Keyflower - BGA asynch recruitment

Boardgames
21

Closing thoughts?

I can’t believe this thread was 26 days ago. This really did take a long time.

So, I like it. I like the mix of strategy and tactics - the winter tiles and what you get in the first season or two can put you on an arc. But I’ve been so derailed - I entered Winter with a clear idea of what I wanted to accomplish (Gold + Jeweller) and was shut out so fast that I’ve completely reassembled my plan around a different set of goods and tiles. I love that the game gives you all those pieces - the building blocks to make a plan, the tools to disrupt people’s plans, and again the tools to improvise and find another way.

I’m always keen on the phrase “interactive Euro.” Keyflower tended to be listed alongside Tigris and Euphrates as the best in that category. And it is. There’s the Euro-y delight of building a little village and engine and managing your worker currency. And at the same time, the game invites you to pay close attention to what other people are doing, to block them, to lure their workers into your village, etc. I’ll repeat, I love the jostling.

I also love the soft take on worker placement. Worker placement is fine and all, but tends to be binary. You get it or you don’t. Or I provide another wood gathering spot or something if the blocking is too harsh. This game never blocks you - it merely asks you (coyly), “how much do you want it?”

Is it worth two workers to you? Three?
Is it worth losing one of your workers and giving it to someone else?
Is it worth taking a risk and spending a couple of precious actions to draw more workers and get what you need, while the board fills up with other people’s moves?

There is generally another way up the mountain, but it always costs. And I love that calculus.

On the other hand? Six was a lot for a first game. That would be true anywhere. Lots of tiles, too many different plans to keep track of when you don’t even know yet what your own plan is or what winter tiles exist. It was hard to maintain the thread of the game. I think this is true of any (nonsocial) game, its better to learn with a smaller table. Once you have a handle on things, a big player count can spice it up.

Also, this seems to be a “microturns” game. You may make upwards of 10 small actions during a season. These work well when play moves quickly around the table. With our timezones and the asynch, a month is a long time to keep track of it. I started losing the thread in Fall. Picked it up again in Winter.

I’m hoping to try again at a smaller table, and realtime if I can ever carve out the time.

What did you all think?

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22

I enjoyed playing async and didn’t mind the player count.

Asynchronous play meant that I didn’t feel social pressure to take a damn turn so could look up what the tiles do.

One thing these games do well is giving you objectives in the form of winter tiles at the start of the game, so you can tune your game to one or both tiles from the start.

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23

I think I said somewhere in the chat that most games I play async don’t have this much context: in Rallyman GT or Letter Tycoon I read the board, work out what to do, and do it. (This clearly works better in LT than in RGT!) I should have started keeping notes much sooner.

Also should have made sure I kept enough workers to do stuff in Winter.

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24

Right, I’m really confused. The game is still happening on my BGA.

I find my issue with playing online is I really don’t pay much attention to what other players are doing!

I found/ am finding it very clever and it’s a game I’d like to explore further. The only reason I was keeping workers between seasons is that I couldn’t use them.

I made a good few errors, activating tiles with the wrong colour and losing at least one action per tile a couple of times. That wasn’t a UI problem, it was me being an idiot.

I found the game changes hugely between turns, something exacerbated by async play. I’m glad I tried it (and am in another game with BGB Discordites to see if I’ve learned anything).

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25

Yeah, sorry. Game’s not over yet, just winding down and I had a spot to write my thoughts this morning.

I"m also running a new game with my local friends at a lower player count. I’ve got the game itself in my basement, though, and breaking that out is what I’m really looking forward to!

Edit: Most games on BGA are transformed when I take the time to read the game log before my turn.

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26

I was definitely not paying enough attention to the log, and I think that shows. I’m also classically poor at auction games (I massively over/under bid/estimate in Isle of Skye for example). Having to bid with my actual resources/workers makes this whole thing very painful for me, but it’s a pain I’m enjoying. I think this is one that may be more difficult for me to grab because of the digital implementation rather than on a table.

