Last week, we liked the new games so much, we wanted to play them again! (remember, we have game attention deficit disorder. This is big for us).
As an aside, this year is turning out to be very different for me for new games. 2007 was a year that brought a series of very good "niche" games into my collection. Last Night on Earth, Jungle Speed, Dungeon Twister, Nexus Ops, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage, etc, are all games that I really enjoyed for what they are. They're fun, they have a place in my collection for the variety that they bring, but in the end my true love is heavier strategy games (i.e. El Grande, Taj Mahal, Princes of Florence, etc). I didn't play a single game of that type in 2007 that really did it for me. Even Blue Moon City, which is a very good strategy game by all accounts, is at most a middleweight. In contrast, we aren't even in the third month of 2008 and we've already played Perikles, In the Year of the Dragon and Race for the Galaxy... three games that I consider to be excellent gamer's games. I couldn't be happier.
Shemp joined us, so we were able to see how In the Year of the Dragon and Race for the Galaxy played with four.
In the Year of the Dragon
This is turning out to be a great game. I can't really say whether it's harder or easier with more players, but so far I'd say it's a bit of a wash. On one hand, there are fewer actions in each group so in some ways it can actually be easier to get what you want even if you aren't first in turn order. On the other hand, if you are LAST in turn order, you have a choice between paying 3 yuan or picking the single action left over by the other players. So, going from three to four has made it easier to be in 2nd place, and harder to be in 4th. With five, I bet being 3rd, 4th and 5th will be a little miserable.
Although the game doesn't change dramatically because of the order of the disasters, it changes just enough to shake things up. Sure, you can't allow yourself to fall behind on the VP engine if you hope to win so you probably can't totally ignore palaces/ courtisans and dragons but the rest will have to be considered on a game by game basis.
I noticed a similarity to Maharaja in the sense that on a given turn, there's a good chance all players are eyeing the same one or two actions (due to the order of upcoming disasters). Just like that game, the player with turn order advantage can take the easy route and prepare for the events as they come. Players who are going later on in the turn will lose if they spend the whole game chasing the leader... they have to prepare for the events in a different order or look for an alternate approach to getting VPs.
Anyway, I picked up a dragon, a courtisan and a third palace early and managed to keep turn order advantage throughout much of the game. Scores were mostly tight, but near the end the spread got a bit wider. Unlike last game, I didn't forget about the endgame points so I managed to keep the win. Bharmer fell back on the turn order track and paid a heavy price for it (he became a fireworks specialist as, turn after turn, fireworks were the single left over action he was forced to pick). Shemp did very well for his first game... he came in a rather close second if my memory serves.
Race for the Galaxy
What a nice surprise this is turning out to be. Race manages to be virtually identical to San Juan on the surface and yet be a very different game experience. With four, San Juan was a bit dry for me (because just about all the actions are chosen every round... making most rounds pretty samey). In Race, many rounds a few of the players pick the same action so phases definitely do get skipped frequently. Also, the wide variety of cards available in the base set allows even further variety between games. There's enough going on that the simple game engine it's based on becomes a fast yet meaty game that manage to avoid most of the things I typically dislike about themed card games.
I can't remember the name of my starting planet this time (epsilon?), but there was a dose of military and consumption in the opening hand. I became fixated on building a particularly cool 6 building and therefore fell behind on the cards I was playing. Kozure, on the other hand, was a machine. When he ended the game (with twelve cards played) I was still at eight.
The Kaiser's Pirates
This was a new game purchased recently by Kozure. It's a card game about pirates and the merchant ships they raided. Players look after three pirate ships and three merchants, and try to make as many points as possible by having their pirates attack and sink other player's merchants. The actual gameplay is fairly reminiscent of others we've played. It's essentially a "take that" style game, with the good and the bad which comes with the territory. A bad hand can probably screw you over, and the free for all nature of attacks could probably make it hard for a player who gets picked on to compete. The game has a couple of good ideas which try to overcome the inherent randomness of card games... the most important of which is that each card has multiple functions ensuring that there is typically at least one useful way to use each card. I thought it was cool that each ship has it's strength represented by a mix of die types (1d6, 1d8 and 1d10, for ex.), highest single roll determines the value, so you can get an idea of the odds but you'll never really know until the bones are rolled. A variety of attack types and special abilities are represented by a similar system.
