WBG Score: 8.5
Player Count: 1-4
You’ll like this if you like: Iki, Brass: Birmingham
Published by: Sorry We Are French
Designed by: Marco Canetta, Stefania Niccolini
This is a review copy. See our review policy here
ZhanGuo first came out in 2014. Much like another stunning Sorry We Are French release, IKI, it saw a re-release, with a fancy new art design and a little tidy up and we now have the 2023 version Zhanguo: The First Empire. With the subtitle to seperate it from the original on BGG, I presume? Anyway, it's here. Thats the brief history, and it looks gorgous. Don't you think? This was pitched to me as an elegant hand managment game with seemless gears. chuck in the gorgous box art and Chinease theme and I am all in. Let's waste mo more time and get it to the table and see how it plays. Skip to the bottom to see my thoughts, but first is the set up and how to play guide in this blog: Unleashing the Power of Strategy: A Deep Dive into Zhanguo: The First Empire - Board Game Review.
How To Set Up Zhanguo: The First Empire Board Game
This will sound like a lot, an it is, but it is all relatively straight forward. First, place the game board in the middle of the table, aligning with the number of players. Place the Court board next to the left of the main game board. Choose between using the Unification tableau on the game board or the double-sided Unification tile, placing it on the printed tableau. This adds variation to your game and is your choice. Then, put the round marker on the 1st space of the Round track.
Next, sort the nine Mausoleum tiles by icon and randomly place them on corresponding spaces on the game board. In advanced mode, place the nine Mausoleum tokens on the top left of each Mausoleum spot before placing tiles. In regular mode, just leave this part out. Then shuffle the seven Wall tiles and place one on each of the 6 Wall spaces on the game board, randomizing the side. In a three-player game, use Walls of the unused color to fill positions marked with a '4.'
Shuffle the six Emperor tiles and then in a four-player game, place them face down on corresponding Wall sections, then turn them face up. In a three-player game, discard one tile randomly before placing the rest on corresponding Wall sections. In a two-player game, discard two tiles randomly before placing the rest on corresponding Wall sections. Now shuffle the 15 Palace tiles and place one face up on each Palace space in each region.
Avoid placing Palace tiles on spaces marked with a "4" if playing with three players.
In a four-player game, shuffle two blank Governor tiles with eight bonus tiles and place two randomly in each region. In a three-player game, remove the two blank Governor tiles, draw five bonus tiles, and place one randomly in each region. In a two-player game, shuffle two blank Governor tiles with three bonus tiles and place one randomly in each region. Then place a number of Master Alchemist cards equal to the number of players next to the game board.
Sort the 120 Unification cards by type and shuffle them separately. Place the decks face down next to the main board. Take a specific number of Writing, Currency, and Laws cards based on the player count and place them next to the main board. Put the three large Unification tokens on their matching spots on the game board. Place one 40/80 VP token per player at the end of the score track. Place all Worker tokens next to the main board.
Each player now places their player board in front of them. Players choose a colour (Blue, Yellow, Red, or Purple) and each player takes components in their chosen colour and places them on corresponding spaces of their player board. The 9th Terracotta Soldier won't fit on your board and instead is placed at the entrance of the Mausoleum on the main board and is considered "unlocked." Four Officials of each type (Alchemist, Architect, General) are then placed onto each players corresponding spaces on their player board. They will also take their personal set of five Alchemist cards which goes to their personal supply, face down. Each player takes five Unrest markers and places them on the zero space of the Unrest track of each Region.
Each player then places their Ship on the starting position of the Elixir route and their Score marker on the zero space of the Victory Points track. Randomly determine the first player and place the first person Turn Order marker on the first space of the Turn Order track in the Unification area. Going clockwise from the first player, other players' Turn Order markers are placed on the next available spaces. Finally, deal two Starting tiles to each player. Players simultaneously choose one and receive the depicted bonus on their chosen tile. Both tiles are then returned to the box. You are now ready to play. Phew!
How To Play Zhanguo: The First Empire Board Game
The game plays over five rounds with each round having five phases. The first phase is simply where each player draws two cards from each of the three decks. Then in the second phase, each player takes it in turns to play one card until all players have played all their cards. Cards can be played in one of two ways: either onto the Emperor area of the court board to take one of the six available actions there, or tucked under one of your five regions on your player board to increase your power there. When a player places the card into one of these regions, they will gain Unification tokens in the colour of the card you just placed, but then must increase the level of unrest by one if it is the second card placed in this region, or by two if it is the third.
When a card is placed in the Court area you must first choose which of the six actions you want to take and perform this action, and then activate the ability of your cards that match this actions symbol. For the three actions shown on the left, to activate your cards' abilities, you need to play a card with an activation number lower than the current face up card. For the three actions on the right the card you place must have a higher activation number. If you cannot do this or choose not to, you can move one Official on their board to an adjacent region instead. More on that below. You also choose to pass this step if you wish. But to be clear, when you activate the matching sybols in this way, you are essentially getting multiple bonus actions, taking the same turn over and over.
The six actions are as follows:
Recruit One Official - You can move one of the Alchemists, Architects, or Generals that you placed on your player board during set up onto the region of your choice on your player board. They each have a certain role and will help with later actions if present.
Search For The Elixir - You will remember placing your ship on the main board during set-up. This is how you move it along the route. When you take this action, you can move your ship three spaces. Every icon you move past or onto you can activate. This is how you can unlock more of your Terracotta soldiers, moving them from your player board onto the main board, or how they can move an Alchemist card and it add to any region. However, you have to have an Alchemist official present in this region to do this. There is also one space for players to take one of the master Alchemist cards placed during set up and add this to your hand of Alchemist cards.
