A War of Whispers was a surprise title for us, published last year and financed by Spieleschmiede. It was a surprise title because in this game, you only indirectly intervene in a war scenario, in which – in true Game of Thrones style – five realms are manipulated by secret alliances. The players themselves take on the role of these secret alliances. A game that, in my opinion, somehow fits perfectly into the Corax Games portfolio. You'll find out whether the game, with its very special twist, is fun in the following review.
The ferocity of the bear; the pride of the lion; the endurance of the horse; the reach of the eagle; the strength of the elephant. Five powerful empires are at war for the world. However, this war is being waged in the shadows. Four secret societies pull their strings in secret, manipulating the outcome of the war. Hidden loyalties define the war. The goal: the greatest influence in the form of controlled cities for the empires loyal to the secret society.
A question of risk
A War of Whispers is a mix of deduction, worker placement, and area control elements. The goal is to award the most cities to your allied kingdoms by skillfully manipulating the battlefield. It can also be helpful to focus on enemy kingdoms and discreetly influence them. Discreetly, because you don't want to reveal to your opponents which kingdoms you are closest to and which you are not. At the end of the game, the closest kingdom gives you 4 victory points for each city it owns, while the last kingdom loses one point per city. Therefore, it's important to positively influence the kingdoms that give you points and, conversely, to manipulate other kingdoms so that you lose as few points as possible.
A game is quite simple considering the level of depth. A game runs over four rounds with four phases each, of which the agent phase and the realm phase form the core of the game. Starting with the Agent phase We place two of our workers or agents on the various action spaces around the game board. Each realm has four action spaces, which can influence the game differently depending on the clan's characteristics.
After all agents have been placed, we move on to the Imperial phase Here, the placed agents are activated in turn. Starting with the Bear's Realm, each action space is activated one after the other. If an action space has no agent, the player whose agent is next in line within the affected realm may activate it.
Simple actions manipulate events
The actions have different effects, allowing you to either send new units (in the form of so-called banners) onto the playing field, move these units to enemy regions, or draw tactic cards (with various effects) of the respective realm with which you perform the action. The strength of these actions usually depends on how many buildings of a certain type a realm possesses within its territory.
While deploying units indirectly influences events on the game board, moving units is a more active process. If you move units from one empire into an enemy region, a battle can occur if there are also enemy units in that region. This is calculated using a simple 1:1 principle. If blue sends 3 units into a region with 2 brown units, 2 units of each color are removed from the game board. If there is also a watchtower in the battle area, the defending empire receives an additional battle point and removes one unit from the invading empire.
At the end of the fourth round, all points are added together. This is done by counting the number of cities a realm owns at the end of that round. Depending on which realm you are closest to, you receive more or fewer victory points. The player with the most points wins the game.
Information about A War Of Whispers
| Number of players: 2 – 4 Age: from 12 years Playing time: 60 minutes Difficulty: expert game Classification: Worker Placement, Deduction Author: Jeremy Stoltzfus Illustrations: Tomasz Jedruszek, Dann May Publisher: Corax Games Official Website: Link Year of publication: 2024 Language: German Cost: 74,99 € |
Conclusion
A War Of Whispers is indeed a special game. The way all the players influence the five realms somehow creates a special appeal. You don't know exactly who is closest to which realm, or who might be harming a particular realm at that moment and actively influencing it negatively. This keeps the game exciting throughout. It's also great that you have the option to change your loyalties during the game if the realm you're most loyal to doesn't fare well. In return, however, you reveal your loyalties and make the changed loyalties visible to all players. We consider this a good compromise so that you don't come away from a game completely empty-handed – although, apart from one game, we hardly ever made use of it.
Because unoccupied action spaces are activated by the next player in the Empire phase, it also leads to an exciting battle for the most influence in a clan within a round. Do you take a risk and place your agent further back to have the chance for more actions, or do you play it safe and place your agent on an action space you absolutely need? Empires can also be actively weakened—for example, by actively sending units from an empire to areas occupied by more enemy units.
But even though the overall gameplay is generally exciting and interesting, we noticed as the number of games progressed that the game was slowly losing its luster. Sure, it remained exciting to see who influences which realms and how to achieve their goals, but the mechanics somehow became too monotonous. Compared to other worker placement and area control games, you ultimately don't really have many options and can barely make a difference. True to its name, A War of Whispers plodded along a bit.
This is mainly because all the games were somewhat similar in terms of the expansion of the individual empires. They barely expanded at all and mostly moved around within their starting area. Only one or two empires managed to expand a little further during the games. Also, the fact that you don't really have much influence, but are merely a cog in the war, ultimately just doesn't feel very good. At the end of the games, you usually had a "Yeah, that was nice" feeling.
Still, if you get the chance to try the game, you should do so, because A War Of Whispers offers a very good feel, especially at the beginning, and its somewhat different approach is quite well-received. We can't say the game isn't good. Still... With a price tag of €75, there are games – including those from Corax Games – that we find more exciting.
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