I don’t think I really considered long-haul strategy and came at it more tactically, and while I think there’s an element of that, having some idea of strategic approach (especially in bidding ) pays off. Like @raged_norm said, paying attention to those winter tiles (which I didn’t) is smart. There’s a lot to consider, and while I don’t think it’s overwhelming per se, I think I didn’t grasp the gravity of some of my decisions so much due to the async. Though, that is purely a “me not paying enough attention” issue rather than a game issue. I think I’ve learned a good bit and am certainly going to be playing it more.

I will say that I’m already pretty sold on it. I don’t think it’s a game that I will win any time even remotely soon, but that’s just a challenge I really like about it. I’m already looking for possible trades.

3 Likes
27

I like it a lot! I got the actual game in January, but hadn’t played when we started our BGA game. Which is what put it on the top of my to-play list. I’ve played in twice at the table now, both plays at two. I think the ideal player count lies somewhere in between those player counts. I still really liked it at two, but unfortunately my partner wasn’t as smitten with the game as I was.

I think my investment in tile bids as opposed to activations in spring really payed off in the end. Economic power in this game seems to scale with the size of the village. Having a steady supply of workers each round meant that I never really worried too much about the boat tiles.

However, I also didn’t pay too much attention to what you folks were doing. I had a vague plan at the start of each season, and only ever checked whether somebody foiled it. This changes towards the end of the season, once most of the tiles are color-locked and you need to figure out how to use the remainder of your work force.

All in all I really enjoy the game and had great fun playing with you people!

1 Like
28

I’ve not won!

I didn’t have much stuff to allocate to tiles at the end, but I enjoyed it. Well played all, I’m interested to see how the final scores shake out

@mr.ister is kicking my arse at many BGA games at the moment.

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29

Oh I have no doubt that my lucky streak will end rather sooner than later.

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30

I failed to understand the winter boats, I thought they were random picks not the empty boat

31

Must. Stop. Troyes. Event. Cards.

Notice my first panic move in the new game.

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32

I actually did better than I thought. That doesn’t mean I did well by any means, but just not as bad as I thought.

I think I have a much better handle on it now. I’d be game for another one after this.

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33

The Farrier and Wainwright cards look very good.

34

This is killing me. Two of my grey goods have just up and disappeared. Refresh doesn’t help. If I go back to replay moves from the quarry, I get all 5 of my grey goods, but the game hangs and doesn’t let me score.

After this and Troyes, Mr Ister is proving to be my nemesis. You edged my by 2 in the former, and I’ve got 66 to your 63 here. Just can’t get the interface to log it :confused:

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35

As someone just stomped by @mr.ister in Troyes as well (and possibly on the way to another stompin),I acknowledge your win, and only your win. :slightly_smiling_face:

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36

I was afraid that you were hiding more of those tiles and workers. At least it was close. Congratulations!

Also, I approve of this new enmity and look forward to any opportunities for revenge.

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37

So it was:
Upgraded tiles: 20
White Wind (1pt per worker): 11
Mercer’s Guild (5pt per Black/Brown/Grey sets): 25 (game only logged 15 due to two missing greys)
Key Guild (10pts per 5 tools): 10

In case this happens to someone else, going back to the step that generated the goods and Replaying does replace the goods, but they only stay until the next time you refresh or leave the game. I think if I’d done this prior to scoring I could have worked it out. once I started allocating my goods for scoring, the replay didn’t pick that up - so at the end of replay it was in a kind of forked state, somewhere the game had my goods/workers/tools assigned to tiles, and on the screen it did not, and it didn’t know what to do from there. I, of course, couldn’t reset my scoring decisions because BGA.

Anyway…

Who’s up for another? Want to do the 6-person battle royale again or split into 3 and 3?

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38

We’d say “rivalry.” :slight_smile: “Enmity” denotes true antagonism.

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39

Not surprised to take last place given my usual performance in Euros and especially given the way my final turn plans fell apart for lack of workers; slightly surprised that it wasn’t by a larger margin. I’m out for the next one, though.

(I have the game’s chat log; would it be of long-term interest to post it here?)

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I’m up for another. 6 or 3 and 3, either works for me.