Innovation, Res Arcana, or Tash-Kalar?
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Not played Res Arcana. What’s it about?
It’s by Tom Lehman, of Race for the Galaxy. It’s a similarly fast game, in which you are magical peeps competing to be the most magical. You draft your deck of like, 8 cards, then use only those cards and a few other things you can buy from a central market to get to a fixed number of VPs first. It’s a very short engine builder/race game.
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Well I love Race for the Galaxy. I’ve sent you an invite
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Popped on here to suggest Palaces of Carrara.
Anyone?
BGA says complexity is 2/5 and it’s pretty quick, is that about right? I’ve had issues learning medium/ heavy stuff from scratch in an async game, but if its light I’d be up for it.
Yeah, you do one of four things
- Buy marble
- Build a building with the marble
- Score
- Pass and take two money
Once some one has scored six times the game is over and there’s a bit of end game scoring.
Hardly the most complex game. The fun bit is screwing over people on the marble market and taking away scoring opportunities (each city can only be scored once)
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Second edition Great Western Trail is now in alpha on BGA. You don’t need alpha status to play as I can set it up.
Anyone interested?
I’ve never played it but always wanted to for all the acclaim it has. Just have to get a look at the rules before getting into it.
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Yes please!
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Me! Me! Me!
It won’t let me post such an ungrammatical strand so here is a complete sentence to please the bot-powers that be.
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Cool. I’ll set a table up. @Snobbydolphin have a read of the rules first. GWT is not one to go into blind! It’s on beginner set up.
@mr.ister is clearly going to win so we’ll have to fight for scraps!!!
If anyone else is interested I can set up a new group every 24 hours
I’d join one
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GG, @mr.ister , @Captbnut , @Snobbydolphin !
A few questions (mostly for those who know the game well, i.e. Ister & Capt):
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What do you prefer between 1e and 2e? Apart from the laundry list of changes, are there meaningful changes in feel between the two?
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When you play, do you kind of pick your strategy and then hit the same spots each time through the trail/rondel to execute? Or rather do you choose - THIS time I’m going to hire some people and build a building. NEXT time I’m going to collect a bandit and buy a cow. Etc… Just curious how these winning (and rush) strategies work.
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What makes a spot “worth it” to you? Did you only hire when you could hire two people? Do you only stop to collect money if it is above a certain threshold?
I noticed that Dolphin and I with our lower scores a) delivered less and b) got less money, but a larger portion of it from discarding cows. That’s my main problem with the game, I never have enough money to actually execute a strategy. I’ll probably have to sit down with the components and think through the math of it sometime, or I can take a shortcut by asking the experts : )
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A great game. A bit tough to grok in asynch for first play, and the interface doesn’t make some things clear via mobile, but I understand why folks speak about it so reverentially. I’d love to play again and lose less drastically (after I digest the answers to @Acacia 's questions!).
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Quickly for now, it’s a very well disguised efficiency game. We had about 25 turns each, so @mr.ister was averaging over 4 points each time they did something
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Getting workers is the best way to make you more efficient.
Cowboys make cows cheaper and you can buy more per loop.
Engineers push your train further - your deliveries make you more money and you clear the discs from your board. Station masters also open up bonus scoring.
Builders give you points for buildings themselves, but those buildings can make your loop better, whilst taxing your opponents and making their trail slower. You can also set up (as I failed to do) a number of buildings that give you movement so you can chain 2 or 3 together, giving you powerful turns and you can fly through the loop.
What neutral buildings you aim for depends on your strategy. @mr.ister would have been hitting the two that moved their train each turn, I was always hitting the building place, cowboys want to hit the cattle market. You generally want to be hiring, a double hire is expensive but much more efficient.
In second edition the building to pull a bandit (formerly teepee) is really powerful because they are worth more money and the exchange tokens are sweet. Those two things make 2e much softer because there is more access to money. 1e you’d basically hit Kansas for your first two deliveries (or 3) because you needed the money and losing points was worth it. I went there twice in our game and was always playing catch up and only got 4 bonus money rather than 6.
We played the beginner set up. The neutral buildings are randomised in other set ups and can make the game very different, especially if hiring, building and cattle market are all close together. Also the private buildings have 2 sides and the actions available help me decide my strategy.
I should say, GWT is the only game I can look at from the start and know what I’m going to try to do. Until I played in BGA I thought I was good at it but I’ve been smacked around by people I know (like in this game). I also played a game with a guy who wrote a strategy guide and it was bonkers.
@Acacia @Snobbydolphin I hope that helps and that it wasn’t too much.
You 3 are now in the alpha group for GWT. You can organise games with other members, but not invite non alpha members.
I’m happy to play again. Iirc @raged_norm was also interested.
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Appreciate it, and helpful. Sounds like there is three basic strategies and then you tweak that based on a) what other people are doing, b) which of your own buildings are available, and c) where the neutral buildings are. And a) is mostly around “what workers will be easiest/hardest for me to get?”
I’m down for a second go!
These type of games are my weak spot, but that makes me hungry to learn.
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Yup, count me in
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I’m definitely up for another!
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