Game: Clans

Thread: Re: Cycloop

russ — 2008-08-05T11:32:25+00:00

I am only familiar with it now after googling and searching a bit for it... Looks interesting; I just joined.

http://www.cycloopspellen.nl/ in case others are curious and don't know the URL.

Thread: Cycloop

ideogram — 2008-08-05T07:31:38+00:00

There doesn't seem to be anywhere to ask for help with Cycloop, is anyone here familiar with it?

They have this weird scoring system where the winner always gets 50 points and the other players get 48 minus their difference with the winning score. Why do they use this?

Please let me know if there is anywhere else I can ask about Cycloop.

Image

swuyau — 2008-05-03T13:12:45+00:00

Blue hut

Thread: Re: [Review] Thoughts & Opinions on Theme, Components, and Major Mechanics

Mr Freedly — 2008-04-29T12:57:59+00:00

Whoops is right. My scenario seems to happen often, at least in my games, where a territory of singles get wiped out. However, you are absolutely correct. Thanks for catching that.

Thread: Re: [Review] Thoughts & Opinions on Theme, Components, and Major Mechanics

walkie — 2008-04-29T08:47:14+00:00

Mr Freedly wrote:
As long as only 4 or less colors of huts are represented in a territory everything is just fine. Add the fifth color and they all kill each other and players remove them from the board.

Whoops! Not exactly correct... If all five colors are present, any colors with only a single hut are removed, then the village is scored as usual. For example, if a village is formed with 2 red, 2 blue, 1 yellow, 1 green and 1 black hut, you remove the yellow, green and black huts and score 4 points for red and blue.

Thread: [Review] Thoughts & Opinions on Theme, Components, and Major Mechanics

Mr Freedly — 2008-04-29T03:15:52+00:00

The following are my thoughts and opinions on the components, major mechanic and theme of Clans. Those readers looking for a comprehensive “how to play” will not find that sort of information penned here.

Clans is an area control type strategy game designed by Leo Colovini and published by the Venice Connection in 2002. Clans is currently distributed by Rio Grande Games in the USA.

Clans is manufactured in Germany and bears the trademarks of quality German-style games. The box is sturdy with linen wraps and colorful artwork that conveys the game’s theme. The game’s pieces rest in the well of single compartment cardboard insert with the game board lying over the top.

Clans’ primary components, 60 well-painted wooden huts, were included in a single resealable plastic bag. Clans also includes a small number of die-cut cardboard bits on single counter sheet. One must allow these to lie loose at the bottom of the box or supply his or her own bag or tuck box for storage.

I realize this observation will be deemed by some as pure minutia, however, I mention it as the trend in my most recently published game purchases is to include storage supplies where individual storage compartments for bits are absent. One must conclude that either publishers are feeling magnanimous and including such swag because they have big hearts or consumers want them and this has compelled publishers to budget them into their production costs.

As someone who has been known to do some bean counting I will assume the decision to add such costs are market driven. So for the frugal gamer know that this publisher has saved you some cash. For the lavish gamer or at least for those obsessive-compulsive game organizers know that Clans is BYOB or bring your own bags. For those gamers whose eyes glazed over as this most-boring topic we move on to some sort of actual point.

Having set up the numerous colorful huts for many games from the single resealable plastic bag I can attest that it is somewhat tedious. However, I will confess that it is not so tedious as to cause me to avoid playing. I just know there is some wargamer out there, a true grognard with calloused fingers from moving thousands of half-inch chits with a pair of tweezers and just so happens to casually play German board games and prompting him to read this is asking himself, “What kind of whiny bastard complains about setting up a few dozen wooden pieces and has the nerve to call it tedious? Why in my day…”

So, anyway, I think it is a big help if the pieces are sorted into sets of 5 for set up. The game board is divided into 12 regions each containing 5 territories. Players will place 5 huts in each region, 1 of each color, so a different colored hut sits in each of a region’s 5 territories. I suppose that opening a bunch of resealable bags and sorting sets into them either before or after a game would also be tedious. So perhaps my campaign to fight tedious set ups will remain a cause in search of a ribbon or possibly a Monty Python skit. I will pause a moment here to take my medication and continue with the following paragraph.

The board for Clans is well done. It is a six-section fold-out that puts down a board much larger than I think one would expect for the relative compact size of the box. It lies nice and flat and is easy on the eyes. I particularly appreciated the generously-sized spaces on the board for the individual territories. There is more than enough room to avoid anyone from having to ask, “In what space is that piece supposed to be sitting?” save perhaps for the ridiculously careless or those that play with unattended cats around their games. You know who you are.

The major mechanic used for Clans is an easy one. As mentioned earlier each territory starts with a single colored hut in it. On a player’s turn he or she moves a hut of any color to another territory with a hut of any color including one that could have the identical color. As the game develops a player might be moving up to six huts to another territory with one or more huts. The caveat is one can never move any amount of huts to an empty territory and every move creates an empty territory. Whenever a territory becomes completely surrounded by empty territories it effectively becomes a permanent settlement and is scored. Every color represented in the territory scores points equal to the total number of huts in the territory regardless of their colors. For example, a territory with 3 blue huts, 2 red huts and 1 green hut would score 6 points for blue, red and green.

What keeps Clans from being some sort of bizarro mutant version of Chinese Checkers with strange meandering huts is a trio of very cool gimmicks that play off the movement mechanic. The first comes into play before the game begins when each player is dealt a concealed card depicting one of the 5 colors of huts. The color one receives is that player’s color for the game and the one that must score the most points for that player to win. The gimmick is that none of the other players know what color any other player was dealt. So players attempt to not give away their color as they move huts about the board.
The second uses the game’s cardboard bits. These are placed on the board and create what is essentially a game clock and give dynamic bonuses for permanent settlements formed on territories of certain types at certain times and remove all the pieces from settlements formed on other territories of certain types at certain times. I am convinced the third gimmick comes from consciously or unconsciously observing the behavior of teenage girls and could make for a new theme should the game ever be considered for a revised republication.

My oddly dubbed “teenage girl” mechanic works based on the following observation: Take a group of 5 teenage girlfriends and put any number less then 5 in a room. The ones in the room will always talk about the ones that are absent from the room. This is normal. Put all 5 in the same room for long enough and they kill each other. The killing each other part is only a slight hyperbole. Same principle works for Clans. As long as only 4 or less colors of huts are represented in a territory everything is just fine. Add the fifth color and they all kill each other and players remove them from the board.

I have an odd fascination with Clans that I think stems from the fact that I can’t seem to ever win the game. I think this is a good sign that the game has genuine strategy paths that at least others have discovered and grasped. I hope to find one of them myself someday and exploit it for my own victory. Until then the search continues as does my desire to play. What concerns me is that the game’s strategies might be so convoluted or chaotic that it becomes a game of chance instead of a game of skill. This is a serious charge to make as luck minimization is a pillar of most German-style game designs. Thus, I am not willing to level that accusation, especially as our group’s big loser. However, I must ask if my failings could be a game breaker?

