Game: League of Six

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

dilli — 2008-11-14T08:57:00+00:00

smok wrote:
or maybe for when the original set is seised by Tax collectors

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

smok — 2008-11-14T07:55:35+00:00

or maybe for when the original set is seised by Tax collectors

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

Krusten — 2008-11-13T18:19:11+00:00

Indeed, just a extra set for when the original set is stolen, lost in a fire, ...

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

dilli — 2008-11-11T21:46:01+00:00

rmarine wrote:

I'm not sure if this was only an Essen 08 giveaway.

That´s it!

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

rmarine — 2008-11-11T20:07:03+00:00

GeoMan wrote:
Are these replacements needed? My copy of the expansion bought from an online store didn't include any replacement cards...

The only difference i noticed is that the 6th player token is a wooden wagon while the base game had simple wooden pawns.

I don't think that the replacements are needed.

The markers I was given replaced the original player figures with wagons so that they were compatable with the 6th player wagon included in the expansion. The colours changed slightly too (eg the blue is more a cornflower blue now) so replacement round tokens were also included. As I mentioned, I was also given "replacements" for all of the cards ... I use this word advisedly; they may be just a back up set but I'm sure the lady said they were replacements but seeing as how I can't see any differences, I can't see what they replace.

I'm not sure if this was only an Essen 08 giveaway.

Thread: Re: Replacement Cards

GeoMan — 2008-11-11T19:58:06+00:00

Are these replacements needed? My copy of the expansion bought from an online store didn't include any replacement cards...

The only difference i noticed is that the 6th player token is a wooden wagon while the base game had simple wooden pawns.

Thread: Replacement Cards

rmarine — 2008-11-11T19:40:18+00:00

I'm hoping someone can help to refresh my memory.

At Essen last month, I picked up the League of Six expansion, Loyal Retinue. When I bought it, the nice lady on the stall also gave me replacement blocks and player markers, which I know replace the originals to match the new 6th player pieces in Loyal Retinue.

However, she also gave me replacement Town, Civic Leader and Guard cards and I can't for the life of me remember what she said regarding these cards. I know I'm getting old ...

Does anyone know the purpose of these new cards ... are they straight replacements for the originals 'cos at a quick glance they look exactly the same.

Thanks in advance ...

Image

pakeleive — 2008-10-29T12:31:54+00:00

Carriages for the main game got with expansion

Image

Grimwold — 2008-10-10T19:33:44+00:00

League of Six at Beyond Monopoly! York

Image

diddle74 — 2008-09-06T02:41:02+00:00

playing

Thread: Re: Come on, let's play tax collectors!

blindspot — 2008-07-22T05:40:52+00:00

christophyr wrote:
I recently hosted (and coincidentally won) a three-player session of League of Six. I've had a ding & dent copy of the game sitting on my shelf for a couple months now, and finally got around to pulling it down and forcing it on some people--"Come on, let's play tax collectors! Don't look at me like that, it'll be fun!"
Tax collecting was quite a different prospect in 1466. Considering there were no W-2s and form 1040s to fill out, taxes had to be collected the old fashioned way. I believe there was a lot of bustin' heads and breaking fingers involved.

Thread: Come on, let's play tax collectors!

christophyr — 2008-07-22T04:18:44+00:00

I recently hosted (and coincidentally won) a three-player session of League of Six. I've had a ding & dent copy of the game sitting on my shelf for a couple months now, and finally got around to pulling it down and forcing it on some people--"Come on, let's play tax collectors! Don't look at me like that, it'll be fun!"

While it didn't elicit a compulsive desire for an immediately second game, the first game went quite smoothly and our impressions were positive. It was a good little game with appeal for those who don't mind focusing more on short-term tactics than long-term strategy. We plan to bring it to table again sometime.

The Rules

I did a quick read of the rules a few days before we played, and after having recently read the Monastery rules, the League of Six rules were a joy in comparison--well organized and easy to comprehend on a first reading, intuitive rather than arbitrary, with the concept of how it would play out very easy to grasp just from reading. I was left thinking it would be fun to give it a whirl, and I especially liked the hexagon "tax knobs" for selecting what you collect from your city and the cute little cart and horse pieces.

While my initial impression was that I could easily explain the game to others without ever pulling out the rules, we did trip up once or twice--with remembering to re-order on phase 3, with moving our tax collectors back onto the road after each round, and despite clearly explaining to everyone that they could use influence points to overbid guards everyone including myself forgot to ever try it. It seems like this game has a high amount of ritualistic setup/teardown each round, with the clearing of goods cubes, civic leaders, storage boards, horses, Hussite cards, et cetera, but eventually we became a well-oiled machine and managed to divvy up this work very efficiently.

The Session

In our first round, we were a bit timid with the bidding for cities, but we grew more aggressive in round two, when we were faced with a single 5-prong tax tile and a couple three-prongs. Once we understood the nature of the feedback loop caused by handing guards to the player you are trying to kick out of a city, it became clear that escalation to a high guard-count was likely, and whichever player lost in one round would have a surplus of guards in the next (or later in the same bidding) with which to bully the other players.

Once enough guards were in play, we hit the 12-guard limit more than once, deeming it a key strategy--especially since number of guards is nothing more than a tiebreaker at the end of play. The three-player dynamic seemed to be that whichever player lost a bidding war for the "best" city/tile choice could then use those excess guards plus a few of their own to throw 12 guards at the third player and take the second-best choice away from them without a fight. It doesn't feel very fair when you're the third player, but you're not always the third player. And the guard cost for moving from city to city was very well thought out, as it becomes a way to drain guards from the game so bidding doesn't go on forever. Adding in the random Hussite attacks, you can have a different dynamic each round as one player is lucky enough to be sitting on the road in front of the best city, while another player has to pay two or three guards just to get to where the action is.

