victory in the game) and enforces rules. For one welcomed example, a more difficult tracking task is watching limits on movement, dependent on number of blocks and “terrain”, a computation the computer handles instantly. It keeps track of valid moves, or valid block placement, and highlights the choices for the player. The game goes much faster, much easier, and with fewer mistakes.
![](https://ettubluto.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/rosesgrow7.jpg?w=1024)
Unfortunately, the game doesn’t seem to get right all of the rules. One violation that I specifically saw is how, when retreating, a block must not transit a border that an enemy crossed while attacking (or while reinforcing a defense). The computer ignores this rule with its defeated armies fleeing into the region from which you launched your successful attack.
Worse still, the computer just isn’t very good at playing Richard III. Difficulty is controlled by setting the AI to either defensive, aggressive, or half-and-half. I’m not sure it matters. While choosing a defensive AI setting might well cripple a computer opponent for a scenario that requires aggressiveness to win, I see the AI as a pushover at any setting. In the game shown in these screenshots (all with me playing as York) I didn’t lose a single battle. Replaying** as Lancaster, while I lost a couple of fights, I was able to end the game controlling every single territory. Remember how often I’ve told you that I’m generally not that special when it comes to these strategy games? My easy victories make for truly damning evidence against the AI.
Allow me one last complaint. Look to the screenshot above. This is the final turn of the game and I’m being asked to play one card. I have one last card (which you might make out on the table, at the top right of the screen). Problem is, there is no way to select the card and move forward. In my York game, I had 2-3 such lock ups (no crashes as Lancaster). In all but the one in the pic, I was able to save the game, quit, and then get it started again. Here, I could not. Obviously, I would win the game no matter what. The computer can’t pick up the required six nobles with any possible final card (in fact, I’m pretty sure I was on track to get another 1-2 into my column) so I just gave up. It was a little disappointing, after playing through three campaigns, to be unable to finish the game.
This negative experience makes me wonder how it has ranked so well on Steam. It is, as I said, “mostly positive” but the many thumbs up are counter-balanced by some harsh reviews. What I think I’m seeing is this: If you’re new to the Block game concept, you can jump into the game fairly quickly without even reading the rule book. The computer assists you with some tutorial features and then with the highlighting of the valid moves. However, when you don’t understand the rules and play against a computer opponent that kinda does, this will make for some tough games – at least to start. Contrast the experience with the player who studies the PDF rule book before playing or perhaps already plays the board game with friends. This player will find little-to-no challenge from the computer opponent.
So I’m thinking that my urge to decisively wallop the computer in the Wars of the Roses is not going to return any time soon. I’m also not so excited about Richard III‘s treatment of the historical subject. I started out this chunk of posts musing about how Kingmaker provided a template for the games that followed but is that really true here? As I said, the genesis of this game was from Hammer of the Scots as a baseline, not Kingmaker. Yes, I’d be surprised if the Richard III team at GMT didn’t know Kingmaker and it probably influenced a feature here or there. It just isn’t defining.
More importantly, I don’t find that Richard III captures the drama of this era in the way I’d want it to be captured. Reading about Richard III helped me be aware of the importance of politics, familial relationships, and good ole government-protected graft when it came to the 32-year succession crisis. Richard III tries to include that in its design, modeling the shifting loyalties of the nobility up-to-and-including treachery during a battle. It tries but does not succeed. This is a game of moving your armies, engaging in battles, and rolling the dice. The decades in between the fighting just don’t fit into its scheme.
Back then, in 2019 or so, I started looking at another, newer game – a cross between Richard III and Kingmaker that really seemed to hit the political spot. I’ll have to come back to that in another post.
But before I go, a funny little addendum.
About the same time I started re-reading my Richard III rules, I also picked up the second-to-last book in the Expanse series, Tiamat’s Wrath. While the authors may have been inspired by George R.R. Martin, they (mercifully) didn’t inherit his reluctance to finish a series. The final book appears to be shipping in hardcover as I type.
When I was reading the previous entry, Persepolis Rising, I was amused that it picked up on an obsession of mine at that moment, space-time distortion. I was even more captivated by the parallels between the books and the civil disintegration we are seeing today. Like its predecessor, Tiamat’s Wrath also addresses issues of resistance and insurgency, although now years into the effort with a mature insurgency in place. In some ways it presents a guide for freedom fighters engaging in asymmetric warfare against an overwhelmingly-powerful oppressor. Something that might come in handy. There are some very good quotes on the nature of a revolution and the path to a post-revolution peace.
To that point, it was written in 2019. Certainly enough time to see the run-up to the 2020 election but too soon to be any kind of allegory for the 2020 corona and BLM phenomenons. I even caught myself thinking that a description of blurring the background of a video (for OpSec*** purposes) was just lifted from the authors’ Zoom call – except that they probably hadn’t even thought about having Zoom calls yet.
You might also recall that when I was reading Persepolis Rising, I had just previously taken a break from my horse-and-musket game-playing to try out Fantasy General II. That in turn triggered another round of attention on classical civilizations. Thus, the references to Homer and to Alexander (the latter a continuation from a prior entry) seemed extra-relevant.
You can imagine my amusement (if four paragraphs of intro didn’t give it away) when Holden uses an obscure reference to Richard III as a way to pass intelligence. He becomes aware that another character is planning to murder the child-heir-apparent to mankind’s empire. Much like my disjointed Shakespeare quotations with which I title my Wars-of-the-Roses-themed posts, he relies on his audience to pick up on the unstated reference to the Princes in the Tower and put two and two together. Once again, it’s a connection about which I could not have known about when I picked up the book and picked up this game, almost together. Funny that.
It is also a pretty decent use of message obfuscation, assuming that one’s audience gets the subtle allusions. To quote Hans Gruber, “the benefits of a classical education.”
*I think of it as a follow-on because it is a similarly-themed game on almost the same map. In terms of the game development, there were many games that came in between (I count eight). Even if you restrict the theme to similar period and scope, Crusader Rex pretty much meets the criteria but came out just about half way between the two.
**I read, in a board game discussion, that the game might be slanted towards York. York starts off the game “in exile” and needs to be aggressive about usurping the throne – the faster the better. To aid them, the Yorkist has the better forces. What that means is that York has the initiative – planning when and where to attack while Lancaster must defend everywhere – and can use the combination to their advantage. If they do take the throne, Lancaster has an uphill battle because they’re now on the hook to mount a rapid offensive, but still retain that weaker army. Note that the defender tends to have the advantage once an individual battle is joined.
***I could probably write a whole post about what’s wrong with the Underground security protocols, having recently digested Cryptonomicon, but I don’t think that would be fruitful. Reusing keys to encrypt talking-head videos, though! Crikey! Whatever the authors might be expert in, they obviously didn’t bring on Bruce Schneier as a consultant.