The pick this week was Through the Ages.
Shemp hadn't yet played. Kozure and Luch had played 3-4 times each. My mind must have been eslewhere, because I had a downright awful time trying to recall the rules from my single previous session. Granted, it's not the most intuitive game, but I was really struggling for the first little while. I did eventually get it, thankfully (and then, of course, it seems simple). Oh well.
I was skeptical last time regarding certain aspects of the game, and now my opinion is solidifying somewhat: It's an interesting resource management game, but the military aspect is (in my opinion, of course) fundamentally broken.
There was a very interesting snippet of conversation that occurred halfway thorugh the game where Shemp mentioned that this was superior to the Sid Meier Civilization boardgame because the feeling of civ. growth wasn't bogged down by endless fiddling with purchasing, deploying and managing various military units. Kozure then replied that for many people, that fiddling about is the highlight of the game. I feel somewhat differently than both of them: Fiddling with military unit purchasing and movement is normally the main source of downtime in a world domination/ civilization game, and that is a problem that few games of this type have managed to solve (RISK suffers least due to the simplicity of the system, but even Antike suffers from this problem despite having elegantly streamlined most of the typical civilization game timewasters). On the other hand, if you abstract this part of the equation entirely, as Through the Ages tries to do, you have to somehow maintain the logic of why/how conflicts happen. In a typical game that involves conflict (of any sort, not just war), a player needs to size up a situation and ask themself what they hope to gain.
Are they trying to pry away a resource from the other player? Do they feel vulnerable to a possible future attack and wish to preempt it? Can they satisfy a pertinent goal by conquering a specific territory? Further, where goals do not determine an exact path of action, frequently geography does. Who is adjacent to who? Is one unassailable due to superior positioning? etc.
Unfortunately, ALL of this is lost in Throught he Ages. The system features a series of mecanisms that all boil down to allowing the strongest to benefit at the expense of the weakest, regardless of goals/ positioning/ etc. Raids, conquering the territories that come up, the future events, Wars, etc, all revolve around two players... the strongest and the weakest. The effects can be quite punishing on the losing player as well.
Given the terribly punishing nature of falling behind on military, it's unfortunate that keeping up with military is so highly dependent on the luck of the draw. The mecanism for developing you civ, the card track, is quite interesting because of the way it forces each player to stay on their toes and grow their civ based as much on opportunity of available cards as planned long term strategy. I like that part a fair bit. You might be behind on ideas, ahead on culture production, doing ok in food, catching up on ore, etc. Each civ is different and the it's up to the player to address the areas they are deficient in in time. However, orchastrating the aquisition of the right leader/ wonders/ military technologies/ military units/ and tactics cards requires a fair amount of luck of the draw for something this critical. If someone happens to hit you when you are catching up, you can end up nosediving as you then become the easy target for all future aggression. I can't see a way out of it if the other players really take advantage of the situation. I think that an experienced player going strong on military probably wins most games, as long as that player is willing to use the power at his/her disposal (I make that comment mostly because it feels so cheap to use military might that I'm convinced many players often won't because it's distasteful).
Anyway, other that the significant length, I like the rest of the game. It's fiddly, but most of the things going on seem to be there for good reason. Too bad about the military.
We didn't complete the full game, ending after the second era. Shemp read a few strategy article prior to starting and went hard on military just as I had last game. I tried to go strong on a culture engine, but was severly hampered by lack of food early, too much food late, and very few ideas. Shemp destroyed my Eiffel Tower after I had sunk many turns constructing the first two thirds, which was a big blow. Luch ended up being the real wipping boy, however... after leading most of the game, he sunk his military too low and we all decended like vultures. I succesfully waged a war against him and there were a number of aggression. Sorry, man.
Kozure won, though it was quite a tight game scoring wise. I am convinced I made significant errors in the beginning which distorted my score somewhat (I think my score should have been lower). Practice makes perfect, I guess.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Apparently, I'm hot (Railroad Tycoon: Rails of England and Wales, Mission: Red Planet)
It's getting late, so I'll keep this short.
