Kris Hall: Alan Paull and Confucius

Alan Paull is best known to gamers as the man who designed Tara, Seat of Kings, and as one of the men behind Surprised Stare Games.  When I came upon a detailed and very favorable review of the prototype of Confucius, Mr. Paull’s latest game, I was intrigued.  Mr. Paull agreed to tell me more about the game.

Kris: What inspired Confucius?  Why create a game about politics in medieval China?

Alan: Interestingly, NOT the Olympics :-).  I started designing the game several years ago, when there very few China themed games around, and I was looking for a theme that had not yet been overwhelmingly covered by others. I’ve always been fascinated by Chinese history, particularly the period of ocean exploration under the Ming, because there are so many aspects that contrast with the European experience. They were mainly exploring for tribute and trade with local people, not for settlement, and they used huge fleets with as many as 20,000 crew and soldiers, effectively large floating settlements. By contrast the early European explorers had ships a fifth the size of a Chinese junk and fleets of only a handful of ships. In addition to this aspect, I read an interesting article about the giving of gifts in exchange for political influence in China, which was a way of cementing social and political alliances and establishing relationships based on patronage. I wanted to try designing a game mechanic that would model this kind of relationship, which is rather different from a more conventional one of either conflict or diplomacy

Kris: Did you do a lot of historical research for the game?

Alan: One of the design parameters was to tie each game mechanic to an element of the theme. This does require some historical research - I’m fortunate that I have a small number of books on Chinese history, and of course, the web is a great source. I wouldn’t say that I’m an expert on Chinese history at all though! Confucius is a game with, I hope, a strong theme, but it’s not a historical model of Ming dynasty China. I’m also lucky to have some friends and acquaintances who are Chinese or knowledgeable about Chinese history. This has meant that we’ve been able to research or develop pretty authentic graphics and, of course, use appropriate Chinese calligraphy. I wouldn’t swear that all our graphics will be authentically Ming, but we think we’ll be able to do a good job of reflecting the theme. By the way, don’t expect to learn a lot about Confucian philosophy by playing Confucius; this is a board game, not a treatise on Confucianism! There will be a historical background article though.

Kris: From what I’ve read, the game seems to be based on a lot of area majority mechanics with players trying to get the majority of their tokens in different areas representing three government ministries, one army campaign area, and a naval exploration area.  Can you give us a more detailed overview of the game’s mechanics?

Alan: Confucius is an action-based game, each player getting from 3 to 5 action cubes to spend in a round. Doing an action usually costs 1 cube, but repeating an action that you’ve already done costs 2 cubes.  So you’re carrying out a number of actions in a turn, but you never have enough cubes to do everything that you want to do.

A central part of the game is the political struggle over the main three Ministries in the Imperial Court; the Ministries of the Army, Finance and Public Works. These are matched with the three main action areas: invasions, bribery of officials at Court and voyages of exploration. Although it’s an area majority mechanic - each Ministry has seven officials who can be bribed and the winner is the player with the most bribed officials - control of a Ministry is strongly affected by the giving and receiving of gifts.  If you give a gift to another player, then that player is politically obligated to you and must help you in some way later in the game, or suffer restrictions on actions. Only the top two players in a Ministry will get victory points; the other players have to give their influence away, prioritizing players who have given them gifts.  So instead of a conventional area majority like in El Grande for example, you have to watch where the gifts are, in case a player with relatively little influence in a Ministry is forced to boost one of your rivals.

Kris: Can you tell us more about the gift-giving mechanism?

Alan: The giving and receiving of gifts is an essential part of Confucius. Each player has six gifts, all but one of which have to be purchased before they can be used - in other words, given as presents.  If you give me a gift, then I have to help you or else I am restricted in what I can do. One of the restrictions is that I’m not allowed to get more bribed officials in a Ministry than you, so my influence at court can be limited. Another is that, if I’m weak in a Ministry that’s being resolved, I may have to give my influence to you. Of course, I can help you, for example by giving you one of my bribed officials, in order to get rid of the gift and its obligations, or I could even give you a more valuable gift, which cancels your gift and reverses the obligations. Besides which, the number of action cubes you get depends on the number of gifts you’ve given and received, so it’s always good to be socially connected.

