Game: Yspahan

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Deadwood — 2008-08-06T04:43:09+00:00

Explaining the rules

Thread: Re: How to beat the caravan strategy?

coolpapa — 2008-07-25T04:34:56+00:00

I think the main point is that no one can afford to ignore the caravan. If everyone is in it a little bit, then it won't be as big of a swing in points, and it'll be easier to fill up the caravan when necessary to prevent a caravan-heavy player from scoring big points for it too many times.

Thread: Re: How to beat the caravan strategy?

Windopaene — 2008-07-24T22:03:24+00:00

Get the highest two buildings, (+1 cube first), and steal all the good spots for caravanning. Caravan works a lot better, but this does work sometimes.

Thread: How to beat the caravan strategy?

elcomadreja2 — 2008-07-24T21:49:17+00:00

After perfecting the caravan strategy, I just don't see how to play this any other way. Playing 2 player, we've completely given up placing cubes in the town unless they are bound for the caravan.
Can I get a little insight here?

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Surya — 2008-07-16T07:57:02+00:00

Thread: Re: Building paddock for free?

Marfried — 2008-07-03T05:36:03+00:00

Thanks for the quick answers!

Thread: Re: Building paddock for free?

Norbert Chan — 2008-07-01T16:16:26+00:00

Yes, you can. The "build without camel card" allows you to build without paying the cost in camels, and the paddock building cost is 2 camels.

Thread: Re: Building paddock for free?

rules_heretic — 2008-07-01T16:15:40+00:00

I wouldn't see why not.

(Without the creepy double negative...)

I would believe that is allowed by the rules.

Thread: Re: Building paddock for free?

Verkisto — 2008-07-01T16:14:55+00:00

Yep!

Thread: Building paddock for free?

Marfried — 2008-07-01T15:50:39+00:00

Can you build the paddock for free when playing the "build a building without camels" card (since it costs no gold)?

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tom-le-termite — 2008-06-20T14:36:10+00:00

♫"In the desert, you can remember your 'cube'... " ♪

Thread: Re: Watch out for the camels...they spit.

mrbistro — 2008-06-19T15:26:35+00:00

Very nice review indeed.

Thread: Re: Watch out for the camels...they spit.

LilNewbie — 2008-06-17T18:31:31+00:00

Great review, Jim! I'm definitely putting this game on the watch list.

Thread: Re: Watch out for the camels...they spit.

Denise — 2008-06-17T15:17:36+00:00

My husband and I jokingly said 'watch out, they spit' in regard to the Yspahan camels when teaching my 8 YO to play. She absolutely refused to take any camels for the entire game after that because she didn't want to get spit on. I'm still not sure whether to laugh or cry about this! :)

Thread: Re: Watch out for the camels...they spit.

caltexn — 2008-06-17T03:56:51+00:00

Well done. My wife also is picky of games she likes, but this one won her over - and me too.

Thread: Re: Watch out for the camels...they spit.

LatinaNakita — 2008-06-17T00:14:51+00:00

Great Review, nice to see other Scapers out there :D

Thread: Re: Watch out for the camels...they spit.

Hendal — 2008-06-16T23:32:58+00:00

Way to good of a review, now I have to add another game to my wish list - the wife is going to kill me when I come back from GenCon with 30 games or more :D.

I would call them Ceeples ;), and I will buy the game for new meeples and for the cool sounding dice mechanics, I am all about the dice I tell you. I really like the idea that you can buy extra dice to roll, I love that idea. Plus I learned something history related reading your review!

Thanks for sharing

Game On'

Thread: Re: Watch out for the camels...they spit.

mrwolf710 — 2008-06-16T20:55:57+00:00

Thumbs up for the Aladdin reference in your title...and also your review was nice as well.

Thread: Watch out for the camels...they spit.

jimmcmahon — 2008-06-16T20:12:17+00:00

In the year 1598, the center of the world was the capital of the Persian empire, Yspahan. And because it was the center, people traveled to it bringing their wares to sell and try to make their fortunes. You are one of those traders – how well will you do?

Yspahan is a great game with an interesting dice mechanic. But before I get into that, I’ll set up the game for you. There is a nicely illustrated and very colorful game board showing different colored groups of buildings, and a pair of crossing roads. Basically, what you’re trying to do here is to make the most money The game takes place over a three-week time period; once around the players is one day. One way to earn money is to have a marker on every building in a given color group at the end of a week. And one way to get these buildings is with the dice.

