Shannon A. (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} shannon_a) wrote,@ 2006-01-05 11:04:00 |
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Return to EndGame
I returned to EndGame last night. It'd been three weeks since I was there, and darn it, I missed the place. I got to play a set of entirely top-rate games, and overall had a great evening.
Through the Desert. This was my first play of my copy of the game, which I got in a trade last year, along with King's Gate (still unplayed), in exchange for Power Grid (good game, way too analytical for me, to the point draining all of the fun out of the game).
Mini-Review. I've really got to make the time for a TtD review now that I've finally got a copy of the newest, FFG edition. It's one of Knizia's best games, and thus deserves the attention over at RPGnet. It's also a very unique Knizia design, unlike almost anything else he's done.
I was surprised to notice one quirk in this latest game: a player can get effectively shut out of the longest-caravan competition in a five-player game (see below)--but it still continues to be a great, varied, and enjoyable game.
Strategy. I got hosed at TtD last night. (I got hosed at almost everything last night, which isn't a surprise because I went into the night sleep deprived and very tired, though I remarkably perked up as the evening went on.) I've come to the conclusion over several games that you can't win TtD if you don't pay at least some attention to enclosures, and I didn't pay much attention to them until the very end.
However my bigger problem was that I didn't stay in competition for any longest caravan--and you must have at least one longest caravan (of the five) or you really can't win a 5-player game. For 3- or 4- players I think you want to try and push for two. To a certain extent it was my own fault, because I choose purple early on for a caravan to extend, but I wasn't aggressive enough, and ended up letting it get blocked in. When I went to retrench I couldn't find any other caravan that I had a chance in winning at. Analyzing after the game I realized that my problem was that in a 5-player game you only play 4 of the 5 colors. There was indeed one caravan color that wasn't in tight contention--and it was the one color I didn't have.
Ark. A third play of Ark, which I bought in late November or so.
Mini-Review. I continue to really like Ark because it's colorful, evocative, and original. However I increasingly agree that it's too fiddly and too complex. I'm also discovering that much of the joy in the game is in constantly saying to the other players, "No, you can't do that, because ..." My favorite was late in the game when another player and I both lit in like that as a player tried to play a Mosquito, but it turned out that we each had a different point. I was explaining that a Mosquito couldn't be played because the weight trade off would tip over the Ark, while the other player was saying that it was because the Mosquito would be eaten by the Merecat in the same cabin. Both of us were correct.
This was Alex's copy of the game (I think), and he'd printed out the quick reference guide that I posted to the Geek. He said he printed out all of them (there are 3 I think) and he kept mine because it was the best, which made me happy. I, of course, agree. I think mine looks better than the others, but more importantly it makes the game simpler while all the others look like mathematical logic diagrams, and just make the game more complex.
Note to Self: when I revise that QuickRef sheet, include a reminder on the 3 animals/cabin playing limit. Stuff that could be on the back: reminder of play possibilities (play 1 or 2; or draw 2); reminder of what 2nd and 5th rain do; and the special animal references.
Hacienda. I picked up Hacienda at the store last night, thanks to some final combination of money from Christmas and/or Hawaii. Aaron commented that he'd played it a few days before, so when he came upstairs I asked if he wanted to teach it.
Mini-Review. Thus far, a great game. I wouldn't play it again on the same night as Through the Desert, because they do feel somewhat similar due to their connectivity, their working toward reaching certain points on the board, and their multiple paths to victory. Nonetheless they're entirely distinct.
I was expecting a light-weight game, and I was actually surprised by how much analysis there is in Hacienda. You can look at individual moves and try and count up the scores for each, but thankfully the game is just out of range of simple mini-maxing because different moves have dramatically different costs. That's where I like a game to be: having strategic depth, but of the sort you have to figure out by intuition rather than counting.
Strategy. Much as in Through the Desert, I let myself get cut off here when I should have been expanding a chain. That ultimately kept me from getting to multiple markets, and was a big loss in my game. I was instead focusing on earning money by going back to the same markets for just a bit too long. That let me buy lots of big ticket items, but I should have managed it more as a just-in-time business.
Beyond that the strategy is still a little opaque, as there are so many possibilities. I tend toward thinking that the big ticket items (water, haciendas) are vitally important, and they did seem to be in our game, but I don't understand the cost/value tradeoff yet.
Samurai. My second Samurai game of the year, and possibly the only time I've ever played it at EndGame. My one victory of the night, and possibly the only time I didn't come in last.
Mini-Review. I've already written a full review of Samurai, and my opinion and rating still hold. The game's biggest problem, and the one that keeps it from being a top-rate game for me is the scoring which is too obtuse, and often doesn't seem fair.
Strategy. Much of a game of Samurai is very tactical, seizing on opportunities that other players give you, and I got some nice ones. The strategy is, of course, managing the obtuse scoring system, and it's mainly brinkmanship. In a 4-player game you have to score exactly as many pieces as you need to gain one majority, then score everything else in the others (through preferably weighted toward one of the others, in the hope of a hail mary victory). This is what I did, and it worked out.
I concentrated on Rice, and once I had 4, I started going after other things (but mostly Buddhas). 4/13 is tight for a majority in a 4-player game, but I was pretty confident because there was one rice tied, and still 3 or 4 on the board when I ended the game by closing out buddhas. Bob was out of the running, and Aaron got hosed because his one would-be majority, which was buddhas, tied with Matt at 4, leaving buddhas unclaimed. Matt got the other majority, in high helmets, but I beat him out by one marker on the tie breaker. And, I'd denied him one marker on my final turn by forcing a tie as I closed out the board. If I hadn't closed out the board he'd have gotten another piece on his turn, and then we'd have entirely tied.