Could a player, like myself or a new player who has not grasped the game’s strategies, become a force of chaos that despoils that strategies of fellow players as other overly random game elements do? I think “yes” is a possible answer here. If one were to just randomly move pieces and hope for the best at the game’s end then the game does fall apart in my opinion. A player doing this as a malcontent is just displaying poor gamesmanship and could thwart the strategy and enjoyment of nearly any game. In the case of the sincere, but unskilled player, the game could just be diminished by a wide disparity in player skill. This compels me to ask the question, “Does Clans need a handicap system to adjudicate for player skill level?”

If one’s intent for Clans was to play as a deep think game of high strategy then a handicap system might be required. As a relatively fast-moving breezy game with some genuinely cool gimmicks attached to an easy concrete game mechanic I would have to say the answer is, “No.” So what does one do with weak player like me. I think the answer is play more Clans. Despite my chronic inability to win I really enjoy the game. I think playing more frequently deepens the player interaction, increases skill and by consequence lessens the chaos factor. So a little player commitment to log some repeat play time will make for better games then the casual, infrequent, throw down sort of play that I think magnifies the less desirable aspects of the game. Unless of course one allows the game to be played by 5 teenage girls in a confined space.

Thread: Re: Understanding the endgame

otha62 — 2008-04-26T20:22:10+00:00

nessi wrote:
Although I really enjoy Clans and the minimalist approach to design that Colvini exhibits in general, I have not managed to pass on my enthusiasm

I really enjoy Clans as well; it's my favorite abstract. However, I have trouble getting other folks to play...

Thread: Re: Understanding the endgame

nessi — 2008-04-26T19:15:01+00:00

board_games_reno wrote:
Ok, Rolf, you have way too much time on your hands!

Hmm, sometimes you just need to get things out of your system

board_games_reno wrote:

That's quite a breakdown of the end game for Clans. How do you feel about this overall end game versus Colovini's adavanced sister game to Clans, "The Bridges of Shangri La"?

I must confess I haven't played yet. Although I really enjoy Clans and the minimalist approach to design that Colvini exhibits in general, I have not managed to pass on my enthusiasm

Best,
Rolf

Thread: Re: Understanding the endgame

board_games_reno — 2008-04-26T17:08:05+00:00

Ok, Rolf, you have way too much time on your hands!

That's quite a breakdown of the end game for Clans. How do you feel about this overall end game versus Colovini's adavanced sister game to Clans, "The Bridges of Shangri La"?

Well done. I just need to lay down now and take an aspirin!

Mike Snedeker, pres.
BGoR

Thread: Understanding the endgame

nessi — 2008-04-26T16:38:34+00:00

Clans - The Endgame

Shapes and tactics

Every Clans player should study the basic shapes which occur at the end of the game. I am only describing stable shapes, i.e. a region of connected areas (from now on 'region') where no village can be formed immediately. Unstable shapes will occur as moves in stable shapes and will thus be covered automatically. Critical shapes are those shapes where any move will lead to an unstable shape. I will refer to 'move parity' throughout: this is the concept, which every starting Clans-player has encountered (either to his joy or frustration), where only stable, critical shapes are on the board. The moving player has to destabilize a shape which the opponent can then form into a village, again leaving only stable critical shapes. This way the opponent can pick up a lot of bonus points for forming villages and can typically decide where these villages are formed.
However the moving player can decide which villages are formed in which order. The opponent would have to give up at least one bonus chip (a two-point swing) by playing a 'tesuji', i.e. instead of forming a village from an unstable shape, destabilizing another stable shape so that two unstable shapes are on the board. The moving player can then form a (or multiple) village(s) from one of the unstable shapes, the opponent can then form a (or multiple) village(s) from the other unstable shape. Note that no matter what, the moving player will determine which village is formed last, i.e. gets the +5 bonus!
Note that I am assuming that all areas are 'sparsely populated', i.e. that no area ever has too many huts to be moved. This is obviously not necessarily the case - adapt the below in these situations.

The standard 3 (critical): Three areas each touching the other two
[c]
A1 | A2
-------
A3
[/c]
(e.g. wheat, grass and mountain in the top left corner of the board).
There is not much interesting about these. If the huts in this region will be scored, they will all form one village. The move parity is preserved by scoring this group.

The standard 4 (non-critical): Four areas areas like so
[c]
A1
-------
A2 | A3
-------
A4
[/c]
(e.g. wheat, grass, mountains and mountains in the top left corner of the board).
This is far more interesting and imho the most important shape to understand. Firstly, the player on the move may transform this into a standard 3 and changing move parity. However, there is a more interesting option: move A2 to one of the other areas so that a linear 3 is on the board; now the opponent may either divide this into two villages which preserves the move parity or can move one of the extremal areas (A1,A4) into A3 leaving you to form one village and changing the move parity (this is better for the moving player than forming a standard 3, since he gains one bonus chip and can usually decide on which of two terrains the village will be formed). In effect one is offering the opponent a two-point advantage and no change in move parity with the alternative of a one-chip disadvantage and a change in move parity.
Furthermore, depending on the colour distribution this can be used for defensive play by the moving player: suppose the area contains one of every colour and some colour(s) more than once; the moving player has only one hut in the region. If he transformed to a standard 3, this hut would be removed during the clan war and he wouldn't score at all. However, if he transforms to a linear 3 and the opponent forms two villages, it is very likely that the moving player will score in one of the villages - maybe even arranging a nice fat +3/+4 bonus. If the opponent does not form two villages, the original moving player then gains a bonus chip and can (usually) decide the terrain, either choosing it as barren, or at least prevent any bonuses.
A similar tactics can be done offensively, provided the moving player has huts in at least two different areas of the region one of which must be A1 or A4. Create a linear 3 with own huts in A1 and A4, and either score in both villages or be able to choose the terrain (especially good if a clan war results) and get a bonus chip. This is especially useful if only one village remains to be formed and there are no convenient standard 3s with sufficiently many own huts around: the moving player ensures that he will participate in the +5 final village bonus and only gives up one bonus chip!

The circular 4 (critical): Four areas arranged in a circular manner like so
[c]
A1
----------
A2 | | A3
----------
A4
[/c]
(e.g. wheat, mountain, forrest and mountain in the upper left hand corner).
This is less flexible for the moving player, since he is forced to create a linear three with the same results as described above, i.e. either no change of move parity and two-point disadvantage for the moving player or a change in move parity and a one-point advantage for the moving player (however, the non-moving player gets to decide, whereas in the standard 4 the moving player could force a change in move order by transforming to a stanard 3). However all the offensive/defensive possibilities for the moving player still exist.

No other stable 4-areas-shapes are possible on a Clans board. Notice that there is no group of four areas such that each touches all others - if it existed it would be non-critical and the only option would be to transform it into a standard 3 and change the move parity.

