Conquest of Arthenia Enters the Fantasy CCG Fray
That pretty much defines the phrase, "malicious glee."
This summer, indie CCG Conquest of Arthenia saw its initial release. Some familiar CCG tropes are blended with clever innovations that make for unexpected strategic twists.
As a fantasy collectible card game, Conquest of Arthenia has to stand up to the unavoidable comparisons to Magic: the Gathering. Some things are the same — the creatures and soldiers you recruit have power and toughness attributes, here called “Strike” and “Armor.” You use mana to summon creatures and other effects, but you also need gold. That’s pretty much where the similarities end.
In Conquest, each player plays locations, then plays units to protect the locations or attack the opponent’s locations. In between each players’ locations is the Battlefield, an open area where units must travel to make attacks, and where units can assault each other directly. The locations (and their upgrades, like mines or channels) generate the resources necessary to create and maintain units. Most units have a sustain cost, which means you can’t bring something into play and then neglect your locations to make attacks. Without well-defended locations, your units will leave the field.
The cards themselves have an open design, without a bunch of little boxes cordoning off each game element. There’s one main text box that describes the card’s title, cost and primary effect. A secondary box at the bottom includes additional information like rarity and alignment. This design really lets the art on the cards to shine, and some of the art is top notch.
We did run into a few issues in our test games. The rulebook includes a lengthy sample game to be played with pre-ordered decks, which gives you a great head start on understanding the game, but I wish there was also a concise outline of the rules to use as reference. The game uses specialized terms for every game element, so your deck is your “domain” (and it simultaneously serves as your encampment), your deck is your “arsenal” and cards are “resources.” This is needlessly confusing (not to mention something people have been making fun of Magic for since “in play” changed to “Battlefield”).
There are also some theme problems. The rulebook uses an overt military theme to describe gameplay, but many of the units are creatures like jellyfish and walruses. The jellyfish card looks cool, but how exactly do they protect my city? It was also a bit of a letdown that most of the locations are generic. You can play “a city” or ” a village,” and eventually have several of each. There are specific locations such as “protected woods,” but they’re all rares. It would have made the game a lot more interesting if it was easier to have unique locations.
Any fantasy CCG faces more than an uphill climb to gain market share — it’s something like a sheer cliff with no handholds — but Conquest of Arthenia’s location-based combat and battlefield melees make for an interesting change of pace.
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