First Impression: Escalation!

By W. Eric Martin
March 30, 2007

Publisher: Z-Man Games
Designer: Reiner Knizia
Players: 2-6
Ages: 10+
Playing Time: 15 minutes
Rules Languages: English

Game Played: Final Version
Number of Plays: Three times with 2 players, twice with 3 players, and once with 6 players

Despite playing Escalation! six times, I’m still approaching this write-up as a first impression because the game plays differently with different numbers of players and my experience with four and five players is nil.

Escalation! includes 56 cards and a single rules card. (The cards float in the Geschenkt-sized box, and Zev at Z-Man now says that he should have included an insert to fill the box and keep it from being crushed.) Most of the cards are numbered from 1-13, with a single 1 card, five 2s, a half-dozen 3s through 6s, then down to two 13s. The game also includes two neighborhood watch cards and three wild cards, numbered 1-7 because they can represent any number in that range.

The theme of the game is suburban warfare, and the cards represent this through the artwork, such as a child with a Super Soaker, an old man in a scooter with a gun rack, and grenade launcher-wielding grandma. In gameplay terms, you want to keep ahead of the Joneses by playing more valuable cards than they do.

Players start with a hand of six cards. On a turn, a player plays one or more cards to the center of the table; if you play multiple cards, they must all be the same value. You announce the total value of the cards you play—a single 7 is only “seven” while three 2s would be “six"—and the total that you play must be higher than the previously announced total. Alternatively, you can play a neighborhood watch card and announce the total played by the previous player. After playing, you refill your hand to six cards.

When a player can’t or chooses not to beat the previously announced value, he takes all of the cards from the center of the table, turns them face-down in front of him, and starts another round of play. Play continues until one player runs out of cards. The game ends immediately, and anyone with cards still in hand places them on his or her face-down stack. Players then count the number of cards in their stack (ignoring the values), and the player with the fewest cards wins. You can also play multiple rounds, one for each player, summing the totals as you go.

Escalation! plays something like 6 Nimmt! in that the more players you have, the less control you’ll have. Your goal with six players is often to simply push the stack onto the next player and not worry about saving high cards for later because with 36 cards dealt at the start of the game, you’ll enter the final stages almost immediately. With six players, multiple rounds are essential to balance the vagaries of the deck. If you start with a hand of 2,3,4,5,6,7—which is entirely possible given the make-up of the deck—then you’re probably going to suck up a lot of cards.

With two or three players, though, you’ll consider your plays a bit more carefully because sometimes you’re better off taking a small stack of cards rather than wasting the one bomb you hold. The game still moves swiftly, but you have time to recover from a poor starting hand.

Escalation! won’t be mistaken for anything more than a light card game. (One player in multiple games said that his strategy was “to draw high cards.") Even the playing time of 15 minutes might be overstated unless you’re playing multiple rounds. The game does feature elements of hand management, such as when to play a single high card over a trio of low cards and whether to play low or high in order to push someone else to take the pile before your turn comes around again. The best benefits of the game are that it’s inexpensive, can be taught and played in minutes, has amusing artwork, and can introduce non-gamers to a different type of card game. The next time you’re waiting for a table at a restaurant, pull this slim deck from your pocket and start the warfare…

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