There are a lot of stable 5-areas-shapes and only dedicated Clans players need to remember them and their possibilities. I will not go into tactical finesses in colour distribution etc.:
The standard 5 (non-critical): Five areas centered around one of them like so
[c]
A1
------------
A2 | A3 | A4
------------
A5
[/c]
(e.g. the wheat, mountain, grass, mountain, forrest region in the upper left corner).
This can be transformed either into the circular 4, changing the move parity, or into the standard 4 also changing the move parity. What is advantageous depends on what other shapes are available: e.g. if only standard 3s are available, then transforming it into the circular 4 is (almost) a given since then the moving player will be able to earn all bonus chips (however, be aware that the opponent can then choose which huts will form villages - unless you give up some of these boni by playing a tesuji!).

The central 5 (non-critical): Five areas, one of which touches all others like so
[c]
A1 | A2 | A3 | A4
-----------------
A5
[/c]
(e.g. grass, wheat, forrest, wheat on the left side of the board and a mountain to their right which is 'central').
The moving player can transform this into a linear 4 (move A5 to one of the other areas), a standard 4 (move A1 or A4 to one of the other areas) or a triangle with a stick. We've covered the standard 4; the linear 4 can be either made into a linear 3 (and then see the analysis underneath the standard 4) or the opponent can form a village and leave the moving player with a village forming opportunity giving both one bonus chip and changing the move-parity. The triangle with a stick can either be transformed into a standard 3, a linear 3 or the opponent can form a village and leave the moving player with a village forming opportunity as above.

The circular 5 (critical): Five areas arranged in a circle lake like so
[c]
A1 | A2
-----------
A3 | | A4
-----------
A5
[/c]
(e.g. the areas around the lake in the top lake row on the left).
The only critical five area shape but quite boring. The only option is to transform to the linear 4.

Let me summarize the above with a couple of formulae:
The standard 3 (S3): [c]0 -> 1c[/c]
This represents the following: the moving player makes a move which forms no villages (0), the opponent then forms one village having the choice of terrain [or plays a 'tesuji'].
The standard 4 (S4): [c](0 -> (2 | 0 -> 1c)) | (0 -> S3)[/c]
Where S3 represents the string from the standard 3
The circular 4 (C4): [c]0 -> (2 | 0 -> 1c)[/c]
The linear 4 (L4): [c](0 -> (2 | 0 -> 1c)) | (1c -> 1c)[/c]
The triangle with a stick (T4): [c](1 -> 1c) | (0 -> S3)[/c]
The standard 5: [c](0 -> C4) | (0 -> S4)[/c]
The central 5: [c](0 -> L4) | (0 -> T4) | (0 -> S4)[/c]
The cup 5: [c](0 -> L4) | (0 -> T4) | (0 -> C4)[/c]
The circular 5: [c]0 -> L4[/c]

There are a huge amount of non-stable regions of size 5 which I won't cover. Knowing and understanding the above should prevent most tactical surprises and can be used against weaker opponents to salvage a technically lost position. Against more advanced opponents, you need a strategy.

Endgame strategy:

At the end of the game, there will typically be huts which are not part of any village. These are wasted huts! It is better to have a pair of huts (or even a triple) in a village without clan war than having the wated huts left over. However, for reasons of flexibility you need to waste some huts. This is because the last village scores a lot of points: at least 6, but usually 8+. With winning scores being anywhere between typically 20 and 35 points this is a third or a quater of the points you need. Thus you simply cannot afford being left out of the last village - unless you ensure that your opponent doesn't score either or you score at least one village with a 4-point bonus which your opponent doesn't score.
So, when the endgame approaches (5 or less villages to score), study the board carefully to see which regions you would like to score last and which regions you cannot afford to score last. There are two ways to deal with the latter: either you make them score early giving bonus chips and points to the opponent, or you try to form villages so quickly (again giving bonus chips to the opponent) that they will be wasted. In both cases timing might be essential (i.e. wait as long as possible with giving your opponent the chance to form villages and hence bonus points) as he will try to do the same and maybe you can get away with the quick end without giving lots of bonus points to the opponent.
Secondly, check the move-parity and note that you would like to form as many villages as possible and decide where they are formed. But keep in mind that you need to change it sufficiently early (possibly via a tesuji) to be able to determine the last village. Especially the formation of linear 3s can change the situation suddenly. Of course, if you're sure to score in all remaining villages you can concentrate on move-parity but then your opponent made a grave mistake in the middle-game.
The alternative is to make sure that you form all of the last five villages (5 bonus points) and give up being present in the last village. If you can get some extra points from terrain in the course of this, you might be able to offset the disadvantage of not being present in the last village. Especially if it is not plain which colour you are, this might become a very good strategy as it might force your opponent to take a 50-50 guess.
To prevent you from having to take 50-50 guesses, the easiest way to exclude all but your huts from a village is to create a standard region with a total of 6 huts, two of which are yours. I would recommend going for a standard 4 region since standard 3 regions are easily turned into villages (your opponent destabilizes and then forms the village on his next move as opposed as S4 to S3 to linear 2 to village, or S4 to L3 and then you at least get two tokens and prevent the opponent from getting two tokens. But this is getting into the middle game already...

Thread: Re: A Colorful and Surprisingly Deep Abstract

nessi — 2008-04-21T07:49:07+00:00

I broadly agree with your assessment of a good early position, but would describe it on a higher level: you want to maximize the ability to score significantly better than any one colour (i.e. if the colours were revealed now, you would win against any colour). This does involve scattering some of your huts but also clustering some of them in a region where a clan war is likely (clan wars are the most efficient method to exclude more than one colour from scoring).
Be aware that some huts will most likely not score because the game end is reached earlier. This also means that if you want a particular group of huts to score, you will most likely have to give up the bonus chip to your opponent.

In the endgame you should be aware of situations where you repeatedly have to create an opportunity for your opponent to form a village (or the other way around) and how to manipulate this to your advantage: either by being the one who creates the villages and thus gets the bonus chips or by being the one who decides which huts will form villages in what order. Both are powerful and it depends on the concrete situation and the colour knowledge which is better.

Thread: Re: A Colorful and Surprisingly Deep Abstract

Stormparkiet — 2008-04-20T17:15:53+00:00

Thanks, Nessi, for taking the time to write up such an elaborate reply. This was exactly the kind of comments I was looking for!

Judging from your pointers, it looks like I'm still too weak at Clans to really see what constitutes a 'good position'. Following my current (attempt at a) strategy, a good position early in the game would mean all my huts as scattered as possible, and all other huts pushed into villages as soon as possible (preferrably in barren areas). Later in the game, I'll want as many of my huts involved in scorings. Essentially, I don't worry too much about who actually creates the villages as that's the part I have the least control over. I concentrate on setting up favorable villages.

Seems like you do exactly the opposite, and I don't really get how you do it!

I guess I'll have to play some more games and give it a try.

Cheers!

