World Order - the much anticipated new game from Hegemonic Project games has finally arrived after being first aired and hitting demo content creators well over a year ago.
After seeing those demos and some live play at this year’s UKGE at the and after talking with the team, this immediately went on preorder - we had a couple of doubts - Primarily, is this going to work at two players, and then secondly seeing tanks on a game board in a non conflict based game especially in Europe at the moment well, made me feel just a luttle uneasy.
Rest assured on both counts, it works at two players without the need for complex NPC overhead (I’ll come to the NPC mechanism and the use of Automas later), and secondly and perhaps more importantly, there is no combat, or dice rolling conflict resolution. Yes, there are tanks but this is not a war game. I think it is important to stress that so I’ll repeat, the tanks in this game are used as a threat mechanism, another way if you like of forcing diplomacy or political response - just like in the real world, a coup or military build up somewhere usually prompts some form of response - it is used to exactly that effect in World Order.
First a little context. Cast your mind back if you can to 2010 - the year of Obama still US President, icelandic volcanic eruptions and Deepwater Horizon, BRIC economic coalitions, US-Russia reset and European “federation” growth - the perfect setting for the geopolotical World Order.
2 to 4 players play as opposing superpowers (1 to 4 with the Diplomacy and dominance Expansion) and apart from in a two player game where you have to be opposing powers East v West there are no restrictions on who you choose.
Each power has an asymetric set up but it isn’t wildly asymetric - each power has a set up that reflects either its economic, diplomatic, natural resources or military focus but these are not detrimental and whilst they might shape initial approaches in early rounds, they by no means hamstring you - they can be leveraged to give you pathways into ways to gain an advantage later - and this is one of the many ways this game shines - Russia has massive natural resources but has to trade to gain money to do other actions like buy consumer goods to advance its prosperity. Europe has advantages in diplomacy so can build alliances more quickly than other powers but doesn’t have the military might it needs to counter threats - again threats, not conflicts.
This the outstanding thematic thread that really gives World Order that something that will set this game apart from many. The research into how the main supoerpowers of the world might interact not only with each other but also with other countries is absolutely spot on - remember this is 2010, the US cannot Ally with Cuba, yet, Russia can…and moreover, it can build a military base there and gain influence in the Amercas. Don’t get me wrong this isn’t JK Galbraith, but it is accurate and thematic enough to generate gameplay arcs that make you feel like you might just be stepping into a realistic face off
World Order is, at its heart, an area majority control game, coupled with some deck / hand management via a set of starting cards, again fittingly asymetric, and the name of the game is to gain victory points by controlling areas on the board primarily through gaining and growing influence, military threat and some scoring add ons at the two scoring milestones during gameplay. There is some small totting up at the end of each round, which might only equate to a few points here and there but can mount up over 6 rounds, but main region scoring is done twice at the ends of rounds 3 and 6. In a slightly devious twist, you actually lose points at the end of each round if you cannot defend against threats in your zone of insterest. An opponent muscling in on your areas can be costly if you don’t counter - but you might get drawn into a battle of military might that you can’t win. That isn’t strictly true but the effort and deflection it will cause will definitely make you lose the game. Trust me.
So, lots going on yes for sure but the rules are not burdensome, in fact they are really well written and illustrated with good examples - the game flow is really well described and after a few plays, the phases settle in nicely. Playtime might be an issue for some but as I will say later it dosn’t feel like a long game - some turns are super quick and others, mostly trading take a bit longer, but you have to be paying attention to what your opponents are doing - you can’t take your eye off the ball so it never feels like you’re just sat waiting for something to happen, a four hour game never feels like four hours.
You might have noticed I have avoided a particular issue that is, shall we say “irking” a few gamers out there. How does this compare to Hegemony? Yes, its by the same studio and they even write on the side of the box “A Race for Global Hegemony” for goodness sake!
Take it from me, this is not hegemony mark II, nor is it Hegemoney “Lite” as some might have thought - World Order is its’ own game and whilst comparisons to Hegemony might be obvious, beyond what I’ve said above the comparisons stop there - its closer in DNA to Brass or Dune Imperium - both of which are outstanding board games and - I’m going to go out on a bit of a limb here, World Order will be talked about in the same breath as those two titles before long. Seriously, its that good. For Hegemony to work as a gaming experience you really need each player to know the game pretty well. World Order, by no means a light game, is far more accessible in terms of rules overhead, playability, asymentry and so far in our plays, we’ve had no kingmaking desires whatsoever.
A few observers have also commented that World Order doesn’t have the same level of interaction as Hegemony - ok, well, maybe not. You’re not debating future policy or garnering support through direct negotiation in World Order but that doesn’t mean it isn’t interative. Far from it. One of the most important facets of the gameplay is that every player move matters - not only to them but to every other player. Placing a tank or forging allies or increasing influence will absolutely make you think about how you react - do you even react? You can’t cover all bases and again this is so thematic - in the real world, you cannot do everything - you can’t ally with every nation you want to, you can’t trade as much as you would like, your hand of cards will only allow you 4 actions per round, until you purchase better cards that might have dual actions on them - turn efficiency really matters and it just makes it all so crunchy and tight and delicious!
