Your face is in the way (Taj Mahal, Ra, Phoenicia)

Hmmm.

Taj Mahal

It was just me, Luch and Bharmer playing the first game. In this session, I tried to see if I could win Taj Mahal by focusing mainly on connecting provinces. The short answer is No.

It may be possible to do well at Taj with this strategy, but it would take a specific board layout. In this game, the numbers were very disconnected, so despite the fact I was very successfully placing the palaces I needed, the province chains just weren't that long. Sadly, the 3-4 points I was getting couldn't keep up with the points both Luch and Bharmer were getting from goods. When I finally connected the provinces in the middle, I had two successive turns netting me 10-14 points, but it was too little, too late. Bharmer and Luch were way ahead, and Bharmer won it.

Ra

Kozure and Kozure's Kuz (ahem) showed up just as we were putting away the board. We decided to play Ra, because, well, it's a great game. Not so much with 5, but still good. Anyway, as usual I spent the 2nd and 3rd round with very low suns (note to self: why does that always happen?). I therefore was an auction calling machine. It worked for me, and I managed a huge haul of pharaohs and rivers which won the game for me. Anyway, the Kuz seemed unimpressed for most of the game, but I think he was starting to like it near the end. We'll see if chooses to come back!

Phoenicia

It was do or die for Phoenicia tonight. It died.

Kozure once again managed a small lead by the second or third round and held it until the end. Obviously, he understands something about the game that eludes the rest of us, because as much as I believe seating order is important it can't be a coincidence that he keeps killing us. He always has the lead early, and never lets it go long.

Anyway, despite the fact that there is obviously skill involved, the whole thing feels scripted and boring. It's a short game, yet the winner seems obvious far too early. I don't know, it's just not that much fun for me.

To the trade pile!

Beauty and the Beast (Shogun x 1 and Phoenicia x1)

Clever Production Design vs. Poor Production Design in Games

Phoenicia and Shogun were the games of choice this week. We've tentatively adopted a new format where we play one game from the previous week each week, so as to allow a better exploration of the strategic depth and other subtleties of the game.

Phoenicia on second playing has improved in terms of speed and smoothness of play, but, for me at least, some of the initial interest has worn off. Although it seemed intriguing at first, this system seems to suffer from a marked runaway-leader aspect, a sameness of play and a inevitability of a certain winner which I can't really see any remedy to without major rules changes.

As mentioned in the previous review, the person who leads each auction is the VP leader from the previous round; in case of tied high scores the first player marker (in this case called the Overseer) is passed to the closest tied player to the left of the current Overseer. The benefits of being the auctioneer are that if you have the money, (which you often will, if you are leading in production) you can buy what you need right away without much interference from the other players. Since you control the auction until you give it up, you can conceivable buy a number of low cost items all in your turn if one or two of the other players already have bought an item or are otherwise out of cards or coins.

If you are the last player, you can often buy the one (or choose from the cards remaining) and buy it at cost. However, at that point, your selection is usually so limited as to severely limit your tech path options.

If you get the right combination early and grab the VP lead, you can more or less race to the end and leave the other players wallowing in the 18-24 point range.

Then again, maybe my two wins were a fluke… I'm not certain. I recently read a criticism of Agricola (http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/307192 )which, although I cannot comment on the accuracy of it in relation to Agricola, I can apply some of the same criticism of specific feelings about the game to Phoenicia here.

To quote the review:

"There is a whole class of games where the opening setup determines the likely winner. Card games. They have a few other characteristics (at least for good ones): 1) they are short, 2) you play many hands to reduce the luck (or determine the better player). Good players will win more than their ‘fair’ share of games, but won’t win every hand.

Agricola is a single deal card game that takes 90+ minutes to resolve."

…

A good game should take as long as required to determine the winner, and no longer. Bridge (a great game) would be farcical if you spent 30 minutes playing a hand. Agricola is chess between even players where you may be randomly up a knight or down a queen, but don’t know until halfway through the game."

In Phoenicia's case, although you aren't dealt a secret hand of cards for asymmetrical player ability purposes, once one player pulls away, it seems to have a definite snowball effect. The winner seems to be determined early. Add to this the fact that attempting to block another player's strategy by purchasing the card he/she most likely wants is often either impossible or not viable as a strategy. If you did, you'd most likely torpedo your own strategic path, so the prospect of blocking another player by spending your own much-needed resources to stop her/him from getting it is the gaming equivalent of suicide bombing: you may (or may not) stop your intended target, but you'll almost certain kill yourself in the process.

Given that the only direct player interaction is the auction and everything else is player mat optimization, you're left with a game where everyone is left doing their own thing. If you buy the right card combo (often by virtue of where you're sitting for the first auction) early on, you win by snowball effect and the outcome seems pretty fixed. Though I do think I made some savvy choices early on, and shifted production strategy (from improved hunting to improved mining) at the right time to maximize my returns, it really didn't feel tense after the third or fourth round. Once I had money coming in, it wasn't much of a stretch to get more.