Thread: Re: A Colorful and Surprisingly Deep Abstract

nessi — 2008-04-20T16:13:06+00:00

Let me first congratulate you on this excellent review. I fully agree that Clans is a game meant as a brainburner, not as a filler. Let me add that I think Clans plays best with two players, more below.

Here are my comments on your strategic thoughts.

Stormparkiet wrote:

Gameplay, Strategy & Tactics

...

3) There's only one high-potential area type at a time. There's only one area type on which any founded villages do not score any points at a time. Which area type is good/bad changes throughout the game.

This is of course an important part of the game. If you can get a group of enemy huts to be scored in a barren area, this is always a good thing, even if it's your opponent who scores it. As for the previous item, timing is important because what's good or bad changes throughout the game. Looking ahead and anticipating is key.

I'm not too sure about the importance of these. Sure, the bonus for the 12th village is extremely important, but the others not so much I feel. This is because either the bonus is small, or that (at least with two players) either both get it or neither does. It only comes into its own when an unmovable group of huts is formed.
The barren areas are more important, but form more of a not-sure-option: if you have the choice of a four point village (say) on a barren or non-barren-non-bonus area and it is the beginning of the game, it is often better to create the village in the barren area so that you don't give away too much about your colour - you get the bonus chip anyway.

Stormparkiet wrote:

4) Clan Wars: If all colors are represented in a village, lone huts do not score any points.

Keep an eye on the possibility of clan wars occurring. As is often the case, this can be used to your advantage, or turn against you. Especially in the corners of the board it can easily happen that a region gets isolated. If this happens, the corner is basically wasted. As there is exactly one hut of every color, no points will be scored. and no-one will be so kind to give the next player a free village chit. Unless, of course, this is a small price to pay in order to speed up the game...

Note that an isolated corner could be scored as more than one village (move the central hut so that you get a circle of 4) and as such provides an excellent resource for changing the parity (by parity I mean the cycle of one player moves a group, the other player scores it sometimes occurring).

Stormparkiet wrote:

5) I know my own color, but not those of my opponents.

This has some implications, but I prefer not to pay too much attention to this (playing well without worrying about this is hard enough). As a consequence, I have not much to say about this. Any comments on this are welcome.

This is huge in two player games! Imagine you knew the colour of your opponent (from the beginning). You could easily prevent him from scoring a decent amount of points. Not knowing the colour of your opponent forces you to give her/him some choice (like scoring a village on a barren land or on a bonus) to gain information about his colour. Also, this makes the first half of the game less about scoring points than about subtly setting up the board so that you will score lots of points in the second half but without your opponent realising that one colour (yours ) has a major advantage. See also your 7th point.
In four player games, this becomes less important since you essentially try to beat all other colours.

Stormparkiet wrote:

6)Points are scored only when villages get founded. Villages get founded when areas are isolated.

Scoring points is only possible through creating villages, and this mostly happens because your opponent set it up for you (knowingly or not). This means that Clans is not so much about scoring the most points for yourself, as it is about making your opponents score your points, and on the other hand not scoring too many points for them. In my opinion this is the strangest thing about the game.

A strong Clans player will look ahead, and set up favorable moves.

Note that the bonus point for forming a village is quite important since it is independent of the colour and huts. So, the aim should be to only let your opponent form a village if it either gives you (reasonable sure) information about his colour or gives you lots of points. In particular, letting your opponent score a single hut village is almost always a bad idea (except if it is your hut and there are at least 3 bonus points).

My general advice on the strategy is as follows:
1. Do not overlook tactical maneuvers. Firstly check that you cannot form one or two villages (if you can it is almost always correct to form them). Secondly, do not accidentally create this opportunity for your opponent.
2. Be aware of the parity (described above). Those bonus chips are very important.
3. Give your opponent tough choices at the beginning and don't care a lot about your own score (being behind by 5-10 points does not matter in the first half, provided you have a good position on the board, a good idea of your opponent's colour and she/he does not know a lot about yours).
4. Envision the last 4-6 villages as early as possible and make sure that they either score very little or that you participate in the scoring and your opponent does not. (This is why 3 is important.)

Of course, if your opponent also follows these rules, even those small points at the beginning matter.

What I am undecided about is the 'crippling strategy': Choose a colour before your first move that you try to cripple in the first few moves (i.e. move its huts together, kill them in a clan war, etc). If it happens to be your opponent's colour, you've essentially won (1 in 4 chance). If not, you haven't given away too much about your own colour. The downside is that you'll have a hard time figuring out your opponent's colour which could be critical in the endgame.

Thread: Re: A Colorful and Surprisingly Deep Abstract

Innocent Bystander — 2008-04-19T11:15:32+00:00

It's biggest appeal to me is it's depth and simplicity mean that you can enjoy it whether you are an experienced gamer or just a casual.

Thread: A Colorful and Surprisingly Deep Abstract

Stormparkiet — 2008-04-19T08:53:26+00:00

]]>

I bought this game on a whim as it was very cheap, and although I had done some research on it I didn't know a great deal about it. I had run across it once before while at a go weekend organized by the Belgian Go Federation. A Dutch 4-dan was pushing it, and while I only watched from a distance, it was clear he was quite enthusiastic about it.

After a couple plays, it became clear to me why a strong go player would like this game so much.

The Theme

I’ll start here, as I’ll be quickly finished. The supposed theme is movement of primitive tribes, and the founding of the first villages. However, this game is really an abstract, and it doesn't even try very hard to convince you of the contrary. If you don't expect any theme to hinder the gameplay, you'll be fine appreciating Clans.

Components

Clans comes in a tiny box, so I was amazed at the size of the board: it folds out six times, so even in the box is small, the board is quite respectable in size.

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The board is divided into regions, each containing the following (Settlers reminiscent) areas: meadows, mountains, forests, and prairie. In each region, one of these areas is represented twice, and the others once. Rivers and lakes serve to divide the regions. An attentive eye will notice already that this game is quite abstract at heart; the board does not remotely resemble an actual landscape, though it looks quite nice. On the right of the board is a score track, and a sort of 'time-line' (more on this later).

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Also in the box are twelve yellow cardboard ‘village’ discs, a bagful of wooden huts in red, blue, yellow, green and black, and five thick cardboard tiles each depicting a hut in one of the five colors. All in all, I think it's great that they didn't make the box any larger than it had to be. It does a wonderful job of storing the components, and especially of not taking a lot of space on the shelf! It makes the game easy to stuff in a backpack as well.

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Rulebook & Rules

The rulebook is clearly written and has ample examples in case of doubt. You will be playing this game very soon even when learning from the rulebook and will not have to refer back to it later.

Clans is a game with a small number of simple rules. Setup consists of randomly putting huts on every areas on the board. This is done in such a way that every region contains one hut of every color.

