Bios: Megafauna – Opening Remarks
Having played through a game of Bios: Genesis, now we’re ready to link the outcome of that game to the second game in Phil Eklund’s trilogy, Bios: Megafauna.
Bios: Genesis is a game of investing in and managing assets. Players compete to get control of assets (organisms) and then develop them toward multi-cellular and eventual land-animal status. A player who has sole control of an organism will collect all the victory points it earns at the end of the game. On the other hand, since he is the only one who can invest in improvements to that organism, it may not develop as fully or be worth as much. An organism shared among several players is more likely to develop quickly, but all of those players share the final victory points. Balancing these two approaches, while riding a roller-coaster of random events, is the key to a successful strategy.
Bios: Megafauna, in turn, is less a game of investment and more a game of area control. Each player begins with a single Archetype species that has few traits. During his turn, he can spend actions to acquire new traits for his species, possibly causing additional species to appear (Armored, Burrowers, Flyers, or Swimmers) in the same family. He can also spend actions to purchase more population (“Creeples”) for any of his species, to be placed on the map at the end of the turn.
Creeples are placed in a given Biome (hex) on the reconfigurable map, by default taking up a position as herbivores in that hex. If herbivores are already present, the new Creeple can be placed as a carnivore instead. Alternatively, the new Creeple can engage in a “contest” with a herbivore or carnivore already present in the target hex, in which case the players go through a simple flowchart to determine which species will succeed (that is, which one is better adapted to the current situation in that hex) and which will become Endangered.
Creeples also become Endangered if the hex they are in becomes uninhabitable due to a random event. They also become Endangered if they are carnivores who no longer have an herbivore species in the hex suitable for them to prey upon. (Finding ways to deprive carnivores of their prey seems to be a common tactical move in this game.) Creeples that are Endangered stay on the board until the end of that game-turn, at which point they “die” (move back to the player’s pool for later use).
One important point: once a Creeple is placed on the map, it never moves again (with one small but significant exception). Species tend to spread across the map when they are more effective herbivores or carnivores than their rivals. Yet, once their Creeples are in place, they’re generally stuck in that hex until the circumstances change, especially if another player finds a way to make a better move in the game of herbivore or carnivore competition.
The more Creeples are in play on the map, the more points a player will score. On the other hand, a species with more Creeples on the map will have fewer options when it comes to acquiring new traits, and so may fall behind in the evolutionary race. Players also score points at the end of the game for extinct species, for species that have developed more complex cognitive abilities, and (especially) for a species that has developed language.
As usual with a Phil Eklund game, the mechanics are difficult to absorb just by reading the rule book and glossary. Better to just set up the game and start playing a few turns, with frequent references to the rule book, and watch as the tactics and strategy emerge. I’ve actually played through Bios: Megafauna several times already, so at least some of the principles of good gameplay have become clear to me. I won’t claim to be an expert, of course, and in the play-through that follows I think I make several serious mistakes on behalf of at least one player. So be it – real history has weirdness in it too.
One final note, before I start describing how the play-through went. I’m using the printed rule-book as written. Eklund’s games often have “living rules,” that tend to accrete clarifications and even mechanical changes as they go. I’m aware of a couple of points at which my play-through would have gone differently if I had been using the living rules. The point of this exercise, of course, is to play solitaire and develop an interesting alien world for creative purposes. Hence I’m not too wrapped around the axle about making sure I use the most recent version of the game rules.
Game Setup
I start with a fairly standard setup. The game board consists of four geomorphic tiles, representing cratons or proto-continents, that start out arranged across the planet’s equatorial zone. Since I’m generating an alternate Earthlike world, I shuffle the four craton tiles at random, and they end up in the order (east to west) of Siberia, Gondwana, Baltica, and Laurentia. There are status displays to indicate the current oxygen content, cloud prevalence, and greenhouse-gas content of the atmosphere. At the beginning of the game, the planet has 7% free oxygen in the atmosphere, an albedo of about 0.4, and an “Eden” climate (somewhat warmer than present-day Earth).
If I was just playing Bios: Megafauna, then all of the player positions would start on an equal footing, with a single Archetype species with no traits, just emerged onto the land. Since I’m “linking” the outcome of my Bios: Genesis play-through, I follow the linked-game rules instead. Here’s how the four player positions shake out.
