Been playing a lot of Fugitive over the last week. It’s a really tense 2 player game which really does give the feel of being chased/chasing the fugitive.
The GF surprised me by asking to play Taverns of Tiefenthal. Usually it’s my choice, but it’s been a while since we’ve played it as just a two. Managed my highest score 183, against her highest score too 156.
It was also my sister’s birthday, so when I went round there we played a few of her presents - firstly, Trails of Tucana which is a very simple but fun roll and write. Sagrada was next, which was such good fun. So much so, I’ve had to buy my own copy.
Played Alhambra - good light game. It was with 3 players so there’s more control for each player.
Skull
Scythe - it was probably 1.5 year ago when i last played it. I didn’t liked it. But I approached it as a 4x game. It’s not a 4x game, if it is, then it’s absolute rubbish. This time I looked at it like a light Euro game. We can all argue about thematic disconnect, Kickstarter marketing, and blah blah. But not doing that. And from that approach, it is a very good light Euro.
There’s little randomness like the combat cards and the encounter cards (but at least the cards aren’t telling me how to play the damn game this time!). Right from the start, the game rewards foresight and planning, and how to mold your faction with the random player board you’ve been given. There’s player interaction too with the mech combats and “enlist” mechanism. I think the latter was subtle but neat.
Overall, I had a good time with it, and I would actually play it again. But I have concern with the game in the long run. There’s not really any strategic choices for you in this game. It is straight-up “here’s your random faction and your random player board. The player who is the most efficient on playing this combo wins”. And that’s fine! I think you can play it at least 10 times and still have a good time, and then buy some expansions or sell it since the game doesn’t offer you anything new at that point. Mission Accomplished. Got your money’s worth.
Personally, I still would rather play Antike II - because that one works with 4 or more, unlike Scythe. I find it to be more tense and zips faster and actually gives you strategic choices on which achievements you want to go for. When I made the comparison of Scythe VS Antike II with a friend, he’s like “yeah. But you’re comparing a marketer to an accomplished designer.” It was a mean remark but I can’t help but to agree.
I think Scythe is a game where I’d there’s 4 of you getting heavily invested and making truces and things, then it is real good. If you just sit there doing your own thing it feels like a Eurogame. It’s been spread very thin, and the only bit of the game that is in everything is the game of making resources and upgrading your board. You are actively encouraged not to attack, and I think that kills the game in that aspect.
If you gained popularity by attacking the farmers instead of losing it (which obviously doesn’t make sense thematically) then I think the game would’ve been better.
Theres little incentive on trading and negotiation in the game. And you dont win by words in this game, unlike TI4. So no point on playing it other than as a Euro.
The only time I put my head up is to check the other boards to see which enlist would be good for me and see where the enemy mechs are.
And that “Cold War” tension that people keep talking about. I dont feel it. I found the board state predictable since player incentives are obvious.
Played Razzia which is the card game version of Ra. I miss the disaster tiles/cards which arent in Razzia. But the small size and Ra as a small card game is a big plus.
Played Santiago too. Bribery and negotiation game. That game gave me big laughs that I hadnt had since lockdown. It was very good. And found it deeper and more interesting than I expected it to be.
I wonder if this game would get samey? I have a nagging feeling it will. But we’ll see
My friend Liz’s internet woes were not fixed (seriously, don’t do CenturyLink if you have a choice) so we still haven’t been able to get back to Spirit Island. Instead we did a three player Too Many Bones, this time against…uh…the werewolf Tyrant, who is remarkably annoying - he hides behind a battlequeue full of minions, and then a) 50% of the time goes invulnerable to attack dice on his turn and b) runs away and refreshes his HP if you wound him badly but can’t finish him off. and c) you can’t target him unless you’re adjacent. With Duster, Ghillie, and Nugget, we managed to essentially obliterate the first battle and then…didn’t really have another until we had enough progress to face the Tyrant, and we had bonus HP from an event so we figured seemed like sooner would be better.
Reader, we were wrong. Doing it on day 6 meant we had a battlequeue of roughly 7 enemies ahead of the Tyrant. And sure, they were only 5 point baddies and then 1 pointers, hand-scouted to be the least prepossessing foes, with only one more obnoxious option forced by the Tyrant encounter. But they took time, and they took resources, and they hurt us. And by the time the Tyrant was out, we were in overtime, and just couldn’t stay up long enough (and he wouldn’t be vulnerable enough) to finish the job. One more day, and it would have been 5 pt, 20 pt, 1 pt, Tyrant. the 20 would have been nasty, but focus fire that and then our melee fighters could have worked on the boss while I sniped other baddies. Oh well. We were too tired to try again, but we saved so it’s on the cards some other time.
I’m a bit behind posting this, but my wife and I played our first game of Formosa Tea this weekend. I’ve been looking for a game about tea that had theme rather than just setting, and, while there is a good bit of abstraction, I think Formosa Tea does it.
On a turn, one can harvest tea, begin to process tea, finish processing tea, and trade to the domestic and global markets. I especially enjoy the relationship of harvesting tea to processing and the grading system for the teas one produces. Harvesting pushes the tea processing along for everyone who is processing tea (time passing, I think), which in a game of more than two players could get very think-y. Tea is graded into three grades based on its moisture and flavor, which are the result of decisions made at harvest and during processing, but better teas generally require either more time or better technology (which also often requires more time, but which can be used over and over). And those are just my highlights.
Played 1882: Assiniboia with some random regular strangers in 18xx.games. And that was my most enjoyable game of 1882.
This is, so far, my favourite “short” 18xx title. And when I said “short” I mean, 2-3 hours. The map is interesting with the additional cost on crossing rivers. And the map has place names that are cute: Pile o’ Bones, Flin Flon, Moose Jaw, Medicine Hat.
This title is more into the stock market fiddling over track engineering on the map and the train rush here is serious. Need to look more into the engineering side of this genre
Rumour has it that the priority deal marker (aka first player marker) is a beaver!
Incan Gold/Diamant feels as though someone took a push-your-luck game, stripped away everything that wasn’t about PYL, and replaced it with even more PYL.
I find Diamant is one of the great bar games, up there with No Thanks and Skull. People look at it like it’s a kid’s game but slowly they get more and more invested til everyone’s shouting at the table. Plus alcohol is great for loosening up risk aversion.
Hate the stay/go cards though. We always play by the ‘meeple in hand’ approach. Much faster and more tactile.
A second game of Friday. This went faster as I knew the rules, but is still tricky even on Easy.
Amazing balance of the adventure deck having a set pace (two cards a turn) but your Robinson deck going as fast as you’re willing to spend (and take age cards). Also balancing leaving the hard cards to later when you’ve built up your deck engine, vs getting them now so that you have high scoring cards to power the engine in the first place.
Really good, instantly tense with a ticking clock. I got pirates for 40 and 35 points and no special skills, and even then the 40 point nearly ran out my entire deck. Must remember that the 2x pirates basically take as long as the rest of the game up to that point.
Definitely going back to it, excellent solitaire game.
Bios:Genesis ended up in my Pile of Frustration enough times that I just dropped it off at a Board Game Swap Meet an hour ago. I had such high hopes for it as a solo game, but could not justify the mental strain of just figuring out how to correctly set up and play.
thanks for the review.