The yellow discs are placed on the ‘time-line’, and each player gets randomly dealt one of the hut tiles. The excess tiles are put away without being seen. The color of the hut you were dealt is your color, meaning that you know what color you are, but not what colors your opponents are. Player colors are only revealed at the end of the game, so figuring out what colors your opponents play and trying not to give away your own is a part of the game, though in my opinion not an essential one. You do not need to know what colors your opponents play in order to win, even if it can definitely help.

Next, a starting player is randomly selected, and player start taking their turns going clockwise around the table:

- Choose an area containing one to six huts and move all huts in it to an adjacent area containing at least one hut. Crossing a river is ok; crossing a lake is not allowed.
- If this move results in areas being ‘isolated’, i.e. the areas surrounding it are all empty, then a village is founded in each newly isolated area:

+ If all five colors are present in the village, a clan war breaks out: remove all colors having only one hut in the new village.
+ Score points for all colors present in the village: each color scores 1 point per hut present in the village, regardless of the number of huts for each color. The person that founded the village receives the uppermost village chit from the time-line.

The game is over when the last village chit is awarded. Every player adds the number of village chits earned to their color’s score, whoever has the highest score wins the game.

Sounds simple, right?

What transforms this game into a truly good one is the time-line. It divides the game in different eras, each having one area type where it’s better to found a village that era (bonus points), and one where it’s worse (no points!). You keep track of the era you’re in through the village chits: if the last chit for the current era is taken, the following era sets in. The later the era, the more bonus points are awarded for the ‘optimum’ area, but the shorter the eras are.

Gameplay, Strategy & Tactics

Gameplay in Clans seems quite simple: move huts from one area to another, score points for any villages created. Repeat until the 12th village is built. If players don't spend a lot of thought on their moves, a 4 player game could easily be over in 15 minutes. It's pretty easy to play a couple games like this, then dismiss the game as a 'simple filler'.

If you enjoy playing abstract strategy games however, and you try to figure out how you're supposed to actually win this game, you will start to see the strategy and tactics hiding under the gaudy, colorful huts. It’s in this department that Clans has really surpassed my expectations. Played like this, and as an abstract I believe it's the way it's meant to be played, Clans is a brainburner that can be played very seriously, and can easily take 30-45 minutes to finish.

Even if I feel I haven't begun to scratch the surface of the strategy and tactics available, I'll make a few observations about the game, in no particular order, that may be food for thought. If any Clans veterans can validate and/or elaborate on these, please do. I'm eager to learn.

1) You cannot move huts to an empty area.

You move huts away from an area, and this area will remain empty for the rest of the game, so every move causes the board to change irreversibly. This tells us several things. First, every move matters; there are no trivial moves. Although there are mediocre games where this is the case, every game I rate highly has this characteristic.

More importantly though, it allows you to steer the game in a favorable direction. Two empty adjacent areas may well form a sort of 'fire lane', preventing huts from one side of it to get to the other side. Together with lakes and the sides of the board, these impassable areas can be used to your advantage to either change the color ratio, or preserve it, whichever serves your own ends best.

2) You cannot move a group containing more than 6 huts.

This can be used to 'lock' a group of huts in a certain area. Huts can be added, but the group cannot move away anymore. Make sure that when this happens, the group is either in a bad spot and contains few huts of your color, or is in a good spot and has at least as many huts in your color as in any other color. Just pay attention to timing here: if the era changes before the group is scored as a village, your plans may be foiled. Of course, this works the other way around too. If it would be more favorable for you to score the group in the next area, set up an easy village for your neighbor to speed up time.

3) There's only one high-potential area type at a time. There's only one area type on which any founded villages do not score any points at a time. Which area type is good/bad changes throughout the game.

This is of course an important part of the game. If you can get a group of enemy huts to be scored in a barren area, this is always a good thing, even if it's your opponent who scores it. As for the previous item, timing is important because what's good or bad changes throughout the game. Looking ahead and anticipating is key.

4) Clan Wars: If all colors are represented in a village, lone huts do not score any points.

Keep an eye on the possibility of clan wars occurring. As is often the case, this can be used to your advantage, or turn against you. Especially in the corners of the board it can easily happen that a region gets isolated. If this happens, the corner is basically wasted. As there is exactly one hut of every color, no points will be scored. and no-one will be so kind to give the next player a free village chit. Unless, of course, this is a small price to pay in order to speed up the game...

5) I know my own color, but not those of my opponents.

This has some implications, but I prefer not to pay too much attention to this (playing well without worrying about this is hard enough). As a consequence, I have not much to say about this. Any comments on this are welcome.

6)Points are scored only when villages get founded. Villages get founded when areas are isolated.

Scoring points is only possible through creating villages, and this mostly happens because your opponent set it up for you (knowingly or not). This means that Clans is not so much about scoring the most points for yourself, as it is about making your opponents score your points, and on the other hand not scoring too many points for them. In my opinion this is the strangest thing about the game.

A strong Clans player will look ahead, and set up favorable moves.

7)Late game villages potentially score a lot more points than early villages.

I think realising this improved my play considerably. The more huts of your color are left for scoring at the later stages of the game, the higher your odds for winning. So, try to 'burn' the other colors as soon as possible, and if possible try to save your own huts for later. I'm guessing it's better to avoid getting many of your own huts together in the opening, as this increases the risk that they'll be scored early.

Also, even if moves in the opening may seem less consequential, make no mistake: it's in the opening that the stages for the late game are set.

Conclusion

Clans caught me completely unawares with its depth. It's a very interesting and unique game, in a tiny and deceptively youthful package.

If you get the chance, I'd strongly recommend you to pick up a copy.

My rating:

The images used in this review were uploaded by Frouvne, peterk, caparica, and Gialmere. Thanks!

Thread: New Clans microbadge available (plus designer Leo Colovini badges).

jgrundy — 2008-04-18T10:14:38+00:00

[inlineimg]http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/mb_clans.g...[/inlineimg] (Buy one)

Also new Leo Colovini fan microbadges: [inlineimg]http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/mb_LeoColo...[/inlineimg] [inlineimg]http://files.boardgamegeek.com/images/microbadges/mb_LeoColo...[/inlineimg] (Buy)

Image

Capitaine Grappin — 2008-03-24T18:58:50+00:00

Clan box with Colovini autograph

Thread: Re: An analysis of Clans

enzo622 — 2008-03-21T02:19:30+00:00

Great thread. Putting this on my list of must-haves. I like those Light-Medium games.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

Big Bad Lex — 2008-03-19T11:15:05+00:00

Top drawer answer Rolf, many thanks. There you go the truth was out there.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

nessi — 2008-03-17T12:57:19+00:00

Big Bad Lex wrote:

The shake down I consider most likely with 4 regions is with;

At least one region with 3 areas of huts, each one touching the two others.
the remainder with 4-5 areas of huts each touching at least 2 other areas.

