July 2007 Archives
I met some guys at the university for games. We started off with Portobello Market, now with full set of four players. It's clearly better with four than with two, that's for sure.
The one thing that defines the game is that it's short. There just isn't that much time, especially if you want to do big district scorings. You'd better be fast! I also learned that the lord (the black customer) is very, very good - I was doing good, then everybody else got major points from the lord and I was third. Bummer.
This'll change my rating from weak eight to just eight. The game is good, I like how it's really quite short (it took us just 30 minutes) and still offers some real decision-making, but at the same it's nothing I couldn't live without.
I have played Der Elefant im Porzellanladen just once before, and didn't like it that much. Now, I had to grab a quick five-player game (I have surprisingly few of those, it seems most of my collection is 2-4 players) and chose this. We played with five players, and it was somewhat better. It's still not one of my favourite small games, but I'm not tossing it out either. The other players seemed to like it somewhat better.
I still think the game constricts your options a lot, and that can feel kind of frustrating, but then again, I suppose that's the whole idea of the game. You can't build massive collections of china, because the elephants will come marching in. Allowing people to take more than two money cards would just increase the luck effect - now you can't just keep on taking elephants if you're lucky and get elephants that do no damage to you. At 30 minutes the game is perhaps a bit long, but that's not a big deal.
After the elephants our numbers thinned so that I could pull out Yspahan. There were three of us: I had played about 75 games with the PC version, Olli had played about 250 games and Riku was a complete newbie. Guess who won and who was last?
Well, it wasn't that obvious. I was able to win and while Riku did lose, he didn't lose badly. Yspahan isn't the easiest game to get in to, but it's not terribly hard either. But it is fun! I did enjoy the board game even more than the PC version. It's a lot easier to follow what the other players are doing and that makes the whole experience more interesting.
Caylus Magna Carta reviewed in Finnish.
Caylus Magna Carta is the card game version of Caylus, the big hit from 2005. Caylus is a good game, but for some reasons it just didn't work for me that well. One thing is definitely the length: 30 minutes per player is just too long.
Magna Carta definitely fixes that. By removing some of the elements from the board game (royal favours, for example) the game has been shortened to about 15 minutes per player and probably less with experienced players. There's also some new interesting twists that make the game even more attractive than the original Caylus was.
Cards
First of all, there are cards. Instead of common pool of buildings, each player has a deck of cards. All decks have the same buildings. You start with three random buildings and can use money to draw more or discard and redraw your hand. That's a good change - sometimes you might end up with bad luck and not have the building you need, but the deck is small and pretty easy to cycle through if necessary.
Otherwise the game's like before: players take turns to build buildings, place workers in those buildings (which costs money) to get resource cubes, which are then used to build new buildings and the castle. The castle is slightly different and works now as the timing device: the game is over when the castle is done.
The tension is there: the resources run out, money is important and tight, you have to pass early to get a chance to earn a gold cube from the castle (the new reward for the best castle builder each turn) and so on. All the good stuff in Caylus is still there.
Overview
The only downside I can see is the lack of fifth player. For some reason (I'm guessing this was a handy number of cards to print and adding fifth player would've cost more) the game supports only two to four players. It works with the whole scale, I'd say, but if you're looking for a five-player game, you'll have to look elsewhere (well, it's probably possible to hack, but still).
Since I rarely have five players playing, I don't mind that. To me the shorter playing time that still offers pretty much the same amount of tension and tough decisions to make means that Caylus is now obsolete. Magna Carta is just so much better.
I've now played Portobello Market twice, both two-player games with Johanna. She likes it, and so do I, to some extent.
It's a pretty game, but what do you expect from Michael Menzel? The man knows his trade. The mechanics work as well - I suppose you can expect that from a Hippodice winner. The game is short and has some good hooks. Nothing particularly flashy, at least with two players, but it sure works and I'm really looking forward to trying this with more players.
So, another good game... The only problem is that I already know dozens of games this good or better. Pretty much the only special thing this one has is that Johanna likes it, which might be critical when I decide whether to keep it or not. I don't have loads of gateway-level games (where Portobello Market quite clearly belongs), which also speaks for the game.
It seems there are plenty of these "oh, I'd love this hadn't I played all these other games that came before" games. Hacienda comes to mind...
Ah, Neuland! The land of strange, yet soothing line art and wide open spaces ready to be filled with pointy little buildings, free for all to use! How have I longed to wander through your fields, moving resources around!
