Review: Oath - Chronicles of Empire and Exile

 

Review: Oath - Chronicles of Empire and Exile

The Basics

In this semi-asymmetrical game, each player is either the Chancellor or an Exile/Citizen (players can switch back and forth during the course of the game) playing for supremacy so they can take the reins of power and write history in their own image. Players will explore the world, accumulate relics from sites, muster warbands, and campaign against other players, and one player will win at the end of the game. Either the Chancellor will have managed to hold onto power by the end of the game, thus retaining the title of Oathkeeper, a Citizen will have positioned themselves to be the Successor (thus winning power for themself), or an Exile will have become a Usurper to the Oathkeeper title. After the game is over, the world is forever changed, the game is chronicled for future generations to read about, and the game is replaced in the box in such a way that the locations are preserved, the winner's relics are more likely to show up in the next game, and the locations and advisors that belonged to the losers are likely to be banished and not seen again for quite some time.

The Specs

Player count: 1-6 (I am really only interested in playing the game with 3-6 players, and I elaborate on why down below)

Playing time: 45-120 minutes (I'm pretty confident in this assessment from the game makers, but I can't say with certainty. Based on how the victory conditions can work, the game really can end way faster than anyone anticipates)

Age: 10+

The Expansions

None, as this game is absolutely brand new.

Gameplay

The game is played out over the course of 5-8 rounds (depending on who is in the lead and the die roll that might determine a game ending earlier than the end of 8 rounds). Each player gets one turn in a round, and starts with an amount of Supply that dictates which actions they can take, and how many times they can take it. The only limit to how many times any action can be taken is the amount of supply a player has, which is replenished at the end of each turn. Players each have a pawn they can Travel to different sites, recover Relics, Search the draw or discard piles for new advisors, or Trade for either Favor (money) or Secrets (a renewable currency) at a site. Players can also Muster new warbands they can use to hold a Site or Campaign against bandits or other players. There are also minor actions that require no Supply, such as playing or discarding a facedown advisor, use an action card, peek at relics at your site, and move warbands among your board or your site.

There are a multitude of ways to win, and whoever wins and in whatever manner helps dictate how the game will be set up the next time it is played. If a player is an Exile, they win the game at the beginning of their turn if they have the Usurper side of the Oathkeeper title face-up. If a player is an Exile, they can also win the game if they have a revealed Vision card on their player board and have satisfied its goal by the beginning of their turn. There are five Vision cards, but only four are "true Vision" cards and thus have a victory condition:

• The Vision of Conquest is satisfied when the Exile who revealed it Rules the most sites.
• The Vision of Rebellion is achieved when the Exile who revealed it holds the Banner of the People's Favor.
• The Vision of Sanctuary is accomplished when the Exile who revealed it holds the most Relics and Banners.
• Finally, the Vision of Faith is realized when the Exile who revealed it holds the Banner of the Darkest Secret.

There are more than two Visions in this game, but I'll take the low-hanging fruit for this particular insert.

The only two ways the Chancellor wins is if they hold the Oathkeeper title at game's end and no Citizen has met the Successor goal of that Oathkeeper title. I say two ways because starting at the end of round 5, a six-sided die gets rolled at the end of each round. As the game progresses, it is more likely that the die will determine the game has ended early, and as long as the above condition is met, the Chancellor wins. However, the game will always end after the completion of the 8th round due to "War Exhaustion" (a concept which I appreciate being implemented in the game as a justification for a game timer), and if the above conditions are met, the Chancellor wins. A Citizen wins at the end of the game if they have met the Successor goal by the time the clock runs out (at the end of any round from 5-8, depending on how the die rolls).

My Thoughts on Gameplay

The gameplay overall is actually fairly simple with the exception of the Campaign action, which is pretty involved. Combat is also pretty punishing for the attacker with high hurdles to clear before seeing success. But on the whole, it isn't the gameplay that is either confusing or time-consuming: it's the book-keeping.

In-game, you spend Supply and take the accompanying action. All actions are described on your player board, so the info is right there for reference. The game is only 5-8 rounds long, so while analysis paralysis can become a thing, there's honestly only *so much* a player can do. Combat is simply a matter of rolling dice, counting up swords and shields, then comparing the numbers to see who won. Where it's easy to get tripped up is the book keeping. Because before players fight (Campaign), targets must be declared, legality of said targets must be confirmed, then dice pools have to be determined. I really like the system, but it's not particularly straightforward.

After the game ends, though, there's an intricate series of steps that must be taken to clean up the game. Certain sites are prioritized, others are discarded. Some denizens are eliminated from the game until the archive is "healed" and those cards are accessible again. New cards are introduced to the game too, based on the preferences of the winner. It's all really cool, but there's quite a lot to track.