Consider a standard 4 region:
[c]
A1
--------
A2 | A3
--------
A4
[/c]
Here both A1 and A4 touch A2 and A3, and A2 and A3 touch each other as well. The player P1 with the move may either:
(M1) move A2 -> A3, thereby allowing the opponent P2 to
[c] [/c] (M11) score two bonus points giving the right to move to P1
[c] [/c]or (M12) move A1 -> A3, therby allowing P1 to score one bonus point and claiming the right to move for himself
or (M2) move A1 -> A2, not allowing any scoring and giving the right to move to P2

Now, if there are two standard 4 regions R1 and R2 and two 3 regions R3 and R4, what are the possibilities (just counting bonus points and disregarding all preferences as to formation of villages):
[c]
P1 plays M1 in R1.
P2 plays M11 in R1.
P1 plays M2 in R2. Result: 3-2 (not optimal for P2)
P2 plays M12 in R1.
P1 claims the bonus.
P2 plays M2 in R2. Result: 1-3
P2 plays M1 in R2.
P1 plays M11 in R1. Result: 2-4
P2 plays M2 in R2.
P1 plays M11 in R1. Result: 5-0 (not optimal for P2)
P2 plays in R3.
P1 plays M11 in R1. The best P2 can now achieve is 2-3 (not optimal for P2)
[/c]
So we have either a 1-3 or a 2-4 split in bonus points (with best play from P2).

With regions of area size 5 it gets even more involved as one can create circular or linear regions of area size 4 in addition to the standard 4 region. Also, the region of area size 5 might already have a 'hole' in the middle, creating a lot of possibilities.

Big Bad Lex wrote:

With regard to drunkenKOALAs point (like Koalas aren't in enough trouble already) over the 5 point bonus, I gauge that in a 2 player game the villages may frequently run out before this level is reached quite alot of the time so the 5 point bonus isn't a given.

In my games, there were always unscored huts on the board when the game ended. So being able to determine which groups get scored was very valuable.

Besides, whether a region should be scored as two separate villages (move M1 - here P1 can even influence where the scoring takes place!) or one (move M2) will often be more important than the extra 2 points P2 gains from the added boni (in my example).

Clans (even with open colours) is a tactically fairly rich game!

Thread: Re: Is no one else playing this?

drunkenKOALA — 2008-03-17T12:18:49+00:00

Still, I wish I could try it with more than 2 players. Arghhh!

Clans is best with 2. I think a lot of people disappointed by the game, expects it to be some sort of bluffing/euro game. Once you realize it is an abstract strategy game, you start to appreciate it.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

drunkenKOALA — 2008-03-17T12:12:48+00:00

Yes it is likely that one player can force his opponent to let him finish all the remaining regions. But as I've said before tokens accounts for only part of the points. Color points are also important.

I gauge that in a 2 player game the villages may frequently run out before this level is reached quite alot of the time

Well then you gauge wrong. In fact, I suspect the designer implemented the 5 point last region bonus to fix this "problem". I would also think that the designer chose the number of tokens after careful considerations, so that the game doesn't end before all the tokens are taken. (Never underestimate designers.) At any rate it is a scenario. Feel free to give me as many GG as you please.

Thanks for bringing this issue up. I've always thought the 5 point bonus was just to spice things up. Now I know that it has a balancing purpose.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

Big Bad Lex — 2008-03-17T10:51:38+00:00

With 5 huts in a line forming one region, it is easy to move the middle hut to form 2 regions instead of one. 2 villages are then created, one for each player. But thats not optimum nor sensible play up to that point of the game as if a region exists in a linear pattern then at least one player has been gifted an opportunity to form a 2 hut village (moving B-A, or D-E) and the other 2 villages (1 hut and 2 huts) and the 4 region puzzle still exists.

The shake down I consider most likely with 4 regions is with;

At least one region with 3 areas of huts, each one touching the two others.
the remainder with 4-5 areas of huts each touching at least 2 other areas.

I don't think this an exceptional scenario as if easily formed villages were available its highly likley that one player would have grabbed the option.

With regard to drunkenKOALAs point (like Koalas aren't in enough trouble already) over the 5 point bonus, I gauge that in a 2 player game the villages may frequently run out before this level is reached quite alot of the time so the 5 point bonus isn't a given.

Thread: Re: Any good with only 2 players?

drunkenKOALA — 2008-03-17T00:42:57+00:00

There are two types of games that are best with two: abstract strategy games and bluffing games. And clans is both of them.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

drunkenKOALA — 2008-03-17T00:29:11+00:00

Russ you are confused and not reading my post carefully.

I did read your post carefully and still couldn't understand what you are trying to say.

Lets be more explicit:

region: a group of hut-containing areas linked to each other
area: a colored patch on the board. For example a forest patch.
huts: wooden houses
finished region: region with one area

From what I can make out, your question is:
4 regions remaining.
Each region with 3-5 areas.

My answer:
1. How does having a 5th region allow one to form an immediate region? I assume immediate region = finished region??
2. As Russ pointed out, if in any of those 4 regions you have 5 areas in a line the tokens may go to different players.

So the situation you described doesn't even satisfy the condition that one player may force to obtain all the remaining tokens. But suppose we are in a situation where a player can do that:

3 regions (w,x,y) have both players' color. 1 region (z) has player A's color but no player B's color.

Player B may get all the remaining 4 tokens if he chose to.

Player A reduce w to size 2.
Player B reduce z to size 2.
Player A finish w to size 1.
Player B finish z to size 1.
Player B finishes the two remaining regions.

B: 3 points for tokens
A: 1 point for token

If player B had just finished whatever player A gave him:

B: 4 points for tokens
A: 5 points for last region bonus

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

drunkenKOALA — 2008-03-17T00:10:56+00:00

four isolated regions of 3-5 settlements in each (with no move to form an immediate territory as that would be 5 regions)

What? Can you explain yourself more clearly? Because I have no idea what you are talking about, especially the part in the parenthesis.

How would a fifth region allow one to form an immediate territory?

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

Big Bad Lex — 2008-03-17T00:05:32+00:00

Russ you are confused and not reading my post carefully. My request is to demonstrate;

Big Bad Lex wrote:
a scenario where two evenly matched players making best interest moves with four isolated regions of 3-5 settlements in each (with no move to form an immediate territory as that would be 5 regions)

Your solution involves an immediate move to form seperate regions, and yes I'm talking about regions containing 3-5 settlements, not just 5 settlements in a line.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

drunkenKOALA — 2008-03-16T23:53:08+00:00

I think by group, he means a group of isolated areas, not huts in a single area.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

russ — 2008-03-16T23:15:31+00:00

Big Bad Lex wrote:
With apology, I do appreciate that my request would involve someone putting themselves out to set a board up, take a picture and burn even more time writing up a reply. So money where mouth is, I will give GG to the first detailed response that demonstrates a scenario where two evenly matched players making best interest moves with four isolated regions of 3-5 settlements in each (with no move to form an immediate territory as that would be 5 regions) do not end up with one player taking the last 4 tokens.
I'm honestly confused why you are so certain that it will work out that one player always gets the last 4 tokens, since that almost never happens in my games, hence it didn't really occur to me to give a concrete example.

