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Showing posts with label Pueblo. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pueblo. Show all posts
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Getting the red haired step children out to play (Pueblo, Domaine, Tower of Babel, Aladdin's Dragons, Carcassonne: The City)
A big pile of games played this week. Bharmer and Kozure couldn't join us, but JayWowzer rounded us out to a foursome. I chose a number of games which rarely get played in the group. Many don't get out often simply because they are four player, but most of them have oddities which make them "niche" games in my mind.
Prior to JayWowzer's arrival, we played a three player game of Pueblo. We had Shemp's wife choose the locations for the "Sacred Sites", and the resulting board was devilishly difficult. As usual, Luch displayed a knack for burying himself deep behind other player's pieces. He had quite a lead up to the end of the game. Unfortunately for him, in the last round he was forced to play two very costly pieces (he misplayed the block order, leaving him with 2 coloured ones to place last). Once the final score was calculated, the shaman saw more of Luch than he could handle... giving me an unlikely win (I still have a sneaking suspicion that we counted something incorrectly... Luch was REALLY well buried except on that one face). I really enjoy pulling this one out every once in a while... it's a nice change of pace.
Domaine was next. It had been a long time, and we always seem to play this one incorrectly. Still, it's a great game if you are in the mood fore some good, confrontational fun. However, as I've often mentioned, the game is pretty fragile... If everyone isn't paying attention, a player can inadvertently get a windfall. Unfortunately, this kind of happened. Luch and I didn't do what we needed to do to prevent JayWowzer from winning the game as he inherited a huge territory down the middle! Oh well, it's a part of the game to manipulate things to be in the right place at the right time, for all I know he might have orchestrated the whole thing! I thought I had a good shot until it happened, though.
Tower of Babel saw it's first play in some time. Always an enigma, I like to give this one a shot once in a while. There is no game in my collection which eludes me as much as this one... I understand the mechanics, but I don't understand the strategy. After last night, I came to the conclusion that it's a fragile game in a lot of ways: 1) the tendency is to hoard cards and complete works on your own. Once that starts, the game gets boring real fast because everyone is just waiting for their turn to build their monument (and the ultimate winner is probably determined by the player who is lucky enough to draw the needed cards first.) 2) Since the bidding strategy isn't obvious, many players are making bad bids. This has the compounding effect of making a "well played" bid irrelevant, since there is usually a better (i.e. poorly played) one available. Anticipating what others might do becomes basically impossible. 3) the bonus cards just don't work very well. Some are significantly better than others (hmmm, would you like to exchange 5 cards or take a 2nd turn... I wonder). With all that, I'm still going to keep giving it chances until it clicks or someone offers me something for it in trade. It's certainly not bad, and it's short for an area control/ bidding type game. We'll see. I spent the game trying to accumulate purple chips, 2nd/3rd placement points on temples and scorned auction points. I was feeling pretty good about my prospects and in fact I thought I won the game... until Luch pulled out 2 of his bonus cards which gave it to him!
As I was returning Aladdin's Dragons to JayWowzer, we played a farewell session. As with many bidding games, it takes a while to get familiar with the relative values of items and enjoyment of the game increases with repeated play. I played my worst game so far (coming in last with 5 artifacts, while Luch had 7), but I won't hold that against it. One aspect of the game which revealed itself to me this game: go for spells early AND USE THEM,,, as the game progresses, they become nearly impossible to play! I was also surprised to see that very few players had to pass over artifacts this game due to insufficient funds. By contrast, it was quite commonplace in our first few games.
Last, but not least, was Carcassonne: The City. I don't often play this since I actually prefer the base game (particularly with the first two expansions), but it's still quite good. I stumbled across a pretty lucrative tower guard when I started the second round, so I eventually tried to maximize that by placing the notable buildings in his view (ignoring most other scoring methods). If I had thought of it earlier, it probably would have worked out better. As it was, I managed a decent 2nd place to Luch.
Well, this was definitely Luch's night. Out of 5 games, he won 3 (and nearly won a 4th).
Prior to JayWowzer's arrival, we played a three player game of Pueblo. We had Shemp's wife choose the locations for the "Sacred Sites", and the resulting board was devilishly difficult. As usual, Luch displayed a knack for burying himself deep behind other player's pieces. He had quite a lead up to the end of the game. Unfortunately for him, in the last round he was forced to play two very costly pieces (he misplayed the block order, leaving him with 2 coloured ones to place last). Once the final score was calculated, the shaman saw more of Luch than he could handle... giving me an unlikely win (I still have a sneaking suspicion that we counted something incorrectly... Luch was REALLY well buried except on that one face). I really enjoy pulling this one out every once in a while... it's a nice change of pace.