Install One Governor - This is how you move the Governor meeples from your player board to the main board. You can take the bonus from the place that you place it and also remove one of each Official in this region on your player board. You can also reset your Unrest level to zero when you do this.
Hire Two Workers - Workers are needed to build the Palaces and Walls. This is how you get them onto your player board. When you take this action, you can move two workers from the general supply and add them to any region where you have a General present. The Unrest level then increases by one in this region.
Build One Palace - Building palaces is a key way to score points. To do so you need to have at least one Architect in the region in which they wish to build the Palace. You also need two workers in this region and one in an adjacent region. These are removed from your player board when you build a Palace. If it is still there, you can then take the Palace tile from the board where you placed your Palace and one Unification tile of their choice. You will then score six pints place the bonus on the Palace tile immediately.
Build One Wall - Players must spend one, two, or three workers depending on the symbol under the wall, and then move one wall piece from their player board to the wall section on the main board. If there are any Emperor tiles left in the section you built in, take this too and replace any card in their tableau, if they have one.
Once everyone has played all their cards then play moves to the third and final phase of the round. Players work out who has the most Unification tokens for the three types. Then the person with the most can choose if they want to take the Unification reward shown on this area of the board. If they don't want to or can't take the full reward, then it moves to the player with the second most of that token. If you take the reward, you must hand back all your tokens of that type. If you pass, then you can keep them for a later round. There are three rewards. One for each type of Unification. This also sets turn order for the next round as you place your turn order marker into the column of the reward they just accepted, which then slides over when this part is done.
In turn order players can then spend three Unification tokens they still have in their possession to unlock one of their Terracotta soldiers on their player board. Once this is done all players can then place unlocked Terracotta soldiers onto any fulfilled Mausoleum condition. Any unused Unification tokens valued at two must be returned to the game board at this point. Single-value tokens can be kept, so long as each player doesn’t have more than five of them. The round tracker token then moves on, unless this is the final round in which case final scoring begins.
Players will score all points they had earned during the game plus five other things. First, points are awarded to the player with the highest number of Governors in each region: 10, 15, or 20 points depending on if this is a two, three, or four-player game. Second, players will score points based on a multiple of the amount of Alchemist cards played on their player board by the final space reached by their ship. Third, players will score ten points for each row or column formed by their Terracotta soldiers. Fourth, players will score for their Walls based on the symbols on the wall in the game you are playing. And finally, players will score points for all Terracotta soldiers still at the entrance to the Mausoleum. Two for one, five for two and nine points for three soldiers. Most points unsurprisingly, wins!
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Zhanguo: The First Empire Board Game Review
Now, this game may seem imposing with its rules and setup. The BoardGameGeek weight rating of 4/5 also explains why some might steer clear of it. However, if you can look past the initial complexity, a captivating experience awaits. For me, the weight of this game lies not in intricate rules as you learn, but in the decisions it demands as you play. There are no overly complicated or difficult elements; instead, you're presented with a smorgasbord of delectable, layered choices throughout the game. Choices that will make you feel in complete control over your destiny, even if it takes a few plays to fully grasp exactly how to wield that effectively. This game exudes richness and depth, teeming with delightful moments and decisions that make me love it.
Initially, grasping how all the game elements work together can be challenging. Between the main board, your player board, and connecting bonus actions with the icons on your played cards, it might feel like a lot. But when the pieces start fitting together in your mind, everything falls into perfect harmony.
The cascading actions available are nothing short of amazing. Activating all matching symbols when playing the right card and constructing the correct engine feels immensely satisfying. It demands a bit of thinking, a good amount of planning, and a solid understanding of the strategy, but the payoff is worth it. Playing the game, you might just find yourself entirely absorbed in the process in a wonderful way.
If you relish thoughtful Euro games, this could be a fantastic addition to your collection. If the theme resonates with you, it might even become one of your new favorites. I will place it among my top ten games of the year for sure, but I harbor concerns about its ability to keep hitting the table due to its weight. The game's appearance and strategic complexity will intimidate some, although the teach isn't overly challenging, it does look heavy. Even with a grasp of the basic rules and concepts, players might still feel uncertain about their actions. The strategy and a full understanding does take a game or two. Not everyone has time for this, or the patience to play a game that long and often before you relaly know what you are doing.
While this game earns a spot in my heart, I worry it might fade over time due to a lack of plays. Games of this caliber could benefit from increased accessibility—whether through improved rulebooks, player aids, more visually friendly boards, art and iconography, or even audio aids via QR codes. I can only hope that such enhancements for games of this weight are on the horizon for all of our sake. Putting aside the concern that others in my gaming group might not share my passion for this game, I genuinely love it snd would heavilly reccomend it to anyone looking for a crunchy euro full of cascading turns that will fill your mind with utter joy.
Final word has to go to the insert. There is a lot of stuff with this game. Setting up and packing away for games with this many componants can be a chore. But the layout and icons for the insert really help with this. Finally, a game has reccomended putting all parts of a players set-up into one bag. Doing this will speed up set up by a good few minutes, and also helps speed up the tear down. Just gove each player a bag of their chosen and let them do their own player board by following you.
Then to pack away, just pop everything listed here in each players colours into the respective compartment. A great touch. And one more games should employ.