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Cambria was purchased on a whim while I was out on the East Coast during the holidays. I had never heard of Cambria, but the back of the box made it seem like it was a game I would like. It also helped that it was cheap, and it was very compact. It was basically begging to be purchased while on vacation, and not wanting to add something that would take up more room in my travel bags; even card games like Race for the Galaxy or Dominion come in larger boxes.
Cambria is an area control game driven by dice. The forts are numbered 2-6, which refers to how many points of entry are available to the fort, as well as the number of victory points they are worth when captured, and also what number needs to be rolled to place a warrior marker on a road leading to a fort. Forts are captured when a fort is completely surrounded, and one player has majority control (think of it as the ancient guerrilla warfare equivalent of shareholders). Players roll two dice. Forts in the 4-6 value range are also such an awesome conquest that they award a 2nd place victory point prize. The die numbers rolled determine which forts are available for a player to move into, except of course that there are no forts with a value of 1. Rolling a 1 means you get to move the Legion Pawn, which is basically the last serious Roman military force left on the island, and blocks off all efforts at conquering a fort, and so it can play an important role in frustrating your opponents. Rolling doubles allows you to remove an opponent's warrior marker, and replace it with your own, or you can even set back the mighty Legion Pawn. Rolling snake eyes allows you to move the Legion Pawn anywhere on the board, and also place one of your warrior markers on one of the boats labeled 2-6. Doing this is pretty sweet since it gives you the option of substituting one of the dice you rolled with whatever number the boat is, thus giving you a lot more flexibility. The game is over when there are 6 or less forts remaining, and whoever has collected the most victory points wins.
You'll notice some reviews on this site complain about the quality of the components. I guess these refer to the first printing of the game, because the most recent edition feature really excellent, high quality components. The instruction manual is mostly pretty good, although unfortunately I did find it somewhat ambiguous in a few spots. This is too bad since the rules for Cambria are not complex. As it stands, you can figure out how to play the game with one reading, but there are a couple of moves a more clever player might try to pull off that will have you checking to see whether or not such a move is legal.
Another cool feature of Cambria is that the board is double sided. In addition to the Cambria map, there is the Cumbria map on the other side with a different configuration of forts, allowing for different strategic considerations. My group preferred the Cambria side, but your mileage may vary.
Overall I thought the game was great. It is quick without feeling like filler. The average time per game for my group was 20 minutes, so it is a game you can play several times in a row easily, or after playing another lengthier game before everyone is ready to leave. There are lots of different potential strategies you can pursue, but there isn't any optimal strategy without an awareness of what your opponent's strategy is, so there is a lot of interesting game theory going on here. I also already mentioned how the game is compact, but I want to go back to that just because of how awesome I think that is. The box containing the game is barely any bigger than your average paperback novel. That makes it great for travel, and I might add that the size will make the game less intimidating for any of your non-gamer friends that might be interested in trying out new board games. I played this with my family during the holidays. Normally they would be averse to playing anything perceived as being needlessly complex (which is most games), but they had no problems getting into this one. Part of that is because the rules themselves aren't complex, but I'm also convinced it has to do with the fact that a smaller game board that doesn't have tons of different components is going to be less intimidating for most folks.
In summary, the only flaw I saw with Cambria is with what I consider to be a few ambiguous sections in the instruction manual. Despite that, it is a gem of a game, and I consider myself lucky to have come across it by chance. I think it is a worthy addition to anyone's collection, and it is compact enough that it shouldn't have any trouble finding shelf space.
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quelf elf
Spain
North Pole
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Thanks for the insightful review. Hibernia is one of our favourite small games, and now we'll have to give Cambria a look, too!
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Thanks for the review. It made up my mind to buy this game.
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