We played the brand new Railroad Tycoon map, Rails of England and Wales. Now this is a map I hadn't even heard of until it was staring me in the face at Fungamescafe.com. Probably, this is partly due to the fact that it's actually an expansion to the upcoming Rails of the World game and not Railroad Tycoon. However, it's by the same designer and is 100% compatible, so that's good enough for me.
This expansion comes with advanced rules to play a game that more closely resembles Chicago Express or an 18xx game, but we didn't bother with that just yet. As an expansion to Railroad tycoon, it is pretty good. Better than the base map, but not as good as the Europe one. The city density is incredibly high, to the point that the board becomes quite hard to read by the time you are 3/4 through a game. The railroad engineer card, which gives you 4 free tracks, loses some of it's value because you rarely need to build that many.
We played with a series of variants which seemed lifted from Martin Wallace's recent "Steam". Six piles of goods are available at all times to choose from for urbanize actions, turn order is auctioned, etc. Most interesting was the mechanic that forced a player to choose between gaining victory points or income when claiming deliveries. Unfortunately, while the goods cubes setup was a great addition, the income/ VP split was less interesting in practice. I can't say whether it feels different in Steam, but the sliding income scale in RRT meant that we all pretty much gave up on increasing our income at the same level. I'd have to see how the income track works in Steam, but ultimately I think I'll stick with the combined track for RRT in the future (one benefit of the Europe/ England tracks is that the income reductions come sooner, providing a more tangible impact on the leader).
I enjoyed the map. Amazingly, colour issues persist. Grey appears to be blue when the two aren't side by side. Purple is also similar. How hard can it be to get this right?
I had a good lead for much of the game but I boxed myself in to a region that had no future. As other players were starting their long deliveries, I was struggling to find ANY deliveries. Shemp, Luch and Kozure had a pretty tight finish, but if I'm not mistaken Shemp ended up victorious with the help of a north/south track that tied in well with a couple of his own hotels and proved quite lucrative.
Mission: Red Planet
We haven't played this one in a long while (January 2007, to be exact), and I was wondering if it was worth keeping. Now that I've played, I think I'll keep it for a while longer. There is a mixture of chaos and relatively fast play which is pleasant and fun. Kozure said he felt that with a few tweaks, he would consider this better than El Grande. I absolutely disagree, but in the end neither Kozure's comments or my disagreement are very surprising. As entertaining as the whole choosing of roles + launching mechanic can be, the area majority part of the game is kind of lacking. The situation on Mars seems pretty static throughout the game, and the scoring mechanism (giving only the majority any points at all) is a little heavy handed.
Anyway, I amassed a large stash of Ice as well as the 3 point resource, fullfilling both the 9 point bonus and my secret mission, for the win. All three other players used their seductress to convert my cubes, so I must be pretty hot.
We played the brand new Railroad Tycoon map, Rails of England and Wales. Now this is a map I hadn't even heard of until it was staring me in the face at Fungamescafe.com. Probably, this is partly due to the fact that it's actually an expansion to the upcoming Rails of the World game and not Railroad Tycoon. However, it's by the same designer and is 100% compatible, so that's good enough for me.
This expansion comes with advanced rules to play a game that more closely resembles Chicago Express or an 18xx game, but we didn't bother with that just yet. As an expansion to Railroad tycoon, it is pretty good. Better than the base map, but not as good as the Europe one. The city density is incredibly high, to the point that the board becomes quite hard to read by the time you are 3/4 through a game. The railroad engineer card, which gives you 4 free tracks, loses some of it's value because you rarely need to build that many.
