Hmm, having a hard time keeping up with the blog these days.
A few weeks ago we played Flashpoint. It was good, and would probably work well as a family or non-gamer group game due to the compelling theme. Based on the one play, which we won handily, I don't see myself suggesting it for WAGS though. Very similar to Pandemic, though without the clever mechanism that compounds the threat of disease (the infected cities discard gets added back on top of the deck).
More Bergen Von Burgund, though this time we tried the advanced boards. Still enjoying it, though unlike the others in the group I think I prefer Macao slightly. The different boards were fun, though.
This week we were supposed to be 5 but in a weird twist of fate Bearbomb, Perra and Kozure couldn't make it at the last minute! 2 player games it was.
We played Vikings, and that was fun though there seemed to be far more available money with only 2 players. Wether tried the advanced variant (which we had never played before). It adds a new series of special function tiles that you get if you take the most expensive tile in the rondel. In,our first round, we went a little crazy buying the expensive tiles to get the power tiles. Unfortunately, for several rounds afterwards we were broke and had to take the free tile all the way around. We both salvaged our positions and were able to finish the game with respectable boards, though, and both enjoyed the advanced rules quite a bit (though we opted to skip the auction variant). One thing I will say, this is truly and advanced variant. It's not just more complicated or different, as is the case with most expert variants. It's actually harder strategically. The bonus tiles can be very powerful, but you can go broke doing it. We were surprised how much more thinking power was required!
Finished up with 3 sessions of Roma. I won the last one and that might be a first.
Showing posts with label Die Burgen Von Burgund. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Die Burgen Von Burgund. Show all posts
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Monday, February 20, 2012
Simple, but unintuitive (In the Year of the Dragon, Paris Connection, Kingdom Builder x4, Die Bergun von Burgund, Innovation)
Over the past two weeks, we've had a chance to play quite a few games... sme old, and some new.
Two weeks ago, Bearbomb, Kozure, Shemp, Dale and I had a chance to play In the Year of the Dragon. I was kicking myself for forgetting to bring along the expansion(s) from the Alea Treasure Chest! Regardless, this is always a fun and challenging game. I spent the first half concentrating on maintaining the lead in the turn order track and getting my "end of round" points up (courtisan, double dragon tablet). Although I am convinced there are multiple valid strategies in the game, this is the one that appeals to me and so I tend to fall back on it. You need very little money since you don't have to worry about paying for actions, and so it saves you actions accumulating wealth. This also means that I typically struggle with the offering to the emperor, but as long as I can take a turn to get to three huan it's not too painful. Although in the last third I lost the battle for turn order I did manage to conserve the lead in points for the win. One thing that seems to be essential, though, is to pick a couple of events to essentially disregard. If you are stuck with the pack always trying to build up against the event that is coming up next you will find yourself blocked out or paying.
We also played Paris Connection. There seems to be an endless variation of train themed stock manipulation games, which range the gamut from light to very heavy. It constantly surprises me that a new one can come along and still explore a new way to approach the topic. PAris Connection is a very light and fast game, which manages top play up to 6 in 30-45 minutes. There are similarities to Wabash Cannonball/ Chicago Express, but this is the more streamlined design. On a turn, you play up to 5 trains to the board or draw 1-2 trains from the supply. As the train routes develop, they touch areas that increase the worth of that colour. The trains a player has is therefore both the number of stocks a player has in a given company and the vehicle through which they can increase the value of a line. In other words, every time you play a train you are shrinking your shares in that same line. It's tricky. It leads to players dumping trains of a colour they don't want to perform well by extending the line to places that are worthless. It means that the best way to make money is for someone else to expand a line you are keeping shares in. As with many games like this, it means that you are best off trying to figure out what other players want, and investing in that, rather than trying to boost the value yourself. Anyway, as light as it is, the unusual thought process required to play the game means that I can't really see non-gamers enjoying it much. For me, I liked it.
We ended the night with two games of Kingdom Builder. This game came with a lot of hype, since it's from the designer of Dominion, but also a lot of backlash since it's pretty different. In fact, I'd say it gets most of it's flack because it's both quite simple and quite unintuitive, an unusual mix (I know I just said that about Paris Connection, I guess I mean it's unusual outside of the stock game genre).