The dice. There are a whole bunch of them, and each day they all get rolled. Then they get placed onto a track with six spaces. All the dice that came up as the lowest number (usually a “1”) get placed on the first space, which represents camels (There are also camel meeples in the game!) and the rest get placed along the track, sorted by value. The highest value gets placed on the last space though, which represents gold. Because not every dice roll will result in dice showing all six values, the higher up items aren’t as easy to obtain. These would be the different building locations in the city. So, after the dice are rolled and sorted, the players choose which thing they want. Typically more dice on a space means that will give you more stuff. (A player can also pay to have more dice rolled; these extra dice are yellow, and may only be used by the player who paid for them.) If there aren’t enough spaces filled for each player, or if the player chooses, they may draw a card rather than get an empty space.

There are other ways to score points, like moving the supervisor and bumping one of the markers up to the camel caravan track. Also there are special “powers” which can be purchased with combinations of gold and camels. These powers are helpful, like reducing the cost of things by paying only the gold instead of both gold and camels.

I really liked the dice mechanic in this game. I hadn’t seen anything like this in any other game. It adds some luck, because you never know what will come up, but not so much that it makes the game totally random. In fact, it gives a lot more decision making. Sometimes the rolls will make the choice seem so obvious, but other times there are several things that you will want to do and have to pick the best one. The games are also quick moving. There isn’t a lot of down time between turns, and there is a lot going on to keep your interest.

This is definitely a fun game to try. There is a free computer version available, which is also fun, but not the same as playing it with real people throwing real dice and making pyramids out of real camel meeples (cameeples?) while the other players throw real wooden blocks at them. Yspahan is for 2 – 4 players and is supposed to play in about an hour and fifteen minutes, but games I've played usually last about an hour or less.

Jim
(Originally posted by me [url=http://myworld.creativegamingevents.com/blogs_full.php?id=311]here on GatheringGamers.com)

EDIT: Spelling.

Thread: Re: Yspahan - 2 player Caravan question

henry_kay — 2008-06-16T15:28:57+00:00

Another question regarding the caravan. Is it scored both at the end of the week and when it is full? For example, when there are 5 cubes (for a two players game) on it at the end of the week, it will get scored but NOT emptied and if the sixth cube is placed during the first day of the new week it will get scored again and THEN it will be emptied?

Thread: Re: Can I borrow cubes from Caylus?

Furunkulus — 2008-06-04T03:53:02+00:00

Trenton wrote:
If Caylus does that for you, then what are you going to do for Caylus?

Update the rule book so any mention of the pink cubes are now called cubes of flesh.

Thread: Re: Battle of the Clever-Use-of-Dice Games: Kingsburg vs. Yspahan

Furunkulus — 2008-06-04T03:50:44+00:00

greatsage wrote:

Having said that, I think that To Court the King is one dice game, where rolls can be manipulated that doesn't appeal to me. I don't feel like I blame bad outcomes on luck, but rather in the convolutions of the rules. It is confusing as to which dice can be altered which can be added when they can be added and when they can be re-rolled. I feel that To Court the King is one game that is trying to be too fancy with dice games.

I originally liked To Court the King but since playing Yspahan, Kingsburg, and Stone Age it has really lost any appeal at all. I think To Court the Kings is just too fiddley. It is neat how the cards work with the dice roll and all but it just becomes too much.

Yspahan, Kingsburg, and Stone Age have really raised the bar as to implementing a good dice mechanic into a Euro game.

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El_Comandante — 2008-05-31T23:09:18+00:00

Next extension : into the frozen wayste ?

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rbayu2 — 2008-05-28T18:24:51+00:00

yspahan played at a cafe shop

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rbayu2 — 2008-05-28T18:19:11+00:00

winning move...

Thread: Re: Is Ysphan broken? (at least for 2 players)

kaa0s — 2008-05-04T21:37:02+00:00

yes it is possible to leave the supervisor on the same square, but this involves moving him 1 square first and then paying 1 gold to reduce the movement. Finally the supervisor cannot be moved back and forth on the same square.

Thread: Re: Is anyone else reminded of the Ralph Bakshi movie, Wizards?

cabalzero — 2008-04-28T03:58:28+00:00

:goo: No pain. Want peace. Will help. :goo:

Thread: Re: Is anyone else reminded of the Ralph Bakshi movie, Wizards?

truekid — 2008-04-28T03:43:35+00:00

yes, in fact i just made a post saying as much, and deleted it when i saw this thread.

Thread: Re: Is Ysphan broken? (at least for 2 players)

Isamoor — 2008-04-27T01:04:14+00:00

atholbrose wrote:
Seelenfeuer wrote:
Hmm i seriously doubt that "moving" the supervisor zero spaces is a valid option.(in the pc version this is not possible if i remember correctly and a supervisor´s standstill definitivly feels contraintuitive to the concept of moving)
It is explicitly allowed by the rules.

And quite possible in the pc version.

I don't think it's "super-unbeatable", but yes, a well played caravan with the double souk spaces in the third week can be very difficult to beat.

