Web of Power
Mark's Ranking
- 2012: 12th
- 2010: 12th
- 2005: 36th
- appeared on all three lists
- rank: 232
- rating: 7.34
Print Status
- out of print
Why It's On The List
- An extraordinarily simple game of brinksmanship as various monastic orders struggle to influence medieval Europe. Quite possibly one of the best three player games ever designed.
Tips & Tricks:
- Web of Power was reprinted as China - with some board & rules changes. I like the original better.
- The designer (Michael Schacht) has an online gaming site where you can play not only Web of Power & China... but a series of 12 different boards using the same game system!
- Make plays that enable you to put pairs into your hand - since they act as wild cards.
- Tricky scoring tip #1: advisors only help if you win/tie on both sides of the connection. Don't get in a war you can't win - you're only helping the other guy.
- Tricky scoring tip #2: don't take all but one building site in a country - you leave a spot open for one player to collect a lot of points w/a single play. You only need a majority in a country to garner all of the points.
- There are a couple of expansions - both are print & play: The Vatican (which is ok) and Kardinal & Konig: Das Duell (which does a great job of making Web of Power work as a 2 player game).
- One complaint: a direct translation of the German name (Kardinal & Konig) would have been much better name than Web of Power... it would have been "Cardinals & Kings".
Extras
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If you feel a need to catch up on my admittedly-aging Top 100 as of February 2012 list, you can check out:
- my Pinterest board about the Top 100
- a BoardGameGeek Geeklist (in order of BGG ranking)
- the rest of the posts here on aka pastor guy
2 comments:
Out of curiosity, what do you like better about Web of Power over China? Is it a I-learned-this-first-so-its-better situation, or do you feel that the changes in China made the game less good?
Excellent question - there are two "innovations" that I don't like:
1. the expanded draw queue (which means you seldom have to manage your hand carefully)
2. the one-time scoring of provinces, which increases the value of advisors & chains too much
In a less important change, I really like the "monks & politics" paint job of the original theme.
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