There are a number of boards, from which 4 are selected at random, and a number of victory condition cards from which 3 are selected at random. Players take turns drawing 1 card and placing three pieces on that type of terrain. The victory condition cards say things like "units next to a mountain gain 1 VP", or "gain 1 VP for each connection between a city or special site". This means that you are trying to accomplish different things with your pieces each game, which is a simple change but it's interesting how different it makes each game feel. The biggest trick is the placement rule... the one card you play determines the terrain type you can play on, but you have to play on terrain adjacent to pieces you've already played if possible. That means that if you played earlier pieces next to many types of terrain the card you draw will largely determine what you can do. On the other hand, if you play your pieces in such a way that you are next to very few types of terrain there is a good chance that you will draw a card showing terrain you aren't adjacent to, allowing you to play ANYWHERE on the board on the correct type of terrain. In addition to that, each board comes shows a different special location (or two) that gives a player a special power if they place a token adjacent to it. The special powers allow a player to move pieces in special ways, build on water hexes, skip spaces during placement, etc. It all adds together to a very engaging, yet simple game. And boy is it fast! 30-40 minutes for 3-4 players. We've since played 2 more times and I enjoyed it just as much.
Let's start with the biggest similarity with Dominion... there is a lot of variability built into the game, but it's all defined at the time of setup. After that, there is neither randomness nor cardplay from decks of cards. I find this refreshing because these days it seems like many games are going that route (Summoner Wars, A Few Acres of Snow, Mage Knight, Kings of Tokyo, Yomi, etc). I guess a second similarity would be a complete and utter absence of theme. Even the title is beyond generic!
Anyway, that nitpick aside, I really enjoyed the game. It won't be as influential as Dominion, but I think I actually prefer it. It feels a little like advanced Through the Desert, with variable victory conditions and board. Good stuff.
Two weeks ago, Bearbomb, Kozure, Shemp, Dale and I had a chance to play In the Year of the Dragon. I was kicking myself for forgetting to bring along the expansion(s) from the Alea Treasure Chest! Regardless, this is always a fun and challenging game. I spent the first half concentrating on maintaining the lead in the turn order track and getting my "end of round" points up (courtisan, double dragon tablet). Although I am convinced there are multiple valid strategies in the game, this is the one that appeals to me and so I tend to fall back on it. You need very little money since you don't have to worry about paying for actions, and so it saves you actions accumulating wealth. This also means that I typically struggle with the offering to the emperor, but as long as I can take a turn to get to three huan it's not too painful. Although in the last third I lost the battle for turn order I did manage to conserve the lead in points for the win. One thing that seems to be essential, though, is to pick a couple of events to essentially disregard. If you are stuck with the pack always trying to build up against the event that is coming up next you will find yourself blocked out or paying.
We also played Paris Connection. There seems to be an endless variation of train themed stock manipulation games, which range the gamut from light to very heavy. It constantly surprises me that a new one can come along and still explore a new way to approach the topic. PAris Connection is a very light and fast game, which manages top play up to 6 in 30-45 minutes. There are similarities to Wabash Cannonball/ Chicago Express, but this is the more streamlined design. On a turn, you play up to 5 trains to the board or draw 1-2 trains from the supply. As the train routes develop, they touch areas that increase the worth of that colour. The trains a player has is therefore both the number of stocks a player has in a given company and the vehicle through which they can increase the value of a line. In other words, every time you play a train you are shrinking your shares in that same line. It's tricky. It leads to players dumping trains of a colour they don't want to perform well by extending the line to places that are worthless. It means that the best way to make money is for someone else to expand a line you are keeping shares in. As with many games like this, it means that you are best off trying to figure out what other players want, and investing in that, rather than trying to boost the value yourself. Anyway, as light as it is, the unusual thought process required to play the game means that I can't really see non-gamers enjoying it much. For me, I liked it.
We ended the night with two games of Kingdom Builder. This game came with a lot of hype, since it's from the designer of Dominion, but also a lot of backlash since it's pretty different. In fact, I'd say it gets most of it's flack because it's both quite simple and quite unintuitive, an unusual mix (I know I just said that about Paris Connection, I guess I mean it's unusual outside of the stock game genre).
