Circle The Wagons Game Review

CIRCLE THE WAGONS GAME REVIEW

 Circle the Wagons is a quick and easy, down-and-dirty Boomtown card game for two players. Collect cards from the central display to make your city unique. Earn points for the largest groups of territories in your city, take a chance on three bonus cards, and hope you don't lose. Get the most points and win Circle the Wagons!

 Circle the Wagons is a light-hearted two-player wallet card game from Button Shy Games. Known for its line of 18-card limited wallet card games, Buttonshy has released games like Turbo Drift, Pentaquark, Ahead in the Clouds, and Cunning Folk.

PREPARING FOR THE GAME

 Setting up Circle the Wagons is simple. Shuffle all 18 cards together, territorial side up. Separate the top three cards and place them in the middle of the table with the bonus text facing up. These are the bonus cards used in this game. The other 15 cards are placed territorial side up in a circle around the bonus cards, as you can see in the following image.

 Choose the first player and you're ready to start the game. But first, a little trick: the first player gets the first choice of cards, but the second player can tell the first player where to start. This can have a significant impact on the game, as you'll see in a moment.

GAME PROCESS

 In Circle the Wagons, two players take turns selecting territory cards from the central display in a clockwise direction. After the first player selects and allows the second player to indicate the starting card, the game begins.

CARD SELECTION

The active player has two options:

• 1. Choose the first card in order and place it in its Boom City.
• 2. Skip any number of cards to select another card and place it in their Boom City. Any skipped cards will be passed to the other player to place in their Boom City.

 In the following example, the first player chooses card #1 and puts it in their Boomtown. The second player will choose card #3, which means that player 1 will receive card #2 and must add it to their Boomtown.

MAP PLACEMENT

 There are only a few rules when placing a map in your Boomtown.

• 1. Cards can only be placed right side up or upside down. Cards can never be placed sideways.
• 2. The newly placed map must touch or overlap the existing map of the area.
• 3. New cards can overlap old cards in any way, including completely covering another card. New cards can never be slid under a previous card.

 Play continues clockwise, with each player choosing a card and placing it in their Boomtown. When the last card is placed, the game ends and scoring begins.

SCORING

 At the end of the game, your city might look something like this.

 At the end of the game, players will score 1 point for each territory in their largest area of ​​each of the six terrain types: desert, forest, mountains, plains, snow, and water. If two territories are the same size, players choose which one to score.

 In the example above, the player will receive the following points:

• 5 points for the mountain region in the upper left corner
• 3 points for the desert region in the upper left corner
• 6 points for the snow region in the center, ignoring the two smaller snow regions on the bottom right
• 3 points for the water region on the right, ignoring the water region above
• 1 point for a forest region, both of which are one cell
• 1 point for a flat region, both of which are one cell

BONUS CARDS

 Let's take a quick look at some of the bonus cards for Circle the Wagons.

 Most maps, such as Cold Water, encourage players to plan ahead, choose the most advantageous cards, and place them in their Boomtown.

 Other cards, such as "Bootleggers," can cause a player to lose points if the card is placed incorrectly.

 Some cards even pit players against each other, such as "Small Town Ruffian" and may even encourage a player to have the smallest Boomtown:

WHAT I LIKE ABOUT THE GAME

 Wallet games can be a hit or miss for me. I like the idea of ​​portability and pared-down gameplay, but they've been a bit of a letdown in the past. Circle the Wagons is one of the first wallet games I've played that felt like a full-fledged board game. Sure, it's lacking in components, but it makes up for it with its quality.

 The use of double-sided cards is a great idea here. Button Shy have done this in the past with Ahead in the Clouds and Turbo Drift, and they continue to use it to great effect in Circle the Wagons. Designers Danny Devine, Stephen Aramini, and Paul Kluka have tightly integrated the scoring mechanics and gameplay without making the game too long or too difficult.

 Since players only use 3 of the 18 bonus cards, each game will be different. According to the BoardGameGeek page for Circle the Wagons, there are “nearly five thousand unique ways to score points.” I’ve played nearly a dozen games, and each one has been different. In some games, you simply collect the maximum number of badges, and you also place them for the largest regions. In other games, you try to avoid collecting resources. And in other games, you literally try to make your city as small as possible. In many cases, the bonus cards contradict each other: you get points for bottles on one card, while another card penalizes you if you have the most bottles.

 Beth Sobel's art is understated and subtle, yet gorgeous. The detailed illustrations of the icons blend and contrast beautifully with the rough and unevenly painted backgrounds, creating a set of artwork I would happily hang on my wall (goal tip Jason).

WHAT DID YOU NOT LIKE?

 The only real downside to this game is the environment. While stacking cards into piles makes for some really interesting choices, the physical task of doing so is a bit frustrating. The extremely subtle curvature of the cards means they'll always be shifting around. This can make it difficult to keep your city in order. It's possible that a production copy of the game will be better, so take this with a grain of salt.

 It would also be great to have a few more cards or a small token to mark the starting card… but then it wouldn’t be a wallet game, would it?

FINAL CONCLUSIONS

 Combining Patchwork, Isle of Skye and Kingdom Builder, Circle the Wagons is the quintessential big game in a small format. Rugged, beautiful, streamlined and genuinely fun. I predict Circle the Wagons will be Button Shy's flagship game, and rightfully so. Back Circle the Wagons on Kickstarter while you can, you won't regret it!

 What do you think of Circle the Wagons? Share your thoughts on what you like and/or dislike about the game in the comments below!