Domaine was next. It had been a long time, and we always seem to play this one incorrectly. Still, it's a great game if you are in the mood fore some good, confrontational fun. However, as I've often mentioned, the game is pretty fragile... If everyone isn't paying attention, a player can inadvertently get a windfall. Unfortunately, this kind of happened. Luch and I didn't do what we needed to do to prevent JayWowzer from winning the game as he inherited a huge territory down the middle! Oh well, it's a part of the game to manipulate things to be in the right place at the right time, for all I know he might have orchestrated the whole thing! I thought I had a good shot until it happened, though.
Tower of Babel saw it's first play in some time. Always an enigma, I like to give this one a shot once in a while. There is no game in my collection which eludes me as much as this one... I understand the mechanics, but I don't understand the strategy. After last night, I came to the conclusion that it's a fragile game in a lot of ways: 1) the tendency is to hoard cards and complete works on your own. Once that starts, the game gets boring real fast because everyone is just waiting for their turn to build their monument (and the ultimate winner is probably determined by the player who is lucky enough to draw the needed cards first.) 2) Since the bidding strategy isn't obvious, many players are making bad bids. This has the compounding effect of making a "well played" bid irrelevant, since there is usually a better (i.e. poorly played) one available. Anticipating what others might do becomes basically impossible. 3) the bonus cards just don't work very well. Some are significantly better than others (hmmm, would you like to exchange 5 cards or take a 2nd turn... I wonder). With all that, I'm still going to keep giving it chances until it clicks or someone offers me something for it in trade. It's certainly not bad, and it's short for an area control/ bidding type game. We'll see. I spent the game trying to accumulate purple chips, 2nd/3rd placement points on temples and scorned auction points. I was feeling pretty good about my prospects and in fact I thought I won the game... until Luch pulled out 2 of his bonus cards which gave it to him!
As I was returning Aladdin's Dragons to JayWowzer, we played a farewell session. As with many bidding games, it takes a while to get familiar with the relative values of items and enjoyment of the game increases with repeated play. I played my worst game so far (coming in last with 5 artifacts, while Luch had 7), but I won't hold that against it. One aspect of the game which revealed itself to me this game: go for spells early AND USE THEM,,, as the game progresses, they become nearly impossible to play! I was also surprised to see that very few players had to pass over artifacts this game due to insufficient funds. By contrast, it was quite commonplace in our first few games.
Last, but not least, was Carcassonne: The City. I don't often play this since I actually prefer the base game (particularly with the first two expansions), but it's still quite good. I stumbled across a pretty lucrative tower guard when I started the second round, so I eventually tried to maximize that by placing the notable buildings in his view (ignoring most other scoring methods). If I had thought of it earlier, it probably would have worked out better. As it was, I managed a decent 2nd place to Luch.
Well, this was definitely Luch's night. Out of 5 games, he won 3 (and nearly won a 4th).
Labels:
Aladdin's Dragons,
Carcassonne: The City,
Domaine,
Pueblo,
Session,
Tower of Babel
Thursday, January 19, 2006
A GigaWak of Games (Carcassonne - The City, China x2, Pueblo, Formula Motor Racing x3, )
Something OLD: Pueblo
Something NEW: China
Something BORROWED: Formula Motor Racing
Something BLUE: Carcassonne - The City (ok, I'm cheating here... the original is in a blue box!)
I think we've set a new record for number of games played in a single WAGS evening... 7!
It was my pick this week. I really enjoyed our "Invasion of the Middleweight Euros!" evening in December, so I thought I'd try it again.
We started the evening with my new copy of Carcassonne - The City.
First off, it's a beautiful package (the box, in particular is very nice). The set comes with a promo pamphlet encouraging people to visit the town in France! I wonder... are they making the assumption that anyone who has enough cash to buy this deluxe set might be good targets for travel ads? (If so, it's really a shame that there's no real Catan!). It was a Christmas gift, and the obvious question was "is a Carc variant different enough from the original to be worth owning?"
I own the basic set and just about all the expansions. I quite like it for the simplicity of the original and the way the expansions each increase the complexity/strategy as desired (most of them are well conceived). Still, it has problems (and I don't mean the randomness): Roads are not well balanced, the farmers are fiddly and the endgame scoring can be tedious. On top of that, it's really much better with 2 than with 3-6.
