Wallace = EuroTrash

Just played Brass for the first time. It was so bland. I couldn't really say that there was anything wrong with it and I enjoyed the game. It just didn't feel like any of the other Martin Wallace games I had played. There was nothing that felt new or exciting. It was complicated with lots of stuff you could do but it was a regular old efficiency game of converting money to victory points with hardly any player interaction. I am generally a Wallace fan but Brass was disappointingly middle of the road.

Wallace games are the kind of thing the Euro group I am part of dig out when they want to play something longer. They look pretty dull to me, and several of them are clearly fake wargames. Hey, goober, where's the meat?

Wallace games are too often like some kind of cock tease...you see something like BYZANTIUM or PRINCES OF THE RENAISSANCE and think- "hey hey, I'm gettin' some wargame action tonight!" and then you play them and they're the most overdesigned (yet strangely underdeveloped) games you've ever played in your life. He tries WAY too hard to intentionally clutter the games with "smart" mechanics, I think.

Case in point- STRUGGLE OF EMPIRES, without a doubt his best game. But it has that asinine alliance system. I get it, wars at that time were fairly formal and required investment and the auctioning and whatnot represents investing in diplomacy and diplomatic maneuvering. Whatever. It's still just an auction to "balance" the game and keep players from ganging up and beating on certain others. You could take that out and it's practically the same game. See HERE I STAND for a game that does that limitation on declaring war/formal alliance thing WAY better.

AGE OF STEAM is another example. It's boring, kludgy, and almost completely mechanical...like a game designed for robots. Take out all the Wallace crap, and you've got RAILROAD TYCOON, which is a _great_ game.

I played Toledo last night, it wasn't too bad. It had a very Euro feel to it but there was an element of AT in that you could attack other players. It may have been improved with trading or something.

His stuff is all over the map. He likes business and railroad games...and they are the games of his that are most fully developed.

But then you've got a game like Empires of the Ancient World (probably my favorite of his games) which really gets behind the idea of building an army technology and using it to beat up other people's armies.

1630 something is interesting as well, and is almost a prelude to Struggle of Empires. It is a little like The Great Khan Game.

And then he did Tyrus and Stockers. Games about which much less should be said.

Empires of the Ancient World is a very under-rated Wallace game. I like the carnage the game unleashes and the battle system has a nice poker aspect. I would put it on the table more but it's rare I have 5 players available. Another one of his designs that I like is Way Out West. A fun game even if he did misspell San Antonio on the board.

-Will


*edit*
I've thought about EotAW some more. It's battle system of cards would appeal to grognards that like the battle cards in Hannibal and We the People. Now if I could only score a copy of WtP...

Although, if you go back a little ways, he's also credited with first edition Runebound.

and...Lords of Creation. A game where you mostly attack and take over territories. Even got two editions.