I have a confession to make; I don’t really like take-that games. Perhaps it’s the care bear in me that wants everyone to have fun and live in peace and harmony, or perhaps it’s the fact that in multiplayer games, one person is usually ganged up on by the others and since I play these games with my wife and kids, that person is usually me.
So, when I first tried Zenith, I expected to not really like it. I expected that I’d play it a few times, then grumble something about there being too much randomness in the card-driven gameplay, and then add it to the ever-growing pile of ‘games other people seem to like but I don’t.’
I have a confession to make; I don’t really like take-that games. Perhaps it’s the care bear in me that wants everyone to have fun and live in peace and harmony, or perhaps it’s the fact that in multiplayer games, one person is usually ganged up on by the others and since I play these games with my wife and kids, that person is usually me.
So, when I first tried Zenith, I expected to not really like it. I expected that I’d play it a few times, then grumble something about there being too much randomness in the card-driven gameplay, and then add it to the ever-growing pile of ‘games other people seem to like but I don’t.’
But since I picked up Zenith, and more importantly, since I started to really understand Zenith, I just cannot stop playing it.
Slipped Disc
The absolute core gameplay of Zenith are five different coloured tracks on the main board, each with a disc of the matching colour placed in the centre. If you can get one of those coloured discs all the way to your side of the board (and off the edge), you get to keep it, and a new disc of the same colour is put back in the middle. As soon as either player has 3 discs of the same colour, or 4 discs all of different colours, or any five discs, they immediately win.
So, how do you slip the discs down to the bottom? By playing cards, of course! Players have a hand of cards, and on their turn all they do is play a card to do a thing and then refill their hand. No awkward upkeep phase or turn marker shuffling here.
The rub, however, is that each card can be used for one of three things. You can spend credits to play it for influence, using its ability and building your economy. You can spend Zenithium to play it for technology, bumping up one of the technology tracks and accessing powerful one-off effects. Or you can use it for diplomacy, getting a small amount of resources and taking the all important leader token.
How to lose friends and influence the board
Playing a card for influence costs credits as shown on the card, but you get a discount of 1 for each card of that colour already on your side of the board, meaning it also might save you credits in the long run. In almost every case, playing a card for influence gives you a bump on that coloured track, and it also gives some other benefit, such as bumps on the same track or other tracks, extra credits or Zenithium, or letting you get extra cards onto your side of the board by drawing extra from the deck or stealing your opponents’ cards. Every card you steal is an extra credit in your economy and one less in theirs, so this is often a good return.
An interesting development
Instead of playing a card for influence, you can use your precious Zenithium (both players start with 1) to bump up one of three development tracks. The tracks each have a different symbol, so you’ll need to play a card of the matching symbol to move up the right track. Each bump gets progressively more expensive, from 1 Zenithium for level 1 all the way up to 5 Zenithium for (you guessed it) level 5. But the abilities also improve as you’d expect, and when you bump up a level you get to do the ability of each lower level of that track again!
Not only that, but once you have all three level 1 technologies, you get a free bump of one space on a track, and then a two space bump for all level 2 technologies and a three space bump for all level 3 technologies. (Then those extra bumps stop; you didn’t guess that, did ya?)
Follow the leader token
The third and final thing you can do is play a card to take the silver leader token. You’ll get a small amount of resources based on the symbol of the card you play, but the leader token can be very important, partly because some influence abilities will get better if you have it and/or can give it to your opponent, but also because it increases your hand size from 4 to 5. If you take the leader token while you already have it, you can flip it to its gold side, which gives you a hand size of 6 instead.
In a game that is driven entirely by card play, and with such small hands, that extra hand size can make all the difference. If you have the gold leader token you’ll have 6 cards in hand every turn instead of your opponent’s 4, which massively increases the chance you’ll draw something that you can leverage to improve your game state.
Don’t play the game, play the player
One of the interesting things about the game is the range of abilities, both for influence actions and development actions; there are some very powerful effects, but those effects are obviously more expensive. As you play the game more and more, you start to realise that the timing of when you use those abilities is massively important. For example, some cards or development benefits will give you up to three bumps on the same track. That’s enough to score the disc straight away if it’s already just one space towards your side. And this is where Zenith really puts the game into game theory, as you start to play your opponent as much as you play the game.
For example, if my hand has the cards for me to make a push on orange, I could play one of them now, but then my opponent would know what I’m doing. Maybe I should play a cheap influence on another track to throw them off instead? Or maybe I should take the leader token so that I can find an answer to the push they’ve been making on the blue track? Or maybe I should develop a technology that will give me a bump on two neighbouring tracks, to force my opponent to fight on two fronts? But then, that other development track lets me steal one of their Zenithium, and they only have 1 right now so I’d be shutting them down? In most of my turns of Zenith, there’s more than one good option, and the information that I give my opponent through the choice I make can often be as important as the ability itself.
Final thoughts
I started out this review by saying that I don’t like take-that games, and it’s true. I don’t. And Zenith is undoubtedly a take-that game. And yet I love it.
I think it’s partly because Zenith doesn’t try and hide it’s take-that nature; there’s no pretence that we’re doing anything else other than fighting each other in a big tug of war.
And I think it’s partly because there isn’t a silver bullet. It doesn’t feel like you’re just waiting until you think your opponent has run out of Defuse cards in Exploding Kittens, or conquering in Tapestry hoping that they don’t have a Trap. When you play a card against your opponent, you know they’re going to return with an interesting response, because there almost always is one.
But that’s okay, because I can see my hand, and I’ve got a pretty interesting turn coming up myself.
If you’re looking for a two-player only card game, where victory depends on you playing the cards well, rather than the cards playing you, you could do a lot worse than Zenith.
