[Kulkmann's Convention Hit !]

Pensator informó de este juego, The Circle, en un foro de BSk: http://www.labsk.net/index.php?topic=12674.msg143369#msg143369

Me pareció tan interesante este juego, de la sola y rápida lectura de una reseña en ingles, que he optado por abrirle hilo propio.

He encontrado esto y suena realmente interesante. Proviene de uno de los mas conocidos blogs que versan sobre Essen, cada año. El de Frank Schulte-Kulkmann:



"Un juego bastante oscuro con un tema que viene del campo del Espionaje es The Circle que proviene de una nueva editora, C4.

Centrado en el Siglo 19, un siniestro grupo llamado "The Circle" (El Círculo) está apostando por dominar el mundo, y los jugadores toman el rol de directores de servicios de inteligencia de diferentes países que luchan para para The Circle a través de sus espías.

El principal instrumento para mantener el orden en el juego es el tablero en el cual los jugadores llevan la cuenta de 4 secciones de sus servicios de inteligencia y de los puntos de victoria, y además de Rueda del Tiempo que simula el paso del tiempo en el transcurso del juego.

El dinero no tiene un rol en este juego, desde que lo que los espías realmente desean es descubrir secretos. De esta manera, los Secretos son una especie de moneda, y al principio de cada turno cada uno de los jugadores recibe secretos que pueden asignar a uno o mas de las secciones de su servicio de inteligencia. Las secciones son "Intelligence gathering and analysis" (Obtención de Inteligencia y Análisis), "Strategic planning and support" (Planificación Estratégica y Apoyo), "Agent control and recruitment" (Control de Agentes y Reclutamiento) and "Security and external operations" (Seguridad y Operaciones Externas), y el nivel actual de secretos disponibles en cada sección se registra en el tablero, por cada jugador, poniendo cubos de su color dentro del track de cada una de las 4 secciones.

Sin embargo, un jugador puede también usar 2 (o incluso los 4) de sus secretos para introducir nuevos espías al juego. Al comienzo ningún jugador tiene espías trabajando para su servicio de inteligencia, pero esto cambiará con el tiempo cuando los contraten, a medida que estén disponibles.

Existen espías de colores que de¡finen su pertenencia a algunos de los campos de operación de una de las cuatro secciones del servicio, pero también existen algunos espías con un borde gris, que los sindican como espías neutrales. Por cada uno de las cuatro secciones del servicio de cada jugador, cuatro tipos distintos de espían ayudan, y todos estos espías han sido colocados abiertamente en la mesa de juego antes que éste comience (formando así un total de 16 pilas pequeñas de espías).

Los espías neutrales, por otro lado, han sido barajados antes del inicio de la partida y ubicados en una pila oculta, solamente con los primeros dos revelados a todos los jugadores. Como dijimos, un jugador puede usar dos de sus secretos iniciales para obtener nuevos espías de color para el juego, y si el jugador utiliza los otros dos secretos de la misma forma, puede  activar uno de los espías grises neutrales"

Of great importance for the game is the fact that each of the spies in the game has an activation number which defines the number of turns the spy needs to get ready. When a new spy comes into the game, he is placed next to the Time Wheel, at the side of the wheel which corresponds to the activation number of the spy. At the end of his turn, the starting player will twist the Time Wheel one step clockwise, meaning the all spies aligned to the wheel get one step closer towards activation. If, after spinning the Time Wheel, one or more of the new spies have crossed the activation marker, the players will get an opportunity to hire the new spies. If it is a coloured spy, the players just look at the "secret"-indicators on the track of the service section corresponding to the spy's colour, and the player with the highest amount of secrets within this service section will receive the spy and may place him in front of himself. Grey spies - and also coloured spies in case of a tie between the players secret-rankings - will be auctioned, so the players will be allowed to bid secrets either from all of their service sections or just from the section of the matching colour in case of a coloured spy. Unlike the undisputed distribution of spies to a leading player, the auction requires the highest bidder to "pay" the secrets he has bet and reduce his marker(s) accordingly.


So you now know how the players can recruit spies, but what is done with them? During a turn, before the Time Wheel is turned, the players can use as many of their spies as the wish. This is done quite similarly to the adding of new spies at the beginning of a turn, since a used spy need to be placed next to the Time Wheel, close to the side of the wheel matching his activation number. The player who has used the spy puts a coloured token on him to show that the spy belongs to his organisation, and he will receive the spy back if, after a few turns, the Time Wheel has be spun so far that the spy once again has crossed the activation marker. Then the player may take his spy back, and he is once again ready for action.

Each spy has specialised on performing one of sixteen different types of actions available in the game, and whereas the actions of coloured spies broadly qualify as being close to the service section of the matching colour, the grey neutral spies may have an action which belongs to any of the four service sections. For example, service section INT has spies which may their boss to receive additional secrets or reduce the number of secrets of another player, section SUP spies may support spies to move forwards on the Time Wheel or delay other spies and section REC offers spies which help in recruitment issues by temporarily changing a spy's colour or forces an other player to fire a spy. However, the actions of section OPS seem to be of most importance, since they include the killing of an other spy, the exchange of spies between two players and the capture of a member of the Circle.

An other possibility to capture Circle members is for a player to increase his secrets-indicator in one of the service sections over the value "12". In this case, the indicator drops back to "1" but the player scores two Victory Points for capturing two Circle-members.

