AuZtralia Review
Image: SchilMil Games, Ltd./Stronghold Games
INTRODUCTION
I have always enjoyed the creative output from board game designer Martin Wallace. From heavier, economic strategy games like Brass: Lancashire all the way to the colourful area control game of Moa which presents an alternate tale of the historical events surrounding the colonization of New Zeeland featuring anthropomorphized birds and mammals, there is no denying the man is certainly a prolific designer within the hobby. Often times, the games that bear the signum of Wallace tend to include some form of twist to the tried and true formula, a quirk of sorts which sets them apart from other board game designs. This is most definitely the case with AuZtralia, the spiritual successor to Martin Wallace’s previous design A Study In Emerald. Sherlock Holmes and his Victorian Era associates may have succeeded in driving out these beings of horror from Europe, but that does not mean that the Old Ones are eradicated…
COMPONENTS
I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this, but initially I made a mental note about the graphical design of AuZtralia as merely being a concoction consisting of fifty shades of brown. And to a certain extent my assessment still holds true and I stand by it, given a cursory glance AuZtralia does indeed present itself as a board game draped in a colour palette consisting of predominantly earthy tones which might not come off as the most exciting proposition in terms of visual presentation. And yet, when fully set-up on the table AuZtralia manages to look beautiful. The game includes lovely custom shaped acrylic tokens denoting the various resources players can mine for such as gold, coal and phosphate while iron is represented by silver coloured wooden tokens which are serviceable albeit somewhat bland. AuZtralia also features a double-sided main board, where one side depicts the western part of the continent which also serves as an alternative game mode in terms of resource allocation and where players can build farms. Out of the two, personally I vastly prefer this alternate playing area largely due to how the map incorporates drawings of farms and locales to present the player with a more fleshed out narrative.
Welcome to AuZtralia, a board game about constructing a railroad, building farms, punching Cthulhu in the face and… kangaroos? Photo: Fredrik Schulz
While on the subject of story, “the theme could have been anything” is a rather sweeping statement not too uncommon within the community when describing the thematic integration, or lack thereof depending on one’s point of view, in regard to the Euro school of board game design. Personally, I am not particularly fond of that characterisation as I find it to be somewhat trivialising. In the case of AuZtralia, one cannot fault Martin Wallace nor publisher SchilMil Games for not providing a narrative that expands on the theme and story being told surrounding the mythos once created by H.P. Lovecraft. Throughout the rulebook there are footnotes containing excerpts from Eminent Australians, a “biography” published in 1954 by author Timothy Strachey which depicts the stories of the brave people who participated in the war against the Old Ones. Although not exactly Pulitzer worthy material these small snippets of lore goes a long way in so far as establishing a narrative hook.
OVERVIEW
“There was a reason why a ban existed on exploring this part of the world. Unbeknownst to all, hidden in the outback of the land, the Old Ones had established secret bases. Following their defeat, the surviving Old Ones and some of their loyal human allies had made their way to their holdfasts in the arid plains beyond the Great Dividing Range. As the colonists spread, the Old Ones began to stir, hell-bent on driving these irksome intruders back into the sea. Terrible creatures’ bread by the Old Ones started to move across the land, destroying everything they encountered, blighting everything in their path.”
AuZtralia is undoubtedly one, if not the most eclectic board game I have ever come across. How else would one describe a game design that manages to combine elements of constructing and expanding your network of railroads, mining for precious resources, building farms and harvesting crops, enlisting the aid of prominent citizens that provide unique abilities that alter the game, combatting monstrous tyrants rising up from the pits of hell and… kangaroos? On paper, this concoction of horror tropes á la zombies and Cthulhu mixed with medium-heavy Euro board game mechanism could very well have resulted in a piping hot mess. But I am getting ahead of myself, let us start at the beginning. Set in an alternate timeline where the continent of Australia was first discovered in the late 19th Century, one to four players will take on the roles of prospectors trying to lay claim to this virgin territory. Deep within the hinterland there are untold riches ripe for the taking but be careful, there are things of unspeakable horror that abide beneath the surface of these dusty plains…
Building farms will earn you gold but they are also a prime target for attracting the unwanted attention of the Old Ones. Photo: Fredrik Schulz
At the start of the game, as part of setup the main board is randomly seeded with what is known as Survey tiles. Each tile indicates what sort of resources and/or monsters are to be placed on the surrounding hexes of the aforementioned token. Seeing as neighbouring hexes of several Survey tiles will inevitably intersect with one another, there is potential for large deposits of valuable resources to be positioned on the board. Unfortunately, this synergetic effect also applies to how monsters are populated throughout the AuZtralian wilderness which consists of three land types: coastal, hills and outback hexes. When examining the layout of the main board and the distribution of wealth, one quickly realises that in order to obtain these precious resources you will have to build and expand your railroad network right into the hornets’ nest which in the case of AuZtralia consists of the horrifying beings known as the Old Ones. Each player starts the game with a port in one of the available coastal hexes, this is considered your base of operations. From there you will build and expand the railroad network which is a crucial part of your strategy, whilst simultaneously being an essential component needed for the player to perform the available actions the game has to offer which is represented on your individual player board. In addition to being used for activating and perform certain key actions, the player board also contains your recruited military forces that are currently stationed at your port and any collected resources stored in the warehouse.
