-
Surya Van Lierde is pure Eurosnoot and proud of it!
Belgium
Gijzegem
-
This was a busy weekend. On Friday we gamed all evening, Saturday we started gaming in the early afternoon until midnight and Sunday we gamed from 11am till about 7pm.
On Friday we played mostly games I had played before (Survive with the Squid, Taluva, Yggdrasil & 7 Wonders) but there was one 'new' title: Priests of Ra.
If you like regular Ra you mostly know how to play Priests of Ra, as game play is 99% identical. The one change is that you have to choose which side of the double sided tiles to put face up. The other change is the scoring, which is familiar but different.
I'd say that if you like Ra (and I do) you'll probably like Priests of Ra, but I see no reason what so ever to own both. They're the same with mostly a change in scoring, which doesn't improve the game. I'd have to play a couple more times to see if it is as good as Ra or slightly inferior.
Initial rating: 7.5
On Friday we had planned a full game of Through the Ages: A Story of Civilization. I'd been a long time since my last game of this. Myriam and I had played a couple of games (she more than I as she likes the game better), Jan had played 1 game of the introduction game and Fre hadn't played before at all.
I got off to a very slow start. For a long time I was at 1 VP income, while Jan and Myriam where at 4 and 5 each. Fre was also at 1 but he was taking a lot of VP action cards for one-of VP gains so he was still at a competitive score. I somehow managed to get my resource generation up before the others did, which gave me the ability to crank out wonders and fast and I also had quite some science points saved up so I had good theaters which I could now populate. I was however at about 20 VPs while Jan and Myriam where on their way to 50. So I had a long way to go. But by keeping my competitive advantage in resource generation (upgrading my resource cards every chance I got) I was able to increase my VP generation a lot, while Jan and Myriam's dropped off steep by loss of certain old leaders. I was now gaining about 15 VPs while they where gaining about 7 or 8 each turn. I was able to stay ahead on the VP gain track for the remainder of the game, going up beyond 20 per turn towards the end of the game. By the last half of the 2nd age I had catched up with Myriam, who was now ahead of Jan, and during age 3 I was able to get a small lead. The only reason I was able to have a decisive win was my last wonder, which gained me a whopping 26 VPs, sealing the deal. And Fre? He stayed at 1VP for the whole game, ending at about 50 or so, while both Myriam and I where beyond 250.
I like the idea of the game a lot, but what bothers me is how slow it goes and how tedious the bookkeeping is. And for that reason I find it good, not great.
We ended the day with an other play of PAX and 3 rounds of Crokinole.
For Sunday we had an other big game planned: Twilight Imperium (third edition) with the Twilight Imperium (third edition): Shattered Empire expansion. It'd been over 5 years so I had to reread the rules. I still forgot a couple of the smaller rules which messed things up a bit.
Twilight is yet another big, complex slow and slightly tedious game. It's not nearly as streamlined as Eclipse but is does offer a richer game experience. I'm not sure the trade off (longer game, more depth / shorter game, not as deep) is good though, it's WAY longer than Eclipse. That being said, I hope to play again soon, with less rules errors.
To finish the weekend with one last game, we had a go at Eurorails which was the first crayon rail game for all of us. The rules are simple enough, and I quite enjoyed it, but I did find that once every player has a good basic network and the amount of new track being built declines, that it's a bit repetitive, with all the pick-up-and-deliver going on. It took slightly to long.
I also found that the cost of using ferries is too high for the extra pay the contracts offer. Delivering from Spain to Poland will give you more money than delivering from Sarajevo to the UK, even though you do need to use a ferry twice (once to get on the island, once to get off again).
I found it interesting and I'd be happy to play again, maybe with 4 players (our game was with 3)
Initial rating: 6.5
|
|
