Here we are! This is the game that inspired my creation of this blog.
504 is a game that contains 504 games. That’s the idea anyway. I’m not sure if you could really call it 504 different games because of how the rules work but if you want to get technical I guess you can say that.
504 is game featuring a metric ton of pieces, 9 different modules and a crazy flipping rule book.
As you can see there are a lot of bits to this game. There are over 900 pieces of cardboard, paper and wood in this box. Thankfully, not all of them are used in any one game.
Two rule books are included in the box; the Rule Book and the Book of Worlds. The Rule Book has every bit of detail on how all the rules interact with each other. The Book of Worlds, one of the coolest features of the game, is basically an overview of the rules for the individual “worlds” that will be played.
This Book of Worlds is cut into three sections with each module having different rules depending if it is in the top, middle or bottom position. The rules above are for world 147 or “The World of Traveling Generals Craving for Recognition.” I’ll discuss this game in some detail later on.
The rules are designed so that you play with a different module in each of the three positions. The order of these modules matters so the total number of games is 9x8x7=504. The top module defines how the way the game is played and scored while the middle module determines how income is generated. The bottom module adds some flavor to the game and some end game scoring.
The modules included in 504 are:
- Pick Up & Deliver
- Race
- Privileges
- Military
- Exploration
- Roads
- Majorities
- Production
- Shares
The rule book suggests playing world 123 for the first game. This is a pick up & deliver racing game with privileges. The goal of the game is to deliver the most goods as fast as possible. The privileges are cards that can be purchased to give you bonuses to aspects of play. It was a fun little game. Most people online seem to knock it a little for its simplicity but I liked it. Not every game needs to have extremely complex rules.
With the rules position mattering, using modules 1, 2 & 3 in different order will have a large impact on the game play. I have not tried playing world 321 or 213 or the other 3 permutations that these modules can be played as. From reading through the rules for these modules though, I can say that they would be very different games. Eventually I will be trying out the other 5 combinations.
Now, back to the example I showed from the Book of Worlds above, World 147. I took turns playing as three different players in the colors Blue, Green & Purple. This world seemed to start out a little slow without much interaction but as the players expanded things got a little more interesting.
The modules used were Pick Up & Deliver, Military and Majorities. Everyone started with a capital city equidistant from one another. Each city on the board, ten in total, had a specific good it supplied and then demand for each of the other four goods . The board looked like this:
When a good is delivered to a city with demand for it, that fulfills demand and the city will no longer accept that good.
The goal here was to expand your settlements to reach other cities in order to transport goods around the board. Having the Military module in place allowed players to attack each others settlements and increase their control of the map. The Majorities module more or less ensured there would be some fighting as it added additional victory points at the end of the game for having majority control of the different types of terrain. A Majorities Board is used in the game to keep track of each players settlements and adjusts as people place/take over settlements.
The three main pieces in the game are shown above. The piece on the left represents one resident. Residents can be purchased each turn for $10 each. This is your way of expanding in the game. You move residents to new tiles to add settlements (the piece on the right) and fight with others residents and settlements. The piece in the middle is the transport trolley. This is moved around the board to collect goods and deliver them to other cities. It starts with a total movement of three tiles but can be upgraded to move up to seven. In the beginning it can hold only one good but can be upgraded to hold two goods. Players could move through enemy controlled territory at a cost of additional movement.
After a couple turns the board started to get some settlements on the board and some goods delivered.
As you can see, each player has carved out tome territory to work with. No conflict has really happened yet and the players have taken majorities on different terrain types. It looks like Blue is behind in the majority portion of the game but that is fine since those are not scored until the end of the game. A turn later though:
Blue has expanded to take a few territories away from Green and secured majority control of multiple types of terrain. I stopped playing at this point. With three full rounds of play I figured I had a pretty good grasp of the game. Each player managed to deliver two goods and had a third ready to be delivered making this stopping point roughly a third of the way through the game. Final scores were as follows:
- Green – 22 points
- Blue – 28 points
- Purple – 25 points
I quite enjoyed playing around with this world. It seemed to be a very strategic game managing resources to upgraded your trolley so you can deliver more goods or to take territory from your opponents or build up some defenses to prevent other players attacks. I will do an update to this world once I get a chance to play it with some friends. See you soon…
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