Forever, Again (Through the Ages)

Kozure made a liar out of me and suggested we play Through the Ages this week. Shemp wasn't around, but Bharmer/ Luch/ Kozure and I still made a foursome.

I have to admit, I wasn't particularly looking forward to this one. It has a reputation for being long and fiddly, two things I'm not particularly fond of in eurogames. On the other hand, Kozure liked it enough to buy a copy and it's designed by the designer of Galaxy Trucker and Space Alert (Vlaada Chvatil), so those were definite plusses.

It *is* long. We played the "advanced game", which is shorter than the the "full" but longer than the "simple" game. Including rules explanation, it took a little over 4 hours. Like every other game by this designer, there are many components and many moving parts to the rules. The basics are simple enough once you get the turn order down. but there are issues in the art direction of the boards and cards which makes things a little harder than they need to be, and the sheer number of phases in a player's turn makes keeping an eye on the player's reference mandatory. Of course, all these things can be forgiven if it's a good game... so did I like it?

Yeah, more or less. However, even more than for most games, one game is not enough to really know. It's definitely clever and original, but at first blush there seems to be a few problems (in addition to the length issue).

I'm going to gloss over a hell of a lot of detail here, but here's a brief overview of the game mechanics:

Each player has a board which describes the state of their civilization. A central board keeps track of each player's score, relative army strength and relative ingenuity. The central board also holds two different decks of cards, one to determine future events and the other to be drafted from by players as they develop their civilization.

On a turn, a player starts by doing one political action, which may involve starting a battle or seeding the deck which will ultimately become future events. After that, he/ she gets a number of civil and military actions based on the government of their civilization (everyone starts with despotism, which grants 4 civil and 2 military actions). Examples of civil actions would include drawing from the worker pool, building a building, drawing a card from the available selection on the central board, etc. Military actions would be training or upgrading military units. The fun in the game is mostly in customizing your civ based on the cards drafted from the board. Here, you can recruit famous leaders, build wonders of the world, discover an invention, or grab a helpful event. On the way, player need to balance military might, invention, happiness, corruption, revolts, food and cultural development. Sounds like a lot? It is, but it's mostly abstracted into a series of interdependent mechanics (of which quite a few of them are fairly clever). One example: Resource tokens are used to represent everything from coal, to iron, to food. As more of this pool make it onto the player's mat as goods, board spaces are revealed which identify how corrupt the society is. More goods in circulation= more corruption. It's simple and it works, and it makes sense thematically. There are perhaps to many of these clever rules, however, and not all are so successful. The happiness meter is a good example of a rule that is hard to internalize... as the worker pool diminishes, it follows that population is increasing. As population increases, players need to ensure that the happiness track below it keeps up, or else a revolt can happen. It sounds easy, but the execution is confusing because the happiness track works backwards from most tracks, and the results of an unhappy civilization are not immediately obvious. I don't know, it just felt fiddly to me.

Overall, there is a sense of development of your civ. Leaders come and go, events happen, production increases with knowledge and invention. The mechanics themselves have a definite relation to those of Phoenicia, though without the auction. I'm not entirely sold on the card draft, because the cards move so quickly that it would be hard to actually plan on getting any particular card... you just have to hope there is something you can use when our turn comes up. Still, there is enough available that I didn't really feel that "lack of options" was ever a problem. Quite the contrary. I always wanted far more actions than I had.

The main issue I have right off the bat is with the military system. I had read that it was critical not to fall behind on military. I therefore concentrated on being very strong in this regard. We discovered soon enough that when a player is very strong, the system REALLY encourages that player to beat on the weakest player, and there is little that can be done about it. The weak player just gets weaker. Not much fun for him. In most games, players would be encouraged to beat up on the leader, or for the leader to beat up on his nearest competitor, or two players to beat each other up in the hopes of taking a specific objective. Here, there is no possibility for any of these things to occur, which is kind of a shame. It seems vital to ensure that all players remain roughly neck and neck with military. If this can be managed, then the conflict system is essentially neutralized due to the risk of attacking a similarly powered opponent. This begs the question, however, why introduce a system that only works when it's neutralized? Worse, if the luck of the card draft dictates who is strong in military vs who is strong in ideas (for example), then it's pretty bad. I'm sounding pretty harsh here, and to be fair it may be over nothing. Only time will tell.

As I alluded to earlier, I went strong on military. I started with Alexander the Great, the Colossus and a strong army with a good tactics card. I later expanded with a few churches, Joan of Arc and the Great Wall of China. I was far and away the military leader... only Kozure approached me, and not for very long.

