Game: Paris Paris

Thread: Lessons Learned from an Unbalanced Session

jouslare — 2008-09-28T20:57:25+00:00

It had been a tough week at work for both of us, so after dinner Friday night my wife and I were in the mood for a quick game of something entertaining, but that would not require too much thought. Paris Paris quickly hit the table. It was one of the first noteworthy games in our collection and is a perennial favourite that had not seen much action in a while. This session turned out to be the strangest we have played.

Early in the game it seemed that my wife was faced with all the hard decisions. She kept drawing multiple intersection tiles (sometimes the same intersection in different colours) which forced her to make all the tough decisions on which bus stop destination to claim and which to leave for me to scoop up.

(As a side note, when we play a 2-player game, rather than neatly stack the tiles in 3’s and pick up piles each turn as stated in the rules, we just dump them all in the felt bag that came with the game as a scoring mechanism for 3 or more player games and pull out 3 tiles on our turn – it saves a lot of set-up time).

On my turns, I consistently drew the non-intersection bus stop tiles. Normally these sites are considered to be less desirable however I was able to fill in a lot of the gaps along my secret special route (blue) and left her with very little in the way of desirable leftovers. It was quite unbalanced really.

Towards the end of the game I think it was obvious that my special route was blue (based on the choices of tiles I had played) and I was pretty sure that hers was black. On the second to last turn, she was again faced with a tough choice when she drew multiple “Hôtel de Ville” pieces (in black and in green) and a blue L’Institut – again, all major intersections. She had to take one of the Hôtel de Ville’s as it is a critical intersection for her black route and I already had one piece on this intersection. I took the other to give me back some position on this site. That sent L’Institut to the parking lot, triggering a grand tour along the blue bus line which awarded me lots of points.

I had the final turn and finally got some intersection pieces. Pont Neuf, Montparnasse and Odéon came out of the bag for me. I was able to knock her off Pont Neuf, giving me both allowable buildings on that key intersection of the blue and red lines. She then inflicted minor damage by taking Montparnasse (an intersection of blue and black), but it was not nearly enough to turn the tide of the game.

To end a two-person game, a special route marker from the 3 that remain unclaimed is drawn and a final grand tour is run along that route. The mystery tour was along the red line, which shares the intersection at Pont Neuf and again scored well for me. It also rewarded me again for having claimed the adjacent non-intersection sites on the blue line as any buildings on any bus line adjacent to the intersection score points.

We both agreed that we would play the rematch at a later date to be determined…

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On reflection of this session, it was clear that luck of the draw played a huge part – I have never seen such a consistent drawing of intersection vs. non-intersection tiles. Additionally it really illustrated how valuable some of the generally less-desirable non-intersection “filler” pieces can be to flesh out scoring on a grand tour.

I found it to be a powerful reminder that it makes sense to claim some of these pieces during a “normal” game rather than solely focusing on claiming the obviously powerful intersections.

Thread: Re: Sacrebleu! No strategy suggestions yet!

tedcheatham — 2008-02-14T23:46:43+00:00

I think many people have posted a lot of thoughts. Luck of the draw and turn order play an important role in the game...there is no question. However, dealing with what you have to work with is key to improving your position. I think to do well you must count the tiles and know what is left in the cities. There are several times it makes sense to not take a key intersection vs. a remote location. Deducting your opponents routes is also important to insure if they have the ability to score a run, you are not shut out. As much as you need to maximise, you must also maintain a board balance for scoring runs as you don't always get to choose what will happen to cause a scoring. Most of my games have been two player but you really do need to pay attention to the discarded tiles and future opportunities. This actually doesn't sound like a strategy as much as a mantra that you must adapt to the board and your opponents which makes this a strong game to me.

Thread: Re: Sacrebleu! No strategy suggestions yet!

PlayMe1 — 2008-02-13T19:10:40+00:00

Another strategy suggestion:

If you can, try to trigger Grand Tours during the game on routes that favor you. Which is to say, try to leave the last bus stop card left on any given turn as one which will cause a Grand Tour on a route where you have bus stops.

For example, if you are the last to select a bus stop in a given turn, and the choice is between a stop on the red or the black route, and whichever one you choose will cause a Grand Tour with the other one. If you have more businesses along the red route than the black, consider selecting the black route for your turn, and then the leftover red route card will trigger a Grand Tour on the red route where you will score more points.

Hope I didn't make this perfectly obscure! The more Grand Tours along routes where you have bus stops the more points you should score.

Thread: Re: Sacrebleu! No strategy suggestions yet!

cabalzero — 2008-02-12T23:26:32+00:00

If your choice is between an intersection and a locale w/o an intersection, take the intersection (unless the stop lies along your secret route or would create a tour more favorable to your opponents than yourself). Also pay close attention to the Pompidou, Pont Neuf, L'Institut (and the one North of Notre Dame (is it les Halles?))--these are powerful locations that can score big reams of points potentially.

Thread: Sacrebleu! No strategy suggestions yet!

PlayMe1 — 2008-02-12T22:48:12+00:00

I just taught myself Paris Paris last night and came on here looking for any strategy ideas and didn't see any postings, so I thought I'd start one.

Are there any strategies in this game?

One would be to build up all the bus stops along your secret key route (blue line, black line, etc.) and then be sure to build on the neighboring stations so you can get bonus points for adjacent stations whenever there's a Grand Tour along your line.

Are there other strategies?

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jouslare — 2008-01-04T02:37:58+00:00

Yellow (me) looking strong for black and blue grand tours

Thread: Re: Getting Your Share of the Tourist Dollar

matthewjhoskins — 2007-12-22T03:05:19+00:00

LOL!

