After a hiatus of far too long, I’m back and pushing my thoughts out there to the blog-reading community. After enjoying a visit to GenCon and then writing profusely about it it is time to wind down and collect my boardgaming thoughts. One such thought has centered around lightweight, fast-playing games. I do enjoy stretching my gaming muscles in longer games that take an hour or more to develop and finish, but I find a significant fraction of my gaming time revolving around gaming with relatively lightweight gamers. Thus, I have turned an eye toward finding a selection of favorite lightweight games.
In my book, a lightweight game needs to play fast. If I’m going to commit a chunk of time to a game I expect to get some nice, deep thinking about it. This is my main objection to Cosmic Encounter - it is great in theory and I love the “festive” nature of the game, but far too often the game can drag on past its initial welcome. If the game is going to have shifting fortunes and a significant element of chance I prefer it to land in the 30 to 45 minute mark so that a truly poor string of luck does not drag out for extended periods. However, I often find nonrandom, pure abstracts to be a bit too dry for my taste, so there has to be some sort of balance between luck and strategy.
Two games I came across at GenCon seem to meet both of my criteria: To Court the King published by Rio Grande Games and Owners Choice by Z-Man Games. They have a fair bit of luck (they both revolve around rolling dice), are simple to explain so that the game can start right away, take about 45 minutes or less to play, but still contain a decent number of opportunities for strategic decisions.
To Court the King can best be described as Yahtzee on steroids. Players roll dice in order to match the values displayed on cards set in the middle of the table. Starting out with only three dice, players can hope to roll a pair to get the Farmer card, granting an extra die in future rolls. Rolling three of a kind gets players a different card with different powers. As the more powerful cards require players to roll dice that add up to a total of 20 or more pips or roll five of a kind, players must therefore slowly progress up the dice “technology tree” gaining more powers and/or dice at the conclusion of each turn. When someone finally rolls seven of a kind, they win the King card and triggers the final round of rolling. In a sort of roll-off, each player uses the powers of all their cards one last time to roll the most of a kind on their dice. My favorite part of the game is in the various powers granted by the cards. Some focus on giving a player additional dice to roll, while others grant special powers to manipulate the numbers on the dice. Thus, there are two extremes in strategy, a sort of gather up all the dice you can muster strategy or one where players gain a few dice but have many special powers to manipulate them as needed. The decisions tend to be entirely tactical, trying to optimize the result of each series of rolls, this is increased for players who obtain several of the special power cards, creating a kind of miniature puzzle every time a turn comes around. In my game at GenCon I was able to claim the King card using several special powers on my cards. However, in the final dice-off I just missed claiming victory and had to settle for third place right behind an opponent who had focused more on claiming as many dice as possible. (For the record I think I had seven 4’s to his seven 5’s or some such thing even though I only had eight dice to roll and he had around eleven or twelve). As mentioned, the game can be explained and quickly started without too much preparation, an important consideration when trying to coax noncommittal boardgamers into a game. At a running time of around 45 minutes it strikes a nice balance of strategy, luck, and depth.
Owner’s Choice in contrast, is a very lightweight economic game. There is a central board and a single pawn is moved around the outside track one time and then the game is over. Players invest in one or more stocks (there are four types) with the highest shareholder of each company declared president. The president holds onto a special colored die representing the fate of that company. On their turn, each player moves the pawn from one to three spaces forward (their choice). It will typically land on a space matching the color of one of the four companies. If, for example, it is placed on red, then the president of red must pay $50 to the middle of the board and then roll the red die. The red company then suffers the result, which is typically a good thing. Each company has strengths and weaknesses, depending on the distribution of results on that color die. The green company slowly increases in price or pays out frequent dividends, the yellow company has very high variability, going greatly up or down in price, the red company tends to go up in price but might force the president to increase the price of a different color stock, and the blue company can increase but can also allow the president to cause other company stocks to fall. If a president doesn’t wish to pay $50 (or can’t) he or she must roll the black die. In most cases, this drops the stock in price one or two levels and awards the president with all the cash previously paid to the center of the board. After the pawn moves once around the outside of the board, the game ends. Since the board is not that large, a game can be played in 20 minutes or less, although typical games average more like 30 minutes. Since games rely on the vagaries of the roll of the dice, Owner’s Choice plays differently every game. While the dice are set up to favor net increases in the long haul, I have also witnessed games where nearly all the stocks fell in price and if a player had not bought any stock the entire game, they would have come out in a comfortable second place. I am still not sure if the luck of the game is overpowering, it definitely can be in any single game, but there seems to be enough room for strategic decisions so that good decisions will tend to be rewarded over the long-term course of several games. One friend remarked that he enjoyed the chaos aspect of the game as players are encouraged to make strategic, long-term decisions to mitigate the luck of the dice rather than what is found in many other games - tactical decisions responding to the luck of the dice.
While I currently slightly favor To Court the King over Owner’s Choice I am willing and eager to continue to bring either one to the gaming table. They’re not my first choice when I have an hour or more to kill and dedicated gamers to play with, but for my frequent bouts of gaming with more laid-back players, a quick game or three of a lighter weight game with meaningful choices is still a good deal.
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label review. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Old Puzzler Answer / The News in Reviews / New Fortnightly Puzzler (for everyone!)
Thank you to everyone who tried out the "Backwards Brainteaser." If you're interested in more, write to smattathias@gmail.com. I've got a variety of mazes/brainteasers using the same movement rules.
The winner is Terry Donahue who solved the puzzle correctly with the following 19 move sequence: A6, A5, A6, B6, B5, A5, A4, A5, B5, B6, A6, A5, A4, A5, B5, B4, A4, A3, A2 (also W, W, E, N, W, S, W, E, N, E, S, W, W, E, N, W, S, W, W). Congratulations!
As a side note, Terry referred me to Robert Abbott's website about mazes: http://www.logicmazes.com/. As it happens, I read Abbott's book Mad Mazes when I was kid! If you like interesting mazes, give this website a try. Truly fascinating stuff.
Let's switch gears.
For a couple of years, I've been writing game reviews for our local paper, the Missoulian. Over time, I've developed a format for writing the reviews: 1) I tell a personal anecdote, 2) I lead into the actual game and write a short overview with a few impressions, and 3) sum up the article by reaching some reflective conclusion about the personal story. Sometimes this formula works great, and sometimes it's a little forced. Overall though, I've gotten a ton of feedback from folks who presumably wouldn't read a game review article without the human element.
It dawned on me that I hadn't posted any of those articles here. Gone Gaming and BGG are for the True Gaming Fan, and I think I convinced myself that there wouldn't be any interest due to the lack of an in depth review. Perhaps, I thought wrong.
Here's my recent article. Enjoy!
************************************************************************
Every July when I was a kid, my parents would drive to the outskirts of town and buy fireworks for the family. Of course, we'd turn right around and drive home. Fireworks were technically illegal within the Corpus Christi city limits, but on the 4th, there wasn't a whole lot the law could do.
My dad was very strict about the use of fireworks: Lay the firecracker on the ground. Light the fuse. Run. We did this with everything, from Black Cats to Roman Candles. From his intensity you might have guessed we were lighting dynamite or pulling the pin from a grenade. My dad was a firecracker drill sergeant, and in time, I came to know the reason why.
Popping firecrackers in our backyard started long before I was born. In those early years, it was usually just my dad and my two brothers, Nick and Charlie.
As the story goes, my dad lit a firecracker and then regrouped with my brothers a safe distance away. The fuse went all the way down, and nothing happened. My dad and Nick started yelling, "It's a dud! It's a dud!" Charlie, not wise in the ways of the world, approached and picked up the firecracker.
It exploded.
Other than a couple of red fingers, Charlie didn't get hurt. But his ego had been severely bruised, and he was furious at both my dad and Nick.
This firecracking season brings to mind an appropriate game, if for nothing else but its name. The game is Bang!
Created by Emiliano Sciarra and produced by Mayfair Games, Bang! is a simple card game recreating the classic spaghetti western with good guys, bad guys, and a healthy dose of bullets.
Four to seven players are each dealt an identity card. The possible identities are the sheriff, a deputy, an outlaw, or a renegade. Each identity comes with a different goal. The sheriff and deputy want to kill all the outlaws; the outlaws want to kill both the sheriff and the deputy; the renegade wants to be the last man standing.
It's a simple enough premise, but at the beginning of every game, only the sheriff's identity is known. Through trial and error and a whole lot of bullets, each player tries to figure out the identities of the other players and ultimately who's with him and who's against him.
The cards in the deck have a variety of purposes. There are "miss" cards that allow you to dodge bullets, beer cards which give you energy (of course!), and gun cards which ramp up how far you can shoot or how much. Most simply let you "bang" another player.
And therein lies the fun. Bang! is a game that allows you to step into the boots of a gunslinger, hand on the holster and trigger finger itching for a chance. It's a great game for fans of the Old West genre and a fun, lighthearted approach to that dusty, familiar showdown scene. Best of all, no one is immune from a quick, explosive "BANG!"
This brings me back to Charlie and his unfortunate mishap. He supposedly held a grudge against my dad and Nick for several years.
When he was in high school, Charlie once again recounted the story to my mom, who was by then well-versed in the details. This time, however, Charlie's tone had changed. According to my mom, he said, "You know, when I picked up that firecracker and it blew up in my hand, it wasn't dad's or Nick's fault. It was mine."
I would like to have been there in that moment. I would like to have heard my brother say those words, to have felt their weight in the air. The moment was so short as to be unnoticeable, but my mother remembers after all these years. It wasn't the football games Charlie won nor the grades he made that made an impression, though I'm sure they had their place. In a moment, my brother grew up, and it's hard to imagine a more spectacular event than that.
***********************************************************************
New Fortnightly Puzzler
This time, I'd like to play 20 questions. You'll have to work as a team for this one.
Let me first state that I played that electronic 20 Questions toy, and it actually got my thought which was "lemur." The first question is a four-in-one, so it actually asked 23 questions (if you include the asking of what I was thinking, then it's 24 questions). I think we can do better.
I'm thinking of a specific game. In 20 questions, can you figure out what it is? I'll respond to all posts as often as I can during the next two weeks. Post carefully! I'll be counting…
Good luck!
The winner is Terry Donahue who solved the puzzle correctly with the following 19 move sequence: A6, A5, A6, B6, B5, A5, A4, A5, B5, B6, A6, A5, A4, A5, B5, B4, A4, A3, A2 (also W, W, E, N, W, S, W, E, N, E, S, W, W, E, N, W, S, W, W). Congratulations!
As a side note, Terry referred me to Robert Abbott's website about mazes: http://www.logicmazes.com/. As it happens, I read Abbott's book Mad Mazes when I was kid! If you like interesting mazes, give this website a try. Truly fascinating stuff.
Let's switch gears.
For a couple of years, I've been writing game reviews for our local paper, the Missoulian. Over time, I've developed a format for writing the reviews: 1) I tell a personal anecdote, 2) I lead into the actual game and write a short overview with a few impressions, and 3) sum up the article by reaching some reflective conclusion about the personal story. Sometimes this formula works great, and sometimes it's a little forced. Overall though, I've gotten a ton of feedback from folks who presumably wouldn't read a game review article without the human element.
It dawned on me that I hadn't posted any of those articles here. Gone Gaming and BGG are for the True Gaming Fan, and I think I convinced myself that there wouldn't be any interest due to the lack of an in depth review. Perhaps, I thought wrong.
Here's my recent article. Enjoy!
************************************************************************
Every July when I was a kid, my parents would drive to the outskirts of town and buy fireworks for the family. Of course, we'd turn right around and drive home. Fireworks were technically illegal within the Corpus Christi city limits, but on the 4th, there wasn't a whole lot the law could do.
My dad was very strict about the use of fireworks: Lay the firecracker on the ground. Light the fuse. Run. We did this with everything, from Black Cats to Roman Candles. From his intensity you might have guessed we were lighting dynamite or pulling the pin from a grenade. My dad was a firecracker drill sergeant, and in time, I came to know the reason why.
Popping firecrackers in our backyard started long before I was born. In those early years, it was usually just my dad and my two brothers, Nick and Charlie.