We only got through a partial hand, so I can't really say too much about it. On the surface, I'd say I liked it about as much as Zero!, Airwar: Pacific or Naval War... similar war themed card games we've played in the past.
Friday, February 29, 2008
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Shiny and New (In the Year of the Dragon, Race for the Galaxy)
I've been pretty good about not buying new games lately, so when I went to Waterloo on business I took advantage of the occasion to drop by one of the best game stores in Ontario... J&J Cards. I walked out with In the Year of the Dragon and Race for the Galaxy...
In the Year of the Dragon
I'm a sucker for a good strategy game, so when I heard that the Alea release was a good one I knew I'd eventually succumb to temptation.
First impressions weren't so good. There are a lot of pieces, and it takes a fair amount of sorting to set things up. Also, the whole thing is really bland looking. To top things off, the components are definitely lower quality than earlier games in the series (thinner counters, board warp). Oh well. Kozure in particular seemed put off by the presentation, and I could feel he wasn't particularly looking forward to playing it.
Luckily, the rules are short and the included player's aids are very helpful (though they have to be the tiniest ones I've ever seen... is that a 2 point font?)
So, we're in China and it's the Year of the Dragon. Each player needs to recruit the right workers in order to weather the hardships of the year ahead. Unfortunately for the players, it's going to be a brutal year.
Without getting into too much detail about the rules, each game round (one of twelve "months") consists of:
1) Choosing from a series of potential actions
2) Hiring a worker (which will make you more effective at various actions in the future)
3) Weather the calamities of the month.
A part of me was afraid that playing a game about surviving a series of disasters would be kind of... you know... depressing. Luckily, although the game is far from a cakewalk the process is engaging and fun. You see the year ahead right at the start of the game so you you try to hire the right people at the right times to succeed and prosper despite the hard times. the workers may not survive long, but whatever.
On a purely mechanical level, there's a couple of nice things going on. The choice of workers is the meat of the game, but turn order is almost as important. Wouldn't you know it, the better the worker, the less it helps you go first. It's a simple problem, but it works really well. Similarly, the way actions are split is very effective at forcing players to be flexible (which is an interesting problem when things get as tight as they do in this game). It feels like Princes of Florence with the passive aggressive tendencies of Puerto Rico.
In our first session, I tried to manage a small series of three buildings throughout the game, and tried to avoid going for cash at all costs (though I was in for a rude awakening when I discovered that the following month's event was a tribute of 4 Yuan to the emperor). I focused on getting victory points through dragons and scholars. For 99% of the game, things looked good for me. Unfortunately, the endgame bonus points for buddhas put Bharmer 2 points ahead for the win.
From the reactions at the end, I'd say it was well received. I wouldn't say it's exceptional or anything, but it was very good. Looking forward to playing again.
Race for the Galaxy
A while back, Puerto Rico was made into a card game called San Juan. I had hoped that it would bring the fun of the Puerto Rico game system while removing the fiddliness of the setup and some of the gameplay. It more or less worked. The loss of the shipping aspect of the game was a bit of a shame, but my biggest dissapointment was the loss of the player interation. In comparison to it's bigger brother, the card game was a bit muted (particularly with 4). It's a very good game, but not as much as I'd hoped for.
Then along comes another game by one of the designers of San Juan. In fact, it's more like another version of the same game. Rumour has it that it's quite a bit more complicated, but also more satisfying. Sounded good to me.
Race for the Galaxy shares much of the same rules as San Juan, but the devil is in the details. For example, roles are selected simultaneously and secretely instead of sequentially. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but it makes a big difference in gameplay because you spend a lot of time guessing and second guessing what the other players will pick (can I assume he'll pick settle so I don't have to?). This otherwise small detail made me feel much less like I was playing a multiplayer solitaire game than I often do with San Juan.
In a way, it feels like Race isn't so much adding to San Juan as stripping LESS from Puerto Rico. Shipping is back. Goods of various types are back (or, more specifically, they mean more than just picking up a different amount of cards). A few things are new, such as the concept of controlling worlds (through discovery or military conquest).
Anyway, the additional complexity is manageable and the game works well. The cards have an iconography which seems difficult at first, but I think it will likely become easy soon enough. As in San Juan, getting to know the cards is essential to really understanding the strategy, but in this case getting to know the cards and their combinations will take a while (and it's kind of fun anyway).
Bharmer built the fastest and won the game, but my New Spartan empire of military conquest and alien tech. came quite close despite having built much less. I feel like there's quite a bit to explore here... I'm looking forward to it.