Thread: Re: Is Ysphan broken? (at least for 2 players)

atholbrose — 2008-04-27T00:26:53+00:00

Seelenfeuer wrote:
Hmm i seriously doubt that "moving" the supervisor zero spaces is a valid option.(in the pc version this is not possible if i remember correctly and a supervisor´s standstill definitivly feels contraintuitive to the concept of moving)
It is explicitly allowed by the rules.

Thread: Re: Is Ysphan broken? (at least for 2 players)

Seelenfeuer — 2008-04-26T23:23:45+00:00

Isamoor wrote:
You can just choose to move the supervisor and leave him where he started, so you really just need that one space in the barrel district.
Hmm i seriously doubt that "moving" the supervisor zero spaces is a valid option.(in the pc version this is not possible if i remember correctly and a supervisor´s standstill definitivly feels contraintuitive to the concept of moving)

And for me this is no "strategy" since it seems the only way to victory(in 2p) effectivnesswise. it is more lile an abhorrent scar in a beautiful game design.

Thread: Re: Is Ysphan broken? (at least for 2 players)

Isamoor — 2008-04-26T12:01:07+00:00

That's a pretty common strategy as far as I know. And you don't actually need the "magic triangle". You can just choose to move the supervisor and leave him where he started, so you really just need that one space in the barrel district.

Thread: Is Ysphan broken? (at least for 2 players)

Seelenfeuer — 2008-04-26T09:35:46+00:00

Recently discovered a rather nasty strategy in this game.... tried it out several times( with the pc version) and one time in reallie with my sister... which spoiled the fun or her(and to some extend for me too) concerning this game....

If youre the starting player you have to concentrate on getting the Caravanserai early in the game, then eat some cubies with the supervisor to draw a lots of cards while sending your cubes to the caravan. Its possibe one can even push the establishment of the Hamann in the first week while saving some camels to keep the supervisordraw up. if youre lucky you already have drawn the card to chose the cube placement on one house, if so you can(if your opponent didnt counter it with his first move in week 2) set a cube in the white barell neighbourhoodand imediatly use the card to set a cube on the blue vase or on the edge of the white sack area (or both(first via the card on th white sack then via dice or a second drawn palcement card). by the massive drawing you get enough camel/gold and tradingcards to constantly keep the engine going(if you dont use the other cards in yourr hand). if you cant get the enginerunning on week 2 youre guaranteed to be able to build up the "magic sack barell cvase triangle" in week 3 (since youre start player by then), granting you a total of 18 sends of goods to the caravn(+ the ones from the cards) which by it self grants you more than 60 vp(+lots of tradingcardvps in the end)!
This (boring)strategy is even possible in 3 player games but cant be pushed that strobng since the reduced amount of actions(even if you dont need to watse an action to uild a special building there). With this strategy the usual building approach isnt competitive anymore and the game is won by whoever was the starting player!
One could houserule this issue by forbidding to send two goods at once to the caravan...but unfortunaley my sister seems never be willing to play yspahan with me again :/

Thread: Re: 2 players, hardly any souks.

UnknownParkerBrother — 2008-04-22T01:48:12+00:00

Ok, that makes some sense, you do get extra turns. Obviously, we're not very efficient yet.

But I think I'd rather not get the extra turns, and just play normally. Player 1 takes their dice, player 2 takes theirs, end of turn. Each can build on their turns whenever they wish after taking a dice group.

Thread: Re: 2 players, hardly any souks.

dkeisen — 2008-04-22T00:12:18+00:00

UnknownParkerBrother wrote:
Just played my first game of this last night, 2 player.

When it was done, I'm left wondering why the 2 player rules specify that you have to forego placing cubes to build, unlike in the 3 and 4 player game. In our entire game, we had only a couple of cubes on the board. You'd take gold this turn, camels the next, take a card, grab gold again, some more camels, build a building, and guess what? The week is almost over, and you haven't even done souk building once.

Is there some fundamental difference between 2 and 3 players that make this rule change needed? I'm just not seeing it.

There is. With 2, the player who rolls the dice gets 2 actions. That means each player gets 50% more actions than they would get in a 3 or 4 player game.

Thread: Re: 2 players, hardly any souks.

ColtsFan76 — 2008-04-21T21:06:50+00:00

Either I don't understand the question, or you misread something in the rules (the 2-player sheet isn't the most clearly stated).

I am not sure what you mean by "forego placing cubes to build." The rule that is different is that you do not get a "free build" action during your turn. In order to build, you must "spend" an action (in addition to the cubes) which means you "forego taking dice as an action in order to build."

The reason this rule is in place is because it is very easy to build all the buildings in a 2-player game rather quickly. However, once you start trading dice in to be able to build, your actions become limited and there are tougher decisions to be made.