As the story goes, my dad lit a firecracker and then regrouped with my brothers a safe distance away. The fuse went all the way down, and nothing happened. My dad and Nick started yelling, "It's a dud! It's a dud!" Charlie, not wise in the ways of the world, approached and picked up the firecracker.
It exploded.
Other than a couple of red fingers, Charlie didn't get hurt. But his ego had been severely bruised, and he was furious at both my dad and Nick.
This firecracking season brings to mind an appropriate game, if for nothing else but its name. The game is Bang!
Created by Emiliano Sciarra and produced by Mayfair Games, Bang! is a simple card game recreating the classic spaghetti western with good guys, bad guys, and a healthy dose of bullets.
Four to seven players are each dealt an identity card. The possible identities are the sheriff, a deputy, an outlaw, or a renegade. Each identity comes with a different goal. The sheriff and deputy want to kill all the outlaws; the outlaws want to kill both the sheriff and the deputy; the renegade wants to be the last man standing.
It's a simple enough premise, but at the beginning of every game, only the sheriff's identity is known. Through trial and error and a whole lot of bullets, each player tries to figure out the identities of the other players and ultimately who's with him and who's against him.
The cards in the deck have a variety of purposes. There are "miss" cards that allow you to dodge bullets, beer cards which give you energy (of course!), and gun cards which ramp up how far you can shoot or how much. Most simply let you "bang" another player.
And therein lies the fun. Bang! is a game that allows you to step into the boots of a gunslinger, hand on the holster and trigger finger itching for a chance. It's a great game for fans of the Old West genre and a fun, lighthearted approach to that dusty, familiar showdown scene. Best of all, no one is immune from a quick, explosive "BANG!"
This brings me back to Charlie and his unfortunate mishap. He supposedly held a grudge against my dad and Nick for several years.
When he was in high school, Charlie once again recounted the story to my mom, who was by then well-versed in the details. This time, however, Charlie's tone had changed. According to my mom, he said, "You know, when I picked up that firecracker and it blew up in my hand, it wasn't dad's or Nick's fault. It was mine."
I would like to have been there in that moment. I would like to have heard my brother say those words, to have felt their weight in the air. The moment was so short as to be unnoticeable, but my mother remembers after all these years. It wasn't the football games Charlie won nor the grades he made that made an impression, though I'm sure they had their place. In a moment, my brother grew up, and it's hard to imagine a more spectacular event than that.
***********************************************************************
New Fortnightly Puzzler
This time, I'd like to play 20 questions. You'll have to work as a team for this one.
Let me first state that I played that electronic 20 Questions toy, and it actually got my thought which was "lemur." The first question is a four-in-one, so it actually asked 23 questions (if you include the asking of what I was thinking, then it's 24 questions). I think we can do better.
I'm thinking of a specific game. In 20 questions, can you figure out what it is? I'll respond to all posts as often as I can during the next two weeks. Post carefully! I'll be counting…
Good luck!
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
A couple of new ones...
Well, not much to say this week, I've got vacation hanging over my head so am rushing around to put that together.
I'll be seeing some nieces and nephews, they're all still fairly young so I think I'll just bring along Igloo Pop and No Thanks! as they can fit quite a range of players as well as a decent range of numbers of players.
I've manage to game quite a bit in the past two weeks, just a little above normal and that is mostly due to my recent aquisition of Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery by Tropical Games. That is a long name, but the game deserves it. As I'm sure other people might have mentioned elsewhere, there aren't a lot of new mechanics to be seen here, but they are all well-oiled and work together to make a very nice game. My favorite style of game, in fact. Lots of agonizing choices where there are several good things you want to do but not enough resources to pull them all off. It seems like a fairly quick game but does tend to pull in at around two hours, and not the one hour I keep thinking it takes... To top it off, the game has a nice snowball (or engine building or "garden-tending") style to it so everyone's strategies tend to pay off in greater and greater amounts as the game goes on... I've played it 3 or 4 times in the past week and will be playing it some more in the future, I'm sure.
The other game I've been playing is the Stonehenge game anthology put out by Titanic Games. This is a set of pieces for five players consisting of a deck of cards, a circular track on a playing board, some round colored tokens, and some colored bar-shaped tokens. Then five "big-name" designers all developed a game for this set of pieces. Purchasers are, of course, also encouraged to try to design their own games - something I'm glad to see encouraged as I think it will help foster some nice creativity in younger minds and possibly swell the ranks of game designers in general. (More games for me to play, possibly.) In any case, I enjoyed most of the games I tried in Stonehenge. They all tended to take about 45 minutes to an hour to play and had a nice amount of gameplay contained in that short period of time. I wouldn't have wanted the games to go much longer as they weren't as deep as most games that aren't "anthologies", but for 60 minutes they were a very nice treat. In fact, in one evening I played five games of Stonehenge. Two games each of the first and third game in the instruction manual (each game takes up 2 pages of instructions so they aren't that complex) and then one game of the set.
We (the four, then five of us) all liked the first game a sort of area control game, and enjoyed the third - based around bidding for stones to collect sets of like colors. The last game we played, was supposed to be a wargame but was more like another area control. It was interesting but I think it was limited by the small deck size. I think that struck the heart of the limiting factor of this sort of anthology. Since all the parts are set out ahead of time, you can't customize things to "fix" problems as they arise. I wonder if the wargame would play better if it had just a bit more time to develop - thus needing slightly more cards. Then again, I guess our group could tinker with it ourselves, that's what the anthology is trying to promote in the first place.
Bottom line: I've got to finish vacation preparations so that's all for today. But if you're looking for a "bottom line" on the Stonehenge anthology, I give it a pretty big thumbs up. There are at least 2 if not 3 quality games there that can be played in a medium-short period of time and be quite enjoyable (strategic/not just a time waster). That is a somewhat rare category and with a couple varieties of game to choose from in one box, that's a pretty good deal.
I'll be seeing some nieces and nephews, they're all still fairly young so I think I'll just bring along Igloo Pop and No Thanks! as they can fit quite a range of players as well as a decent range of numbers of players.
I've manage to game quite a bit in the past two weeks, just a little above normal and that is mostly due to my recent aquisition of Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery by Tropical Games. That is a long name, but the game deserves it. As I'm sure other people might have mentioned elsewhere, there aren't a lot of new mechanics to be seen here, but they are all well-oiled and work together to make a very nice game. My favorite style of game, in fact. Lots of agonizing choices where there are several good things you want to do but not enough resources to pull them all off. It seems like a fairly quick game but does tend to pull in at around two hours, and not the one hour I keep thinking it takes... To top it off, the game has a nice snowball (or engine building or "garden-tending") style to it so everyone's strategies tend to pay off in greater and greater amounts as the game goes on... I've played it 3 or 4 times in the past week and will be playing it some more in the future, I'm sure.
The other game I've been playing is the Stonehenge game anthology put out by Titanic Games. This is a set of pieces for five players consisting of a deck of cards, a circular track on a playing board, some round colored tokens, and some colored bar-shaped tokens. Then five "big-name" designers all developed a game for this set of pieces. Purchasers are, of course, also encouraged to try to design their own games - something I'm glad to see encouraged as I think it will help foster some nice creativity in younger minds and possibly swell the ranks of game designers in general. (More games for me to play, possibly.) In any case, I enjoyed most of the games I tried in Stonehenge. They all tended to take about 45 minutes to an hour to play and had a nice amount of gameplay contained in that short period of time. I wouldn't have wanted the games to go much longer as they weren't as deep as most games that aren't "anthologies", but for 60 minutes they were a very nice treat. In fact, in one evening I played five games of Stonehenge. Two games each of the first and third game in the instruction manual (each game takes up 2 pages of instructions so they aren't that complex) and then one game of the set.
We (the four, then five of us) all liked the first game a sort of area control game, and enjoyed the third - based around bidding for stones to collect sets of like colors. The last game we played, was supposed to be a wargame but was more like another area control. It was interesting but I think it was limited by the small deck size. I think that struck the heart of the limiting factor of this sort of anthology. Since all the parts are set out ahead of time, you can't customize things to "fix" problems as they arise. I wonder if the wargame would play better if it had just a bit more time to develop - thus needing slightly more cards. Then again, I guess our group could tinker with it ourselves, that's what the anthology is trying to promote in the first place.
Bottom line: I've got to finish vacation preparations so that's all for today. But if you're looking for a "bottom line" on the Stonehenge anthology, I give it a pretty big thumbs up. There are at least 2 if not 3 quality games there that can be played in a medium-short period of time and be quite enjoyable (strategic/not just a time waster). That is a somewhat rare category and with a couple varieties of game to choose from in one box, that's a pretty good deal.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Short Game thoughts
There's been a flood of new games1 recently. Too many to play all of them, and all too many of them have turned out to be sizable time commitments. I've been spoiled by Taluva, Ur, Yspahan and the like. Bring back my one hour game!
So here's my thoughts on recent games. Not really reviews. Just impressions and thoughts.
Tide of Iron
Unplayed. Not sure if I'll actually get around to it. A couple of customers like it though.
Notre Dame
I love drafting cards. Years spent drafting Magic: The gathering have left me with a passion for "choose one and pass the rest" I'm glad that this design space is being explored. Notre Dame is pretty good, and also probably the shortest of the latest crop. I think experienced players could play it in under 45 minutes. I still haven't figured out if one of the seven actions is just completely underpowered, or if there's some way to exploit it. Not going to blow anyone away, but a fun game.
Ran
Do you like the Great Battles of History series? No? Move along.2
Colosseum
An interesting game with lots of neat bits (both bits and bitz), slick execution, two ways to play... and about 45 minutes too much game. At 75 minutes this would be great. At the 120 minutes it's taken to play 5 turns, I've been dissapointed. High points involve collecting chariot riding poets, some decent auctioning (using the variant rules), and a very constricted build tree. Low points involve a trading phase that can drag and those extra 45 minutes. Sadly I don't know how I could speed it up.
Age of Empires III3
Glenn Drover has really found his place in the world of game design. He takes other peoples ideas and respins them into a form that is identifiable, but uniquely his. It's not just the excess of sculpted plastic pieces, but something else that links his games together. Drawing heavily on the action selection mechanisms of Caylus, AoE brings special worker pieces, action tiles, and some area control into the mix. Unfortunately, it hasn't fixed the only real complaint I have about Caylus - the time it takes for beginners to play the game. We can often get through 3-4 games in an evening, but AoE took 3.5 hours for the first game. Obviously it would speed up a bit with play, but it is definitely too long. Otherwise I enjoyed it. Is it worth the extra money for the plastic bitz? No. A smaller box and cheaper pieces would have been a better game.
Stack Market
I'm excited, but every game group since this appeared has been five players. Bring me four players! Bring me tall stacks of cubical corporations!
And then there's the faceless rest that are waiting for me to play. Several that I don't think I'll get to play for a while, and some that are on my short list. Many of them also cap out at 4 players, so are suffering just like Stack Market. Oh well.
Aaron
--
1at least new-to-domestic games. While I'm always happy to play imports, specifically post essen, or what have you, I tend to consider a game 'unavailable' until it gets a domestic release, or the European publisher will return my emails. Of course it's the retailer in me - tracking the 'newness' of a game by when it shows up on my shelves. But it does often come down to exposure. Even if it is easy to find the game at a FOGS - if it needs a rules translation and people can't pick it up off the shelf, it really isn't 'available'. It's just available to the fanatics who do crazy things like blog about games. Sheesh.
2I don't move along. Samurai plus GBH? yay!
3Ah, such an improvement over Age of Empires II, this returns the series to it's roots and reminds us all of how much we loved the original.
So here's my thoughts on recent games. Not really reviews. Just impressions and thoughts.
Tide of Iron
Unplayed. Not sure if I'll actually get around to it. A couple of customers like it though.
Notre Dame
I love drafting cards. Years spent drafting Magic: The gathering have left me with a passion for "choose one and pass the rest" I'm glad that this design space is being explored. Notre Dame is pretty good, and also probably the shortest of the latest crop. I think experienced players could play it in under 45 minutes. I still haven't figured out if one of the seven actions is just completely underpowered, or if there's some way to exploit it. Not going to blow anyone away, but a fun game.
