Game: La Strada

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rober — 2008-11-14T10:07:52+00:00

overview

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duartec — 2008-09-17T09:06:03+00:00

In the middle of a 3 player game

Thread: Re: Last cube placed, unused resource points still available

GaryP — 2008-09-11T15:53:47+00:00

Very odd, but I would have to agree with your ruling. The number of cubes are strictly limited and a new connection requires placing a cube. Perhaps she could have made a more roundabout route for her last connection to cause some mayhem, but she should still be limited to that one final connection.

Thread: Last cube placed, unused resource points still available

TVis — 2008-09-09T18:22:21+00:00

A new player took a frugal approach and produced an unexpected situation at the end of a game – and did the same again a second time.

She frequently saved road-building resource points to carry them into the following turn. Thus at the finish she connected to a settlement and placed her final cube yet had several resource points still in the bank. Other settlements were still within her reach. Should she be allowed to continue road placements that might obstruct the rest of us? (We, of course, still had one final turn to play once her turn was complete.)

I couldn’t explicitly point to a rule but I said NO.

This rule exists, although I think it is instead meant to cover a different situation, You must place one of your merchant cubes on each settlement you connect to.

My expectation is that rule was meant to prohibit passing through a low-level Hamlet but holding onto your cube inventory in hopes of later placement on a more valuable settlement. The basis of our situation was different but this player would not have been able to comply with “must place” if she continued road building to the next settlement.

So we played it that her turn was done at the point where her cubes ran out. Does any body else have additional thoughts?

Thread: Exploring the 2-player difference

TVis — 2008-09-04T13:23:07+00:00

Tonight we venture into three rounds under 2-player rules. Our only previous experience with this game came from one trial round of 3-player rules to understand the procedure, then four competitive rounds of the same spread over two days. In those we were joined by a friend who, like us, was also playing for the very first time.

We are somewhat cautious before the start since 2-player activity works under a different scheme that may require an adjustment from what we have learned earlier. Playing two road colors each is not much of an issue, and the alternating start for placing double workshops is a mild change. Our focus is that the first arrival in a settlement now takes all scoring points. We have been accustomed to making additional connections to settlements purposely for splitting and diluting the points of other players already present. For 2-player games such connections earn nothing for the second player and dilute nothing for the first. Will this cause different thinking and approach to play ?

As it turns out, the game advances quickly. We are adjusted within just a couple of moves. We readily accept that the other player has captured, or can capture first, certain settlements and immediately turn our attention in other directions. We find no impediment.

Well, maybe there is One Good Lesson about differences. In our previous experience we would all work to make our own connections to settlements of the highest value, the Cities. We feared allowing another player to take sole possession, thus letting that player take full score. Somewhere in the middle of the final game tonight I am faced with a choice that I later judge as wrongly taken as a result of this bias.

My opponent has already connected with 2 of the 4 cities while I have another. I could now spend my 6-count road building resource budget to grab the last one. If I ignore it, then my opponent will surely collect it next turn. That would be 3 to 1. Because we otherwise learned to focus on Cites (5 points each) I feel that I cannot let it pass.

So I lunge for that City out of pride, knowingly passing up two Towns (4 points each) that I could also have reached by spending those same 6-count resources. The problem is that I went for prestige without doing the math. I dropped a chance to get 8 points by instead claiming a mere 5 points. It takes very few seconds to absorb my faulty motivation when on her next turn my opponent comes from a different direction to claim those very same Towns -- gaining the 8 points that I failed to consider. Ooops.

[c] SCORES
40 25
27 38
38 27
==========
105 90[/c]

(player assignments withheld to protect my incompetence)

Observation: Both here and with our 3-player experience earlier, because we alternate starting we soon detected a strong correlation between winners and the starting player. Still we are not yet dismayed since the decision making on each move has kept us stimulated and entertained. A winner is never really obvious while play itself ensues so we never quite feel discouraged.

Thread: Re: Will you make it on the Road to La Strada?

Sprydle — 2008-08-14T04:44:59+00:00

Defintely not Catan light! This game is great and is one of the deeper fast-playing games around. For 3 players, it generally takes us just under 30 minutes to knock out a game--we get two finished in a lunch hour. And every placement is an excercise in painful choices--but you're always on the lookout for a route which benefits you and blocks your opponents. It must do both though, because there simply aren't enough moves until the very end game to waste any time solely blocking as that simply hands the game to the other player.

One of the most underrated games on the 'geek. I don't know what they naysayers are playing (unless it's just the as-written two-player game which is mostly broken) but it's not what we play!

Thread: Will you make it on the Road to La Strada?

jimmcmahon — 2008-07-14T17:24:43+00:00

La Strada, by Martin Wallace, is a somewhat light boardgame where each player owns a northern Italian trading company. There are only so many cities that can provide income to the traders, so you will have to plan accordingly.

La Strada has a simple enough premise. Players set up their Workshop and build routes to various settlements and they get to share in the wealth of the settlement. The board consists of six pieces which form a large hex-shaped area. It is filled with smaller hexes which take the form of plains, forests, ot hills. The four types of settlements are distributed to pre-set locations. After setting up the board and the settlements (which is random, and should be different every time), the players take turns placing their workshop. They are then given only six resources each turn to use in placing roads. Placing a road on a Plains hex costs two resources, a forest costs three resources, and hills cost four. Any unused resources are carried over to the next turn, maxing out at ten. However, the roads placed in a turn must connect with another settlement that they have not already visited; building partial roads is not permitted. Roads also cannot cross over an already existing road, so strategic placing can cut off an opponent from accessing parts of the board. Once a road connects to a settlement, a colored merchant cube is placed on it. At the end of the game the cubes are totaled up according to the types of settlement and points are awarded.

