The following pictures contain content from the Arcs Expansion, during my webhost move, some photos were lost.
I like having control. If you’re already familiar with Arcs by Cole Wherle and Leder Games, that should tell you how this review is going to go.
In Arcs, Players are controlling space faring factions as they bump elbows with each other and vie for victory points. The core action selection mechanism is a twist on trick taking. Each chapter of the game deals each player 6 cards in 4 suits. Each suit has access to 2 or 3 different actions, and the numerical strength of the card is inversely related to the number of actions that card can provide.
Each round of the game starts with the player who has initiative. That player plays a lead card, and may choose to Declare and Ambition. The ambitions are how victory points are scored, and the ambition the lead player is allowed to declare is entirely based off the numerical value of the card. Declaring an ambition also reduces the numerical value of the card down to 0, which is quite important for the players who will be following.
The lead player takes however many actions that the card they played allows them to take, then the next player takes their turn. They can choose to Surpass (play a card of the same suit, but higher value), Copy (play a card face down to take a single action that the lead card has access to), or Pivot (play an off suit card, and take a single action that the card has access to. Any player can also play a second card face down to seize the initiative to go first next round, unless the initiative has already been seized this round. If initiative wasn’t seized, then whoever played the highest surpass card takes the initiative for the next round.
That’s the basic rules of how Arcs plays. I won’t really get into the details of what each action does, or battle, or the nuance of the ambition markers, because those aspects aren’t at the core of what I want to talk about. My experience with Arcs was a frustrating one. From the context above, you may have noticed that what you can do is almost entirely dependent on which cards you were dealt at the start of the round. I think everyone at our table every round said something to the effect of “This hand is awful!”. The ambitions you can declare are dependent on the cards you have, the actions you can play are dependent on the cards you have, if you’re void in a suit, the only way you can access those actions are if someone leads with a card of that suit, and you copy them, taking a single action.
A game of Arcs isn’t about doing what you want. Arcs doesn’t support players who have a grand strategy and goals that they want to accomplish. Arcs is about tactics, it’s about being opportunistic. Action efficiency means something entirely different in the context of Arcs, it’s not about how many actions you get. It’s about having that one or two REALLY GOOD actions that enable you to score an ambition. It’s about sneaking in to get a majority in the 11th hour, it’s about positioning yourself to have the chance to do things in the future. You need to be on your toes in Arcs.
And that’s all well and good, but ultimately, it’s not the type of game that I really enjoy. I mostly enjoy dice combat games like Eclipse. I like mean games like Food Chain Magnate, but I do not enjoy the feeling of being handcuffed. I don’t like being cut off from core actions entirely, just because I was dealt a hand of manoeuvre cards.
The last chapter of Arcs I played, I was dealt 5 manoeuvre cards. The actions available to the manoeuvre cards are to Move, or Influence. I felt entirely out of the game, because those to actions have absolutely nothing to do with the ambitions. And because I had 5 of the 7 manoeuvre cards, I was fairly certain that a manoeuvre card wouldn’t be lead. My whole round was a series of copy actions, taking a single action of whatever the lead card is. Unable to plan, unable to score, I felt dejected. Perhaps that hand of that calibre is an anomaly, but it cemented my thoughts that I prefer games where I can do the core actions of the game.
That last chapter ended in quite the upset, too. One player had a near monopoly on Fuel, so he put two tokens on the Tycoon ambition. The other two players manoeuvred and raided his cities, stealing nearly everything he had. On the final turn, one of the players took a single tax action, gaining a material, and the majority on both of the ambitions that were declared that round, and went from 7 points to winning the game entirely. The whole table was floored at the sudden change of fortunes. As I said above, opportunistic.
Make no mistake, Arcs is not a Bad Game. It’s just not a game for me. I prefer to have more control over what I can do, instead of putting my fate into the heart of the cards.
I do plan to embark on the campaign expansion with my friends. I look forward to what kind of crazy situations Cole Wherle has crafted for us. I don’t think it’ll change my mind and my preferences towards games that let me plan out a strategy. But with an updated mindset of what action economy means in the context of Arcs, I look forward to those great moments of upset and triumph.
