While it's great to sit back and enjoy a simple and concise strategy game like Catan either Ticket to travelSometimes I prefer to explore a game that has a little more ambition. I often turn to publisher Leder Games and designer Cole Wehrle to fill that need. This is the team responsible for the acclaimed Root: a power and forehand play in Woodlandthat seeks to model political violence under the guise of a cozy game in the woods. Then there is Oath: Chronicles of empire and exilea game about building a ruling dynasty from simple myths and legends.
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Arcs: conflict and collapse within reach is another radical attempt at tabletop innovation. The end result, available at retail starting October 1, is a unique approach to single-session strategy wargaming that evokes classics like Risk and Twilight Empire. But when combined with massive expansion from day one, Arches transforms into a mind-blowing three-session campaign game with evolving rules and curious fictional discoveries. It's completely over the top in every way and nothing like it has been released yet.
The base game Arches It's a fascinating exercise in subverting expectations. Players sit at the table taking on the roles of different interstellar factions fighting for their existence in the Reach, a slice of space that offers opportunity but is filled with conflict. While this looks like a 4X-style sci-fi conquest game on the surface, it's really just an illusion. Without exploration and very little technological development to speak of, it is more accurate to consider Arches It appears to be a more traditional strategy wargame, requiring manipulating intelligent but restrictive systems to pursue dynamic objectives.
But you are also playing a game very similar to hearts, or another trick game like euchre or pinochle. And no, I'm not kidding.
Image: Leather games
When you sit down at the table, three to five players each receive a hand of cards of different suits and values. One player “leads” with a card of a given suit and others follow or do not follow that suit.
This intelligent system is the entirety of Arches'mechanism of action. This is how you move around the board, attack your enemies, and tax planets' resources. Suit dictates what actions you can take, while strength influences whether you get the full benefit of the card you played.
To make a full turn and use all of your card, you must follow the lead suit with a higher value card. However, you can They play offside and are not beholden to leadership. In this sense, it is less rigid than traditional cheats. But if you play a different suit, you'll be limited to a single action instead of the full power of the card. This creates an interesting dynamic through restriction, as you'll often want to expand your empire or build infrastructure, but the flow of the game will push you toward other options, such as taking a card from the market and adding a new permanent ability to your faction. .
This card game may seem bureaucratic, and that is by design. These trick mechanics are a substitute for the political and economic machinations happening in the background, as if off-screen you were interacting with other galactic powers to negotiate and influence control of a given region of the Reach. Action arises from these decisions, when a card is pulled with the Administration's suit, dictating that the prevailing political winds have pushed the round toward taxes and reparations. But then an opponent smiles and turns toward aggression, launching a small raid that disrupts the times of peace and causes turmoil. It's alternately frustrating, dramatic and inspiring, just as a good space opera should be.
All of this latent narrative energy explodes in the hand of cards you were dealt at the start of the round. Often your empire's ambitions will be undermined by the suits you receive, as this game is as much about making good on what you have as it is about implementing well-laid plans. You will often need to reshape your strategy based on the cards you have, which will sometimes make for some challenging hands, even entire games. This provides an underlying tension that is omnipresent throughout.
One of the best parts of the card game is how the leader is determined each round. Arches has the traditional passing of control to whoever plays the strongest card of the led suit, but there is also a way to complicate things. Simply discard an extra card in addition to the card you play, taking the opportunity to take another action that round in exchange for securing initiative. But that's not all you earn by being the main player.
The first player in each round can also select an ambition that will give them victory points in that round. Ambitions encourage players to behave in certain ways. Perhaps they need to collect the most war trophies or the most resources of several different types. That means the game focuses not only on accumulating more points than your opponents, but also on determining what types of actions can score points. Just as the players determine what actions are possible each round, the group will also determine what ambitions are worthy of those actions, and therefore what behavior is rewarded and incentivized. This is fascinating and unorthodox, as a particular play could result in almost no conflict victory points being gained. The atmosphere at the table is completely different when it comes to a game that focuses heavily on taxing and securing oil reserves, rather than raiding planets and destroying star fleets. All of these nuances add a lot of weight to the card game, tying its importance to the flurry of activity on the board.
If this were all that Arches That is, that would be enough. It's a satisfying strategy game that seems quirky and unique compared to its peers. But Arches It is much more. With The Ruined Reach In this expansion, the game transforms into a multi-session campaign with an emerging narrative and tremendous mechanical evolution.
You start the campaign and each player can choose between two destinations. Functionally they are similar to the purpose of factions in most strategy games. Each destination is unique in tone and mechanical weight. Some are more interesting and introduce completely new game systems that affect all players. The rules density increases significantly from the base game and everyone should fully accept the experiment. There's a lot going on and almost all of it would be classified as spoilers.
What's particularly interesting is that the state of the dashboard is persisted between each session. Your score is also accumulated, with the goal of being the winner at the end of the third and final session. This memory element works extraordinarily well to provide alternative incentives in the first and second games of a campaign. Players can take actions to improve their position for the future and abandon current objectives. It's a whole new way to imagine how you interact with Archesand has a great influence on strategy.
But those destinations also change over time. In each subsequent session, you can abandon your destination and choose a new one, or you may have earned the opportunity to move on and see what new systems and components are unlocked. It's always a lovely moment, like opening presents on Christmas morning.
This is an absolutely wild design. There are elements of legacy games implemented, not in terms of permanently marking components, but in how the game is radically altered with consequences that extend throughout the game. The stakes are higher and the results are richer. In this format, it's a gorgeous design that deserves recognition as one of the best releases of 2024.
Much of the brilliance of Arcs: conflict and collapse within reach It's your imagination. Leder Games, thanks to the success of Roothas created a breathing space to make these big changes. With care and great attention to detail, this team has continued to produce strange but refined board games that push the boundaries of the format and offer experiences that are difficult to conceive. This is a brilliant game, one that we will be talking about and exploring for the foreseeable future.
Arcs: conflict and collapse within reach It will be available starting October 1 for $60. The Ruined Reach The campaign expansion is also available and costs $100 more.
Arcs: conflict and collapse within reach was reviewed using a retail copy provided by Leder Games. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, although Vox Media may earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. Additional information about Polygon's ethics policy can be found here.