This is a quick playing game. There is no luck involved beyond the random placement of the setup phase; everything else is decided by the players. Smaller settlements have fewer opportunities for a trader, so if one trader sets up in a small town, he will get all the money (2 gold). If two traders set up in that same town, they will share the gold (one each). If three or more traders set up on that small town, nobody gets anything. The larger the settlement, the more gold it has to offer. A city will give five gold to a single trader, four gold (each)to two traders, three gold (each) to three traders, and so on. Settlements with fewer traders on them will bring in more gold to those on them, so it becomes necessary to sometimes try to block off convenient access to the other players. This isn't always easy to do because when placing roads they must connect to another settlement. And spending too much time blocking off access to a good city will result in more of the other areas of the board becoming unavailable. There is a balance that must be considered.

La Strada does, at first glance, come across at Catan Lite because you are building roads on hexes with forests and mountains and settlements. I think that the similarity is only superficial. I never got that feeling while playing. This had a different strategic sense to it. The lack of dice means that you have to make the important decisions. Nothing can be blamed on rolling poorly.

The board and pieces are very nicely made and illustrated, though being a bit color blind I found that if different colors had been chosen, or more vibrantly painted or printed, that would have been easier. The colors used are black, gray, brown, and yellow, which aren't always easily distinguishable my my eyes. But that is really the only complaint I have about it. The game plays well and doesn't take forever to play. It is designed for two to four players (though a slightly different rules set is used for only two players) and a game is typically 30 to 45 minutes.

(Expanded from my original review at gatheringgamers.com here.)

Jim

Edit: Punctuation

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swuyau — 2008-05-27T10:41:53+00:00

Game

Thread: Re: Are road builds atomic, or can you build a dangling road to finish later?

tool — 2008-05-06T18:00:20+00:00

There's nothing in there about intent. It says, twice, that each road must connect to a new settlement. I don't see any need for it to be more explicit.

Thread: Are road builds atomic, or can you build a dangling road to finish later?

JavaJack — 2008-05-06T17:21:31+00:00

"You may build in more than one direction during your turn. You begin at your
workshop (or any settlement you have already connected to), and place tiles
to connect to new settlements.
Important: Each road you build must connect your network to a new settlement
you have not yet reached. You may not place tiles if they do not connect
to a new settlement."

The last sentence implies that you can't build a dangling road, but I can also see it being interpreted as measuring your intent. You would build partway towards a new settlement in good faith, and finish it later.

I can't read the German rules in my copy to see if they're any more explicit. Is there an official ruling?

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Rokkr — 2008-04-25T09:33:32+00:00

regular map tile

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Rokkr — 2008-04-25T09:31:53+00:00

starting map tile

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Rokkr — 2008-04-25T09:30:16+00:00

parts description and count

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Rokkr — 2008-04-25T09:27:37+00:00

inventory of parts

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Rokkr — 2008-04-25T09:24:49+00:00

hi res cover scan, US/Mayfair edition

Thread: Re: Two Player Rules that Don’t Suck

AngusBull — 2008-03-18T20:38:46+00:00

Sounds much better after reading included the 2-player rules yesterday. Thanks for posting.

Thread: Re: Problem fitting the board pieces into the frame.

Gamegrunt — 2008-02-16T03:31:53+00:00

scottredracecar wrote:
This was a major problem in my copy too. However, I didn't find the game compelling enough to bother trying to fix it. How much effort did it take to sand the edges?

Slightly more than trimming your toenails.

Gg

Thread: Re: Problem fitting the board pieces into the frame.

scottredracecar — 2008-02-15T21:02:53+00:00

This was a major problem in my copy too. However, I didn't find the game compelling enough to bother trying to fix it. How much effort did it take to sand the edges?

Thread: Re: Problem fitting the board pieces into the frame.

Gamegrunt — 2008-02-15T20:04:39+00:00

You ain't the Lone Ranger, Pardner. My copy had the same problem so I sanded the edges until everything fit properly.

Gg

Thread: Re: Problem fitting the board pieces into the frame.

jimmcmahon — 2008-02-15T20:01:36+00:00

I've never noticed a problem.

Jim

Thread: Problem fitting the board pieces into the frame.

BettyEgan — 2008-02-15T19:51:55+00:00

I'm surprised I haven't seen any posts on this yet. Maybe I am the only one who has this problem:
The triangular pieces don't quite fit into the frame properly. You can force them by arranging the pieces in a certain configuration, but it still buckles a bit. Anyone else have this problem. Any suggestions for a fix?

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rgatti — 2007-12-18T08:14:42+00:00

An exploded view of the game board prior to assembly.

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ArtEmiSa64 — 2007-12-10T22:49:30+00:00

unpunched game components

Thread: trade post placement question

jerkules — 2007-09-25T15:44:38+00:00

When placing trade posts, the rules state there must be 1 blank space between tradeposts. But you may put your tradepost adjacent to a settlement tile (assuming it is on a plains space)?

I realize they are not considered "connected" until you build a road from the tradepost to the settlement, but was just wondering if that placement was okay.

Also, it sounds like some think the start player has an advantage, so has anyone tried reverse turn order for placing tradeposts? Just a thought.

Thread: La Strada - Supreme Filler

jvdv — 2007-08-08T23:00:58+00:00

The atmospheric illustration on La Strada's boxcover invites players to enter a rustic, romantic time and place: northern Italy during the late Middle Ages, when trade flourished between the budding towns. The players are the traders, competing to build a trading network of the highest value by connecting their trading posts to as many and as profitable locations as possible. These locations are towns, villages, hamlets and farms, in descending order of value. Competition hurts profit, so when more than one player connects the same location to his or her network, the value of that location becomes less for all players there.