We played with a series of variants which seemed lifted from Martin Wallace's recent "Steam". Six piles of goods are available at all times to choose from for urbanize actions, turn order is auctioned, etc. Most interesting was the mechanic that forced a player to choose between gaining victory points or income when claiming deliveries. Unfortunately, while the goods cubes setup was a great addition, the income/ VP split was less interesting in practice. I can't say whether it feels different in Steam, but the sliding income scale in RRT meant that we all pretty much gave up on increasing our income at the same level. I'd have to see how the income track works in Steam, but ultimately I think I'll stick with the combined track for RRT in the future (one benefit of the Europe/ England tracks is that the income reductions come sooner, providing a more tangible impact on the leader).
I enjoyed the map. Amazingly, colour issues persist. Grey appears to be blue when the two aren't side by side. Purple is also similar. How hard can it be to get this right?
I had a good lead for much of the game but I boxed myself in to a region that had no future. As other players were starting their long deliveries, I was struggling to find ANY deliveries. Shemp, Luch and Kozure had a pretty tight finish, but if I'm not mistaken Shemp ended up victorious with the help of a north/south track that tied in well with a couple of his own hotels and proved quite lucrative.
Mission: Red Planet
We haven't played this one in a long while (January 2007, to be exact), and I was wondering if it was worth keeping. Now that I've played, I think I'll keep it for a while longer. There is a mixture of chaos and relatively fast play which is pleasant and fun. Kozure said he felt that with a few tweaks, he would consider this better than El Grande. I absolutely disagree, but in the end neither Kozure's comments or my disagreement are very surprising. As entertaining as the whole choosing of roles + launching mechanic can be, the area majority part of the game is kind of lacking. The situation on Mars seems pretty static throughout the game, and the scoring mechanism (giving only the majority any points at all) is a little heavy handed.
Anyway, I amassed a large stash of Ice as well as the 3 point resource, fullfilling both the 9 point bonus and my secret mission, for the win. All three other players used their seductress to convert my cubes, so I must be pretty hot.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
There is sizzle, but is there steak? (Caylus, Dominion: Intrigue)
I have a confession to make: I had never played Caylus until this week. A further confession... the same goes for Dominion.
Neither game interested me much, despite the massive hype around them. Caylus seemed like more of the same, but longer and with particularly ugly art. Dominion just sounded like too little game with too much shuffling.
I didn't think I'd be able to make it this week, but luckily things worked out. Even more luckily, both these games I hadn't managed to play yet got to the table and I was able to determine first hand whether my initial reactions were correct.
Caylus
Where to start with this game? Caylus is a monster eurogame, similar in weight to Die Macher or Le Havre (not quite, but close). Reading the rules gives the impression that the game is unplayable, but playing the game is not nearly as hard. In a nutshell, there is a castle and town under construction. Players use their worker pawns to build parts of the castle or new buildings for the town. If a player builds a building, that new building can be used as an action later on (to get goods, build a special building, get a gold piece, etc). The advantage of building is that a victory point will be awarded every time another player uses whatever you've built. If a player builds a part of the castle, it is possible that he/ she will be granted royal favours (VP, money, goods or discounted construction actions), if various criteria are met. Whoever gets the most VP wins.
There is a lot more to the game than this brief synopsis talks about. There is a bailiff that moves up and down the road, which can limit which buildings can be used, there is a provost which times the end of the game, there are a couple of mechanisms surrounding the order that players choose to withdraw from the round, buildings can be converted and upgraded, etc, etc. Most of the mechanics are intertwined with the other mechanics.
The result is a euro which has a distinctly "kitchen sink" feel. There seems to be a little bit of everything in here, and it will surely take a few games before it's even possible to know if it all works. It's a long game at 2.5 hours for 4 players, and there is the appearance of tons of options at every turn. Something didn't feel right, though. Many subsystems seem underused. The royal favours track seems uneven, and some buildings appear significantly more useful than others, etc. One space, the bridge, had us all scratching our heads regarding why anyone would ever choose it! A BGG search afterwards revealed a large number of posts on the topic, and the conclusion seems to be that under certain specific circumstances it can be useful... but not many. A couple of things that seemed odd:
- Why would anyone pull out before they run out of money 90% of the time? The disadvantage of acting fewer times seems like a big sacrifice for a single coin. And potentially preventing another player from acting because the action cost has gone up seems equally undone by the fact that you also cannot act anymore.
