Alubari is pretty good. It’s Snowdonia with a rose-tinted-English-colonisation-of-India setting. If you’ve played Snowdonia and liked it, this is the tea game for you; albeit… it’s very tangentially tea-related.
I own Chai, but have never played it as a result of the publisher really rubbing me the wrong way… I really should give it a shot since I actually received the product, outside of any of my complaints of Steeped Games.
I’ve heard good things about Formosa Tea, but never bothered to look into it myself. Maybe I should?
If, by chance, you actually meant coffee, the superior beverage, then that’s a different bailywick entirely.
I chose to take the high road and let it slide, on the basis that @pillbox was probably off his face on coffee at the time, and simply didn’t know what he was saying.
Just as well, actually. I don’t know if there’s a coffee game I can actually recommend. I’ve heard good things about the (solo only) Coffee Roaster. I’m eager to check out Coffee Traders but I’m not sure when I’m going to get 3 people around my table interested in a heavy-euro game. I own a copy of VivaJava: The Coffee Game, but it sort of has the same problem as the potential Coffee Traders; it is 3+ only, rather than 3+ recommended, and probably is a bit too long for what it is.
While not necessarily a coffee game, Istanbul with the Mocha and Baksheesh expansion adds coffee as a resource and greatly improves the base game, IMO.
I have played both Alubari and Formosa Tea. I sold on Alubari because at the time it seemed like a good idea (with more space I might have kept it). Also friends still have that one. I enjoyed both. In Alubari you build a train route to Darjeeling. The theme is present mostly geographical. We had a ton of fun playing this once at Spiel but once at home my partner wasn‘t inclined to pick this over other games. And the solo didn‘t fascinate me enough.
In Formosa Tea which is also a worker placement game you actually produce tea. I would say there is more tea theme in that one. It is also pretty and a design from Taiwan which I appreciate as an outlier in my collection. It has some interesting thing where depending on where you place your workers you move up a track as well that allows you to produce certain kinds of teas. I must say it has been 2 years or so since I played and my memory is a little hazy. The only thing I remember is that I knew it was staying in my collection. I must have posted on the Recent Games thread.
There is also a game called Ceylon which I saw at Spiel but never managed to check out. That one is about managing tea plantations I think It also looked really pretty. I have no idea if it is in print.
Another one I have not tried has been previewed by SUSD at some point Chai Tea for 2 it looked good but it is a 2 player only game.
PS: these days I also enjoy coffee more but I lack a good coffee themed game. I have Coffee Roaster as an app and I considered and rejected Coffee Traders.
I’ve been curious about Spice Road for a while and this seems like a good one to get. However, usual disclaimer about price (which hasn’t been announced) - the individual Century games are way, way overpriced already, so a combined box (with an extra mini-expansion) could end up being a £100 dealbreaker.
The Marvel one is a shock though. There’s been four Marvel sets known and talked about for a while now. This fifth one is out of the blue, and confirmed NOT to be an April Fool’s joke.
FWIW, my take was that it’s very like Splendor. So if you like that game, you’ll probably enjoy this as well. (Caveat: I’m not a fan of either game – engine-building isn’t my thing – so I expect the broad similarities are causing me to overlook their differences.)
The big box is the whole trilogy so it takes the swap engine (sort of Concordia style) and incorporates it into a worker placement game and a pick up and deliver game and you can combine everything to make a pick up and deliver worker placement game.
I did not. I think we played each of them individually and found them less enjoyable than Century Original (the two sequels felt like hampered but fine versions of the thing they were, possibly by needing the century core built into them) so adding extra rules was not something I was motivated to do.
I tried the combined Spice Road and Eastern Wonders. It takes two elegant lightweight games and makes it feel like you’re playing a less elegant but still pretty lightweight game. I think Quinns & Paul were right - if you buy both you’re probably going to pick your favourite and just play that one. Personally, I preferred Eastern Wonders.
I liked Spice Road for a few games but then the maths of it became too transparent. I don’t like mathsing my way to victory, but it was so obvious that yellow = 1, red = 2, green = 3, brown = 4. So the way to win is to try and get the cards that generate the biggest yield. If you focus on that in the first half, the second half of the game plays itself, and the theme just melts away in the meantime.
In Eastern Wonders, the choice of pathing and bonuses at least feel like meaningful choices.
Oooh! Allplay, formerly BoardGameTables.com, is a great choice for this one. It’s also a local, small business that I feel I can justify me supporting even though I already own Camel Go and Moana Go.
I don’t like every game they release but I love them as a publisher. Their games are the kind of light games that I end up enjoying a lot. Q.E. is fragile and I agree with the criticisms, but that remains a “fragile but beautiful” game to me. Then, Bites was a hidden stock-holding game with ants. Really pleased that they are making a small box Through the Desert, especially glad that they kept the Z-Man river map variant. The Windrider/FFG/Z-Man box is such a joke. Even Tigris & Euphrates can fit in a Babylonia-size box.
It also looked really pretty. I have no idea if it is in print.