Ran
Do you like the Great Battles of History series? No? Move along.2
Colosseum
An interesting game with lots of neat bits (both bits and bitz), slick execution, two ways to play... and about 45 minutes too much game. At 75 minutes this would be great. At the 120 minutes it's taken to play 5 turns, I've been dissapointed. High points involve collecting chariot riding poets, some decent auctioning (using the variant rules), and a very constricted build tree. Low points involve a trading phase that can drag and those extra 45 minutes. Sadly I don't know how I could speed it up.
Age of Empires III3
Glenn Drover has really found his place in the world of game design. He takes other peoples ideas and respins them into a form that is identifiable, but uniquely his. It's not just the excess of sculpted plastic pieces, but something else that links his games together. Drawing heavily on the action selection mechanisms of Caylus, AoE brings special worker pieces, action tiles, and some area control into the mix. Unfortunately, it hasn't fixed the only real complaint I have about Caylus - the time it takes for beginners to play the game. We can often get through 3-4 games in an evening, but AoE took 3.5 hours for the first game. Obviously it would speed up a bit with play, but it is definitely too long. Otherwise I enjoyed it. Is it worth the extra money for the plastic bitz? No. A smaller box and cheaper pieces would have been a better game.
Stack Market
I'm excited, but every game group since this appeared has been five players. Bring me four players! Bring me tall stacks of cubical corporations!
And then there's the faceless rest that are waiting for me to play. Several that I don't think I'll get to play for a while, and some that are on my short list. Many of them also cap out at 4 players, so are suffering just like Stack Market. Oh well.
Aaron
--
1at least new-to-domestic games. While I'm always happy to play imports, specifically post essen, or what have you, I tend to consider a game 'unavailable' until it gets a domestic release, or the European publisher will return my emails. Of course it's the retailer in me - tracking the 'newness' of a game by when it shows up on my shelves. But it does often come down to exposure. Even if it is easy to find the game at a FOGS - if it needs a rules translation and people can't pick it up off the shelf, it really isn't 'available'. It's just available to the fanatics who do crazy things like blog about games. Sheesh.
2I don't move along. Samurai plus GBH? yay!
3Ah, such an improvement over Age of Empires II, this returns the series to it's roots and reminds us all of how much we loved the original.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Cities, Curses, and Churches
Last weekend I had the chance to participate at a friend’s “Game-a-thon”, a day of open gaming at his house where folks drop in when they can. I was able to stay for a few hours and had my choice of playing in a game of Shogun (the new version of Wallenstein) or playing several shorter games. I chose to play some shorter games, as I thought I would have more fun, and it would give me an opportunity to play with some folks I don’t get to play with as often.
First up was Saint Petersburg (Rio Grande Games). I enjoy this game immensely, although have been a tad burned out on it as I get to play it against the computer frequently using the freeware computer program (check out the WestPark Gamers web site to download it). The computer AI is not too bad, and I only win four player games about 1/3 of the time. I got lucky in the first Noble round, picking up the 18-cost noble that provided a steady income of 6 rubles and 3 victory points from then on out. Things continued to fall into place for me and I outpaced the rest of the group by about 20 or so points. The game ended very quickly with all the blue buildings coming out before people had very many nobles. I took advantage of the observatory to pick up a couple of extra nobles during the blue building rounds, and made sure to hold a noble upgrade or two in my hand even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to put them down until late in the game. All in all, I think my computer playing experience served me well, although I will also admit that I had some nice opportunities fall in my lap. If you haven’t played the game, I highly recommend it. It contains a strong “build-up” element requiring players to initially focus on income and then transition to victory points later in the game. At the same time it also offers a few distinct ways of obtaining victory points (focusing on buildings or nobles or a mixture of both). All this is combined in a quick-playing (roughly an hour) game that is simple to explain to new players (takes about 10minutes or less to get up and playing.) I highly recommend St. Petersburg to help casual boardgamers make the leap into the build-up or “snowball” style of boardgames.
The second game we played is a new one by Asmodee, Wicked Witches Way. It is a very lightweight game where players are all witches and are trying to win a race. The first player to finish the race earns a few bonus points while all the other witches gain points proportional to how close they are to the finish. However, winning the race is only part of the points, players can gain special cards that give bonus points at the end of the game (for having performed acrobatics during the race.) The game revolves around rolling a set of 9 dice in a cool little book-shaped box. Players examine the dice rolled which display various orange or black symbols. When a player is ready, they shut the box and then lay down their spell cards. Players have spell cards that match the symbols on the dice. The object is to play either one or more symbols that match the orange symbols showing on the dice or one or more symbols that match the black symbols on the dice. If a symbol appears as both an orange and a black, it should not be played. Once the book is shut (hiding the dice), players can take their time playing their cards. The book is then opened and players check their spell cards. Players move their witches forward one space for each correct symbol they match. If they make a mistake (by playing symbols that appeared as both orange and black, or a symbol that didn’t appear at all) then they don’t get to move. The player who closed the book gets to score their turn first, but if they make a mistake, they go back 2 spaces. To add some spice into the game, if a player manages to play ALL the correct orange or ALL the correct black dice, it is a “perfect spell” and a bonus is earned (as long as you are not the first-place witch). Matching all the orange dice gets you bonus 2 spaces on the track, and matching all the black dice lets you draw a special card for each die matched. These special cards give players one-time abilities such as replacing a card just before scoring them, earning additional time to reopen the book before having to lay down cards. These cards also contain the acrobatics bonus point cards, which earn a player points at the end of the game. As mentioned, the witch in first place does not get the bonus. At the end of each round, the witch(es) leading the race have a curse token placed next to them. They are then ineligible to earn any bonuses for matching all the orange or black dice. This is a handy little “hold back the leader” aspect of the game, but it is so strong that trying to always be in second place is often an important strategy.
Even though it was my first play of the game (we were all trying it for the first time), I managed to get out front and stay out front for most of the race. Unfortunately, that meant I earned very few of the perfect spell bonuses – especially the cool spell card ones for black dice. The race was a tight one with three of the four of us crossing the finish line in the last turn. Surprisingly, the only player to NOT finish the race had a stack of nice bonus point cards and won the game, presumably having performed very cool acrobatics on his broomstick along the way. Despite my loss, I enjoyed the game immensely and we clearly laughed much more at this game than any other played that day. It is a fun, lighthearted game fun for those who like games with quick-pattern matching and a tad bit of memorization. There is even room for a bit of strategy (like trying to mess with other player’s plans by closing the book early, etc…) I didn’t like the pick-on-the-leader aspect of the curse token. I felt it was too strong a penalty, but it was probably my own fault for remaining in the lead for so long… I fear it might lead to extreme “game-y” style of play where players purposely lose points in order to try to stay behind the leader and pick up extra black cards…
My third and final game (while the other players were still on their first game of Shogun…) was Pillars of the Earth (Mayfair Games). I had not played it before but had heard good things (as well as bad). I won’t describe the game in detail here, but I managed to take second place in my first play of the game (two of the other three players had played before). I would have taken first place, but the last turn I drew the “give all players one metal cube” event card and the first place player still had a need for another metal cube while I already had all I wanted. I made a mistake or two early in the game in buying too many masons early, but eventually did OK with purchases and pawn placement. We all started out very gold heavy and then three of us quickly ran low, while the fourth player had plenty of gold to spend, but never got a pawn drawn in the early rounds of bag-drawing. I have heard people complain about the vagrancies of the bag-drawing, but I think the whole idea of gold hoarding is designed to counter just sort a situation. If you save up some gold you can then pay when your pawn is drawn early to get some good things and/or craftsmen. If you have gold but aren’t drawn in the early pawn draws, then you can afford to spend gold to purchase one of the craftsmen available in the worker assignment phase. Sure, you may need to maneuver to go first in a round to get a chance at buying a craftsman, but that shouldn’t be too hard to recognize in advance in the mid-game. All in all, I felt the pawn-drawing mechanism was fairly balanced and didn’t need too many more tweaks. I felt the pawn-drawing pain in the last round, holding a “free pawn placement” card but not getting drawn until late in the round. However, it didn’t set me back much, as I mentioned before. I’m looking forward to trying this game again some day to work on further evaluations.
All in all, I had a good day of gaming, 3 games in about 4 hours. Meanwhile, my other friends managed to finish their game of Shogun in just under 4 hours. While I’d love to try a game of Shogun some time, I think I made the right choice.
First up was Saint Petersburg (Rio Grande Games). I enjoy this game immensely, although have been a tad burned out on it as I get to play it against the computer frequently using the freeware computer program (check out the WestPark Gamers web site to download it). The computer AI is not too bad, and I only win four player games about 1/3 of the time. I got lucky in the first Noble round, picking up the 18-cost noble that provided a steady income of 6 rubles and 3 victory points from then on out. Things continued to fall into place for me and I outpaced the rest of the group by about 20 or so points. The game ended very quickly with all the blue buildings coming out before people had very many nobles. I took advantage of the observatory to pick up a couple of extra nobles during the blue building rounds, and made sure to hold a noble upgrade or two in my hand even though I knew I wouldn’t be able to put them down until late in the game. All in all, I think my computer playing experience served me well, although I will also admit that I had some nice opportunities fall in my lap. If you haven’t played the game, I highly recommend it. It contains a strong “build-up” element requiring players to initially focus on income and then transition to victory points later in the game. At the same time it also offers a few distinct ways of obtaining victory points (focusing on buildings or nobles or a mixture of both). All this is combined in a quick-playing (roughly an hour) game that is simple to explain to new players (takes about 10minutes or less to get up and playing.) I highly recommend St. Petersburg to help casual boardgamers make the leap into the build-up or “snowball” style of boardgames.
The second game we played is a new one by Asmodee, Wicked Witches Way. It is a very lightweight game where players are all witches and are trying to win a race. The first player to finish the race earns a few bonus points while all the other witches gain points proportional to how close they are to the finish. However, winning the race is only part of the points, players can gain special cards that give bonus points at the end of the game (for having performed acrobatics during the race.) The game revolves around rolling a set of 9 dice in a cool little book-shaped box. Players examine the dice rolled which display various orange or black symbols. When a player is ready, they shut the box and then lay down their spell cards. Players have spell cards that match the symbols on the dice. The object is to play either one or more symbols that match the orange symbols showing on the dice or one or more symbols that match the black symbols on the dice. If a symbol appears as both an orange and a black, it should not be played. Once the book is shut (hiding the dice), players can take their time playing their cards. The book is then opened and players check their spell cards. Players move their witches forward one space for each correct symbol they match. If they make a mistake (by playing symbols that appeared as both orange and black, or a symbol that didn’t appear at all) then they don’t get to move. The player who closed the book gets to score their turn first, but if they make a mistake, they go back 2 spaces. To add some spice into the game, if a player manages to play ALL the correct orange or ALL the correct black dice, it is a “perfect spell” and a bonus is earned (as long as you are not the first-place witch). Matching all the orange dice gets you bonus 2 spaces on the track, and matching all the black dice lets you draw a special card for each die matched. These special cards give players one-time abilities such as replacing a card just before scoring them, earning additional time to reopen the book before having to lay down cards. These cards also contain the acrobatics bonus point cards, which earn a player points at the end of the game. As mentioned, the witch in first place does not get the bonus. At the end of each round, the witch(es) leading the race have a curse token placed next to them. They are then ineligible to earn any bonuses for matching all the orange or black dice. This is a handy little “hold back the leader” aspect of the game, but it is so strong that trying to always be in second place is often an important strategy.