There are a number of boards, from which 4 are selected at random, and a number of victory condition cards from which 3 are selected at random. Players take turns drawing 1 card and placing three pieces on that type of terrain. The victory condition cards say things like "units next to a mountain gain 1 VP", or "gain 1 VP for each connection between a city or special site". This means that you are trying to accomplish different things with your pieces each game, which is a simple change but it's interesting how different it makes each game feel. The biggest trick is the placement rule... the one card you play determines the terrain type you can play on, but you have to play on terrain adjacent to pieces you've already played if possible. That means that if you played earlier pieces next to many types of terrain the card you draw will largely determine what you can do. On the other hand, if you play your pieces in such a way that you are next to very few types of terrain there is a good chance that you will draw a card showing terrain you aren't adjacent to, allowing you to play ANYWHERE on the board on the correct type of terrain. In addition to that, each board comes shows a different special location (or two) that gives a player a special power if they place a token adjacent to it. The special powers allow a player to move pieces in special ways, build on water hexes, skip spaces during placement, etc. It all adds together to a very engaging, yet simple game. And boy is it fast! 30-40 minutes for 3-4 players. We've since played 2 more times and I enjoyed it just as much.
Let's start with the biggest similarity with Dominion... there is a lot of variability built into the game, but it's all defined at the time of setup. After that, there is neither randomness nor cardplay from decks of cards. I find this refreshing because these days it seems like many games are going that route (Summoner Wars, A Few Acres of Snow, Mage Knight, Kings of Tokyo, Yomi, etc). I guess a second similarity would be a complete and utter absence of theme. Even the title is beyond generic!
Anyway, that nitpick aside, I really enjoyed the game. It won't be as influential as Dominion, but I think I actually prefer it. It feels a little like advanced Through the Desert, with variable victory conditions and board. Good stuff.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Two weeks, three games (In the Shadow of the Emperor, Die Burgen Von Burgund, Power Grid: First Sparks)
Two weeks ago, we pulled out a game that has languished on the shelves for far too long: In the shadow of the Emperor. Before this, it had been 3.5 years since we last played it!
Obviously, a substantial refresher was in order (and Bearbomb had never played). Luckily, once it gets going it's not too difficult. This is a great example of how well themed an otherwise abstract and dry game can be.
Shemp started as emperor, but after a failed coup by Kozure, I succeeded in taking over the throne. A mid-game alliance with Bearbomb allowed me to survive the next coup and after that I managed to fortify my position considerably and hold on through an all out assault by all players to take me down. Being emperor for several turns does not guarantee victory, but it sure makes it easier. There is so much to manage in this game... How to get majorities in order to be elected, but not necessarily keeping them since points are gained by being newly elected somewhere, not staying elected? How to manage and position your nobles as they age, marry and have children? It's quite a good game, and a very interesting and tight design.
It's a shame it only plays well with 4, or it might come out more often.
This week, we played 2 new (to us) games: Die Burgen Von Burgund (The Castles of Burgundy)and Power Grid: First Sparks.
I have been eyeing DBvB for quite some time now. Stephan Feld, the designer of the game, is one of my favorites right now. He consistently puts out games that are mechanically solid and fun (though they typically suffer from being thematically weak).
Well, first off, I think Feld heard to complaints about the weak theming of his previous games and set out to disprove them. Unfortunately, he did so by designing a game SO WEAK thematically, that the previous ones would shine in comparison. Luckily, the game itself is quite good.
Ostensibly, the theme is establishing the estate around your castle. In practice, it's about rolling dice and using the values rolled to either select from an available pool of tiles, place tiles on your player mat, or ship goods. There is a huge variety of tiles, each color coded according to function, and each imparting a specific benefit to the player once placed in the estate. At first, I was very worried that with so much to take in the game would be a chore to play, but as it turns out it makes logical sense and we were able to internalize most of it pretty quickly.
In addition to the selecting and placing of tiles, players are trying to generate victory points by filling colored regions on the board, and trying to do so before other players. The game then becomes a puzzle, trying to maximize combos of tile powers in order to generate the most VPs.
Players are engaged throughout as turns go very quickly. The game itself is longish, though. Our first game took 1.5 - 2hrs for three players, including rules explanation.
