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Nations Review: Build your own Civilization and Make History!

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You're the leader of your own civilization. As you go through historical periods, it's up to you to fight, conquer new territories, protect and feed your civilization, all while competing against other nations. Surprise the world and build the biggest nation in the history of mankind!

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traduzido por Joey

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revisado por Tabata Marques

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Civilization Games

Nearly all players agree that civilization games are just too good to be true! The feeling of building something from scratch, defending your territory, conquering others, evolving, discovering and developing new technologies… It's all fascinating!

This type of game, ever since it was released on console, has become more popular throughout the years. The tabletop versions could be no different, and there's a bonus: you get to compete face to face with your opponents, which makes it even more exciting. For the fans, it doesn't matter whether it takes three hours or more. The game is worth it.

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Well, sometimes, you just don't have that much time. In fact, you have, at most, 30 minutes. For this and other reasons, some games have been researching alternative mechanics to get the same feelings you get from big civilization games in just a few minutes.

That's exactly why Nations: The Dice Game was created, quite successfully too. It's time to build your own civilization with Nations!

Game Info

Nations: The Dice Game is best played with 1 to 4 players for ages 10 and up, by designer Rustan Håkansson. It was illustrated by Ossi Hiekkala, Jere Kasanen, Paul Laane, and Frida Lögdberg.

Game Info
Game Info

Nations came out in 2014 by Lautapelit.fi, and still hasn't been released worldwide. Among its basic mechanics, it includes dice rolling, events, push your luck, and stat-based turn order.

In 30 minutes, Nations: The Dice Game gives you the same emotions as a civilization game like its precursor, Nations, from 2013, which requires more than 3 hours. That's why it is so popular among board game enthusiasts!

Nations: The Dice Game "was born" a year later and inherited all the nominations and prizes Nations conquered - among them, it was nominated for Game of the Year by Board Game Quest Awards.

Let's see the game!

The Game

While commanding a nation, starting with limited resources and only a little bit of knowledge, you must start evolving, that is, you must advance your nation in all senses: conquer territories, develop, feed your people, expand your knowledge, enhance your military power, build wonders, and get the help of noble advisors who'll bring you many bonuses. That's Nations.

Setup for 2 Players with Initial Resources
Setup for 2 Players with Initial Resources

In Nations, you can use several resources to advance your nation, but picking where and how to invest them is up to you. And keep in mind these are limited resources:

  • stone: to build your wonders;

  • gold: to get upgrades, specialized workers, and the support of advisors;

  • books: to expand your knowledge;

  • food: to feed your people and

  • strength: to conquer territories and guarantee military power.

    Dice depicting the Resources in the Game
    Dice depicting the Resources in the Game

    Based on these resources, you can pick one of the 4 actions below when it's your turn:

  • buy a progress tile;

  • build a wonder;

  • reroll one or all your dice; or

  • pass.

    You can buy a progress tile with either money or strength, and that's the core of the game: the Progress Board stores all the tiles that will evolve your nation.

    Progress Board and its Options
    Progress Board and its Options

    Each of the tiles above gives you upgrades and some benefits immediately after you get them:

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  • buildings, animals, and people with unique abilities give you better dice;

  • territories and wonders give you resource tokens and victory points, and

  • advisors give you reroll tokens and victory points.

    Resource Tokens
    Resource Tokens

    After you pick them, your individual board will reflect how your nation is, and how much you evolved in terms of upgrades. So, this means that, bit by bit, during your own turn, you'll be able to evolve and take advantage of the benefits you get, as well as create more opportunities to grow.

    Upgraded Player Board
    Upgraded Player Board

    After you pick one of those four available options, the player to your left will play their turn, and that continues until it's your turn again, and you play another action. Then, when everyone passes their round, it's the end of the round, and a few things must take place:

  • nations that upgraded their knowledge (books) can get victory points;

  • nations that fed their people (food) get victory points;

  • nations with a decent amount of military power (strength) can alter the order of the turn and get victory points.

    Score board for your knowledge, food points, military power, and overall points.
    Score board for your knowledge, food points, military power, and overall points.