La Strada is played on a square modular board, composed of four cornerparts that hold the spaces for scoring at the end of the game, and the actual playing area in the middle. The area is formed by six triangular pieces, that together form a large hexagon. The spaces on the board are also hexes, depicting the terrain of northern Italy: fields, woods and hills. 19 spaces are marked by a light grey dot, where the hexagonal tiles depicting the locations are randomly placed on, after being mixed up facedown. Once the location tiles are placed on the board they are turned over, and the playing area is ready to receive the impatient traders.

In their color of choice, each player gets the following playing pieces: 12 marker cubes, 31 hexagonal roadtiles (18 on fields, 8 on woods and 5 on hills; fronts are straight road, backs are all 120 degree corners) and a trading post. Players position themselves near one of the four tracks numbered from 1 through 10, which is used to keep track of the player's "traveldays". In turn, each player now places his trading post on an empty field space. Players should position their trading post wisely, within reach of the high value towns. The edges of the playing area should be avoided, as players run the risk of being cornered. The much discussed advantage of the starting player being able to pick the one choice spot on the board, is only an advantage if the other players let him or her get away with it. The game has an inherent subtle balance, that gives players equal opportunity to win. Final scores are often very close to each other.

The game is deceptively simple in it's mechanic. A player's turn starts off with adding six traveldays to their track. The player spends traveldays to place roadtiles: two for fields, three for woods and four for hills. Starting out at the trading post, a location must be reached in one go. If a location cannot be reached, the player must choose another, or save up to the maximum of ten traveldays and build road to the location next turn. When a player builds to a certain location, a marker cube in the player's color is placed on it. On their next turn, the player can build a new "strada" from this location, or start off in a different direction from their original trading post. Remember, unfinished roads are not allowed, locations must be reached during a player's turn. Roadtiles cannot be placed on top of other roadtiles, nor can they be removed or replaced in any way. This is where the game becomes the brainburner it is, as players block each other at every opportunity. In fact, La Strada is only mastered once players realize it is often wiser to thwart an opponent, than to go for their own personal gain. However, it is necessary to reach certain key locations, namely the high value towns and those locations that prevent others from completely cornering a player. Locations can only be connected to a player's network once.

The game ends when, at the start of their turn, a player cannot build another road, either because they are out of marker cubes, or there isn't a reachable location anymore. Scoring commences, thematically portrayed as gold coins. On every corner of the gameboard one of the four types of locations is depicted, with two to four boxes to hold the marker cubes. Cubes are simply transferred from a location to the corresponding box, depending on the total number of cubes on the location. For each player, the value of each cube is determined by the number of gold coins depicted at the bottom of the box the cube is in. All values are added, scores are tallied and compared, and a winner is declared. If there is a tie, leftover traveldays are the tiebreaker.

La Strada may leave players somewhat befuddled after the first session. They may look at each other and raise their eyebrows, thinking: Is this it? Because the game plays within half an hour, players may give it another go, and after one or two more sessions, an intriguing game emerges. It is a connection game that echoes Wallace's much more complex Age of Steam. La Strada's simplicity initially obfuscates the wealth of choice offered the players, leading to a tense and intense boardgame. Kosmos is a publisher of the highest quality, and attention to detail is obvious throughout. There are some shortcomings, especially how the trading posts are depicted. On a gameboard rapidly filling with tiles, they are easily confused with the 19 target locations. The road networks in their four different colors remain distinct, and present a wonderful sight as they grow and grow. Another minor flaw is the scoring boxes, that could lead to some confusion the first few games.

La Strada is designed with four players in mind. It is a weaker affair with three players, and the adjusted rules for two players leave of La Strada nothing more than a mere ghost of what the game really has to offer. And that, with four players, is a supreme filler, a game that has a lovely amount of depth and nailbiting choices in the second best half hour anyone could spend.

Thread: La Strada: a review

edosan — 2007-05-23T19:37:51+00:00

I picked up La Strada a while back, expecting it to be something of a "pick up and deliver" game, but it was something more...and less.

First of all, I can't review La Strada without commenting on the board: it is one of the more interesting boards I've seen. There is a central frame, and then several triangular pieces that fit into it, making a giant hexagon of little hexagons. Cities and geographical features are placed randomly on the parts, so that by placing the triangles or rotating them in different orientations, you could make countless board configurations. (I really like the ability to change boards around to every game is different.)

I've referred to this before as "Blokus with a theme" and that's a pretty close approximation. Everyone picks starting villages and gets a pool of action points to build roads that connect villages into a sort of trade network. Points are resolved at the end of the game by who is in what village -- the bigger the village, the more points. Also, and here's the trick: the more players in a village, the fewer points it's worth to each.

This means two things: first, a small village that you are the only presence in may give more points than a large town that everybody is connected to and second, not only does connecting to a village give you more points, it takes points away from others. Interesting, huh?

Anyway, the unique things La Strada brings to the table is marred by three things: first of all, the two-player game is terrible. I mean, "how did they let this get out with 2-4 written on the side of the box" terrible. I am always disappointed when that happens, because we play 2-player games a lot here and this is really only a 3-4 player game.

The second thing is the huge advantage the starting player gets. Yes, you can try to box the starting player in, but you're always playing catch-up to the first player. The only way we were able to work around that (aside from rule tweaking) was to play several times in a sitting and let everyone start once. Of course, you might not be interested in playing 3-4 times in a sitting...

