A Relative Newbie: Hive (Carbon)

Salutations:
Greetings, fellow gaming enthusiasts or potential gaming enthusiasts!  Before we begin, I would like to thank you for taking the time to visit my blog and read my first full post.  Having done my research, I am more than aware of the fact that there are a significant number of blogs out there that cover gaming, and I am grateful that you have granted me, an insignificant voice in a roaring crowd, the opportunity to speak with you.

Having covered that, I believe it is time to start.  Welcome to this, my first official gaming post on Board2Tears.  Today we will be discussing, as the picture below suggests, Hive Carbon, which is essentially just Hive, plus the expansions, minus any hint of color – though this statement is technically wrong in both additive and subtractive color models, in which you would have both no color and all colors, but I digress.

Were that a city in the middle, I would swear this was a 50s horror movie!

The Game:
Hive is a game for two players that falls firmly under the abstract strategy category of games.  It is a simple game whose only mechanics are grid movement and tile placement – per boardgamegeek.com – though I personally feel that the tile placement classification of this game is entirely superficial, based solely upon the dual points of the pieces being tiles and the players placing them on the “board.”  The similarities to most other tile placement games ends here.  Now follow me as we venture together deeper into the historical world of abstract board games.  In fact, this family of games could almost reach back to the last ice age!

No, this is NOT Narnia!  When’s the last time you saw Aslan playing Connect 4??
Also…All work and no play makes jack a dull boy…

I apologize, but who among us could actually pass up the chance to reference The Shining?

Abstract Strategy:
In order to trace the lineage of any family of games, we must first define the classification used for said family – in this case: abstract strategy.  Now, all of you – and I mean all of you – should know that nearly ever game every invented or designed requires strategy.  Entire volumes have been written about the strategies of chess, and poker, and Yahtzee, and Halo.  The only games entirely devoid of strategy are games in which there is no player interaction and nothing but “luck elements,” herein defined as mechanics such as dice rolling and card drawing.  Popular children’s games such as war would fall in this category.

War! Huh! Yeah…what is it good for?  Absolutely nothin’! 

However, despite the elements of strategy that we find in most games, there are some that eschew most all luck in favor of skill.  These games are the exact opposite of games like war, and they are called pure strategy.  Games with only a little luck are called abstract strategy.  These two families contain games where there is no asymmetry, very little theme, and only two players.  Asymmetry would require that there be some luck in order for one side to regain the upper hand.  Theme – herein defined as a story – has no purpose – and hence, no place – in abstract games.  Finally, any number of players greater than two requires that people ally themselves with one another – albeit temporarily – in order to survive the initial culling.

Again?!  C’mon guys, I’m always out first!! Whatever, I’m leaving…

Having defined abstract strategy, we can now discuss the history of these games.  As far as I am aware, this family of games is the second oldest, there being only one more ancient style of game, which we will discuss later.  But rather than beginning at the beginning, let us begin with well known abstract strategy games.  Chess is probably the most well known game in this family, and not only has it been around since the 6th century (though slightly altered), it is still an extremely popular game, ranking an impressive 300 out of the 72,000 games on BGG (the official abbreviation for boardgamegeek.com).  Go, a game of Chinese origin, is even older still, dating back to around 2,000BC.  This game ranks even higher than chess, coming in at 58.  Yet, the oldest well-known strategy game is Backgammon.  However, while chess and Go are pure strategy, backgammon includes dice-rolling, which dictates that it be classified as abstract strategy.  

Meanwhile, we must consider Hive’s place in the chronology of abstract strategy games.  Hive was published in 2001, which in board game terms is both quite old and very new.  Were we to compare Hive against games like Go or backgammon, this game would be a baby; yet, when we take into account the idea that board games are evolving much more quickly today than they used to, as well as the fact that we publish a greater number of board games each year, we would probably consider Hive to be a lot older than it seems.

If you don’t know why this is here, I may cry a little.  :_(

Popular games that have come after Hive in the same category include Yinsh and The Duke – the latter of which I desperately want but is currently out of print.  The Duke is essentially a chess variant, in which the pieces have two different sets of moves that alternate between turns, whereas Yinsh is a bit harder to explain here.  I will leave that one for later.  Now, on to the mechanics.

Mechanics:
Hive, as mentioned earlier, has essentially one mechanic: grid movement.  This is not a mechanic unique to abstract strategy games but is popular in many families of games.  But, to be fair, let’s compare the movement in Hive only to the movement of another pure strategy game: chess.  In chess, as many of you are no doubt aware, all of the pieces are placed upon an 8×8 board before the start of play.  Once play begins, players move their pieces in pre-defined ways, hoping to capture the other player’s pieces – with the ultimate goal being the “capturing” of the opponent’s king.

Well, better this than an arrow in the eye.  😉

Hive is very unique in that it keeps only the element of the pre-determined movements of the various pieces while changing everything else.  In this way it is one of the most un-chess chess-style games that I have ever played.  The three significant differences between Hive and chess are 1) there is no board, 2) pieces are not removed from the “board,” and 3)the queen bee must be surrounded, not captured.  Oh yes, I may have failed to mention before now that the game is essentially a large group of insects vying for supremacy.  Yet, these differences make for a very refreshing change.  They allow the player to feel the intensity of a chess match set against the lightness of the flavor.  

Wrap-up:
If what you have heard has piqued your interest, please come back on Friday, when I will be posting a review/play through video (featuring both me and my wife) with a textual summary.  I look forward to seeing you there.

– Weston