Thread: Re: Getting Your Share of the Tourist Dollar

matt71 — 2007-12-10T01:23:58+00:00

Thanks for pointing that out Matt. And thanks for the thumbs up on the review.

Oh geez, now I feel like I'm talking to myself.

Thread: Re: Getting Your Share of the Tourist Dollar

matthewjhoskins — 2007-12-09T20:28:08+00:00

Excellent review!

matt71 wrote:

Another point to keep in mind is removing opponents businesses out of the game and placing them in the bag. If you do this too much, you will actually be helping one opponent gain extra points at the end of the game. And it may just be enough points for an opponent to win.

One quick point, this only occurs with 3+ players. I found this game to be a bit dry with two, not neccessarily because of this. Overall I also like the game. I'm just not leaping to my gameshelf to grab this game for a 2-P session.

Thread: Getting Your Share of the Tourist Dollar

matt71 — 2007-12-09T07:49:50+00:00

Paris, like any thriving city that hosts thousands of tourists ever year, has its share of entrepreneurs that are looking to get their share of the tourist dollar. The best way to do that of course is to build business that are convienent for tourists that visit the city.

Since tourists choose to take bus tours when visiting a new city, it’s a good idea for the budding businessman to know the bus routes and stops frequented by these tour buses. Placing a business along these routes can be very profitable, which is what Paris Paris is all about. In this game, you and your opponents are trying to build businesses that will profit from the various tour bus companies that travel the city.

In the beginning of the game, each player randomly chooses a bus route tile. This is kept secret from all other players and will reward you extra points at the end of the game. There are other tiles that have the names of various locations in Paris. These names match various locations on the board, which is a street map of Paris. Each location is a bus stop. These tiles are stacked in several piles.

On a players turn, the player chooses a stack of tiles, and places them on the corresponding spots on the board. Then that player places a business on one of the spaces on the board that has a tile. Each player will place a business at each location that there is a tile. There will be one tile left over and that tile is called a small tour. If there is a business at that spot, then that player scores a point. If there is no business at that spot, then the closest business to that spot scores a point. After scoring is done for the small tour, the tile is place in the Grand tour space on the board. Then next player chooses a stack of tiles, and play continues. As soon as there are two tiles of the same color in the Grand Tour space, a grand tour occurs. All business along that color route then score points.

There can only be two businesses on an intersection and only one business on spots that are not crossings. A player can displace a business that is already there by taking that business token and putting in the bag where it will remain until the end of the game. The good thing about this is that you are depleting the other player’s businesses that he has to place on the board. However, the drawback to doing this is that the opponent with the most businesses in the bag at the end of the game scores additional points. If there is a tie of businesses in the bag, nobody gets the extra points.

At the end of the game, when there are no more tiles to place on the board, players reveal their bus route tiles that they received at the beginning of the game. A grand tour occurs along each of those routes. Scoring is the same as a Grand Tour during the game. Then the business tokens are taken out of the bag. The player with the most business tokens in the bag scores an additional point for each token. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

This is a quick game. We played two games in about 45 minutes or so. There is some luck involved as far as the tiles are concerned, but there is strategy as well. Placing businesses at intersections is a good idea because you have a better chance scoring points where two bus lines intersect than if you had a business at a stop that was not an intersection. You also have opportunities to create or stall a grand tour on your turn. You may want a grand tour to occur if you have business along that tour route, on the other hand, you have the ability of stalling a grand tour for an opponent as well by not letting a matching color tile make it to the grand tour space during your turn.

Another point to keep in mind is removing opponents businesses out of the game and placing them in the bag. If you do this too much, you will actually be helping one opponent gain extra points at the end of the game. And it may just be enough points for an opponent to win.

I liked this game. Its simple to learn and it’s a game that is for gamers and non-gamers alike. Since I only played the game twice on the same day, I really don’t know if the randomness of the tiles outweighs the strategy aspect of the game. That would be something that would become more apparent with more plays. But for now, I would say to give the game a try.

Thread: Re: Zusatzkarten Expansion: Can someone help me translate it

noisycrow — 2007-08-30T17:39:19+00:00

gotswe wrote:
The link to the translation (of the rules for the Paris Paris expansion) didn't work for me. Are the rules posted somewhere else? Many thanks.

Yes - brettboard seems to be having problems. Could someone post the translation here?

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Emperor JD — 2007-08-29T01:18:10+00:00

Boring coloured pieces

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Emperor JD — 2007-08-29T01:17:35+00:00

Vroom vroom: close up on the bus

Thread: Paris bus tours don't get stuck in traffic

con_girl — 2007-07-23T19:52:36+00:00

This is my first post, so it might not be as smooth as I'd like.

The game sets up very simply and is reasonably attractive but we found early on that the beige and grey blocks representing businesses did not have enough colour contrast for easy differentiation. A quick application of a marker solved that problem. The rules of the game were quite straightforward and we only had to consult them once or twice on during scoring. Personally, I wasn't comfortable with the rules that semmed to imply that if you had two business at one stop that was part of a grand tour with one adjacent business you'd get +1 for that adjacent rather than +2 if it was the converse (one business one the grand tour and two at the same stop 1 adjacent). I plan on reviewing the French rules to see if I get the same interpretation.

The flow of the game was very quick - while people pondered somewhat on placement, it never felt bogged down, nor did the threat of a timer ever have to be exercised. We tend to be slower gamers and something that actually runs as described on the box was very pleasant (about an hour, including reviewing rules). The game seemed reasonably balanced and the rotation of the turn order helped eliminate the definite advantage in going first on any one round.

