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David Scott
United Kingdom
Oxford
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Hamburgum
I picked this one up for 20 quid at the UK Games Expo in Birmingham a few weeks back, as I had fond memories playing it once shortly after it first came out. I couldn't remember quite why I liked it, so I played a solo 4-player game to find out. Ah Rondel games! You have limited choice of moves due to the rondel, so you plan during your opponents moves, and are usually are ready to play when its your turn. The game moves nice and quickly, just how I like it. No down time, your mind is always at work. Was it that, or was it the cool components REAL bells, and REAL bricks? Anyhow, I finally got a chance to try it out against real opponents, none of whom had played the game before. Even though the rules to this game are pretty straightforward, it did actually take quite a bit of time to explain it, quite a lot of overhead for a quick and simple game. As I expected, the game really flew by; people were moving pretty much instantly when it was their turn. So fast in fact that I was largely unable to verify the legality of their moves - I hope they got it right! I quite enjoyed it - it has a lot of qualities that I like in board games, but I think the reaction of the other players was a little more muted. One player said that it was good having no downtime, but with so few options every move, it was 'a bit boring'. I suppose he is right. I would like to play this game a few more times, but perhaps I will struggle to find others who would rather play it than newer, more fashionable games.
In the game itself, I went for an early donations strategy; that is what worked best for me in my solo 4-player game. Just make the donations, and don't worry too much about buildings. I really don't think having lots of buildings helps you that much - it is hard to focus on one type of production building without driving prices down, and buying unnecessary buildings to reach them on the map. Well, that was the theory anyway. I got off to a good start VP-wise, but I foolishly ran out of money/resources, and had to spend several turns rebuilding my funds while others were furiously dotting Hamburgum with their citizens. Two players went for the slow money start, BEER/SHIPYARD/SUGAR/SELL to get 400 pounds right off the bat - that seems like a good opening strategy to me.
I started falling behind, but I was able to win due to an accurate calculation to secure the last donation of the game (a double donation). You have to be very careful not to waste your last few turns. Figure out whether you will be able to build before you buy a bell, and assume that the other players are going to burn VPs like crazy to build in front of you. There were two players with bells who had a chance to visit the church in front of me, but one only had one brick (there were two donations left at the church), and the other one was short of money. After making the final two donations, the VP from these catapulted me into the lead (barely). If it doesn't look like you can get another church, buy bricks and timber instead, and try to buy buildings that will give you points through your existing donations. Of course, it will be very difficult to do this if you aren't already a church builder, because you generally need access to blocked-off building sites. That last move can really make or break you in this game.
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