At one point, I tried playing Hunters and Gatherers online to see if it improved on the original. There's a lot to like, particularly the way the "farmers" are scored (the hunters get points for every deer and mammoth in the field, minus one animal for each tiger which has been placed in the field). "Roads" (rivers) are better balanced with "cities" (forests). Finally, incentive to finish other player's forests is included in the base set through a "bonus tile" mechanic. It's a good game, and it does a good job of being a more interesting and better balanced game out of the box, with new mechanics which substantially change the "spirit" of the game (the deer vs tiger mechanic is overtly confrontational, and the bonus tiles can swing the fortunes on the board faster than the incremental nature of the original ever did). I hate to say it, but I thought the art was so bad that I honestly felt I'd never want to pull it out (the fact that a few of the bonus tiles seemed overly powerful and the added complication for newbies didn't help)
Carcassonne - The City seems closer to the base game in spirit. As always, the game mechanics continue to be basically the same (draw a tile, place it on the table and decide if you want to place a meeple on one of the features). In the beginning of the game, the three locations are quite familiar: 1) Roads 2) Markets (forests in the original) 3) Residential areas (Farms in the original). Effort has been made to make each strategy viable: Roads continue to score only 1 point per tile, but if it ever stretches to 4 tiles or more each tile is worth double. Markets can potentially show 3 different types of goods for sale, and the value of the market equals the number of tiles x the number of different goods in it. The residential districts are worth 2 points per market which surrounds it.
The most obvious change, in the beginning, is that tiles only need to match at the roads (a mechanic lifted from Carcassonne - The Castle, yet another previously released standalone version of the game). As the game progresses, subtler things begin to reveal themselves. The nature of the scoring mechanism for the roads and markets encourages players to end their opponent's scoring opportunities early before they are worth much. The distribution of the tiles & flexible placement rules seem to encourage smaller "fields", which are both easier to visualize and simpler to score.
The big twist are the city walls. The game is split into 3 rounds, and a few very different element are introduced once the 2nd round begins: City walls, towers and guards.
The tiles are split into 3 nearly equal piles. Once the first pile runs out, the first player to score points must place the first segment of the city wall. Every other player follows suit by placing a piece of wall, attached to the first one, along the perimeter of the tiles already placed on the table. The walls effectively limit expansion of the city and "finish" features on the board. Therefore, they can be used offensively to end a large market or road (or kill it before it's worth more than just a couple of points). In additon, meeples can be placed on a just placed wall as "knights". Knights score points for "seeing" certain types of buildings in the residential districts in a straight line from where they stand. The towers are an additonal oportuntiy for the the player who initiated the wall building to score a few points.
Round 3 is the same as round 2, except that the number of walls placed everytime a player causes points to be scored is doubled.
The game ends once the tiles run out, or once the city wall comes within 4 pieces of surrounding the city.
The end result is interesting. I appreciate that the game is better balanced, I enjoy that the rythm of the game changes as the rounds progress (indeed, at each step a new layer of things to consider is introduced), and I like that the scoring happens much more quickly at the endgame. For whatever reason, the whole thing works just as well as a multiplayer game as it does with 2 (not something I feel about the base game... I think it's the way the walls work, but I'm not sure).
Also, the whole things looks quite nice once completed. A lot of my coworkers were very interested in the game on the strength of the appearance alone! This, combined with the fact that the rules ramp up as the game progresses (rather than being more complex from the start as in Hunters and Gatherers) means the game can be quite approachable despite the added depth. One coworker bit immediately and wanted to play at lunch. He loved it.
So, is it worth owning if you've already got the original and lots of expansions? I'd say yes. Not a must buy unless you are really taken by the appearance (as I was), but solid nonetheless. I'd probably pick this as the better game to introduce to new players, so long as they are not really afraid of a little complexity. In the context of our WAGS group, I think that I still slightly prefer the base set (when played with King and Scout, Inns and Cathedrals and Traders and Builders).
Hmmm. That was a lot longer than I expected it to be!
I won the game. An unlikely tile placement wound up connecting me to Kozure's lucrative residential district. Also, I tried fairly hard to shut down my opponent's scoring oportunities before they became too valuable (my previous experience with the game gave me an advantage there). Still, it was close... I doubt I'll have any advantage next time.
We followed with 2 games of China, joined by Tili. I won't spend too much time here, but this play solidified my opinion that this is a very good (if unspectacular) strategy game with a surprisingly short play time. It was nice to see that Shemp managed a win while totally ignoring the advisors, as it proves there is more than one way to succeed.
Pueblo was played with all four sacred sites, using the advanced rules. Our Pueblo quickly became difficult to manage and "good" moves were few and far between. The location of the sacred sites effectively neutralized two corners of the board! I overbid for starting position and never quite recovered. Shemp and I were losing pretty badly through the game and it was a race between Luch and Kozure for "least proud" master builder. Luch seems to have a knack for the game... he was well protected through to the end and won.
