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Arcs – Base Game
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Arcs is a dynamic sci-fi strategy game for 2–4 players, set in a universe that balances dark themes with a playful, whimsical twist. In this thrilling galactic struggle, players will need to brace themselves for dramatic twists and surprises at every turn. As commanders in a sprawling galaxy, you’ll engage in fierce battles, chase ambitious objectives, and seize strategic moments to outmaneuver your opponents.
The game introduces a unique action selection system using multi-use cards, allowing for versatile play and tactical flexibility. Each turn, you’ll have to make critical decisions on whether to follow the lead of another player, pivot your strategy, or seize the initiative to take control of the next round. Timing is crucial; knowing when to act can make all the difference between a decisive victory and a narrow defeat.
Objectives, known as “ambitions,” add an extra layer of competition and drive the game’s narrative arc. At the start of each game, players define these ambitions, shaping the goals everyone will pursue. Whether you’re focusing on expanding your empire, dominating specific regions, or gaining influence, your objectives will guide you as you plot your path to victory.
In battles, Arcs uses a fast-paced, engaging system. Players amass a navy of wooden ships, organize their forces, and roll custom engraved dice to resolve conflicts in a single, dramatic roll. The three different dice types enable a range of strategic choices, with each roll resolving battles swiftly yet impactfully.
Each game box is packed with high-quality components, including over a hundred wooden ships and agents, 18 custom dice, and a beautifully illustrated six-panel board. With over 60 unique pieces of artwork spread across the cards, Arcs is as visually captivating as it is strategic. Dive into this galactic odyssey where every move counts, every ambition matters, and no two games play the same.
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Description
Arcs is a dynamic sci-fi strategy game for 2–4 players, set in a universe that balances dark themes with a playful, whimsical twist. In this thrilling galactic struggle, players will need to brace themselves for dramatic twists and surprises at every turn. As commanders in a sprawling galaxy, you'll engage in fierce battles, chase ambitious objectives, and seize strategic moments to outmaneuver your opponents.
The game introduces a unique action selection system using multi-use cards, allowing for versatile play and tactical flexibility. Each turn, you’ll have to make critical decisions on whether to follow the lead of another player, pivot your strategy, or seize the initiative to take control of the next round. Timing is crucial; knowing when to act can make all the difference between a decisive victory and a narrow defeat.
Objectives, known as "ambitions," add an extra layer of competition and drive the game's narrative arc. At the start of each game, players define these ambitions, shaping the goals everyone will pursue. Whether you're focusing on expanding your empire, dominating specific regions, or gaining influence, your objectives will guide you as you plot your path to victory.
In battles, Arcs uses a fast-paced, engaging system. Players amass a navy of wooden ships, organize their forces, and roll custom engraved dice to resolve conflicts in a single, dramatic roll. The three different dice types enable a range of strategic choices, with each roll resolving battles swiftly yet impactfully.
Each game box is packed with high-quality components, including over a hundred wooden ships and agents, 18 custom dice, and a beautifully illustrated six-panel board. With over 60 unique pieces of artwork spread across the cards, Arcs is as visually captivating as it is strategic. Dive into this galactic odyssey where every move counts, every ambition matters, and no two games play the same.
Arcs is a completely unique and ambitious board game designed by Cole Wehrle, the mind behind such mad modern classics as Root, Pax Pamir and Oath. Published by Leder Games, Arcs promises a narrative-driven experience that combines the best aspects of ‘4X’ (explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate) games with emergent storytelling. Most of Wehrle’s games are incredibly divisive and already Arcs promises to be as many people’s favourite game as it will see people bounce off its chaos. With no need to bury the lead at this point, coming off my favourite game of all time, Oath, I was incredibly excited for this new space themed addition to the portfolio.
To infinity and Beyond
At its core, Arcs is a game about empire-building and the political and military struggles that define it. However, what truly sets the game apart is its commitment to storytelling. Unlike many other 4X games, where the narrative is often a thin veneer over mechanical gameplay, this game, much like Oath weaves a compelling story through its gameplay mechanics. Players take on the roles of different factions, each with its unique agenda, strengths, and weaknesses allowing the narrative to unfold dynamically, influenced by the players’ decisions, alliances, and betrayals.