But this building action is just for the buildings; not placing cubes in the Souks.

Thread: 2 players, hardly any souks.

UnknownParkerBrother — 2008-04-21T19:42:07+00:00

Just played my first game of this last night, 2 player.

When it was done, I'm left wondering why the 2 player rules specify that you have to forego placing cubes to build, unlike in the 3 and 4 player game. In our entire game, we had only a couple of cubes on the board. You'd take gold this turn, camels the next, take a card, grab gold again, some more camels, build a building, and guess what? The week is almost over, and you haven't even done souk building once.

Is there some fundamental difference between 2 and 3 players that make this rule change needed? I'm just not seeing it.

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monikad — 2008-04-17T14:10:12+00:00

Close up of a lonely camel

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Ben_Tyrer — 2008-04-07T19:43:57+00:00

Yspahan in play

Thread: Re: Yspahan for Windows released for download!

jrbentley — 2008-04-05T19:30:54+00:00

LetsGetTrivial wrote:
I can get to the site just fine. The download buttons are not working for me.

You're right. After I posted above about no problems getting to the download page, I went back and clicked on "Download"....all it did was refreshed the page. Both download buttons did the same thing.

Thread: Re: Yspahan for Windows released for download!

LetsGetTrivial — 2008-04-05T19:28:11+00:00

I can get to the site just fine. The download buttons are not working for me.

Thread: Re: Yspahan for Windows released for download!

jrbentley — 2008-04-05T19:27:12+00:00

LetsGetTrivial wrote:
Has the game been removed from the site? The download links do nothing for me with both IE and Firefox.

I just clicked on the link that's given on the first message in this thread, and it took me to the download page...I'm assuming it's working...I already downloaded it a long time ago, so I didn't actually click on the "Download" button....but I had no problems getting to the download page.

Oh yeah, I'm using Firefox 2.0.0.13.

Thread: Re: Yspahan for Windows released for download!

LetsGetTrivial — 2008-04-05T19:18:07+00:00

Has the game been removed from the site? The download links do nothing for me with both IE and Firefox.

Thread: Re: Caravan scoring question

DeanMary — 2008-03-14T22:05:50+00:00

Thanks Dan and Simon!

Thread: Re: Caravan scoring question

aladdinsdad — 2008-03-14T21:44:19+00:00

You score the caravan as

(C) you score it at the end of the week plus you score it when it fills up.

This is from memory, I haven't played it in a few month.

- Simon

Thread: Re: Caravan scoring question

tool — 2008-03-14T21:42:15+00:00

B is correct.

Thread: Caravan scoring question

DeanMary — 2008-03-14T21:33:29+00:00

When do you score the caravan?

A: only 3 times, at the end of all three weeks

B: also each time the caravan gets filled up, *plus* the end of all three weeks

Sorry if this is a silly question, but I can't figure it out for sure and I know the many bright people here on BGG will help! :)

Thread: Re: Battle of the Clever-Use-of-Dice Games: Kingsburg vs. Yspahan

Grudunza — 2008-03-10T22:30:42+00:00

reapersaurus wrote:
This thread is another example of why it would be nice to have a cross-threading feature on BGG.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/293860

Yeah, no doubt. I definitely felt weird about posting the same thing to two different forums, and yet, it seemed wrong not to in this case. I also thought maybe it should have just gone to the "general gaming" forum, but then it didn't seem right not to be in the Yspahan and Kingsburg forums.

Thread: Re: Battle of the Clever-Use-of-Dice Games: Kingsburg vs. Yspahan

reapersaurus — 2008-03-10T21:49:43+00:00

This thread is another example of why it would be nice to have a cross-threading feature on BGG.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/293860

Thread: Re: To send opponents cubes to the caravane

wwscrispin — 2008-03-10T15:17:50+00:00

I chose to mvoe the supervisor to one of the blocks with 2 shops. I sent my opponents good to the caravan to fill out the middle row and mine to be the first good on the top row. Since I had a majority of the good in the caravan this paid out very well for me.

Thread: Re: Battle of the Clever-Use-of-Dice Games: Kingsburg vs. Yspahan

greatsage — 2008-03-10T01:13:50+00:00

Great thoughts Eric.

I too love the innovative way that Yspahan uses dice to create a variable array of options for each turn rather than having a pre-determined order, that can be utilised, optimised and ultimately become stale because you have beaten the system. I have ordered Kingsburg too and alot of the reason for that purchase was based on my enjoyment of Yspahan.

Getting off course a bit but I also like Formula De for its innovative use of dice as gears and the way that the dice aren't standard either so they have a tight range of numbers say 2-4 on a six sided dice rather than a wild 1-6. Although there is an obvious random element, good planning and thought can minimise the consequences of an extreme swing of luck.