I suspected that going strong on military would be very powerful at first, but that those who concentrated on ideas would pull ahead as the game wore on. If this session is any indication, there may not be enough time in the "advanced" game for this to happen (it's only two ages instead of three). I pulled ahead early and stayed in front throughout. The others were clearly producing more ideas than I was by the end, but they weren't translating to points fast enough. By the end, my cultural points production was a little behind, but my lead was large enough to stay ahead. I may have played well, the cards might have gone my way, or the system might genuinely be biased towards a military strategy in a short game. I hope that it's balanced even in two ages, though, because I'm not sure how much I would want to play this game for 6 hours just for the sake of multiple viable paths to victory.

The overall experience is an interesting exercise in civilization development that feels like a euro spinning slightly out of control. The scope is extremely ambitious, and it succeeds in many aspects, particularly the science/ invention/buildings and leaders parts. The military aspect might be a problem, but more play will be required to figure that out for sure.

Something(s) old, Something new (Galaxy Trucker, Conspiracy x2, Through the Desert x2)

Galaxy Trucker

We played our second session of Galaxy Trucker this week. I can't explain why, but it wasn't my night for ship building. My first ship was actually decent, except for the complete lack of batteries. The third had almost no crew. On the flip side, the others were building very good ships for the most part (Kozure had an unfortunate first round due to a misunderstanding of the building rules...). Shemp managed to do much better than the last place finish he managed last time. In fact, he won!

Luch came to the realization that he has been building his ships wrong since the beginning. He was placing pieces anywhere on his board, rather than growing out from the initial cockpit piece! He HAS been doing quite well, finishing 2nd in both our games, if I'm not mistaken. Let's see if this rules clarification has an impact on his standings for game three...

Unfortunately, there were no spectacular ship destructions. For the most part, our ships survived mostly intact. The winner was determined by the player who could take advantage of the most abandoned space stations and survive the most slavers. Very few meteors, this time.

Galaxy Trucker has turned out to be a very fun game. It certainly has a novelty factor, but the puzzle-like ship building aspect is very enjoyable and the actual space flight is entertaining enough to work. I was really afraid the group would dislike it after our experience with Space Alert (a similar "gimmick" game by the same designer), but it looks like they like it. Shemp declared that it was "a million times better than Space Alert", so that's pretty good. Probably.

(I still like Space Alert, but I seem to be the only one. Galaxy Trucker is clearly the better game, however)

Conspiracy

It's been 3 1/2 years since we last played this game, which is in and of itself a game I've been dragging around with me for nearly 30 years. Something felt a little off as we played this time. The crossing and double crossing was rather limited, and the frequent "near wins" that characterized our earlier games didn't occur. Typically, the briefcase makes it to within one space of a number of players before anyone actually succeeds in bringing it home. This time, however, the briefcase easily came back to England (me) due to a tactical error on the other player's parts (Shemp though Kozure would stop me, Kozure thought Shemp would). In the second, Luch managed to put his money on the two characters that turned out to be pivotal and became impossible to stop.

I like the game, but it certainly seemed to lack something this time. Will it take another 4 years to see if it gets better or worse? We'll see.

Through the Desert

It's also been a while since we've played this one. Through the Desert is unfortunately not a very "sexy" game, in the sense that it doesn't jump out at you and compel you to play. It doesn't have a particularly compelling theme, it has no particularly clever mechanics, the bits aren't over the top. It definitely feels like it's from an earlier era, where games could be simpler and still get noticed.

Still, I'm really happy we got it to the table. I'm reminded of how much I enjoy playing it! The gameplay is so clean that all that is left is a very fast moving series of difficult decisions. I'm not sure that there is another game that epitomizes the "I have so many things I want to do, but so few actions to do them with" feeling as well as Through the Desert. I don't recall who won the games, but I had a great time playing.

They played Forever (Through the Ages)

Last week, the group played Through the Ages. I couldn't make it due to a trip to Ottawa, but apparently it was well liked (enough for Kozure to go out and pick up a copy, anyway). Maybe I'll get a chance to play at some point, but considering the long playtime, it's definitely not a given!

I thought the Bull was Barley (Zombie Fluxx, Chinatown x2, Pit)

We had a full house this week, with Shemp, Bharmer, Kozure, Luch and I in attendance.

