Hands in the Sea Review

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Great review, Matt! It's a great game about everybody's second favorite Punic War that has received very mixed reviews from folks I've played with. I would advise anyone playing with new players, to double check the starting decks before every play. It seems like everytime we finished a game, someone removed a vital starting card and place it in the empire deck.

Unicron wrote: Great review, Matt! It's a great game about everybody's second favorite Punic War that has received very mixed reviews from folks I've played with. I would advise anyone playing with new players, to double check the starting decks before every play. It seems like everytime we finished a game, someone removed a vital starting card and place it in the empire deck.

All the starting cards in my copy are marked with an "S" so it's not too hard to check whether you've got everything you ought to have.

I'd be interested to know what negative things the folks you've played with have to say about this game?

They are marked with an "S", but opponents routinely return the starting legion and merchant cards to the empire deck and occasionally a starting location is left out (namely a green or gold location card). I played my first game as Rome without knowing that I had a starting legion, because my first four games were as Carthage.

Of my three opponents, only one enjoyed the game. Battles too often favored the defender or were just draws. There is a lot to like about the game, but I'm not having much luck finding opponents.

I'm one of the opponents and have played 3 times total. Each time I found the game less fun.

First game we played and used the rule wrong that fights start out at the 0 space instead of the -1 space on the track - we both liked the 0 spot better than -1 since planning to win a fight takes so long to do and already at the 0 is enough of a defensive advantage. Thats an easy one to fix, just start all fights at 0 instead of -1.

Next I found the importance of pillaging using navies super frustrating once one player has a decisive naval advantage. There are two strategy cards that help out in sea fights, one adds +2 dice and the other is Roman only and allows use of heavy infantry. Oh and one other card that discards an opponent card on a successful pillage. So these are a big deal and if either player has one of them can be pretty strongly abused. Once one player has a significantly larger navy, they can camp a spot, either Sicily or Sardinia, and pillage the opponent to keep them poor and force them to build up navies. Then the huge naval fight occurs and luck determines the outcome, but odds are the larger force wins. And will chase down the smaller force to destroy it again. Then the winner continues to pillage and keep the opponent poor. This is even with the option rule of applying maintenance costs to strategy cards. Meanwhile the loser slowly puts together a new navy because there is nothing else they can do; no money means no new cards means no upgrading the deck or even paying for the cards in the reserve to attack or defend in fights. The last game I played I literally spent a full hour doing nothing but buying more ships and cycling my deck for colonists and money cards that I happen to draw on the same turn, then badly losing a naval fight, then doing it again for another few turns before resigning. I'll admit I probably am doing something wrong strategy wise, but as Carthage money is pretty tight and once Rome has a naval advantage and continues to pillage and reduce your VPs I couldn't figure out what else to do. Yes there is one strategy card that forces an opponent to pay for pillaging, but I don't have the money to buy it or my opponent can just buy and discard it instead.

Overall my bigger problem with the game is that I feel like I have very few choices each turn. To attack you need to buy the generals for that free action, plan the route and possibly even the colonist all to do one thing. Likewise upgrading navies requires colonists and money and a ship icon to pillage...there are a lot of icons that you have to lineup in advance of your turn to do this one thing. I didn't enjoy the limitations this puts on me each turn, especially in a deck system where my draws are not reliable although this did improve in later plays once we focused more on deck thinning. In contrast, other games that I really enjoy give a number of options each turn. Argent, Study in Emerald, Glory to Rome, Pax Porfiriana all offer me many choices, just not all equal each turn. In HitS I don't feel like I have the same opportunity because it takes so long to do seemingly essential things, like build ships or settle a neighboring city.

And this isn't to say that I don't see a couple great ideas in Hands in the Sea. The strategy cards (with maintenance costs) are really powerful and should help change your strategy as the game goes on. The round ending with one player exhausting his deck is great, it gives them either a gas or break pedal. Just my opinion after 3 games.

Great review Matt. You caught my exact feelings of playing A Few Acers of Snow and disappointment of finding out it was broken. Hopefully nobody will find the Hammer for Hands in the Sea. I'm looking forward to trying it out soon.

Scott_F wrote: I'll admit I probably am doing something wrong strategy wise, but as Carthage money is pretty tight and once Rome has a naval advantage and continues to pillage and reduce your VPs I couldn't figure out what else to do.

I agree this exact situation is problematic. However, to get and maintain a decisive naval advantage, Rome really needs to have one of the three naval strategy cards. So it doesn't arise that often. We've actually had the Carthage player use an action to clear the strategy offer when one of the cards comes up to stop the Roman player getting it.

It also means that Rome doesn't have another strategy card. So a possible counter is for the Carthage player to forget about the navy and choose a land-based strategy instead. War Elephants can be terrifying in concert with the card that gives +1 to all dice rolls (and that helps the navy too). Rome doesn't have such a significant military advantage that they can't be beaten by a Carthage player with the right combination of cards. And by the time Rome has a naval advantage, Carthage often has a significant VP lead from the early game, so it's about clinging on through the end game.

But in short, you make good points, and I agree. Especially about the problem of a naval imbalance. I guess I just see them as much more minor issues that don't arise that often.

Me and Wkover played Hand in the Sea tonight for the first time. I played Carthage, Wkover played Rome. Close game but 8 straight random event went against Rome. The biggest one ended up being Rome had to lose their Greek ally strategy card (+2 navies). From their I destroyed the Rome Navy and was able to take over all of Sardina and Corsica while I held him in check in Sicily by building fortresses.

I'm so glad somebody decided to fix one of Martin Wallace's half baked ideas. So many of Wallace's games are 80% brilliant and just feel it needs a little more play testing to make the game a classic. Hands in the Sea has it's many issues, including folding the board but hopefully other game designers will attempt to fix other broken Martin Wallace games.

It is difficult for Rome to "pillage away" since a ship icon is needed to pillage and the only Roman location cards with a ship icon are Neapolis, Rhegium, Syracuse, and Pisa (assuming they get the last two). There are ways to counter the pillage, such as the location card, a fortification card, or the Trireme card. But my simple solution is that if Rome wants to play at sea, I play at land. Get the elephants and Libyan Spearman and make a bold move on Syracuse. I have seen Rome control the sea and Carthage dominate Sicily, which equates into a Carthaginian victory.

Carthage is not at a disadvantage financially. They are at a disadvantage on developing, but they have other ways to make money. The trick to this game is understanding how to counter every strategy and I find most players simply do not know how to do it.

One more thing to keep in mind. If you don't want your opponent getting a certain strategy card, use the cycle action.