Kyle Ferrin’s incredible artwork creates such a detailed world, perhaps his best to date and it is impossible not to get lost in this world of interesting races and guilds.
In Space No-one Can Hear You Roll Dice
Arcs employs a clever blend of familiar and innovative mechanics, doing what Wehrle does best and throwing curve balls amongst the figurative pigeons. At first glance, the game might seem like a standard 4X affair with its focus on exploration, expansion, resource management, and conflict. However, it quickly becomes apparent that what we have here is more than the sum of its parts. To begin with players will take a leader of their choice and lore. These offer a simple but powerful asymmetric start to the game each with a positive and a negative power.
The game is played over several ‘chapters’, with each round taking place over six actions. Players take turns performing said actions, such as moving fleets, building cities and space ports, taxing to gain resources, influencing the available guilds and of course battling. However the standout feature here is the action system itself. Instead of a traditional action point system, players use cards from their hands in a track-taking like format. The lead player will dictate the main available action options and will always be able to take their card’s maximum amount of actions. Anyone following will have a slightly more difficult time! If you surpass the lead by playing a higher card of the same suit you will get to also take the card’s maximum action points but anyone who cannot do this is forced to take a single action, either copying that of the leader or pivoting to another. Surpassing will take the initiative to lead the next turn or you can burn an extra card to seize it but losing a turn in the process. The dual-use cards force players to constantly weigh their options, as using a card for one purpose often means sacrificing another potential action.
Combat is straightforward but chaotic. The game uses a dice-based resolution system, but luck is mitigated by the various abilities and technologies that players can acquire through their guild cards. The focus is more on the strategic positioning and timing of your forces rather than raw firepower. The attacker will simply roll their choice of dice up to the power of their fleet, deciding whether to roll safe dice that will only cause damage to the defender but with a 50/50 chance of success or going for a more aggressive dice that will be more likely to hit but will also do damage to your own fleet at the same time. You can also roll raid dice if you are attacking a building in order to try and steal cards and resources from your defender but be wary as they will also do a lot of damage to your own ships at the same time. I love this battle system. It takes all power from the defender but is still slanted favourably towards them. Fighting is punishing but necessary and so the decision space is continuously fascinating!
It’s A Trap!
Leder Games is known for its high-quality productions, and Arcs is no exception. The game features beautiful artwork that perfectly captures the epic scope of the setting and the illustrations on the cards and board are fantastically evocative, helping to bring the game’s world to life. The color palette is vibrant without being overwhelming, and the design elements are cohesive, ensuring that everything feels like part of the same universe.
The game board itself is modular, allowing for different setups depending on the number of players and also changes up the layout game to game but selecting from a deck of set up cards. This modularity adds to the replayability of the game, as no two setups are exactly alike.
The rulebook is beautifully organised. It seems like as a company, Leder get stronger and stronger when it comes to how to present their incredibly complex rules. The player aids are also concise and clear which is appreciated and there are enough for each player, something you can’t take for granted!
Live Long and Prosper
Arcs is a remarkable achievement in board game design, offering a deep and engaging experience that combines strategic gameplay with rich storytelling. It is a game that rewards careful planning, tactical thinking, and clever diplomacy, all while immersing players in a vibrant and living universe. While the complexity of the game may be daunting for some, those who invest the time to learn its systems will find a deeply satisfying and replayable experience. Despite the leaders and lore cards being recommended for experienced gamers, I would argue that the game is so vastly improved by them that you should aim to throw them into the mix as soon as possible.
