Hexarchy Review

thesixthaxis.com:

When it comes to 4X strategy games, everyone knows you have to take your time with them and plan out your strategies to get to the top of the pile. Anyone who has played a Civilization game can recount the hours that mysteriously disappear while playing, for example. What if there was a way to take the depth of 4X strategy games, and streamline the experience so matches would last around an hour max? That is a question developer Main Tank Games has attempted to answer with its 4x deckbuilder Hexarchy.

Hexarchy will look familiar to those with experience of the more famous 4X tactical games. Maps are made up of hexes, but are smaller in scope meaning different civilisations are bunched up together. Each hex has different resources and defensive ratings, with resources exploitable depending on which technologies you have. There is a different way to play Hexarchy and that is by using cards to make your moves. The first card you will play is establishing your capital city, and from there more possibilities open up. You could draw a scout card to explore the land, or a settler card to establish another city. There are military unit cards too with more available as the game goes on.

Decks are filled with various card types including technology, wonders, civics, buildings, and the aforementioned military units. When technology cards are played they add new cards to your deck, and while wonders provide boosts, civics determine how your government runs, and buildings help to gather the resources on the different hexes. There is no turn countdown on how long a unit or building will take to build, its effects happen immediately.

There are costs, though. At the start of each turn your hand is shuffled and you are given a set amount of