Even though it was my first play of the game (we were all trying it for the first time), I managed to get out front and stay out front for most of the race. Unfortunately, that meant I earned very few of the perfect spell bonuses – especially the cool spell card ones for black dice. The race was a tight one with three of the four of us crossing the finish line in the last turn. Surprisingly, the only player to NOT finish the race had a stack of nice bonus point cards and won the game, presumably having performed very cool acrobatics on his broomstick along the way. Despite my loss, I enjoyed the game immensely and we clearly laughed much more at this game than any other played that day. It is a fun, lighthearted game fun for those who like games with quick-pattern matching and a tad bit of memorization. There is even room for a bit of strategy (like trying to mess with other player’s plans by closing the book early, etc…) I didn’t like the pick-on-the-leader aspect of the curse token. I felt it was too strong a penalty, but it was probably my own fault for remaining in the lead for so long… I fear it might lead to extreme “game-y” style of play where players purposely lose points in order to try to stay behind the leader and pick up extra black cards…
My third and final game (while the other players were still on their first game of Shogun…) was Pillars of the Earth (Mayfair Games). I had not played it before but had heard good things (as well as bad). I won’t describe the game in detail here, but I managed to take second place in my first play of the game (two of the other three players had played before). I would have taken first place, but the last turn I drew the “give all players one metal cube” event card and the first place player still had a need for another metal cube while I already had all I wanted. I made a mistake or two early in the game in buying too many masons early, but eventually did OK with purchases and pawn placement. We all started out very gold heavy and then three of us quickly ran low, while the fourth player had plenty of gold to spend, but never got a pawn drawn in the early rounds of bag-drawing. I have heard people complain about the vagrancies of the bag-drawing, but I think the whole idea of gold hoarding is designed to counter just sort a situation. If you save up some gold you can then pay when your pawn is drawn early to get some good things and/or craftsmen. If you have gold but aren’t drawn in the early pawn draws, then you can afford to spend gold to purchase one of the craftsmen available in the worker assignment phase. Sure, you may need to maneuver to go first in a round to get a chance at buying a craftsman, but that shouldn’t be too hard to recognize in advance in the mid-game. All in all, I felt the pawn-drawing mechanism was fairly balanced and didn’t need too many more tweaks. I felt the pawn-drawing pain in the last round, holding a “free pawn placement” card but not getting drawn until late in the round. However, it didn’t set me back much, as I mentioned before. I’m looking forward to trying this game again some day to work on further evaluations.
All in all, I had a good day of gaming, 3 games in about 4 hours. Meanwhile, my other friends managed to finish their game of Shogun in just under 4 hours. While I’d love to try a game of Shogun some time, I think I made the right choice.
Thursday, May 17, 2007
The News in Reviews / Old Puzzler Answer / New Fortnightly Puzzler
A Filler for Fillers?
I just recently learned the Thumbs Up game. Originating in Japan, it's something akin to Rock-Paper-Scissors. Both use simultaneous revelation as the main driving force, but there's something else going on in the Thumbs Up game that I think gamers will enjoy.
Two to three people form a circle (you could add more but it gets a little out of control), and one is elected leader. Like in many Euros, the leader will switch in clockwise fashion.
All players stick out two closed fists in front of them. The goal is to get both hands behind your back during the course of the game.
On a count of "one, two, three," all players, including the leader, stick up two, one, or zero thumbs. The leader, instead of saying "three" will instead guess out loud how many total thumbs will be showing. If the leader is correct, he or she puts one hand behind his or her back. If incorrect, the role of leader goes to the next person clockwise.
One more important rule: if the leader guesses zero and is correct, the leader wins outright.
I've really enjoyed the Thumbs Up game. It usually takes less than a minute to play, and by the end, we're usually chuckling and congratulating the winner. I've tried four players, and that seemed like more than the game could handle. Two and three player games are fun, fast, and harmless. Could this be a filler between fillers?
All players choose between the same three options, so as leader, you're trying to figure out who is more likely to go for all, none, or half of their thumbs. Usually this depends on what moves the other players did last. What kind of player would change? What kind of player will stay the same? You'll never really know when you make your guess, but it's still fun to try.
Usually, simultaneous revelation is so hit-or-miss for me. The choose-your-island mechanic of Pirate's Cove is tiresome, yet the Castillo scoring in El Grande is really exciting. There's got to be some leverage or enough relevant information for the mechanic to work well.
Though simple, I think the Thumbs Up game does a good job with simultaneous revelation. Because you know your own input, it's not quite as random as Rock-Paper-Scissors, but every game is still "anybody's game." While still a fan of a quick "best of five" game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, I think the Thumbs Up game makes for a nice change.
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Old Puzzler Q & A
Q: I'm thinking of a game. Drop every double letter (touching or not) from the game's title. You're left with the following letters R, O, and E (in that order). What's the game?
A: CARCASSONNE
I made a reference to a line of asterisks which equaled the number of letters in the game's name (11). I separated the two in case anyone wanted to try and solve the puzzler without the aid of knowing how many letters.
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New Fortnightly Puzzler
Imagine my name SMATT was a cryptogram for the name of a game. Standard rules apply: each letter in my name equals another in the English alphabet.
I can name three different solutions. Can you name more?*
*I appreciate all responses, but please do not post your answers on the blog. If you'd like to respond, please feel free to email smattathias@gmail.com. Thanks!
I just recently learned the Thumbs Up game. Originating in Japan, it's something akin to Rock-Paper-Scissors. Both use simultaneous revelation as the main driving force, but there's something else going on in the Thumbs Up game that I think gamers will enjoy.
Two to three people form a circle (you could add more but it gets a little out of control), and one is elected leader. Like in many Euros, the leader will switch in clockwise fashion.
All players stick out two closed fists in front of them. The goal is to get both hands behind your back during the course of the game.
On a count of "one, two, three," all players, including the leader, stick up two, one, or zero thumbs. The leader, instead of saying "three" will instead guess out loud how many total thumbs will be showing. If the leader is correct, he or she puts one hand behind his or her back. If incorrect, the role of leader goes to the next person clockwise.
One more important rule: if the leader guesses zero and is correct, the leader wins outright.
I've really enjoyed the Thumbs Up game. It usually takes less than a minute to play, and by the end, we're usually chuckling and congratulating the winner. I've tried four players, and that seemed like more than the game could handle. Two and three player games are fun, fast, and harmless. Could this be a filler between fillers?
All players choose between the same three options, so as leader, you're trying to figure out who is more likely to go for all, none, or half of their thumbs. Usually this depends on what moves the other players did last. What kind of player would change? What kind of player will stay the same? You'll never really know when you make your guess, but it's still fun to try.
Usually, simultaneous revelation is so hit-or-miss for me. The choose-your-island mechanic of Pirate's Cove is tiresome, yet the Castillo scoring in El Grande is really exciting. There's got to be some leverage or enough relevant information for the mechanic to work well.
Though simple, I think the Thumbs Up game does a good job with simultaneous revelation. Because you know your own input, it's not quite as random as Rock-Paper-Scissors, but every game is still "anybody's game." While still a fan of a quick "best of five" game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, I think the Thumbs Up game makes for a nice change.
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Old Puzzler Q & A
Q: I'm thinking of a game. Drop every double letter (touching or not) from the game's title. You're left with the following letters R, O, and E (in that order). What's the game?
A: CARCASSONNE
I made a reference to a line of asterisks which equaled the number of letters in the game's name (11). I separated the two in case anyone wanted to try and solve the puzzler without the aid of knowing how many letters.
***********************************************************************
New Fortnightly Puzzler
Imagine my name SMATT was a cryptogram for the name of a game. Standard rules apply: each letter in my name equals another in the English alphabet.
I can name three different solutions. Can you name more?*
*I appreciate all responses, but please do not post your answers on the blog. If you'd like to respond, please feel free to email smattathias@gmail.com. Thanks!
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Taking it like a Viking
I got a chance to play Fire and Axe (by Asmodee) the other day and had a good time. Now, I’m not one to eschew a luck factor in my shorter-length games, but I had heard that this one might have a bit too much luck for some folks’ taste. Some have gone as far as suggesting a few house rules to help mitigate poor rolls. In particular, when trying to raid a village a die is rolled up to 3 times in succession in order to loot the village or town. Rolling pooly and losing three crewmembers by failing all three rolls can be a frustrating situation, especially if the probability of success was high. One suggestion to correct this is to add a +1 for each successive roll. Since it was my first game, I wasn’t ready to adjust the rules quite so much, but thought perhaps the last roll (of 3) could get a +1 just as a thank-you-for-playing parting gift…
We got into the game and started playing and one of my opponent’s proceeded to begin failing a raid. After two missed rolls, I pointed out the house rule that I thought might help his situation (adding +1 to the last roll). He quickly pointed out that this is a game about Vikings and no stinking Viking worth his pelts would be caught dead with a wimpy sort of rule like that. He was going to “take it like a Viking” and didn’t need any special accommodations. He rolled (and failed if you’re curious – adding +1 wouldn’t have helped anyway) and that was the end of that possible house rule.
The game proceeded on and good and bad luck was had by all. While some people had things roll their way more than others, I decided this was by no means a luck-fest. There was plenty of room in the game for solid strategy and planning. Once it has been played through a few times and people get to know the cards, there might even be occasions for lying low and waiting for particular things to show up. I may be slightly clouded in my judgment, since I ended up winning, but I felt the game was quite fun. I did have my fair share of poor die rolls near the beginning, but had fewer near the end when it was perhaps more important. Rolls I missed early and thought were crucial weren’t as important as ones I rolled well on near the end of the game. This also helped me as I was a smaller threat at the start of the game and was able to catch up rather than trying to continue to fight for the lead.
The game took over two hours to play with four players but should go under two now that we all know the rules. While a tad long, that is an acceptable length for a game that has one’s fortunes tied to the vagaries of dice. Now that I have had a chance to reflect on the game, I have to acknowledge that I don’t mind the luck-factor at all, even without the house rules. One reason is the theme of the game. Sea voyages and plundering villages are risky propositions (as is creating new settlements or trading – all actions that can be performed within the game). Vikings were no strangers to risk, and if I’m going to play a game about Vikings, I don’t mind taking a few chances myself.
We got into the game and started playing and one of my opponent’s proceeded to begin failing a raid. After two missed rolls, I pointed out the house rule that I thought might help his situation (adding +1 to the last roll). He quickly pointed out that this is a game about Vikings and no stinking Viking worth his pelts would be caught dead with a wimpy sort of rule like that. He was going to “take it like a Viking” and didn’t need any special accommodations. He rolled (and failed if you’re curious – adding +1 wouldn’t have helped anyway) and that was the end of that possible house rule.
The game proceeded on and good and bad luck was had by all. While some people had things roll their way more than others, I decided this was by no means a luck-fest. There was plenty of room in the game for solid strategy and planning. Once it has been played through a few times and people get to know the cards, there might even be occasions for lying low and waiting for particular things to show up. I may be slightly clouded in my judgment, since I ended up winning, but I felt the game was quite fun. I did have my fair share of poor die rolls near the beginning, but had fewer near the end when it was perhaps more important. Rolls I missed early and thought were crucial weren’t as important as ones I rolled well on near the end of the game. This also helped me as I was a smaller threat at the start of the game and was able to catch up rather than trying to continue to fight for the lead.
The game took over two hours to play with four players but should go under two now that we all know the rules. While a tad long, that is an acceptable length for a game that has one’s fortunes tied to the vagaries of dice. Now that I have had a chance to reflect on the game, I have to acknowledge that I don’t mind the luck-factor at all, even without the house rules. One reason is the theme of the game. Sea voyages and plundering villages are risky propositions (as is creating new settlements or trading – all actions that can be performed within the game). Vikings were no strangers to risk, and if I’m going to play a game about Vikings, I don’t mind taking a few chances myself.
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Luck and Length
It has been a pretty sparce time for boardgames, the only games I've played recently have been a full game of Die Macher and a dozen or so games of Yspahan against the computer. (Using the recently released computer version with an AI opponent, check out www.west-parkgamers.de . It is designed/programmed by the same folks as the excellent Saint Petersburg PC game, although I feel that the AI is currently a bit weaker than in St. Petersburg... If you go download Yspahan, be sure to also download the English or other appropriate language file as well. It comes in German, English, French, and even Romanian! )
Yspahan looks to be a fun little game. Despite some simple (rather unique) mechanics of rolling dice to determine the number of available actions (of a given type), the game has many options. I immediately gravitated towards the camel-train track towards victory. Buying up that building that gives a card for each token sent to the train is a fun way to earn more cards... and if you can score that train in the 2nd round as well as the 3rd, there are some nice cost-effective points going on... the computer players are clearly going for a build all the buildings route and then compete viciously for filling in the board areas with cubes... both strategies are valid and I like how such a simple game can provide players with such diverse opportunities. My one qualm are the initial two buildings - the one that gives more camels and the one that gives more gold... while I haven't brought myself to try to play without going for them both as early as possible, I suspect ignoring these two buildings early is not a good idea. Hopefully, there might be some strategies that don't include early buildings. I am afraid that there might not be and if that is the case, what is the point of including those buildings in the first place? (ie. if those two buildings were changed somehow there could be an earlier divergence in starting strategies...)