Each time a player uses a spy or secrets which allows him to capture members of the Circle, this player may advance his Victory Points marker on the scoreboard by one or two steps. However, it must be noted that the Circle also has a Victory Points marker on the scoreboard, and whenever one of its members is caught the Circle will increase its endeavors to reach world domination and will receive Victory Points as well! Thus, the game cannot be won just by capturing Circle members, since this way the Circle would have the needed 20 Victory Points faster than any of the players. Thus, the players also must use their spies to infiltrate the Circle, and once per turn a player may send one spy to infiltrate the Circle instead of using him for an action. The spy is turned over to represent his infiltration mission, and the player will score one to five victory points depending on the value of the spy. In this occasion, the Circle will not score any Victory Points, and if a player actually should succeed to send four spies specialised on all four different fields of action of the service sections to infiltrate the Circle, he will be very effective on their mission and scores one additional Victory Point. However, spies on infiltration may not be re-called, so that the player never can use their action again. The only time such a spy may be used is when the Circle is close to winning, since a player can decide to sacrifice a spy on an infiltration mission, causing himself and the Circle to lose the corresponding number of Victory Points.

As indicated, the game ends when a player or the Circle receives his 20th Victory Point. If the Circle beats all the players, it actually will be the player with fewest Victory Points who has won the game, since he was seen by the Circle to be most harmless and will be "promoted" to defend the new World Order established by the Circle. Otherwise, the player scoring his 20th Victory Point will have won.

Phew, this game is not easy to enter, and it certainly has posed an interesting task to capture the rules within the frame of this short review. There actually are a few more minor twists to the game, but you should have gotten a general impression on how the game works. The author Folker Jung explained the game to my testing group, and this proved to be a quite efficient help since he pointed at a few of the strategies which the players actually may chose to win the game. So, on the one hand it is possible to specialise on hiring spies from one or two sections, using them for maximum advantage in their section's field of action. On the other hand, a player could constantly bid his secrets for grey spies, disabling him to receive coloured spies but getting him some of the slightly weaker grey spies at rather cheap prices. Eliminating or delaying the spies of other players, increasing other players secret-indicators and forcing them to capture Circle-members, or using spies for his own good - the players have a broad choice of possible actions which may lead to different ways to win the game every time it is played. And if a player falls far behing because his planning and plotting did not work out because of other spies intervening, it might still be worth to try to further the interests of the Circle in order to become the winner by having scored fewest Victory Points.

Although the game does not seem to include a great depth in gameplay when you first look at the playing components spread out on the table, it is quite surprising what kinds of ideas can be found in the game. As you will have noticed, it is especially the Time Wheel which serves as the motor of the game, and I really liked the simulation of the time passing after the spies had acted. A player will have to think carefully when a spy should be used, since he will need some time to become ready for another action, but it is also possible to use powerful combinations of spies from different service sections to make great advances or cause dire losses to other players. The game is difficult since the players need to get familiar with the powers of the spies and it also needs to get used to develop a strategy, but once the players have fought the Circle one or twice they will be enthralled by the strategic options available. However, keeping the world from disaster takes time, and so the players should be willing to invest something around two hours when playing the game for the first times and a good amount of extra time for getting familiar with the rules. The game even includes full English rules, and it should not be underestimated just because its somewhat Spartan looks. So far, it is not available from distributors, but it can be ordered directly on the C4-website.

And with this review, we have also reached the end of my convention reports from the SPIEL 2007. It's 3:00 AM once again, and as usual I will publish and notify the winners of the Prize-Draw in the next couple of days. However, having seen a good share of games at the con, I will once again award

Kulkmann's Convention Hit !



This year, the decision proved to be rather hard, since I have quite a few games on my list which have left some quite good impressions with me. On the one hand I have The Circle and Tribun which I playtested today, both of them being rather nice strategy games with really intersting elements in their rules, on the other hand there is Kingsburg with a very smoothly running playing mechanism and Medievalia which, after getting the rules straight, proves to be a very easy to learn resource managment and battle game.

I have decided against Kingsburg on the matter that direct player interaction could be higher (it is mostly done with blocking court members which other players then may not use on the same turn) and also because of the price. The game comes with a beautiful gameboard, but there are only very few cards and playing components included and the player mats actually are printed onto slightly hardened paper. That's not enough to justify a price of 40 Euros for the German edition and 50 Euros for other language versions. On these terms Medievalia is a much better choice, since it offers a higher entertainment value for much less money.

Sin embargo, los detallados mecanismos de juego tanto de Tribune como de The Circle superan con creces las opciones disponibles en Medievalia, y al final he decidido dar mi recomendación especial a...

The Circle

por el bien logrado mecanismo para simular el tiempo de juego y también por la variedad de estrategias posibles, lo que ciertamente podría potenciar su rejugabilidad. Tribune viene un poco atrás, pero considerando el hecho de que The Circle fue hecho por un recién llegado, me gustaría premiar este realmente creativo primer producto.

Thanks to all of you for following me through the convention once again, and also thanks for all the positive comments you left in my guestbook! It's very important for me to see that me reports are finding a good echo out there, and this certainly helps keeping my eye open during these long nights of typing.

If you have anything to add or comment on, please don't hesitate to send me an email!!!

See you all again for the SPIEL 2008 next year!!!

Frank Schulte-Kulkmann
Fuente : http://www.solicitor.de/gamebox/specials/messe/essen07/essen07.htm


Reglas en inglés: http://www.c4cc.de/inhalt/texte/download/Spielregeln.pdf
Sitio del juego en BGG: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/32047
Sitio oficial de juego (en alemán e inglés): http://c4creativecell.com/