Third, I found the game very fiddly. The boards are cool and I like those, but the individual player roads, the cubes, and the scoring for each town made it seem like we spent as much time with administrative duties as we did actually playing. (A minor associated complaint is the choices for player colors: they tried to make the roads natural colors, but that means the player colors are black, gray, brown, and white. That made things a little difficult to tell things apart from time to time. Red, yellow, blue, and green wouldn't have been as "realistic," but it would have been more playable."

In summary, I thought La Strada was an interesting connection game that had a workable theme and was very customizable, but I felt that it had too many strikes to be a really top-tier game. (My rating: 5)

Thread: Re: 2 Player Variant

Fledermaushaus — 2007-04-02T16:50:45+00:00

I got and played La Strada back in '04 when it came out, decided what I thought was the best way to play it 2-player, put it away until the other day...and couldn't remember what I'd concluded before. So tried it again in several different ways and decided again what seems best.
Which is:
Use 2 colours, player A going 1st and 3rd, player B going 2nd and 4th and you play each of your colours alternately. In the first round ONLY, the first colour has 6 action points, the second has 7, the 3rd has 8 and the last has 9 (this had been suggested in Counter and Spielbox back in 2004 for the multi-player game).
Game ends when one of your colours cannot ever make a new connection (i.e. even with the maximum of 10 action points accumulated).
The points of both colours are added together. (The idea of using only the highest score from your weaker colour works fine for a lot of games but definitely not here. That is because you reduce the score of one of your colours when you connect to the same place with your other colour. Since the scores arn't counted until the end you could be reducing the score of your weaker colour by making a connection with your stronger colour, without knowing it. However the total score for both colours is increased when you connect with your second colour).
There is just one other very minor change. To ensure there is always an incentive to make a connection, if there are 3 cubes in a hamlet at the end, the player with 2 in it scores 1 point (in total - not per colour) for the hamlet. If there are all 4 cubes its score is zero as normal.
This seems to be the best way to handle the game 2-player and keeping it as close to the multi-player game as possible.
(There is also no problem of one colour 'helping' the other as you need to try to make as many connections as possible with both colours).

Thread: Re: Turn Order Trouble?

bazzer52 — 2006-08-29T06:58:29+00:00

We played twice last night as a 4 player, first time by the rules and found that the turn order almost dictated the result and player 4 felt very stuffed.

However I had anticipated this given this thread so we rotated the turn order each turn (as per Puerto Rico) and refreshed our 6 points at the movement of the turn order (important for ties). This gave a much better game and should be fairly balanced as who goes first then goes last next turn.

With this change everyone around the table felt the game much improved.

Will report back after a few more plays

Thread: Re: Amazing move by first time player

ValJor — 2006-08-23T20:48:23+00:00

Hi Michael!

Why do you say "connected with 5 different cities"? He only connected two cities, but "looped around" the big one in the process. Very clever on his part!

Thread: Re: Amazing move by first time player

stray_flux — 2006-08-22T22:20:31+00:00

ValJor wrote:
He didn't do it in one single round, he did it in two. In his first round he touched that city on three hexes (blocking off the only guy who was close enough to try and do anything) and on his next round he touched the other three sides of the city. Very clever, I have never seen it done like that.

Hey Valdir,

The rules state that you must build complete links and that "you may not place tiles if you do not connect to a new settlement"

By looking at the pieces of the board, I find it very difficult to believe that there exists a situation in which there was a city that could be connected with 5 different cities and his work shop all with single tiles. (If there is, I hope I go first next time I see it)

I think you may be missing a rule.

Cheers,
Mike

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

jedik77 — 2006-08-18T06:36:04+00:00

Yes, I checked your ratings... Hard to charm!

I know what you mean about colours, they are all sort of similar, but I like them because they're kind of "softish"...
About the gameplay - girlfriend beat me and she WAS first to play, so we'll have to see if there really is tendency to favour the first player...

Peace!

P.S. Have you played Twilight Imperium (2nd or 3rd edition)?

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

cymric — 2006-08-17T21:47:38+00:00

I wasn't too thrilled about the components. Their quality is nice, but the colour scheme isn't very clear. The board is composed of lots of shades of green, and I found it got in the way of playing. As for the game itself, the standard 2-player rules were far from engaging. Jerry Dziuba made a terrific variant which gives the ole brains a very decent workout, but this also more or less put my girlfriend off (although she defeated me very soundly). I also remember that we tried to work out what would happen with 4 players, and concluded that it could become a very mean game with a strong tendency to favour the first player(s). The combination of all these not-quite-there factors made us decide to immediately sell it instead of having it pine away in our closet.

I think that in the end, the game would have ended up at 5 or 6. But don't go comparing that to your 7 or 8 without checking out how I rate my games!

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

jedik77 — 2006-08-17T18:41:49+00:00

Hey cymric! Yes, it's pretty OK. Like the theme, too, and components are nice!

How would you rate this game?

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

cymric — 2006-08-17T18:01:49+00:00

jedik77 wrote:
Girlfriend and I just played our first game of La Strada. We used normal 4 player rules, and in the end just counted gold from both of our colours... It worked just fine! I will rate the game after two or three more plays, but it will surely be 7 or 8.
Ah, the Knizia-trick. Glad to hear you enjoyed it. I don't really like this as I find playing for 2 is rather heavy going.

One question - is it legal, in one turn, to place tiles from two different points? The rules don't prohibit this... How do you play?
As far as I know, you simply play. Just make sure you actually connect settlements and have the resources to do it.

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

jedik77 — 2006-08-17T16:58:35+00:00

Hi there!

Girlfriend and I just played our first game of La Strada. We used normal 4 player rules, and in the end just counted gold from both of our colours... It worked just fine! I will rate the game after two or three more plays, but it will surely be 7 or 8.