Having said that, I think that To Court the King is one dice game, where rolls can be manipulated that doesn't appeal to me. I don't feel like I blame bad outcomes on luck, but rather in the convolutions of the rules. It is confusing as to which dice can be altered which can be added when they can be added and when they can be re-rolled. I feel that To Court the King is one game that is trying to be too fancy with dice games.

Thread: Re: Battle of the Clever-Use-of-Dice Games: Kingsburg vs. Yspahan

kevinb9n — 2008-03-09T19:24:41+00:00

Kingsburg's use of dice reminds me of Roma, which you might want to try in case you haven't already.

Thread: Battle of the Clever-Use-of-Dice Games: Kingsburg vs. Yspahan

Grudunza — 2008-03-09T18:41:15+00:00

Way back in 1995 when Settlers came out, it wasn't the first game of its kind, but it became a huge hit for having a particularly great balance of elements, many of which were new to players around the world unfamiliar with games beyond chess and Monopoly, and for being accessible and fun in a unique way. It was definitely the right game at the right time to introduce creative and strategic board games to a much wider audience. I'm glad that I finally discovered Settlers last year after many years of people telling me about it, and it's still my favorite game among the many that I've since tried.

One of the particular innovations about Settlers was its use of dice. When some people first opened up a game of Settlers and found two 6-sided dice, I imagine them saying, "okay, I roll these and move this black pawn around these tiles that number of spaces" and/or "I have to roll higher than the number on the little round circle in order to destroy the building on this tile". Of course, Settlers uses the dice in a very different way, as a means of generating resources, and so you have to guage the probability of the dice in a different way and make some decisions about where to build based on those probabilities.

I've never had a problem with dice in games, but I come from an Ameritrash kind of background, and still appreciate some of those kind of games a lot. I think dice can be a perfectly good means of randomizing some elements of a game. For example, in Axis & Allies, if you have four tanks that hit on 3 or less and you're thinking about taking them in to attack seven infantry that hit on 2 or less, that is a perfectly good
distinction between the units and a great tactical decision to have to make considering the odds involved. And there is a lot of randomness in life... sometimes your Marine sharpshooter will miss and the enemy's
half-blind foot soldier will hit... so it's good to have some means of randomizing things like that in a game.

I can appreciate that some people don't want too much randomness in a game (especially if it equals outright "luck", which it doesn't always), and that dice can certainly add too much randomness depending how they're used... but what baffles me is why, in the wake of the enormous popularity of Settlers, so few games since have involved dice. I imagine it might have something to do with designers and publishers giving too much weight to the particularly snooty gamers out there who eschew the very thought of dice in a game as if they were giant zits on the forehead of a 17 year-old girl on prom night. (When I read someone on here pooh-poohing the very mention of dice I imagine them in the voice of that 17 year-old girl, "Ewwwww!") I can think of only a handful of designer games since Settlers that involve dice in some way or other (I'm not counting the dice in Shadows Over Camelot, which are really just markers, though I do think that's clever), but there have been some other great games that involve dice, and in particular two games that I played for the first time recently use dice in very cool ways; Kingsburg and Yspahan.

In Yspahan, the player whose turn it is rolls 9 dice which are then organized on a scale to represent possible resources or places on the board where players can place one of their cubes into a building district. There are six spaces, but all six will only be used if each number is represented. The highest number dice will always occupy the sixth space (where gold is received), but otherwise, the fifth space and possibly other spaces may remain empty depending on the number of different numbers rolled. For example, if the nine dice equal 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, then each of the six spaces would be occupied (with 1, 3 and 5 getting two dice each), but if the nine dice equal 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, then only four of the six spaces will be available, as only four different numbers were rolled. Considering that the highest number, whatever it is, always goes to the gold space, and the others begin from the bottom up, it means that the fifth and fourth spaces in particular are going to be available less often. So, appropriately, those regions on the board are more valuable to build into, but there is also a higher risk of not being able to finish off what you are building there if the right rolls don't come up or if another player takes those dice when available.

In Kingsburg, each player has their own set of three dice which match the colors they are playing as. For each production phase, every player rolls their three dice and then, in turn, place them in any available combination into different spaces on the board which afford resources or special abilities. For example, if red was going first and rolls 3, 5, 6, they could play into the 3, 5 or 6 by using one die, or into the 8, 9 or 11 by combing two dice, or into the 14 by adding them all together. These are limited by what spaces are available, and normally only one player can claim a particular number on each dice phase, so you have to keep in mind what dice other players have rolled and what they might do with them when their placement chance comes around. For example, if red played the 3+5 into the 8 slot, thinking they would use their 6 die on the next chance, they might be shut out if another player plays one or more of their dice into the 6 space.

