Smallworld Underground

Small World Underground is a game in which you try to win by controlling territory to earn points.  It is like risk in that you control territories on a map, attack adjacent territories, and get some benefit from controlling territories.  But it only has one die, and you rarely even roll it.  It plays much faster, and is a much better game.



One your first turn you select a race with a bonus power from a randomly chosen set.  The races and bonus powers are represented by different markers, so you may get Frightened Drow one game, and Vanishing Drow next game.  Once you have a race, you use the tokens from that race to conquer territory.  Generally it takes two tokens for an empty territory, and one extra token per defender.  Many racial powers, bonus powers and artifacts can modify this.  On your last attack you can try to conquer a territory that you don't have enough tokens to outright conquer, and you do this by rolling a die.  So at most, you roll one die per turn.  Generally you score 1 point per territory you control, but many races and bonus powers have a condition to score extra points.  For example, Drow score extra points when their territories don't border any other race.


In later turns you either pick up all but one token per territory and attack again, or you can go into decline.  Going into decline skips this turn, but on your next turn you pick a new race and start conquering from any edge of the board.  Plus you keep getting points from your last race as long as any of them stay on the board.  Going into decline at the right time is a key tactical decision.  


There is a lot to like about this game.  The box is well designed to hold all the pieces, and the pieces are high quality with great art.  The gameplay is straightforward and fast, but still has a lot of strategic depth.  So far we haven't seen one wining strategy.  Usually people go into decline 2-3 times in the course of a game, but I did manage to win one game without ever going into decline (Mining Mudmen ftw!).  It plays well with 2 players or with more, although the strategy changes a bit (much more aggressive in 2 players).  The race/bonus power combinations provide a lot of variability from game to game.


Another big like is that this is a very agressive multiplayer game, but it doesn't seem to cause hard feelings when you get attacked.  So far we haven't played a game where any player felt like they just got ganged up on and didn't have a chance.  It's not that you don't get attacked, you get attacked every single turn. It's just that it's not personal, people are just trying to get more points for themselves, and you are in the way.  It's usually easier to get more points for yourself than to go out of your way to hurt someone else.


The only thing I don't like about this game is the rule book. It was very confusing to learn the game from the rule book, despite the fact that it is actually pretty simple.  There are lots of powers in the game between the races, the bonus powers, and some artifacts and special places as well.  Often the wording is open to multiple interpretations, or they may even conflict with each other.  One particular problem we had was with the Lizardmen.  In one part of the rules it says "Pass through any River Region, empty or occupied, without having to conque the Region or leave any token in it."  But in another part it gives specific examples of how many tokens they need to conquer river Regions.  WTF? So bookmark or print out the Official FAQ and hopefully you can save yourself some time.  Also, there are monsters guarding the artifacts at the start of the game, you DO discard the monsters after taking over that Region.


Overall this is a fun game that we will keep playing over time.  I think it has a good balance between fiddlyness (not much) and strategic depth.  It works well with two or more players and encourages aggressive strategies without causing losing players to feel steamrolled.


Score 8/10