Game Review: Chang Cheng

by Andrea “Liga” Ligabue & W. Eric Martin

Publisher: TenkiGames
Designer: Walter Obert
Players: 2-4
Ages: 12+
Playing Time: 60 minutes
Released: September 2007 (Europe) / October 2007 (U.S.)

Liga: I have had the opportunity to play this game a lot of times, but I decided to wait to post my review until after playing it at least two times with the published version, just to be sure about all the rules and the materials.

WEM: And I’m butting in to add my comments on the game around Liga’s.

Liga: In Change Chenge, the players are Emperor assistants, trying to get rewards by building the Great Chinese Wall and protecting the fertile Chinese provinces from the Mongols.

Every gameboard is divided into six areas: three Chineses provinces on one side, three Mongols regions on the other, and a middle area to build up the Great Wall. The Chinese and Mongol areas are not perfectly overlapped, and this is one of the nice ideas in the game that allows different strategy: trying to have both the majority in a Chinese province and not in the Mongol region.

WEM: Yes, Chang Cheng is an area majority game, with players fighting for prestige in the various Chinese provinces by contributing the most to building the wall while trying to avoid blame when the Mongols invade at the end of the game and tear through that precious stone wall as if it were pudding.

Some players have had trouble distinguishing which area a wall space is in as both sides of the wall are colored in various shades of earthtones—browns, yellows and greens—so the brownish Chinese provinces blend into the Mongol regions somewhat. This visual sticking point might disappear over time, but be sure to point out the differing borders to new players to avoid frustration during play.

Liga: Each gameboard has 13 empty wall spaces on it, and every empty wall space is connected to two areas: one Chinese and one Mongol. At the beginning of the game, only two gameboards are displayed side by side and as soon as three provinces are scored, a new board will be added. (In a four-player game a fourth gameboard will be added after scoring the sixth province.) All the boards are double sided, and the player who triggers the score has the opportunity to chose where to add the board and with which side up. This is a nice opportunity, especially if the score was triggered with the first piece of wall placed that turn, allowing the player to be the first to place a wall in the new board.

WEM: Whoa there, Liga—let’s not jump into scoring until readers know what they can do on their turn. Small steps…

Liga: Okay, sure. Every player has a set of walls, a double wall, a tower and six cards. During a turn, a player can perform one of four actions: (1) place two single walls adjacent to two different Chinese provinces, (2) place two cards in two different provinces, (3) place a single wall and a card in the same province, or (4) place one special piece (either your tower or double wall). Every time you place a wall in front of a Mongol region, you can look at the secret Mongol counter.

WEM: The Mongols are massing while you build, apparently willing to wait to let you look like more of a man, like someone who could actually protect the women and children of the area, before they bring out the battering rams and blow your dreams away. They are cruel, after all.

As for the cards Liga mentions, each player has the same set of six cards, which are numbered 1-6. The cards are shaped like fat Popsicle sticks, and when combined with the new game smell you encounter when you punch them out, the desire to taste them will be almost irresistable. For the sake of those around you, however, please resist.

Each numbered card has a different power: one cancels one other cards played in a region (even yours), another counts as an extra two walls for your color, a third allows you to swap one single wall in the carded province with any other single wall. Cards can also increase or decrease the scoring of a region or wipe out the Mongols on the other side of the wall. (See? You really didn’t want to taste it after all...)

Liga: As soon as all the walls in a Chinese province are built, which takes 3-6 walls, it triggers a score. First, all the cards in the province are revealed and resolved. The numbers on the cards indicate the order in which they are resolved, but if two cards with the same number are in the same province, both are discarded without effect. Placing the right cards in the right moment is also needed for the victory. You are also allowed to place cards in provinces where you don’t have walls, using the “place two cards” action. This gives players a lot of opportunity to act and invest everywhere in the map until the province has been scored, which prevents players from trying to block the scoring in a province for too long.

After the cards have been resolved, the player with the most pieces of wall in province scores. Every province has a fixed value printed on the board (3-6, matching the number of wall spaces) and a random public value determined by a counter. The board, in this way, is really different from game to game.

WEM: Chang Chenge lays down strict scoring: The player who built the most walls scores points, and everyone else doesn’t. No halfsies. You can, however, tie in a province and both score points, and tieing with different opponents can boost your score without depleting your resources. As with most majority games, winning big is no better than winning small.

Liga: When all of the Great Wall is finished, it’s time for the Mongols to invade fertile China. For each Mongol region, the player with the most wall pieces adjacent to it will lose points (2-4) equal to what’s listed on the Mongol counter.

WEM: Note that whenever you place a wall piece on the board, whether single, double, or towerish, you can look at the Mongol counter in the adjacent region. This rule is noted in the rulebook in all languages other than English; the English rules mention the Mongol peek only for the double wall and tower placement, although the graphics show the player peeking when placing single walls. English speakers seemingly need to be handicapped in Chang Cheng.

Liga: The game is tense and fun because you can’t make all the actions you would like to make. Scoring a region is not easy since you can place only a single wall in each province—unless you use your double wall to fill space (but you have only one). The tower is also a really strong piece as it protects the province from the Mongol attack and also grants you the right to have at least one wall piece of your color close to it. So if you place your tower close to another player’s wall you almost certainly reserve the possibility of closing the region since no one apart from you can place the last wall.

WEM: Note that my group fell into a tower-sized hole in the rules in our initial game. I placed my tower next to an opponent’s wall, thereby reserving the empty space next to my tower. Then an opponent did the same thing, which meant we both had dibs on the same spot. To me, the tower excluded everyone else from claiming that spot, which meant that two towers around a spot would keep anyone from claiming it, since both players were excluded. This isn’t how the rules work: Both players can claim the spot, and since you can place only one piece in a province each turn, the second tower placed in a province is pretty much wasted since the other player can claim the contested spot first.

Liga: The right use of the tower and the double wall are necessary for the victory. Also the Mongols in the end can make you lose a lot of points, so you have to pay attention to which regions you are going to have the majority.

WEM: One tricky aspect to the game is that majorities in the Mongol regions can change even after the Chinese provinces on the other side of it have been scored and declared off limits for future plays. For one thing, the card that lets you swap two wall pieces can retroactively give you the majority in a Mongol region—and possibly two depending on where the boundary lies between the regions.

Second, the cards that act as virtual walls (which can allow a player to steal a province’s points due to unexpected wallage) disappear once the province has been scored. So you might be robbed of points during the scoring, yet still have enough of a presence to be blamed when the Mongols come to town.

Since cards are single use only—and some have two possible uses—you might resist playing them initially in order to hold them for the right time. Do that, though, and you’ll probably still have a full mitt of them when the game ends. Provinces can fill up faster than you think.

Liga: After several plays I still find Chang Cheng a really fun game. The decision of which action to take and where to place your walls is not simple; being open to playing your special pieces early gives you more options, but on the other side, you will become more predictable. Sometimes in the end, the use of the exchange card can give rise to small kingmaker effects but not so often. I think the game is simple enough to be played with occasional players but also has enough depth for the taste of gamers. The graphics and materials are really nice.

If you are expecting from designer Walter Obert something like Hysterycoach or Kragmortha, you will be disappointed since Chang Cheng is a real Eurogame with a nice and solid majority mechanic and some nice new original ideas, all dressed in a luxurious dress.

Good play!
Liga

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