One question - is it legal, in one turn, to place tiles from two different points? The rules don't prohibit this... How do you play?

Thanx!

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

cymric — 2006-08-06T14:47:25+00:00

DonovanLoucks wrote:
5 - (For the moment, rating based on 2 player-only games.) The first game I played was with the official 2 player-variant, which doesn't work at all, and relegates this game to the levels of 'mediocre' at best. You would do well to avoid it at all costs, and send a letter of complaint to the publisher for printing misleasing information on the box.
You would also do well to quote the rest of my comment, as I specifically stated that with minor modifications, the game becomes much better and quite cerebral. Apart from that, it is childish to say the least to begrudge people their opinions; and truth be told, the game for 2 with the original rules really isn't that good.

But you are right that I shouldn't be rating this game as I never played it with more people. I have now removed the note, but kept the remark.

Thread: Geeks Terrorize Local Pizza Establishment

ed95005 — 2006-07-24T00:04:15+00:00

Pizza parlours throughout San Jose are on the lookout for our group. On Mondays, we meet at our FLGS that has a large room available for open gaming. But on weekends, we descend on one of several Round Table Pizzas in the area. If you thought a gang of Harleys pulling into a watering hole for a night of revelry was intimidating and impressive, you should see the looks on patrons' faces when a bunch of geeks wielding board games arrive in force. When we order our cheese pizzas and Diet Cokes, you better believe they roll out the red carpet -- they don't want no trouble from us!

Yesterday just four of us made the trek in the sweltering heat. Though our numbers were small, we put on our fiercest expressions and commandeered two booths near the front of the restaurant. Our second game was La Strada, a surprisingly light offer from the Grand Master of Route Building Games, Martin Wallace.

Martin (no relation to Wallace) and I had our eyes on the same area of the board and spent the early part of the game racing between cities, looking for ways to block each other out. Rick, the only in our group who had played the game previously, commented that La Strada tends to favor those who go first. Based on my one play, I have to agree. As the second player in the turn order, I had the advantage over Martin, who was fourth, of being able to build direct routes through the cheapest terrain, whereas he had to wind around me through hills and forests, burning up his limited resources. (I wonder if a variable turn order wouldn't solve this problem -- perhaps the player with the most resources should go first.)

I ended up winning by three or four points, with Martin in second, and Fluffy and Rick in third and fourth. Word of advice: if you're at a Round Table in San Jose and see a bunch of geeks playing board games, steer clear.

Thread: Session Report

Zirak — 2006-07-22T23:27:39+00:00

Players – Andy, Jacob, Jason, Lynsey

Andy made the first choice of the night and opted for a game of La Strada. As it was Jacob & Lydsey’s first game I quickly went over the rules while Andy placed the settlements. This is definitely one of the games strong points, that it is quick and easy to explain and you can start a game with new players rather quickly – one of those quick to learn, hard to master games.

Andy and I competed against each other to start off with and Jacob & Lynsey vied off against each other on the other side of the board. Andy got the upper hand and cut me off from a vital city, so I had to traverse to the other side of the board, but by this time it was to late for me.

After tallying up the point Andy & Lynsey tied for first with Andy winning the tie break – a very nice game, which I hope to bring out more often.

Thread: La Strada (a review in Portuguese)

fermmoylle — 2006-06-05T19:29:37+00:00

RESENHA BG-BR Jogo 'La Strada, de Martin Wallace'

21) COMENTÁRIOS FINAIS (resumo, nota, ...): Nota 7,9.
Os jogadores são mercadores que desejam comerciar com as cidades
e vilas da Itália do século XVIII, mas para isso precisam
construir estradas para escoar suas mercadorias. É um jogo
portal e "filler", embora possua grande profundidade nos seus
poucos minutos de jogo.

01) JOGABILIDADE (possibilidade de jogá-lo várias vezes) - Nota 5.
Tabuleiro modular, versatilidade e rapidez fazem desse um jogo
com grande jogabilidade.

02) VERSATILIDADE (de quantidade de jogadores); Nota 3.
2, 3 ou 4 jogadores.

03) COMPLEXIDADE (das regras) - Nota 4.
Pague o custo para colocar uma estrada, sempre ligando de um ponto
a outro (nada de estradas pela metade) e sem passar sobre outras
estradas. Simples e cheio de exemplos.

04) QUALIDADE (dos componentes individualmente); - Nota 4.
Tiles hexagonais para cada jogador, cubos de madeira para indicar
as mercadorias, tabuleiro em papel cartão.

05) VISUAL (do conjunto do jogo); Nota 4.
Um tanto quanto denso quando no fim do jogo, mas é bonito de ver
as estradas tomando forma enquanto o jogo se desenvolve.

06) ESTILO (se é abstrato ou não, se é fantasia, ...); Nota 3.
A região hexagonal do jogo poderia representar qualquer lugar,
não apenas a Itália, não havendo nada de particularmente italiano
exceto o título;

07) ADEQUAÇÃO (do visual ao tema/estilo do jogo); Nota 4.
Estradas e cidades por toda a parte.

08) ESTRATÉGIA; Nota 4.
Deve-se pesar a escolha entre fazer uma estrada longa e menos
lucrativa para bloquear a rota de seus oponentes ou investir
em trechos curtos ligando mais cidades.

09) SORTE (quantidade de elementos baseados na sorte); Nota 4.
Após o aleatório setup inicial (terreno e cidades), tudo se
resume às escolhas dos jogadores.

10) INFLUÊNCIA (da sorte na condução da partida); Nota 5.
Uma vez que você escolhe onde vai começar o jogo, a sorte é
completamente minimizada.

