After the Flood

Description courtesy of BoardgameNews.com After the Flood – a three-player game that’s set in Sumeria, with players using regional resources to trade for goods not produced in the area while also building short-lived empires for long-lasting victory points. “Certain mechanisms were created with three players in mind,” says Wallace. “You score an empire, then remove it, so you can try to maximize points on your turn without leaving yourself in a position to get hit on following turns.” This design sidesteps the problem of a third player winning a game due to fights to the death by players 1 and 2, but that bug becomes a feature in another part of the game. Competition among the players for goods and army strength is relative rather than linear; having twice as many dudes collecting resources won’t net you twice the number of goods, so getting into an arms race with one opponent might hurt the two of you together and advantage the third player who can spend resources on better things. Controlling different cities gives you different bonuses, with the bonus being based on the history of the city itself: Sippar lets you trade more, Babylon counts for additional armies, and so forth. Combat in the game is dice-based to avoid deterministic battles in which you can guarantee victory simply by piling up more troops, although size does have its advantages.