Kris: What are the Emperor cards and what do they do?

Alan: These cards have now been renamed ‘Reward cards’, rather than ‘Emperor’s Reward cards’, which was a bit of a mouthful. You get these by successful voyaging and placing armies in certain locations. Reward cards are bonus actions that don’t cost action cubes, and they include extra armies, money, and the opportunity to counter-bribe (meaning ‘steal’) an official from another player. Acquiring these extra actions can be a viable strategy, but you do still have to turn them into points, so it’s less direct than good old honest bribery.

Kris: Can you explain how the Imperial Examination mechanism works and how players can use it to get their candidates into the government ministries?

Alan: This is one of those mechanisms that I wanted to put in the game for theme purposes and to provide another way to enable players to control officials in Ministries. The Imperial Exam is in essence a voting mechanic.  There are only 2 slots for the Imperial Exam, so only 2 players can have candidates. At the end of a round in which both slots are filled, all players, not just those who have the candidates, have to pay at least 1 cash to tutor one or other of the candidates. This forces players to manage their cash in hand, because you don’t really want to have to pay a large value cash card to help one of your opponents. And if you can spend all your money by the end of the round, you don’t have to pay at all. The added complication is that if you’ve received a gift from a player with a candidate, you have to tutor that candidate. The winner is the one who’s got the most tutoring money, and that player’s ‘cousin’ takes up an official post in a Ministry - your ‘cousin’ is loyal to you, so cannot be bribed.

Kris: How do players gain points from the army and navy areas on the game board?

Alan: The naval and army parts of the game are fundamentally about efficient resource management and timing. They both involve Confucius cards, which are used for either cash or licenses. The overseas voyaging is more or less a race. You buy ocean-going junks and then pay licenses to go on voyages of discovery. The first to reach each Distant Lands gets points and a Reward card. There’s also points for having the most junks on voyages at the end of the game. Your armies are used to conquer Foreign Lands - some of which are parts of China under Mongol control at the start of the game. The armies section is similar to the voyages one, but the resource management is reversed; you buy junks with cash, then pay licenses to go on voyages, but you pay licenses to recruit armies, then cash to deploy them. But you never fight the other players; you’re fighting to re-establish and extend the boundaries of the Chinese Empire and will often have to co-operate with other players, because in some cases it’s difficult for an invasion to succeed if a player tries to do it alone. And there’s a time limit - if the invasion is not successful within a set number of rounds, it fails and no-one gets points for it. So voyages of discovery are perhaps less risky, but less rewarding, while invasions might get you more points, but are chancey.

Kris: What aspect of the design are you most proud of?

Alan: Definitely the gift giving - it’s taken a lot of work, but I think it works well, and as far as I know, it’s not been done before. However, it does make Confucius at least a medium-heavy game. It started life as a card game, so it’s come a long way!

Kris: When can we expect Confucius to be published?

Alan: We’re due to launch at the UK Games Expo on 31 May / 1 June 2008.

Kris: What other gaming projects would you like to work on?

Alan: In terms of game design, I work on a wide variety of things, from miniatures, to board wargames, to Euro games. Surprised Stare has a number of projects on the go, but we’re not revealing these just yet. I would quite like to re-vamp or Euro-ize an old design that I did in the ‘80s called City of Sorcerers, which combined building up the power of your mage with a concluding combat in the magical arena.  I’ve been playing Napoleon’s Triumph recently, which I really like, and I confess that I’d love to do a version of this for the Waterloo campaign, but I suspect that Bowen Simmons is either working on it, or might object to me nicking his excellent system!

Kris: Thanks for the interview.

Comments:

< Back Home