In our bi-weekly podcast and in the board/card game reviews you see on the site we sometimes refer to something as a “gateway game.” They’re games that are a bit easier to understand and are a great way to introduce non-gamers to the boardgame world. Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan and even Forbidden Island are pretty well suited for this gateway game status, since they’re both simple to teach and learn, and are incredibly engaging right from the get go.

Small World is a game that sits right on the cusp of gateway game and that next step. It’s slightly more complicated than something like Ticket to Ride but not by much. It contains more strategic choices and takes a bit more acumen to teach/learn at first. I personally love the game. Enter Small World: Underground, an expansion but still a standalone game that takes the basic gameplay of the first game, adds a few twists and just gives us more of everything there was to love about the base game.

How’s it Work?

The rules of Small World are fairly simple. First choose the correct game board for the number of players you have, the game includes 4 (one for 2 players, one for 3 players, etc) In setting up the game you’ll randomly assign powers and races together to create the possible creatures to play as. This is done by drawing power cards and race cards and putting them together (as shown in the picture below), and because they’re paired up by chance each game will have different combinations (So one game you may have the Mystic Spiderines, the next time Royal Spiderines for example). Each player will start the game by selecting one of these races and take the proper amount of tokens for them out of the box (by adding up the numbers on the power and race cards).

So you’ll take your Mystic Spiderines tokens and begin conquering territory. Most times you’ll have between 8-10 tokens to work with. Normally it takes 2 tokens plus however many defenses are on a territory to take it over. So an empty area will take two tokens while an area with one enemy and a mountain region will take 4 (2 +1 for enemy +1 mountain). You’ll spread out conquering adjacent areas until you’re out of tokens. Once you’re done conquering you can distribute your extra tokens among the areas you control as a defensive measure then you score 1 point for each area you have.

Other player’s can re-conquer you by placing the required number of tokens in your area. When that happens 1 of your tokens goes back in the box out of play and you get the rest back to redistribute on the board. So as you get conquered you’ll get less powerful over time. Once you’ve spread yourself out or been conquered enough you won’t be able to take over any more areas and you can then put that race into decline, at which time you’ll flip the tiles over, stop playing with them and select a new race to play (you still score points for in decline races while they remain on the board you just don’t control them anymore).

Now that’s a very basic rundown of the rules but here’s the rub, each power and each race have different ways of breaking those rules. For instance the Mystic Spiderines we’ve been used as an example score a bonus point for every crystal area they control on the map because of the “Mystic” (so they’d be worth two). In addition to that the Spiderines have the ability to use the uncrossable chasms on the board to pop out to any zone next to the chasm, meaning they don’t have to conquer adjacent areas all the time. Leveraging those two powers together to maximize your scoring is the key to victory.

Ogres let you conquer any zone for 1 less tile than would otherwise be required while the Kraken let you control the otherwise uncontrollable river sections on the map. The Flocking power gives bonuses for keeping your race together in a group and Wise gives you a bonus while the race is in decline. Some confer conquering bonuses, some scoring bonuses and some let you make certain areas immune to enemies. The game includes 21 powers and 15 races so you can see there will be tons of combinations possible, some better than others so depending on the game your strategy will be different.

What’s new here compared to the base game?

Those rules apply for both Small World and Small World Underground but Underground does have a few new rules and elements added into the mix. In Underground there’s now a river running though each board that you can conquer and move through but can’t stay on to score points, so you need to remove those tokens before scoring (though some races/powers can take advantage of the area). The other major change is the Popular Places and Relics that pop up onto the map once certain areas are conquered. They’re drawn at random and give different bonuses to the person that control them (and that control can change depending on who’s conquering who). The instruction book even has a little notation next to all the rules/changes that are new for Underground, which is fantastic for those of us that know the old game and just need to make sure we’ve got the new stuff covered.

Days of Wonder has always been known for their production value and commitment to components and in that regard Small World Underground is no exception, what you get for the money here is spectacular. 2 double sided boards and TONS of colorful cardboard chits for races and all kinds of different things for powers, in addition to a game insert that puts most others to shame. Not only is there a space for everything it’s well laid out, there’s a tray that pulls out that has all the race tokens in it so you can just leave it on the table to let players grab them as they need them. The boards are bright and beautiful, all the different races and powers are colorful and dynamic and really fun to look at with great little details (like the “royal” power logo wearing a Snow White costume). Even down to the names of the relics and places having some inside jokes referencing things like Tomb Raider and Dungeons and Dragons.

The book recommends playing the first Small World a bit before jumping in to Underground and that’s definitely a sentiment I can agree with. While the base rules are really simple to get the hang of, Underground adds a few new things that aren’t super complicated by any stretch but just give you a lot to keep track off if it’s your first or second time around the game. Of course it’s all relative, if you’re a regular gamer and have no problem picking up and understanding slighty complex titles then jumping right to Underground will give you no problems at all. As a great inclusion each player will get a large full color sheet that describes all the races, powers, relics and locations so there’s no confusion about what each thing does.

Is it worth buying?

All the things I loved about the original Small World hold true here and I think all the new additions work well. The river and impassable areas make for interesting strategy choices, and the for the most part the powers and races offer new and varied takes then just the standard “score 1 bonus point for this area” type powers (though there are a few of those still there). As someone that’s played a ton of Small World (both in real life and on the iPad) this was a no-brainer for me, but it surpassed my expectations and new elements make it a much better game overall. Combining the powers/races from both games also works well, and should offer a crazy amount of different match-ups.

There are multiple ways to look at Small World Underground that make it a valuable purchase. Taken purely as an expansion of powers and races the game is a good value if you’re just looking for more of those since you get a bunch of each, which pound for pound is a better value than the tiny Small World expansions that came out last year. If you never picked up the original because it was too “simple” for your tastes then this one is a possibility because there are more than a few new wrinkles added into the mix. If you’re a huge fan of Small World then the upgrade path is obvious and you’ll want this one immediately, new powers and races, new rules, new boards… it’s more of what you love with more to love about it.