Both games use dice in brilliant ways to create interesting means of dishing out resources and abilities, and also to create tactical decisions between players during the dice phases. I give the edge to Kingsburg in this respect, as each player is in greater control of their own dice and has many options for where to use them. In Yspahan, the player whose turn it is has first choice of which dice slot to activate for their own use (and can also spend gold to add extra dice for their use only), but the other players are left with, well, leftovers. Usually there is still something useful to take, no matter what, and a player can always opt to skip the dice slots to take a special card... but turn order will be more of a factor in Yspahan as far as how much control the dice will afford each player.

Otherwise, as the games themselves go, I think they are both very enjoyable and I would gladly play either again at any time, but I definitely prefer Yspahan. I think that's partly just my taste... I generally like the idea and tactical gameplay of area control games better than economic or civilization development games, which is what Kingsburg seems to be, to some extent, at least. I also find Kingsburg to be a bit repetitive... you're just gathering resources and buying buildings for five turns. There is a little build up with the increasing strength of the invading monsters at the end of each turn, which is a nice element of risk management and is different in its blind sense than say, the rats in Notre Dame. There are certainly different strategies that can be employed in Kingsburg, but they pretty much seem to be about what building line or building combination to invest in. That's fine for what it is, and certainly many people may prefer that for what they like in a game. But to me, Yspahan offers a lot of different strategic possibilities, perhaps not more in number but more in type. There is the area control aspect in terms of the number of housing districts you control on the main board and what each is worth, but there are also buildings that can be purchased which generate not only special abilities but some nice VPs for the more that you own. There is also the camel track, and VPs can be gained through the special cards.

There is also much more direct interaction in Yspahan, which I like... Not only can your choice of the dice slots affect the other players as in Kingsburg (though again, not to that extent), but you can claim a building district before someone else does, you can try to prevent someone from finishing their control of a particular building district before the turn or game ends, and you can send one of their district's cubes out to the camel track to deny them of crucial VPs (keeping in mind that they will get some VPs from the camel track, as well). In Kingsburg, everybody is building on their own, so it's more like multiplayer solitaire in that sense, though as I said, the dice resource method is more interactive and involving in Kingsburg than in Yspahan. There is also the means in Kingsburg of attempting to force a player to keep their defensive forces weak on a particular turn in the hopes that the attacking force will hit them, but again that is only a possibility during the production (dice) phase. I don't think that the potential for "screwage" is a must for a good game, but for many games, the ability to have more of a direct effect on your opponent is what really makes it more of a game. In that sense, Yspahan definitely wins out for me.

My personal preference aside, I think both games do a great job of integrating dice into the gameplay, and in Kingsburg's case, that is enough to make that an excellent game for me, even if the rest of the game isn't quite as compelling. I'll readily admit that it's not really fair to pit these two games against each other per the title of the post... My real intention is to highlight them both as being terrific examples of dice used in designer games. I hope that more designers will realize that dice are not necessarily the pizza-faced enemy of good games, especially if they are used in ways that provide reasonable randomizing tactical decisions appropriate to the particular units or factors involved (as in wargames like Axis & Allies and Samurai Swords) or are used in very creative ways like in Yspahan, Kingsburg and Settlers.

Thread: 3 Players trading in Yspahan

Pozman — 2008-02-27T14:25:18+00:00

Players: Koen (starting palyer, green), Bruno DJ (blue) and Philippe (red, myself)

Week 1:

Week 1 was a tough week. Minor camels and gold were came into play, making it difficult for all of us to build the paddock (+ 1 camel) or the shop (+ 2 gold). The biggest clusters of dice were in the neighborhoods. Therefore in week 1 there was a sort of gentelmens agreement were we just grabbed the points from the souks without screwing someone with the supervisor. It was on day 6 of week 1 I got lucky and had 4 camels I used to build the paddock as first!

Normally we focus on the caravan but because of the lack of camels and gold, Koen was the only player with one cube in the caravan, using a card he had drawn from the deck.

Score after week 1:

Koen: 14
Philippe: 11
Bruno DJ: 10

Week 2:

Finally some camels and gold came into the game and all of us could build the paddock and the shop. Bruno DJ focused completely on souks and builded the holst (1 extra cube in souk). He managed to fill the buildings of 8 points in the coffin and the barrel - neighborhood.

Koen grabbed some money and camels to build some more buildings and filled some souks of 4 and one of 6.