That's all I have to say about Yspahan, time to rant about Die Macher. This is a great game, lots of fun, and piles upon piles of different things one must worry about and try to optimize. Not to mention the whole idea of forming cooperative coalitions... a nice bit of diplomacy thrown in. I'm not even going to rant about the 7 hour playing time... I can afford to put aside most of a day to play a really good game every fewe months or so...
What I'm going to rant on is the huge luck factor in Die Macher. Yes, you heard me right, the luck factor in a 7 hour game... OK, so there isn't a lot of luck in the game, but there is SOME. The biggest luck factor (just about the only one) is in the distribution of position cards among the players and in each region. For example, when the game starts each player has about five (maybe six) position cards and there are ten face-up position cards showing on the game board. Players also have 3 position cards they can use to "swap" out their showing position cards. Well, at the start of the game, I had a match for about two TOTAL showing position cards on the entire board. Meanwhile, there were opponents of mine who had matches with 6 or even more cards showing on the table.
Sure, there are a lot of ways to move one's position cards around, but in a SEVEN HOUR game why oh why is there any reason to START the game with some players with a clear advantage? I understand the fun in having the game be slightly different each time, but if one were willing to give that up, I could imagine making up a starting setup so that each player had the same number of matches of cards showing at the start of the game... I realize that could take a bit longer to set up, but it would ease the problem that I've seen happen in multiple games of Die Macher. (I've been the benefit of a good start as well as hindered... although in this game I did an early gamble that paid off so I actually was in the lead for the first few rounds despite my poor initial matching - this doesn't excuse the game in my opinion as another player might have really messed me up had they tried different strategies...)
My second idea for fixing this intial disparity is to simply set up the game and then let players bid for color selection.... While it adds even more pregame analysis, I think it would even the playing field. Players who like to match things alot can bid highly for certain positions, while others who want to keep their money to spend it on things can bid low and just deal with what they end up with....
OK, that's the first bit of luck-factor I had issue with. Now for the second. That is the long-term manipulation of position cards. There is an extremely limited number of cards (6) to deal with on the national switching board... depending on your house rule, these can get pretty stagnant... I found out that switching out cards early in the game to help my matching was good in the short term, but it meant all the cards left up to trade with were BAD for me in later rounds... I think it is less of a problem of the game, and more of something I have to ponder to take into account in my strategy. What I WILL complain and rant about is the difficulty of changing one's position cards. In the second election, the Anti-social security card was put up on the national election board in the lowest (most points) slot. It appeared in a couple of upcoming elections mid-game but not late in the game. Also there were no pro-social security cards in the exchange pool. As the anti-version was protected by the 3rd or 4th round, there was then no longer any way to remove it. From the second election onward, both myself and one of my opponents cycled our 3-card draw, looking for (among other things) an anti-social security position card. Neither of us ever drew one. If, during the second round (that's about hour 3 of a 7 hour game, mind you) two players decide to try to do something and spend the rest of the game hoping to accomplish it, that's just a bad system...
You may think I hate Die Macher. On the contrary, I like it quite a bit. It is a bit long for my tastes, but I'd still play it. Another point to make is all the above whining really didn't greatly affect my performance. I came in a strong second place after leading for the first half of the game. This shows that the luck factor in Die Macher is not going to overthrow the entire outcome of the game. However, it seems clear to me that there were several variables beyond my control that were significant setbacks I had to overcome. That in itself isn't bad, but other players did not have to overcome those same issues. It makes me wonder how I might have fared if I had (a) finally found an anti-social security card (25 points right there) or (b) had better matches at the start of the game and was able to better conserve resources rather than having to gamble them all on the first round...
I consider my 2nd place finish to come from being distracted by round 6 when I should have worked hard towin round 7 instead. What disappoints me about the game was not the actual effect of the cards, but the feelings of unfairness they generate. Having to start "behind the curve" might be forgivable in a shorter game, but I really don't appreciate feeling a couple steps behind when I'm headed into a nice, long 7 hour game...
I like my idea of an auction for starting position, if I can get folks to try it next time. However, I have yet to find a good house rule (or two) that provides enough flexibility for changing political positions, without dilluting things so much that political positions mean nothing and are changed at the drop of a hat.
Yspahan looks to be a fun little game. Despite some simple (rather unique) mechanics of rolling dice to determine the number of available actions (of a given type), the game has many options. I immediately gravitated towards the camel-train track towards victory. Buying up that building that gives a card for each token sent to the train is a fun way to earn more cards... and if you can score that train in the 2nd round as well as the 3rd, there are some nice cost-effective points going on... the computer players are clearly going for a build all the buildings route and then compete viciously for filling in the board areas with cubes... both strategies are valid and I like how such a simple game can provide players with such diverse opportunities. My one qualm are the initial two buildings - the one that gives more camels and the one that gives more gold... while I haven't brought myself to try to play without going for them both as early as possible, I suspect ignoring these two buildings early is not a good idea. Hopefully, there might be some strategies that don't include early buildings. I am afraid that there might not be and if that is the case, what is the point of including those buildings in the first place? (ie. if those two buildings were changed somehow there could be an earlier divergence in starting strategies...)
That's all I have to say about Yspahan, time to rant about Die Macher. This is a great game, lots of fun, and piles upon piles of different things one must worry about and try to optimize. Not to mention the whole idea of forming cooperative coalitions... a nice bit of diplomacy thrown in. I'm not even going to rant about the 7 hour playing time... I can afford to put aside most of a day to play a really good game every fewe months or so...
What I'm going to rant on is the huge luck factor in Die Macher. Yes, you heard me right, the luck factor in a 7 hour game... OK, so there isn't a lot of luck in the game, but there is SOME. The biggest luck factor (just about the only one) is in the distribution of position cards among the players and in each region. For example, when the game starts each player has about five (maybe six) position cards and there are ten face-up position cards showing on the game board. Players also have 3 position cards they can use to "swap" out their showing position cards. Well, at the start of the game, I had a match for about two TOTAL showing position cards on the entire board. Meanwhile, there were opponents of mine who had matches with 6 or even more cards showing on the table.
Sure, there are a lot of ways to move one's position cards around, but in a SEVEN HOUR game why oh why is there any reason to START the game with some players with a clear advantage? I understand the fun in having the game be slightly different each time, but if one were willing to give that up, I could imagine making up a starting setup so that each player had the same number of matches of cards showing at the start of the game... I realize that could take a bit longer to set up, but it would ease the problem that I've seen happen in multiple games of Die Macher. (I've been the benefit of a good start as well as hindered... although in this game I did an early gamble that paid off so I actually was in the lead for the first few rounds despite my poor initial matching - this doesn't excuse the game in my opinion as another player might have really messed me up had they tried different strategies...)
My second idea for fixing this intial disparity is to simply set up the game and then let players bid for color selection.... While it adds even more pregame analysis, I think it would even the playing field. Players who like to match things alot can bid highly for certain positions, while others who want to keep their money to spend it on things can bid low and just deal with what they end up with....
OK, that's the first bit of luck-factor I had issue with. Now for the second. That is the long-term manipulation of position cards. There is an extremely limited number of cards (6) to deal with on the national switching board... depending on your house rule, these can get pretty stagnant... I found out that switching out cards early in the game to help my matching was good in the short term, but it meant all the cards left up to trade with were BAD for me in later rounds... I think it is less of a problem of the game, and more of something I have to ponder to take into account in my strategy. What I WILL complain and rant about is the difficulty of changing one's position cards. In the second election, the Anti-social security card was put up on the national election board in the lowest (most points) slot. It appeared in a couple of upcoming elections mid-game but not late in the game. Also there were no pro-social security cards in the exchange pool. As the anti-version was protected by the 3rd or 4th round, there was then no longer any way to remove it. From the second election onward, both myself and one of my opponents cycled our 3-card draw, looking for (among other things) an anti-social security position card. Neither of us ever drew one. If, during the second round (that's about hour 3 of a 7 hour game, mind you) two players decide to try to do something and spend the rest of the game hoping to accomplish it, that's just a bad system...
You may think I hate Die Macher. On the contrary, I like it quite a bit. It is a bit long for my tastes, but I'd still play it. Another point to make is all the above whining really didn't greatly affect my performance. I came in a strong second place after leading for the first half of the game. This shows that the luck factor in Die Macher is not going to overthrow the entire outcome of the game. However, it seems clear to me that there were several variables beyond my control that were significant setbacks I had to overcome. That in itself isn't bad, but other players did not have to overcome those same issues. It makes me wonder how I might have fared if I had (a) finally found an anti-social security card (25 points right there) or (b) had better matches at the start of the game and was able to better conserve resources rather than having to gamble them all on the first round...
I consider my 2nd place finish to come from being distracted by round 6 when I should have worked hard towin round 7 instead. What disappoints me about the game was not the actual effect of the cards, but the feelings of unfairness they generate. Having to start "behind the curve" might be forgivable in a shorter game, but I really don't appreciate feeling a couple steps behind when I'm headed into a nice, long 7 hour game...
I like my idea of an auction for starting position, if I can get folks to try it next time. However, I have yet to find a good house rule (or two) that provides enough flexibility for changing political positions, without dilluting things so much that political positions mean nothing and are changed at the drop of a hat.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
A Eurogame Review
Everything on the Internet seems to come in waves. Even before reading Shannon’s recent post about reawakening his interest in role playing games, I had been preparing this post on a game I have that I have become reacquainted with in the past month or two. While it has a lot of American boardgame tendencies, there are a few strong Euro attributes that contribute to making it a gripping title that has eaten into gaming time I might have spent on other boardgames. What game am I referring to? None other than the new edition of that classic Euro-American hybrid game, Dungeons and Dragons (referred to as D&D for the rest of this article.) For those unfamiliar with the game (and there isn’t an entry for it over on BoardGameGeek), it is like a longer, more complex version of Dungeoneer, Return of the Heroes, or Descent. While different than many Eurogames that it predates, there are still a number of mechanics found in popular Euro titles, making it a game that many gamers just might want to check out. If that piques your interest, read on to find a more thorough review.
The Bits:
The first thing a boardgamer will see when opening up a new game are all the fun little bits to play with. Unfortunately, this game has none. What, you say? NO BITS? That’s right, no little wooden cubes, no meeples, nothing is included in the basic package, just three thick rulebooks. THREE! And you thought paging through the rules for BattleLore was a bit much – at least in that case it was a rulebook and a scenario booklet. The last game I played with three rulebooks was Avalon Hill’s Horror at House on the Hill. With no bits to play with, one might expect the game to score a nice fat zero for its components. Thankfully, there are options to solve the component problem. There are so many options, that players are typically expected to provide their own components (similar to the pawns and dice in some of the Cheapass Games productions…) For those willing to spend a little bit of money, players can obtain nice plastic figurines, expandable cardboard maps, and even little cubes to roll. I’ve seen photos of players going all out on designing their own game boards, making model terrain to rival the Deluxe Chest Version of Settlers of Catan. So while the lack of components is initially a big strike against the game, players who like to tinker and customize their own gameboard and pieces will find plenty of things to play with. Die hard Eurogamers can even use little colored wooden cubes along with Meeples to represent the various creatures and figures within the game. Some players use hand painted metal figurines – talk about dedicated game component fans! The last game I played with metal playing pieces was an old game of Monopoly. While many Eurogamers eschew dice, this game has plenty of them. Taking a cue from the French Formula De, there are even many nonstandard dice available. However, in this particular game (unlike Formula De) the dice have a different number on each side. This does make the results more random than a typical Formula De game, but it also easier for new players to estimate the expected outcomes since only one series of numbers have to be averaged. In fact, a good portion of the strategy of this game involves making the decisions so that you can modify die rolls in your favor.
