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It is the early 20th Century. On a parallel Earth, Humanity has rebelled and overthrown its oppressors, the malevolent Old Ones, and reclaimed the world as their own. Free of the restrictions on exploration their former overlords imposed, one intrepid group of settlers made it to Australia. But the Old Ones are not done yet. Some of them remain, hiding in the vast, arid plains of the Outback. How many are out there, and how strong they are will depend on fate, but one thing is for sure: Once awakened, these Nightmare Neighbours definitely won’t become good friends. This is Auztralia.
Auztralia is a 2018 game from designer Martin Wallace in which one to four players must compete to explore the board, build infrastructure and prepare for battle before Cthulu and his minions awaken. At some point in the game, Cthulu’s forces will begin to rouse and act as another player, taking its turn along with the humans. The Old Ones get points for spreading chaos and destruction.
At the end of the game, Cthulu earns points for the number of Old Ones on the board, along with the damage they have caused to players’ farms. If Cthulu wins, everyone else loses, so players will likely need to work together or face being overwhelmed. But a canny player will also know when to take advantage of their opponents’ misfortune as they try to amass the resource and points they need to win the game.
Surveying The Terrain
Set up for Auztralia can be fiddly at first, but is worth the effort as its also what gives the game its unique play style and level of variability. The game board itself is double-sided, featuring a map of Eastern Australia or the more advanced West coast map, overlayed with hexagonal spaces showing three types of terrain: coast, hills and Outback. Before starting the game, players place a series of 13 randomly selected Survey tiles face down on the board at set locations. Once revealed, these tiles indicate where the enemies and vital resources will be placed.
The Old Ones themselves can only be placed in Outback spaces, leaving the hills and coastline monster-free (apparently, Cthulu isn’t much of a surfer). As a result, the number of enemies and resources placed on the board differs significantly from game to game. In addition, the Enemy tiles themselves are of different strength and are placed face down, adding to the uncertainty. Each of these tiles COULD turn out to be a zombie, cultist or even Cthulu itself… but it could also be a harmless kangaroo. Until all tiles are revealed, you won’t know exactly which, or even how many, enemies you are facing.
Countdown To Cthulu
Around the edge of the Board is a numbered track numbered which will look familiar to most board gamers. However, this isn’t for keeping track of the score but is a way for players to track the time they have taken on their actions. Because in Auztralia, time is the most precious resource you have or rather, the most precious resource you don’t have. The game ends when all players pass the 53rd space on the track.
Each action a player takes, such as building rails (it’s a Martin Wallace game, of course it has trains!), mining or buying military units, will cost different amounts of time as well as any other gold or minerals required. For instance, build three farms and this will cost you a unit of time per farm, moving your player disc three spaces forwards along the track. If you are furthest behind on the time track it is your turn.
As the costs of actions vary, you may be able to take a number of actions before you pass your opponent’s disc and they take their next turn. And so the game progresses until all players pass the unassuming purple disc at number 23. At this point, the game begins in earnest because that is the sleeping Old Ones’ alarm call, and they are really not morning people.
Everybody Needs Good Neighbours
Luckily for the players, they don’t have to rely solely on each other in their battle against Cthulu. One of the actions they can take is to recruit support from a deck of Personality cards. These represent important, if somewhat eccentric, allies each with different abilities and bonuses. Cards are unique and provide different advantages depending on the strategy players want to employ. If you want to concentrate on building farms, for example, there are cards that increase their points value at the end of the game.
A player concentrating on military strength may prefer to recruit allies who offer greater resilience to your combat units or allow automatic hits on enemies. In keeping with the theme of the game, which personality appears- there are always five available to recruit- and how useful they are will vary from game to game, but it is no exaggeration to say that the right combination of allies can win a game for you. Or lose it.
Cthulu Cards
There are two other decks in the game which decide the enemy’s actions once awakened: The Revelations deck and Old Ones Deck.
The Revelation deck consists of fifteen cards which are more powerful as the game progresses. This represents the growing power of the Old Ones as time passes. These cards are played every other Old One turn and have varied effects, from waking up an Old One (ie revealing one of the face down enemy tiles) to spawning new enemies on the board or “assassinating” personality cards from the display.