Good thing the game comes with its own ledger! Sort of, anyway. I still think the little leather journal is such a fun addition!

If it sounds as though I don't enjoy all of this, I've given you the wrong impression. I adore the hell out of this. I've written in the past about how much I enjoy debriefing after playing games, whether I enjoyed the games or not. Obviously, whether or not I enjoy the game colors what kind of a debrief it is, but nonetheless, I love debriefing after a game and really picking it apart. The intricacy with which this game is set up and torn down is something that really fascinates me; I just find it really engaging. A pain in the ass the first couple of times, honestly, but just a really interesting and unique way to tackle a legacy-type experience without it actually being a legacy game. A friend of mine had tried to get me into Charterstone quite some time ago (3 years, maybe?), and his selling point was that it was a good group of people already invested (it definitely was) and that it was a sort of legacy game in that the board changed between plays, but players did not necessarily need to be there for each play, so it was low commitment. That last bit kinda felt untrue after I played a game. It is on my list of games to be revisited (I maintain such a list in case the first play didn't really tell me everything I needed to know about the game for whatever reason - Scythe is also on that list, incidentally), but my experience with it was that I felt as though I was constantly behind because I had not had any impact on the world to bend it in a way I wanted up to that point. And that was in addition to learning the rules while everyone else *sort of* knew them, but also sorta didn't because some stuff had changed between the last play and this one.

I don't feel that way about the way Cole Wehrle designed Oath; in the case of Oath, I do genuinely feel that the winner of a game can make choices that more closely forge a world in the image they want, but we really don't know what the next game holds and so it doesn't necessarily feel like that much of an advantage to win going into the next game. This game is so much more about the narrative written throughout the course of a game (and over the course of a multitude of games) than it is about giving any one player an advantage in games to come. And I am absolutely here for that.

Solo Play

There is a solo play mode, but I just don't have any interest in it. I'm sure it's elegantly designed and works from a mechanical standpoint. But the thing about Oath that has me head over heels for it is having the winner write history in a shared chronicle that spans generations. There will be cheap wins that seem unreasonable, and there will be times when it's not even close. So to me, the narrative is the most rewarding part of the game. When that's the case, if there's no one with whom to share the story, then I'm just not that interested in playing. The automa is also used in 2 player games to balance play, as I understand it.

Components

The components are gorgeous.

I'm telling you: the neoprene mat is so satisfying to play on and then roll up afterward.

Leder Games just keeps raising the bar on the quality and aesthetics of their games. To be fair, I also invested in the Kickstarter, so I got a couple of upgraded components. But honestly, it's really not *that* much nicer than the regular game! Instead of the cardboard Favor and Secret tokens, I got the metal and acrylic (probably not actually acrylic, but nicer) tokens. They're awesome, but shouldn't be deal-breaking for you. The pawns look great, just as they do in Root, and the neoprene mat is really excellent. The art sets a terrific tone for the game. I really appreciate that the style is different from the other things I've seen Kyle Ferrin do in other Leder Games.

Final Thoughts

This game is unconventional in the way it is both a legacy game and not a legacy game. There's no game out there about which it cannot be said "it's not for everyone." But I think that's especially true of Oath: Chronicles of Empire and Exile. I say that because I've played a number of games that are sort of supposed to be bigger than the game itself. One of my favorites, Descent, is absolutely supposed to be more about the story than who wins the scenario. Some scenarios favor the heroes, some the Overlord. Some scenarios really and truly seem downright unwinnable when players of equal-ish skill sit across the table from one another. Ideally, the players enjoy the narrative no matter how it unfolds. And the players don't take anything personally because everyone is telling the story together, much like in a role-playing game like D&D.

But that's not the reality of it. When players feel the scenario is stacked against them, it's easy to get frustrated. Frustration is common when one side is stacking up wins. And make no mistake: you do win or lose a scenario like a game and not like an RPG. Games like Descent try to have it both ways, and so while I love it, it also doesn't quite work as advertised.

Oath doesn't try to have it both ways, in my opinion. It clearly declares a winner and losers. But here's what it asks of its players: play and enjoy the game for what it is, and know that you're part of the story, even if the ultimate writer of that story decides to omit you the way that real history does when written by the victors. And because it's not a *real* legacy game, I think it can reasonably make that ask. The landscape of the game changes based on the winner, but you don't need the same group to come to the table game after game for it to work. I think it's a really cool design and so lends itself much better to the notion of caring more about the story than about winning or losing.

This game absolutely isn't for everyone. But for the people who do enjoy it, I think we end up falling in love with it. Play more than one game to determine if it's for you or not, but honestly, if you're not tickled by the notion of writing the chronicle after the game and seeing how it reads through the lens of the victor, then I wouldn't bother, because that's probably the best part of what I think is a ridiculously cool game.