Prove who REALLY pulls the strings in Midieval Europe – Michael Schacht's Web of Power Card Game: The Duel Review

I just played my first game and, while a little confused still on some aspects, find it a cute straight forward game. You are presented with a play field of cards 4 tall and 12 wide with various country and power symbols. Your turns consist of two phases, first you can pick up 1-2 of the cards (always, almost like Mahjong Solitaire, from the right or left most edges) and then in the next phase you can drop an ownership marker on any currently unclaimed card on the board (doing so will make picking up that card much more difficult, although not impossible, for another player). The goal in this game is to own the most symbols of each of the 8 countries and 3 powers. Having 0 symbols of a given country or power will net you a -5 penalty at the end whereas, for each country or symbol you do own the majority of I think you score a 5. The trick then is to try to own the majority in as many countries and symbols as possible without having to go overboard (having 8 German symbols is likely a waste if your nearest competitor only has 4) and all the while trying to have at least some representation in all categories. All claimed cards are a matter of public record so all players can see at all points where they stand in each category with one interesting exception. As seen in image 1 of the AppStore, the game starts off with a number of brown discs in play. These are not ownership tokens but face down bonus symbols of some sort which you get when you claim the card they're on. Only the player that claims the card with the disc is allowed to see what symbol is hidden on the flipside. So while all players know the combined values of all other players' claimed symbols from the cards, other than knowing player X has 3 brown discs in his collection, the bonus symbols represented on those discs won't be reveled until the end of the game. P.S. I've only played 1 game against 1 opponent on Easy, but as far as I can tell, the AI seems competent as the 1 game was still a very close call in my favor.
Review by Lord Gek on Michael Schacht's Web of Power Card Game: The Duel.