- The favours seem underpowered. Money is useful, but building buildings is a much more lucrative source of VPs than going for the VP track. At the final level of the various tracks, you achieve benefits in line with many basic building actions... so why go through the trouble of collecting 3 different goods and contributing more/ first than all the other players just for the benefit of getting something so lame? I tried it out but I couldn't see the benefit of the castle beyond the base VPs it provided.
- The whole mechanic of withdrawing and recording player order doesn't seem to have much of an impact on the game.
Bharmer mentioned that different strategies become more or less useful depending on the order the various buildings are built. If that is true, and it works, then my opinion of the design would change significantly because that kind of thing is hard to pull off.
Given it's popularity at BGG, and particularly given the rest of the group's positive reaction after a few plays, I'd like to think further play will put my doubts to rest. I did enjoy the game, because exploring this type of system is usually pretty enjoyable.
Anyway, Bharmer won the game but it was very tight. I made a couple of boneheaded moves where I would try to build buildings and then spend the resources I needed before getting to that step... wasting the turn. Still, I think I did well considering I hadn't played before. I know it doesn't sound like it from my post, but I do look forward to playing again!
Dominion:Intrigue
Dominon is a game that supposedly scratches the CCG itch but in a boardgame format.
Every game features a set of 10 stacks of cards (each stack consisting of all identical cards). You start with a small deck consisting mainly of money cards, you draw 5 cards and decide what is the best use of your hand. Normally, this means spending that money on a new card, which is then added to your discard pile along with your entire hand (no matter how much of it you used). That new card will eventually be reshuffled into your deck, and then will eventually be found in one of your hands. The idea is to "buy" cards that give you additional actions, special moves and combos with other cards. You need VP cards to win, but generally speaking these are dead weight in your hands to you have to be careful how soon you want to start adding these to your deck. The game ends when a certain set of stacks are depleted.
It's certainly an interesting game. It's harder to pick up than I expected, though that might boil down to a particular card that I couldn't quite grasp at first. It goes VERY fast. It's fun watching your deck grow and change, and trying to look out for potential combos.
I doesn't really feel like a CCG, though. It's very peculiar that the cards you build your deck with get dealt to you in discreet sets of 5, which are then discarded together. The concept of combos in a CCG involves drawing cards and then having them come together in your hand... in Dominion the hand you draw might as well be your entire deck as far as you are concerned. Well, that's not really true because one of the main mechanics of the special cards is allowing you to draw more cards into your hand, in order to hopefully make those combos you had planned. It's not worse than a CCG, but it does feel different.
I like Dominion a fair bit. It's definitely a different experience than most of our games, so that's always a plus.
Neither game interested me much, despite the massive hype around them. Caylus seemed like more of the same, but longer and with particularly ugly art. Dominion just sounded like too little game with too much shuffling.
I didn't think I'd be able to make it this week, but luckily things worked out. Even more luckily, both these games I hadn't managed to play yet got to the table and I was able to determine first hand whether my initial reactions were correct.
Caylus
Where to start with this game? Caylus is a monster eurogame, similar in weight to Die Macher or Le Havre (not quite, but close). Reading the rules gives the impression that the game is unplayable, but playing the game is not nearly as hard. In a nutshell, there is a castle and town under construction. Players use their worker pawns to build parts of the castle or new buildings for the town. If a player builds a building, that new building can be used as an action later on (to get goods, build a special building, get a gold piece, etc). The advantage of building is that a victory point will be awarded every time another player uses whatever you've built. If a player builds a part of the castle, it is possible that he/ she will be granted royal favours (VP, money, goods or discounted construction actions), if various criteria are met. Whoever gets the most VP wins.