Specifically, getting the tracker allows improved hunting, which is a pretty cheap production path for points and production, (tools 2 vs. farming 5) and also affords reduction on the caravan, which is a great boost for points and production. I then gunned for the shipyards (and bid high), which gave me increased hand size, VPs, production and discounts on future improvements. Moving from there to Fort, Smelter, Shipping Fleet and City Walls just sealed the deal.

Easy's observation that the second and third seat players seem to have a definite disadvantage in the auction set-up also seems quite accurate.

Combined with the well-documented graphic design problems (shared VP/production track, poor iconography, low visibility for some critical icons and values) and poor rules-as-written ruleset, this makes for some very difficult obstacles for the enjoyment of the game. However, and this is a big however, it still seems worth playing again for some reason, at least one more time. Faint praise, but one feels like playing Phoenicia because it's a simple, relatively quick playing civilization game with some modicum of theme and tech development - not overlong like the sprawling Civilization or Through the Ages games, but not overly abstracted like Vinci or Tempus. At the same time, it's not a very good quick medium-lightweight civ game, it's just that there's not many successful ones out there. Even Antike, which is in my mind one of the more successful medium-weight civ games, is quite long by comparison.

Does Phoenicia just boil down to a straightforward auction game with tech tree and resource optimization? Pretty much, but it's quick. It lacks other components which (to me) are important to a successful-feeling civ game - exploration/discovery and direct competition. Plus, the art and iconography are mediocre at best, and confusing at worst.

Compared with Phoenicia's graphic layout, Shogun seems positively sparkling. Cleverly thought out balancing factors and a number of very interesting mechanics - cube tower, turn planning, bluff, hidden auction, etc. - remind one what a well thought through system can feel like by comparison to one which feels both graphically and mechanically unpolished. In Phoenicia's defence, Shogun has had one previous incarnation (as Wallenstein) to work out kinks, so it's like comparing a concept car to the fifth or sixth year version/model of a proven car design. The polish of Shogun's art and design definitely makes this the "beauty" of this pairing of beauty and beast.

Shogun balances powerbase-type strategies by awarding points for building types spread across several regions, allowing for players with scattered region cards to benefit. The cube tower also mitigates randomness in attacks and defense that might otherwise result from dice or table-based combat. Overall it is a nicely balanced game, but it still fails to engage me on some level - there isn't much "movement", if you know what I mean.

Last night's game has also underscored for me the concept that it's often better to focus taxation/rice unrest markers in one well garrisoned province rather than trying to spread your forces thin to quell potential unrest across your holdings (the old "You can't make all of the people happy all of the time," maxim). It also reminded me of the possible combination punches of getting reinforce, move and attack orders during a turn.

This game was much closer, and it was near to impossible to predict the winner. It feels like you're more in control, but there is much less movement. One minor criticism I have of this game is that it seems to end just as you're getting going - despite the fact that "getting going" has required 90 minutes already.

I like Shogun, but it remains a game that I don't really look forward to playing when it's selected. I don't dread it, or groan when it's mentioned, but it's still not something that I look forward to playing, like Railroad Tycoon or many of my other highly rated games. I did enjoy this game, as it was pretty close and required attention and careful strategy, but perhaps for the lack of dynamic movement that I previously mentioned, it's never quite as exciting as some other of my favourite games - it lacks as many highs and lows.

One day we'll find a civ game and a waro (weuro) that I like. For now, the search continues.

Diggin' a hole (Thebes, Phoenicia)

We played two new games this week, Thebes and Phoenicia.

Thebes

JayWowzer brought along his copy of Thebes for us to try. Despite the fact that most games that I hear about don't interest me much anymore, Thebes had picked my interest. Having played it, I'd say the design has a lot going for it, but the luck is a little more than I can handle.

The game is quite attractive, with a nice board, thick cardboard chits and very nice discs which are used to determine a player's ability at digging for artifacts. My favorite components were the very nice bags used for drawing the artifacts... a nice touch. I had heard a lot about the time mechanism used in the game, and it does work quite well. It's very much like turn order in golf: Whoever is in last plays until they are not last anymore. In Thebes, players have 52 x2 turns which represents 52 x2 weeks. Every action requires a number of weeks to perform. Some actions are worth quite a bit but take several weeks to perform. In the meantime, another player could choose to do a series of shorter actions instead. It's not a mindblowing mechanic, but it works well and (other than in golf) I don't think I've seen it used before.

I found the tension in trying to figure out how long to do research vs actually going to the dig to be very entertaining. Going first likely means you have fewer draws (unless you were particularly effective at specializing your knowledge), but players that come later get worse odds at drawing anything good. So far, so good. I was really enjoying the game.

