Ryan Gresch
Canada
Thunder Bay
Ontario
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I have a few plays of this under my belt now 3, 4, and 5 player and it might just be the metagame of the group I play with but typically a race will expand as much as it possibly can so that it can't expand any further and then go into decline the next turn and repeat the same process again. Sure there are a few exception, sorcerers, skeletons, late game elves have no reason to keep expanding over and over.
Is there a deeper strategy to this game that I just haven't found yet?
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Kent Reuber
United States
San Mateo
California
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I think it depends on the situation:
- How many points will your civilization generate if it is active vs. how many will it generate if it declines?
- Do you already have a civilization in decline? If so, how many points will you lose if you have to discard your declined civilization?
- How attractive are the less expensive "on deck" civilizations?
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Jordan Booth
United States
Chicago
Illinois
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You are not playing wrong, that is the crux of the game.
Only once have I seen someone hold on to a race for the whole game and that was fortified amazons. I didn't stick around to see if he won, somehow I doubt it.
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Ryan Gresch
Canada
Thunder Bay
Ontario
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The problem as I see it is that there seems little benefit to not spreading out as far as you can go in a turn. But by doing so you leave yourself vulnerable as well as no possible conquests on successive turns leaving the only option to go into decline.
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Andy Van Zandt
United States
South Ogden
Utah
PlayTMG.com
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that's roughly the idea, you're expanding your race's area of control for (usually) 2 to 4 turns, and then putting the race into decline. i would say it's somewhat uncommon for someone to take the extra couple of turns to COMPLETELY expand the race's control- meaning one chit to a space... particularly because the last chit or two require a dice roll to get the space, so you could spend several turns just rolling the dice for the "completely" expanded race... and also because you usually don't last that long with a thinly spread race without getting attacked. it's just not profitable, and the board sizes ensure that everyone has to tangle to fully expand...
but yes, in any single turn, you're almost always trying to take as many spaces as you can... which tends to be 3 to 6 spaces in the first turn, and less on subsequent turns with the same race, depending.
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Ryan Gresch
Canada
Thunder Bay
Ontario
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But in that case by your next turn you'll likely have only a few spots left on the board from opponents picking you off as easy targets. Thus making it not profitable to keep the race active. So your getting a new race every second turn.
I think I'm missing the part of this game that's fun
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Andy Van Zandt
United States
South Ogden
Utah
PlayTMG.com
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if you're choosing a new race every second turn, you're definitely doing it wrong.
1: it wastes a turn going into decline. you can't conquer on that turn, and you don't get to choose a new race until the next turn.
2: when you go into decline, you remove all but one of each race token from all the declined race's spaces, thus all the spots you "don't want to leave vulnerable" are now vulnerable anyway, because the race is declined.
3: each player can only have one race in decline at a time, if you're declining that quickly, you would be killing your oldest in-decline race every time a new race gets decline.
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Ryan Gresch
Canada
Thunder Bay
Ontario
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That's how we've been playing.What part of this game supposed to be fun?
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Andy Van Zandt
United States
South Ogden
Utah
PlayTMG.com
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you just said you were choosing a new race every second turn, which seems like a bad idea based on the reasons listed above, and is very inefficient. you are playing strategically wrong at the very best.
as for your second question, about why it's fun- you'll have to answer that yourself. even if you're playing badly, you're constantly making meaningful decisions, so i reckon you would have to tell me what you -don't- like first, before i could identify the issue. just saying "what part of this game is this supposed to be fun?" could be said about any game 
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Frank Hamrick
United States
Rocky Mount
North Carolina
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Some people just don't get it. Others do. That can be said of any game. There are games I will never "get" that others thoroughly enjoy. There will be games you just don't get, that other will. So maybe this is just one of those for you.
What do I enjoy?
1) No two games alike - due to the randomizing of the special powers and the order in which the races appear.
2) Lots to think about each turn. I play every race/special power differently (no two the same depending on the situation on the board, what's in the "cue," what others are doing, etc.).
3) Attack! Attack! Attack! But, learn how to defend!! I love conflict games and this one is pure conflict. But, you better learn how to set up your defenses and take advantage of your special powers & race powers.
4) Relatively short game time.
5) Fantasy theme.
6) Light enough that you don't have to take the conflict seriously. You know when you whack one player he'll be whacking you back.
7) He who makes the BEST choices (when to decline, when to buy down the cue & which race/special power combo to take) wins the game.
You may not see any of those things. Don't let it bother you. You get games others don't.
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Mathue Faulkner
United States
Austin
TX
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Born-of-Ashes wrote: You are not playing wrong, that is the crux of the game.
Only once have I seen someone hold on to a race for the whole game and that was fortified amazons. I didn't stick around to see if he won, somehow I doubt it.
Here is a Session Report where a single race won...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/406069
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Tim Gilberg
United States
Norman
Oklahoma
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Wow.
Trolling seems to be quite productive tonight.
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David Kiehnhoff
United States
College Station
Texas
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Don't know if this is relevant or if anyone else is careless enough to make this mistake, but the first few times we played Small World we had a cycle of expand/decline every two turns. It just seemed like the right thing to do...take as many spots as possible and spread your race thin because you can just grab a new one later. The problem was, we were claiming regions with too few tokens. Then we re-read the rules and saw that you needed TWO tokens plus the number of pieces to take a region rather than ONE as we had been playing it. Once we learned that it takes at least 2, maybe 3 turns to fully capitalize on a race, it became a much more interesting game.
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