It is a game which will require you to "burn" other players (displacing their business with yours) but this is balanced by one of those players getting points out of a hidden reserve. Everytime you lose a business your business goes into the reserve, the one with the most businesses in the reserve gets the bonus. "Card-counters" will be able to know who gets those as it is unlikely to be more than 30 total businesses in the bag, I'd be tempted with a mix of more and less experinced or younger players to have that be open knowledge. Even those from a thematic standpoint the reserve makes no sense, it does serve a useful balancing factor - making sure that no one person gets targetted during play. However, the "burns" are very minor and did not create any major losses (at least not in our session).

Really, the whole session was quite light. Initial impression is that strategy and tactics are useful but not intensive. Some thought was required and it will take more than one play to work out best approaches(not that much more though).

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ScottH — 2007-06-17T19:10:53+00:00

Box Contents

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dipdragon — 2007-04-16T21:09:34+00:00

Paris Paris Box Front (Higher Res)

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dipdragon — 2007-04-16T21:08:45+00:00

Paris Paris Box Back (Higher Res)

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petersjs — 2007-03-13T02:29:11+00:00

The bus, some stop tiles, and the special route markers

Thread: Re: Zusatzkarten Expansion: Can someone help me translate it?

gotswe — 2007-01-12T22:34:23+00:00

The link to the translation (of the rules for the Paris Paris expansion) didn't work for me. Are the rules posted somewhere else? Many thanks.

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spearjr — 2006-12-14T14:12:44+00:00

Thread: Re: Rules Question

Eric Brosius — 2006-11-13T22:37:45+00:00

On BSW you can use the "German tournament rules" in which every line has one last grand tour at the end. I think it's meant to take randomness out of the game.

Thread: Re: Rules Question

Chris Sjoholm — 2006-11-13T21:38:17+00:00

Score it as normal. You want to try to discern which routes will score based on how everybody is playing.

Thread: Re: Rules Question

Al Johnson — 2006-11-13T15:54:40+00:00

So am I reading it correctly - on the last grand tour do you score as normal or only for yourself?

Thread: Re: Rules Question

steveoliverc — 2006-11-13T15:39:14+00:00

The scores can be very close in this game. If you don't score well in the last grand tour, that could cost you the game.

Thread: Rules Question

Al Johnson — 2006-11-13T11:44:30+00:00

At the end of the game, every player takes one last grand tour on the colored line matching his oval token (can't remember what it was called) given to him at the beginning of the game. The rules say to score this as a normal grand tour. I don't see the sense in this. In a four player game, 4 of the 5 lines would score, so it doesn't seem like it would play much into the strategy. I suppose you could get unlucky and have a lot of your businesses laid out along the line that wasn't scored. I was wondering if it meant on the last grand tour, that you only score for your businesses. Any ideas?

Al Johnson

Thread: English rules

victorywt — 2006-09-07T01:56:38+00:00

http://spiele-aus-timbuktu.de/p/parisregeleng.jpg

Thread: Re: Zusatzkarten Expansion: Can someone help me translate it

Verkisto — 2006-02-22T20:49:44+00:00

Ah. Thank you. Somehow I missed the translation when researching this expansion.

Thread: Re: Zusatzkarten Expansion: Can someone help me translate it?

SteveK2 — 2006-02-22T18:07:38+00:00

I think the English translation has already been done:
http://brettboard.dk/cgi-bin2/webdata_game.pl?cgifunction=fo...

the 5 new tokens replace the secret route markers each player draws at the start of the game (each triggers a grand tour along a specific route at game end). They add an extra scoring twist at game end - for your secret 3 stops, if you have businesses at 0/1/2/3 of these stops then you score -2/2/5/8 points.

Thread: Zusatzkarten Expansion: Can someone help me translate it?

Verkisto — 2006-02-22T17:49:56+00:00

So, I printed out the expansion for Paris Paris that was published in the Amigo Spiele catalog, and I've attempted to translate the rules through Google. But I still have a couple of questions:

1. It says that the five maps replace the 5 "Special Travels" section, which is in the upper right corner of the board. I'm assuming this means that we stack the tiles over the empty spaces, and use these maps each round, instead of choosing five cities randomly. Is this correct?

2. It also states, "If a player at none of the specified stops has a house, he gets -2 points." Does this mean that a player without houses on this route receives -2 points, or does this mean that if I have ANY houses ANYwhere on the board, other than on this route, that I get -2 points? I'm not sure how to interpret this.

Thanks!

Thread: A late comeback for me

ValJor — 2005-12-31T12:51:19+00:00

Date: December 30th, 2005

Game: Paris Paris

Players: Ivan (my son), Larissa (my daughter) and Valdir (myself)

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Having finished the two card games that I wanted to teach them today, Larissa still wanted to learn another game. She wanted a game that would work well for two players, as she wanted to play with her friend Svetlana. They love the Catan card game and TtR, but she wanted to have more options. I mentioned that Paris Paris should work well for two.

As Ivan was still around, we decided to play with three and if Larissa liked it, she would learn the details for two players later on. I explained the basic rules, did a fake turn just to show her how the small tour scored and we started the game. I didn't explain the grand tour right away, only when it happened.

Around two thirds of the game I was one point behind them and then I made a mistake, I chose the wrong destination, triggered a grand tour on the red line where I was not present at all. They got each four or five points and put quite some distance from me. The game seemed to be over for me at that point...

In the next few turns Larissa got a few points ahead of Ivan and at this point he started talking about going for an honourable second. However, I did an incredible comeback and by the end of the game I was right there in the middle of them in the scoring track.

