This review is spurred by Dr <PERSON>’s comment in a post on 7 March: “Look at the traffic that is generated here or on CSW. It is miniscule….Very few people are playing OCS.”
I am not disputing Dr <PERSON>’s assertion (I think it is correct) but I thought it was worth writing a review about “what’s it like to play?” for those people who might have had OCS sitting on their shelves for a while and are wondering whether to try and get it to the table (and who don’t feel like trawling through the posts on Consimworld), or for those who are pondering purchasing one of the copies for sale in the BGG marketplace.
I won’t run through the components or basic structure of the game; the other review here on BGG does that adequately.
Basis for review
The comments are based on playing in 2013 the 1st Crusade once with 7 players for twelve turns; with 3 players for seven turns; and a 4 player game through to the end, as well as the 2nd Crusade having had four runs through in the group. We had played the 1st Crusade with seven players once a few years ago and had also played the Strategy & Tactics The Crusades (June 1978) several years ago.
Game length
We found the estimated game length for both the 1st and 2nd Crusades to be pretty accurate. This was surprising as we usually take longer than the time indicated on the box and time was spent sorting out various rules issues.
Having enough time to finish a game is important as Victory Points (VPs) are determined by the board situation on the last turn of the game (you can’t bank VPs), so in many cases you won’t be able to determine a winner before the end of the game.
Later turns tend to be quicker than earlier turns in my experience, not so much through greater familiarity with the game but rather due to things like more of your armies are where you need them to be so you can pass their leader’s activation when it comes up.
How does it feel to play?
There are seven factions in the game: Northern Franks, Southern Franks, Germans; Sicilian Normans; Mosul Turks and the North and South Syrians. Depending on the number of players you may control multiple factions. The game has colour and I was engaged with whatever faction I was playing. Each game certainly gave rise to its share of memorable events.
As a Crusader player you are constantly aware that your strength can only reduce during the course of the game; every army strength point (ASP) you lose you are never getting back. 504
This really focuses the mind on what you are trying to do. You can also experience great difficulty in bringing Muslim forces to battle as forces can withdraw before combat, usually without loss. Even small Crusader forces can defeat or hold off large Muslim armies (and small Muslim forces can delay large Crusader ones) but they can just as easily disappear into the sand through attrition: what the mighty <PERSON> was unable to vanquish could be destroyed by a bad attrition roll.
As the Syrians you are torn between delaying the Crusaders, hoping to pick off an ASP here or there in small battles versus just staying out of the way and hoping to recover your cities later. Most of your leaders are unskilled compared to the Crusaders. The awareness that the hammer blow might come from the Crusaders or the Mosul Turks makes for tough decisions. As the Mosul Turk do you fight the Crusaders, do you hang back and let the Syrians do the hard work, or do you head straight for Damascus and 15 VPs? The Play Note in the rules that the Mosul Turks were probably the hardest faction to play did not match our experience.
Movement per turn is limited only by risk of attrition and by activation rolls but even very small forces can block movement by bigger forces. The combination of these two factors combined with point to point movement with usually only two or three routes to a location leads to some interesting manoeuvring and tough decisions: yes, I could dash my army from Homs to the relief of Antioch this turn if I really want to but can I really afford the attrition losses that will entail? But if I don’t dash it there straight away will the road be blocked? Or do I try and do it as a series of smaller moves, thereby avoiding attrition but running the risk that my leader will fail his activation roll and be left in the middle of nowhere? Some of the same uncertainty applies to the decision as to whether to fight or not: do I withdraw my force when my opponent moves into my space and hope he fails his continuation roll, or do I stay and fight knowing that even if he beats me my opponent will not be able to come any further down the road this activation? 449