Oath: Chronicles of Empire & Exile - My Cunning Plan Undone!

Last weekend I played the board game "Oath" for the first time, along with four other players, John (our host), Karl (the game presenter), Bernardo, and Miyu.

Oath is quite a complex game to say the least, but that is no surprise as the game designer, Cole Wehrle, typically designs games with layered narratives and multiple paths to victory, such as Arcs, and Pax Pamir - which I blogged about here:

https://hive.blog/hive-147010/@hirohurl/friday-evening-gaming-in-west-hiroshima

and here:

https://hive.blog/hive-147010/@hirohurl/3rd-attempt-to-control-afghanistan-at-the-board-room

Oath is a game in which one player, the Chancellor, rules, while others are exiles seeking power by various means. It can also happen that the Chancellor offers a player citizenship, turning an exile into an ally, but not necessarly one who can be trusted.

Another interesting feature of the game is what happens after it ends. Each game’s outcome affects future sessions, with past events influencing the political landscape and available cards, so when a game ends, the cards that were in play are put away or discarded in such a way that they will affect how the next game is set up.

I approached the game with mixed feelings. Evenings at the Board Room are always entertaining, but I felt that the game itself might be overly complicated. In the event, I enjoyed it and found I had quite a lot of leeway to do stuff, as did two other players, Karl, the Chancellor, and Bernardo, one of the exiles. However, the two other players were unable to get anything going let alone having a shot at winning the game.

The Chancellor, seeing Bernardo's rising power, moved to crush him militarily, but that campaign failed. In the meantime, I had found a more enlightened path to victory, harnessing the power of ideas, but the wounded Chancellor still had just enough military might left to destroy my hopes just as I prepared my final move to gain the keys to the kingdom!

Bernardo was able to win the game through a marriage alliance, which was deliciously ironic as he had spent quite a bit of this (not to mention previous) gaming sessions entertaining us with carping tales about the state of his conjugal affairs (rather reminiscent of stand-up comedian Les Dawson talking about his mother-in-law)... in the end, however, he had to confess that,

"Connubium vincit omnia."

Cheers!

David Hurley
#InspiredFocus

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