11) AMPLITUDE (das decisões a serem tomadas); Nota 3.
Para onde construir, de que forma, bloqueando uma rota ou não...

12) RELEVÂNCIA (de cada item para o resultado da partida); Nota 4.
Mesmo as primeiras conexões podem ser cruciais para uma boa
pontuação final.

13) INTERAÇÃO; Nota 3.
Apesar de os jogadores ficarem constantemente observando as
possibilidades de movimentos dos oponentes, cada jogada é
individual.

14) CAOS (influência das jogadas dos demais jogadores); Nota 4.
Se uma estrada passar por um lugar, sua estrada não pode fazê-lo.

15) PARTICIPAÇÃO (dos jogadores quando não é sua vez); Nota 2.
Torça para seu oponente não construir aquela estrada... felizmente
cada rodada é muito rápida.

16) CONFRONTO (possibilidade de influenciar o jogo ou prejudicar o
adversário); Nota 4.
Bloqueios bem efetuados podem forçar um jogador a seguir rotas
alternativas ou mesmo desistir de uma determinada cidade.

17) MECÂNICA (o sistema do jogo); Nota 4.
Simples e rápida, permitindo que até jogadores não habituais a
compreenda e se divirtam.

18) INOVAÇÃO (mecânicas criativas e inovadoras); Nota 3.
Construir rotas é algo já conhecido, sendo utilizado em jogos como
Transamérica e Tickt to Ride. A pontuação, porém, é o que faz
o jogo brilhar, pois quanto mais jogadores fizerem comércio com
uma cidade, menos ela valerá (oferta e procura).

19) FUNCIONALIDADE (forma como as mecânicas interagem entre si e
sobre os jogadores); Nota 5.
Tudo é dinâmico e rápido, adequadamente cativando os jogadores pela
simplicidade.

20) DIVERSÃO (quanto eu quero jogar esse jogo de novo?); Nota 5.
Adorei ter jogado La Strada e certamente quero fazê-lo de novo,
mais de uma vez, pois é muito rápido e dá vontade de iniciar uma
nova partida tão logo a anterior tenha acabado.

Thread: Re: LA STRADA - A Portuguese Review

fs1973 — 2006-05-29T10:40:16+00:00

Oyas Eduardo, se procurares com alguma atenção vais encontrar bastantes portugueses. Do meu gaming group, somos 3 em permanência quase constante aqui no BGG. Mas há muitos mais. Ainda não somos a nacionalidade maioritária no BGG, vamos estamos a tratar disso, LOol!!!
Existe um bom blog portugûes sobre o assunto: http://jogosdetabuleiro.blogspot.com
Eu e o meu ppl estamos a desenhar e a preparar um blog tuga sobre board games. Depois mando-te o link qd fôr publicado.
Até lá, bons jogos
fs

Thread: Re: LA STRADA - A Portuguese Review

NrowS — 2006-05-28T04:11:28+00:00

Fantástico! Por momentos pensei que não houvesse mais nenhum português registado aqui no GameBoardGeek, mas já vi que estou enganado... e ainda bem!

Quanto ao La Strada, comprei-o na visita que fiz à Alemanha, em Novembro (e que baratos são os jogos por lá...!!) e gosto dele. A princípio pensei que fosse um pouco mais complexo - por exemplo, um maior número de hexágonos iria ajudar muito a acrescentar uma maior extensão ao jogo. Não me desiludiu, apesar da sua simplicidade, e revelou-se, até, multi-facetado: quando jogo a dois, não tenho grandes problemas em ganhar, mas quando entra mais gente, a coisa muda de figura. Torna-se muito diferente porque as possibilidades de escolha de pontos de partida, bem como de caminhos, ficam mais limitadas quantos mais jogadores houver.
Já está a ganhar pó há algum tempo, mas qualquer dia volta ao activo. A culpa disso tem sido "apenas" do Carcassonne e do São Petersburgo.

Thread: Re: Turn Order Trouble?

GeoMan — 2006-05-21T01:06:54+00:00

Alan is right. No matter who is going to end the game, the first player will never miss a turn. In a tight game like this, that is an important advantage.

Thread: Re: Game end

dklx3 — 2006-05-18T21:34:40+00:00

nomad001 wrote:
harmony wrote:
The rules say the game ends when one player cannot make a move.

Is this when that player with their build points cannot make a move (i.e. they have 6 and the cheapest road they can build would cost 9)?

or only when there is no possible road that they could build ?

the examples given in the translation I have support the second interpretation.

I interpret it to mean that as soon as you can't build anything at the start of your turn, the game ends (I quote "The game ends as soon as any one player, at the beginning of his turn, finds that he cannot connect to any more settlements.")

Thus, if the only settlement available to you is 10 resources away and you saved none from your last turn (and thus start with six), the game ends.

The rules further specify three conditions:
- All the settlements he can reach already have one of his merchant cubes on it, or
- if he has no more merchant cubes to place, or
- if he does not have the correct type of tiles left to place

It is the first of these that defines this situation. From this statement, I believe it is possible to read either interpretation, the difference hinging on whether you interpret "all the settlements he can reach" to be this moment... or at all possible. An earlier rule states that "You may only place tiles if you can connect to a settlement that does not have one of your cubes on it."

This implies that during the course of the game, there are times when you cannot... so you save so you will have enough another turn, when you can so build.

While I believe either interpretation can be construed from the rules, we have chosen that "cannot" means 'no possible way ever' and not 'this moment'.

I wonder if the designer wanders the site and would be willing to specify his intent????

