Design by Einar & Robert Rosén, Nina & Rustan Hakansson
Published by Lautapelit.fi
1 – 5 Players, 3 – 4 hours
Review by Greg J. Schloesser
Memories of my boardgaming past will occasionally surface, influencing my tastes and inclinations in the present. For years my favorite boardgame was the classic Francis Tresham / Mick Uhl design Civilization. Actually, I preferred the Advanced Civilization version, but was thrilled to play either. I spent many, many hours—each game would take 10 – 12 hours to complete—attempting to advance my civilization, survive natural disasters and enemy incursions, and achieve dominance over all other nations. The game absolutely thrilled me, but its excessive length prevented it from hitting the table more than once a year, at most.
Unfortunately, it has probably been 12 or more years since I’ve last played it. A lot of years have passed and my tastes in games have changed considerably. I am not sure I still have a tolerance for such lengthy games, and am not sure I would still be so enamored by the game. Still, I still possess a fondness for Civilization-style games, but have yet to find one that surpasses, let along meets the wonderful memories I harbor of the Tresham / Uhl classic. Still, my interest is piqued whenever a new one is released, and I am compelled to investigate. While some of these games have been good, most have fallen woefully short of generating the excitement I experienced with Civilization.
The closest was Vlaada Chvatil’s Through the Ages, a terrific game that won the International Gamers Award. It, too, was long, but at four hours or so, only a fraction of the time required to play Civilization. The scuttlebutt is that gamers Einar and Robert Rosén and Nina and Rustan Hakansson were captivated by Through the Ages, but wanted to streamline it so it would play faster. If this was, indeed, their goal, they have succeeded, but only slightly. Nations is still on the far side of the time / length scale, with most of our games clocking-in at 3 – 4 hours, only slightly less than Through the Ages. Still, it is time well spent, as Nations is an engaging game.
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