Zombie Fluxx

While waiting for Kozure and Shemp, we opened with a quick round of Zombie Fluxx. The highlight, for me, was playing the zombie jamboree (which randomly redistributes all the keepers and creepers on the table) and getting exactly the combination I needed to satisfy the goal card I had in my hand... coffee, sandwiches and no zombies. Unfortunately, Luch took my coffee before I had the chance to play the goal, and won the game by using it to satisfy his own goal. Oh well, such is Fluxx.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the game, but I do kind of enjoy the goofy randomness of it all. The zombies don't seem to have the presence that they should in the game, however. In the two games I've played so far, I'm not sure that anyone has taken the time to use a weapon to shoot one, for example.

Unfortunately, I have the distinct feeling that for other members of the group, the highlight is when it ends...

Chinatown

We played two sessions of Chinatown, the first according to the standard rules and the second with a variant that forced players to have a street facing property in order to earn money on their business. I won the first game and Bharmer won the second (where, sadly, I came in dead last). There was some discussion about a potential rich get richer problem, which precludes a player who doesn't get off the ground early from being competitive, or that the luck of the draw somehow determines the winner... I'm not sure I agree. Obviously, landing a lucrative set early in the game is huge due to the number of times a player profits from it, but players shouldn't let that happen unless it gives them a similarly lucrative deal back. I think the secret to winning is to ensure that you are one half of the majority of profitable deals that are played throughout the game, not necessarily looking to land a few killer deals at the expense of everyone else. Supporting this theory is that Shemp has placed first or second in every game we've played, so luck of the draw doesn't seem to be the determining factor. It is true, however, that if you are out of the game by the mid-point there is little you can due to come back into contention. As the rounds wear on, the potential profits shrink (which runs counter to many game designs where potential points increase as the rounds go on). Maybe we could implement a reverse sliding scale for deals which would make later deals more profitable, just to see if this situation is improved. I'd also like to try to add the variant I spoke of last time, which was to add a randomizing element like the "roving parade" which would alter the value of the properties based on the distance to the parade.

Looks like it's more of an 1 1/2 hour game than 1 hour, which is fine. I'm not sure how much the street facing variant added the the game. Sure, it altered the value of some of the properties (which was interesting), but it made some practically worthless due to being buried deep at the back (which was not interesting if you drew them).

Pit

We closed with a game of PIT. We played that having a majority of a particular good gave you half points, just to make sure that the scores actually headed to a conclusion (last game, the negative points due to the Bull and Bear were making the game last forever). I actually hit the bell once, and with a Bull corner at that. Unfortunately, on another hand I discovered that my incomplete hand of barley actually contained the Bull (I cold only see the "B", and, you know, I was rushing so I didn't check). I should have traded it away, but I didn't know I had it, so...

I think Shemp won the game. Fun as always.

Agricola, but different (Le Havre, Chicago Express)

JayWowzer paid us a surprise visit this week, and when he visits, we often get to play new games!

This time, he brought along Le Havre, the successor to Uwe Rosenberg's hit Agricola. Le Havre is exactly the kind of game that I would hope JayWowzer would bring, because it's a game that is getting good ratings but it's reputation for being a little too long and a little too complex have caused me to decide to skip it as a potential purchase. I felt exactly the same way about Caylus, though I haven't had a chance to play that one yet.

Le Havre

Le Havre feels like it is made up of a number of rules the designer set aside or changed over the course of designing Agricola... There was a definite feeling that you are playing an alternate version of the same game. The theme is about trading and building at the city and docks of Le Havre, but the gameplay is otherwise very similar. Like Agricola, it's a worker placement game where your options grow over the course of the game. On a player's turn, they must choose between taking an action to collect one type of resource or using the action of a building that is currently available (some from a common pool, others built by the players). Like Agricola, the basic resources accumulate over time, but in this case the process is a little less homogenous (not every good increases every round... there is an order to their appearance but it is staggered over the course of several rounds). Like Agricola, the goods are accumulated to purchase cards and feed the workers. Unlike Agricola, there are no personal cards that can be played to give an advantage to the player playing it... all the new cards brought into play are buildings, and once built they are available to everyone (though to use another player's building a cost must be paid to the owning player). There is also a lot more granularity to the goods: advanced versions of many materials can be created, such as converting cows to leather, clay to bricks, fish to smoked fish, etc (as in Agricola, there is a grain resource and it can be converted to bread). Le Havre's scoring doesn't promote having a little bit of everything in the way that Agricola does... here points are scored through accumulating money, constructing buildings and by shipping goods, and likely specializing in a particular strategy is the most effective route to victory.