The bag scoring is the only tenser moment of the game. During the game we try to keep track of who has how many houses in there, but obviously we always lose count and we really don't know who, if anyone, is going to score. I believed I had the most houses in the bag and they seemed to be thinking along those lines as well. I took one house at a time, soon getting to four, but then, they got to four as well. With only two houses remaining in the bag, we were tied at four. The next one out of the bag was Ivan's... and the last one was Larissa's! They both tied at five, so no one scores any extra points. Larissa wins by the narrowest margin and I got a very decent second.

Final Score
[c] Player: Points
Larissa: 34
Valdir: 33
Ivan: 31 [/c]Even though she liked the game, Larissa said that it doesn't have the stress that Catan and TtR do. She wants games with stress, she'll keep looking.

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Kobra1 — 2005-11-11T21:10:08+00:00

Thread: Re: Passing the bus around was part of the fun... :-)

Eric Brosius — 2005-10-14T11:23:16+00:00

Your petit tour calculation sounds about right, but in our games the later grands tours score big points. In our games we really pack the shops in at the five central junctions, and we usually play so as to clump our shops together in families of adjacent shops.

There are four junctions to score in a grand tour. The end junctions can score up to 5 points each, while the center junctions can score up to 8 points each, for a theoretical maximum of 26. I'll bet we average 15 points per grand tour over the course of a game, adding another 45 points to your calculation for an average of 155, or 39 points per player. This sounds about right for an average score.

If you weren't focusing on packing your shops in around the central junctions, that would lower your scores.

It's not always right to take a central spot, but you should only do otherwise if you have a good reason.

Thread: Doing some math in Paris

ValJor — 2005-10-14T09:43:50+00:00

Hi Eric!

You wrote:
It's possible that I'm wrong, but I think if your top score was 20, you must have been scoring wrong. I think the winner should have more than 20 points.
What’s a normal score for the winner in a four-player game in your group?

I had the same feeling. Why would the score track go to 45 if the winner is not doing even half of those points? I re-read the rules more than once, but couldn’t find anything that I did wrong. Let’s do some math:

a) a four-player game has twelve rounds, so there are twelve “small tours”. Each small tour gives out a minimum of one point and a maximum of four. I think it is safe to assume that the average would be 1.5 points per tour. Therefore, the small tours could give a minimum of 12 points, a maximum of 40+ (this is just theoretical, I don’t think it would ever really happen) and an average of 18;

b) there can be from four to six grand tours during the game, plus four at the end when the hidden colours are revealed. Therefore we can have from eight to ten grand tours in total in a game. Each grand tour can pay from 0 (again, this is just theoretical, not a real possibility) to a maximum of 24. I would guess that ten would be a good average.

c) the sack scoring could give anywhere from 0 to let’s say eight points to a player.

Therefore, in total, the number of points given to all players would be (12/18/40+) + (8/10) * (0/10/24) + (0/8). The minimum would be 12 (I know, this would be ridiculous), the maximum would be 290+ (I don’t think it would ever happen, though...) with an average of 110. As in my session the total number of points was 74, I think that we didn’t play our grand tours well (well, this was our first game, we had absolutely no idea what was going on), but I don’t think we misplayed any of the scoring rules.

You wrote:
By the way, Paris Paris is one of my favorite games. It plays well for 2 through 4 players and is quick enough to fit into a sliver of time.

Most definitely agree with you on this one. Michael Schacht is my favourite designer, I just love his games. And Paris Paris is another of his gems.

Thread: Re: Passing the bus around was part of the fun... :-)

Eric Brosius — 2005-10-14T02:55:50+00:00

It's possible that I'm wrong, but I think if your top score was 20, you must have been scoring wrong. I think the winner should have more than 20 points.

By the way, Paris Paris is one of my favorite games. It plays well for 2 through 4 players and is quick enough to fit into a sliver of time.

Thread: Passing the bus around was part of the fun... :-)

ValJor — 2005-10-10T13:19:24+00:00

Date: October 8th, 2005

Game: Paris Paris

Players: Isabela, Jackson, Nicolas and Valdir (myself)

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I have recently found some good games on sale at our FLGS here in Montreal, I just couldn’t pass up some of the offers, they were too good. So I ended up with a bunch of new unplayed games right in the middle of the year, something that is quite uncommon for me (I usually only buy one game at a time, it’s only at Christmas time that I can get many games at once).

Being that the situation, I invited Jackson and family for an afternoon of games. My wife and his are going to graduate degrees together, so they have a lot to talk about, but Jackson and the kids [Isabela (seven years old) and Nicolas (ten years old)] were willing to try out the games.

As I know that they are on-gamers with just a little bit of exposure to German board games (Jackson bought Niagara upon my suggestion), I chose four simple games: La Strada (that I had bought at Christmas time but never had had the opportunity to play a full game), Paris Paris, Cronberg and Saga (these three I bought two weeks).

I suggested we start with Paris Paris, it was the one I want to play the most and it’s by my favourite game designer (Michael Schacht). I explained enough of the rules to get us started. I didn’t go over most of the scoring and left the end game score out, I just wanted to have the game going.

In the beginning the moves were all wild guesses, nobody knew what they were doing exactly, but after just a few rounds and the first grand tour, Nicolas and Jackson were already able to plan ahead and find out how many points each would get depending on which bus stop they chose. Isabela, of course, needed some help throughout the game, she can’t still foresee the results of her choices, but she’s very young, her mind will get used to it and I’m sure soon enough she’ll be surprising us at these games.

When it came time to the hidden scoring at the end of the twelve piles, we had some head scratching with the rules. Both Jackson and I re-read the paragraph about it but it didn’t make a lot of sense that all colours except one would score grand tours for everybody. We even toyed with the idea of only scoring for the player with that colour, but in the end decided to apply the rule as written.