By allocating their pool of cubes, players are able to perform the various actions that are available on their individual board. Photo: Fredrik Schulz
At the start of a game of AuZtralia you will have 20 cubes situated in the Headquarters (HQ) section of your player board, these cubes are used to indicate performed actions but also come into play when engaged in combat which we will cover in just a bit. On your turn, you will select one of the cubes currently available in your HQ and allocate it to one of the so-called Action boxes on your player board which then allows you to perform the associated action. You are allowed to have multiple cubes in any action box, however for each subsequent cube placed after the first one you will have to pay gold equal to the number of cubes already present before performing the associated action. This mechanism prevents players from simply going overboard and pumping one aspect of their game engine into the extreme, seeing how gold is an incredibly precious commodity used for recruiting troops among other things. That is when you take the Retrieve cubes action, which may not be the most exciting thing to do but it allows you to move all previously allocated cubes back into the HQ section of your player board which essentially resets all actions for future turns. Whether it is expanding the railroad, mining for resources, or deploying troops into combat, every single action performed will cost you a certain amount of Time. And this where one of the most interesting aspects of AuZtralia in terms of strategical consideration comes into play, literally speaking.
Similar to board games like Tokaido by designer Antoine Bauza and Patchwork from Uwe Rosenberg, AuZtralia features a dynamic turn structure that is based on your position on what is known as the Time track. After performing an action, you will then proceed to advance your token on the Time track a corresponding number of spaces. The player whose token is currently furthest in the back of the line is considered the active player, meaning that it is possible for one player to perform multiple turns in a row. Some actions, for example laying down new railroad tracks throughout cumbersome terrain in the hills hexes of the main board, will cost you no less than three time points which could potentially open up an opportunity for your rivals to capitalize on you having to sit out a number of turns. Throughout the course of the game players will leapfrog past each other on the time track, taking individual turns of varying costs in both resources and time. This rather light-hearted figurative jabbing of sorts with your opponents as you jostle over turn-order takes on a much more grave tone as you start to pay attention to the inconspicuous purple token that rests comfortably on number 22 of the Time Track. For you see, this is the mark of the beast and once all players have moved their respective token past this pivotal point then the Old Ones become the active player. And this is where AuZtralia transforms itself from a pedestrian resource management affair of a board game design into something much, much more interesting.
The Time track creates a dynamic turn structure, where players and the Old Ones will leapfrog past one another throughout the course of the game. Photo: Fredrik Schulz
Throughout the Time track there are highlighted spaces, indicating that a Revelation will occur. Whenever the purple Old Ones token ends its movement on one of these spaces, the top card of the corresponding deck of Revelation cards is revealed and resolved. Remember all those face-down monster tokens that were seeded at random on the main board as part as setup, monsters you maybe have (un)intentionally neglected in your greedy pursuit of more gold nuggets or harvesting crops? Well here comes reality crashing like a derailed freight train because the vast majority of the Revelation cards activate Old Ones. And once awoken from their eternal slumber, these unspeakable horrors from beyond will start to move towards the nearest farm and/or port with the sole purpose of eradicating you and your fellow man into oblivion. If a single player loses his port as a result of the Old Ones overrunning it, the game ends immediately and final scoring commences so it is in your and possibly your opponents interest to cooperate in regards to engaging the monsters in armed combat. Seeing how the Old Ones operate on the same premise as you do when advancing on the Time track, the choice of whether or not to perform costly actions in terms of time points becomes even more excruciating compared to earlier stages in the game. Maybe you desperately need to add additional tracks to your railroad network in order to allow your freight trains to reach gold deposits located further inland, but in the process of doing so advancing your time token three spaces on the track. And believe me when I say, that having to sit and wait for three consecutive turns whilst simultaneously watching how a Shoggoth or Mi-go moves closer and closer to your port is an agonizing experience!