    After that, a new era begins (a new round). That's basically a turn in Nations!

    End of the Match

    At the end of the 4th era (4th round), the game is over. This is how you calculate your score:

  • add points for any territories you conquered;

  • add points for any advisors you have;

  • add points for any buildings you have and

  • add points for any wonders you built (you don't get to add points for wonders you didn't build).

    After you calculate your scores, whoever has more victory points wins. If there is a tie, the order of the players defines the winner (the 1st player beats the 2nd player, and so on and so forth). It's that simple!

    Tips and Strategies

    In Nations, your dice and your choices matter throughout the entire game. So, as everyone starts with basically the same resources, spending everything straight away and not investing in your dice pool is not a good idea.

    Invest, as much as you can, on progress tiles that give you more dice. I confess this is a bit painful, considering that, if you just spend everything straight away, you might get excellent tiles that will give you lots of points. However, you'll also struggle to get resources later on because you got points and not resources.

    I strongly recommend you get resources first and then invest on getting points. Otherwise, your turns will not be productive because you won't have many resources. I know it's hard, but resist temptation and invest in what will give you more points in the future.

    Basically, this means you'll only build wonders in the last-case scenario because, to build them, you need multiple stones, so it's another reason why you need to invest in resources. For instance, you get 3 points from wonders in the 1st era, but you'll get more in later turns. In the 4th era, wonders will give you up to 8 points. Investing in resources is always the best option.

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    You can also reroll your dice since the beginning of the game, and some advisors let you do that more times, so use this in your favor. Rerolling dice makes all the difference in the world because it mitigates your bad luck.

    You can also spend any 2 dice resources to create a stone, money, or food. This will mitigate any bad luck you have, but don't do this constantly because you'll spend 2 dice to get 1 - it's very expensive. Only use this if you truly need to.

    Investing in knowledge (books) is great and will give you a good number of points throughout the game. The nation that has more knowledge gains points for each nation that has less knowledge than they have. Knowledge is power!

    Saving food dice is an option because, at the end of every turn, if you have enough food, you can get a good number of points. I confess I don't really use this strategy a lot because when you do save food dice for later, they're only useful as points and don't give you any new resources. I basically only use this strategy in the final rounds, which is when feeding your people gives you more points.

    Saving some strength dice to guarantee military power is critical; besides giving you victory points, you get to alter the order of the turn, and obviously, the one who plays first always picks the best tiles on the Progress Board.

    The order of the turn is so important in Nations that, besides giving you better opportunities throughout the game, it is a tiebreaker criterion at the end of the game. So, consider it wisely.

    Follow these tips, evolve your civilization, and win in Nations!

    Unboxing, Rules, and Gameplay Videos

    Check out this Unboxing:

    Learn the rules:

    Watch some gameplay:

    Teaching Moments

    If you're looking for a fun, fast game that forces you to work on your math skills, resource management, focus, strategy, and also gives you a history lesson, Nations is perfect for you!

    Nations is an excellent and very fast game, which helps you stay on track if you have trouble with games that take longer. This is actually one of its greatest strengths. Combine that with a few other factors, and you'll learn a lot from this game without even realizing it.

    This game encourages you, at all times, to work on your math skills, as you'll need to calculate how many resources you need to get a tile*, how many you'll have on the next turn, and more. You'll eventually see yourself working on these skills as you play the game, and that's what makes this civilization game a "hidden" math lesson.

    At the same time you calculate what you must spend, you'll also be working on your resource management skills. If you decide to get a few tiles, you'll have to consider what you'll have in the future and what you'll do with it later on. You'll be in the present, but thinking about the future!

    And, for all of this to work, obviously, you'll need to focus completely on what's happening in the game, and this important immersion will encourage you to work on another essential ability, strategy. It's critical for this game and also your life.

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    Finally, this game features buildings, wonders, territories, and real characters from history, as well as beautiful illustrations of them. It is a history lesson in game-form.

    Nations is truly a great lesson!

    I highly recommend Nations for your collection!!!