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darkskies — 2008-08-27T20:17:55+00:00

Gameboard

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darkskies — 2008-08-27T20:10:40+00:00

Scoring chart

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darkskies — 2008-08-27T20:08:23+00:00

Game in progress

Thread: Re: After a few plays

darkskies — 2007-12-18T14:42:00+00:00

No, not yet. Sounds fun though!!

Thread: Re: After a few plays

chrisjwmartin — 2007-12-14T11:36:07+00:00

darkskies wrote:
I'm still not bored of the game and am happy to reccommend it to others.Have you tried the xenophobic strategy yet?

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/252286

Thread: After a few plays

darkskies — 2007-12-06T21:35:20+00:00

I'm still not bored of the game and am happy to reccommend it to others.

Thread: Re: Review after the first play

Soledade — 2007-12-06T18:50:33+00:00

I didn't get this one from Essen because of the rural production. I still think that the game is good enough to be properly produced. I've never played it but after what you've said maybe I'll keep this one under the eye (as we say out here)!
Nice review.
Paulo

Thread: A Corner of a Foreign Town that is FOREVER ENGLAND

chrisjwmartin — 2007-12-06T17:35:10+00:00

One of the guys at my group pulled this out of his bag last night, and as I'm a bit of a political junkie I instantly jumped in to play, along with two others, meaning a four-player game. We sat Red (me), Yellow, White, Black. Before we start, I should point out that though I live in England I'm of good Irish stock, and that my in-game strategy does not reflect in any way my real-life views!

The game consists of vying for influence and votes among the various ethnic communities of 19th century New York. The game owner explained the various rules - very simple - and then mentioned that the different colours represented specific different ethnic groups: red, English; yellow, German, green, Irish; blue, Italian (who start with no board presence and only come in disparately). For amusement value, I decided to roleplay a good old-fashioned WASP. Racist, bigoted, violent: nothing evil would be alien to me. Sure, I figured, I'll probably lose, but it'll be amusing, and at the end I can say I was just making a point about the inevitable failure of racist politics.

I was Red and I started, by placing a campaigner and a cell of English immigrants in Ward 8. Yellow placed two yellow campaigners in the German area, and White placed two campaign workers in the Irish area. We had all decided to try to get a dominance in one racial group. This caused a problem for Black (who had declared himself the Fascist Party!), who placed a campaigner and an Italian immigrant in Ward 1, announcing "Call me Il Duce!". I continued to concentrate my efforts on bringing in English immigrants to my north-western heartland and placing campaigners there to ensure that I could win them all. Yellow did similar with the Germans, but though White tried to exploit his initial advantage in Irish, Black kept importing Italians to a handful of key areas, and Yellow took a couple of Irish favours by importing Irish immigrants. Black also tried importing Italians into the English areas, but there were large numbers of English there by this point and he remained behind. I had not placed any non-English and thus not taken any non-English favours. WASP power!
The first election was quite close - for some of us. I secured the four northern-most English areas, beating off the Black-voting Italian interlopers; Yellow won all of the four German areas and also, after a fierce battle with White, the eastern Irish area, for a total of five; White won four of the remaining Irish areas, three unopposed and one in a win over Black; and Black managed to win just two areas, the southern-most Irish and English areas - "No platform for fascists!", I shouted. This all gave Yellow the Mayoralty, and three bonus points, to put him on eight, to four each for me and White, and two for Black. We all picked up the favours for the ethnic groups we'd focused on: I now had many of those English favours left; Black had piles and piles of favours of various colours and White had several remaining favours, but Yellow was looking vulnerable with only the three German favours he'd picked up remaining, having shot his bolt on that first election. "So all on to Yellow," said White matter-of-factly. I agreed: my anti-fascist crusade would have to wait - but I was still determined not to betray my English-only principle.

Yellow handed out the roles. At first he was going to give the Dog Catcher (campaigner-killer) to White, before I complained loudly that that was the best role. So, I became the Chief of Police (population-killer), White became the Deputy Mayor (favour-collector) and Black became the Council President (area-freezer). I felt I'd done quite badly out of this objectively, but my role fit well with my gameplan, such as it was.
The second year saw an all-out onslaught on Yellow's areas by White and me. White attacked Yellow's Irish majority area strongly, picking up some helpful yellow tokens with his Deputy Mayor role, and attacked one of the German areas using them too; I attacked two of Yellow's German areas, ethnically cleansing them with my Chief of Police power and repopulating them with nice English people. Black was not playing ball, though, and made attacks on both White and me, forcing us to pull back from our attack on Yellow. White's ethnically diverse strategy meant he was hurt more by this, as I was able to purge most of the Italians in my midst - and, in the final move of the final year, I stabbed White, who appeared to be doing rather too well for my liking. This resulted in an absolute disaster for Yellow, who only held one area, while White and Black held three areas each (some were drawn) - allowing me and my "English Only!" party to romp to a solid win with six areas out of fifteen. Points: Me, 13; Yellow, 9; White, 7; Black, 4. I still had bucket-loads of English favours, and of course picked up the three English bonuses. Yes, the others had a more diverse favour portfolio - but I remained the only one with any sizeable stock of English favours, and so I would be hard to hit.