As you might have guessed, in order to be successful when playing AuZtralia you have to go on the offensive right away. Rather than incorporating more traditional combat mechanisms represented in miniature-based board games, Martin Wallace has opted for a slightly different approach when it comes to resolving combat. Much like several other actions one can perform, combat in AuZtralia is linked to your railroad network. Rather than having military units permanently deployed on the board, your recruited units acts as an Expeditionary Force that is sent out into the outback to investigate reports of mysterious and frightful beings by utilizing the railroads as a way of transportation. Depending on the composition of your current selection of recon units, you are then able to attack a monster that is situated within a certain number of “off-rail” hexes. For example, the Airship has the capability for long range recognisance up to for hexes away, while the Infantry has a range of just one hex. If engaging in combat with a dormant, face-down monster you pay the time cost for taking the Attack action plus associated time costs per unit category, then you nervously flip the tile face-up only to have it reveal… a kangaroo. The reports of Cthulhu roaming around the dusty plains turned out to be nothing more than a red herring. Alternatively, you might stumble upon a zombie, Shoggoth or a number of unspeakable horrors.
This aspect of AuZtralia may come off as something a bit too random or tedious, but personally I really think this is a clever way to integrate theme to the actual game mechanisms. As is the case in real life, not all intel obtained in the field is reliable and mustering armed forces is a tremendous task regarding the amount of time and logistics needed. You need to rid the board of these monsters, and to a certain extent you can plan your assault based on the fact that there are three categories of Old Ones which is represented by number and colour on the tile. But there is still a sense of uncertainty and trepidation in the hearts and minds of your Expeditionary Force as they leave the safety of the barracks in the port.
The Old Ones’ deck is used to resolve combat. Photo: Fredrik Schulz
Unlike other board game designs that use the act of rolling dice to resolve combat, AuZtralia takes a slightly different approach by having you play an elaborate version of rock-paper-scissors versus the Old Ones. Each of the available military units are more suited to deal damage towards certain type of monsters than others, for example the armoured is rather ill-equipped to square off against giant sized Old Ones but exceeds in attacking zombies. When attacking, you take the top card of the Old Ones deck and look for which type of monster you are targeting. On the left side are the military units and the damage they do, whilst on the right side of the card are the damage that the monster afflicts to your Expeditionary Force. If the Old One is still standing after the card has been resolved, you then have the option to either continue fighting or make a tactical retreat. However, retreating is not the same as failing as it allows you to remove damage inflicted to your units so that they may live to fight another day: “You may have won the battle, but lost the war”.
THE SOLO MODE
In terms of pure game mechanisms, playing AuZtralia in solitaire differs next to none when compared to the multiplayer ruleset. Because the game already includes an automated opponent as a key component of the design, you do not have to spend any time learning a second set of specific solo rules which makes playing AuZtralia in solitaire a really pleasant experience as far as upkeep goes. There are a couple of additions though that is worth mentioning. First, there are the Solo Objective cards. Because you are fighting the Old Ones alone and therefore cannot lean on other players to alleviate the burden, these cards provide end-of-game goals that reward you with additional victory points provided you are able to meet the requirement of the card in question. Some are straightforward, like for instance having recruited all types of military units or collected at least six gold nuggets. Others are a bit more intricate, challenging you to have placed all of your 20 railroad tokens before game’s end or starting with a set of characters but in return you can never have an Old One reach your port.
Character cards. Photo: Fredrik Schulz
The other aspect of the solo mode in AuZtralia is not so much a variation to the core rules as it is a personal observation of mine and that has to do with the Personality cards. By performing the Recruit help action, you take one of the five cards from the current display and add it next to your player board. Each character provides you with a unique skill or ability that can alter the course of the game, some give you resources whilst others provide opportunities to score additional victory points. However, there is also an additional group of characters whose skill sets are geared towards combat and here is where I find myself somewhat torn. Having played AuZtralia close to ten times, all in solitaire, it has been my experience that to be successful you have to prioritize recruiting these specific characters. If you play your cards right, literally and figuratively, by recruiting the right crew you can dish out three to four points of damage to an Old One before the actual combat resolution has even begun. This aspect of the solo mode makes me feel as if there is but one “obvious” path to victory that I am funnelled towards by a small array of the available Personality cards.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I honestly thought that AuZtralia would turn out to be nothing more than a piping hot mess, that there was no way Martin Wallace would be able to string all these unique and individual aspects of the design together into one cohesive and satisfying solo board game experience. Well, shame on me for doubting Mr Wallace because I ended up thoroughly enjoying my time with AuZtralia. As I might have alluded earlier in this review, this is undoubtedly one of the most eclectic and interesting (solo) board game designs I have ever experienced. In theory, the idea of combining the H.P. Lovecraft horror mythos with a Euro styled train and resource management game of all things borders on absurdity. And yet, somehow it just works for a lack of a better term. For me, AuZtralia is a shining example of a board game that manages to be greater than the sum of its parts.