In a market crowded with space-themed board games, Arcs will not be for everyone. It’s lack of long term strategy and lean towards reactionary gameplay will annoy many players and the trick taking will cause no end of debate about ‘luck’. Yes there is luck in this game, like there is in many games that use dice and card draw but what makes this game so great is how you manipulate that luck and mitigate the draw. I have seen people come back from the brink in the last round and seen leaders fall from grace. Arcs is truly one of the most exciting game designs in recent years and yes that does mean that you might bounce off it, and that is fine. To quote a great musical, I’d rather be “nine people’s favorite thing, than a hundred people’s ninth favorite thing”!
So if you are looking for a hyped game – this is it. Arcs not only arrived via KS (initially) from the heady combination of Cole Wehrle and Leder Games, but then launched to a SU&SD review that suggested it was the best game ever made since the beginning of time – or some such. Cue a bunch of tit-for-tat commentary about whether this was a revealed truth / absolute balderdash / somewhere in-between…. Wow – what a game to have to then write a review on… Here we go.
The Arcs base game is a space themed, area control game with variable scoring conditions and a card driven, action selection mechanism. The card mechanics have heralded some to call it a trick-taking game – which it isn’t really. It has some similarities – a lead card which players choose to follow or not and affects the number and type of actions they can take. But there’s no tricks taken for scoring and no trump, so arguably it’s more of a card auction.
Cards played will have you building ships, moving them and fighting; building bases and taxing them for resources; acquiring court cards with special powers, and activating scoring conditions for the chapter. The latter point is key – the lead player, depending on the number of the card played, can trigger one of the table wide scoring conditions, which are either about acquiring the most of a certain resource/s or capturing the most of a particular kind of piece/s.
It’s the card play that has really driven the controversy surrounding Arcs. Four suits, each valued 1-7, each with a different number of action pips, but the higher the numerical initiative value the lower the number of action pips. Different suits provide a different range of actions to choose from. The kicker is how the card-play mechanics work, though. If the lead plays a card, others can follow with anything, but unless they follow suit with a higher value they only get one action from the card they play. Combine this with the lead player being the one that controls whether scoring criteria are activated and being the lead becomes really significant.
However, there are wrinkles to this. If you are not the lead, there is always the choice to play two cards of any suit/value which again (based on the above) may only give you one action, but guarantees you seizing the lead for the next round of card play. It does mean though that on the last round of the chapter you are going to be doing nothing. Also, should the lead trigger a scoring condition the initiative value of the card drops to zero, leaving it much easier for those that follow.
The result of interplay of these mechanics, and the fact that each chapter you are randomly dealt a hand of 6, has sufficient consequences that some have rejected Arcs outright, frustrated, as they would claim, that they can have to play an entire chapter of the game denied the suit of cards enabling them to take the actions they had planned for, like fighting or taxing, two actions which each only appear on one (different) suit of cards. ‘Pah’ counter the fans – you simply aren’t playing the game right – use the prelude actions, or court cards. Stop being such a fixed-mindset strategist!’
Which brings us on to resources and prelude actions. Resources can not only be collected to help score against victory conditions, but they can be burnt for prelude actions, which trigger after you have played an action card but before you have used its actions. Some are simple – Materials allow you to take a build actions, while others are more nuanced: Weapons allow you to treat your card as having the battle action on it too, or Psionics give an extra action of the lead card suit.
Now is also a good time to talk about court cards, which might trigger an instant effect, or could sit in front of you offering a powerful enduring effect, potentially breaking the rules in a specific way. They also depict a resource symbol too, which in most cases you can use in counting up for victory condition fulfillment.
And it’s true – the additional spice these mechanisms add do give options if you don’t quite like what you have drawn. Doesn’t silence the haters though…”The dice based combat system make the game far too swingy!” they can be heard to cry.
But what a smorgasbord the combat is: three different types of dice, all with a different flavour. The blue dice are a safe bet – used against ships or cities/starports they offer little damage but zero chance of the attacker being damaged. Red dice are high risk, high reward – you can dish it out, but you may take a bunch of damage too. Finally, orange dice, which can only be used for raiding buildings – these again have a higher damage output than blue but with the risks of taking damage; however, they also allow you to raid another player, which provides the chance to steal resources and/or court cards from their player board.
