A War of Whispers – First Impressions
Review copy provided by the publisher
From designer Jeremy Stoltzfus and Starling Games, A War of Whispers is one of those games that many people may have missed out on, but it’s one of the highlights from a publisher that I’m very fond of. Starling Games is behind fantastic games like Everdell (maybe my favorite tableau-builder), Black Orchestra (one of my top thematic games), and Flourish (my favorite game that reminds me of the 1993 movie The Secret Garden).
Originally released in 2019, the game has undergone some changes with second editions of both the standard and collector’s versions. A War of Whispers is a competitive strategy game in which 2-4 players fight for ultimate influence over the five warring empires on the map. Each player has varying degrees of loyalty to the empires, from fanatical alliances to distinct opposition. Players act as the unseen hands of secret societies, pulling strings from the shadows and hoping that the empires’ territories align with their ordered loyalties by the end of the game.
It’s sleek and it now looks better than ever, which is one of the few criticisms I had the first time around. With improved visuals and upgraded components, let’s see how A War of Whispers fares in 2021.
What It Does
In A War of Whispers, players try to keep their agendas and their ambition veiled, hidden from opponents so that their plans are not thwarted. The strategy lies in figuring out how to advance the progression of the empires you care about (and damaging the growth of the ones you’re opposed to) without the others recognizing what you’re doing. And if they do happen to discover your machinations for the warring factions, then hope their own plans are nearly in line with your own to avoid a war of attrition.
Thankfully, you can switch loyalties if the outcome looks hopeless, but keep in mind that such an action will reveal part of your overall strategy to the other players. It can be a game-saving maneuver, but it comes at a cost.
Each empire possesses similar actions that players will claim over the course of the game, but unique Empire decks incentivize players to visit certain parts of the world. The powers of each empire can be combined to create larger disruptions of the conflict.
Here are things I like that the game does well:
Strategy matters from the beginning; your commitment to empires cements over time and you have to figure out the right movement for your agents.
The game plays fast while scratching the itch for a larger strategy game.
Player interaction is constant while abstaining from direct gain/loss that creates an uncomfortable gaming environment.
How It Does It
The biggest part of the mechanics is hidden information. You don’t know the weight of other players’ allegiances to the warring factions. Do they want the Eagle empire to succeed? Or come crashing down. Those tokens remain facedown unless a player chooses two loyalties to swap in between rounds. Those two then remain face up for the rest of the game and can’t be moved again.
That uncertainty bleeds into every decision in A War of Whispers as you try to determine if a move will help you more than it will help an opponent. And if you’re effectively neutralizing a faction that they want to advance or if you’re playing into their hand.
Area control is the next big factor. Cities are what score multipliers at the end of the game. Have a lot in one faction? That could either really boost your total, affect in a minor way, or take away much-needed points. So figuring out which factions to send into what territories is important. And unexpected movement or attacks can occur with the assistance from Empire cards, so nothing is truly safe. Every advantage on the battlefield can be overturned with the right play.
The interplay between the hidden information and the area control is where A War of Whispers shines. You want to suss out what other players are going for because when more than one player begins to push for the growth of one empire, it’s hard to fight against. Not impossible. But hard. So helping another player boost an empire that scores well (not high, but well) might be more advantageous in the moment than fighting back-and-forth with another player with more volatile empires.
And the rondel-style progression through the different empires makes for some crucial decisions. Avoiding certain empires with your agent placement means that entire phases of the game can pass without your influence. That’s dangerous, especially when activating empires that you don’t want to succeed can still be valuable. Don’t like the northern empire descending down into a faction you support? Hijack their actions and squander their potential. Acting within an empire can just as easily cause strife and backward movement rather than progress and expansion.
Finally, the cards are the final cherry on top. Typical actions are quick to resolve and not very weighty. It’s usually a slow build to a larger movement of troops and territorial conflict. Cards, however, can greatly impact the efficacy of a turn by enabling massive maneuvers and otherwise impossible attacks or actions. Using one is nice. Using two in combination can create devastating actions. And using the Conquest or Dark Alliance cards also influences gameplay in special ways.
So, the mechanical design sets up A War of Whispers for success from the perspective of how it encourages players to interact with each other and develop a strategy. But the cards also give the variability and ingenuity that players will appreciate when they discover all of the ways to affect the course of the war.
Why You Might Like It
A War of Whispers manages to condense some of the thematic tension and territorial strife of larger strategy games into a faster pace with fewer hurt feelings. The mechanical distance between the players and the factions that they control or influence means that all players are striving for an optimal play without worrying whether “their” army is going to be wiped out and their plans erased.
The system of placing agents on the rondel action spaces, and progressively adding more agents, makes decisions feel meaningful every time as you determine a larger thread of strategy across the game.
Why You Might Not
Based on how faction allegiances are randomly placed by players—and how loyalties can be swapped between rounds—it’s possible to have a game where players seem to be supporting the rise and fall of the same factions.
This may make the game feel less like an opportunity for players to execute strategies opposite their opponents and more a contest of point optimization.
Final Thoughts
If you’re going to get A War of Whispers, I recommend the Collector’s Edition. That’s not because I’m trying to push a more expensive product, though. It’s because that’s the version that best fixes the visual flaws of the original game and increases the variability with additional cards already integrated into the deck.
The game board is one of the most important aspects of the game. Needing to see the number of towers, farms, and cities (as well as any banners from different factions) directly influences what a player will likely do on their turn. In earlier editions, the borders between territories and the outlines of the three building types—which influence army mustering, territorial defense, and endgame scoring—were difficult to discern from across the table.
And the variety of cards—traditional Empire cards, dual-choice Conquest cards, wild Treasure cards, and player interaction Dark Alliance cards—gives player agency in creating powerful combinations and more effective Agent turns.
The most common description I’ve heard about A War of Whispers is that it’s like A Game of Thrones but plays fast and doesn’t require a specific player count to actually work. And while I do agree with parts of that assessment, it doesn’t really capture the novelty of the game.
Most area control and conflict-heavy games force player interaction in a hostile way. Players are competing in ways that elevate the status of one player while diminishing that of another. This game avoids that with clever design.
Players are pulling the puppet strings of these armies on the ground, acting as spymasters and advisors in the shadows. If we’re going to reference A Song of Ice and Fire or Game of Thrones, players would be someone akin to Littlefinger or Varys.
Because of that—and because of the freedom to swap allegiances at certain points in the game—it manages to avoid player elimination and feelings of frustration or saltiness from having one’s army wiped out. That achievement alone is worth noting.
But the game is also just a fun puzzle to figure out. How can you use an empire’s actions to help them? How can you use those actions to derail and destroy the momentum of that very same empire? When is the best time to switch loyalties? Which ones should you switch?
These questions, and players’ answers to them, are part of what makes A War of Whispers special.
Have you played A War of Whispers before? If you haven’t, but you like area control and hidden information games, then this might be something you should look into.
Let us know in the comments and give a recommendation for other games of which to share our first impressions.