When I had the caravanserai (a card from the deck if one of your cubes is sent to the caravan), I really wanted to start filling the caravan with my cubes. I had both white buildings (sack and barrel) filled and the blue building of 4 in the vase was also filled by Bruno. So on day 6 I first send one of Bruno's and one of my cubes to the caravan. By doing so the entire first row was filled (you only use 3 spaces with 3 players) and the plan was to send my 2 cubes from the white buildings to the caravan with the supervisor on the last day of the second week. I still had two camels left, so this was ideal, where as Bruno DJ had to spend his last camel holding on to the cube in the 4-point blue souk in the vase. However there were 3 dice on the neighborhood of the vase. That placed Bruno DJ him for a dilemma: if he left the 3 dice I could take them and would have 12 points. If he takes them and Koen or I move the supervisor he would have nothing. When it was my turn I could take a risk: sending my 2 cubes to the caravan and hoping that Koen would use the supervisor to screw Bruno DJ or doing it myself. because Bruno DJ had already so many points from his souks, I decided to take no risk and to send a cube of the orange building of 12 points in the vase to the caravan (and Bruno DJ sad a lot of bad words).

Score after week 2:

Bruno DJ: 42
Philippe: 33
Koen: 33

Week 3:

Bruno Started by filling the 8-point building in the barrel. As he still had no camels I immediately sended one of his cubes to the caravan, off course he now already had 3, so I had to be carefull.

I could take lots of camels and gold I used to build all 6 buildings, the last one giving me a nice 10-point bonus. As I couldn't build in the sack neither the vase, I just filled all the buildings in the coffin, 18 points in total + 2 x 3 from the bazaar (2 extra points for each souk you fill).

Bruno DJ again filled a huge number of souks and also had send 2 more cubes to the caravan, giving him at least 15 points. On the 7th day of the 3rd week I couldn't fill a souk anymore, so I send a second cube to the caravan. I was starting player and took the 6 and used the hammam (move the supervisor 1 upto 3 spaces more or less for free) to put it all the way back in the north to make sure that Bruno DJ couldn't reach 1 of his souks to send a 6th cube to the caravan. By doing this Bruno DJ (he was last in this round) couldn't do anything to take extra points, just took a card, but it was useless for him (exchange camels for gold). And this was my big luck (or well played last move off course :-))

Final scores:

Philippe: 76
Bruno DJ: 75
Koen: 68

Gaming time: 35 minutes (including set up)

This is the first game I win with almost no cubes in the caravan. But one of the fine things of this game is that you can score points in different ways. Also preventing that your opponents score (big) points can make you win this game!

Thread: Revisiting Yspahan after 7 months

caesarbgg — 2008-02-26T12:21:12+00:00

While Ystari's third big box game was played quite frequently after Essen 2006 and in the first half of 2007, the publications from Nuremberg and Essen 2007 got more and more attention and Yspahan stayed on the shelf for a while.

So we decided to break it out again in between a round of [GAMEID=31481] as a starter and a game of [GAMEID=215] to close the session.

Markus, Stefan and me already knew the game but Paul played for the first time.

Week 1
Stefan was the starting player on Day 1 followed by me, Paul and Markus. He opened with a roll that gained him three camels and built the Paddock.

I had a plan to go for a caravan strategy and therefore intended to go mainly for resources and cards in the first week. However, the three dice in the sack district were rather tempting and so I filled the white souk there.

Paul took 2 gold and Stefan went for a card.

On Day 2 I only rolled one camel but five 3s, so again I could not gather resources for later buildings but had to deliver some cubes. I filled the white and blue souks in the barrel district.

Paul took a card, got 3 camels and also built the Paddock.

Markus placed some cubes and Stefan took 2 camels due to his Paddock.

During the rest of the week, everybody tried to place some cubes and build another building, taking cards when there was no better option. I concentrated in taking cards, getting one "place a cube in the caravan" and one "build without money" card.

When my turn came around again on Day 6, I managed roll three camels and immediately built the Caravanserei with the help of my card, planning to move the Supervisor on Day 7 in order to send two of my cubes (from the two white souks) off to the caravan and gain two cards.

However, when Paul rolled the dice for the last time in week one, he rolled only six 2s, one 5 and two 6s. This meant an abundance of camels for him (which he used to build the Hoist) and no Supervisor movement for me as there were only three groups of dice. Lucky me, the card I drew were three camels and I built the Hammam.

The other two players had both built the Paddock and the Shop by then.

Scoring at the end of the week:
Only two cubes in the Caravan (Markus and me), several souks filled.
I got 10 points from the souks and led the game with 13 points (the others grouped around 6 to 10 points).

Week 2
Noteworthy events:

Paul rolled 6 dice into the vase district and filled the orange as well as yellow souk using his hoist and discarding a card. During the week he sent one cube to the caravan.

Markus went for a building strategy and built both the Hoist and Caravanserei this week. He also wanted to participate in the caravan and sent two cubes there, one in the first and one in the third level. However, he had to take them from the city as his camel supply was depleted due to his building activities.

