G@mebox author Ralf Togler writes about the game:

The story of the game is settled at the early Middle ages with the background of the first crusade. Hugelmann and Hofstätter, who has studied history at university, tried on the one hand to create a well balanced game and on the other hand to reconstruct the real crusade as best as possible. So it is no surprise that the game comes along with a small booklet, which gives the interested player a small insight of the historical background. For those, who want more information, there is even a bibliography included.

But let us go back to the game. Each player is playing one of the crusaders. The first player, who is able to conquer Jerusalem, wins the game. During the game one should increase the number of own armies (in fact one starts with a really small number), because Jerusalem has a strong defence. It normally takes some time, before the first player has the courage to encounter the army of Jerusalem. But Jerusalems army is really strong, so that it usually takes more than just one attack to finish the game.

The movement is done with the help of movement cards. For this the whole board is divided in landscapes with mountains, plains and water. Only if you have the right movement card you can step on the neighbouring square. Also each square on the continent and some islands are inhabited either by Christians or by Moslems. The Moslem towns con only be plundered. With the money the crusaders can raise new troops in the Christian towns. Of course you can also plunder these towns. But beware! Your army will not really like this and it will loose moral, which can decrease your ability to move.

What is really new in the game is the procedure of getting the result of a fight. The troops of the attacker and of the defender are thrown in a tower with several storeys, which are full of holes. Some of the troops will be caught on the storeys and some will not. On the bottom of the tower all troops, which were not caught are counted and the player with the biggest number of troops wins the fight. During the game these fights become more and more interesting, because the caught troops are not removed and can influence the result of one of the following fights. In the end nobody will remember how many and which kind of troops are caught in the tower. This often results in very interesting fights.

I would say, the game is worth playing it, because of the interesting method of fighting. You can play it easily in about one and a half hour, because the tactical elements are limited. Maybe the complexity of the game can be compared with a family game. In my opinion it is too easy to win the game and the possibilities to do so are too small. But in summary I really enjoyed playing it, even if it will not become one of my favourite games.

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Copyright © 2012 Frank Schulte-Kulkmann, Essen, Germany