I and three other newbies learned In the Year of the Dragon last night our. Our teacher has played it a few times and stressed that he hasn't won the game yet. He mentioned that going first was quite important. Ultimately whoever has the most victory points wins.


My thoughts when I heard we were going to play this game.

I'll admit I wanted to try this game since I had heard a bit about it on various podcasts. When I heard it described it sounded like it might not really be my kind of game. It turns out I was mistaken and I enjoyed this game quite a lot. I will say that to hear it described it sounds like the game was designed by a pessimist. It seems like it all revolves around, "and then this bad thing happens and more people die" was the order of the day. We were told they die. I guess in the rules they are "released"? I've never read the rules since I don't own the game ... yet.


My initial strategy
As I listened to the game being described I decided fairly early on that I probably would not compete for fireworks. We had also been told that this was a "you can never do enough" sort of game. So, I decided after the first couple of turns to not compete to go first. I had picked money as my first action and the fan lady as my first recruit. After seeing our teacher buy the 2 favor in the first turn I decided "me too!" and bought one on the third turn I believe.

I also built a third pagoda early in the game and tried to get the 1 favors as I could. I never went first in the action selection and was always last in turn order. However, around turn 4 I was competing for first place and eventually started to grow my lead. Since I wasn't competing for turn order I was often able to select the person with 2 or 3 instead of 1 "thing" (helmet, bowl, whatever) because I didn't need to try to get ahead on turn order. The other three players really focused on turn order. I took my chances and this game it paid off.

I think since there were three newbies this bottom feeding method worked better than it might with more experienced players.


Basic disasters in our game

The monguls and taxes were going to be our first disasters. The drought happened on turn 10 and 12. I believe the plague hit in turn 11 and I believe the other one was around turn 8. The fireworks happened around the middle of the game.

As I mentioned earlier I was always last in action selection. I was only blocked from what I really needed a couple of times in the game. I was able to do something useful if not my first choice on the rest of the turns. Around the mid game it seemed like I was going to get stuck with the book option often so I got a scholar and that put an end to my point gaining there. Everyone else found some scholars of their own so I eventually let my scholar go elsewhere to make room for more needed professionals.

I built fairly often though I certainly was letting people go often during the game. I did my best to get favors early and often. I did my best to not lose my three pagodas.


End game reflections

Pros of my strategy: I could see that my opponents were struggling to go first and after two turns I was so far behind I had no way to catch up. I think it was wise to give up. I focused on amassing many of the small incremental gains in scoring. I only had three different pagodas which might have been good or bad. The advantage was I as able to easily get rid of my people who were now unneeded.

Cons of my strategy: I should have worked on getting a little bit more money and food earlier. Money would have been particularly helpful since I was always going last. It didn't hurt me too much this time but in the future it likely would. I wouldn't worry as much about the Monguls in the future. I got the farmer but was never able to select the rice action. This was quite wasteful. I only had one person left at the end.


End Game results

I never remember the exact score. I know that two players thought they were competing over second place. In the end one of them surpassed me (as I scored last) and the other wasn't quite as high in final scoring. I ended up landing on exactly the same space. He won because he had more people. It was so close.


My thoughts on the game itself

The components were very good though the board itself is a bit boring. I did like all of the other components and the artwork. I thought it would be more frustrating preparing for all the different disasters that I knew were coming. I really want to play this game again ... the sooner the better. I know much more how I would do things better in the future.

There is very little randomness in the game. The initial set up of the disasters is random but they are known. Also, the pairs of actions available for selection is random. The majority of the game is really about managing what the other players do and preparing for the future. You need everything but you probably won't get everything you want.

I also liked that this game finished in around two hours I believe. It could easily be done in less. We were learning the game and occasionally had political discussions. It might be scary to some that this would be the game that triggers thoughts of the current American presidential election. How will the future president view us as people? I'm not even going to answer that question.

The bottom line is this is a great game. It can be a tad overwhelming to learn at first but the game flows nicely and made sense quickly. Also, after one play everyone knew what they wanted to do better next time. The variable set up makes for less "perfect strategies". I want to play this one again soon ... and several times after that.