Yesterday my copy of Legacy of Yu arrived either on time or early, who knows with these Carphill Games campaigns. As is to be expected, I have already played 2 games and have an opinion.
Legacy of Yu is a pure solo campaign game by Shem Philips.
I think his train of thought must have been: people who want to play Paladins never find other players because the game is so complex only hobbyists with a very puzzly mindset want to play and they really want to concentrate on that puzzle and not have to run a fiddly automa, right? And they probably donāt want to teach this and sheperd new players through it eitherā¦ What if I made a game for these poor Paladins players that they could actually enjoy? What if I added in a campaign with numbered cards that wasāfor onceānot a hassle to deal with?
There is nothing I donāt like about this game after 2 plays. Except maybe the box could have been smaller, but it is standard Shem Philips format and there is a usable insert that hides the fact that there is a bit of air beneath it by putting pictures of what goes where on the bottom of the box (the insert is clear). But that is really being nit-picky. The back of the rulebook serves as a player aid, but the iconography is so nicely done that I have not had to look at it much.
Learning the game is easy (though I caught myself in a dumb rules mistake that made the game needlessly harder), setup is a breeze, so is teardown. And it is NOT a table hog. Everything is very neatly organized so much so that I immediately want to play again when I am done, except that this is a game that feels much shorter than it actually is (this is a good thing!) and so when I am done it is too late to play again.
Pure solo games that were designed as such have not always been a hit with me. Sprawlopolis and Oranienburger Kanal play more people in theory. I am talking about Falling Skies and Hostage Negotiator.
In this game you play against the flood that is pushing up the canal you built, forcing you to just keep up the tempo or else. But the faster you play your cards the faster the flood rises and the more you built the more aggressive the barbarians becomeā¦
A round goes like this"
- Harvest (aka collect income) from your huts, your farms and your basic incomeāthis includes drawing a hand of (usually) 4 cards from your deck. Possible resources gained are:
- Cowrie shells for trading
- Cards representing townsfolk (itās a Shem Philips game, cards are people)
- Provisions used to buy cards or fund campaigns against the barbarian horde
- Various colors of workers
- Wood or Clay used for building buildings
- Resources are finite in this game! If you ever run out and gain more better rethink your actions.
- Take actions:
- play cards for resources to your discard, give them up to the general discard for more resources, play them as income in an open income slot for following rounds
- build one of 3 building types that give you additional income, versatility for your workers or action slots and additional income slots
- Use provisions to gain new cards from the townsfolk row to your discard or send them away to gain some resources
- Attack some barbarians ā most barbarians need 3 workers (aka troops) of specific colors to be fought off and also your troops need provisions to get to the barbarians
- Spend Cowrie Shells and workers to build a section of the canal giving you additional building slots and better trade options for your cowrie shells
- Then after the action phase you suffer barbarian attacks. Or you could bribe them with some resources. Damage is dealt to your deck, sending cards back to the general discard.
- The top row of cards is then refilled with some new barbarians and if there are empty slots also townsfolk
How to win or lose
You win the game by building all 6 sections of the canal (canals are a thing this year) and surviving the following Barbarian attack.
You lose the game if you ever need to suffer damage and have no more cards in your deck or discard, if the flood moves onto an unbuilt section of the canal (it moves every time you shuffle your discard into your new deck) or if the barbarian horde has chased off all the townsfolk in the top row.
I lost my first game to the barbarians and barely won the second after realizing the workers sent to the worker slots from the huts return to me after the round oO.
So what's with the campaign?
The campaign is actually a deck of numbered cards. And some cards when you ādealā with them have a number that sends you to the little campaign booklet which tells you what happens next which is usually āshelve the card in the history section of the insert and get one or more new cards to add to the townsfolk, the setup cards or the barbarians.ā
At the end of a each game you get either a victory card or a defeat card from either deck. At the bottom of both of those decks is a golden card when you reach that the campaign is over. Victories lead to more complications while defeats give you a bit of a bonus for your following games.
Also I think it is one where resetting the campaign is easily done and worthwhile because even though the game changes a little bit with each āsceneā, the gameplay is satisfying from the first turn and it stands well on its own, the campaign just gives a few added incentives to do things to unlock a new piece of the puzzle possibly or reward you with something.
I have mostly played the West Kingdom trilogy from Shem Philips and of those games Legacy of Yu most reminds me of Paladins as mentioned above. It is really quite thinky and the game gives you the time to think about it by staying out of your way for the most part. It is far less fiddly than playing Paladins solo. There are less chances to mess up your resouce accounting or the card play. And it is a challenge. I barely won my 2nd game.
I am definitely quite happy with this and canāt wait to play more.
If you like solo games and have ever enjoyed a Shem Philips game, have a closer look.
) as there is definitely something cool about having been to the places represented.