Bits Score: 0 out of 10(there aren’t any in the standard game), however, there is a Basic Game available that provides you with several plastic figures, shortened rules, and a set of funny dice like you might find in Formula De. Using these bits (or your own acquired elsewhere) increases the score dramatically.
Gameplay: 7 out of 10 (primarily due to game length)
Even a quick glance through the rules shows how this game is similar to other popular Euro titles. Like many wargames, there are two sides to the game. All but one player create an alternate persona to represent themselves within the game. These alternate personas are called Player Characters (or PCs). There is a lot of flexibility here, but players should take care not to overlap their specialties too much, because the remaining player (referred to as the “Dungeon Master”) gets to control almost everything else within the game. At first glance, this seems very unfair for the PCs. There is very little within the game to make up for the DM’s strong initial starting position. However, after much play testing it seems that the PCs win the game more often than not, so perhaps their superior numbers are enough to win the day. In some respects it is like Shadows over Camelot, where most of the players conspire to defeat the game while one player works against them. However, in D&D, the “traitor” (the DM) is known at the outset, and is given a number of advantages to make up for that fact.
The theme of the game revolves around a fantasy setting (like Lord of the Rings) with the players typically playing the forces of good and the DM playing the bad guys. The DM plays a sort of “defense”, setting up traps and obstacles for the players while the players go on “offense” trying to find and overcome these challenges. Over time, the players get more powerful, providing a nice sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, so do the obstacles used by the DM player. In fact, in a glaring oversight, not only do the rules fail to provide proper victory conditions, they don’t even provide game-ending conditions! As a result, many games of D&D can drag on and on. Players typically agree to a set time limit and play until it is reached. Often, a group will then meet again a week or two later and pick up where they left off, making sure the game length of D&D easily exceeds even a highly negotiated game of Die Macher. With such a long playing time, the game severely limits other games making it to the table. As a result, it gets a solid couple of strikes against it in the scoring.
To help Eurogamers decide if it might be something they want to try, I thought I’d make a short list of all the pros and cons of the game.
The Bad
The rulebook(s) – when was the last time you had three hardbound rulebooks for a single game? In an interesting twist, only the DM player has to read up on two of them, so gamers who don’t like to read rules should stick to the PC team.
The bits – as mentioned, there are no bits included in the standard game. There isn’t even a game board! The general availability of quality substitutes (even metal bits!) keeps the game from flopping.
No Auctions! – can you even have a boardgame without some form of an auction in it? (There aren’t any trains either, but PCs can simulate them by starting up trading caravans)
Analysis paralysis – typically, each player gets two action points in a turn keeping things very constrained. However, there are a plethora of options to spend your action points on (like moving, fighting, casting spells, etc…), causing some AP prone players to simply shut down.
Unbalanced Teams – Despite the very good record of the PC team, the GM team simply has too many advantages to make a fair game.
The Traitor Factor – In addition to the DM team, sometimes there is a secret traitor within the PC team as well. While that works great in Shadows over Camelot, as there is already an opposing team in D&D, adding in a secret traitor creates a third team in the mix and can quickly complicate the entire situation.
The Good
Expansions – some players love to have options in their games (witness the variety of ways to play Settlers of Catan). There are multiple ways to expand the D&D game including new rulebooks as well as many new game boards. For game tinkerers, it is probably the game best able to handle additional house rules. In fact, most gamers have at least one or two house rules they prefer to play by…
Cooperation – the game screams for good cooperation with the PC team. As the DM team has most of the advantages, the PC team has to work hard together to make sure they survive
Heavy Player Interaction – Goa haters take note, there aren’t any auctions and player interaction is high. Despite a high degree of cooperation, players are also competing for limited resources, constantly being forced to find ways to evenly distribute advantages and rewards so that they can improve their teams effectiveness.
Role Selection – As in Cosmic Encounter (or to a lesser extent, Puerto Rico) players each take on a role selection that will tend to dictate their strengths and weaknesses. This makes the game different every time and can often keep players interested as they can all focus on their strengths without getting in each other’s way.
No Player Elimination – While player elimination can occur, the rules have provisions to reverse said elimination, or the player who lost their character can simply take on a new position within the team and keep on playing.
Snowball Effect – as in some of the best Eurogames, D&D has a snowball effect so that players gain more and more power and abilities as the game progresses. Fans of empire building and snowball effect games (like Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan, Through the Ages, and the like) will find many similarities here.
Multiple Victory Conditions – Actually, there are no set victory conditions, players are free to decide for themselves what victory conditions they want to strive for. Players can try to gain the most influence in the palace (like Succession or El Grande), try to rack up the most money (like Modern Art) or even try their hand at more unique victory conditions like building their own castle (a la Caylus).
Final Analysis:
Overall, I can only recommend the game to fans of more American style boardgames, or at least Euro-American hybrids rather than straight up Eurogamers. With their love of a 90 minute cap on a game, D&D just won’t be brought to the table that often. Sure, there are a lot of popular Euro mechanisms present (money management, role selection, cooperative team play, multiple victory paths, a modified action point system, I’ve even seen goods delivery occur) but those are probably not enough to pull in the Euro-snoot crowd. For those who welcome a little variety in their gaming and are not adverse to trying something a bit more detailed and long-term, the rewards can be great. After all, it is the only kingdom-building game that I’ve seen that starts a player out with a single, unskilled worker.
The Bits:
The first thing a boardgamer will see when opening up a new game are all the fun little bits to play with. Unfortunately, this game has none. What, you say? NO BITS? That’s right, no little wooden cubes, no meeples, nothing is included in the basic package, just three thick rulebooks. THREE! And you thought paging through the rules for BattleLore was a bit much – at least in that case it was a rulebook and a scenario booklet. The last game I played with three rulebooks was Avalon Hill’s Horror at House on the Hill. With no bits to play with, one might expect the game to score a nice fat zero for its components. Thankfully, there are options to solve the component problem. There are so many options, that players are typically expected to provide their own components (similar to the pawns and dice in some of the Cheapass Games productions…) For those willing to spend a little bit of money, players can obtain nice plastic figurines, expandable cardboard maps, and even little cubes to roll. I’ve seen photos of players going all out on designing their own game boards, making model terrain to rival the Deluxe Chest Version of Settlers of Catan. So while the lack of components is initially a big strike against the game, players who like to tinker and customize their own gameboard and pieces will find plenty of things to play with. Die hard Eurogamers can even use little colored wooden cubes along with Meeples to represent the various creatures and figures within the game. Some players use hand painted metal figurines – talk about dedicated game component fans! The last game I played with metal playing pieces was an old game of Monopoly. While many Eurogamers eschew dice, this game has plenty of them. Taking a cue from the French Formula De, there are even many nonstandard dice available. However, in this particular game (unlike Formula De) the dice have a different number on each side. This does make the results more random than a typical Formula De game, but it also easier for new players to estimate the expected outcomes since only one series of numbers have to be averaged. In fact, a good portion of the strategy of this game involves making the decisions so that you can modify die rolls in your favor.
Bits Score: 0 out of 10(there aren’t any in the standard game), however, there is a Basic Game available that provides you with several plastic figures, shortened rules, and a set of funny dice like you might find in Formula De. Using these bits (or your own acquired elsewhere) increases the score dramatically.
Gameplay: 7 out of 10 (primarily due to game length)
Even a quick glance through the rules shows how this game is similar to other popular Euro titles. Like many wargames, there are two sides to the game. All but one player create an alternate persona to represent themselves within the game. These alternate personas are called Player Characters (or PCs). There is a lot of flexibility here, but players should take care not to overlap their specialties too much, because the remaining player (referred to as the “Dungeon Master”) gets to control almost everything else within the game. At first glance, this seems very unfair for the PCs. There is very little within the game to make up for the DM’s strong initial starting position. However, after much play testing it seems that the PCs win the game more often than not, so perhaps their superior numbers are enough to win the day. In some respects it is like Shadows over Camelot, where most of the players conspire to defeat the game while one player works against them. However, in D&D, the “traitor” (the DM) is known at the outset, and is given a number of advantages to make up for that fact.
The theme of the game revolves around a fantasy setting (like Lord of the Rings) with the players typically playing the forces of good and the DM playing the bad guys. The DM plays a sort of “defense”, setting up traps and obstacles for the players while the players go on “offense” trying to find and overcome these challenges. Over time, the players get more powerful, providing a nice sense of accomplishment. Unfortunately, so do the obstacles used by the DM player. In fact, in a glaring oversight, not only do the rules fail to provide proper victory conditions, they don’t even provide game-ending conditions! As a result, many games of D&D can drag on and on. Players typically agree to a set time limit and play until it is reached. Often, a group will then meet again a week or two later and pick up where they left off, making sure the game length of D&D easily exceeds even a highly negotiated game of Die Macher. With such a long playing time, the game severely limits other games making it to the table. As a result, it gets a solid couple of strikes against it in the scoring.
To help Eurogamers decide if it might be something they want to try, I thought I’d make a short list of all the pros and cons of the game.
The Bad
The rulebook(s) – when was the last time you had three hardbound rulebooks for a single game? In an interesting twist, only the DM player has to read up on two of them, so gamers who don’t like to read rules should stick to the PC team.
The bits – as mentioned, there are no bits included in the standard game. There isn’t even a game board! The general availability of quality substitutes (even metal bits!) keeps the game from flopping.
No Auctions! – can you even have a boardgame without some form of an auction in it? (There aren’t any trains either, but PCs can simulate them by starting up trading caravans)
Analysis paralysis – typically, each player gets two action points in a turn keeping things very constrained. However, there are a plethora of options to spend your action points on (like moving, fighting, casting spells, etc…), causing some AP prone players to simply shut down.
Unbalanced Teams – Despite the very good record of the PC team, the GM team simply has too many advantages to make a fair game.
The Traitor Factor – In addition to the DM team, sometimes there is a secret traitor within the PC team as well. While that works great in Shadows over Camelot, as there is already an opposing team in D&D, adding in a secret traitor creates a third team in the mix and can quickly complicate the entire situation.
The Good
Expansions – some players love to have options in their games (witness the variety of ways to play Settlers of Catan). There are multiple ways to expand the D&D game including new rulebooks as well as many new game boards. For game tinkerers, it is probably the game best able to handle additional house rules. In fact, most gamers have at least one or two house rules they prefer to play by…
Cooperation – the game screams for good cooperation with the PC team. As the DM team has most of the advantages, the PC team has to work hard together to make sure they survive
Heavy Player Interaction – Goa haters take note, there aren’t any auctions and player interaction is high. Despite a high degree of cooperation, players are also competing for limited resources, constantly being forced to find ways to evenly distribute advantages and rewards so that they can improve their teams effectiveness.
Role Selection – As in Cosmic Encounter (or to a lesser extent, Puerto Rico) players each take on a role selection that will tend to dictate their strengths and weaknesses. This makes the game different every time and can often keep players interested as they can all focus on their strengths without getting in each other’s way.
No Player Elimination – While player elimination can occur, the rules have provisions to reverse said elimination, or the player who lost their character can simply take on a new position within the team and keep on playing.
Snowball Effect – as in some of the best Eurogames, D&D has a snowball effect so that players gain more and more power and abilities as the game progresses. Fans of empire building and snowball effect games (like Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan, Through the Ages, and the like) will find many similarities here.
Multiple Victory Conditions – Actually, there are no set victory conditions, players are free to decide for themselves what victory conditions they want to strive for. Players can try to gain the most influence in the palace (like Succession or El Grande), try to rack up the most money (like Modern Art) or even try their hand at more unique victory conditions like building their own castle (a la Caylus).
