The water is mysterious, cool, lovely … but oh so changeable, treacherous and dangerous! You thought you were going for a leisurely sail on a clear and pleasant day, but the ocean had other plans for you… Still waters run deep, and even from the ocean’s deepest depths, dangers surfaced. The initial seas of time you envisioned when you left port changed to Seas of Strife as the tide turned. A flood of challenges washed in your direction as you tried to keep dry, literally and figuratively. Will the water catch up to you or is no waters too deep?
Background
Seas of Strife is a trick taking game, and this ‘new’ game recently surfaced. Why did we put ’new’ in quotation marks you may wonder? Seas of Strife Is in fact a reissue of a game that has been published twice before. The rulebook outlines this historical background. Seas of Strife originally appeared as Strife and later the game was re-released as Texas Showdown. Between the first and second editions, there was some tinkering with the rules, and because of a minor change made by the publisher of Texas Showdown, the feel of the game was fairly different.
Seas of Strife bundles these two game variations and another additional game variation into two separate rulebooks, allowing players to play the game as popularized or as the author originally intended. In addition, the game has been re-themed with beautiful illustrations by Beth Sobel (of Wingspan, Calico and Fika, among others) who by now needs no introduction.
Gameplay
Seas of Strife contains 60 cards in 8 different colors/symbols. Depending on the number of players, cards with a particular color (symbol) are removed from the deck. The cards are shuffled and distributed equally and randomly to the different player.
Several rounds are played consisting of different tricks. At the beginning of the game, the player with the lowest card (0 or 11 depending on the number of players) must open the first stroke with that card. The player starting stroke plays a card face up in the middle of the table. A subsequent player must now play a card from their hand in the same color (symbol) as one of the cards already face-up on the table, if they can indeed show color. If they cannot play one of the open colors, they may play any card. That way, there are also more colors on the table to follow.
Once each player has played a card, it is decided who won the trick. Players first see which color is in the majority. The highest card in that color wins the battle. If there is no color with a majority, then the highest value wins the battle. The player who won the battle takes the cards from the battle in front of him to show that the battle was won. Each pile of cards is a battle won.
The player who won the trick must start the next battle. If you come out with the highest card of a particular suit and you win the battle with it, you get to choose who starts the battle. If players play the Strife variant, these cards mean that players can use them to “cancel” a particular color in a battle. Once this card is played, that color cannot win the trick unless no other colors are/are played.
By the way, winning tricks is not positive, because for that you get minus points. At the end of a round (once all hand cards have been played) players add up their tricks and the game ends as soon as someone has 15 or more minus points at the end of a round and otherwise players play another round. The player with the fewest minus points wins.
Conclusion
Seas of Strife is a beautifully designed trick taking game with a fun twist. There are many different colors and each number appears only once. The trump color is actually determined by the majority and players can follow multiple colors to play cards. Players can thus influence which color can gain the majority and thus determine who may win or lose the trick. Players also cleverly try to play the higher values from their hand in this way, without risking too much.
The design of the game is very clear. The cards show various symbols, images and other indicators. Each card clearly shows how many cards there are of that particular color and how high that particular card is. This allows you to quickly and easily estimate your odds.
Seas of Strife is a fast and smooth card game with a very clear gameplay. It offers fun twists on battle games with seas of possibilities.