All this makes for a surprisingly lean rules set, once you get your head around a few of the interlocking mechanisms – and it also makes for some brain burning decisions, as hand management becomes king. How am I going to play this hand of cards (and gather/use resources) with an eye to the actions they offer, the need/timing of seizing initiative and the possibility of triggering the scoring condition I might want, before others beat me to it? Plenty to keep you thinking…and…
Once you have one or two base games under your belt you can add in the additional leaders and lore cards – there are 8 and 14 respectively in the base game and the same amount again in the inexpensive and excellent Leaders and Lore expansion. These create a degree of asymmetry – less than Root, but enough to provide a few more well-considered wrinkles.
Leaders provide a change to the game set-up, two enduring benefits and one disadvantage: this might affect your card play, the way you access/manage resources, battle mechanics – the range is varied’ Lore cards simply provide a unique advantage – a similar breadth of range in the scope of these advantages but a slightly different feeling to the advantages offered by leaders. The combinations are myriad – some far more effective than others, so as you become more experienced the draft for these can be really important to the way the game plays out. Nonetheless, once you know what you are basically doing, I can’t imagine playing Arcs without them.
And that pretty much wraps the core box…. but that, while very much a complete game is only one part of the story. This is the lean, brain-burning, ‘knife fight in a phone booth’ of card play and area control. Add the expansion, and while the core mechanics largely remain you get to transform this into a sweeping, 3-game campaign of vastly increased asymmetry, narrative possibilities and careful scheming and diploming. But the review of that is for another time.
So what do I think of Arcs? Am I a lover or a hater? Hit or miss?
Well, first thing is first – I generally loathe trick taking games when they don’t involve a regular 52 card deck. But then, given this isn’t one that’s all to the good. In fact, I find the card play really satisfying in the main – the puzzle I outlined above about hand management I find super interesting. Yes, getting a hand of cards denuded of a suit you want is a pain, and I am not prepared to brush that off with the, “Your not playing the game right.” dismissal, although the mitigations I outlined about do make a big difference. Arcs is an opportunistic game – leaders and lore can give you a nudge towards directions you might lean into, but I don’t think you can set your strategy from the outset, and if you are good with that then you should enjoy it too. But then given Arcs has cards and dice that shouldn’t be a surprise either – there is the element of chance in this particular wargame. Again, this is something I like, but if you want deterministic mechanisms this may well not be for you. I think Arcs can be prone to a bit of AP and if that happens too frequently then it I do think it can drag a little in the late game; however, if you can play it as pacey wargame, intuit a little, and roll with the punches when you miscalculate, then it can crack along at a satisfying rate. Do I like it – yes. Do I think it does something different – mechanically, yes. Will I keep it and keep coming back to it – yes. Game of the millennium, or my favourite board game – no, not really. I said I found the whole card/action mechanics interesting, but I am not sure I find it satisfying – and somehow that is different. But then it is up against some stiff competition – I like it better than its two most immediate siblings, Root and Oath, but for me it can’t beat the richer experience of its bigger Werhle cousins, Pax Pamir (2nd ed.) or John Company. Though perhaps that’s more a reflection of my tastes than the overall merit of the excellent game that is Arcs. Arcs remains an innovative, mean, crunchy little beast, with the enormous potential of explanding it into something a whole lot more. It is a great addition to my collection and I suggest you check it out too.
Scores:
Overall score – 92%
Artwork – 5
Complexity – 3
Replayability – 5
Player Interaction – 5
Component Quality – 4
+ve
– Innovative card-play and action mechanism.
– Lots of hard decision-making with svelte rules.
– Aggressive player interaction.
-ve
– Luck of the draw and in battles can upset some…
– meaning it is probably more tactical than grand strategy.
– Can lead to AP and slow-down/
Zatu Score
You might like
- If you liked Oath.
- The innovative use of trick taking
- If you love emergent storytelling
Might not like
- Chaotic nature of gameplay.
- Luck wont always be on your side.
- Very aggressive