Toledo by Martin Walace

O novo lançamento de Martin Wallace para esta Primavera já vai começando a dar os seus frutos e, expectativas depois do imenso sucesso de Brass, não faltam. Para apaziguar as mentes mais histéricas, a minha incluída, o SpielPortugal resolveu perguntar ao autor o que ele pensa de Toledo, o jogo, bem como algumas outras coisas sobre próximos lançamentos da Warfrog.

A mini entrevista que Martin Wallace, amavel e cordialmente, nos cedeu, está relatada em inglês para impedir que as declarações percam o seu sentido autêntico.

1. As far as we know, a new Martin Wallace game is coming out very soon, during Nurenberg Convention. Toledo will be published by Mayfair and Kosmos. What can you tell us about this one?

MW. Toledo is set in the Spanish city of the same name. As you may be aware, the city is famous for its swords. In the game players represent upcoming families who want to impress the king. To do so they arrange for swords to be made and presented to him in the Alcazar. The baord uses an origanal side view of the city. Players place various businesses which provide different services along a track that leads from the Cathedral to the Alcazar. Each player also has five family members who will advance along the track visiting these businesses. If you want steel then you need to visit a steel merchant. If you want gems then you visit a gem merchant. If you visit a sword smith then he will take your steel and gems and turn them into a fine sword. All this sounds imple. The problem is that your movement is limited and only so many people can exist on the same space, which means if more people land on that space a sword fight will break out. You can improve your duelling skills by visiting a fencing master. The game ends when a certain number of family members have reached the Alcazar, at which point you score points for the swords that you have presented to the king.

The game is for 3 to 4 players and is aimed at the German family market, which means that it is fairly simple but not dumb.

Hope that gives you a little idea of the game.

2. Toledo will be released by Mayfair and Kosmos. What can we expect by Warfrog this year? Do you intend to release more than one game this year or just one as usual (I'm not counting Mordred's reprint)? I mean, what are going to be the news of Warfrog this year? One or two games? About what?

MW. Warfrog will be going in a new direction this year. You will see some new games from me but I cannot say any more now as I have not officially announced this new direction. What I can say is that I think you will find the future games very interesting.

3. Brass, your latest game, is clearly a Wallace game: very difficult to master, very competitive in all aspects and very thematic. I just find it can have some replayability issues since the board is very static. For when an expansion or are you at all considering an expansion? If so, what would it be about? Would you remain faithfull to your Lancashire and just make some minor changes or would you consider making maps of other places with some different rules? For example a good 2 player map/mechanism or a 2-5 player game.

MW. I have had a number of people ask about expansions for Brass. It s not possible to expand the present system. The only way for it to be done is to design a new base system using some of the concepts from Brass but allowing for expansions to be added easily. There is also the problem of history. Britain has a lot of canals because railways had not been invented. Countries that industrialised after Britain tended to go straight to railways as it made more sense. A new version could not include the canal/rail periods, it wold have to be all rail period. It is something I want to work on at some point but cannot say when, have to get other projects out of the way first.