Final Score
[c] Player: Points
Valdir: 20
Nicolas: 20
Jackson: 18
Isabela: 16
[/c]Having done the four grand tours of the end game, Nicolas and myself were tied for first, so the sack scoring would probably decide the game. I took the contents of the sack one by one and ordered by colour. When there was only one house left in the sack we were in a three-way (Isabela, Jackson and myself) tie with four houses. And the last one was... Jackson’s! He shot over Isabela, but as he had lagged far behind, in the end he still didn’t reach us at the top.

As I was declaring Nicolas and myself as co-winners, I searched for tie-break rules and sure enough there was one: Nicolas had ten stores on the board, I only had eight and therefore I won the game.

With these kids, even passing the little bus from one player to the next was part of the fun... It seemed that all enjoyed the game quite a bit.

Thread: Re: Games Played Graph note -- July 2005

steveoliverc — 2005-09-02T01:58:00+00:00

Count me in as part of the spike, I ordered both Paris Paris and Phoenix together from the Le Valet sale, and discovered the great deal on shipping which is a flat $5 Canadian to the US. Paris Paris is a game I've played online and figured for $10 (less than $9 US) that I couldn't pass it up.

And I'm trying not to buy Cronberg but for $10....

Thread: Re: Games Played Graph note -- July 2005

rootbeer — 2005-09-01T19:30:22+00:00

The Phoenix spike is in July; it was Le Valet's featured sale item for that month.

I meant to say: "The Phoenix spike is in August; it was Le Valet's featured sale item for that month."

Thread: Games Played Graph note -- July 2005

rootbeer — 2005-09-01T19:21:15+00:00

Note the large spike in the Games Played graph for July 2005. In the summer of 2005 (starting July, I believe), the gaming store Le Valet d' Coeur (http://www.levalet.com) sold Paris Paris at the sale price of CDN$10 (regular CDN$33.95). Presumably the spike in playing is due to BGG members taking advantage of the nice sale price (as I did).

Phoenix was also sold for $10 at Le Valet during the summer of '05, and shows a similar spike. The Phoenix spike is in July; it was Le Valet's featured sale item for that month.

Le Valet's sale item for September is Cronberg -- will it see a similar surge in playings?

Thread: Week Two

Moviebuffs — 2005-07-01T10:46:20+00:00

The 8 of us now split into two groups, and had a crack at two games that Mark had brought with him.

My group (Claudia, Damon, Kurt, Nick) broke out Paris Paris while Tracy, Sue, Mark and Jason played Streetcar, for which Mark will (hopefully) post a report of further down this session.

So ... Paris Paris was a new game to the four of us.

The rules seemed a little over-wordy for what became quite a simple little mechanism, and we'd all pretty much 'got' what was going on after three turns, when - surprisingly - the first major bus tour took place.

I was lagging behind the whole game, starting as early as the second round when I was the first one 'bumped' into the bag.

About half way through, everyone began to realise the importance of the junctions as scoring opportunities, taking the single stations (stops?) only when forced to.

At the end of the stacks, I was still a comfortable last, five or so points behind Damon and Kurt, with Claudia three or four points further ahead, and looking uncatchable.

I had made a point of claiming some junctions, although I don't think any of us had really bothered focussing too much on our secret routes - as four out of five would run anyway, I just thought I'd spread myself around a bit!

What swung it for me was a pair of Bistros at the Pompidou centre, being backed up by two cafés at the adjacent Pont Neuf. When the secret tours ran, and I scored those twice as bus drove down the red & blue routes, I was coining it in!!

Kurt took the 'bag' bonus of 5 (although I could have sworn it was going to be a tie!), although it was not enough to compensate him for the lack of businesses on the board.

Final (approximate, as always) scores:

Nick - 33
Claudia - 31
Mark - 29
Kurt - 28

An excellent little game. I imagine having to play three or four times to develop a good strategy.

Thread: First Impressions

CharlieWonka — 2005-06-28T09:16:56+00:00

I bought this saturday and my brother and I were sitting sorting out the computer as we decided to re-install everything while watching Return of the King.

As we waiting for something to scan the computer we decided we could try this as well which was a surprise to me as my brother doesn't play many games at all and he suggested it.

We quickly work out the rules and scoring which is incredibly easier to play than the rulebook explains it. Thank goodness. We aren't sure exactly the tactics of the game to begin with but after the first Grand Tour went along the Black route which my brother had covered in little cafe's and Bistros and souvenir shops it was obvious what needed to be done. Secure a really good route that is your own colour and work around the other routes that link to yours.

My Brother kept going in the lead and then I kept pulling back to level or a point either side of him.

I had a really good Orange route and Craig had the Black we were both good on the red and the other two were a bit of a mish mash of both our colours. We got to the final grand tours of the face down colours about five points apart - me behind again. After my brothers Black route and my Orange route the scores were dead level at around 80 each. We flipped the final secret grand tour route and it was Blue - this favoured my Brother quite a bit and he won by 6 points thanks to having good adjacent extra points to his crossing businesses.

So in the end it was down to the luck of that last secret grand tour which made it an immensely exciting game for us. Can't wait to play it again and with more people.

Image

chaosbreaker — 2005-05-31T11:50:15+00:00

Paris Paris online with 3 computer players. www.onlinebrettspiele.de

Thread: Session Report

Fawkes — 2005-04-02T08:43:28+00:00

r(Paris Paris [3P])r

We’ve been enjoying Paris Paris a lot lately, having played it around six times in the last two weeks. It’s a perfect mediumweight game, requiring a bit of thought and planning, some spatial visualization, and it’s got just a bit of luck at the end. Not bad, it’s the best Michael Schacht game I’ve played.