Player Yellow won the Bios: Genesis game, so he gets first choice of a position in the new game. His primary organism was the Earthworms. The rules assign him the Orange position in Bios: Megafauna, playing a family of hydroskeletal invertebrates.
Given his progress in Bios: Genesis, Player Orange doesn’t start with the bare invertebrate species; his Archetype comes into play with certain traits already in place. Some of these are traits that will be passed along to any new species in the family, represented by colored cubes (“basal organs”) placed on the Archetype card. The Archetype gets one red and two yellow cubes. He then draws a few cards from the decks of possible traits to modify his Archetype further, each of which carries more colored cubes. He ends up with the traits Egg Case (blue cube), Endocrine Gland (green cube), and Pallial Lung (yellow cube).
The next player was in the Red position in Bios: Genesis. His most advanced organism was Arrow Worms, which gives him the Black position here. He will be playing a family of endoskeletal arthropods. Since his Arrow Worms weren’t land-dwellers, he starts with a Marine Archetype species, still living off-shore. He gets no additional traits (cubes or cards). In fact, the first time he “resizes” his Marine Archetype (representing the evolution of larger animals), it will convert to a normal land-dwelling Archetype species, killing off any of the Marine Archetype Creeples that are still out at sea. Black’s first concern is going to be to move onto the land and start developing there.
Next we have Player Green. His most advanced organism was the Sea Stars, which gives him the White position in Bios: Megafauna. White represents endoskeletal vertebrates. As with the Black position, he starts with a bare Marine Archetype species and will need to move onto land quickly to make progress.
In last place in the Bios: Genesis play-through, we have Player Blue. His most advanced organism was the Lamp Shells, which would normally give him the Orange position in this game. Since that position is already taken, Blue is stuck with the Green position in Bios: Megafauna.
In this game, the Green position is a little unusual, representing plants that live primarily by photosynthesis, but which can also use parasitism, trapping, or actual motility to prey on other organisms. (Since Player Blue spent so much time trying to make parasitism work in Bios: Genesis, this may be a choice bit of irony.) Green uses slightly different rules from the other players, and is noticeably more difficult to play well. In compensation, Green starts with a special “Medea” card which can allow him to control or magnify certain random events, hopefully to his own advantage.
In any case, the now-Green player is also stuck with a bare Marine Archetype species, and like Players Black and White, will want to move onto the land and begin evolutionary development as quickly as possible.
Orange places his first Creeple on the Laurentia craton, Black begins off the coast of Siberia, White off the coast of Gondwana, and Green off the coast of Baltica. I’ll start describing how the first turn went in my next blog post.
One final note: even at the beginning of the game, I realize that Orange has started with a considerable advantage. Since his Archetype has so many traits from the very beginning, that species is already more efficient than any other on the planet, both as an herbivore and as a carnivore.
Presumably, when Bios: Genesis produces less lopsided results, the Megafauna opening is a bit more competitive. As it stands, the other players had better hope they have the opportunity to catch up, before Orange runs out of room on the Laurentia craton and starts looking for land elsewhere. Otherwise there’s going to be a tide of highly-evolved worms, snails, mollusks and squid that will tear through everyone else’s critters.
Turn Fourteen (2.6 – 2.8 billion years)
Turn Fifteen (2.8 – 3.0 billion years)
Worldbuilding Notes: Here we have a water world, just beginning to generate continental landforms for the first time. There’s nothing but simple plant life and the equivalent of earthworms to form a simple ecology on land . . . and that’s how the situation remains for whole geological eons. It’s as if the planet is stuck in evolutionary stasis for a very long time, all the further progress taking place underwater.
This is an interesting combination. It implements the “giant impact” theory regarding the formation of the Moon: a Mars-sized proto-planet coming along and colliding with Earth in the first 100 million years or so of its existence. Consequences for any early life on Earth would have been dire: the entire crust of the planet would have been stripped off and hurled into space!
This is a good occasion for me to embark upon a line of discussion that I’ve been wanting to bring up here: the use of simulation games as drivers and inspiration for worldbuilding.