But ok, let's set up a simple endgame position with 2 players, Alf and Bert. Suppose there are 5 groups connected in a line:
ABCDE
It's Alf's turn. He does not want all these to be merged into a single village (because his color has only 1 hut left, and all the other colors have several). So he separates them into 2 separate groups.

If he does this by moving B (into A or C), then he'll create a village A, and Bert can then move D to create 2 more villages C & E as the last move. Thus 1 player didn't get all of the last 3 tokens (not to mention the last 4!)

Similarly if he does this by moving D.

If he moves the C huts into B or D, then he creates 2 separated pairs:
AB DE
and then he'll merge one pair (AB or DE) and Bert will merge the other, giving them each one of the last 2 tokens, so again 1 player didn't even get all of the last 2 tokens (not to mention the last 4!)

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

Big Bad Lex — 2008-03-16T20:19:58+00:00

russ wrote:

Your description is a bit confusing; it sounds like you are asserting that the last 4 tokens will necessarily all be taken by the same player if there are 4 connected groups left. But that's definitely not true (indeed they usually don't all go to the same player in my experience). Or am I misunderstanding what you're trying to say?

In any case, more generally I agree with the earlier comments that complaining that Clans has a problem because the other player managed to play the endgame better seems odd.

I'm sorry I'm not explaining myself clearly enough and that my tone is being misconstrued, but you aren't misunderstanding me. With 2 players;

Big Bad Lex wrote:
I can't see any way to avoid one player gaining or losing the last 4 tokens as a result of this scenario.

The title to this thread is a question. I'm not 'complaining', I'm not calling the game broken, I'm not saying I am 100% right, I am asking the community to show me how when there are 4 isolated regions left how that's avoided. I can't see it. Russ please explain to me how in the games you have played what happened to stop the last tokens going to the same player (assuming one player didn't play sub-optimally).

Without apology, when I ask a question, I'm not happy with someone just telling me I am wrong without properly justifying why. It doesn't matter how many people queue up in this thread to say I am missing the point, that I'm not experienced enough, that I have been rolled over by a better player, these aren't answers just headline opinions without narative to support those opinions.

With apology, I do appreciate that my request would involve someone putting themselves out to set a board up, take a picture and burn even more time writing up a reply. So money where mouth is, I will give GG to the first detailed response that demonstrates a scenario where two evenly matched players making best interest moves with four isolated regions of 3-5 settlements in each (with no move to form an immediate territory as that would be 5 regions) do not end up with one player taking the last 4 tokens.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

drunkenKOALA — 2008-03-16T19:45:03+00:00

It reminds me of the old pub con where a pile of match sticks are stacked on a table and the game where players take 1, 2, or 3 sticks. The trick is to not be the person left with the last stick. It's a con because once you know the key number sequence that you need to lock onto, the other 'player' can't win. Where both players know the con, its the first player who can't lose.

If you go solely after the points for finishing off groups, it will come at the expense of losing points in your color.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

drunkenKOALA — 2008-03-16T19:38:02+00:00

It's part of the game. By the way it's not all bad for the first player. If the second player chooses to finish all the groups of two he's presented with, then the first player gets to choose which groups to finish when, which allows him to influence the scores for each color, especially because the last group gets a bonus of 5 points. That may or may not make up for it, depending on how the colors are distributed.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

russ — 2008-03-16T19:08:36+00:00

Big Bad Lex wrote:
Obviously there's alot more to Clans than this and perhaps the trick is to ensure a winning margin before the end game section, but I can't see any way to avoid one player gaining or losing the last 4 tokens as a result of this scenario. If anyone has a photo of a group of 4 regions where this doesn't happen, I'd love to see it.
Your description is a bit confusing; it sounds like you are asserting that the last 4 tokens will necessarily all be taken by the same player if there are 4 connected groups left. But that's definitely not true (indeed they usually don't all go to the same player in my experience). Or am I misunderstanding what you're trying to say?

In any case, more generally I agree with the earlier comments that complaining that Clans has a problem because the other player managed to play the endgame better seems odd.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

Big Bad Lex — 2008-03-16T17:56:37+00:00

I guessed that experience might make this scenario more predictable and allow a player to group accordingly to try to avoid this pitfall, however I cannot for the life of me see how the situation can be avoided for one player. It is inevitable that the numbers boil down and regions diminish to 4-3-2-1, and there will be a number of isolated areas like this.

It reminds me of the old pub con where a pile of match sticks are stacked on a table and the game where players take 1, 2, or 3 sticks. The trick is to not be the person left with the last stick. It's a con because once you know the key number sequence that you need to lock onto, the other 'player' can't win. Where both players know the con, its the first player who can't lose.

Obviously there's alot more to Clans than this and perhaps the trick is to ensure a winning margin before the end game section, but I can't see any way to avoid one player gaining or losing the last 4 tokens as a result of this scenario. If anyone has a photo of a group of 4 regions where this doesn't happen, I'd love to see it.

Thread: Re: 2 Player Problem?

ekted — 2008-03-16T15:19:01+00:00

You have to anticipate that kind of thing happening and make sure to give up something to gain the initiative. The opponent will do the same.

Thread: 2 Player Problem?

Big Bad Lex — 2008-03-16T14:53:27+00:00

I've only played this with 2 players once, but we encountered the following problem.

Nearing end game, there were 4 different groups of settlements consisting of 3 territories each. As a result, the next player had no choice but to in turn reduce a group to two whilst the opponant finished the job off and scooped the token and subsequently 4 points with the poor first player have no choice but to watch on helpless.

Has anyone else experienced this and possibly come up with a way of avoiding the problem?

Thread: Re: Any good with only 2 players?

Big Bad Lex — 2008-03-16T14:46:22+00:00

I've only played once with 2 but experienced what appears to be a significant flaw. As the game reaches its end phases settlements reduce down to groups of 3 regions as players try to stop the other from combining the last two and gaining the token. In our game there were 4 groups of three and it fell to me to make the next move. I was forced to reduce each in turn to two followed by my opponent reducing that two to one and scooping up four tokens (and points) one after another.

Perhaps there is a tactic to ensure you benifit from this rather than suffer as I did, but I've never experienced this end game problem with 3 or more players.

Thread: Re: An analysis of Clans

russ — 2008-02-17T10:11:52+00:00

cymric wrote:
If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was a Faidutti instead of a Colovini.For me, Faidutti games have far more randomness and hidden information and the chaos of simultaneous decisions. Clans is virtually pure combinatorial strategy except for the one hidden piece of information (what color your opponent has), and sufficiently often that information becomes sufficently obvious.

Thread: Re: 3 players, 2 point spread from 1st & last

bnordeng — 2008-02-11T18:58:08+00:00

Good point about why more people aren't into Clans. It looks like a themed Euro, but is actually very abstract. So, the audience that would really like (abstract fans) may not realize what is really in the box. I like it and based on the players I usually play games with, it probably won't come out too often. I will find a way to play it though when the right group is assembled.