We finished with 3 rounds of Formula Motor Racing... the silly (but very quick) Knizia racing game. Yet again, us humans were hopelessly outmatched by the non player cars (this keeps happening because we beat each other up and leave those cars alone). Luch had the lead in the first round (amongst human players), lost most of it in the 2nd, and had the choice to hand it to me or Shemp in the last round. He chose me, but that's a hollow victory. I say we call it a tie!
It's a stretch to call this an evening of middleweights, but we sure played a lot of games!
Something NEW: China
Something BORROWED: Formula Motor Racing
Something BLUE: Carcassonne - The City (ok, I'm cheating here... the original is in a blue box!)
I think we've set a new record for number of games played in a single WAGS evening... 7!
It was my pick this week. I really enjoyed our "Invasion of the Middleweight Euros!" evening in December, so I thought I'd try it again.
We started the evening with my new copy of Carcassonne - The City.
First off, it's a beautiful package (the box, in particular is very nice). The set comes with a promo pamphlet encouraging people to visit the town in France! I wonder... are they making the assumption that anyone who has enough cash to buy this deluxe set might be good targets for travel ads? (If so, it's really a shame that there's no real Catan!). It was a Christmas gift, and the obvious question was "is a Carc variant different enough from the original to be worth owning?"
I own the basic set and just about all the expansions. I quite like it for the simplicity of the original and the way the expansions each increase the complexity/strategy as desired (most of them are well conceived). Still, it has problems (and I don't mean the randomness): Roads are not well balanced, the farmers are fiddly and the endgame scoring can be tedious. On top of that, it's really much better with 2 than with 3-6.
At one point, I tried playing Hunters and Gatherers online to see if it improved on the original. There's a lot to like, particularly the way the "farmers" are scored (the hunters get points for every deer and mammoth in the field, minus one animal for each tiger which has been placed in the field). "Roads" (rivers) are better balanced with "cities" (forests). Finally, incentive to finish other player's forests is included in the base set through a "bonus tile" mechanic. It's a good game, and it does a good job of being a more interesting and better balanced game out of the box, with new mechanics which substantially change the "spirit" of the game (the deer vs tiger mechanic is overtly confrontational, and the bonus tiles can swing the fortunes on the board faster than the incremental nature of the original ever did). I hate to say it, but I thought the art was so bad that I honestly felt I'd never want to pull it out (the fact that a few of the bonus tiles seemed overly powerful and the added complication for newbies didn't help)
Carcassonne - The City seems closer to the base game in spirit. As always, the game mechanics continue to be basically the same (draw a tile, place it on the table and decide if you want to place a meeple on one of the features). In the beginning of the game, the three locations are quite familiar: 1) Roads 2) Markets (forests in the original) 3) Residential areas (Farms in the original). Effort has been made to make each strategy viable: Roads continue to score only 1 point per tile, but if it ever stretches to 4 tiles or more each tile is worth double. Markets can potentially show 3 different types of goods for sale, and the value of the market equals the number of tiles x the number of different goods in it. The residential districts are worth 2 points per market which surrounds it.
The most obvious change, in the beginning, is that tiles only need to match at the roads (a mechanic lifted from Carcassonne - The Castle, yet another previously released standalone version of the game). As the game progresses, subtler things begin to reveal themselves. The nature of the scoring mechanism for the roads and markets encourages players to end their opponent's scoring opportunities early before they are worth much. The distribution of the tiles & flexible placement rules seem to encourage smaller "fields", which are both easier to visualize and simpler to score.
The big twist are the city walls. The game is split into 3 rounds, and a few very different element are introduced once the 2nd round begins: City walls, towers and guards.
The tiles are split into 3 nearly equal piles. Once the first pile runs out, the first player to score points must place the first segment of the city wall. Every other player follows suit by placing a piece of wall, attached to the first one, along the perimeter of the tiles already placed on the table. The walls effectively limit expansion of the city and "finish" features on the board. Therefore, they can be used offensively to end a large market or road (or kill it before it's worth more than just a couple of points). In additon, meeples can be placed on a just placed wall as "knights". Knights score points for "seeing" certain types of buildings in the residential districts in a straight line from where they stand. The towers are an additonal oportuntiy for the the player who initiated the wall building to score a few points.
Round 3 is the same as round 2, except that the number of walls placed everytime a player causes points to be scored is doubled.
The game ends once the tiles run out, or once the city wall comes within 4 pieces of surrounding the city.
