I like heavy-ish games. I say heavy-ish, because I think the line for “heavy” is a moving target with plenty of room for personal interpretation. What I mean is I like having my brain burned up by deep chained options. I like how the cause-and-effect, planning, programming, and efficiency needs of a game can all play together. For years my favorite game was Power Grid. It still might be, but I’ve finally taken the time to learn some other heavier games and the depth of these games is even more compelling to me. A friend told me that Lignum has been called “Planning: The Game.” Really? Then I’m in!
The back of the box says all I need to get excited to give it a try. “Starting with only 5 dollars and a mill worker, your goal is to run your lumber mill as economically as possible so that, at the end of the 8th round, you have more money than your competitors.” A battle of wits you say, to see who can do the best with the same resources, and enough depth to drown a shark? Yes, yes, and yes.
Lignum has players selecting actions along a track (long rondel?) for the first phase of each season (except winter). Then after 2 years (the second winter) the game is over. Many of the actions on this track are limited to one player only, however spaces for hiring additional (seasonal) workers for your lumber company can be used by all players simultaneously. Since the action selections are made sequentially by turn order for the whole round (think Heaven and Ale not Tokaido), players can leapfrog one another or jump ahead to secure the actions they deem most necessary for their plan. In that way, the strategy of the game succumbs to the tactical nature of any given season and the choices your opponents have made (this is a very good thing in a game like this). After the action selection phase, the seasons switch to a scripted sequence of wood cutting, transfer, milling, and selling, with a healthy dose of planned work and order fulfillment mixed in. In the winter months, the action selection is skipped, the seasonal workers are unavailable, and there is a hefty cost to be paid including food and firewood to ensure survival for the winter.
The components are perfectly fine. I wouldn’t expect or want a bunch of plastic or metal bits in a game about the lumber business. Cards, chits, and wooden bits are exactly what I want in a game like this, but they probably won’t solicit a “WOW!” response from your group. The production copy contained bearers of the wrong color, but Capstone Games gives the right color meeples with every copy purchased directly from them, and there are no real problems outside of aesthetics (purple vs green) with the meeples contained in the NIS copies.
The game requires attention to detail, significant planning ahead, and juggling a number of competing priorities. From the first action selected in the game, players’ choices determine efficiency. Even with the best of intentions, it is possible to waste money or actions on workers or resources that wind up being unusable. The tension here is palpable, demanding, and magnificent. I’ve played games where a player wasted $2 in one early round and lost by $2 at game’s end. I might have been that player, and I might never get over it. But those mistakes were informed risks I took – they just didn’t pan out for me. A more conservative approach may not have yielded the same opportunities later in the game. Other risks may have been more fruitful – these are the things that make this game so compelling.
Bearers (who carry the lumber from the forest to the mill), woodcutters (who cut lumber in the forest), and sawyers (who cut the lumber at the mill) are hired in that order, but woodcutters work first, then bearers, then sawyers, and the sawyers can only work if they have saws available as a consumable resource. The depth of planning necessary in Lignum is both beautiful and exasperating – I love it.
The Planned Work mechanism (that’s its given name) gives players the opportunity to reap a certain benefit for planning even more in advance by, for example, making a given action more efficient or cheaper. To use it, players must plan entire seasons in advance – up to roughly 40% of the entire game later. The Tasks mechanism is necessary to compete for the win – these custom orders reflect the type(s) of wood to be sold for maximum profit and maximum points. Fulfilling these tasks is incredibly satisfying, and it earns a significant amount of money which is the end game victory condition.
I love the depth, and how meticulous you must plan to be successful. I also love that turns are just picking one action space of any that remain in front of you so that turns do not drag on and create unnecessary space for delays in gameplay. You can barrel towards goals at breakneck pace, but without proper planning they will never come to fruition. You can plan until the cows come home, but playing with no sense of urgency will leave you falling behind. This level of balance makes decisions matter, and the tension between this-or-that in games such as this is where victory is claimed and defeat becomes inevitable. If decisions don’t matter, then what’s the game for in the first place?
There are different kinds of equipment that can be picked up for various benefits. There are Craftwork pieces that when combined can be converted to a hut. Huts can be spent to speed up the drying time of lumber, to collect food, or as an extra mill worker. Timing the use of these right can mean a lot depending on the scenario – an extra completed Task could literally be the difference in winning or losing.
For many players, the game would benefit from any centralized representation at all for where one is relative to other players in terms of progress towards winning instead of just observing each of the thousand bits of data and doing the math. There’s a whole lot of build up for a lesser amount of payoff than I would prefer. That’s not to say it’s anticlimactic, but there have been times where I shrugged and said “well, I guess Player A did better than Player B after all,” with no real objective cause for me to point to as to why. This game is such a pleasure to play because every decision matters, but that level of depth can mask which decisions make a final determination in tipping the scales from defeat to victory or vice versa. At the same time, part of the appeal in having progress as open information if you want to do the calculus and math it out is that ultimately other players’ progress is a distraction. Their choices can impact yours, but if one wants to focus on how other players are performing, it is done so at the risk of sacrificing one’s own progress. This is a game where players must do everything they can to maximize each one’s own resources, money, actions, and presence in the forest and hope for that to be enough.
The caveat, of course, is mistakes. Determining winning moves is much more difficult than determining losing moves. So if players self-identify mistakes that were made, the why behind finishing order can become more apparent. I like progress, and I like getting better at games. I am really not sure how to get better at Lignum except to minimize mistakes. But those mistakes might not become apparent until it is too late. Another player may hire one more woodcutter than you had planned on. Or you may end up with one too few saws to maximize the wood that your bearers cut. If you misjudge the timing of, well, anything, you will be slightly disadvantaged. Repeated errors can cause you to spiral down. The one saving grace is that most of the wood that gets cut, even if it doesn’t get sawed, dried, and sold in Order fulfillment, can be sold for a lesser amount of cash. Indeed, leaning on this early can provide the necessary cash for bigger seasons later.
Lignum is a tremendous game that is definitely not for everyone. I have some friends who just don’t like heavy games. And I think with today’s generous menu of choices, people should play what they enjoy. But if you like heavy games, and you like planning, then Lignum is worth your time. The tension between this or that, playing risky or cautious, jumping ahead or methodically working through actions is just so good. And that tension creates the space for mistakes, which is what makes the game so compelling for me. I can’t wait to play it again!
Cheers!
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