Thread: Re: 3 players, 2 point spread from 1st & last

russ — 2008-02-11T18:22:21+00:00

Clans is a cool game indeed, and it does work great with all the numbers of players advertised. I sometimes wonder why more people aren't into it. I suppose that people who want themed games find Clans too abstract, and people who like abstracts assume that Clans is a themed fiddly eurogame until they learn what it's about.

Thread: 3 players, 2 point spread from 1st & last

bnordeng — 2008-02-11T14:31:26+00:00

Clans is a game I purchased before I really used BGG to help me figure out what to buy. I bought mostly on what I read about the game on Funagain, including the reviews there. Overall, Funagain was very helpful in this respect but it just doesn't have the depth of information that BGG does. I'd heard Clans was good for 2 and purchased it for my wife and me. She didn't like it much so I'd played it once in the last 8 months. In my second game of Clans, it was a 3-player game with Mo and D.

We set up the board, I quickly explained the rules (and they are very quick) and we just went ahead and started playing. I was blue and villages were forming here and there with blue in almost every village. I thought I was doing well. As the game progressed, I gathered that D was red and Mo was yellow... no black... no yellow. I thought she was yellow.

Everyone was very close, but toward the end red ran away from everyone and yellow fell way behind. Judging by the fact that D didn't look overjoyed and Mo didn't look annoyed, I thought I may have guessed their colors wrong. And, I did. I had 4 village chips, Mo had 3 village chips and D had the rest which was enough to get the win.

D (Green): 64
Me (Blue): 63
Mo (Black): 62

After the game, we all agreed that it was fun and we'd have to play it again to really realize the pros and cons of our moves. We all felt like we just kind of made moves without realizing the total impact. This game is more up the alley of D and Me as we used to play chess together quite a bit. Mo appreciates themed games more than this abstract delivered.

The experience was good and we could see that with enough experience and careful thinking throughout the game, players have 100% impact on the results. Glad I had the chance to get this out again.

Thread: Re: Strife/War Scoring Variants

sundaysilence — 2008-01-15T04:49:14+00:00

I think you are onto something here. The scoring in this game has never really satisfied me, and you make a good pt. about what is the strategy of a third hut in a group.

BUt maybe that is/was the pt. of designer. In order to discourage one from putting 3 huts in an area that will coalesce...

It seems that unless most/all of the players involved in an area are going for this, then these sort of large villages dont appear-at least not in my games. Ex A; wont happen unless at least two players want it to happen, or so it seems to me. All of which means, that these other two players see the one guy has a third hut in the area so they work to shaft him, at least shaft him a little. So maybe that's supposed to be a strategy?? I dunno, interesting game but it almost seems as if I am being played by the vict conditions and not the other way round.

Thread: Re: 2 player victory

russ — 2007-12-21T06:08:50+00:00

Just a quick observation that this question doesn't have anything to do with 2 player Clans in particular - it would also be relevant for playing 3 or 4 player.

Thread: Re: 2 player victory

dkeisen — 2007-12-21T01:23:39+00:00

All that matters are the colors assigned to players. If your color has the highest score of these colors, you win. It does not matter what score the remaining colors get to.

Thread: 2 player victory

Reprint — 2007-12-21T01:02:46+00:00

When playing Clans with 2, do you need to be out front to win, or do you just need to be a head of your opponent?

If I just need to be ahead of the one colour I think my opponent is playing, I might play differently than if I have to lead the pack.

Thread: Re: 3-player Clans

Reprint — 2007-12-21T00:52:17+00:00

Must be my mind, but if I saw my opponent kill off every colour but red in a doomed village, I wouldn't automatically assume he was playing that colour.

Thread: Re: Accidental clans variant

IvoHunink — 2007-12-12T13:38:04+00:00

universeman wrote:
1) Instead of moving all huts from one territory to an adjacent non-empty territory, each player moves a single hut to an adjacent non-empty territory on their turn.

Sounds like a really slow game then.

Thread: Re: An analysis of Clans

tommynomad — 2007-12-02T05:28:01+00:00

cymric wrote:
If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was a Faidutti instead of a Colovini.

My thinking exactly. Wonderful little game in the more-than-meets-the-eye vein.

Thread: Re: Luck driven?

russ — 2007-11-29T18:52:59+00:00

henrikbergander wrote:
Clans is a strange game because you cannot make an "always win" strategy. Choosing the "best" move depends on what your opponents are doing.

That's true of almost every good game... Or maybe this just means that all good games are strange.

Thread: Re: An analysis of Clans

cymric — 2007-11-20T10:22:32+00:00

drunkenKOALA wrote:
There is strategy. One can aim to ensure that his colors will be present in every scoring village. This requires spreading out, dividing the huts in a certain way, etc. How to do these can be brain burning and certainly not a trivial decision.

While Clans can be played as a light filler, I think it has more depth than you give it credit for.
Quoted for truth. The review, while elaborate, does not do justice to the mind games you can pull off. I won on more than one occasion by tricking my opponents into thinking I played a particular colour, while innocently making sure that my true colour was always present in a group. In that respect, there is lots of interaction, much more than the review makes out. Only it isn't interaction based on what you see; it's interaction based on what you think. If I didn't know any better, I'd say this was a Faidutti instead of a Colovini.

Thread: Re: An analysis of Clans

ttfn — 2007-11-20T08:04:50+00:00

On the subject of length of the game. We have played it a bit at work in the lunch break. I selected it as it is generally rather quick - our group normallu under 30 mins. On one occasion we choose clans as we only have 45 mins we from past experience it was a sure bet. Well in this game we got into so much analysis paralysis that tha game took about 55 minutes to complete. So it can be a game that takes time, we have been joined by another player who focuses on ending the game by getting as quickly to the 13th epoc as possible through small villages, and that as speed our games up significantly.

Peter

Thread: Re: An analysis of Clans

MGBM — 2007-11-20T00:09:56+00:00

I believe you, it's just the way my group plays that made me accustumed to this type of play with Clans, we play it in less than 20 minutes. But yes, I can see the potential in Clans to be heavier than what I'm used to.

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Tobold — 2007-10-21T15:38:57+00:00

The huts really say everything

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fehrmeister — 2007-10-03T03:04:23+00:00

Unpunched Cards and Chips Sheet

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caparica — 2007-08-01T13:22:39+00:00

The board

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caparica — 2007-08-01T13:02:04+00:00

Bits

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ScottH — 2007-06-17T17:40:17+00:00

What is in the box

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Gamegrunt — 2007-05-14T00:05:43+00:00

No blue clans! Blue was replaced with brown in my copy of Clans in order to accommodate my blue-green color-blind spouse.

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snoozefest — 2007-05-12T12:44:17+00:00

BSW's implementation.

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creatore — 2007-03-13T23:35:38+00:00

Clans at Giocaroma 2007