The end result is interesting. I appreciate that the game is better balanced, I enjoy that the rythm of the game changes as the rounds progress (indeed, at each step a new layer of things to consider is introduced), and I like that the scoring happens much more quickly at the endgame. For whatever reason, the whole thing works just as well as a multiplayer game as it does with 2 (not something I feel about the base game... I think it's the way the walls work, but I'm not sure).
Also, the whole things looks quite nice once completed. A lot of my coworkers were very interested in the game on the strength of the appearance alone! This, combined with the fact that the rules ramp up as the game progresses (rather than being more complex from the start as in Hunters and Gatherers) means the game can be quite approachable despite the added depth. One coworker bit immediately and wanted to play at lunch. He loved it.
So, is it worth owning if you've already got the original and lots of expansions? I'd say yes. Not a must buy unless you are really taken by the appearance (as I was), but solid nonetheless. I'd probably pick this as the better game to introduce to new players, so long as they are not really afraid of a little complexity. In the context of our WAGS group, I think that I still slightly prefer the base set (when played with King and Scout, Inns and Cathedrals and Traders and Builders).
Hmmm. That was a lot longer than I expected it to be!
I won the game. An unlikely tile placement wound up connecting me to Kozure's lucrative residential district. Also, I tried fairly hard to shut down my opponent's scoring oportunities before they became too valuable (my previous experience with the game gave me an advantage there). Still, it was close... I doubt I'll have any advantage next time.
We followed with 2 games of China, joined by Tili. I won't spend too much time here, but this play solidified my opinion that this is a very good (if unspectacular) strategy game with a surprisingly short play time. It was nice to see that Shemp managed a win while totally ignoring the advisors, as it proves there is more than one way to succeed.
Pueblo was played with all four sacred sites, using the advanced rules. Our Pueblo quickly became difficult to manage and "good" moves were few and far between. The location of the sacred sites effectively neutralized two corners of the board! I overbid for starting position and never quite recovered. Shemp and I were losing pretty badly through the game and it was a race between Luch and Kozure for "least proud" master builder. Luch seems to have a knack for the game... he was well protected through to the end and won.
We finished with 3 rounds of Formula Motor Racing... the silly (but very quick) Knizia racing game. Yet again, us humans were hopelessly outmatched by the non player cars (this keeps happening because we beat each other up and leave those cars alone). Luch had the lead in the first round (amongst human players), lost most of it in the 2nd, and had the choice to hand it to me or Shemp in the last round. He chose me, but that's a hollow victory. I say we call it a tie!
It's a stretch to call this an evening of middleweights, but we sure played a lot of games!
Labels:
Carcassonne: The City,
China,
Formula Motor Racing,
Pueblo,
Session
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Gonna get Got
Short Session report:
No new games this week. We started out with a game of Ticket to Ride:Europe and then played Pueblo 3 times.
Even though Kozure couldn't make it, Mrs. Duchamp joined us to make a foursome (the minimum needed to play with double routes). She caught on quickly and we all fought for routes in a surprisingly crowded board (I've been playing the base Ticket to Ride online, and it doesn't feel nearly this crowded with 4 players). Shemp managed a very long route and lucked out with a long ticket which had all three of his initial short tickets inside of it. I butted heads with Luch over a connection to Venezia (which I eventually got, but paid dearly for). I was far too idealistic when I drew tickets later into the game, keeping all three (for a total of 5)... Due to incredible luck drawing cards on my last two turns, I came VERY close, but I was one turn short (I only needed to put a station to finish them all!). In the end, Shemp won with a considerable lead, enough that even had I made all my tickets I still would have been short 2 points (of note, Mrs. D. did very well on her first go, successfuly claiming 5 routes. Conversely, Luch had a hard time and missed many of them, ending with a score low enough to get lapped by the leader!)
Next, we played Pueblo. We tried the "advanced" game, by bidding for turns and using 1 of the sacred sites (pieces which are placed on the board which make those areas off limits for the game). It seemed be a good addition, but we craved even more complexity. We then tried another with 3 sacred sites, to see how difficult it would become. The impact was fairly significant. Right from the start, players are forced into very unattractive moves and tough decisions (a connundrum which gave birth to the phrase "I'm gonna get got", the title of the blog). I enjoy the change of pace this game offers, and I definitely prefer the advanced game (although I still don't quite see the advantage of bidding for turn order on the first turn.. maybe the advantage of that will come apparent with time). Overall, it's a bit of a brain burner but it's definitely fun to play. We closed the evening with a final game of the base version, since we didn't really have time for anything else. I was lucky enough to win the first two games, but Luch won the last.