This was made especially so as I didn't give out the Chief of Police, meaning that my loyal English immigrants couldn't be got rid of. White was Deputy Mayor again, which was irrelevant to him as he already had a wide favour collection; Yellow was Dog-Catcher, which meant he would only get three attempts at it as he was right next to me in the turn order; and Black was the Council President, again meaning he would only get three attempts at it, as he was last in the turn order. I felt I'd allocated those pretty cynically - and pretty well.
There was again a heavy attack on the areas of the leader - this time me. Black was especially aggressive, making some large attacks in concentrated form; White attacked another of my areas; Yellow attacked the old German areas I'd taken, and also tried to take the Irish-German mixed area in the south-east. But it was difficult for anyone to take my areas, because I had such a solid lead in English favours and there were so many English already living in my areas. Despite being under attack, I continued my policy of only importing English immigrants, thereby only receiving English favours.
In the following election, Black and White got four areas each, and Yellow and I got three areas each (I lost the old German areas and one of the English areas, to an influx of pesky Italians), with one drawn. I was down to just three of my original English areas. Points: Me, 16; Yellow, 12, White, 12; Black, 11. "All hail Mayor Il Duce!", we shouted, to the mild consternation of some of the other people in the room, but none of us were too disappointed that the 3 bonus Mayoral VPs had gone to the losing player. I still managed to retain the English favours.

The new Mayor handed out the favours: Dog-Catcher to me, as I would only get three shots at it; Council President to Yellow, whose final shot would only affect White; and White became Deputy Mayor again; leaving the Chief of Police on one side - he couldn't afford to risk having his vulnerable Italians purged. "Always Deputy Mayor, and never the Mayor," he said, sadly.
This was a very vicious final round - especially by me, as I still had all of my campaigner-killing chips. Year 2 saw me combine my Dog-catching role and a chip to get rid of three Black campaigners in the northern English section, effectively handing those areas to me. There were renewed scuffles around the other areas as people desperately tried to grab a few final points.
The final election almost mirrored the first one: I secured the four northern English areas, which I'd had in the first election; Yellow secured the four German areas; White got four of the Irish areas, with one other being a draw between Yellow and White; and Black was again reduced to the southern tip, with one Irish and one English area. I secured the Mayoralty by virtue of having most chips: +3. I obviously had the most English, another 2 VPs, and it turned out I had the most Italians, too (leftovers from the Black invasions), for another 2 VPs. I also got (I think) 2 VPs for having the most favours left - all English, of course.
Final points: me, 27; Yellow, 18; White, 18; Black, 13. In achieving this fairly big victory, I had never brought in any non-English immigrants, I had never taken favours from non-English people, and I had spent four years purging non-English people from the city. In short, I had been an unambiguously racist New York politician, and had been rewarded for it by being elected Mayor twice and winning the game easily.

At this point, one would often hear "the moral of the story" - but in these circumstances, I think I'd better not...

Thread: A slight alteration

darkskies — 2007-12-04T14:24:59+00:00

The black slander chips are worth point each at the end of the game.

You start with 3 chips each for uses in terms 2, 3, and 4.

You can only play one per term in terms 2, 3, and 4.

Instead of keeping the unused ones until the end of the game, as you can only use one per term, at the end of the term just cash it in for a point, if you didn't use it, as someone could use 2 in a term if they had not used them in previous terms.

Thread: Review after the first play

darkskies — 2007-11-19T15:12:47+00:00

Don't be fooled by the low budget production of this game. It is a gem. I played it last night for the first time with my usual sunday night group and they all said good things about it.

The rules are straightforward and well laid out. There seems to be a typo on our game board, but thats nothing critical. The board is clear and well laid out.

It is an area majority game with added bidding with favour chips that you accumulate during the game from your actions.

It is based on several elections in manhatten. You gain points by winning areas in elections. The person who takes the most areas in the last election becomes the mayor and hands out the roles to the other players which have a special ability which can be used, which balances the game nicely as the abilities are just enough to gain on the leader as the mayor gets 3 points and no ability.

You place your workers in areas and also can place immigrant cubes in areas to gain favour chips. After each election (there are 4) all but one worker, from the winning player, are removed. The immigrant cubes stay on the board and the person who controls the areas with a certain colour of cube gets extra favour chips.

You can also use slander to remove other players workers by using chips.

We played the game with a rules explanation in about an hour and we are not very quick players. There was 4 players, it can take upto 5 players. It was very fluid and there was little downtime.

We really enjoyed the game and one of the group said 'it certainly deserves a good production' which I have to agree.

I've not played any of the other stratamax games yet. I have heard that this is the best of the 3 from various sources, but I will reserve judgement, but they will have to be good games to be better than Tammany hall.

Long term playability, I really can't judge. After a few more plays I'll post again, but it may be some time as I got a truckload of games at Essen!

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JavaJack — 2007-07-19T22:33:50+00:00

Game components

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JavaJack — 2007-07-14T21:49:00+00:00

Box front

Game: Tammany Hall

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Thread: Re: After a few plays

Thread: Re: After a few plays

Thread: After a few plays

Thread: Re: Review after the first play

Thread: A Corner of a Foreign Town that is FOREVER ENGLAND

Thread: A slight alteration

Thread: Review after the first play

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