Review of Pillars of the Earth and World Without End
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After the game Pillars of the Earth ("Pillars of the Earth"), developed by the German duo of Michael Rinek and Stefan Stadler based on Ken Follett's novel of the same name, was swept off the shelves at the Essen exhibition and won many awards, the authors created World With. . The place of action remained the same - a typical English town of Kingsbridge - only since the construction of the local cathedral, the clock has turned its hands for several centuries. Let's see what the authors came up with this time and how World Without End differs from Pillars of the Earth.
At the heart of Pillars of the Earth is the mechanic of placing chips on the field, "maple placement". At the beginning of the game, the "executives" put the players in a bag and then blindly take them out of it. The sooner your "executive" appears from the bag, the more expensive you will have to pay to the bank in order to put this chip on the field, thus occupying the zone the player needs. On the other hand, it is also bad to be at the tail end of the process: you will have to pay a minimum, but most areas of the field will already be occupied by representatives of other players.
You can pay nothing at all and leave the finished product pulled out of the bag for the second round. These losers will be placed in the remaining field zones at the very end of the round. Then the zones of the field are activated in order, and the chips standing on them allow you to perform various actions: collect resources, "mow" from taxes, trade, replenish the squad of artisans (cards that allow you to convert between resources, money and victory points)...
World Without End is based on action cards - players have identical sets of 12 pieces. During the main phase of the round, players choose two such cards from their hand: they play one by performing the action attached to it, and discard the other. Discarded cards will return to the hand only at the end of the round, which lasts 6 rounds. Thus, out of 12 action cards, each player plays only 6. Correct and timely selection of cards to be played and discarded is the key to success. Action cards allow you to get resources, participate in construction or cure residents from the plague (receiving victory points for this good activity), build personal houses that bring additional income in the form of resources, trade in wool and cloth.
As you can see, the central ideas of the games we are considering are completely different. Perhaps, at this stage, it seems that Pillars of the Earth is a more random and competitive game, because it has a canvas bag and frequent cases when one player "crosses the path" of another player with his chips, occupying the right area of the field. However, let's not rush to conclusions and see what the central mechanics of the games in question are tied to.
In Pillars of the Earth, before placing "executive workers", players deal with order cards, which essentially give the right to send a certain number of workers to a mining zone for a specific resource. These cards are dealt in turn order, one card at a time. Once the artisans are placed and the field zones are activated, players distribute the resources they receive between their artisan cards, converting them into victory points and/or money.
In World Without End, choosing two action cards from your hand precedes the reveal and triggering of a square event card. This card contains a textual description of an effect that changes the game in any way, or even directly cancels or adds a rule. These cards come in both instant and long-lasting effects, but none of the effects can carry over from one turn of the game to another. Icons of resources (money, victory points) are indicated on each corner of the open map. The first player is given the opportunity to orient this card on the field in one of 4 possible ways. After that, each player takes from the bank the resource whose image is on the corner of the map facing the player. An arrow on one of the sides of the card square also indicates an additional bonus that the first player receives. After the event card's effect is executed and resources are drawn from it, the action card phase described above begins and it all starts over. However, at the end of a round (which lasts 6 rounds), the game requires players to drop a certain set of resources. If a player fails to do so, fines and penalties apply. This "Sword of Damocles" mechanic strongly resembles Agricola or the same Le Havre, and as a result, World Without End turns into a rather tough strategy in the key of crisis management.
So, Pillars of the Earth is a highly competitive, yet still family-friendly game. In World Without End, despite clearly stronger solitaire (due to identical sets of action cards, players still interact with each other much less than in PotE), there is too strong a vein of crisis management, which is further strengthened by the will of chance at the moment of revealing the event cards at the beginning of each round.
Among experienced players who are accustomed to planning, both strategic and tactical, PotE ranks slightly higher than WWE because in the latter there is no getting around the relentless effect of the newly revealed event map. Sometimes it could be softened - if I hadn't sent the right action card to reset a couple of rounds ago. Event cards in WWE work like an inexorable fate, and in such conditions it is difficult to plan development. And yet, despite this, there is something attractive in World Without End. Fate in the form of event cards often strikes a chord, but planning to use your own action cards is very interesting. "Infinite World" is unlikely to collect a bunch of prizes, like its older sister, it will not become as popular. The games are completely different, but there is a lot of good in both, and I can't clearly prefer one of them. May they both remain in my collection. After all, these two boxes look good on the shelf next to each other.