Each player begins the game by selecting one of five available fantasy races that are created randomly. Each race has specific properties that provides advantages and a certain population. In addition, each race, has a randomly created special ability. You can select the first available race/ability or pay 1 point for the second, 2 points for the third, all the way up to the fifth. The points that are spent stay with the race that was “passed up” and the player that ultimately chooses that race/ability received those points. This is a great balancing mechanism for the weaker race/ability combos.
The player then makes use of the race tokens to capture territory on one of four different playing maps. Map selection is determined by the number of players with a specific map used for 2, 3, 4, or 5 players. To capture a territory, a player must place a particular number of tokens in it, based on the location of the territory, the number of defending tokens, and any special abilities of the player’s race. If the player can place a sufficient number of tokens, the capture is guaranteed to succeed; if they cannot, the move is illegal. If enemy tokens are defeated in a captured territory, one of them is removed from the game entirely and the remainder are returned to the owning player to redeploy in their other territories. At the end of each turn, a player scores points based on the number of territories they own, with some racial abilities providing bonuses.
Most territory captures are diceless; however, a player who is left at the end of their turn holding a number of tokens insufficient to capture a particular territory may attempt to capture it using a special die called the reinforcement die. After playing all the tokens into the target territory, they roll this customized, six-sided reinforcement die which increases the strength of their capture by the number rolled (0-3 units). If this total is still insufficient to capture the territory, the tokens are returned to the player’s other currently owned territories and the player’s turn ends; they cannot be redeployed to capture another territory, even if they would have been sufficient to do so.
Since the number of tokens in a race is fixed, and can only go down as other races capture territories, eventually a race will reach a maximum number of territories that it can support. When this occurs, the player owning that race can declare that it is going into decline. This allows the player to select a new race to bring onto the board while the tokens of the former race remain in place, no longer movable, but continuing to gather points until their territories are captured.
The game continues until a certain number of turns are completed. The player with the highest score wins.
There is a good bit of strategy involved from choosing a race, choosing what areas to take over, and choosing when to go into decline (you can only have one race in decline, after that the race is extinct). The few random elements keep the game balanced.
Small World should only take about 5 minutes to setup and less than 1 1/2 hours to play. If you enjoy fantasy style combat strategy games, give Small World a try.
