Andrew Walters
United States
Hercules
California
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Disclaimer: I've run demos for Steve Jackson Games as one of the Men In Black for over ten years, so some may feel I can't claim this is an "unbiased" review. But a well-written review should contain objective statements that are useful to the reader regardless of the reviewer's bias, so I'll aim at that.
I am also not going to give you a rules run down, since the rules are short and posted online.
First, Revolution! is a success as a "euro-game." I've played a lot of euro games and often it seems when American game companies try to produce a euro they fail: there's too much luck, there's too much directly attacking people, there are "runaway leader" or "gang up on the leader" problems, etc. Revolution has none of these issues. There's no luck in Revolution! outside the mechanic of out-guessing people, which is a nice mechanism that shows up in some nice euros like Hoity-Toity, Mission: Red Planet, El Grande, and Witch's Brew. Your progress from turn to turn doesn't feel like luck, it feels like successes and bad decisions. If you think someone's getting ahead you can go after them, but you have to incrementally impeded their progress, not attack them directly. It's hard to run away with the lead. Any strong position is assailable if your opponent is willing to pay and can outsmart you.
The game plays quick. My first game took forty five minutes, including explaining the rules to my son and his friend. We were rushing a little bit out of excitement, and sometimes all of us were resolving actions nearly simultaneously instead of doing it methodically in order, so without the frenzied excitement the game might take over forty five minutes. Curiously, while it doesn't seem long it doesn't seem light, either. My half-formed thought is that there are so many decision cycles involved in even your intermediate goals that while you're playing it feels like a ninety minute game, in the good sense, but when you're done only forty five minutes has passed.
The game has some great dynamics that aren't apparent from the rules. For example, the twelve character you bid on change in value over the game. Spy and Apothecary are little use at the outset, but game changing at the end. The characters that give you influence are less valuable when their domains are full: when the Fortress is full the General won't get you a cube, but he still gets you a point and a Force, so you still bid for him, but differently. Same with the Aristocrat and Merchant, they feel like a different choice late in the game than at the outset.
Another surprise was the extent to which you could build power even when you spend every token you have every turn. Play a bad turn and you start the next turn very weak. My son had a very good run and spent the middle half of our first game with twice the tokens of the other players, and sometimes he had Force and Blackmail when we only had gold. But you must continue to bid shrewdly or you will come down. Neither the moves from strength to weakness or vice versa happen precipitously or by luck - you either make bad choices, or you deliberately sacrifice next turn's strength to get some cubes on the board.
Most roles give you a combination of influence over endgame scoring, scoring now, and strength for next turn's bidding. This is an incredibly potent strategic trilemma, but as obvious as it is I don't think I've ever seen it so deliciously front-and-center of a game's design, except perhaps in El Grande. The Priest gives you six points and an endgame cube, but nothing for next turn. The Printer gives you *ten* points, but nothing else. The Innkeeper and Magistrate give you good influence next turn and a support and a cube but they're immune to Blackmail so if you want them you'll have to use a precious Force token, which is likely to collide with another Force token and give you nothing; even if you win you've downgraded your Force to a Blackmail next turn. The knife-edged choices go on and on; don't get me started on the General and Captain.
I love the unfriendly ties in this game. Not only are they thematic, they feel exactly right as a game mechanic.
The different roles don't have easily derived values, and any one of them can become the keystone of a strategy, if you can win them. Anything that starts working gets noticed, and then it starts getting competitive, and then you have to pay more or move on.
Physically the game is as great as they say. My son punched out the counters without the slightest care (grrr) and they held up fine, no tear off. They're thick, they only stack nine to the inch, and the cubes are over 3/8" to a side. The shields are not folded card like in a lot of games, but are game-board quality, thick and hinged. This is important, as the shields are extremely important here and they get handled a lot. The glossy-linen finish is My *only* quibble with this game is that the player score markers felt small and fiddly. This is unfair because they are not small, they over 5/8" in diameter. But if things are going half-way well you're going to move your score marker up three or four times per turn (or at least I am!), so the score marker matters. I may try using a player cube next time. But this is a tiny, unfair quibble.
There are plenty more pieces than you need. Since only three Force markers can be won each turn you'd only need six; really only five because Force can't be used against the Mercenary, who is resolved last, so there can't be a Force marker on him when he is resolved and gives someone a Force. But the game includes twelve. Ditto for Blackmail and Gold, and if anyone needs anything close to the twenty five player cubes provided, the game is nearly over and they are going to win.
I've enjoyed Hoity Toity, Witch's Brew and other simultaneous reveal games, but they left me wondering how much of the outguessing is luck and how much of it is strategy? Your judgement might tell you your opponent will make a particular move for a particular reason, and when you make your play based on this you may succeed, even though he made his move for a different reason. Were you smart or lucky? I'm going to play a lot of Revolution! and see if it gives me some insight.
So who's going to like this game? You're simultaneously choosing roles, and you benefit if you outguess your opponents. In this respect Revolution is similar to Hoity Toity (Adel Verpflichtet), Witch's Brew or Mission: Red Planet. I like the first two but not the last, but I really enjoy Revolution! It's also an area influence game as Mykerinos or El Grande, but curiously area-control is not the strongest of Revolution!'s flavors. In our games so far over half the points were handed out at the end.
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Eric Johnson
United States
Pooler
31322
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I love this game. You really need to be able to read your opponents and know the right time to scoop up some cheap 1 gold bids. I'm and MIB as well and it's one of my favorite SJ games.
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You say the game doesn't "feel" like luck, and this is pretty subjective, but I had exactly the opposite feel when I tried the game. Once you try to figure out what everyone might do, then add in the fact that they might switch things up to throw you off, it all felt like "luck" or outright guessing to me. The blind bidding in Aladdin's Dragons seems less lucky, in part because you bid with face-down chips, so although you don't know what your opponents bid, at least you know where they bid. In Revolution, I just don't think you have enough information to go on to "read" your opponents, and you are simply guessing, and if you're scooping up more than your share of cheap bids, you're getting lucky or your opponents are playing poorly.
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Good review for a great game.
While one can describe a move as lucky or unlucky, in this game there is no real luck at all. The more you play it the better it becomes and the less lucky it feels.
I did suffer from rips despite punching out my chits like a surgeon.
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@someotherguy
I think you should play more Street Fighter
Note that while bluffing lends itself to mixed strategies, humans can't produce truly random results and you can read the opponents with an astounding precision.
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