It's as though the designer found himself at a crossroads on several occasions during the design process of Agricola: allow development of goods or not?, new cards brought into the game are personal or available to all players?, scoring encourages diversification or specialization?, etc. Le Havre seems like his opportunity to group all those discarded options into a new game.

The sum total of the design is certainly good, despite the tangible feeling of playing Agricola's longer and more complex twin. I liked that the single point of interaction available in Agricola, the accidental screwage caused by taking an action someone else wanted, has been expanded to include building buildings you feel others might want to use (forcing them to pay you when they want to use it). I prefer the option to adopt a balanced strategy or a specialized one. I like that the common pool of cards reduces the potential lack of balance inherent in the hands of cards dealt out in Agricola. I also like that the available options at least begins at a manageable level (I personally find the number of options available in the first rounds of Agricola a little daunting, particularly as the 14 cards need to be read and internalized before the game begins).

Predictably, there are things I liked less. The game is way too long. We played the "short" version, and it took 3 hours. It did not feel like a short version, and it certainly didn't feel like a longer version would be desirable. It's an engine building game, so a longer game probably leads to a more developed production engine, but I doubt it could justify it's length (JayWowzer, who has played the long version a few times, tells me the long game is worth it. I'll have to take his word for that). Also, until you know the game, having your options spread out all over the table in each player's tableau is not user friendly, even when the cards are turned to face the middle. I ended up only tracking the buildings of the players on my right and left, just for the sake of convenience. Lastly, it seemed that there were a whole lot of options that were less desirable than other, and in some cases severe chokepoints on options lots of players would want to play. Since players don't always move their worker every round, if a particularly important action is already taken it can hold up a lot of players by the time it's available. I don't mind this sort of thing generally, but here it seems too critical (shipping is a good example: only one card allows it, yet all players are accumulating goods to potentially ship all game... in a five player game I fear it could take way too many rounds before it became available).

In this session, I went after buildings aggressively because I couldn't wrap my head around all the steps needed to efficiently produce and ship goods. In the first half of the game, I looked like I was running away with the win. However, as others saw their production engine mature I started falling behind. I needed to take loan after loan to feed my workers and eroded my lead (as an aside, JayWowzer had mentioned early in the game that the penalty for taking loans in this game weren't very harsh because the interest was only paid once regardless of the number of loans. "Soft Loans", he called them. Apparently, I took him too literally!!!). Kozure and Luch had shipping empires going (I kept eyeing Kozure's impressive stock of leather), and although JayWowzer appeared to have less going on I think he just was more focussed in producing the goods he needed for big points. In the end, I didn't do too badly. Luch won, I think JayWowzer came second and I was a close third.

Anyway, I enjoyed playing it. I won't be buying it, but I'd be happy to play again. I think I prefer Agricola slightly, due to the shorter play length in large part, and the enjoyment of seeing how new cards interact with the basic system from game to game, despite the potential for lack of balance. Of course, I'd rather play El Grande than either of them, but that's just me.

Chicago Express

In our second play for the game, I was curious if we'd make it to Chicago since we didn't the first time.

I again found myself with yellow, and had the distinction of being the only such owner for the entire game. Yellow wasn't developed once, however, so that might explain that. JayWowzer took red north and Luch and Kozure took red and blue due west. As the game progressed, I found myself as the only player locked out of red, so I was happy when blue emerged as the company heading towards Chicago (though Luch had two shares, and I only had one). When blue hit Chicago, I purchased the share in Wabash, and went north to connect Detroit... I figured if I went to Chicago someone would want the second share so I kept the business low profit. On the next to last turn, I bought the second share in Wabash myself and expanded it to Chicago, giving me a handsome "Chicago Phase" payout just in the nick of time. Between that, the reliable 5$ I was getting every turn for yellow and the cash I garnered from my share in blue, I won the game.

Chicago Express is quite a conundrum. From what I can tell, winning has little to do with how you play on the board. Much like Modern Art, the impact of how the other players act in the game determines who will win, and so success seems to be based on trying to manipulate the perception of other players into believing that the things that help you helps them (or, conversely, that the things that harm you are unattractive). Putting up shares for auction when the player that needs it has no cash, expanding unwisely a track in a line you are a minority stakeholder, etc, are all things you can do but they seem less important than some of the intangibles regarding shares : how do you prevent YOUR line's shares from getting diluted before the other player's? How do you make it so that the lines you have interest in get developed before the others? There isn't really any way to do it mechanically, but somehow you have to make it happen to win.

I don't know. Hard to say. Interesting, though.

Good to see you again JayWowzer, hope you'll be back!