So, I met Olli H. for some games, and got him to play Neuland. He had played once before, yet still wasn't scared. How bizarre! Two-player Neuland was slightly different experience, perhaps a bit more gentle game. Very good, of course. I also played well; it was definitely my best game so far. I won, but that's not a huge achievement in Neuland against someone clearly less experienced.
Neuland is one of the more difficult games I own. It's definitely a no-no for non-gamers, unless you want to burn someone off more advanced board games for life. Many serious gamers will also find Neuland offensive; either it's the art (which I think looks neat, but I agree it's not very functional all the time) or the heavy calculations. Even if you like the concept, you need to be able to take some serious beatings for first few games unless you're exceptionally gifted. But hey, what's that when compared to the very excellent game experience you get!
Since seems to be a guy who appreciates repeat plays of new games, I brought Attika which we played the last time we met. Now it was time for two more rounds. Attika is still great fun, and definitely a keeper in my collection.
Yspahan is a game of camels and trading from Ystari Games. The initial buzz over this one wasn't that big, and I would've missed the game altogether based on that. However, Westpark Gamers did a brilliant Windows version of the game (see Yspahan for Windows website), which caused a lot more buzz on the Finnish Board Game Society forums.
I resisted for a while, then downloaded it, tried the game and wham, I've played over 50 games already. It could only lead to one conclusion: I went and bought the board game few days ago. It's that good.
Camel traders and dice
Yspahan is about collecting points. There are two main ways of getting points: filling souks with your cubes and getting your cubes on the caravan. In addition there are buildings, which grant points and useful benefits. To get all these, you need resources, and here lies the neat part of Yspahan.
Resource production is based on dice. On each turn (there are seven turns in a week, three weeks in a game; board is reset between weeks) nine dice are rolled. The lowest number visible produces camels, the highest money. The rest produce goods: the second lowest number produces grain, the third lowest barrels, then chests, then vases. To get vases, you need to roll all six different numbers, so you're not going to get them each turn.
Players get to pick a set of dice. Three grain dice produce three goods, two camel dice gets you two camels and so on. The goods you produce are placed on board in souks. To get points, you need to fill the souk by the end of the week. If even a single cube is missing from a souk, it's worth zero points. To get points from caravan, you need to use the supervisor to move your cubes from the board to the caravan (you can also move someone else's cubes, which can get nasty).
Clever and fresh
This is a very clever system. The different goods have different rarities and values (three-cube souk of grain is three points, three-cube souk of vases is 12 points), while the value of money and camels changes from one situation to other. Each player gets to pick one set of dice with the same number on them, and while sometimes the choice is obvious, often it's a pretty tough decision to make.
Fortunately the luck of the dice doesn't rule the game. If none of the sets does it for you (or if you don't get a set!), you can always draw a card instead of taking goods (moving the supervisor to use the caravan is the third option). Cards are useful in itself, but you can also throw cards away to get an extra die. When it's your turn to roll, money can provide you with extra dice only you can use.
Balance of power
Yspahan is pretty balanced game. The two main strategies, building and caravans, seem pretty balanced. Building is probably easier. An experienced player can crush newbies with the caravan strategy, but once everybody knows this, the power of caravan is somewhat smaller. To some extent is a groupthink thing, as some people complain the caravan is not strong enough, while the majority, I think, considers it a bit too strong.
The game works best with four players, I'd say, and three-player game is good too. I haven't tried with two; while I believe it does work (with some small changes in the rules), Yspahan isn't probably worth it solely as a two-player game.
As I've only played the game with the Windows version for now, I can't say much about the length of the game, but I've heard it takes 45 minutes and that sounds feasible. If you're looking for something a bit lighter than your average gamer's game but still quite meaty, Yspahan fits the bill perfectly.
After a very slow quarter, I'm back with a bit more action.
Phoenicia rules the list, after five online games. It's good, and I'll buy it as soon as it appears in Finland.
Caylus Magna Carta - forget the board game, the card game has all the Caylus you'll need and it's packed in a very neat and tidy timeframe. If the board game takes 30 minutes per player, this is 15 and probably less with experience. I've played three games now and I'll love it!
Zooloretto - Good, worth the SdJ, I will play again if an opportunity comes up, but I don't need to own this.
Blue Moon City - Excellent game. Now I've played with 2, 3 and 4 players - it works well with all numbers. Wonderful game, and the last few games have revealed more depth in the decisionmaking. I'm glad I bought this.
Yspahan - Of course, I need to mention this one. I've played over 50 games with the PC version and I just bought the board game. What an excellent game. Review coming up!