The game was pretty even early on, with all three of us jockeying for business sites at the intersections. I had the blue special tour tile, but was struggling to maintain a position there due to the tile draws, so I had to diversify as best as I could. Nick was doing very well, spreading out and getting great results from the small tours due to great timing. With five stacks to go, the scores were very close 18-18-17, with G behind by just a tick. The grand tour display was full though, so several grand tours culBelleted the main part of the game.

Paris Paris – Scores before Special Tours:
G – 32
Nick – 39
Richard – 36

We revealed our special tour tiles, and I got hosed. Not only was I unable to get a foothold in my own blue line, the other two lines I was into heavily, green and orange, were not going to have special tours. Ouch.

Paris Paris – Scores after Special Tours:
G – 50
Nick – 61
Richard – 43

We doubted that the bag bonus would help G catch Nick, and it turned out that Nick and I were tied with 5 houses in the bag, with G having 4. Nick wins!

Thread: User Review

Fawkes — 2005-03-28T11:12:35+00:00

Paris Paris – The Review [ ]

If I got to take a European vacation, Paris would definitely be on my list. I’m sure it would be on the dream vacation list of many other people that don’t live in France or the nearby EU countries. Until I can save up enough cash for a month in Europe, I’ll have to visit Paris by playing games on the Parisian city map.

Successful retail operations need good locations to thrive. Businesses catering to tourists need to be along the routes where tourists travel, which mean bus stops. Michael Schacht’s game Paris Paris is about putting up businesses where tourists frequent. You can’t make money unless you’re where your market is. The more they see of you, the more they’ll be likely to walk into your premises and spend their Euros or pull out the plastic.

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Paris Paris is published by Abacus Spiele and Rio Grande Games. It’s a pretty package, with a linen-finished two-fold board depicting the city of Paris and its five bus routes. The bus stop tiles are also linen finished, and are pleasantly thick. The game even has a little stand-up bus for use as a starting player marker and a scoring guide. The package has a black cloth bag, and 80 wooden houses in four colors. The yellow and unpainted houses can be a bit difficult to differentiate under some lighting conditions; I wish they’d used brighter colors. Finally, there are five largish, oval-shaped, somewhat overproduced “secret bus route tiles”. All in all it’s a very nice product. I just wish that they’d made the board four-fold to reduce the game box’s footprint by 50%. Half the box is air, filled in with a cardboard insert. Yes, it’s a small quibble.

The Game

The players are Parisian business owners trying to grab as much profit as possible from the tourists who visit their fair city. The player who makes the most money by setting up businesses where the tourists are wins the game.

Players prepare for the game by randomly placing the 60 bus stop tiles into stacks. A stack has one more tile than there are players. Once the stacking is done, players each draw a “secret bus route tile” and keep that to themselves.

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Bus stop tiles are one of five colors, the color representing the bus route that the stop lies on. Stops at intersections may appear tiles of different colors, since they lie on more than one route.

In a turn, one stack of tiles will be revealed and the tiles placed on the map points corresponding to their stop names. Beginning with the start player, each player selects one of the tiles in turn. At that stop, the player will open a business, placing one of his houses. If the location already has the maximum businesses allowed (two for intersections, one for all others), the player selects one business to displace. The displaced business goes into the cloth bag.

Once each player has claimed a tile and placed a business, one unclaimed tile will remain. At that stop, a “small tour” will occur and tourists will spend money.

If a player has a business at that stop, he earns one point. If there is no business at that stop, the closest stop with a business will be the one where the tourists go. If more than one business is of equal distance to the original stop, all of them earn a point.

Then, the tile is placed in the “grand tour display”. It will remain there until a second tile of the same color is placed in the display. The start player bus is passed to the left, and the new start player selects a new stack of tiles to place on the board.

Play continues until a second tile of the same color is placed in the grand tour display. Once that happens, a grand tour occurs on that bus route. Tourists go on a spending spree all along that line, concentrated at the intersections.

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The start player takes the bus token and places it at the beginning of the line. He then drives the bus along the line, and stops at the first intersection. Any players with businesses at that stop earn one point, and an additional point for each business that they have at stops adjacent to that intersection. The bus continues the grand tour down the line, stopping at every intersection to disgorge tourists and score points for the business owners along the line.

Once the grand tour is completed, the two matching colored tiles are removed from the grand tour display and play continues. The game ends when all the stacks of tiles have been used.

At game end, two special scoring events occur. First, an additional “special grand tour” occurs on each of the lines indicated by the “secret bus route tiles” drawn by the players at the beginning of the game. These work the same way as the regular grand tour. Finally, the businesses in the cloth bag are revealed. If one player has more businesses in the bag than any other player, he gets a bonus to his score equal to the number of his houses in the bag.

The player with the most points after all of that is the most successful business owner, and wins the game!

Strategy

Paris Paris is played on two fronts, the map and the tiles.

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On the map, forming networks of adjacent businesses is critical. Of particular note are adjacent intersections. These positions score their businesses twice on the same tour if they are on the same line. In the same vein, it is important to break up your opponents’ networks at adjacent intersections whenever possible.

While you try to select the tiles that give you an advantage on the map, you also need to watch the tiles that lead to grand tours. Many times, you will have the decision of allowing a grand tour which is not favorable for you, but will give you an advantage in future grand tours, as against denying a grand tour now but giving up board position. You also can’t forget that the unselected tile scores the business at that point or adjacent ones if that point is empty. It’s a point here and there, but it adds up.

The bit of luck in the game comes from the secret special tour tiles. A second scoring of a strong bus route can mean victory or defeat, especially in the two and three player game where only three of the five bus routes will get a special grand tour. If it bothers you, you can dispense with the special tours, or make them public knowledge at the beginning of the game. Either way works fine in producing a luckless, heavier variant of the game.

