This is my third installment of reviewing Steve Barber's game, Prehistoric Settlement. This review covers Expansion Set #1, The Savage Seas.
The Savage Seas is a 16-page booklet that, as you would expect from the title, covers waterborne activities in Prehistoric Settlement. It covers boats and rafts, battles at sea, maritime terrain ( rivers, seas, reefs ) , fishermen and swimming, and additional terrain rules.
The set contains a new terrain generation table that is intended to allow players to place islands, coastlines, and rivers. Unlike rules that specify ever little allowable detail, these rules encourage the players to arbitrarily set things up to achieve the kind of game that they want. The example used in the booklet is to set the game on a large island instead of the typical wilderness setting of the main rules. The author also mentions an interesting way of allocating resources -- not by "sector" on the main map but rather by small island in the terrain array.
The expansion adds two new types of terrain: rivers and quicksand. Rivers can be crossed but at reduced speed with the chance that a crocodile may contest the crossing. Quicksand is a land obstacle. There are no real intricacies to playing with it; if something goes into it ( like a fleeing animal ) , it dies. In game terms, the death is instantaneous.
Once the terrain is established, the next most interesting and useful part of the booklet covers fishing. Like hunting and gathering ( berry-picking ) , fishing is a source of food for the player's settlement. There are two areas in which fishing can occur: shore/river and at sea via fishing boats. The thing that makes these interesting is that they're dangerous! Berry-picking is completely safe and hunting is moderately safe unless you're hunting a carnivore. But food collection from fishing involves a die roll that determines the amount of food caught or if a random attack occurs instead. In the case of shore and river fishing, there is a chance that a crocodile will attack the fisherman. This, or course, gets played out on the tabletop and, if the crocodile is killed, he becomes food too. Similarly, fishing at sea runs the risk of attracting the attention of a giant shark. Finally, fishing at sea carries another risk and that is of being blown about in a random pattern. That may eventually result in the boat being destroyed if it blows up on reefs or land.
Players can navigate the seas by using rafts to move their figures. Like fishing at sea, there is a chance that the raft will be blown off course or attacked by a giant shark. Skirmishes at sea are quite interesting. It is possible to engage enemy boats and rafts with archery at a distance, of course. But, rafts can be maneuvered adjacent to the enemy and the passengers fight, in effect, a land battle at sea, much like ancient galley warfare, although there is no ramming or shearing. As with all the other activities at sea, there are inherent dangers to fighting at sea; rafts sinks, waves push passengers off the raft, and so on.
One of the most attractive features of the original game is that there are only 19 rules, each of 1-2 sentences; the remainder of the book is devoted to descriptions of those rules. The Savage Seas continues this trend by adding a mere 8 new one-sentence rules to cover all the maritime activities. Another feature of this expansion is a page of two scenarios. These are pretty general and are intended, I think, to encourage the players to come up with additional ideas. The premise of the first scenario is that a tribe of nomads is attacking a settlement; as it is laid out, it promises to be a very sharp battle. The second scenario is a lost world scenario. It is explored from two viewpoints. The first is that a group of European explorers ( think 19th Century, with rifles and elephant guns ) runs across a lost tribe. An alternate variant is where the tribesmen themselves are living in a region inhabited by dinosaurs. The author clearly knows that the two ( early Man and dinosaurs ) did not co-exist, but provides it as an interesting variant.
The expansion introduces a bunch of new playing pieces, most already mentioned above: the giant shark, log rafts and their crews, shore fishermen, and fishing boats. With the exception of the giant shark, they're all interesting to play ( the shark is, in effect, an NPC ) -- the player will have to balance the cost of building them with their innate vulnerability to random events ( along with their usual vulnerability to other players' forces ) and with their capacity to act as new food sources for the settlement. One of the things we found in our first game just using the basic set is that food is a much more precious resource than flint; these new pieces help the player fill that gap.
The Savage Seas is not essential to playing Prehistoric Settlement nor is it in any way dependent upon the second expansion, Out of the Wilderness. It does add some interesting things to the game, though, and for that alone, I think it is well worth the investment. The production quality of the expansion booklet is exactly the same as for the basic rule book -- a 5"x8" booklet stapled in the center 16 pages long. The cover is a bluish tint showing the sea -- no boats, people or monsters, just water. The contents are all black and white, with drawings of the new playing pieces ( which, by the way, look exactly like the actual figures ) .
The expansion pieces are bought separately -- a package of two fishing coracles with one fisherman in each, a package of two log rafts with two oarsmen on each, a package of 7 shore fishermen, and a package containing a single carcharadon megalodon ( giant shark ) . The booklet is $13.00 USD ( US ) , the shark is $16.00 USD, rafts go for $17.00 USD per pair, coracles for $13.00 USD per pair, and $12.00 USD for 7 shore fishermen. Given the production quality of the pieces, I think the prices are fair.
Pictures of the figures and descriptions of the rules can be found on Steve Barber's website: link
In the US, the expansion and the figures can be bought from RLBPS at rlbps.com.
You can see the first two reviews at:
TMP link ( June 15 )
TMP link ( June 11 )
Next time: a review of the second expansion -- Out of the Wilderness.