Unfortunately, once we finally got a stomach for guard-bidding, it seems we got a lot of three-prong tiles on the board at the same time, with nothing much to fight over. And the tiles with the civic leaders in the center came up earlier in the game, before we'd fully realized how few we would acquire from the storage board and how important they would turn out to be, so the fighting for them wasn't as fierce as it should have been.

The storing of goods, once everyone understood the rules, was fairly intuitive--Puerto Rico shipping with a few more tactical considerations and choices (but much less strategic control). As much as my friends grumbled at the outcomes during each of the goods storage phases, the truth is that (assuming each player makes their most efficient--and guessable--choices) the storage is just an outcome of the tax collection choices which are just an outcome of the city bidding. As soon as those tax tiles are placed and bidding concludes, you can start doing the calculus to determine how tax collection and goods storage will fall out for you.

I believe the orientation of the tax tile arrows and city goods were well conceived because, time and again, we had tough choices--a player really wanted to orient the tax tile arrows one way to get the right goods to earn storage points and civic leaders, but she had to set them sub-optimally to get enough horses to prevent the other players from ruining her plans. And the re-ordering step really does make sense, because getting to determine what you collect after the other players have revealed their choices is an advantage, to help make up for getting the lowest-bid city/tile choice.

Mind you, the above-mentioned "calculus" is of fairly narrow value--you make your optimal choices for a situation not in your control, and sometimes no choice available to you can assure a good outcome. Luck of the tiles (especially with respect to players' comparative access to horses and their tie-breaking city numbers) and properly gauging when to conserve guards and when to spend them are crucial before the storage calculus kicks in. And the player who does best is the player who makes storage choices which are the best compromise between minimizing the gains of the other players and maximizing their own gains. This is clearly the part of the game where players can be the most mean to each other, by preventing them from having access to enough cubes of the right colors to complete a row and get a bonus, or making sure their cubes end up on low-point spaces instead of high point spaces.

Summary

I thought League of Six was a pleasant little game that I would be happy to play again, and my friends agreed--despite the fact that I won. Between-round maintenance is a bit fussy, but the very clear progression through six rounds worth of resources made it clear when the game was ending and gave a good shape (and length of play) to the session.

As cute as they were, the cart & horse pieces seemed extraneous, holding their cubes for a very short time and then just being one more thing you had to remember to cleanup at the end of each round. Perhaps it was just very easy to keep track of storage order with three players and it would be more helpful to have a reminder in a four or five player game--or if we had taken a break and then come back to the table later.

This is a game where you optimize your choices each round and simply attempt to have more good rounds than the other players, rather than making strategic plans that unfold over multiple rounds or building point-generating engines that get more powerful as the game progresses. Players who prefer "pure strategy" games will have lower opinions of League of Six than my group did.

I could perhaps see there being more strategic guard bidding once players know the tax tiles better and can remember, for example, to save up guards because they haven't seen the 5-arrow tile yet, or because there are two tiles with civic leaders remaining in the pile. Six rounds almost feels like too few to allow you to catch up after a bad round or two. I could imagine reducing that problem by making a house variant that extends the game by a couple more rounds, assuming there are enough civic cards left unclaimed to populate the civic side of the storage board.

Overall, though, other players can really hurt you during the storage step and ruin your plans if you aren't first to market, so control freaks and anti-luck gamers beware. Go into this game expecting a light euro focused on round by round tactics, and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Oh, and maybe I missed it, but do the rules mention what the goods are supposed to be? Wine, cloth...peas and hammers? I suspect the hammers would have crushed the peas in the back of the wagons.

Thread: Re: In stock at Boards and Bits (3-19-08)

mevans444 — 2008-07-09T05:33:52+00:00

They're out of stock now. (Jul 9-08)

Thread: Re: In stock at Boards and Bits (3-19-08)

Morganza — 2008-06-10T21:25:12+00:00

Looking on their website today (2008-06-10) they only have ding-n-dent copies left.

Thread: Re: In stock at Boards and Bits (3-19-08)

mark.gamer — 2008-06-10T21:12:17+00:00

My copy just arrived. This was my favorite new game at BGGCon 2007 so I was thrilled to find it available at B&B.

Thread: Re: League of six only plays five, but I love it all the same.

guttedgeek — 2008-05-23T08:30:16+00:00

BMW's are excellent? Dude, you need to check the reliability stats...Eurocars are terrible in this department. The only area they excel in is at breaking down often and costing a fortune to fix! Hats off to their marketing departments though - they've been fooling consumers for years.

As to Lo6, nice game...exciting? hardly...but nice all the same.

Thread: League of six only plays five, but I love it all the same.

citylife — 2008-05-22T04:45:49+00:00

The thing about something new is that it is meant to be different, it is meant to be innovative and do something that hasn’t been done before. Make it stylish, make it simple, make it functional and the next thing you know the public is naming anything that looks like your product as your product. Well done to the Ipod.

That’s the model, that’s how innovation works, and as a result there is often little kudos for the product that just performs well. Its nothing new, in fact you’ve probably seen it in a ton of different places before but it does it well. It’s a solid performer whose point of difference is it’s excellence. Perhaps that’s why people in NZ still buy BMWs. My feeling is BMWs don’t have an innovative bone in there body but I would still consider one for their refined excellence.