The Old Ones deck consists of 40 cards which show a grid of all the enemies and combat units. These cards have two uses. Firstly, they are drawn to decide which enemies move on their turn and in which direction; or they are used to determine the outcome in combat.
Combat Fatigue
Combat in Auztralia is simple in practice and uses a clever push your luck mechanism. To fight simply picks a target within range, chooses which units to deploy into battle and then flip the card on top of the Old Ones deck to see the result. This can be a hit on the Old One, damage to combat units, a loss of “sanity” or simply no effect. Players can choose to withdraw or carry on drawing for as long as they choose, however, combat ends automatically if they lose all of their sanity tokens, all their units are destroyed or the Old One is defeated.
There are other considerations too, of course. Different units are more effective against different monsters and likewise are more vulnerable to certain enemies. Also the time cost of attacking increases with each additional type of unit involved in combat. These are all things a player needs to consider before committing to attack. Because make no bones about it, combat in Auztralia may be simple, but it is far from easy. The odds in the Old Ones deck seem stacked against you, honestly, it can feel unfair at times.
There is a Combat table in the manual which indicates how well units will fare against different enemies in combat but results rarely run true to this. Losing combat due to poor card can be frustrating and there are only limited ways to mitigate the effects. If the more combat-orientated personality cards don’t come out of the deck, or are recruited by your opponents before you get your paws on them, combat will be a struggle.
Shawn Or The Zeds
In contrast to the luck-based combat, most of Auztralia’s gameplay is based around tight decision making. Each action you take can only be done once before you either have to recall your tokens (which costs time) or pay one gold to repeat actions. Forward planning is as essential to winning the game as a strong military force. Auztralia is ultimately a game of competing priorities: Do you spend your turn building sheep farms or blasting zombies? Do you mine for gold or build the last available armoured car? As with all good economic strategy games, there is no right answer.
What you do will depend on the board state, what your opponents are planning and how late in the game it is. What sets the game apart from similar exploration games is the cooperative element. You may be able to hoover up all the resources and troops leaving your opponents defenceless. But doing so could leave them unable to help destroy the numerous Old Ones. It could even result in the game ending prematurely if they lose their port to an attack. Unrevealed enemy tiles count for double points to the Old Ones, so an early finish will probably mean Cthulu wins.
Ultimately, it is possible to win the game without cooperating at all, but in a game that encourages efficiency of time and resources, it feels like a wasted opportunity not to use your opponent to do some of the heavy lifting.
Variability
Auztralia’s strength is in the high level of variability in its gameplay. Leaving aside the excellent solo mode, there are several ways to change play. The double sided board is not merely cosmetic. The Western map offers a challenge to more experienced players who prefer a more cutthroat experience. Alternatively, there is a completely Cooperative mode if you want a less confrontational experience. But even within the main game, no two sessions of Auztralia ever play out the same, as there are so many random elements in the game’s set up.
Depending on how the survey tiles are placed and interact with each other, a game of Auztralia can feel like an engaging but gentle puzzle to solve or a hopeless slog against likely insurmountable odds. And this aspect of the game is both its most appealing feature but also its greatest weakness. A game which varies so much is by definition inconsistent, and that is just not going to appeal to some gamers.
Final Thoughts
Auztralia appears at first blush to be a mix of elements from very different games. It really shouldn’t work and there are times when the format strains. When several turns of thoughtful, well-planned actions are derailed completely by a combat deck so swingy it could play saxophone in a Dixieland Jazz band. But anyone who has played a Martin Wallace game before knows that he rarely does things the easy way, and that’s part of the charm. And to be honest, if it didn’t feel as though the odds were stacked against you, then it wouldn’t be much of a Cthulu game, either.
Give this a go if you fancy something a little more adventurous than your usual dry, economic engine builder; or a little more thoughtful than a dice chucking area control combat game. It will definitely engage and infuriate you in equal measure but embrace the madness and you’ll have a great time. But be warned: The Old Ones don’t play nice.