There is a lot more to the game than this brief synopsis talks about. There is a bailiff that moves up and down the road, which can limit which buildings can be used, there is a provost which times the end of the game, there are a couple of mechanisms surrounding the order that players choose to withdraw from the round, buildings can be converted and upgraded, etc, etc. Most of the mechanics are intertwined with the other mechanics.
The result is a euro which has a distinctly "kitchen sink" feel. There seems to be a little bit of everything in here, and it will surely take a few games before it's even possible to know if it all works. It's a long game at 2.5 hours for 4 players, and there is the appearance of tons of options at every turn. Something didn't feel right, though. Many subsystems seem underused. The royal favours track seems uneven, and some buildings appear significantly more useful than others, etc. One space, the bridge, had us all scratching our heads regarding why anyone would ever choose it! A BGG search afterwards revealed a large number of posts on the topic, and the conclusion seems to be that under certain specific circumstances it can be useful... but not many. A couple of things that seemed odd:
- Why would anyone pull out before they run out of money 90% of the time? The disadvantage of acting fewer times seems like a big sacrifice for a single coin. And potentially preventing another player from acting because the action cost has gone up seems equally undone by the fact that you also cannot act anymore.
- The favours seem underpowered. Money is useful, but building buildings is a much more lucrative source of VPs than going for the VP track. At the final level of the various tracks, you achieve benefits in line with many basic building actions... so why go through the trouble of collecting 3 different goods and contributing more/ first than all the other players just for the benefit of getting something so lame? I tried it out but I couldn't see the benefit of the castle beyond the base VPs it provided.
- The whole mechanic of withdrawing and recording player order doesn't seem to have much of an impact on the game.
Bharmer mentioned that different strategies become more or less useful depending on the order the various buildings are built. If that is true, and it works, then my opinion of the design would change significantly because that kind of thing is hard to pull off.
Given it's popularity at BGG, and particularly given the rest of the group's positive reaction after a few plays, I'd like to think further play will put my doubts to rest. I did enjoy the game, because exploring this type of system is usually pretty enjoyable.
Anyway, Bharmer won the game but it was very tight. I made a couple of boneheaded moves where I would try to build buildings and then spend the resources I needed before getting to that step... wasting the turn. Still, I think I did well considering I hadn't played before. I know it doesn't sound like it from my post, but I do look forward to playing again!
Dominion:Intrigue
Dominon is a game that supposedly scratches the CCG itch but in a boardgame format.
Every game features a set of 10 stacks of cards (each stack consisting of all identical cards). You start with a small deck consisting mainly of money cards, you draw 5 cards and decide what is the best use of your hand. Normally, this means spending that money on a new card, which is then added to your discard pile along with your entire hand (no matter how much of it you used). That new card will eventually be reshuffled into your deck, and then will eventually be found in one of your hands. The idea is to "buy" cards that give you additional actions, special moves and combos with other cards. You need VP cards to win, but generally speaking these are dead weight in your hands to you have to be careful how soon you want to start adding these to your deck. The game ends when a certain set of stacks are depleted.
It's certainly an interesting game. It's harder to pick up than I expected, though that might boil down to a particular card that I couldn't quite grasp at first. It goes VERY fast. It's fun watching your deck grow and change, and trying to look out for potential combos.
I doesn't really feel like a CCG, though. It's very peculiar that the cards you build your deck with get dealt to you in discreet sets of 5, which are then discarded together. The concept of combos in a CCG involves drawing cards and then having them come together in your hand... in Dominion the hand you draw might as well be your entire deck as far as you are concerned. Well, that's not really true because one of the main mechanics of the special cards is allowing you to draw more cards into your hand, in order to hopefully make those combos you had planned. It's not worse than a CCG, but it does feel different.