So refined excellence is the label I am going to give League of Six. The blueprint is quite simple, bid for an unequal set of resources, gain those resources and then trade them in for rewards. Every good euro has bonus points to sort out the men from the boys at the end and this is no exception. League of six is a pure euro, and you know what, I love it.

Trading in medieval Europe may be the theme of every second listed game on the geek but few games implement it as well as this game. Aside from the ‘pantry’ where you trade goods, the rest of the elements flow together seamlessly. Bidding is not quite as simple as I portrait it but soldiers are the currency of the bidding where soldiers are required to move you from town to town or to boot a rival out of town. They could have used money but the soldiers are just an example of how the theme fits the game really well. The art is beautiful, not my cup of tea, but I appreciate the detail and quality. Of special note is the cart and horses. Each player has a cart to place there goods on and a space to slide in the horses. Horses determine what order you play in and are really important and each turn every player is given a set of horses to hitch to their cart reflecting the turn order. Another nice touch that emphasises the quality of the game.

I won’t tell you how to play, after all by my own admission it replicates every other you might have played. Needless to say, if you understand euros then you will grasp the mechanics. One point of interest is the way in which resources are decided on. Players don’t bid in a traditional form yet it appears to be bidding all the same. Instead players occupy a town and anyone who wants them to leave must provide them soldiers (pay them) to do so. Moving cities costs soldiers as well (you need an escort of course) so it is a little confusing. Ultimately though soldiers will determine the city you select and implicit in that is the resources you will get. These can be vastly unequal and so to my mind it is bidding.

Overall league of six was a classy product. I don’t know how it will wear in the long run, but it has left me wanting more and I look forward to managing the many tradeoffs in the future. Watch this game though, what game

Thread: Re: Why stay in cities at each new round?

blueatheart — 2008-05-13T21:38:37+00:00

blindspot wrote:
Sticking strictly with the thread topic, how do you think the game would play out if you stayed in the cities per the rules and instead of randomly picking a siege city, you just siege the city next in clockwise order. That way the shut downs would be predictable and thus plannable.

This would likely change the game too much, and could unbalance things easily. If you have a structure with 4 players, say, where you have 2 blocked cities on either side of an open city, it won't matter how lucrative that open city winds up being, it will likely be either the last or second-to-last chosen, due to a knowledge of 3 knights just to get in and out of there.

Personally, I like the random nature of the city draws, just not how it impacts the players.

Seth's go through the deck twice method could be interesting, but the last turn would likewise be known. I'm not sure why the simplest method (pulling people off each turn to recreate a turn 1 setup) shouldn't at least be tried first.

Thread: Re: Why stay in cities at each new round?

blindspot — 2008-05-13T21:23:46+00:00

Sticking strictly with the thread topic, how do you think the game would play out if you stayed in the cities per the rules and instead of randomly picking a siege city, you just siege the city next in clockwise order. That way the shut downs would be predictable and thus plannable.

Thread: Re: League of Six - Session Report

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T21:17:36+00:00

the items I posted above were aggregate concerns of my friends and I/ Personally I also don't mind HTI, and I don't mind the sameness from round to round too much either (though I generally enjoy story arc in games where it occurs).

The big niggling concern is the "Luck of the Draw" aspect above. There's a related issue which my friends are complaining about but I haven't personally noticed yet, in that if you go last in a round, all the bidding wars will be more or less done, and you'll be left with a crappy city (albeit for free). I don't know if i agree with that, or that it's bad, but it's come up in these threads.

Thread: Re: League of Six - Session Report

gschloesser — 2008-05-13T20:38:12+00:00

sedjtroll wrote:
After my third game, my friends and I are really questioning whether this game feels too underdeveloped for us. in particular, we have issue with the following aspects of the game:

- Hidden Trackable Information. I personally don't have a problem with this, but some of my friends have leveraged this complaint. Soldiers in hand are trackable as well as the number of each Civic Leader. Since the main part of the game is bidding and a big scoring aspect is based on Civic leaders it is relatively important to be mindful of these things. this is "fixed" easily enough by those who think it needs fixing by playing with hands open.

- "Luck of the Draw." Each round players start in the city they ended in last time, and each round the auction tiles and the cities under siege are randomly determined. therefore any given starting location for the round might be "better" or "worse" than another, based on nothing but which cards/tiles happened to come up. Why not retrieve the pawns and play every round like round 1, where you begin at any city you want without having to pay to get there?

- Each Round Is Just Like the Last. I hadn't thought about this until I typed the last paragraph. There's no story arc in this game at all. Doing well or poorly in one round has no bearing on the next. you just do the Auction/Shipping 6 times and you're done. The second half of the game uses different shipping tiles which may be a little more lucrative, but that just means you do the same stuff and get more points for it. The city tiles are double sided, why don't those start on the 'basic' side and flip over to the 'advanced' side at the 1/2 way point or something? Having played 1 game with the 'advanced' tiles and a couple with the basic, I'm not sure there seems to be a lot of difference, just more stuff per tile (I have not investigated this).

For a game that's "in the running for the best Essen release" it's interesting to me that we ran into these issues - have you guys run into anything similar? I enjoy the game while playing, but I'm thinking it's really not that good a game.

I've now played the game probably 7 or 8 times, and still thoroughly enjoy it every time I play. Fortunately, it has also gone over extremely well with most folks in our group, and with most folks outside the group to whom I've taught it. So, for me, it still remains one of the best releases from last year's Essen.

