1500 The New World Review
Review by David Lent
1500 The New World is a board game by Dan Verssen Games about colonizing the New World. You build colonies, struggle or destroy your opponent’s colonies, create regional and export monopolies and collect victory points. This historically themed game appeals to a much broader audience than the typical historical game since this plays like a regular board game instead of like a wargame. Unlike a game about the Battle of Stalingrad, you could play this game with your kids, friends or significant other.
The components included in 1500 are all of good quality. There are 112 cards, 2 sheets of counters, a 17”x22” mounted map and a rulebook.
1500’s rulebook is in full color and has great artwork. It’s really easy to understand and beginners should have no trouble learning this game whatsoever. The back of the rulebook has an explanation of all the cards in the basic game so you won’t have any trouble understanding how they work.
Counters are used in 1500 to represent colonies (struggling or thriving) and as informational markers to mark your royal support point value, current turn and victory points. Each player has his own color counters.
The cards in 1500 have good artwork and come in two varieties: action cards and reaction cards. Action cards can only be played during your turn. However, reaction cards can be played during an opponent’s turn in reaction to a card he played. Cards can also be discarded during your turn instead of doing their stated effect to do the following: build one colony, reduce one colony, repair a struggling colony and adjust royal support. Adjusting royal support uses the top right number on the card to either increase your own royal support if the number is positive or decrease an opponent’s royal support if the number is negative. Royal support points determine the amount of cards you can draw each turn.
1500’s map is mounted and looks like a map from that era. My girlfriend really liked the way it looks. It has North and South America divided into 6 regions, each consisting of three areas. Each area has a picture of a resource on it. The resources in 1500 are lumber, gold, fruit, jewels and spice. In addition, the map has the royal support track, turn track and victory point track.
The game turn sequence is as follows:
Game Turn Preparation:
Draw cards equal to your royal support and discard down to that number
Player Turn:
1) Get -1 victory points for each of your colonies that is struggled
2) Remove any of your colonies if you wish
3) Play a card for it’s text effect or discard it to build, blockade, repair or for royal favor
4) Repeat steps 1-3 for each card you wish to play
5) Score your victory points
6) Repeat steps 1-5 for each player
7) Advance the turn marker
End of Game:
1) All players lose 1 point for each of their struggling colonies
2) The player with the most victory points wins
Scoring:
1 point per successful colony
2 points per export monopoly (Control of all of one resource)
2 points per regional monopoly (Control of all three areas in a region)
1 point for each opponent’s colony that is struggled
There is quite a bit of decision making that takes place while playing this game. You need to find a way to keep your royal support higher than your opponents while trying to build your own colonies and struggle your opponent’s colonies. It is better in this game to struggle an opponent’s colony than to destroy it, because you get victory points each turn for an opponent’s struggling colony and they lose victory points at the beginning of their turn for it. In addition, you want to build regional and export monopolies for extra victory points but if you concentrate on that you won’t get your royal support points high enough and your opponent will be drawing more cards than you and that will put you at a severe disadvantage. To top things off, you need to be real careful how you use your cards and whether or not you use them at all that turn. E.G. you can save “Fate” to cancel one of your opponents cards during their turn or you can use it during your turn to add + 3 to your royal support.
1500 also has 5 expansions (Spain, France, England, Portugal and Netherlands) that include 56 player nation cards and 56 AI Nation cards. These cards are designed to play like their theme country operated during the 1500’s. The AI cards act as another player so you can play solitaire. Some of the AI cards are “Start of round” cards that are played at the beginning of the turn and the rest are used like regular cards, but how they are used is governed by the solitaire rules. During the AI’s turn, if a card can be played for its text effect it is done so. Otherwise, you move onto the next card and try that. If after you go through all the AI’s cards there are any left you play them for Royal Support points if the AI’s royal support points are not at maximum and the opponent’s points are not at minimum. Otherwise, you discard it to build a colony but if there are no open areas you discard it to reduce a colony.
The expansions are fun to play and offer you new cards to use during multi-player player. Instead of all 2-6 players sharing the same deck, each player can use an expansion so they can play like their favorite colonial power. In addition, the solitaire aspect gives the game a ton of re-playability. My favorite expansion is the Spain one, because it concentrates on building and reducing colonies. There were 2 shortcomings though in some of the expansions. A few of the AI card’s text effects were open to interpretation and I had to make a judgment call as to how the card should work during some of my solitaire games. DVG may want to publish an errata on their website for any expansion cards they get questions about. The second shortcoming was the expansion boxes themselves. It’s hard to get the cards and rule sheet back into the boxes after using them. A box similar to what Cards Against Humanity uses for its expansion may have worked better.
Overall, I have had a ton of fun playing this game. There is lots of strategy and tough decision-making. The expansions give a wealth of re-playability and it’s much easier to find an opponent for this game than for a wargame since it plays like a regular board game. This is the first historical game I got to play with my girlfriend and she rated it an 8/10 and that’s precisely the rating I was planning on giving it. I recommend this game for anyone who wants a historically themed game that interests a much great proportion of the population than the typical wargame does.
Buy your own copy on eBay.
Watch the solitaire play through video below: