Pax Transhumanity Review
Image: Sierra Madre Games/Ion Game Design
INTRODUCTION
I am not what one might call a typical “heavy board gamer”, in fact one of the worst experiences I have ever had was playing Indonesia from publisher Splotter Spellen at my local gaming store, a topic that I intend to address in an upcoming article. Since then, a lot of water has gone under the bridge and I find myself wanting to delve deeper into the interlocking mechanisms of more complex board game designs. Enter, stage left Pax Transhumanity, the latest entry to the series designed by Matt Eklund and published by Ion Game Design & Sierra Madre Games. As someone who thoroughly enjoys the genre of science-fiction, I was curious to see how Pax Transhumanity would integrate theme with interlocking, intricate game mechanisms whilst adhering to the core formula that have made this series of board games so popular within the community.
Full disclosure: a review copy of Pax Transhumanity was kindly provided by publisher Ion Game Design.
COMPONENTS
The idiom “good things come in small packages” has never rung truer than in the case of Pax Transhumanity or any of the other board games published by Ion Game Design and Sierra Madre Games. For all of us who find ourselves in a situation where shelf space is at a premium due to your board game collection spiralling out of control, this game is a godsend. Upon removing the lid of this little box of delights, one finds a large collection of cards and some cardboard chits. Much like Pax Emancipation, the playing area in Pax Transhumanity does not consist of an actual game board but instead several square shaped cards or placards printed on a thicker cardstock. It is worth mentioning, Ion Game Design does provide the option to purchase an actual, foldable double-sided game board which can be used for both Pax Transhumanity and Pax Porfiriana. Although aesthetically pleasing, the board has no actual impact on how the game plays and the “modular” setup which is included in the box is perfectly functional. The various player tokens consist of different coloured wooden cubes and discs, although visually unremarkable they are serviceable in terms of managing resource flow and denoting performed actions.
The cards in Pax Transhumanity are equal parts beautifully illustrated and thought-provoking Photo: Fredrik Schulz
From an aesthetic point of view, one aspect of Pax Transhumanity that is far more interesting and thought-provoking is the card artwork beautifully illustrated by Johanna Pettersson. Considering the game contains ideas i.e. cards with such thrilling titles as “P2P Foundational Economics, Statistical Logic Board” and “Machine Ethics”, the way Pax Transhumanity manages to present a captivating narrative through the artwork is truly an impressive achievement. However, there is one aspect of the graphical design that I am less fond off which concerns the chosen colour palette. Every Idea card is categorised in the sense that there is a vertical strip on the right and left side respectively, each depicting a colour that matches one of the four areas of research and development. The problem is that on some of the cards the shades of green and blue are really similar to one another, to the point that I on more than one occasion found myself doubting as to what colours certain cards depict. Now, these issues concerning the graphical design may very well originate from the harsh fact that I am no longer a spring chicken whose eyesight is starting to deteriorate, but several reviewers have pointed to similar experiences so it bears mentioning.
OVERVIEW
The Pax series of board games are famous for many things, one of them being incorporating a specific historical setting with the game mechanisms: from Afghan tribal leaders navigating the treacherous waters of colonialism in Pax Pamir to the abolition of slavery in Pax Emancipation, every previous entry to the series has been firmly rooted in actual historical events. With Pax Transhumanity, designer Matt Eklund takes a different approach by having the theme being more speculative than previous iterations. Rather than portraying the future of mankind using the tiresome “end of the world” trope, which inevitably features the living dead in some shape or form, the designer instead presents us with the following viewpoint: what if the future is non-dystopian?
In Pax Transhumanity players take on the role of start-up entrepreneurs, investing their time and capital into ideas and innovations which if implemented could have the potential of altering the evolution of humanity. This lofty goal is achieved by managing the financial fluidity within your company, recruiting personnel, and researching new technological advancement all with the hope of making viable ideas come to fruition. Sounds simple enough right? Well, buckle up and take your prescribed Dramamine because this is going to be the ride of your life.