The "trackable" information doesn't bother me one bit. Yes, information is trackable, but only for folks who desire to spend the necessary mental efforts to track such information. I never do try to accurately track such things. I'm happy if I have a general idea of what folks possess, and frankly sort of enjoy being surprised when my estimates are off a bit. For folks who feel they need to know this information, then playing with open holdings is certainly a viable option.

Regarding the "sameness" of each round, I'll certainly admit that is true. However, it honestly doesn't bother me. I find each round exciting and tense, and playing multiple rounds doesn't diminish the excitement for me.

Thread: Re: League of Six - Session Report

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T20:28:19+00:00

blueatheart wrote:
the advanced tiles make the cities more "distinct" from one another. You may have notice the larger disparity between horse availability in the various cities, as well as other quantities. The basic ones appear more homogeneous.
I guess I'd be interested in looking at the 2 side f the tiles and comparing them. I haven't yet done that.

I'm interested in seeing how these proposed variants play out before writing it off, myself.
And well you should, you're the one with the cash investment here

Thread: Re: League of Six - Session Report

blueatheart — 2008-05-13T20:25:10+00:00

sedjtroll wrote:
- Each Round Is Just Like the Last. I hadn't thought about this until I typed the last paragraph. There's no story arc in this game at all. Doing well or poorly in one round has no bearing on the next. you just do the Auction/Shipping 6 times and you're done. The second half of the game uses different shipping tiles which may be a little more lucrative, but that just means you do the same stuff and get more points for it. The city tiles are double sided, why don't those start on the 'basic' side and flip over to the 'advanced' side at the 1/2 way point or something? Having played 1 game with the 'advanced' tiles and a couple with the basic, I'm not sure there seems to be a lot of difference, just more stuff per tile (I have not investigated this).

Well, there are soldiers...

Also, the advanced tiles make the cities more "distinct" from one another. You may have notice the larger disparity between horse availability in the various cities, as well as other quantities. The basic ones appear more homogeneous.

For a game that's "in the running for the best Essen release" it's interesting to me that we ran into these issues - have you guys run into anything similar? I enjoy the game while playing, but I'm thinking it's really not that good a game.

I'm interested in seeing how these proposed variants play out before writing it off, myself.

Thread: Re: Long Review of League of Six

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T20:18:12+00:00

blueatheart wrote:
Most people take the latter.
This may or may not be true, but either way majority rule does not the better play make.

This is why I spent 6 points last night.
So was that the good play, or the wrong play? You paid 6 points when 3 of the 4 cities were offering 6 goods... I thought it was odd.

sedjtroll wrote:

Revealing the hidden trackable info is a "standard" fix for that kind of thing (for people who think it needs fixing). I'm sure that would work fine.

I do like the idea of shuffling some Civic Leaders into the soldier deck (and of course then making it a face down draw whenever you get soldiers from the deck). It may or may not be cool to be able to pay with those as if they were soldiers - but I'd say better if you could not.

This does get rid of the perfectly trackable nature of the money as well as the Civic Leaders. I think it would be cool.

Remember also that there are *exactly* as many cards as are needed in the game. Taking something away at the beginning provides a chance for problems.
I'm suggesting there would have to be additional Civic leaders (or just park 9 of the soldier cards to be brown/Green/Purple)

Thread: Re: Long Review of League of Six

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T20:16:00+00:00

Lou-Dawg wrote:
So what do you guys think about number of players? I think I remember you commenting that it played better with four than three?

I suspect five would be too chaotic for my tastes. Is four the magic number?
3 players was pretty horrible, at least with the basic city tiles. It seemed there was often not enough goods to go around, many times you couldn't get a bonus... maybe this just means that in a smaller game Horses become more important, because that's the only way you're going to get a line completed and earn a bonus.

Also had to pay a lot more to walk around because 3 cities were unused. I'm not sure that's so terrible though.

Thread: Re: Long Review of League of Six

blueatheart — 2008-05-13T20:15:29+00:00

Most people take the latter.
This may or may not be true, but either way majority rule does not the better play make.

This is why I spent 6 points last night.

sedjtroll wrote:

Revealing the hidden trackable info is a "standard" fix for that kind of thing (for people who think it needs fixing). I'm sure that would work fine.

I do like the idea of shuffling some Civic Leaders into the soldier deck (and of course then making it a face down draw whenever you get soldiers from the deck). It may or may not be cool to be able to pay with those as if they were soldiers - but I'd say better if you could not.

This does get rid of the perfectly trackable nature of the money as well as the Civic Leaders. I think it would be cool.

Remember also that there are *exactly* as many cards as are needed in the game. Taking something away at the beginning provides a chance for problems.

Thread: Re: League of Six - Session Report

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T20:13:12+00:00

After my third game, my friends and I are really questioning whether this game feels too underdeveloped for us. in particular, we have issue with the following aspects of the game:

- Hidden Trackable Information. I personally don't have a problem with this, but some of my friends have leveraged this complaint. Soldiers in hand are trackable as well as the number of each Civic Leader. Since the main part of the game is bidding and a big scoring aspect is based on Civic leaders it is relatively important to be mindful of these things. this is "fixed" easily enough by those who think it needs fixing by playing with hands open.

- "Luck of the Draw." Each round players start in the city they ended in last time, and each round the auction tiles and the cities under siege are randomly determined. therefore any given starting location for the round might be "better" or "worse" than another, based on nothing but which cards/tiles happened to come up. Why not retrieve the pawns and play every round like round 1, where you begin at any city you want without having to pay to get there?