In the Year of the Dragon
I'm a sucker for a good strategy game, so when I heard that the Alea release was a good one I knew I'd eventually succumb to temptation.
First impressions weren't so good. There are a lot of pieces, and it takes a fair amount of sorting to set things up. Also, the whole thing is really bland looking. To top things off, the components are definitely lower quality than earlier games in the series (thinner counters, board warp). Oh well. Kozure in particular seemed put off by the presentation, and I could feel he wasn't particularly looking forward to playing it.
Luckily, the rules are short and the included player's aids are very helpful (though they have to be the tiniest ones I've ever seen... is that a 2 point font?)
So, we're in China and it's the Year of the Dragon. Each player needs to recruit the right workers in order to weather the hardships of the year ahead. Unfortunately for the players, it's going to be a brutal year.
Without getting into too much detail about the rules, each game round (one of twelve "months") consists of:
1) Choosing from a series of potential actions
2) Hiring a worker (which will make you more effective at various actions in the future)
3) Weather the calamities of the month.
A part of me was afraid that playing a game about surviving a series of disasters would be kind of... you know... depressing. Luckily, although the game is far from a cakewalk the process is engaging and fun. You see the year ahead right at the start of the game so you you try to hire the right people at the right times to succeed and prosper despite the hard times. the workers may not survive long, but whatever.
On a purely mechanical level, there's a couple of nice things going on. The choice of workers is the meat of the game, but turn order is almost as important. Wouldn't you know it, the better the worker, the less it helps you go first. It's a simple problem, but it works really well. Similarly, the way actions are split is very effective at forcing players to be flexible (which is an interesting problem when things get as tight as they do in this game). It feels like Princes of Florence with the passive aggressive tendencies of Puerto Rico.
In our first session, I tried to manage a small series of three buildings throughout the game, and tried to avoid going for cash at all costs (though I was in for a rude awakening when I discovered that the following month's event was a tribute of 4 Yuan to the emperor). I focused on getting victory points through dragons and scholars. For 99% of the game, things looked good for me. Unfortunately, the endgame bonus points for buddhas put Bharmer 2 points ahead for the win.
From the reactions at the end, I'd say it was well received. I wouldn't say it's exceptional or anything, but it was very good. Looking forward to playing again.
Race for the Galaxy
A while back, Puerto Rico was made into a card game called San Juan. I had hoped that it would bring the fun of the Puerto Rico game system while removing the fiddliness of the setup and some of the gameplay. It more or less worked. The loss of the shipping aspect of the game was a bit of a shame, but my biggest dissapointment was the loss of the player interation. In comparison to it's bigger brother, the card game was a bit muted (particularly with 4). It's a very good game, but not as much as I'd hoped for.
Then along comes another game by one of the designers of San Juan. In fact, it's more like another version of the same game. Rumour has it that it's quite a bit more complicated, but also more satisfying. Sounded good to me.
Race for the Galaxy shares much of the same rules as San Juan, but the devil is in the details. For example, roles are selected simultaneously and secretely instead of sequentially. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but it makes a big difference in gameplay because you spend a lot of time guessing and second guessing what the other players will pick (can I assume he'll pick settle so I don't have to?). This otherwise small detail made me feel much less like I was playing a multiplayer solitaire game than I often do with San Juan.
In a way, it feels like Race isn't so much adding to San Juan as stripping LESS from Puerto Rico. Shipping is back. Goods of various types are back (or, more specifically, they mean more than just picking up a different amount of cards). A few things are new, such as the concept of controlling worlds (through discovery or military conquest).
Anyway, the additional complexity is manageable and the game works well. The cards have an iconography which seems difficult at first, but I think it will likely become easy soon enough. As in San Juan, getting to know the cards is essential to really understanding the strategy, but in this case getting to know the cards and their combinations will take a while (and it's kind of fun anyway).
Bharmer built the fastest and won the game, but my New Spartan empire of military conquest and alien tech. came quite close despite having built much less. I feel like there's quite a bit to explore here... I'm looking forward to it.
Friday, February 01, 2008
Every Dog has it's Day (Puerto Rico, Blue Moon City, Zooloretto)
You know how it goes. You bring a particular game time and time again to games night in the hopes of it getting picked. Time and time again, it doesn't. Well, I've been dragging Puerto Rico along with me for quite some time, and I've noticed Zooloretto in Kozure's bag every week since christmas. As if to appease us, Bharmer picked both (coincidence? subtle suggestion? who knows?).