Final Analysis:
Overall, I can only recommend the game to fans of more American style boardgames, or at least Euro-American hybrids rather than straight up Eurogamers. With their love of a 90 minute cap on a game, D&D just won’t be brought to the table that often. Sure, there are a lot of popular Euro mechanisms present (money management, role selection, cooperative team play, multiple victory paths, a modified action point system, I’ve even seen goods delivery occur) but those are probably not enough to pull in the Euro-snoot crowd. For those who welcome a little variety in their gaming and are not adverse to trying something a bit more detailed and long-term, the rewards can be great. After all, it is the only kingdom-building game that I’ve seen that starts a player out with a single, unskilled worker.
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Thoughts on Princes of Florence
I was recently lucky enough to get in my first game of the popular The Princes of Florence boardgame. It has a lot going for it and, like all really good games, consumed all my waking thoughts for several hours after it finished.
For those unfamiliar with the game, there are seven turns during the game, with each turn having an auction phase and then an action phase where each player gets to perform two actions. This is very similar to another game I enjoy, Goa. The object of the game is to play profession cards (like “Bell Maker” or “Alchemist”) which then produce a Work which gives a player a combination of money and victory points. When a Work is played (as one of a player’s two actions), that work provides an amount of money and/or points depending on what that player has built up in and around their villa. The theme here is that the players are trying to attract the best talent by building and acquiring buildings, landscape, and “Freedoms” (freedom of opinion, religion, and travel, all of which supposedly inspire various artisans to more impressive works.) So, if I play the Bell Maker, I would earn a better work if I had the Workshop, a local forest, and if I had freedom of religion. Having only some of those items makes the value of the card less. There are also some wildcard items that help improve every work. Jesters provide two work points to any played Work, and the number of played AND unplayed profession cards held by a player also add one work point each. I guess the thinking here is that artisans like to work together, and they’re easily amused by jesters…
Buildings and freedoms can be purchased using cash during one of a player’s two actions per turn, but landscape tiles (3 different types) and jesters can only be bought at auction. (Remember there are only 7 turns in the entire game, so there are only so many jesters and landscape tiles to go around.) Auctions are even more tight because there are three more things that can be bought: builders (which reduce building costs), recruitment cards (which you exchange with any played profession card so you can get the same “work” made – and also count as profession cards in your hand to give +1 to your work score), and Prestige cards. Prestige cards are like special little mission cards that give you bonus points at the end of the game if you fulfill the mission (like most landscape, most jesters, one of each freedom, etc…)
Along with the seven auctions, players have 2 actions per turn and must use those 14 total actions wisely. Building a building, buying a freedom, and playing a profession to create a work all take an action. Players can also buy a bonus card, these cards are similar to theme to the prestige cards, but are played with a profession card to increase the value of a work. Typical bonus cards might give a +1 bonus for each building, +2 for each large building, +1 for each profession card in your hand, etc…) A final action is the purchase of more profession cards. Most players will want to play a work nearly every round, so that limits your available actions to something more like 8. If you are thinking to yourself that this is a very “tight” game if you only get 7 auctions and about 8 non-work-creating actions, you are only hitting the tip of the iceburg.
Everything about this game screams limited resources. Players start with a good wad of cash (enough to last three turns even if you bid large sums during the auction), but soon they will find that they are running low. Since a played work card provides either cash or victory points (usually a combination of the two – player’s choice) using less cash means scoring more points. Secondly, there is the aforementioned very limited number of actions a player can perform during the game. With only 7 auctions and 8 to 10 “free” actions to play with, players have got to make every decision count. To make matters worse, there is not enough of everything to go around. There are only 6 of each of most of the auction items. So, only 6 jesters, 6 builders, 6 forests, etc… to go around. In a five player game, that means competition for each of those items will be pretty tight. Note that two strategies include multiple jesters or multiple builders so they can be particularly highly coveted. There are 3 types of freedoms and always one less of each freedom than there are players, so some of those are purchased rather fast. While less of an issue for 3 or 4 players, in a five player game, even the profession cards (and thus the recruitment cards as well) tend to run out after a round or two. This is very significant, since playing profession cards is the primary way to score points and the only way to earn more cash.
As if all this competition for resources isn’t enough, every player has to manage one more resource, space. Each player has a playing mat with space on it for placing their purchased buildings and landmarks. They come in Tetris-type pieces of varying sizes and shapes. Nothing can ever be destroyed or moved on your mat, so placing your purchases wisely is very important. Buildings, in particular, are tricky as they tend to be rather large, and no two buildings can touch, except at the corners. However, buying a second builder allows a player to place buildings touching each other. (As buildings give 3 victory points per built building, one strategy is to get three builders which gives a player the ability to place adjacent buildings and makes their cost for free.)
While I’ve only played the game once, it has already gripped my imagination. The many, many constraints in the game make playing it a very tense proposition for me. Also, since there is a large auction portion to the game, it is best when players have experienced it once or twice before to be sure the prices are held up to a reasonable level and no one is getting a total “steal” for a given item. I can’t help but compare it to the boardgame Goa, which also has auctions and then somewhat interaction-less player actions. I find the theme and mechanisms of Princes of Florence to be drier and more abstract, with a slightly less “rich” tree of options to specialize in or explore, but I think Princes of Florence will play in a slightly shorter amount of time. Clearly there is a build-up of power throughout the game, and there are several distinct strategies to exploit in the race to win – both are qualities that I seek in a more meaty game. I highly recommend fans of Goa to seek this one out and give it a try.
For those curious few, yes I did win my first game and that may have clouded my current perceptions, but there are a lot of things here that hit home as elements I like in my games. My winning strategy for the evening was really a diverse one, where I simply tried to buy whatever I could during the auction at bargain-basement prices. Thus, I spent a lot less effort on replenishing my cash on hand and was able to instead constantly cash in my works for victory points. Surprisingly, the game was close at the very end, with one player (using the jester strategy) starting very, very far behind but closing quite fast at the end. The prestige cards help to make the final scoring interesting as no one knows the real final scores until they’re revealed.
For those unfamiliar with the game, there are seven turns during the game, with each turn having an auction phase and then an action phase where each player gets to perform two actions. This is very similar to another game I enjoy, Goa. The object of the game is to play profession cards (like “Bell Maker” or “Alchemist”) which then produce a Work which gives a player a combination of money and victory points. When a Work is played (as one of a player’s two actions), that work provides an amount of money and/or points depending on what that player has built up in and around their villa. The theme here is that the players are trying to attract the best talent by building and acquiring buildings, landscape, and “Freedoms” (freedom of opinion, religion, and travel, all of which supposedly inspire various artisans to more impressive works.) So, if I play the Bell Maker, I would earn a better work if I had the Workshop, a local forest, and if I had freedom of religion. Having only some of those items makes the value of the card less. There are also some wildcard items that help improve every work. Jesters provide two work points to any played Work, and the number of played AND unplayed profession cards held by a player also add one work point each. I guess the thinking here is that artisans like to work together, and they’re easily amused by jesters…
Buildings and freedoms can be purchased using cash during one of a player’s two actions per turn, but landscape tiles (3 different types) and jesters can only be bought at auction. (Remember there are only 7 turns in the entire game, so there are only so many jesters and landscape tiles to go around.) Auctions are even more tight because there are three more things that can be bought: builders (which reduce building costs), recruitment cards (which you exchange with any played profession card so you can get the same “work” made – and also count as profession cards in your hand to give +1 to your work score), and Prestige cards. Prestige cards are like special little mission cards that give you bonus points at the end of the game if you fulfill the mission (like most landscape, most jesters, one of each freedom, etc…)
Along with the seven auctions, players have 2 actions per turn and must use those 14 total actions wisely. Building a building, buying a freedom, and playing a profession to create a work all take an action. Players can also buy a bonus card, these cards are similar to theme to the prestige cards, but are played with a profession card to increase the value of a work. Typical bonus cards might give a +1 bonus for each building, +2 for each large building, +1 for each profession card in your hand, etc…) A final action is the purchase of more profession cards. Most players will want to play a work nearly every round, so that limits your available actions to something more like 8. If you are thinking to yourself that this is a very “tight” game if you only get 7 auctions and about 8 non-work-creating actions, you are only hitting the tip of the iceburg.
Everything about this game screams limited resources. Players start with a good wad of cash (enough to last three turns even if you bid large sums during the auction), but soon they will find that they are running low. Since a played work card provides either cash or victory points (usually a combination of the two – player’s choice) using less cash means scoring more points. Secondly, there is the aforementioned very limited number of actions a player can perform during the game. With only 7 auctions and 8 to 10 “free” actions to play with, players have got to make every decision count. To make matters worse, there is not enough of everything to go around. There are only 6 of each of most of the auction items. So, only 6 jesters, 6 builders, 6 forests, etc… to go around. In a five player game, that means competition for each of those items will be pretty tight. Note that two strategies include multiple jesters or multiple builders so they can be particularly highly coveted. There are 3 types of freedoms and always one less of each freedom than there are players, so some of those are purchased rather fast. While less of an issue for 3 or 4 players, in a five player game, even the profession cards (and thus the recruitment cards as well) tend to run out after a round or two. This is very significant, since playing profession cards is the primary way to score points and the only way to earn more cash.
As if all this competition for resources isn’t enough, every player has to manage one more resource, space. Each player has a playing mat with space on it for placing their purchased buildings and landmarks. They come in Tetris-type pieces of varying sizes and shapes. Nothing can ever be destroyed or moved on your mat, so placing your purchases wisely is very important. Buildings, in particular, are tricky as they tend to be rather large, and no two buildings can touch, except at the corners. However, buying a second builder allows a player to place buildings touching each other. (As buildings give 3 victory points per built building, one strategy is to get three builders which gives a player the ability to place adjacent buildings and makes their cost for free.)
While I’ve only played the game once, it has already gripped my imagination. The many, many constraints in the game make playing it a very tense proposition for me. Also, since there is a large auction portion to the game, it is best when players have experienced it once or twice before to be sure the prices are held up to a reasonable level and no one is getting a total “steal” for a given item. I can’t help but compare it to the boardgame Goa, which also has auctions and then somewhat interaction-less player actions. I find the theme and mechanisms of Princes of Florence to be drier and more abstract, with a slightly less “rich” tree of options to specialize in or explore, but I think Princes of Florence will play in a slightly shorter amount of time. Clearly there is a build-up of power throughout the game, and there are several distinct strategies to exploit in the race to win – both are qualities that I seek in a more meaty game. I highly recommend fans of Goa to seek this one out and give it a try.
For those curious few, yes I did win my first game and that may have clouded my current perceptions, but there are a lot of things here that hit home as elements I like in my games. My winning strategy for the evening was really a diverse one, where I simply tried to buy whatever I could during the auction at bargain-basement prices. Thus, I spent a lot less effort on replenishing my cash on hand and was able to instead constantly cash in my works for victory points. Surprisingly, the game was close at the very end, with one player (using the jester strategy) starting very, very far behind but closing quite fast at the end. The prestige cards help to make the final scoring interesting as no one knows the real final scores until they’re revealed.
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
The Game Psychiatrist--The Substitute
Dr: Hello, you must be Mary.M: Hi, where’s Dr. Meepolous?
Dr: He had to be away for the week. I’m Dr. Boardbent. How are you doing today, Mary?
M: Well, Doctor, I think I’m losing my love for gaming.
Dr: Uh-huh, that’s good. Dr. Meepolous will be very happy to hear that.
M: ?? You don’t understand; I’m here because that’s a BAD thing. For the last 3 years, gaming has been a big part of my life. What will I do if I lose interest in it?
Dr: You will spend all that wasted money on something worthwhile. Gambling is a terrible addiction which takes your money and leaves you with nothing.
M: !! Gambling! I don’t gamble, I play board games! Are you sure Dr. Meepolous isn’t in the other room? Maybe this is just a test of some sort. Maybe I’m on TV!
Dr: Oh, board games. Yes. I see. Well, you could read a book or take a class in painting.
M: Doc, I hate to say this, but you’re really beginning to piss me off. Have you ever played any Euro-games?
Dr: Euro-games….hmmm…I played Monopoly once as a child and I used to play Risk in college.