Other things that could address this problem would be something to tie round N to round N-1: something like not shuffling the used cards back into the supply (to determine which cities are unused), or revealing ahead of time which tiles will be in which city next round, or which cities will be under siege. I understand why this isn't done, it's a lot more fiddley and complicated than it needs to be - a better solution would be to start each round fresh. then the only complaint would be that each round is just like the last (which is already basically the case).

- Each Round Is Just Like the Last. I hadn't thought about this until I typed the last paragraph. There's no story arc in this game at all. Doing well or poorly in one round has no bearing on the next. you just do the Auction/Shipping 6 times and you're done. The second half of the game uses different shipping tiles which may be a little more lucrative, but that just means you do the same stuff and get more points for it. The city tiles are double sided, why don't those start on the 'basic' side and flip over to the 'advanced' side at the 1/2 way point or something? Having played 1 game with the 'advanced' tiles and a couple with the basic, I'm not sure there seems to be a lot of difference, just more stuff per tile (I have not investigated this).

For a game that's "in the running for the best Essen release" it's interesting to me that we ran into these issues - have you guys run into anything similar? I enjoy the game while playing, but I'm thinking it's really not that good a game.

Thread: Re: Long Review of League of Six

Lou-Dawg — 2008-05-13T20:04:43+00:00

So what do you guys think about number of players? I think I remember you commenting that it played better with four than three?

I suspect five would be too chaotic for my tastes. Is four the magic number?

Thread: Re: Why stay in cities at each new round?

Lou-Dawg — 2008-05-13T19:59:32+00:00

Combine this with Seth's suggestion to not shuffle the cards and I think the game would become more interesting.

By not shuffling the cards, you ensure that over the course of six rounds, there is a more unique mixture of goods and options. Its nothing huge but it is more desirable in a game IMHO. It also lets you plan a little more before the rounds in which you know precisely which cities will be shut off (rounds 3 and 6 in a four player game, rounds 2 4 and 6 in a three player game, etc.) One thing I really look for in games is the ability to plan strategies that unfold over the course of the game.

I don't think the game was poorly designed, but I suspect the playtesters were not vigorous enough.

Thread: Re: League of Six - Session Report

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T19:58:51+00:00

Based on another thread it would appear that the correct rule is that you can choose a row for shipping even if you do not have any cubes to ship in that row. I think that's probably one of the main features of the game, you can go first, drain people's cubes, and collect the bonus.

Oddly, my friend's copy of the rules (which came with his game) appears to be inaccurate - it appears to be missing a clause that appears in other people's copies, which makes it very clear that this is possible and legal.

Thread: Re: Why stay in cities at each new round?

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T19:53:05+00:00

I agree about retrieving the pawns.

I don't think it's necessarily bad to go last, but I'm not sure about that at this point.

I kind of agree with your underdeveloped comment.

Thread: Re: Long Review of League of Six

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T19:48:21+00:00

blueatheart wrote:
sedjtroll wrote:

Some things that would improve this game greatly: compensation for going last in the first round,
I don't think this is necessary at all.

You've also never gone last in any of the rounds, that I can remember (at the very least, last night). It sucks. You don't get a chance to get in on the bidding wars, all of the mechanisms of getting bid out of a good place, building up your soldier-count somewhere else and coming back to outbid have often taken place by the time you get a turn, and you usually have a choice between bidding 5 and spending 2 soldiers to get there for the good stuff, or going to the last crappy place (and spending 3 soldiers to get there).
How do you go last? You go last by paying a lot in the previous round. If I haven't gone last that means I've been "settling" for lesser auctions rather than paying through the nose, right?

Most people take the latter.
This may or may not be true, but either way majority rule does not the better play make.

sedjtroll wrote:
How do you think the game would be if a few single Brown, Green, and Purple guys were shuffled into the Soldier deck (like 3 of each?), so when you get soldiers you either get money or something worth points. this would effectively hide both money as well as leader in color holdings.

Not for me. Flipped over cards sounds like a good idea.
Revealing the hidden trackable info is a "standard" fix for that kind of thing (for people who think it needs fixing). I'm sure that would work fine.

I do like the idea of shuffling some Civic Leaders into the soldier deck (and of course then making it a face down draw whenever you get soldiers from the deck). It may or may not be cool to be able to pay with those as if they were soldiers - but I'd say better if you could not.

This does get rid of the perfectly trackable nature of the money as well as the Civic Leaders. I think it would be cool.

If/when we play this again, [starting each round fresh as opposed to on the road] WILL happen. The other way is simply stupid.
I'm all for that.

Thread: Why stay in cities at each new round?

blueatheart — 2008-05-13T19:05:15+00:00

This is the stupidest rule! There is simply nothing relating round 1 to round 2, so why should one have to travel from a randomly determined set of good/bad cities?

The next time I play this game, it will be with a few modifications. Cards (soldiers/brown/green/purple) will all be face-up, and each player will completely retrieve their pawn between rounds, and always play like it's round 1.

I suspect there will be "too many" soldier cards to bid with, but I've never reached 12 yet anyway, so I don't have much of a problem.

Perhaps another good variant would be to allow everyone to choose a city first, then start outbidding one another? I'm not sure how this would affect the soldier-return strategy. Going last is pretty bad, but this is at least something which you have a causal effect for (by bidding so high on a city).

The more I play, the more the game feels underdeveloped.

Thread: Re: Long Review of League of Six

blueatheart — 2008-05-13T18:51:12+00:00

sedjtroll wrote:

Some things that would improve this game greatly: compensation for going last in the first round,
I don't think this is necessary at all.

You've also never gone last in any of the rounds, that I can remember (at the very least, last night). It sucks. You don't get a chance to get in on the bidding wars, all of the mechanisms of getting bid out of a good place, building up your soldier-count somewhere else and coming back to outbid have often taken place by the time you get a turn, and you usually have a choice between bidding 5 and spending 2 soldiers to get there for the good stuff, or going to the last crappy place (and spending 3 soldiers to get there). Most people take the latter.

perfect information (why are cards turned face down when you win them?)
How do you think the game would be if a few single Brown, Green, and Purple guys were shuffled into the Soldier deck (like 3 of each?), so when you get soldiers you either get money or something worth points. this would effectively hide both money as well as leader in color holdings.

Not for me. Flipped over cards sounds like a good idea.

placing all meeples anew each round instead of having to move them from where they were last round (what does the random card draw contribute to the game?)
I agree that this might be better - I don't see any value in differing costs for players to go to various cities based solely on where they want last round and which cities happen to come up. Maybe if the next rounds auction tiles were known, or if the unused cities didn't shuffle back in, or something... but as it stands it seems like starting anew each round would be better.

If/when we play this again, this WILL happen. The other way is simply stupid.

Thread: Re: Long Review of League of Six

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T18:01:12+00:00

Lou-Dawg wrote:
I would say it is a rather mediocre game. I've only played it once, but nothing really excited me. I had the unfortunate situation of going last on the first turn in a 4 player game, and the first two rounds killed me. Regardless, everyone was within two spaces of another player at the end of the game (with me in last).
I agree that it's seeming pretty mediocre after about 3 plays.

Some things that would improve this game greatly: compensation for going last in the first round,
I don't think this is necessary at all.

perfect information (why are cards turned face down when you win them?)
How do you think the game would be if a few single Brown, Green, and Purple guys were shuffled into the Soldier deck (like 3 of each?), so when you get soldiers you either get money or something worth points. this would effectively hide both money as well as leader in color holdings.

placing all meeples anew each round instead of having to move them from where they were last round (what does the random card draw contribute to the game?)
I agree that this might be better - I don't see any value in differing costs for players to go to various cities based solely on where they want last round and which cities happen to come up. Maybe if the next rounds auction tiles were known, or if the unused cities didn't shuffle back in, or something... but as it stands it seems like starting anew each round would be better.

Thread: Re: Long Review of League of Six

Lou-Dawg — 2008-05-13T10:41:13+00:00

GeoMan wrote:
Barkam wrote:
Thanks for chiming in Ralph. I will get the game because I think it'll be a nice quick game with quite a bit of depth. I am glad you didn't find it flat. I hope I'll come to the same conclusions.

Keep in mind that you can't plan a lot as there's quite some chaos especially in a 5 player game: it may happen that you deliver last with only a few goods and get more points from someone with more goods playing before you.

The player sitting order is important in regard with who has the fastest horses. If the first player to deliver is to your right, he can easily screw you no matter how many goods you have...

Or you can deliver later but because the players who deliver before you are on your left you may gain more with fewer goods...

Quite chaotic and i am on the fence if it is a good or a very mediocre game in the long run.

I would say it is a rather mediocre game. I've only played it once, but nothing really excited me. I had the unfortunate situation of going last on the first turn in a 4 player game, and the first two rounds killed me. Regardless, everyone was within two spaces of another player at the end of the game (with me in last).

Some things that would improve this game greatly: compensation for going last in the first round, perfect information (why are cards turned face down when you win them?), placing all meeples anew each round instead of having to move them from where they were last round (what does the random card draw contribute to the game?)

Like I said, I didn't find a whole lot to like. The bidding mechanism is enjoyable and is the game's strongest aspect by far, but I find the horse mechanic and the movement mechanic to be severely lacking.

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

SteveK2 — 2008-05-13T06:56:16+00:00

sedjtroll wrote:
I played this at my friend's house tonight, and checked the rulebook again for the aforementioned clause. I did not see it. I guess maybe it was a weird printing/translation? Is that possible?

FWIW, the "if you have any goods" clause does appear in the English language rules from CGE in their Essen 07 edition. I've no idea if there have been reprints.

The relevent clause is the first sentence in the third paragraph on page 6 (under 5. Storing Goods).

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

sedjtroll — 2008-05-13T06:02:37+00:00

I played this at my friend's house tonight, and checked the rulebook again for the aforementioned clause. I did not see it. I guess maybe it was a weird printing/translation? Is that possible?

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

karel_danek — 2008-05-11T15:35:06+00:00

blindspot wrote:
sedjtroll wrote:
I also wonder why during the shipping phase you go around the table clockwise rather than in turn order (based on horses). I'm not sure whether I like it, don't like it, or even care - just seems odd that everything else in the game has a specific turn order, and that is around-the-table.
Well for one thing it makes it very easy to determine which players goods will go into the row. If you were to base that order on something else I think game friction would increase significantly and that would be no fun at all.

I agree.

In addition I think it adds extra strategy included in Bidding and Collecting phase. Just another parameter to count with.