No new games this week. We started out with a game of Ticket to Ride:Europe and then played Pueblo 3 times.
Even though Kozure couldn't make it, Mrs. Duchamp joined us to make a foursome (the minimum needed to play with double routes). She caught on quickly and we all fought for routes in a surprisingly crowded board (I've been playing the base Ticket to Ride online, and it doesn't feel nearly this crowded with 4 players). Shemp managed a very long route and lucked out with a long ticket which had all three of his initial short tickets inside of it. I butted heads with Luch over a connection to Venezia (which I eventually got, but paid dearly for). I was far too idealistic when I drew tickets later into the game, keeping all three (for a total of 5)... Due to incredible luck drawing cards on my last two turns, I came VERY close, but I was one turn short (I only needed to put a station to finish them all!). In the end, Shemp won with a considerable lead, enough that even had I made all my tickets I still would have been short 2 points (of note, Mrs. D. did very well on her first go, successfuly claiming 5 routes. Conversely, Luch had a hard time and missed many of them, ending with a score low enough to get lapped by the leader!)
Next, we played Pueblo. We tried the "advanced" game, by bidding for turns and using 1 of the sacred sites (pieces which are placed on the board which make those areas off limits for the game). It seemed be a good addition, but we craved even more complexity. We then tried another with 3 sacred sites, to see how difficult it would become. The impact was fairly significant. Right from the start, players are forced into very unattractive moves and tough decisions (a connundrum which gave birth to the phrase "I'm gonna get got", the title of the blog). I enjoy the change of pace this game offers, and I definitely prefer the advanced game (although I still don't quite see the advantage of bidding for turn order on the first turn.. maybe the advantage of that will come apparent with time). Overall, it's a bit of a brain burner but it's definitely fun to play. We closed the evening with a final game of the base version, since we didn't really have time for anything else. I was lucky enough to win the first two games, but Luch won the last.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Working poorly as a team
An interesting session this week...
We played two new games, and they both shared a common theme: Making it look like you are cooperating while in fact pursuing your own goals.
First up, the "blockbuster" release of the summer: Shadows over Camelot by Days of Wonder. For a guy who started off unimpressed by Days of Wonder (after Ticket to Ride and Mystery of the Abbey), I've gone on to purchasing and enjoying quite a few titles! (Ticket to Ride: Europe, Memoir '44, Pirate's Cove and Shadows over Camelot). does this one live up to the hype? I say yes.
Shadows over Camelot belongs in a very small niche: cooperative boardgames. After you remove hack and slash type miniature games (Doom, Betrayal at House on the Hill, etc), the only other game of this type that I know of is Lord of the Rings by Reiner Knizia. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the game is held up against it's famous cousin as it gets reviewed. In fact, as we sat down to play Shemp commented on how he was looking forward to playing this one particularly to see if it was cooperative games he hated, or just Lord of the Rings (I don't share his opinion on LotR, as you'll see below).
The production values for the game are quite high. The boards are nicely illustrated and lots of little plastic miniatures are included. A few minor issues: The boards are unecessarily different sizes, making their layout on a table a little messy. Also, the grail quest board doesn't actually fit in the box... an odd oversight; The way the main board folds has already caused creases at the inside corners; The rules could have been better organized, making it difficult to locate certain pieces of information. In addition, certain design decisions are questionable, like listing all but one abilities of Merlin cards on the card... making it extremely likely to miss.
Game play takes a bit of explaining, but once it starts it's fairly straightforward. I'm undecided about the types of groups I'd be looking to introduce this one to... It would likely take an enthusiastic group of non-gamers to want to take this on, but it shouldn't be too difficult if they wanted to learn.
The basics are simple: Do something bad (draw and play an evil card, add a seige engine to the attack against Camelot or lose a life point) and follow it with something good (Go to a quest, play a good card, etc). That's pretty much it. What makes this game hard to win (really hard, as it turns out), is that the sheer number of quests, and the speed at which the odds stack against the players, is quite difficult to manage. To top it off, one of the players MIGHT be a traitor, purposely making bad moves and wasting resources to make it even less likely that good will triumph. The inclusion of the POSSIBILITY of a traitor in any individual session seems to be the game's defining characteristic (along with the cooperative play), and it truly does add an interesting dimension to the game.
Most quests revolve around playing "fight" cards in the requested order or combination (a straight for the saxons and picts, two pairs for the Jousting tournament, etc), with the hopes of completing the required set in time. The quests themselves are an interesting mix of solo and group quests, quests which happen once and then dissapear and those to reoccur endlessly until the game ends. A few quests lead to items which can aid the characters (such as excalibur, which makes a knights attacks more powerful). There are many difficult decisions here: The grail quest is very difficult once evil starts making progress, so initially it seemed that completing these typess of quests early made sense. However, a completed quest increases the danger of the seige assault on Camelot dramatically since any evil cards drawn which would have added to a completed quest turns into a new seige engine instead! It will take a few more games to figure out a winning strategy...