In this game you have to decide whether you want to counter your opponent, provoke them or consolidate, influence can be permanent or temporary and the temporary influence can be gained and lost - this is where the impact of the non playing powers comes in.
There is a deck of influence cards that give you a line of sight as to where NPCs will exert their influence at the end of the current round before scoring - which region they will place cubes or tanks and possibly trade with the real players - this is vital as otherwise it would become a chess game - its simple but effective on a level. Not sophisticated but super easy to manage and towards the end of the game you really have to take their upcoming actions into consideration. More than once we’ve overlooked where say China will place its next infleunce cube, happily go about our business and then have our cubes bumped off the track and lose influence and majority - its easily done as the gameplay is involved, consequential and as with so many “euro” style games, you never have quite enough to do what you want to do.
I love that fact though - it makes you think and it makes you have to make the optimum decision, even if it isn’t the one you would really like to make - you cannot fight on all fronts, sometimes a decision not to place influence into a region can return dividends later - sometimes letting another player do that slightly earlier can allow you to react later. Quietly build a little more influence and then bump an opponents influence off the board can be very satisfying.
Another touch I like is the abiliy to alter the turn order. Each round, players in last place can decide their place on turn order - sometimes not going first can be a real advantage - let others play and react or again, do you go first and let others react to what you have done. In our games so far, having a final turn in round 6 has proven really strong.
So far then all upside. It’s a perfect game right? Well, not quite. Apart from the fact that no game is perfect obviously, there is a slight thematic anomaly at play here. For a game set in strongly fact based geopolitical relationships, tight decisions, economy, production and money the deck / hand management element puts what feels like an element of chance or luck into a game that feels like it shouldn’t be luck based at all.
I’m not talking about dice rolling or turn of a card but there has been a few instances of final round hand draws that have left plans in tatters - For a game that is so thinky, tight and decision based and no push your luck, where you make each choice based on what you see in front of you and what other players do, to have the rug pulled due to a poor deck draw feels out of place. I’ve said already you can’t do everything you want, but you can choose which resources to trade, which cards to buy, what strategies you want to pursue - and not trusting to chance, a bad pull can feel a bit punitive - in one game I drew 5 diplomacy cards in the final round and whilst that would allow me to build relations, there was no way to add extra influence, hence no further scoring opportunities in that final round.
Thems the breaks one might say but I can’t get away from the fact that even with some deck management, market cards that might give you a bit more deck churn, there is no escaping that luck might play a part at some point. Mitigation for this can come in the form of using your special or executive order cards, one time powerful action cards - timing the use of these can be critical especially if your hand isn’t great - a bit of a useful fallback.
World Order for me captures pretty much everything good in the hobby. Thematic, strategic, deep without being migraine inducing, tight economy of decisions, and you can see within the gameplay how each turn from every player matters - hugely interactive around the table for me.
This isn’t for everyone, admitttedly, playtime has so far not been less than 3 hours for two players but once you get the hang of actions some are super fast. Some might not be intersted in a game set around global politics in 2010. There might be some AP as players get used to their own sets of actions - its asymetry is defintley the right side of the scales - its nowhere near say Root asymetry or Old King’s Crown - the latter of which you get used to but with multiple plays of each factions, World Order effectively plays the same way for each power in terms of actions, just that there might be slight tweaks between powers for similar actions - a military card for Russia for example will be the same as one for the EU, but they might just gain a tank or an extra move, again, demonstrating how different abilities for each power are subtly different.
I talk a lot in my reviews about how a game makes you feel when you play it. If a game has flaws, if I can live with them because other stuff outweighs it then I’m ok with it. The flaw of a chance based hand draw is easily offset in this game by how everything else works in this game.
I love the real world setting, the way influence works, the fact that threat and counter threat are essential for stability, turn order influence, and the relationships that each power has with potential allied countries - trade, investment and military presence - it all sits together so well it is really hard to fault as a game play experience. And my win ratio is about 25% so far. And here’s the thing - I’m not bothered. I want to play again. I want to try different tactics I want to not repeat the same mistakes I want to finally win with the US! I’m 0 for 4 on that one.
It is worth just a quick mention here that there are two expansions for World Order - World in Turmoil that introduces real world events into game play - everything from Covid 19 pandemic to trade agreements, and a Diplomacy and Dominance expansion that introduces automas for a more realistic NPC interaction for solo or lower player counts - to date we haven’t incorprated either but we wanted to play as many games as we could before jumping in to expansions. We have picked out the scoring objective cards from D&D - these could have been in the base game but they’re not overpowered. Look out for future reviews of those here.
To Sumamrise then - by now you must know I really like this game. Its up my street in terms of weight, strategy, theme, gameplay, interaction, and challenge - I don’t like the potential for a bad hand to ruin everything in such a grounded experience, but I’m prepared to give it a hall pass on that one thing.
I can see this being a weekend and group staple for a long time, and as I said above about going out on a limb, I might go further and say I think this time next year World Order will be at least in the BGG top 100 (just in case you were ever wondering, the bgg top 100 is the top 100 out of 14,000+ listed games on BGG) and probably higher, in two years it will be a top 20 game and it will be deservedly so, mark my words, this is a landmark gaming experience.