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

blindspot — 2008-05-06T19:28:43+00:00

sedjtroll wrote:
I also wonder why during the shipping phase you go around the table clockwise rather than in turn order (based on horses). I'm not sure whether I like it, don't like it, or even care - just seems odd that everything else in the game has a specific turn order, and that is around-the-table.
Well for one thing it makes it very easy to determine which players goods will go into the row. If you were to base that order on something else I think game friction would increase significantly and that would be no fun at all.

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

sedjtroll — 2008-05-06T19:04:43+00:00

blindspot wrote:
This seems pretty clear to me too (bold text mine)

The League of Six Rules wrote:
The player who collected the most horses chooses one row on one of the two tiles.

If you have any of the goods depicted in the row you chose, you must put those goods in the corresponding spaces in the row. For each block placed, score the number of infl uence points denoted in that space. You must fill in every space you can.

If you can’t fill the entire row, then the other players get a chance to fill it, starting with the player on your left and continuing clockwise. Each player must fill in every space he or she can and collect the points for it. Continue until everyone has had a chance or until the row is filled.

If the players fill a row, the player who chose that row gets a bonus even if he or she could not contribute a single block.

So your interpretation:
it could also mean that you nominate a row on your turn, and then ship if you can (don't if you can't), drain your opponents' cubes (for which they score points), and collect the bonus.
is the correct one.
Thank you. Either I misread my friend's rulebook (more than once), or his book is somehow misprinted 9a different version/edition?) - I did not notice the clause even if he or she could not contribute a single block.

I believe this is the designer's intent because that's what it says in the rules.
Excellent, thanks! I suspected the same, and will play that way from now on.

We played a 3 player game last week with the incorrect rule, and it was kind of lame. I think 3 player in general is kind of lame, this game seems better suited to more players. Our first game was with 4 players, and that seemed better than the 3p game. I don't see why this game does not support 6 players.

The reason 3p seemed so bad was that there weren't enough goods to go around, so rows could very easily not be filled. Maybe this just puts more emphasis on Horses though, which might actually be a good thing.

The handing out of the horse team tiles is to indicate the order of placement. A little supply of them would only serve the temporary purpose of counting up to see who has the most and the least for turn order. Once you know the order you need some way to hold that information because the storing goods phase takes some time. I suppose they could have done it with numbers instead of pictures of horses.

For me though. the cart tiles serve three very useful functions as they are. They show you who is which color, they show you the storing goods order (most horses fastest, so first), and they serve as an open spot for each player to store their cubes so that other players can see what cubes they have which is very important (no cube hiding!). To get that all onto one little space is pretty elegant IMO.
Little piles of horse tokens would do exactly the same thing as the horse tiles, but without the transaction of changing the (currently virtual) horse tokens into horse tiles. It's merely a personal preference.

I also wonder why during the shipping phase you go around the table clockwise rather than in turn order (based on horses). I'm not sure whether I like it, don't like it, or even care - just seems odd that everything else in the game has a specific turn order, and that is around-the-table.

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

blindspot — 2008-05-02T21:19:51+00:00

This seems pretty clear to me too (bold text mine)

The League of Six Rules wrote:
The player who collected the most horses chooses one row on one of the two tiles.

If you have any of the goods depicted in the row you chose, you must put those goods in the corresponding spaces in the row. For each block placed, score the number of infl uence points denoted in that space. You must fill in every space you can.

If you can’t fill the entire row, then the other players get a chance to fill it, starting with the player on your left and continuing clockwise. Each player must fill in every space he or she can and collect the points for it. Continue until everyone has had a chance or until the row is filled.

If the players fill a row, the player who chose that row gets a bonus even if he or she could not contribute a single block.

So your interpretation:
it could also mean that you nominate a row on your turn, and then ship if you can (don't if you can't), drain your opponents' cubes (for which they score points), and collect the bonus.
is the correct one.

This is how we've been playing it. I believe this is the designer's intent because that's what it says in the rules.

The handing out of the horse team tiles is to indicate the order of placement. A little supply of them would only serve the temporary purpose of counting up to see who has the most and the least for turn order. Once you know the order you need some way to hold that information because the storing goods phase takes some time. I suppose they could have done it with numbers instead of pictures of horses.

For me though. the cart tiles serve three very useful functions as they are. They show you who is which color, they show you the storing goods order (most horses fastest, so first), and they serve as an open spot for each player to store their cubes so that other players can see what cubes they have which is very important (no cube hiding!). To get that all onto one little space is pretty elegant IMO.

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

asmiles — 2008-05-02T20:30:19+00:00

rulebook wrote:
If the players fill a row, the player who chose that row gets a bonus even if he or she could not contribute a single block.

I think the rules are pretty clear that you don't have to have cubes in order to chose a row and possibly collect a bonus.

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

lorna — 2008-05-02T20:22:58+00:00

tool wrote:
We played that you always nominate a row. I can't recall any verbiage in the rules that would indicate you have to have goods, but it's been a while since I read them.

we played the same too

Thread: Re: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

tool — 2008-05-02T18:18:48+00:00

We played that you always nominate a row. I can't recall any verbiage in the rules that would indicate you have to have goods, but it's been a while since I read them.

Thread: "Shipping" with no cubes - rulebook ambiguous

sedjtroll — 2008-05-02T18:13:32+00:00

The first time I played League of 6 a rules question came up that was not answered by the rulebook. We took the most literal interpretation of the rule that we could, but while playing it felt a lot like we must have interpreted the rule incorrectly.

