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After the first two times playing Saint Petersburg I was left with the impression that this game had no real strategy and was never properly play tested. It was obvious to me and my friends that our only goal should be to go after aristocrats, and so the game was just full of luck. Whoever got the best aristocrats first, won. It seemed useless to purchase most of the building cards.
BUT...
It turned out I had read one of the rules wrong and we were playing incorrectly. After correcting this rule, I now think this is a great game.
This is the rule I misread: Each round has four phases. After the first three phases, unused cards are supposed to be moved to the right on whatever row they are on. After the fourth phase, unused top row cards are supposed to be moved to the bottom row. Unused bottom row cards are discarded.
My error: On every phase, I always moved unused cards to the lower row, and discarded the cards that were in the lower row. I fixed this error and now its a great game.
I hear a lot of people say this game sucks, and yet the game has a good rating on BGG. This leads me to wonder if other people are playing the game wrong also.
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They probably aren't playing it wrong. After many, many plays of St. Pete, the strategies become kind of rote, so there is not much new strategy or depth. I have played it over 50 times, and I still enjoy it, but I can see why some would not like it.
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I made the exact same mistake that you did and I thought the game was bad.
But after I played with the correct rules, I liked the game for about two plays and then thought the game was deeply flawed and really bad.
Yehuda
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And there are many suggestions here on BGG for altering the final scoring of the aristocrats so as to de-emphasize their importance.
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Around 100 plays and still loving it. If it gets stale for you acquire "The Banquet" expansion, it is quite good.
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Shade_Jon wrote: I made the exact same mistake that you did and I thought the game was bad.
But after I played with the correct rules, I liked the game for about two plays and then thought the game was deeply flawed and really bad.
Yehuda Just curious, what is it that you find flawed about the game?
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Let's see ...
The entire balance of the game is off, as the aristocrats are just way to powerful. That reduces the valud number of strategies from three (blue, orange, or a balance) to one (orange).
Two cards, the Observatory and the Mistress, are so powerful that drawing them at the beginning when others don't is basically game.
Your ability to score points is essentially the luck of the draw almost the entire game. You can set up opportunities by playing with the number of cards that come out, to a certain amount, but not much. If you need two more aristocrats to win the game, and you only get duplicates, that's it.
There are no choices to be made about playing workers. You buy and play them based on the number of rounds left, that's it. Easy and uninteresting calculation.
And the enitre mechanic is basically repetitious, and the buildings are boring. All buildings either give money, give vp's or reduce cost, with very little exception.
Essentially, the worst mechanic in Eurogames is the card draw from a deck where the power of the cards is unequal. In Amun Re and Goa, I changed the rules so that you draw two and discard one. In Settlers, the cards are pretty much equal, with the rare exception of drawing a Road Building when you can't place them.
Here, the entire freaking game is card drawing. There is almost nothing to do to affect the drawing or who gets first shot at cards, and the point swing they introduce is wildly beyond the point value that you can gain due to tactical play. A few points swing in a many point game is one thing. A large swing in a game due to luck is another.
Lastly, although the game is about 5-7 rounds long, the vast part of the last round is essentially meaningless, and the winner has been decided by round 3.
In theory, I like the card filling mechanism. In practice, it doesn't work well enough. Should have been thrown out and reworked.
Yehuda
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Shade_Jon wrote: Let's see ...
The entire balance of the game is off, as the aristocrats are just way to powerful. That reduces the valud number of strategies from three (blue, orange, or a balance) to one (orange).
Two cards, the Observatory and the Mistress, are so powerful that drawing them at the beginning when others don't is basically game.
Your ability to score points is essentially the luck of the draw almost the entire game. You can set up opportunities by playing with the number of cards that come out, to a certain amount, but not much. If you need two more aristocrats to win the game, and you only get duplicates, that's it.
There are no choices to be made about playing workers. You buy and play them based on the number of rounds left, that's it. Easy and uninteresting calculation.
And the enitre mechanic is basically repetitious, and the buildings are boring. All buildings either give money, give vp's or reduce cost, with very little exception.
Essentially, the worst mechanic in Eurogames is the card draw from a deck where the power of the cards is unequal. In Amun Re and Goa, I changed the rules so that you draw two and discard one. In Settlers, the cards are pretty much equal, with the rare exception of drawing a Road Building when you can't place them.
Here, the entire freaking game is card drawing. There is almost nothing to do to affect the drawing or who gets first shot at cards, and the point swing they introduce is wildly beyond the point value that you can gain due to tactical play. A few points swing in a many point game is one thing. A large swing in a game due to luck is another.
Lastly, although the game is about 5-7 rounds long, the vast part of the last round is essentially meaningless, and the winner has been decided by round 3.
In theory, I like the card filling mechanism. In practice, it doesn't work well enough. Should have been thrown out and reworked.
Yehuda It's nice to be able to read someone's reasons for knocking a game instead of the usual dribble of "it sucks", "waste of time", etc. Whether I agree or disagree isn't really the point, but that there are concrete reasons listed to help others form intelligent decisions.
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Shade_Jon wrote: The entire balance of the game is off, as the aristocrats are just way to powerful. That reduces the valud number of strategies from three (blue, orange, or a balance) to one (orange). From my experience a person can make a lot of money from the workers, and get a lot of victory points from the buildings, and at the same time make strategic decisions to control how many cards will be available for the next player to choose from. Sure some aristocrat cards are very powerful, but there are 6-8 of them, and every player usually gets one or two. I played a two player game where both players ended up with 9 different aristocrats, and it was the buildings that made the difference in winning the game.
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I have to respectfully disagree. Yes nobles are important but they are not the only way to win. I have witnessed players who will take an aggressive build/run out the clock strategy. They amass many points through building while giving their opponents less time to collect the nobles they need to obtain enough of a bonus to surpass the lead that has been built up with a Blue strategy. The observatory increases in power as you increase the number of players, in a two player game it is hardly a game breaker and I occasionally pass on an observatory. However, in a 4 player game it is much more valuable as you have fewer oppotunities to collect the nobles you need. Oh well I love the game and you think it blows. Game On!
Last edited on 2006-05-15 16:53:01 CST (Total Number of Edits: 1)
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Shade_Jon wrote: The entire balance of the game is off, as the aristocrats are just way to powerful. That reduces the valud number of strategies from three (blue, orange, or a balance) to one (orange). I disagree with this statement and a number of others in Yehuda's post. True, St. Petersburg can be played on auto-pilot, but you'll generally lose against someone who knows what they're doing. You don't automatically want to buy every worker no matter which round you're in, and the buildings can provide a balance to the aristocrat bonus depending on when they're purchased and how many rounds the game lasts. The value of aristocrats and buildings, as well as the pace of the game, changes greatly from 2 to 3 to 4 players, so what works in one game won't necessarily work with fewer or more opponents. This isn't to say that everyone will like the game. If you find it boring, I can't convince you otherwise -- but I do think there's more to it than Yehuda found in his few playings.
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I've seen people win playing a "blue" strategy.
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