Thread: Re: alea variant: coats of arms scoring

Mattias Persson — 2008-05-14T10:27:48+00:00

Anyone tried this variant? Thoughts?

Thread: Re: Revisiting an old favorite

Mattias Persson — 2008-05-13T09:10:43+00:00

Great report! I have been reading the rules and look forward to trying the game next month or so. I was a little confused after reading the rules, but then I played a couple of turns solo and it all made sense, and this report provided a glimpse of strategy as well.

Thread: Revisiting an old favorite

PlanetSmasher — 2008-05-13T05:52:37+00:00

Louis XIV was one of my early purchases when I first got into the hobby. It almost always hit the table when suggested since no one in our group disliked it, so over the last 2+ years I’ve played the game 19 times. It hasn’t hit the table recently since we often had new games to try and our 4 player sessions have been far less frequent than our 5 or 6 player sessions. Mark, Mike, Noel, and I all sat down with it for the first time in several months.

As with any area majority game, you always want to spend as few resources as possible and minimize how many wasted pieces you play by losing an area you battled to win. As we played the game more, our strategies evolved. While avoiding battles for the early spaces deemed worth fighting over, we started to see how getting the outer areas cheaply would often beat the players that fought for the favors or that extra influence card every round. As a result, Mike started to value winning the money much higher (tile 7); and I started playing for the shields and intrigue cards (trying to win 6 and 12, and get 2 influence on 10 when possible). As the value of those tiles became apparent, we all started to try to find the bargains and it now plays as a much more fluid game that often comes right down to the wire. I still prefer to go for the intrigue card and VP shields when they are cheap, and really like keep as may pieces as possible by playing on the tiles that cost X number of influence markers that gets the privilege and still lets you take back your pieces to the private stash.

I was the start player, followed by Mike, Noel, and then Mark. My 2 mission cards to start were the ‘add one to tile 5’ medium, and the ‘collect 1 extra gold’ easy. Everyone will get to go one more time after I make my last move, so I decided to avoid any battles and hope to set up for a big second round. I first put 3 pieces on tile 5 for the royal favor and next I decided to try to make a stand and not let the money go cheaply by placing 2 on tile 7, and 1 to tile 8 to help set up my next turn (especially if I was able to get my medium mission down). The middle was filling up quickly, Mike took over the 8 tile and Mark put a token piece on the 11 tile for the extra influence card. Going last, I picked on Mark who was battling Noel for control of Louie by putting 1 on 12 for the intrigue and 2 on 11 to take the lead for the influence card. I had 2 pieces left, so for my final play of the round I placed both on tile 9 to take the lead for the other favor to not let if go cheaply, thinking I could buy it since I was still in the lead with the money.

No one challenge any of my leads that first round, so I got 2 royal favors, an intrigue card (7-money), influence card, and 5 gold for the round. I had 4 pieces and an extra influence card going into round 2, I was quite happy with how it all turned out as the start player. I did my medium mission to place a piece on tile 5 even though I lost tile 8. I picked a medium mission hoping to get one that lets you pick any combination of 2 gold or influence markers or the one that let’s you exchange an influence card that counts as your turn….I got an unimpressive one instead. Noel completed 2 missions, one of them let him exchange the influence card to delay his action. Mike also had only 1 mission played, and Mark wasn’t able to get any completed.

For the second round, I went for 1 in each of the center 4 tiles to buy my favors rather than fighting and placed 1 in money thinking I could steal it with my intrigue card. I also went for 6 and put 1 influence on each of tiles 11 and 12. I got the money uncontested again, but had to use my 6 tile free placement to get the intrigue card (no other tile would have got me anything).

I did my easy mission for 1 free gold during supply since it matched the favor symbol needed on my medium mission that wasn’t any better, and picked another easy since I had 2 regular tokens left. I drew another get 1 gold during supply card, but didn’t have the right symbol to play it that round. Mike and Noel each played 2 cards, Mark played 1.
What was a great start turned into scraping to keep up awfully quick. I was 2 cards behind Noel, and a Card and a few VP shields behind Mike after discarding a favor chip for a VP shield since I could only carry 1 over to the next round. I still had the money intrigue card, and drew the one for tile 8 that lets you place 2 on tile 5 and take 1 influence marker.

After collecting the round 3 income of 2, I had 9 gold and a couple more influence markers more than Mike and Noel going into round 3. My plan was to win only one inner tile and plan to buy the other 3 freeing me to collect as many VP chips as possible. I went for the money again, along with 5, 6, 10 and 12 again. I was able to steal the 8 tile with the intrigue card, and won everything except the 5 (using my 6 free placement to secure the money for the 3rd time).

For missions, I played my 1 extra gold easy card, and was able to draw and play the collect 2 of gold/influence markers medium that I wanted. Everyone else also played 2 mission cards, but I closed the gap on Mike’s VP chip lead while remaining 1 mission behind him, and 2 behind Noel.

Mike and Noel were both hurting for influence markers; I had 3 influence on tile 5 already and 8 gold after another cheap income round. I was still slightly behind, but in much better shape for a good last round.

The last round I wanted to hold my lead on the 5 tile, and went for 6,10, and 4 while getting 1 influence in 2 of the other tiles so I could buy the favors (1 was in with Louie where I also had an intrigue card to hopefully steal second place to save 3 gold). All went to plan (except the tile with Louis was out of range to steal), and I was even able to steal the money tile with my intrigue card.

I completed 2 easy missions to end the game with 6. Mike only completed 1 to also end with 6, and Noel completed 2 missions again to end with 8. I gained 2 more bonus chits than Mike, which ended up deciding the game.

Jay: 47
Mike: 45
Noel: 42
Mark: 27

It was a good game that reminded us all of how much we used to like it. I will be looking to get it on the table again soon, I’m sure it will get back into high rotation for a while.

Game: Louis XIV

Thread: Re: alea variant: coats of arms scoring

Thread: Re: Revisiting an old favorite

Thread: Revisiting an old favorite