Puerto Rico
Ironically, I often put down Puerto Rico. There's something about the setup which really irks me (all the counting and stacking... it's right up there with Memoir '44 and Hey! That's my fish! for making me want to choose something else just because of the setup to game ratio). I also hate teaching it, as all the subsystems and buildings are hard to condense into anything which will keep new player's attention.
Still, despite all that, it's fun to PLAY. It's been so long, I can't remember the last time we did (cue Shemp: "Y'all got too many games").
I was the first player, so Indigo it was. I usually go for the money route, with markets and coffee OR the corn strategy. This time, I was the beneficiary of a particularly lucrative propector on round three and purchased the University. How often does THAT happen? So, with the hospice in tow I started taking on colonists like crazy with my eye on the 6 building that gives you a bonus victory point for every 3 colonists (oh, and I was brewing coffee and selling it to make ends meet). Wouldn't you know it, I pushed my luck too far and Bharmer bought the 6 building before I could.
Meanwhile, Kozure went the big money route (a new tactic for him), Shemp went Pure Corn (he practically refused to buy any buildings other than a warehouse) and Bharmer did a little bit of everything.
Outcome: Bharmer wins a close game. Kozure 2nd, Shemp 3rd and me last. Still fun, though.
Blue Moon City
I alluded to it in an earlier post, but this is my pick for top game of 2007. With 4, the margin for error is slim. In a repeat performance, Bharmer claimed the top spot with 4 offerings just as most of us were considering our 2nd. Hmmm. I blame the fact that Bharmer had THE ENTIRE DECK'S WORTH OF PILLAR CARDS in his hand, and we wasted precious turns looking for some.
BTW, the standings were entirely the same as in Puerto Rico.
Zooloretto
I've played and enjoyed Zooloretto before, but I'm happy to state that it's much more fun and compelling with 4 competitive players that it was with 3. In my previous games, I was on the verge of getting maximum points every time. With 4, the competition for "stuff" was more intense and decisions seemed to matter more. I actually felt compelled to take an incomplete cart on several occasions! It will never be a favorite of mine, but it definitely is good with 4 and should be entertaining as a family game in particular.
Puerto Rico
Ironically, I often put down Puerto Rico. There's something about the setup which really irks me (all the counting and stacking... it's right up there with Memoir '44 and Hey! That's my fish! for making me want to choose something else just because of the setup to game ratio). I also hate teaching it, as all the subsystems and buildings are hard to condense into anything which will keep new player's attention.
Still, despite all that, it's fun to PLAY. It's been so long, I can't remember the last time we did (cue Shemp: "Y'all got too many games").
I was the first player, so Indigo it was. I usually go for the money route, with markets and coffee OR the corn strategy. This time, I was the beneficiary of a particularly lucrative propector on round three and purchased the University. How often does THAT happen? So, with the hospice in tow I started taking on colonists like crazy with my eye on the 6 building that gives you a bonus victory point for every 3 colonists (oh, and I was brewing coffee and selling it to make ends meet). Wouldn't you know it, I pushed my luck too far and Bharmer bought the 6 building before I could.
Meanwhile, Kozure went the big money route (a new tactic for him), Shemp went Pure Corn (he practically refused to buy any buildings other than a warehouse) and Bharmer did a little bit of everything.
Outcome: Bharmer wins a close game. Kozure 2nd, Shemp 3rd and me last. Still fun, though.
Blue Moon City
I alluded to it in an earlier post, but this is my pick for top game of 2007. With 4, the margin for error is slim. In a repeat performance, Bharmer claimed the top spot with 4 offerings just as most of us were considering our 2nd. Hmmm. I blame the fact that Bharmer had THE ENTIRE DECK'S WORTH OF PILLAR CARDS in his hand, and we wasted precious turns looking for some.
BTW, the standings were entirely the same as in Puerto Rico.
Zooloretto
I've played and enjoyed Zooloretto before, but I'm happy to state that it's much more fun and compelling with 4 competitive players that it was with 3. In my previous games, I was on the verge of getting maximum points every time. With 4, the competition for "stuff" was more intense and decisions seemed to matter more. I actually felt compelled to take an incomplete cart on several occasions! It will never be a favorite of mine, but it definitely is good with 4 and should be entertaining as a family game in particular.
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