I was ahead for much of the early game, then Shemp jumped to the lead, and then we traded first place for most of the second half of the game. Kozure was not far behind, but trailed. Unfortunately for me, once the end game bonus points were tallied, I placed last and Shemp and Kozure tied for first, 2 points ahead of me! (Kozure won the tie breaker, fewest empty spaces).
When I think about it, the bonuses for completing regions make up a large chunk of the points but in some ways they are misleading. If every player completes the same number of regions in the same rounds, and by the end of the game roughly fill in the same number of regions, the points total will Bethesda same (regardless of who scores which regions, when). That may sound self evident, but more than most games i suspect that this is LIKELY to happen. The difference is going to be a few points here and there, generated by shipping and building combos allowing that extra region to be completed. Of course, the yellow "end game bonus" tiles might also swing things, and generate some long term strategy opportunities we haven't taken advantage of yet, so there's that.
Anyway, I very much liked it and Shemp and Kozure seemed positive as well. Feld strikes again.
Last, we played Power Grid: First Sparks. This is a game that, according to the designer, is being released to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the Funkenshlag (the original version of what is now known as Power Grid). Power Grid is a game I enjoy, but it's kind of overlong and extremely mathy. The stated goal of this redesign was to make it shorter and less mathy... How could I not give it a try?!!
In many ways, this is still very much Power Grid despite the re-theming to the stone age. There is still a power plant market, with an available market and a futures market, but now they are called tools and feature such seminal inventions as the basket and the spear. Their purpose is not to generate money but rather food, but in gameplay terms they are analogous. Over time, the baskets get bigger, and the spears pointier, and they allow players to gather food more effectively. To spice things up, "knowledge" cards are intermixed with the tools, giving the player that selects it an advantage in the game (such as fire, speech, etc). Many of the tools are tied to a specific food source, such as bear, fish or mammoth, so it is necessary to make sure that at least one of the player's clansmen are adjacent to the related source of food. The tools are auctioned in a weird, but much faster than regular Power Grid, reverse auction.
And that takes us to the board. This is the biggest change, in my opinion. Instead of having a preset map with various cities and costs to build between them, the board is made up of modular tiles. Spaces that are adjacent to each other can be built to, and the cost only calculated based on the total number of clansmen the player wants to play that turn + the number of clansmen already on the spaces to be occupied. This simplifies the math dramatically. There are no phases to the game limiting how many clansmen can be in which space at which time, it's strictly a function of expansion becoming more expensive as the board gets more crowded. Still, the blocking tactics found in Power Grid are still available here... It can definitely be a good move to build up against someone in an effort to make expansion for them more expensive.
I liked it. The wonderful animeeples, the humorous art on the tools and the addition of "knowledge cards" make the thematic shift work. It's much more accessible and plays in approximately an hour, which is huge. I found the gameplay quite good and still satisfying despite many othe simplifications. My only misgiving is that the modular board seemed less interesting that the various Power Grid maps... I'm hoping it won't get stale because of this. Also, I don't feel like the board positions mattered as much as they should (they did, as far as blocking, but long term positioning seemed somewhat irrelevant).
Obviously, a substantial refresher was in order (and Bearbomb had never played). Luckily, once it gets going it's not too difficult. This is a great example of how well themed an otherwise abstract and dry game can be.
Shemp started as emperor, but after a failed coup by Kozure, I succeeded in taking over the throne. A mid-game alliance with Bearbomb allowed me to survive the next coup and after that I managed to fortify my position considerably and hold on through an all out assault by all players to take me down. Being emperor for several turns does not guarantee victory, but it sure makes it easier. There is so much to manage in this game... How to get majorities in order to be elected, but not necessarily keeping them since points are gained by being newly elected somewhere, not staying elected? How to manage and position your nobles as they age, marry and have children? It's quite a good game, and a very interesting and tight design.
It's a shame it only plays well with 4, or it might come out more often.
This week, we played 2 new (to us) games: Die Burgen Von Burgund (The Castles of Burgundy)and Power Grid: First Sparks.
I have been eyeing DBvB for quite some time now. Stephan Feld, the designer of the game, is one of my favorites right now. He consistently puts out games that are mechanically solid and fun (though they typically suffer from being thematically weak).
