Introduction to the game
MIL (1049) first came to my attention when this image of the prototype game board hit the front page, along with the funny looking game name:
The image was nothing special, but the name of the game was pretty oddly nondescript, so I was curious and clicked through to read the description: Quote:
Your family struggles for prestige and influence in a medieval society. Will you succeed?
In MIL (1049) you can harvest your lands for resources, recruit soldiers and have descendants. But that's just the first generation! If you have a male heir, he can be married to another player's daughter – the one with the biggest dowry, of course! A strategical key point, though, keep in mind that during the game your knights will die or retire and their sons will have to take their place.
Knowing the ins-and-outs of the court will help you gain influence and vassals, while in the market you will be able to trade resources and recruit the necessary workforce to build a castle. How about going to battle to get some new lands or helping the curia to build the Cathedral? The abbess of the monastery can bless you with influence, while the echoes of the Crusades resound in a faraway land with songs of glory and honor. There isn't one single way that leads to victory – so which one will you choose?Ho hum. Sounds like JASE . Anyway, I’m a sucker for medieval games, so I subscribed to see updates as they came along.
First we had some more ho-hum images:
Some ho-hum images
Looks cool and all, I guess, but nothing that we hadn't seen before.
It wasn't until the rules were posted, that I discovered there was much more to the game than they were letting on in the description. Over the short course of five turns, this game develops into a tangled weave of vassal-lord relationships, along with their incentive-altering implications. Instead of being JASE, it’s an interactive game that does a great job of maintaining a feudal theme.
BTW, pedants will note that MIL is not proper Roman for 1049 (like I just did). 878
They know that, and it's mentioned in the rules. What's interesting is that the prototype name was Anno M, which would be "In the Year 1000". I think I like that better. I'll bet there's a funny story about changing the name.
Theme
Feudal System. But what is the feudal system and how does that apply to the game? We’ve already read the slightly misleading BGG description, so let’s go back and see what Professor <PERSON> has to say Quote:
The classic version of feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs. A lord was in broad terms a noble who held land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the use of the fief and the protection of the lord, the vassal would provide some sort of service to the lord.In the game this is represented by:
Land = land tiles which can be conquered by the vassal or the Lord (and then given to the vassal) – all land tiles are worth 4 VPs; VPs that the vassal earns for his lands also goes to the Lord! So this creates strong incentives to make other knights your vassal and to ensure that their lands are protected.
Land tiles you can conquer. Image by <PERSON> = In the game rules, this only represents land which is given to the vassal by the Lord during the vassal attempt, and results in an automatically successful vassal attempt
Lords = Protection = Lords can assist their vassals in war by providing food (for mercenaries) or influence (to buy allies); anything that helps your vassal directly helps you.
Vassal = provides service to the lord = VPs that the vassal earns for his lands also goes to the Lord. In addition, the Lord will receive 1 food per land from the vassal each turn
In addition, once a knight is in vassalage, he may never attack his Lord’s family (a player represents the family) or his Lord’s vassals.
The game does an excellent job of mimicking the sort of incentives and tangled alliances that would result from this complex arrangement.
Time. Another component of the theme is the passage of time. 878