Stefan went for a souk-strategy, building the hoist early in the week and mainly delivering cubes or gathering resources.

I managed to fill both white souks in the sack and barrel districts again early in the week. As no one pushed me out to the caravan, I was able to acquire some camels and do so myself, getting another two cards for free. One of them was a "place one cube anywhere in the city" card (which I used to fill the blue vase souk) and the other one a camel card, which enabled me to repeat this move on the next turn. This time I got another "place a cube on the caravan" which I used to get on the third caravan level.

As there were only two free camel spots in the caravan, I hoped it would not fill up so I could score twice (in Week 2 and 3). Fortunately, Markus did not have any more accessible cubes in the city and the other two saw better options than filling the caravan.

Scoring at the end of the week:
Paul scored 2 points off the caravan, Markus 9 and me 18.
The others did quite well in the souk scoring with around or a bit more than 20 points. I got 10 points from my souks (white sack, white barrel and blue vase) and stayed in the lead with 51 points.

Week 3
In this week the other players successfully tried to deny me access to the "two cube spaces". However, I managed to fill the pink souk in the coffer district. When I sent another of my cubes from there to the caravan I drew yet another "place a cube on the caravan card" which I immediately used to fill it up and get it scored.
This time I got 24 points, while Paul and Markus stayed at their 2 repectively 9 points.

As Markus had built all buildings quite early in the week, he did quite well in filling up the souks. Paul also built all buildings but made the mistake to do so in the last-but-final day, which meant he overtook Stefan and could not go first on the last day. This advantage helped Stefan to get to third place at the end.

With Markus (and to a lesser degree the others, too) flooding the city with cubes (which gained him second place in the end) there were almost no more opportunities to place in the souks for me. So I concentrated on resources, in order to build as many buildings as possible and moved the Supervisor twice more for 4+2 points and 2 cards. In the end I was indeed able to build all buildings but the Hoist.

Final scoring:
4th: Paul - high 50s to low 60s
3rd: Stefan - around 70
2nd: Markus - mid to high 80s
1st: Me - 101

This was definitely the most convincing success of a caravan strategy I had witnessed let alone achieved myself. Although I have to admit that the cards I drew were rather lucky and my opponents helped a bit by contributing to the caravan themselves (and then only half-heartedly).

Thread: Re: Moving the Overseer into the Wall?

caesarbgg — 2008-02-26T09:48:01+00:00

rules_heretic wrote:
Thanks!!

The key part of the answer is that you can pay to move the Supervisor before you use the dice to move the Supervisor.

I just read this rather dated entry but wanted to add my 2c nevertheless.
I think you slightly misunderstood the answer. By paying the supervisor to adjust his movement, it does not mean to pay to move him before moving him with the dice.

Rather you have the opportunity to pay any amount of gold coins, to adjust the movement determined by the dice, i.e. if you roll a six you can either pay gold for moving more than six spaces (which does not make sense if you already bounce into the wall) or pay to move less (up to a maximum of 6 gold to let the overseer sit where it was). So in your example you had to pay at least 2 gold in order to move in the direction of the wall or otherwise move towards city center.

Image

sasquatchdjh — 2008-02-21T05:39:52+00:00

Actual Game play, focus is on the center of the board.

Thread: Re: The Tale of "One" City

Newsh — 2008-02-18T18:12:43+00:00

Newsh wrote:
A nice summary of game.

I've played probably less than 30 games, and have learned that careful use of the caravan is paramount to a game winning strategy (please, more experienced players let me know if you beg to differ).

However, this leads me to my current criticism with the game which is that if you are out of luck with camels (i.e. you just can't get any), especially early in the game then you may well be doomed.

My next gaem I was going to see that if I was so unlucky I woudl simply go for the souks and bide time till the luck turned up. As per your post, I/ think this only gets you so far in the game, and if someone else is getting the camels you're likely to be so much worse off, come the final scoring.

At this stage I still like this game a lot, but could go off it... Power Grid is getting a lot of table time at the moment - I'd like something that plays a little quicker for those shorter game nights.

In response to my own plea for a game suggestion of a shorter (than PowerGrid) game, but retaining complexity... I can heartily recommend [GAMEID=21441]. This is also published by Ystari, and if you liked Caylus and/or Yspahan, then you should certainly check this out - it deserves a higher placing in the gaming table.

Thread: Re: 2-Player-Rule german 2-Spieler-Regel deutsch

email — 2008-02-14T16:25:38+00:00

So I'm happy that everything is correct in this translation! We did really have lots of fun playing with two! :D

Image

Merg — 2007-12-28T10:29:57+00:00

Lonely caravan at end of game