I returned to EndGame last night. It'd been three weeks since I was there, and darn it, I missed the place. I got to play a set of entirely top-rate games, and overall had a great evening.
Through the Desert. This was my first play of my copy of the game, which I got in a trade last year, along with King's Gate (still unplayed), in exchange for Power Grid (good game, way too analytical for me, to the point draining all of the fun out of the game).
Mini-Review. I've really got to make the time for a TtD review now that I've finally got a copy of the newest, FFG edition. It's one of Knizia's best games, and thus deserves the attention over at RPGnet. It's also a very unique Knizia design, unlike almost anything else he's done.
I was surprised to notice one quirk in this latest game: a player can get effectively shut out of the longest-caravan competition in a five-player game (see below)--but it still continues to be a great, varied, and enjoyable game.
Strategy. I got hosed at TtD last night. (I got hosed at almost everything last night, which isn't a surprise because I went into the night sleep deprived and very tired, though I remarkably perked up as the evening went on.) I've come to the conclusion over several games that you can't win TtD if you don't pay at least some attention to enclosures, and I didn't pay much attention to them until the very end.
However my bigger problem was that I didn't stay in competition for any longest caravan--and you must have at least one longest caravan (of the five) or you really can't win a 5-player game. For 3- or 4- players I think you want to try and push for two. To a certain extent it was my own fault, because I choose purple early on for a caravan to extend, but I wasn't aggressive enough, and ended up letting it get blocked in. When I went to retrench I couldn't find any other caravan that I had a chance in winning at. Analyzing after the game I realized that my problem was that in a 5-player game you only play 4 of the 5 colors. There was indeed one caravan color that wasn't in tight contention--and it was the one color I didn't have.
Ark. A third play of Ark, which I bought in late November or so.
Mini-Review. I continue to really like Ark because it's colorful, evocative, and original. However I increasingly agree that it's too fiddly and too complex. I'm also discovering that much of the joy in the game is in constantly saying to the other players, "No, you can't do that, because ..." My favorite was late in the game when another player and I both lit in like that as a player tried to play a Mosquito, but it turned out that we each had a different point. I was explaining that a Mosquito couldn't be played because the weight trade off would tip over the Ark, while the other player was saying that it was because the Mosquito would be eaten by the Merecat in the same cabin. Both of us were correct.
This was Alex's copy of the game (I think), and he'd printed out the quick reference guide that I posted to the Geek. He said he printed out all of them (there are 3 I think) and he kept mine because it was the best, which made me happy. I, of course, agree. I think mine looks better than the others, but more importantly it makes the game simpler while all the others look like mathematical logic diagrams, and just make the game more complex.
Note to Self: when I revise that QuickRef sheet, include a reminder on the 3 animals/cabin playing limit. Stuff that could be on the back: reminder of play possibilities (play 1 or 2; or draw 2); reminder of what 2nd and 5th rain do; and the special animal references.
Hacienda. I picked up Hacienda at the store last night, thanks to some final combination of money from Christmas and/or Hawaii. Aaron commented that he'd played it a few days before, so when he came upstairs I asked if he wanted to teach it.
Mini-Review. Thus far, a great game. I wouldn't play it again on the same night as Through the Desert, because they do feel somewhat similar due to their connectivity, their working toward reaching certain points on the board, and their multiple paths to victory. Nonetheless they're entirely distinct.
I was expecting a light-weight game, and I was actually surprised by how much analysis there is in Hacienda. You can look at individual moves and try and count up the scores for each, but thankfully the game is just out of range of simple mini-maxing because different moves have dramatically different costs. That's where I like a game to be: having strategic depth, but of the sort you have to figure out by intuition rather than counting.
Strategy. Much as in Through the Desert, I let myself get cut off here when I should have been expanding a chain. That ultimately kept me from getting to multiple markets, and was a big loss in my game. I was instead focusing on earning money by going back to the same markets for just a bit too long. That let me buy lots of big ticket items, but I should have managed it more as a just-in-time business.
Beyond that the strategy is still a little opaque, as there are so many possibilities. I tend toward thinking that the big ticket items (water, haciendas) are vitally important, and they did seem to be in our game, but I don't understand the cost/value tradeoff yet.
Samurai. My second Samurai game of the year, and possibly the only time I've ever played it at EndGame. My one victory of the night, and possibly the only time I didn't come in last.
Mini-Review. I've already written a full review of Samurai, and my opinion and rating still hold. The game's biggest problem, and the one that keeps it from being a top-rate game for me is the scoring which is too obtuse, and often doesn't seem fair.
Strategy. Much of a game of Samurai is very tactical, seizing on opportunities that other players give you, and I got some nice ones. The strategy is, of course, managing the obtuse scoring system, and it's mainly brinkmanship. In a 4-player game you have to score exactly as many pieces as you need to gain one majority, then score everything else in the others (through preferably weighted toward one of the others, in the hope of a hail mary victory). This is what I did, and it worked out.
I concentrated on Rice, and once I had 4, I started going after other things (but mostly Buddhas). 4/13 is tight for a majority in a 4-player game, but I was pretty confident because there was one rice tied, and still 3 or 4 on the board when I ended the game by closing out buddhas. Bob was out of the running, and Aaron got hosed because his one would-be majority, which was buddhas, tied with Matt at 4, leaving buddhas unclaimed. Matt got the other majority, in high helmets, but I beat him out by one marker on the tie breaker. And, I'd denied him one marker on my final turn by forcing a tie as I closed out the board. If I hadn't closed out the board he'd have gotten another piece on his turn, and then we'd have entirely tied.