Thread: Re: Amazing move by first time player

snoozefest — 2006-05-18T12:50:06+00:00

Very nice! I liked this game but haven't had the chance to play it in a long time ... will definitely try to get it back on the table soon!

Thread: Re: Amazing move by first time player

ValJor — 2006-05-18T12:46:40+00:00

Hi Snooze!

You wrote:
Is that legal?

Each road you build must connect your network to a new settlement you have not yet reached. You may not place tiles if they do not connect to a new settlement.

How did he have enough money to follow this rule and surround a city in a single turn?
He didn't do it in one single round, he did it in two. In his first round he touched that city on three hexes (blocking off the only guy who was close enough to try and do anything) and on his next round he touched the other three sides of the city. Very clever, I have never seen it done like that.

Thread: Re: Amazing move by first time player

snoozefest — 2006-05-18T12:03:38+00:00

Is that legal?

Each road you build must connect your network to a new settlement you have not yet reached. You may not place tiles if they do not connect to a new settlement.

How did he have enough money to follow this rule and surround a city in a single turn?

Thread: LA STRADA - A Portuguese Review

fs1973 — 2006-05-17T20:41:56+00:00

LA STRADA

Mais um fantástico jogo de intervalo. Um daqueles títulos que se despacha em 30min enquanto se espera que cheguem todos para uma partida de CAYLUS. Desenhado pelo ilustre Martin Wallace, LA STRADA representa a incursão do criador britânico pelo universo dos jogos "light".

LA STRADA é um jogo para 2, 3 ou 4 jogadores, onde cada interveniente interpreta o papel de um mercador à procura de expandir o seu negócio pelas muitas povoações que pululam pelo universo LA STRADA. Essa expansão faz-se pela criação de rotas comercias que ligam as diversas povoações. O jogo oferece um tabuleiro modular, que é necessário montar e permite criar bastantes cenários alternativos para cada jogo. Para além do board, temos as tiles de povoação e as tiles de terreno, para além dos marcadores de recursos e dos mercadores.
Depois de montado o cenário de jogo, baralham-se as tiles de povoação/setlements e colocam-se nas casas marcadas para o efeito.

MECÂNICA DE JOGO - Cada jogador joga com uma determinada côr e tem no início de cada turno 6 recursos/action points para gastar. A única tarefa de cada jogador é criar uma rota de ligação entre duas povoações. Existem 4 tipos de povoações (hamlets/lugares, villages/aldeias, cities/vilas e towns/cidades) com ordens de importância diferentes. O tabuleiro do jogo está dividido em 3 tipos de terreno: planície, floresta e montanha. Ao fazer uma ligação entre povoações, o jogador vai gastando os recursos necessários para concluir essa mesma ligação e os recursos têm custos diferentes consoante o tipo de terreno que vai ser usado. Assim, um tile de planície custa 2, floresta custa 3 e montanha custa 4. Um jogador não é obrigado a gastar os recursos todos, mas é obrigado a concluir a rota que iniciou. Um jogador no início do seu turno recebe sempre 6 recursos para construir, recursos esses que podem ser acrescentados aos que conseguir guardar da jogada anterior, mas que nunca podem exceder o total de 10. Uma rota de um jogador não pode ser cortada por outro jogador. Na mesma povoação pode haver mais do que um mercador, mas nunca podem existir mercadores da mesma côr numa mesma povoação.
O jogo desenrola-se com uma fluidez incrível e é muito simples de jogar. O jogo acaba quando um jogador não conseguir fazer mais nada (ou porque já não tem mercadores ou porque já não tem espaço no tabuleiro para iniciar e concluir uma rota de ligação.
No fim do jogo pontuam-se os jogadores de acordo com o número de mercadores em cada povoação. Se um jogador conseguir chegar a uma povoação e impedir que mais alguém lá chegue, irá pontuar mais do que aquele que partilhar a povoação com outros mercadores.
Em LA STRADA é tudo muito simples e fácil. A dose de estratégia necessária para este jogo é reduzida , mas existe e permite transformar este título numa pequena pérola para jogadores que gostam de jogos rápidos e intuitivos.
LA STRADA joga-se em média em 30 minutos e é um viciante e inteligente. Basta espalhar a sua rede comercial pelo tabuleiro e impedir que a concorrência faça o mesmo.

CONCLUSÃO - LA STRADA é um bom jogo de intervalo, com muito ritmo e fluidez. Ainda por cima, é um jogo com um preço muito apetecível.
Na minha opinião, este jogo é um "must have" em qualquer colecção. E não esquecer que se trata de um Martin Wallace.

NOTA - 7

Thread: Re: Game end

nomad001 — 2006-05-15T16:22:42+00:00

harmony wrote:
The rules say the game ends when one player cannot make a move.

Is this when that player with their build points cannot make a move (i.e. they have 6 and the cheapest road they can build would cost 9)?

or only when there is no possible road that they could build ?

the examples given in the translation I have support the second interpretation.

I interpret it to mean that as soon as you can't build anything at the start of your turn, the game ends (I quote "The game ends as soon as any one player, at the beginning of his turn, finds that he cannot connect to any more settlements.")

Thus, if the only settlement available to you is 10 resources away and you saved none from your last turn (and thus start with six), the game ends.

Thread: Amazing move by first time player

ValJor — 2006-05-15T13:48:03+00:00

Date: May 14th, 2006

Game: La Strada

Players: Karnon , Ray, Stephane and Valdir (myself)

]]>

I had left La Strada set up on the table where Ray and I played Tamsk and Heave Ho!, so when our game and the other one (Mall of Horrors) finished and we were talking about what to play next, this one was the obvious choice.