For the curious, Shemp's final analysis was that he quite enjoyed this game (as did the whole group, I think). Therefore, it was Lord of the Rings he hated, not cooperative games! Me... as much as I like Shadows over Camelot, I still prefer Lord of the Rings. The corruption track from that game remains one of the most elegant, thematic and clever mechanics in any of my games (standing a few steps away from Sauron near the end of the game creates a wonderful tension and sense of impending doom). Also, the episodic nature of the system, with various scenarios and much needed reinforcements which need to be aquired along the way make the quet truly feel epic and daunting (and fosters a unique sense of camaraderie and cooperation along the way).
As good as Shadows over Camelot is, I find it less exciting to accumulate white swords at the round table... despite the fact that it is the most important quest on the board, it is the least memorable and quite disjointed from the action going on. The quests themselves are a little underwhelming since they boil down to playing a poker hand over a series of turns (an odd mechanic which doesn't tie in very well with the theme of the game, in my opinion). Also, the fact that all hell breaks loose on all fronts at the same time means that there is no "progression" to the game... it's all one long episode. Luckily, the mix of perpetual quests vs one offs changes the feeling of the game as it goes (mostly in the sense that as the one time quests are finished, the seige engines start coming fast and furious). Also, the Traitor throws a very interesting psychological twist to the game (maybe at the expense of the group camraderie, but that's okay)
The group didn't fare too well in our first two attempts... Although I was the traitor in the first game I can't claim any responsibility for the win... the knights ran from quest to quest in a fruitless attempt to stem the tide of evil. Ultimetely, the dragon did us in. In the second game, we agreed to focus more and finish of quests early. We complete Excalibur right away, and got quite far on the grail quest... but then we realized that the price of completing a quest early is quite high: seige engines began overunning the kingdom and we could not keep up. Had a great time trying, though!
The second game of the night was a "new to us" game called Pueblo. I picked this up because two of my favorite games are by Wolfgang Kramer, and Blokus has been a big hit with just about everyone I've introduced it to. Obviously, I was hoping that the two would mesh well in this game and produce another hit. Pueblo is a much simpler game than SoC, where players are supposedly working toghether to build a Pueblo under the watchful eye of the tribe's chief. Everyone has a number of blocks of their colour, and one less neutral blocks. Each turn a block is played from the players supply. The chief is looking for signs of the builders pride (blocks of the player's colour) and will punish that player every time he sees it! the strategy, therefore, is to hide your coloured blocks behind neutral ones or other player's blocks. Pretty straightforward, and quite fun. It can be a bit of a mind bender to figure out how to place the blocks, but it's not exactly a brain burner either. Shemp demonstrated his superior grasp of spatial logic and soundly trounced us (although Luch was in the running until the Chief's final walkaround...). I played this with my mom when I first bought it and she thought is was very good as well, so I think it will have a wide appeal.
Shadows over Camelot: 8
Pueblo: 7
We played two new games, and they both shared a common theme: Making it look like you are cooperating while in fact pursuing your own goals.
First up, the "blockbuster" release of the summer: Shadows over Camelot by Days of Wonder. For a guy who started off unimpressed by Days of Wonder (after Ticket to Ride and Mystery of the Abbey), I've gone on to purchasing and enjoying quite a few titles! (Ticket to Ride: Europe, Memoir '44, Pirate's Cove and Shadows over Camelot). does this one live up to the hype? I say yes.
Shadows over Camelot belongs in a very small niche: cooperative boardgames. After you remove hack and slash type miniature games (Doom, Betrayal at House on the Hill, etc), the only other game of this type that I know of is Lord of the Rings by Reiner Knizia. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that the game is held up against it's famous cousin as it gets reviewed. In fact, as we sat down to play Shemp commented on how he was looking forward to playing this one particularly to see if it was cooperative games he hated, or just Lord of the Rings (I don't share his opinion on LotR, as you'll see below).
The production values for the game are quite high. The boards are nicely illustrated and lots of little plastic miniatures are included. A few minor issues: The boards are unecessarily different sizes, making their layout on a table a little messy. Also, the grail quest board doesn't actually fit in the box... an odd oversight; The way the main board folds has already caused creases at the inside corners; The rules could have been better organized, making it difficult to locate certain pieces of information. In addition, certain design decisions are questionable, like listing all but one abilities of Merlin cards on the card... making it extremely likely to miss.
