Flotilla by WizKids Games
Price: ~$65.00
Players: 3 to 5
Playtime: 90 to 150 minutes
Perfect for: Players who enjoy civilization games with strategic resource allocation coupled with light deck-building and engine construction.
Flotilla is a game of alternate history city building. Players assume control of a new faction, attempting to build their civilization across (potentially) two areas: the sea and the sky. To do so requires harvesting resources, gaining favor amongst various groups, assembling the right team of skilled talent, and a wee bit of luck. Before diving into the mechanics of Flotilla, here’s a quick overview of the theme from the publisher, WizKid Games:
In 1954, with an explosion over a hundred thousand times more powerful than even the wildest estimates, the Castle Bravo nuclear test obliterated the Bikini Atoll, and ruptured the Earth down to its mantle.
As water levels rose in the aftermath, the remnants of humanity fled their homes and took to the sea. World leadership came together to build a massive Flotilla, mankind’s last bastion of civilization.
Now, ten years after the disaster, the Flotilla is home to the very last of us.
To begin Flotilla, 3 to 5 people collect their player boards, associated tokens, and a standard starting deck of characters—individuals from different groups that when played/discarded, allow players to take specific actions. For example, Founders assist with physical expansion of the city through drawing new map tiles, Delvers allow players to dive into the water to collect resources, Traders exchange resources with currency, and the Captain moves the boat(s) to new areas on the assembled map as well as calls back all played cards.
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For most players, the game of Flotilla will be played across two phases: Sinkside, which represents the city on the ocean, and Skyside which is home to the newly constructed floating village. The two locations have similar game mechanics, with some notable differences. First, every person/card a player has collected now flips to its other side revealing new (and usually enhanced) abilities that individuals may perform. Also, the resources collected from the first phase are far more important, as they are used to build and expand the city in the sky. Bigger, interconnected regions of similar type score more points.
Victory points in Flotilla are awarded for a variety of reasons such as achieving milestones selected randomly during game setup, gaining influence in a guild, selling the most valuable resources, etc. The game ends when one individual has collected 100 VP through their various actions. This means that moving Sinkside to Skyside is completely at the whim of the player—it could occur early in the game, near the middle, or even not at all and that person still has the same chance of winning, depending on their play style.
What works in Flotilla is the thematic attention to detail and balance of diverse and complex of engine-building mechanisms. In many civilization games, for players to be successful they must either a) devote all their time and energy to a singular facet/track or b) maintain equal skill levels so that their engine is good at essentially everything. In Flotilla, players have discernible freedom to spread out as they see fit and explore the avenues that make sense to them given both their options (which are often quite plentiful) as well as personal interests. Said differently, there is nothing a player has to do, and it’s refreshing to have a city-building game that allows for such a positive of feeling of being a truly open world to explore, construct, and control.
Thematically, Flotilla is incredibly engaging as well as carefully and creatively designed. The game has an almost steampunk feel with the lovely art work produced by Bartek Fedyczak, and the best representation of this can be found on the double-sided character cards. The well-constructed components also contribute to the theme in enjoyable and notable ways. For example, sail barges can only carry four accumulated resources. The actual wooden barges in the game (each a different design per player), can each actually hold four of the wooden barrels used to represent resources. Those little touches are found all throughout Flotilla and definitely impact the gameplay in a fun way.
Players who prefer games that are not very complex with a vast array of interconnected rules, or have large amounts of interaction between players, may not enjoy Flotilla as much as others. Flotilla is on the high end of games that have a robust amount of options and considerations so players new to the genre may find the experience incredibly overwhelming. Also, while the Scholar character can copy the ability of any card played previously in a round, there’s little reason to pay attention to the actions of other individuals.
Flotilla is an incredibly strong game with high replay value, given the multitude of paths players can take to achieve objectives. Entire playthroughs are likely to occur with completely different feels, giving people a wide array of experiences. While Flotilla is not recommended as an introductory title for civilization-building games, experienced players are likely to find quite a bit uniqueness given the well-executed theme.
Recommended if you like: Terraforming Mars, Through the Ages, Scythe
Final Grade: A
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