Well, first off, I think Feld heard to complaints about the weak theming of his previous games and set out to disprove them. Unfortunately, he did so by designing a game SO WEAK thematically, that the previous ones would shine in comparison. Luckily, the game itself is quite good.
Ostensibly, the theme is establishing the estate around your castle. In practice, it's about rolling dice and using the values rolled to either select from an available pool of tiles, place tiles on your player mat, or ship goods. There is a huge variety of tiles, each color coded according to function, and each imparting a specific benefit to the player once placed in the estate. At first, I was very worried that with so much to take in the game would be a chore to play, but as it turns out it makes logical sense and we were able to internalize most of it pretty quickly.
In addition to the selecting and placing of tiles, players are trying to generate victory points by filling colored regions on the board, and trying to do so before other players. The game then becomes a puzzle, trying to maximize combos of tile powers in order to generate the most VPs.
Players are engaged throughout as turns go very quickly. The game itself is longish, though. Our first game took 1.5 - 2hrs for three players, including rules explanation.
I was ahead for much of the early game, then Shemp jumped to the lead, and then we traded first place for most of the second half of the game. Kozure was not far behind, but trailed. Unfortunately for me, once the end game bonus points were tallied, I placed last and Shemp and Kozure tied for first, 2 points ahead of me! (Kozure won the tie breaker, fewest empty spaces).
When I think about it, the bonuses for completing regions make up a large chunk of the points but in some ways they are misleading. If every player completes the same number of regions in the same rounds, and by the end of the game roughly fill in the same number of regions, the points total will Bethesda same (regardless of who scores which regions, when). That may sound self evident, but more than most games i suspect that this is LIKELY to happen. The difference is going to be a few points here and there, generated by shipping and building combos allowing that extra region to be completed. Of course, the yellow "end game bonus" tiles might also swing things, and generate some long term strategy opportunities we haven't taken advantage of yet, so there's that.
Anyway, I very much liked it and Shemp and Kozure seemed positive as well. Feld strikes again.
Last, we played Power Grid: First Sparks. This is a game that, according to the designer, is being released to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of the Funkenshlag (the original version of what is now known as Power Grid). Power Grid is a game I enjoy, but it's kind of overlong and extremely mathy. The stated goal of this redesign was to make it shorter and less mathy... How could I not give it a try?!!
In many ways, this is still very much Power Grid despite the re-theming to the stone age. There is still a power plant market, with an available market and a futures market, but now they are called tools and feature such seminal inventions as the basket and the spear. Their purpose is not to generate money but rather food, but in gameplay terms they are analogous. Over time, the baskets get bigger, and the spears pointier, and they allow players to gather food more effectively. To spice things up, "knowledge" cards are intermixed with the tools, giving the player that selects it an advantage in the game (such as fire, speech, etc). Many of the tools are tied to a specific food source, such as bear, fish or mammoth, so it is necessary to make sure that at least one of the player's clansmen are adjacent to the related source of food. The tools are auctioned in a weird, but much faster than regular Power Grid, reverse auction.
And that takes us to the board. This is the biggest change, in my opinion. Instead of having a preset map with various cities and costs to build between them, the board is made up of modular tiles. Spaces that are adjacent to each other can be built to, and the cost only calculated based on the total number of clansmen the player wants to play that turn + the number of clansmen already on the spaces to be occupied. This simplifies the math dramatically. There are no phases to the game limiting how many clansmen can be in which space at which time, it's strictly a function of expansion becoming more expensive as the board gets more crowded. Still, the blocking tactics found in Power Grid are still available here... It can definitely be a good move to build up against someone in an effort to make expansion for them more expensive.
I liked it. The wonderful animeeples, the humorous art on the tools and the addition of "knowledge cards" make the thematic shift work. It's much more accessible and plays in approximately an hour, which is huge. I found the gameplay quite good and still satisfying despite many othe simplifications. My only misgiving is that the modular board seemed less interesting that the various Power Grid maps... I'm hoping it won't get stale because of this. Also, I don't feel like the board positions mattered as much as they should (they did, as far as blocking, but long term positioning seemed somewhat irrelevant).
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