I like Dominion a fair bit. It's definitely a different experience than most of our games, so that's always a plus.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
"Raffi can go to Hell!" (Dominion: Intrigue x 3, Small World)
The blog title has nothing to do with the games we played - it was just a statement that came up at the end of the night after I noticed a Raffi CD on Shemp's table and commented that I used to listen to Raffi when I was a child. He said that he had it on loan from the library, then commented as quoted above. I can't remember the actual quote. He may have used harsher language; "Raffi can go %$@# himself" or similar. Shemp has very specific tastes in music. Apparently Shemp harbours no love for Raffi.
Anyhow, our fearless dictator Shemp decided on a "same as last week" agenda, so we played three games of Dominion: Intrigue and a game of Small World.
I ran away with the first game of Dominion, squeaked the win on the second, and was blown away on the third. We played a random deck in the first game, then used the rulebook-described deck "Secret Schemes" on the second and third.
There are certainly interlocking card combos which can become evident on repeated play. For example, the Swindler can be used to swindle players into losing a copper in exchange for a curse and the Trading Post can be used to cycle curses out of your hand to get silver back. The Minion can be very handy if you're finding your hand stacked with Victory cards.
All three games included the Saboteur, which I used to fairly good effect against the others in the first game, costing Shemp 12 VP and Luch around 6 VP. Consequently I won by a fair margin (54 or something vs. low 30s for the others).
I couldn't get my mojo working in the third and came up with my all time worst score in eight games - 9 VPs. I believe that Shemp won the third game using his newfound strategy of "ignore the shiny card combos".
Our game of Small World was very close. I drew the powerful combo of Alchemist Skeletons early, surprised that it had not been taken (Luch, going first, took Bivouacking Ghouls, and Shemp took some Sorceror combo). As the Alchemist power gives you two points every turn as long as you stay out of decline and the Skeleton race has one of the best staying power of all the races, I did quite well with them. Shemp and Luch were not idle, with Berserking Amazons making an appearance. Flying Orcs did their damage, as did Underground Tritons and Hill Wizards. I switched horses to Fortified Halflings mid-game, then finished with Wealthy Ratmen.
Final scores were 92 for me, 84 for Shemp and 82 to Luch.
I'm still amazed at how quick this game plays. Needs a bidding mechanic for first player, though, I think.
Anyhow, our fearless dictator Shemp decided on a "same as last week" agenda, so we played three games of Dominion: Intrigue and a game of Small World.
I ran away with the first game of Dominion, squeaked the win on the second, and was blown away on the third. We played a random deck in the first game, then used the rulebook-described deck "Secret Schemes" on the second and third.
There are certainly interlocking card combos which can become evident on repeated play. For example, the Swindler can be used to swindle players into losing a copper in exchange for a curse and the Trading Post can be used to cycle curses out of your hand to get silver back. The Minion can be very handy if you're finding your hand stacked with Victory cards.
All three games included the Saboteur, which I used to fairly good effect against the others in the first game, costing Shemp 12 VP and Luch around 6 VP. Consequently I won by a fair margin (54 or something vs. low 30s for the others).
I couldn't get my mojo working in the third and came up with my all time worst score in eight games - 9 VPs. I believe that Shemp won the third game using his newfound strategy of "ignore the shiny card combos".
Our game of Small World was very close. I drew the powerful combo of Alchemist Skeletons early, surprised that it had not been taken (Luch, going first, took Bivouacking Ghouls, and Shemp took some Sorceror combo). As the Alchemist power gives you two points every turn as long as you stay out of decline and the Skeleton race has one of the best staying power of all the races, I did quite well with them. Shemp and Luch were not idle, with Berserking Amazons making an appearance. Flying Orcs did their damage, as did Underground Tritons and Hill Wizards. I switched horses to Fortified Halflings mid-game, then finished with Wealthy Ratmen.
Final scores were 92 for me, 84 for Shemp and 82 to Luch.
I'm still amazed at how quick this game plays. Needs a bidding mechanic for first player, though, I think.
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