When it's time to ship goods to the storage tiles, players take turns nominating a row, then everyone in seat order must ship what they can to that row (like a miniature captain phase from Puerto Rico). Suppose it's my turn to nominate a row, and I have no cubes. Am I allowed to nominate a row? Do other players have to ship to it? If it fills, do I get the bonus?

The rules are ambiguous, they make it sound as if you must have cubes to ship in order to nominate a row, however it could also mean that you nominate a row on your turn, and then ship if you can (don't if you can't), drain your opponents' cubes (for which they score points), and collect the bonus.

The latter makes a lot of sense to me because otherwise the horses mean very little, especially if you're getting them instead of cubes.

Does anyone have a definitive answer to this? How have you been playing it? Does anyone know the designer's intent?

And finally, does anyone know why there isn't a little supply of horse-head coins (like those depicted on the tiles) to actually hand out rather than the stupid horse team tiles?

Thread: Los at Europamasters 2008

karel_danek — 2008-04-23T00:28:16+00:00

Hi everybody!

I just wanted you to know LoS is the first game to be picked for this year's Europamasters.

http://www.europemasters.org/latest_news.htm

Filip

Thread: Re: Cube placement question

sedjtroll — 2008-04-15T18:14:22+00:00

There should be no unfilled rows for which you have a cube when it's your turn to nominate. Instead you would have had to place that cube when that unfinished row was nominated.

Thread: Re: League of Six - Session Report

sedjtroll — 2008-04-15T18:09:05+00:00

LemonyFresh wrote:
gschloesser wrote:
I will say that in my first few games we did play a rule incorrectly. We were playing that a player could not open a slot in the markets if he did not place at least one commodity there. We later discovered that this was incorrect. After playing a few times with the correct rule, I feel I prefer playing in our original, incorrect manner. Any thoughts on this?

Yes - I strongly prefer the correct rule. It strengthens the competition for horses even more, which in turn allows the added viable strategy paths of bidding low / taking a seemingly less-desirable town in order to go last in the rotating-the-hex turn order, and also gives you the ability to spend a turn refreshing knights and forgoing goods, while not falling too far back in the VP track / Technicolor Monk race.

- Anthony
I agree with the logic behind your interpretation of the rule, but on reading the rulebook last night (first play) I wasn't sure I could convince anybody that that is the correct interpretation...

It says if you put a cube in a row, then others have to 'ship' there too, and then if it fills up you get the bonus. I'd like to think you're right, that you could choose a row without having the appropriate colored cubes, and get the bonus when it fills... but on a strict reading of the rules, I think that "if" would argue otherwise.

Is there a ruling somewhere?

Also, might it be a good play to get lots of cubes in like 2 colors, select a row you can't add cubes to (make others drain their cubes to fill it), then you'll get to (a) ship some of your cubes on their turn, and maybe even (b) select another row (though this might be unlikely to fill)? Seems like with fewer players this could work well. Maybe that's the point.

Thread: Re: In stock at Boards and Bits (3-19-08)

dcorban — 2008-04-03T20:18:49+00:00

I snagged this game from B&B and it looks neat. I went through the rules, but I haven't had a chance to play it since I am currently 1500 miles from my gaming friends.

Thread: Re: League of Six - Session Report

LemonyFresh — 2008-03-27T13:04:36+00:00

gschloesser wrote:
I will say that in my first few games we did play a rule incorrectly. We were playing that a player could not open a slot in the markets if he did not place at least one commodity there. We later discovered that this was incorrect. After playing a few times with the correct rule, I feel I prefer playing in our original, incorrect manner. Any thoughts on this?

Yes - I strongly prefer the correct rule. It strengthens the competition for horses even more, which in turn allows the added viable strategy paths of bidding low / taking a seemingly less-desirable town in order to go last in the rotating-the-hex turn order, and also gives you the ability to spend a turn refreshing knights and forgoing goods, while not falling too far back in the VP track / Technicolor Monk race.

- Anthony

Thread: Re: In stock at Boards and Bits (3-19-08)

ikiru — 2008-03-24T20:38:19+00:00

Roger Yim wrote:
With the order I just placed, I've finally acquired all the games on my Essen 2007 wishlist. Happy dance!!!

So, I suppose its now your responsibility to teach this game to us at bgg2008.

-ikiru

*enjoy the sauce*

Thread: Re: In stock at Boards and Bits (3-19-08)

blindspot — 2008-03-20T00:47:14+00:00

Glad to see this is available finally. I broke down in the beginning of February and purchased a used copy (signed by the designer ) from the BGG marketplace for $60 shipped. It was worth it.

(edit: Comparing this to the other available retailers on boardgameprices.com, $48.71 is a pretty good deal)

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dilli — 2008-02-04T07:10:01+00:00

From a prototype to a game

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brainst0rm — 2008-02-01T16:47:49+00:00

Game in Progress at LeiriaCon 2008

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brainst0rm — 2008-02-01T16:47:02+00:00

Game in Progress at LeiriaCon 2008

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unittype — 2008-01-27T17:09:13+00:00

Benefits of a chosen city/taxmarker-combination. No horse coins are collected here so this player would probably be the last one to deliver.

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unittype — 2008-01-27T16:11:40+00:00

All cities on the "gold" side of the city cards. Look at the different goods the cities provide in opposite to the normal version.

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unittype — 2008-01-27T16:05:47+00:00

All cities in the "normal version" (first side, white background in the order number circle). Previously images posted had mixed normal and "expert" version.

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unittype — 2008-01-27T15:42:49+00:00

The quality of the wooden markers is not so good, they feel rather second hand.