Oath: Chronicles of Empires & Exile Review – Monty Python Meets the French Revolution

The best description of Oath: Chronicles of Empires and Exile (or just Oath) is to imagine the French Revolution carried out by King Arthur’s Round Table from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Oath is a game of different roles, where you’re either a Chancellor, Exile or Citizen.

As Chancellor, you rule the lands. Starting each game with influence in almost all areas of the kingdom. Your promise to the people of the kingdom is to uphold an oath. This will be a condition you need to fulfil by the end of the game to remain in charge.

As an Exile, you start the game by sharpening your guillotine and pitchfork. There are two ways for you to usurp the Chancellor and wrest control of the kingdom. First, you can prove you’re more capable than the current Chancellor by upholding the oath better than they can.

Otherwise, you can fulfil a vision given to you by a higher deity – in this case, the World Deck. Inspired by your vision, you’ll capture the hearts and minds of denizens everywhere. With their strength and dedication to your cause, they will help overthrow the empire.

Finally, as a Citizen, you’ve accepted the rule of the Chancellor. Well, at least for now. Because your goal throughout the game is to overthrow them from within to become the new successor. Meanwhile, helping the Chancellor quash any rebellions from the Exiles.

All three roles are vying to take over as the next Chancellor. While the path to achieving this goal is different for each role, how they achieve it is the same.

Rules within rules within rules

Oath is a heavy game in all senses of the word. So many rules, exceptions, and variations from usual game mechanics, that it takes time to learn and internalize. It took my table four hours on our first three-player game, where at least an hour of that was rules explanation and running through the tutorial.

Thankfully, Leder Games has learnt a lot from teaching their previous asymmetrical game Root and employed a lot of the same techniques here. Without that experience, the teaching would have been a lot worse.

Despite the volume of rules, Oath is largely intuitive. Each turn you’ll have some supply to use on raising troops, searching the World Deck, playing advisors, striking bargains, attacking lands, and gaining relics.

While we found we had to dig through the rule book for rare scenarios and exceptions. In most cases, we already knew the answer. By our fifth game together, we successfully reduced the game time to two hours.

However, to get a feel for what you’re in for with Oath, take this example:

For your turn you want to search the World Deck, normally costing two supplies, but since there are three visions in play it costs four. After searching, you find a good card and want to play it on your site but your site has filled its card limit of two. Except, you have the people’s favour, allowing you to discard one of these cards. Doing so would net you one coin from the bank, although, the bank has no money. However, you still get to activate the site power, granting you a relic.

If your head isn’t spinning right now, it’s a good sign you might be OK with Oath.

We’ve finished playing, but the game isn’t done

Mark my words, Oath will be one of the most influential games of the next decade. If it isn’t, it should be. The new mechanic of chronicling is wonderous and easily implementable. It allows one game to bleed into the next, without a scenario book or overarching story.

Oath does this by limiting the World Deck to 41 denizen cards. Meanwhile, there are another 157 denizen cards in the game box. The winner from each game gets to manipulate this deck, by picking and choosing six cards to add, and six to remove.

Making winning more than just bragging rights, you get to change the game. It puts all future games on the line, and winning becomes more important in Oath than any non-legacy game I’ve played. Additionally, these changes make Oath intensely more personal. You’re not going to find anyone else with the same World Deck as I do.

Beyond this chronicling, Oath also crowns the winner of the game as Chancellor of the next. With any site, the rule remains within the kingdom. There’s also the possibility of setting up semi-permanent sites if you’re able to win multiple games in a row.

Because of the importance placed on winning, we found Oath lifted off of the table. It wasn’t a game that when we packed away the box we were done. No, instead we found ourselves talking about it in our group chat. Planning on taking down the Chancellor, and strategising throughout the week until our next session.

This is something we’ve never done for any other game.

It’s not a great game

Mechanically, Oath isn’t a game I’m rushing to play. Even though its sandbox environment lets me live my non-existent desire to join in the crusades, it’s not the poster child for modern game design.

Turns are long and involved, which is fantastic when you’re on the button but creates a lot of downtime when you’re not. As mentioned, you get several supplies to spend each turn, meaning you can do anywhere between 1 and 10 actions.

What makes this downtime worse, is that all of the winning conditions require you to start your turn in the lead. So after you’ve put yourself in a winning position you then have to sweat through 5-10 minutes of people scheming against you. That’s a long time to wait to know if you’ve won.

Next, while all cards are powerful, they are contextually so. The dominant cards from one game can feel limp and weak in the next. Getting stuck with a bad hand because of the context of the game will make Oath feel impossible to win. Which is never fun, no matter the game you’re playing.

Beyond cards, there are also alliances. If you find yourself the lone Exile surrounded by Citizens, you’re not going to have a good time. At all.

Finally, while a full game of Oath is eight rounds after the fifth the Chancellor can yell “Time to Win”, roll a die, get a six, and end the game – based on a true story. To be fair, the Chancellor has to work hard to earn the right to end the game. But for long-term planners, this is going to annoy you no end. All your schemes can be ruined by a lucky die roll.

BUT…

Almost none of the above flaws matter. Because Oath is the best board game at creating an emerging narrative, and it’s not close.

These “flaws” in the game create challenges to overcome, and narrative arcs you and your friends will get invested in. I distinctly remember every one of the six games I played of Oath. Because each one told a distinct story with all the drama, comedy, politics, and intrigue you’d expect from an HBO show.

While there is some slow build-up in the game, as it takes time for people to build their schemes. By the fifth round, everyone has either been in a winning position or is about to be in a winning position.

That’s when Oath becomes a dog pile with everyone trying to climb over each other to get to the top. You’re often positioned where if you stop Bob, then Steve will win. But if you stop Bob & Steve then Jake will win.

After all, Oath is all about king-making.

It’s captivating to play, and exciting to relive through the memories. These are all enhanced by the chronicling mechanism, reminding you of these past exploits and adventures. While playing you’re simultaneously experiencing nostalgia, as well as creating a new chapter.

And what’s most exciting about these new choices you’re making is the impact they’ll have on games to come. For instance, once when it was clear I wasn’t going to win, I spent my last turns clearing the sites of the next Chancellor. Weakening them for the next game. So even when I couldn’t impact the current game, I could still affect the story for the next game.

Where to from here?

Oath is a hard game to judge and rank. Because according to all board game metrics, it’s awful. It’s too heavy for what it is, it’s complicated, it’s unfair, and to pull it off the shelf for a one-off session, there are much better games.

But, if you’re going to be sitting down and playing Oath three or four sessions in a row. There’s not a board game out there able to compete in terms of flavour and story. And if that’s as important to you, as it is for me, then Oath will be a game for the ages.