Aspens - Majestic Marvels: Review:
Introduction:
Aspens is a fun abstract game where players are focused on building a forest to manipulate the dice in their favour whether they are spreading trees, so the direction die does not affect them or adding more trees to a space to increase the possibility of gaining trees more often. In the base game players are trying to spread their trees creating closed off areas resulting in large cascades (cascades is a way to fill multiple locations at once by closing off access to the opponent). For the original review of the original game click here. In the original game each player scored each locations they had, in majestic marvels, the goal has now changed. Now the board is broken into sections with differing points. Gain the majority of a section first gain the points. This creates a much clearer objective for players and leans into a faster game more.
Game Anatomy:
Marvel Card:
These cards are randomly drawn to each area. They will determine how many points a player gets for gaining the majority of that area.
Aid Cards:
These cards are more structured and designed for each area to signal clearly to players how many locations in that area are needed to gain the majority and the marvel card.
Setup:
There are a few setup adjustments, the two in-between sections for the map and middle will now be flipped over to the night side. Lastly each area shown on the aid cards will have an aid card and random marvel cards tucked into their corner.
New Scoring Condition:
Aspens Majestic Marvels changes the scoring condition. In the original game each location controlled grants the player a point at the end of the game, so you were originally rewarded for spreading your trees as far as possible trying to facilitate as many collapses as possible. Creating sections the other player couldn't access, gaining control of all those spaces. Now each area is separated by night and day side. Each of these areas will have a card representing how many spaces a player needs to hold a majority and a randomised card that shows how many points they will gain for controlling that area.
The game is finished when all areas are controlled. Each player will add their cards value together and whichever player has the highest score will win.
Final Thoughts:
- More reason to spread the forest.
- Creates another layer that creates more competitive gameplay.
This may be my new preferred way to play Aspens. The gameplay remains the same but the strategy for Aspens has changed drastically. In the original Aspens players were trying to form the biggest collapses to gain the most locations, no matter how long it took. So players would often play the long game. With this scoring change players are now racing in competition for the majority over these areas. The highest scoring cards will be the most sought after but based on the way the direction die rolls, players can't afford to loose the other sections. If you enjoyed Aspen but wanted to focus on a higher level of competition then this would be an essential expansion iny opinion.
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