Finally, the “ejected businesses” scoring can be significant if you’re not paying attention.

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Reviewer’s Tilt

The first time I played Paris Paris on Brettspielwelt, I disliked the game. It seemed too simple, too sanguine, and quite random. Months later I got to play the game face to face with my game group, who played it viciously. That unlocked the appeal of the game for me, and now I consider it to be an excellent 30- to 45-minute light-medium weight game. There are tough decisions, especially when it comes to denying scoring to other players or building your own network for future bus tours. Despite that, the game plays quickly. I attribute it to being a very visual exercise. Tracing the bus routes with your eyes can tell you rapidly which players a grand tour along that line would benefit most.

Paris Paris plays very well with two to four players. I like the game with four because of the competition to establish the business network. There is much more control with three, but networks are easier since you can have two businesses at each intersection. The game is weakest but still pretty good with two, becoming a relaxing game of optimization (the “ejected business” scoring is dispensed with in this mode).

By the way, this isn’t an area majority game as you may have read in some places. Players generally end up with similar numbers of businesses on the map, since you all get the same number of turns. Only business displacement will change that mix. It shares more in common with Power Grid’s city connections and Taj Mahal’s political power networks than it does with any element of the vastly inferior Web of Power.

If you’re looking for a 30- to 45-minute game with tough decisions, good theme and great presentation, you could do much worse than Paris Paris.

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Fawkes (3/28/2005)

Thread: Re:Missing piece!

Alan Kwan — 2005-03-24T16:18:24+00:00

LA_Ken (#90718),

That happens occasionally, with any games from any publisher. Just write (e-mail) to Rio Grande.

Thread: Session Report

Don Quixote — 2005-03-09T12:51:30+00:00

Paris, Paris - Ah Paris. Ah Michael Schacht. You’ve seen his name before as we just talked last week about Coloretto but he is another one of those guys that I am a huge fan of their games. The goal of Paris, Paris is to be the most successful tourist shop keeper, and that means one thing: Location, location, location.

There are 5 different tour bus companies that crisscross the streets of Paris. Each time the bus stops at your intersection, you score money for each shop you have there as well each shop that is connected to that spot down other tour lines.

Each turn players have a choice of intersections upon which to place a new business. There is always 1 more intersection to choose from than the number of players (translation: if there are 3 players there are 4 intersections).

This is important for several reasons. The intersection that is unused for that turn is the one that is scored. In addition the tile is saved on the Grand Tour schedule. Once two tiles of the same color reach the GTS a Grand Tour is scheduled and the scoring bus (also included is the scoring sack) travels down that route stopping at each intersection and points are scored. Whoever scores the most points wins.

This is another one of those fast playing games (I think it takes longer to sort piles than it does to play), that you want to play again as soon as you are finished.

I managed to win this game handily with Michelle coming in second and Jon sitting in the back of the bus.

Thread: Missing piece!

LA_Ken — 2005-02-28T01:24:43+00:00

I just noticed that my copy of the game is missing one of the businesses in the unpainted set. I have the Rio Grande English-language edition. Anyone else with that edition missing a piece?

Thread: Re:copy of older game

Eric Brosius — 2004-12-12T13:09:49+00:00

keel (#70429),

There are no directional arrows in this game, nor should there be. You do not travel around on the board. All you do is place wooden shops at various bus stops. The only spatial thing that matters is whether one stop is connected to another stop by a line. I'll agree that you need to locate the various bus stops, but I'm not sure about a coordinate system.

I suspect perhaps you're confusing this with another game.

Thread: copy of older game

keel — 2004-12-12T09:39:06+00:00

This is a newer version of an older game called 'London Cabbie'. Unless this version has been corrected, there are directional arrows that are in error that you'll need to correct and I suggest you re-label the edge of the board with some kind of coordinate system to locate buildings or intersections otherwise you'll spend some time looking. For me, (I'm 52), the game has no depth. Good for younger folk.

Thread: Session Report

Mike Mayer — 2004-11-18T14:58:20+00:00

After that, a real game – Paris, Paris. Object of this game is to place businesses along bus lines in order to score points based on which buses run. I'll avoid a deeper description, except to say that the most fun part of this game is trying to figure out who islikely to run a given bus line, and then working backward through that logic to figure out what play you should make. But despite the
need to ponder, the pondering never lasts long, since there are only a few choices for you to choose from. So the game is nice balance of needing some deductive reasoning without succumbing to a huge amount of paralysis due to second guessing. I led in scoring for the majority of the game only to get sniped by the better placement power of Dan. Ward and Dave struggled a while, but they surprised everyone with a burst of points at the end to bring them very close to the front. This is obviously a game in which you can come from behind to win.

-Mike Mayer

Thread: Session Report

Eric Brosius — 2004-06-13T17:35:40+00:00

PARIS PARIS
(Paul L., Eric, Evan)

We had already established a theme for the evening. Paul L., Eric and Evan played quick 3-player games while Anton, Rich, Dan, and Scott labored away at Goa. The next 3-player game was Paris Paris, a Michael Schacht creation that Walt hates, but that many of the rest of us enjoy. Some people complain that Paris Paris is too strongly dominated by the central intersections, and that the player who seizes those spaces will win. (To be fair, Walt doesn't have this complaint; he simply complains that he has no idea what to do to win Paris Paris.)

We started off with several shops for Evan up north near Montmartre and several more in the southwest near (but not in) Montparnasse. Evan established a stronghold in the east, in and on both sides of Bastille, while Eric scattered his shops more widely across the map, trying for key junctions. Oddly enough, Montparnasse never got a single shop, even though it comes up three times. Each time, the alternative options were good and the final player couldn't afford the resulting grand tour.