The Cloud, one of the four Spheres where players will conduct research, create companies, hire personnel and perform work in order to bring ideas to life. Photo: Fredrik Schulz
Similar to previous entries to the series, Pax Transhumanity features a central market of cards which players will access and manipulate by performing various actions. The display is divided into four columns called Spheres, each one representing a specific field of research and development players can engage with by making use of the associated Discipline: Assembly, Computing, Group dynamics or Transbiology (those of you with a keen eye for abbreviations will undoubtedly be amused by the way Matt Eklund has labelled the four disciplines). Unlike previous entries to the series, the process of resetting the market in Pax Transhumanity is not automated. Instead, it is up to the players to perform the Research action in order to provide new Idea cards to the Sphere columns. From a strategic point of view, this part of the game design creates a dynamic state of play as players need to carefully decide when to initiate a market reset so it benefits them more than the competing entrepreneurs.
As previously mentioned, each Sphere column of the market is populated by a certain number of Idea cards which are a central part of what makes Pax Transhumanity such an interesting intellectual puzzle of sorts. By researching and hopefully implementing the ideas on display, players will unlock the abilities to create companies within the different spheres, hiring additional personnel, or solving problems that plague our society. The first step in turning a concept to reality is to Syndicate an Idea card, by paying a certain amount of money you install one of your available Agents to the card. Apart from being a necessary step in the process of bringing the idea to fruition, having your representative on a card in the market display grants you the opportunity to use the special ability printed on the card if one is present. However, for each agent you install on the various locations you are simultaneously depleting the income of funds to your company.
The Financial board tracks your revenue and expanses. Photo: Fredrik Schulz
The Finance board i.e. player area is where you will track your company’s income and expenses. Each cube of your colour represents a financial agent, capable of generating revenue through the process of relocating from one area of the board to the next going from top to bottom. At the start of the game, each player will have eight financial agents at their disposal. Depending on player order, the distribution of said economical employees will vary between the three finance boxes: capital, wealth, and debt which creates a slight sense of asymmetry between the available characters. For example, the Blogger who is first in player order starts the game with no available financial agents in the capital box of the player board, whereas the opposite is true for the Doctor who gets to go last but has much more available capital to spend. Whichever character you choose to play as, you will quickly discover that money is tight in Pax Transhumanity. This is partly a result of the game design which opts for a more dynamic economics engine. Rather than providing a static reward consisting of a fixed amount of monetary resources, in Pax Transhumanity players will need to perform the Fundraiser action in order to gain more revenue whilst simultaneously balancing capital versus debt. What is even more interesting, is the fact that in order to perform the various actions like research or implement ideas player are removing cubes from their financial board. You can go whole-hog in syndicating left and right on the Idea cards that are available in each of the Sphere columns. But by doing so you are robbing yourself of financial resources, as your economic personnel assume a new role as employees or syndication agents. There are ways to obtain additional Agents, mainly through the act of commercialising Idea cards but it is a costly endeavour both in regards to time and finances.
After paying money to install syndication agents, hiring employees with the necessary expertise and making sure that society is ready for this upcoming evolution, that is the moment when all of your efforts will culminate into a grand explosion of events: the act of Commercialising an Idea card. To reach this point is an arduous task which requires no small amount of forethought and strategical considerations. But when you manage to have all your ducks in a row and execute your well-laid plan, you are rewarded with a sensation of pride for having accomplished this task that you set out to do several turns ago. Each Idea card has a varying number of effects which trigger upon being commercialised called Impacts, advantages rewarded to the player and society as a whole for having brought this idea into fruition. These range from being able to install companies into one of the four Spheres, solving problems which has the potential to reward you with end-of-game victory points or receiving additional agents to add to your finance board. The final act of the Commercialise action is to add the chosen Idea card to the are known as the human progress Splay.
The Splay represents the evolution of humanity through technological and scientific breakthroughs. Each commercialised Idea card is added to the existing row of cards in the Splay, tucked so that only one of the two colour-coded Disciplines are visible. The function of this human progress display is twofold. First, it creates opportunities for more and more Idea cards to be viable for the act of commercialising by having their colours match those that are available in the Splay. The more idea cards that are commercialised, the greater the combination of available colour combinations. The second important aspect of the Splay has to do with what is know as the current Regime. The bottom three cards of the human progress Splay are referred to as the cutting edge, metarules that have an ongoing effect that alters the current game state. For example, if two of the three cards in the cutting edge are of the colour blue then the Computing regime is active which allows players to research at zero cost. Had the two cards instead been orange, then the Assembly regime would provide you with a financial discount for taking the Commercialise action. Not only does the dominant i.e. active Regime provide you with interesting special effects, it is also one of the ways you can score victory points at the end of the game. During setup, each player receives two Idea cards from which they will choose one Sphere as their hidden objective based on the colours of the cards. When learning how to play Pax Transhumanity, the hidden sphere provides great aid to get your bearings and formulate a strategy by focusing on collecting problem tokens and installing companies into one particular Sphere. Although, you know what the say: “the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry”.