M: That’s it?! THAT’S your idea of board games?! Oh, for the love of Knizia!! (heavy sigh) O.k., Doc, there are other games now; games that don’t take hours and hours to play and leave you feeling like the 9th puppy of an 8-teat dog. (Starting to pace the floor) These games give you decisions to make, get your brain working, give you strategic choices.
Dr: Risk has all those things, Mary.
M: You’re just messing with me, aren’t you? And how many games of Risk did you lose because the dice were siding with the other guy just when you REALLY needed them to come up with a lot of happy little pips on them?
Dr: Mm-hmmm. I see your point.
M: Here’s what I’m going to do for you, Doc, I’m going to bring in a couple of my games to show you. Are you going to be here tomorrow?
Dr: Yes. I have a free hour at 2:00.
M: Great. I’ll see you then.
{M to self: I can’t believe Dr. Meepolous had THAT guy sub for him.}
{Dr. to self: That was TOO easy. I hope she brings in Torres; I’ll play that with any number of players.}
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Flandern 1302—A Stagnant Game
I’ve played Flandern 1302 twice, once with 3 players and once with 4, the maximum number of players, and both times I’ve been less than impressed with it; it was, in a word, flat. I was left with the feeling that there should be a good game there but I couldn’t find it.
The board is set up with 6 areas depicting cities, each with 13 spaces to place your tiles in trying to get the majority in the city. Each player has the same hand of cards which include one card for each city that lets you build in that city, a card that lets you build in any city but doesn’t let that tile count until you play in that city again and remove the “under construction” marker, a card that lets you pick up your played cards, and three one-time-use “influence” cards which can give you the chance to play first.
Each player has a set of tiles that match the color of one of the cities but there are also tiles which match the remaining 2 cities. The gray tiles represent another guild vying for superiority in the cities and can be played by anyone. The church tiles can also be played by anyone and add points to the city’s worth when it’s scored.
All players choose a card (or cards, if you want to use your influence to go first) and they are revealed at the same time. The player who plays first is the one who played the most cards but most often all players will choose only 1 card so the start player goes first. If you chose a city card, you can place one of your tiles, one from the neutral guild, or one of the church tiles on that city. The only rules for placement of tiles is that it must be adjacent to a tile already placed and it cannot touch another tile of that color along an edge.
That’s the basics of the game. A city is scored when no more tiles can be added to it.
I can be tenacious when something bugs me so I’ve spent some time trying to figure out why this game doesn’t appeal to me or the other gamers I’ve played it with. My conclusion is that I like a game to have “movement”, the ability to change the board or expand it in some way. My favorite games have that: Magna Grecia, Through the Desert, Torres, Trias, Hacienda, Hansa.
So now I have an answer and my brain proceeds to apply it to this stagnant game. Instead of simply placing a tile on a city, let’s offer you the choice of moving a tile to another city. Now you can change the board and it forces another choice on you: where to put the piece to do you no harm and maybe screwing up someone else in the process. That could work.
The influence cards that let you go first are nice but going first isn’t important very often, at least that was the feeling I got. What if playing the influence card let you take a second turn in the city you chose? Now you can remove a piece from a city and replace it with another. Or you can place 2 tiles in a city in one turn and complete it for scoring. Now THAT’S what I call influence!
Would these changes make the game more appealing to us? I don’t know and it may be a while before I can convince the others to give it a try. There are so many very good games that I rarely get to play, do I even care to waste the time fiddling with this one? And would these changes now make the game even slower since you have more decisions to make? If someone decides to give this a try, I’d love to know what you think.
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Sites
For all of you who like to play games online, there’s a new PBEM site called MaBi Web which offers Hansa and Richelieu. I’ve played several games of Hansa and I’m very impressed with the graphics and implementation of the game. It’s easy to use and has all the features you want in an online game including letting you start your turn over again—almost a requirement in a game where you can play your turn in so many ways. The site is still in Beta testing so there may still be a bug or two but MaBi is very nice and quickly replies to any questions or problems.
I also want to let you know that I have started my own personal blog where I plan to talk about my gaming as well as other things that pop into my head. Come and visit me at Meeple Monologues.
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Until next time, keep your penguins on the ice.
Mary
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Board Game => Card Game
Some of the most popular strategy board games have been recreated into card games with little loss of popularity, fun or strategy. It’s amazing to me that someone has managed to take the best parts of the games and converted them into a portable, easy-to-set-up card game when the board and pieces seem so integral to the game.
Settlers of Catan, a game which so many gamers recall as their intro to Euro-games, has a modular board which would seem to be a major part of what makes the game and yet someone considered it a good choice to be made into a card game. It’s a 2-player game rather than 3-4 and maybe that’s why it works without a board. It lost some of the interaction between players but that has been replaced with variety in the building of your own personal province.
Puerto Rico, with its many chits and bits, wouldn’t seem a likely choice for a card game but San Juan has been well-received. It’s a lighter game since it’s introduced luck into the game with the card draw, but the character selection and building portion of the game are intact and hand-management has been added. Such ingenuity in converting it has got to be applauded and marveled at.
Tigris and Euphrates, a VERY popular game, would seem to rely on its board since placement of pieces is what the game is all about and yet it now has a child which you can take anywhere. From what I’ve read, it appears to parallel its parent very well although I doubt it will ever walk in his shoes.
Ra, one of the most lauded auction games, was re-themed and converted to a card game. O.k., that one didn’t go over so well with Ra fans mainly due to the absence of an equivalent to the disaster tiles but many still like it as a lighter version, especially for teaching to new players.
So, as a purely mental exercise, which of your favorite games would you like to see reborn in a smaller package—portable and easy to set up but without losing too much of what you love about it?
How about Torres? We could be rid of the tediousness of having to collect and stack our tower pieces for each round. Placement on the board and height to the board is where the game is but I’m sure some brilliant designer can figure a way to overcome that.
Through the Desert may suffer as a card game since it would lack those candy-like pastel camels but I’m sure the cards could have equally endearing drawings of pastel camels. And you could pop them right into a pocket and weave your way through a paper desert wherever you go.
Wouldn’t it be nice to play Tikal without having to sort and stack all those pieces? If someone could figure a way do it for Puerto Rico, why not Tikal?
In a couple of years, Caylus could be a contender. Once all the hubbub has died down and it’s settled into its appropriate ratings niche, it could be revived with a card game version.
Who knows but that a suggestion here may kick the turning wheels of inspiration in someone’s head into high gear and a wonderful new game will emerge.
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Games
This week I got my copy of Commands & Colors: Ancients and spent about 5 hours putting the stickers on the pieces. That sounds like a long time when some other players have said it took them 2-3 hours but I was also watching CSI and Medium so my attention wasn’t solely on my task. That and I’m as picky as you get about placement.
One of the most obvious differences between Ancients and Memoir ’44 is that there are more types of units available, most with their own unique movement rates, strengths in combat, and special rules that apply. I haven’t played with the elephants yet but I’m looking forward to my first elephant rampage!
The next big addition is the difference between Ranged Combat units and Close Combat units which seems to this inexperienced wargamer to add a level of strategy which is missing in Memoir ’44. Some units cannot fire from a distance—they have to get in there and fight hand to hand—but they’re stronger in a battle (roll more dice) than the units that have the option of Ranged or Close Combat.
The drawback to Close Combat is another addition to Ancients. The defender now has the ability to return the attack under some circumstances. I think this is very cool since it removes a little of the bad luck if you can’t draw a card which lets you order that unit.
Ancients has also added Leaders and they aren’t just another block to move around, offering scant help on occasion. They give you an extra hit symbol when battling from their hex or an adjacent hex, let you ignore one retreat flag for their hex, and lets foot units make a Bonus Close Combat attack after advancing. Nice guys to have around and fairly hard to kill unless they’re alone.
I know some people are disappointed that the game didn’t come with miniatures but I like the blocks. They’re easier to move around in a group and the different sizes are useful for assessing the board at a glance. I also think it would be hard to tell the difference between the types of infantry and cavalry if it were done with miniatures whereas the green circles, blue triangles and red squares are very easy to display on the blocks. Besides, miniatures like the ones in Memoir have a tendency to come with strange quirks like the guns that shoot around corners and the infantrymen that are perpetually leaning into the wind.
I AM disappointed that the Light Infantry and the Auxilia units’ pictures are so hard to tell apart, especially for older eyes like mine, but that may get easier with more play. I’ve found that laying at least one block in the hex down makes it easier to see the difference between them, at least in the lighting that I play under.
This is one of those games that has invaded my thoughts long after I finished playing it and I can’t wait to play again. I was looking for a war game with a little more strategy and control than Memoir ’44 while not being overwhelming in the rules department and I think I’ve found it.
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Until next time, watch your flanks.
Mary
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Print, Motrin and Play
How cool is it to find a game you like that is free? All it wants is a few common household items and a couple hours of your time.
One of the first print and play games I found was Kardinal & Konig: Das Kartenspiel. The printing turned out to be the hardest part since the download was for the European paper size called A4 rather than our American 8 X 11. Once I twisted my printer’s brain to speak European, I found the cutting out of the cards rather relaxing—don’t forget to round the corners.
Then I discovered Dschunke: Das Legespiel, the original version of Rat Hot. We enjoyed this game so much that I printed up a second copy of the tiles and put them on a thin piece of masonite and cut them out with the band saw. My dear husband then built a small box to hold them, complete with a sliding lid.
Before Himalaya, there was Marchands d’Empire. Yep, I put that one together, too. Now we’re talking quite a few pieces to cut out but I still enjoyed it and I think the board is much nicer looking than the Himalaya version.
So on Monday when I checked out Rick Thornquist’s new site and found a print and play game that is a triangle-based version of Blokus called Tricky Tiles, I fired up the printer and got out my “common household items.” Card stock, poster board, sticker paper, old cutting board, metal yardstick, scissors and a hobby knife.
I wanted the pieces to be thick enough to pick up easily so just printing on both sides of card stock wouldn’t do. No, I decided to print them on 2 pieces of card stock and use spray-on glue to put them on a piece of poster board, one on each side. This took some time but they came out almost perfectly aligned.
For a board, I’m usually satisfied to use sticker paper and make the board one big piece which I store standing up in a closet but this time I wanted to try to make a folded board. This actually turned out pretty well for a first, cheap effort using just poster board and sticker paper. My board now folds into quarters and is compact enough to fit in a box the size of the Kosmos 2-player line.
Most of the day was spent cutting out 88 small, strange-shaped pieces with a hobby knife. This is where the Motrin comes in. My back hurts from bending over the table (I’m short so sitting and leverage don’t go together); my left hand, wrist, elbow and shoulder ache from keeping pressure on the yardstick to keep it from slipping out of place; and the tip of my index finger on my right hand is numb from pushing on the knife.
Was it worth it? Yeah. I coerced Richard into trying it after supper and found it to be both tougher and easier than Blokus. The first thing that makes Tricky Tiles tougher is the strange shaped pieces with their odd angles. We spent more time placing pieces as we had to fiddle with several to get them to go where we wanted to go. Another aspect that makes it tougher is a wider choice of places you can place pieces because you can match not only outside corners but any triangle point within the piece, even along a straight edge. The many and varied pieces seem to make it easier to fill the in-between spaces but as with Blokus, get those big pieces out there early. I like that the playing area on the board changes with the number of players, reminding me of Einfach Genial (Ingenious).
I think if you’re a fan of Blokus, this would be worth your time. If we’re lucky, it’ll be picked up by a publisher so everyone can enjoy it. Until then, warm up the printer and bring out the Motrin.
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Games
I haven’t played a full game of anything this week (you may post your condolences here). By the time we sat down for Thanksgiving dinner, I was getting a headache so passed on the chance to twist arms but Richard was kind enough to play Ingenious with Chris, Jessica and her father. After that, the turkey kicked in and we all sat around watching either football or Garfield’s Thanksgiving on DVD followed by one of our favorite Christmas movies, Christmas Vacation.
I received Kreta this week, which Cori, Richard and I tried out on Sunday evening but it had been a long day and after 9 provinces, we agreed the game should be called on account of yawning. None of us were playing our best so I’ll withhold any comment until I can play it with a working brain.
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Until next time, buy stock in Ziploc.
Mary
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