As the game progressed, we began to send each other's shops to the bag. Because Paul L. and Eric were competing for intersections, Paul L. tended to put Eric's shops in the bag while Eric tended to put Paul L.'s shops in the bag. Evan had his own private territory, a little out of the way, so he put some of each opponent's shops in the bag, but he more often added to his territory.

On the final turn of the game, Paul L. dumped a final shop into the bag (Eric's) and Evan warned him that this might give Eric a majority in the bag and an easy win. Paul L. disagreed, but it was pretty clear that whichever one of Paul L. and Eric had the majority in the bag would be the winner.

When we emptied the bag and counted the shops, there was a dead heat between Paul L. and Eric, who had 6 shops each. This tie meant that no points would be awarded for the bag. Evan had only 2 in the bag (and thus had 4 more shops on the board than either opponent.) Much to our surprise, Evan's "avoid the limelight" strategy turned out to be the winning approach.

Final scores: Evan 53, Paul L. 52, Eric 51.

Eric's rating: 8. I like Michael Schacht's games more than most people. I really enjoy Paris Paris; a game can afford to have some luck when it plays so quickly.

Thread: Re:Session Report

curtc — 2004-05-24T17:58:45+00:00

joelee (#36174),
Dang it. No, we didn't do that. I need to be more careful when I let others read the rules to my games and explain then to me.

Thread: Re:Session Report

joelee — 2004-05-14T02:37:13+00:00

djlg (#36161),

b) You DID score the bonus points for having the most shops in the bag, didn't you? The player who has the most shops taken off the board and placed in the bag, gets bonus points (exactly how many I can't recall).

The player with the most shops in the bag at the end of the game scores 1 point for each of his shops that were in the bag. In the case of a tie no one scores the points.

Thread: Re:Session Report

djlg — 2004-05-14T00:01:38+00:00

curtc (#35990),

> The choice of which you choose does not affect your score AT ALL, which means that you can be as arbitrary as you want in selecting which market to eliminate. In my case, I seemed to have the "boot me" sign on my back, and throughout most of the game I had about half the markets as everyone else (which directly translates into scoring)

a) So choosing who to boot will affect your place (boot those that are ahead of you in score).

b) You DID score the bonus points for having the most shops in the bag, didn't you? The player who has the most shops taken off the board and placed in the bag, gets bonus points (exactly how many I can't recall).

Thread: Session Report

curtc — 2004-05-13T00:43:32+00:00

At the table:
Game 1: Aaron, MikeM, RickW, Jordan
Game 2: newcomer Steve, Curt, MikeM, newcomer Christopher

Session report from game 2.

Paris Paris finally hit the table for the first time. Michael was the only one who had played (having played in game 1) and ably explained the rules. Having played Web of Power myself, the quick assessment is that Paris Paris feels like WoP light. You basically have bus lines in Paris, and you build markets on stations, some of which (stations) are at intersections of two bus lines. The latter of which support two markets, the former 1. The main distinguishing game mechanic is the selection of station placement. You take turns going first, and the player going first for the turn takes 5 station tiles from random (well, # of players + 1), picks one for himself, and passes the rest on letting other players do likewise. The route of the station that does not get chosen does a small scoring, scoring all markets on the route. This is where most points come from. At the end every route but one scores. I'm not sure eliminating one route from final scoring is really a necessary addition, especially since you often don't have very many useful options when choosing where to place your market.

The game was enjoyed by all, but the fun factor was redcued for me by a single issue. Since there are more station tiles than markets that can be there, when you draw a station that is already full, you get to choose which existing market you want to boot. The choice of which you choose does not affect your score AT ALL, which means that you can be as arbitrary as you want in selecting which market to eliminate. In my case, I seemed to have the "boot me" sign on my back, and throughout most of the game I had about half the markets as everyone else (which directly translates into scoring), even though everyone places exactly one market every turn. I tend to like games with hosing potential, but this seemed a bit ridiculous.

Thread: Re:

darquil — 2004-04-18T17:04:59+00:00

Windopaene (#33499),

Thanks.

Will

Thread: Re:Rules Question: Two Businesses at One Intersection

darquil — 2004-04-18T17:04:22+00:00

toro (#33508),

Thanks so much. That clears it up.

Will

Thread: Re:Rules Question: Two Businesses at One Intersection

toro — 2004-04-18T09:30:27+00:00

darquil (#33489),

The correct answer is B: You score 1 point for each business, that is at the current bus stop. And if you have any business (no matter if one or two) at this bus stop, you will score 1 extra point for all of your directly adjacent business.

A simmilar question has been answered by the author of the game on the spielbox forum: see http://www.spielbox.de/phorum4/read.php4?f=1&i=62443&t=62403

Thread: Re:

Windopaene — 2004-04-18T07:03:36+00:00

darquil (#33488),

Option B is the proper one.

Thread: Rules Question: Two Businesses at One Intersection

darquil — 2004-04-18T05:41:35+00:00

If a player has two businesses at one intersection, and there is a grand tour for a color crossing that intersection, does the player score:

A) 1 point only, for having one or more businesses at the location, and 1 point for each adjacent business,

B) 2 points, one for each business, and 1 point for each adjacent business,

or

C) 2 points, one for each business, and 2 points for each adjacent business (each one being adjacent to two businesses at the intersection in question).

Bear in mind, this is considering ONE intersection only; I am not asking if it is possible for a business to be scored multiple times by being adjacent to multiple intersections on the same grand tour.

Thanks for any answer, factual or fantasy.

Thread:

darquil — 2004-04-18T05:40:43+00:00