The human progress Splay represents the evolution of humanity through technological and scientific breakthroughs. Photo: Fredrik Schulz
THE SOLO MODE
The solo mode in Pax Transhumanity was created by Ion Games’ lead designer Jon Manker. When playing the game solitaire, you will compete against up to three automated opponents known as Exoglobal players for the title of most successful entrepreneur of tomorrow. The game does not include a dedicated solo deck of cards, instead the artificial adversaries in Pax Transhumanity will use the remaining Idea cards to form a new deck called Exoglobal cards which will stipulate what type of action(s) they will perform on their turn. The orientation of the card deck also acts as a way to adjust the difficulty of the solo mode, you can choose to either have the Exoglobal cards face-up which allows you to plan accordingly to what actions the next automated opponent in line will perform. Alternatively, you have the option of playing against fewer opponents but their deck of cards remains face-down, thus adding the element of uncertainty as to what tricks they might have up their artificial sleeves.
I love when a board game solo mode maintains the same core ruleset and mechanisms that are present when playing in the company of others and Pax Transhumanity manages this admirably. I am even more enamoured when there is little to no upkeep to speak of regarding handling resources or performing actions on part of an automated opponent. Seeing as the Exoglobal players are always able to pay for their actions, and do not adhere to the limitations of what colours are currently available in the human progress Splay, the act of overseeing their turns is a very pleasant experience on part of the human player. From a strategic point of view, one key aspect of the solo mode in Pax Transhumanity that sets itself apart from the multiplayer aspect is how the card market is refreshed. The automated opponents will never perform the research action, meaning it is up to you to decide when and how a reset occurs. It only takes a solitaire play session or two to realise, that in order to be a successful competitor against the Exoglobal players you will need to lever this mechanism to your advantage by controlling and manipulating the card market.
The same can be said about the possibility of the game ending in what is known as a Tycoon victory. In Pax Transhumanity, whether playing multiplayer or solo each participant has four discs at their disposal which represents potential companies that can be created in one of the four Spheres. If a player finds themselves in a situation where they would place a fifth company, the game ends and the player in question is declared the sole winner. When playing Pax Transhumanity solitaire, the Exoglobal players are only interested in creating companies. Unless you are actively triggering impacts which causes the automated opponents to lose companies, it is not unlikely for the solitaire game to end in a Tycoon victory for one of the Exoglobal players.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In many ways, the process of learning and reviewing Pax Transhumanity has been remarkably similar to the Kübler-Ross model which describes the different stages of grief. It has been a personal, emotional rollercoaster ranging from anger and frustration all the way to peace of mind and acceptance. For it is most definitely the case that this Matt Eklund board game design is unlike anything else I have ever experienced. The Pax series are notorious for their complexity in terms of interlocking game mechanisms and strategic depth and Pax Transhumanity is no exception. Having only played it in solitaire, I shudder at the thought of having to teach this beast of a game to a new player. It is also nearly impossible to accurately convey just how intricate these games are, you really have to experience it for yourself.
You might be asking yourself, “if these board games are so notoriously difficult to grok, why should I invest my time and energy into the Herculean task of overcoming these intellectual roadblocks?” Because the reward is oh so sweet. Since my early days within the hobby, I have had the good fortune to play and experience a slew of board games ranging in both complexity and genre alike. Few games have managed to get under my skin the way Pax Transhumanity has, I cannot stop thinking about it and wanting to get it back to the game table as soon as humanly possible. And once you get past the technical terminology that sometimes borders on being obtuse, you will find a game that is surprisingly thematic in addition to well-implemented mechanisms.