Game play takes a bit of explaining, but once it starts it's fairly straightforward. I'm undecided about the types of groups I'd be looking to introduce this one to... It would likely take an enthusiastic group of non-gamers to want to take this on, but it shouldn't be too difficult if they wanted to learn.
The basics are simple: Do something bad (draw and play an evil card, add a seige engine to the attack against Camelot or lose a life point) and follow it with something good (Go to a quest, play a good card, etc). That's pretty much it. What makes this game hard to win (really hard, as it turns out), is that the sheer number of quests, and the speed at which the odds stack against the players, is quite difficult to manage. To top it off, one of the players MIGHT be a traitor, purposely making bad moves and wasting resources to make it even less likely that good will triumph. The inclusion of the POSSIBILITY of a traitor in any individual session seems to be the game's defining characteristic (along with the cooperative play), and it truly does add an interesting dimension to the game.
Most quests revolve around playing "fight" cards in the requested order or combination (a straight for the saxons and picts, two pairs for the Jousting tournament, etc), with the hopes of completing the required set in time. The quests themselves are an interesting mix of solo and group quests, quests which happen once and then dissapear and those to reoccur endlessly until the game ends. A few quests lead to items which can aid the characters (such as excalibur, which makes a knights attacks more powerful). There are many difficult decisions here: The grail quest is very difficult once evil starts making progress, so initially it seemed that completing these typess of quests early made sense. However, a completed quest increases the danger of the seige assault on Camelot dramatically since any evil cards drawn which would have added to a completed quest turns into a new seige engine instead! It will take a few more games to figure out a winning strategy...
For the curious, Shemp's final analysis was that he quite enjoyed this game (as did the whole group, I think). Therefore, it was Lord of the Rings he hated, not cooperative games! Me... as much as I like Shadows over Camelot, I still prefer Lord of the Rings. The corruption track from that game remains one of the most elegant, thematic and clever mechanics in any of my games (standing a few steps away from Sauron near the end of the game creates a wonderful tension and sense of impending doom). Also, the episodic nature of the system, with various scenarios and much needed reinforcements which need to be aquired along the way make the quet truly feel epic and daunting (and fosters a unique sense of camaraderie and cooperation along the way).
As good as Shadows over Camelot is, I find it less exciting to accumulate white swords at the round table... despite the fact that it is the most important quest on the board, it is the least memorable and quite disjointed from the action going on. The quests themselves are a little underwhelming since they boil down to playing a poker hand over a series of turns (an odd mechanic which doesn't tie in very well with the theme of the game, in my opinion). Also, the fact that all hell breaks loose on all fronts at the same time means that there is no "progression" to the game... it's all one long episode. Luckily, the mix of perpetual quests vs one offs changes the feeling of the game as it goes (mostly in the sense that as the one time quests are finished, the seige engines start coming fast and furious). Also, the Traitor throws a very interesting psychological twist to the game (maybe at the expense of the group camraderie, but that's okay)
The group didn't fare too well in our first two attempts... Although I was the traitor in the first game I can't claim any responsibility for the win... the knights ran from quest to quest in a fruitless attempt to stem the tide of evil. Ultimetely, the dragon did us in. In the second game, we agreed to focus more and finish of quests early. We complete Excalibur right away, and got quite far on the grail quest... but then we realized that the price of completing a quest early is quite high: seige engines began overunning the kingdom and we could not keep up. Had a great time trying, though!
The second game of the night was a "new to us" game called Pueblo. I picked this up because two of my favorite games are by Wolfgang Kramer, and Blokus has been a big hit with just about everyone I've introduced it to. Obviously, I was hoping that the two would mesh well in this game and produce another hit. Pueblo is a much simpler game than SoC, where players are supposedly working toghether to build a Pueblo under the watchful eye of the tribe's chief. Everyone has a number of blocks of their colour, and one less neutral blocks. Each turn a block is played from the players supply. The chief is looking for signs of the builders pride (blocks of the player's colour) and will punish that player every time he sees it! the strategy, therefore, is to hide your coloured blocks behind neutral ones or other player's blocks. Pretty straightforward, and quite fun. It can be a bit of a mind bender to figure out how to place the blocks, but it's not exactly a brain burner either. Shemp demonstrated his superior grasp of spatial logic and soundly trounced us (although Luch was in the running until the Chief's final walkaround...). I played this with my mom when I first bought it and she thought is was very good as well, so I think it will have a wide appeal.
Shadows over Camelot: 8
Pueblo: 7
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