As part of Hasbro’s ongoing support for the games they acquired when they took over Avalon Hill they have re-issued several titles in new editions. While games such as ‘Axis and Allies’ or ‘Risk’ are excellent as ways to get new/family players interested in our hobby, the pick of the bunch is a new version of AHIKS old favourite ‘History of the World’. I picked up a copy at the last ASL tourney and have had a few run throughs to see how it plays. Since most(?) of our regulars already know how the game works I will concentrate on looking at what is new with this edition, and what has gone.

HotW was always a big game physically, but Hasbro have boosted it up even more. Open the box and you will find the map, rules booklet, a couple of chunky counter sheets (inc. DIY storage tray), and hordes of small plastic pieces. Gone are the cardboard armies of before and in their place are glorious 3D plastic men. Each epoch is represented by a figure from one of the major empires from that age (E.g. In epoch 7 everybody’s British, hoorah!!) and the pieces come in six colours. All the forts, cities, capitals and monuments are now in 3D plastic in shades of gold, silver and grey. The effect in later turns is quite stunning with men and horses everywhere.

The map itself has been repainted and slightly enlarged. The score track now runs around the outer edge and the VP charts are each placed in their own areas. There are some minor modifications to the map (a new strait here, a mountain removed there) and a couple of bigger ones: New Zealand has arrived giving Australasia three lands, and the Atlantic and Pacific oceans have both been split into two giving a bit more flexibility for navigation (e.g. removing the need for a special rule for Viking exploration).

The epoch deck has new graphics but the only major change is the addition of Sumeria as a playable empire in epoch 1. Many of the empires’ strengths have been lowered from the last edition and some navigations amended. This is due mainly to the impact of the revised naval rules, but also some additional play balance looks to have been worked in.

The event deck is now the same size as the epoch deck and has only two flavours of card – Greater and Lesser events. Each player gets 3 greater and 7 lesser events per game, and may play any two at the start of each epoch. Greater events consist of Weaponry, Leaders, Reallocation and Minor Empires (1 per epoch). Lesser events are more varied and include various diseases, disasters, attack bonuses and Kingdoms (now 1 per epoch like the Minor Empires). The end result of these changes is that the player may have several of one sort of card while having none of another. This can be a pain, but overall leads to a more varied experience each time, and usually balances out over the game. An innovation with the event cards is the introduction of coins. Many events give the player coins for their active empire, each may be spent to revive a just defeated army or to buy a fort. (Similar to handing out extra armies, as was the case previously, but it stops an empire ending up with more than its starting strength.)

As well as the examples mentioned above there are several more rules changes, as well as some ‘advanced options’ which restore some of the major changes to the rules of the last edition if so wished.

The biggest change is to the naval rules. Now there is no permanent control of the seas and no VP are gained from them, rather each empire may freely traverse any sea that it has navigation over. As noted before, this leads to a reduction in strength for empires that used to spend units on fleets, but gives greater flexibility if used wisely.

Stacking has been abolished, each land now has a limit of only one army and one fort. Forts are now the only method of doubling up in a land and so are more valuable than before. Also this means if there is an enemy army in an empire’s start land they cannot retreat and are eliminated. This is a nice touch as the old invader settles down and simply evolves into the new empire’s capital.

A couple of big combat changes as well. Due to the increased naval capacities any army defending against a landing now gets a three dice defence! Also if highest combat dice are tied between opponents both are eliminated, usually leaving the space empty and ripe for conquest (If a coin is spent that could be by the just defeated army. Sneaky huh?).

Scoring is almost untouched with all the areas retaining their same values as before. Domination and Control are a little easier to achieve with Domination requiring just two armies and more than any other player, while Control is possible with just three armies if there is no enemy army in the area. As noted there are also no VP for control of the seas. In my experience the changes make for a closer game with the players swapping the lead most epochs. This is just as well as the leader every epoch gets to draw a ‘Pre Eminence Marker’, which will add between three and six points to his score when revealed at game end.

The ‘Advanced Options’ are: 1. Do not use the ‘Pre Eminence Markers’; 2. Separate out the Minor Empires and give each player one automatically; 3. Allow stacking of up to three units (armies and forts) per land;
4. Allow naval control of the seas.

As you can see these all undo some of the changes introduced in this edition. Personally I like things the way they are but would consider using option 1 as it takes a bit of luck out of the end result.

Overall the new edition has the same skill level and tactical choices as before but it now plays a bit faster, which is never a bad thing, and looks wonderful as well. It is definitely the preferred version in our household and I will be bringing it along to the next convention so that anybody interested in trying it out can have a go in the flesh.