Problem is, in the game we played the player who won (me) did it by being lucky at artifact draws. It seemed to make all the stuff which happened before sort of irrelevant. I thought about it afterwards, and I think I decided that the problem I have with the scoring isn't the random draws or the sand mechanic. It's the value of the artifacts.

I wonder how the game would play if the value of all artifacts was 1. The luck of the draw would still be present, but that luck wouldn't be compounded by the fact that a 7 is seven times more than a 1. The rest of the game stays the same, but I suspect exhibitions would become more popular. Another possible variant would be to allow the 3 most valuable artifact drawn (between all players) to be worth it's value at the end of the game, but the others are worth 1. If we did this, I would suggest that exhibitions consume the relics displayed (exhibitions would have to be worth twice as much as they currently are to offset the lost artifacts). This way, the advantage of drawing a high tile would be counterbalanced by the fact that a player is unlikely to use it on an exhibitions (where it would be lost).

So, I did like it. If I can ever find a copy cheap or for trade, I'm all over it.

(a note for posterity: Bharmer drew 20 sand tiles in a row over 3-4 different expeditions. Not one artifact. He didn't stand a chance. As for me, I had 45 points worth at the end of the game. I suspect that's a big haul.

Phoenicia

On paper, Phoenicia seems like a Puerto Rico clone with a bonus auction mechanic. It plays 2, which is good, and it plays in about an hour normally. Very positive. However, I found the rules confusing (although the Nova rules from BGG helped immensely). To make matters worse, there graphic presentation leads to errors and confusion. Critical icons are placed on the scoring track, which invariably end up beneath player tokens and therefore illegible. The symbols are thin, small and difficult to interpret. There's probably a good game in there, but even the game setup made me wish I was playing something else.

Anyway, I'm sure I'll try it again, but it's a definite addition to the trade pile for now.

I wanted to talk a little about an error we made. We are supposed to start with a worker in the first space of hunting and farming! This is why the scoring track starts the way it does (3 production, 2 vps) . Now my mind can rest.

Kozure was running away as the leader for most of the game until the final few turns where I made a valiant attempt to catch up with him. It almost worked, I was 1 point behind him!

Man is the dumbest animal (Wildlife, Race for the Galaxy, Ra)

Only three tonight. Myself, Kozure and Bharmer.

Wildlife

Wildlife is one of Kozure's favorite games and since we hadn't played it in quite a while he picked it as the main course for the evening. It's odd that this game, designed by Wolfgang Kramer (El Grande, Princes of Florence, Tikal), seems to have flown completely under the radar on BGG.

Kozure was Man, I was the Eagles and Bharmer was the Bears.

In the beginning, the bears came across the forest and climbed up the mountains.
The eagles soared across all earthbound terrain.
Man dominated the plains.

It was then that Eagle learnt how to thrive in the water. There, it fought with Bear over the fluvial realm. Man could not be bothered with such trivialities as evolution, food or advanced intelligence. It spread out to the desert and the forest.

It was then that the Bear and Eagle were dethroned. Man cut the vast kingdom of the Eagle in half and learned much about aggression, defense and the importance of foodgathering. When all was said and done, man stood victorious.

It was a good game. It seems that Wildlife plays pretty well at three (though picking the wrong starting races could change that). We spent a good amount of actions simply exchanging the advancement cards, particularly the defense ones. If I had one complaint about the game is that those cards don't quite feel right in the game (too powerful?). Anyway, it's a small complaint. Wildlife is a good game.

Race for the Galaxy

This is a shoe-in for most played game this year. I once again tried a military strategy after being dealt New Sparta as my starting planet. I managed to place quite a few military planets down, but since my production was zero and I didn't manage to get the related "6" development out I came in a distant third.

Two funny stories:

1) I had a hand of 5 cards, and they were all planets. I was sure Kozure or Bharmer would pick development that round, so I chose Explore +5. Guess what, I drew 7 more planets.
2) In the final round, I skipped drawing cards in the explore phase since I knew I wanted to play a "6" development from my hand (capitalizing on the small amount of ALIEN technology I had). Just for fun, afterwards I looked at the cards I wold have drawn... the military "6" card I needed was the second one! Counting the difference it would have made in points, I would have tied for second instead of coming in 15 points behind second place! Bharmer won, but he made a mistake in his interpretation of one of his cards and made repeated "production" errors. I therefore declare his win null and void (Ha!).

Ra

Ahhhh, Ra. Nice to see you again.

Civilization tiles came hot and heavy in the first era (15 of 25 tiles, in fact). Bharmer ended the 1st with a huge stash of points (including 15 points for 5 civs). Despite the fact that Kozure and I had 2-3 suns left and 6-7 RA tiles left to draw before the era ended, we essentially wound up with nothing as RA after RA were drawn.

The 2nd era was kind to no one.

In the third, Bharmer sealed his victory with 30 points from buildings. Scores were closer than I expected, but he still won comfortably.