I explained the rules and the scoring to Ray and Karnon, who had never played it before. After we had put our workshops in place, Karnon (who had been randomly chosen as first player) was considering the options for his first move when Stephane (another member of the Concordia Games Club) showed up and as he knew the rules, he joined us right away.

Karnon had put his workshop right between two cities, so I advised him to just join with the two cities right away. He thanked me for the tip but did something completely different. He joined with one of the cities and then went on to "lap around" it, making it impossible for the other players to connect to it. In his next move he finished his "enclosure" guaranteeing a full city just to himself. I was amazed. Even though I have some experience with this game, I didn't see that move and he, after surveying the board for a few seconds saw the winning move. Impressive! In the end that solitary cube in the city would give him the victory as you can see by the score below.

Final Score
[c] Player: Total
Karnon: 25
Stephane: 23
Ray: 19
Valdir: 19[/c]

Ray and I were also tied in action points, so that we were really tied for last. Sad, really sad...

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

DonovanLoucks — 2006-05-11T21:24:26+00:00

Once you play a two-player game using the standard rules I'm sure you'll have a better appreciation for it. Having each of two players play two sides and add their scores together is an excellent idea (and a fairly standard approach to allow two players to play a multiplayer game). I continue to play this with two, three, and four players and apparently enjoy it more than the average BGGer.

Looking through the comments associated with lower ratings I see that several of them mention that they only played with two players, so maybe those are dragging the average down. Here are most of the comments associated with ratings lower than 6:

5.5 - light and fun with 4 players, horrible with only 2, and not likely to make my collection, but i'm not adverse to playing.

5 - Not sure yet. Played 2 player...

5 - Rating based only on 2-player game. Without a doubt, I will never want to play this with two players again.

5 - Based on only 2 playings, but I would say this game does not work with 2 players as depending on the intitial layout in one of our games there was no was to beat the first player...

5 - Well, we tried this with two... which seemed like a big mistake. I don't know if we played wrong, but there wasn't much "game" there. This came as a bit of a shock to me, because I'm a huge Wallace fan. I'll try it again with more, but I really didn't like it with two.

5 - Rating based on the two-player game only. Not a bad game as such, but on the other hand not terribly exciting either.

5 - Play the 2 player variant once. Need more play to see if I really like it or not.

5 - (For the moment, rating based on 2 player-only games.) The first game I played was with the official 2 player-variant, which doesn't work at all, and relegates this game to the levels of 'mediocre' at best. You would do well to avoid it at all costs, and send a letter of complaint to the publisher for printing misleasing information on the box.

4 - Rating is based on a 2 player game. Setting up the game takes longer to do than to play. The play is mechanical, predictable and even with enough time, analysis-paralysis could not set in as choices are self-evident.

4 - Also the game is simply broken when played as a two player game.

4 - Is is very impressiv - how can a game be that boring. If you look at the hexes and think of Wallace you really expect something different. The 2player variant is as exiting as to emty the dishwasher.

3 - Rating based on 1 play with 2 players. Not worth playing with 2 players.

Wow. That was eye-opening. Perhaps if all these folks played a three- or four-player game (or played a two-player game using the standard rules), we'd see the average rating get up to 7.0 (it's currently 6.5).

Thread: Re: 3 player filler

not2fear — 2006-05-11T01:39:15+00:00

Thanks for the heads up - I'll take your word for it. I don't own the game and will probably never play it again...

Thread: Re: 3 player filler

fubar awol — 2006-05-10T17:06:32+00:00

Hi -

I think the rules say that you are only supposed to have 1 workshop per player... The second workshop is only in the mix for use in the 2 player game.

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

fubar awol — 2006-05-10T00:36:57+00:00

Here is a link to a variant I just posted:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/908882

Thread: Two Player Rules that Don’t Suck

fubar awol — 2006-05-10T00:31:36+00:00

The Rules for the Two-Player Game that appear on the fourth page of the rule book are really poorly thought out. The game play is boring. See: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/92791 for a couple of comments.

We have found that playing the game “normally” works much better. Here is how it works:

1. Each player plays two colors. Play order alternates: one of my colors goes; then one of yours; then my other color; then your other color.

2. End of Game: The game ends when one of the colors finds, at the beginning of his turn (assuming he has 10 resource points accumulated) that he cannot connect to any more settlements – including settlements of his “other” color. In other words, during the game, you MAY connect to a settlement of your "other color" (but will not earn any advantage for it, see "scoring" below), but, for purposes of determining the end of the game, blocks of BOTH your colors are considered "your merchant cubes" for purposes of the first case of game-ending conditions found on page 3.

3. Scoring: Players add together the scores earned by their two colors, however, a player may only score for one color in each settlement. For example, if one player is playing yellow and brown, and there is one yellow, one brown and one grey cube in a City, each PLAYER scores three points.

That’s it. Basically it becomes a race to occupy and isolate settlements. Much more interesting and similar to the 4 player game than the silly 2-player version on page 4.

Thread: Re: Session Report

Shade_Jon — 2006-05-09T17:19:18+00:00

Sounds good to me.

Yehuda

Thread: Re: Session Report

fubar awol — 2006-05-09T16:51:52+00:00

I've only played it once... and your "half a game" impression seems spot-on to me.

This game simply BEGs for some more interest. I can see playing around with it to add the pick-up and delivery mechanic - and perhaps some other elements to try for an "Age of Steam - lite".

I was very surprised to come to the BGG La Strada page and not see any variants posted... this game looks like a tinkerer's delight! Who wants to start a La Strada "improvement" discussion?

Foob

Thread: Re: Two Players Using Standard Rules?

fubar awol — 2006-05-09T16:27:55+00:00

I've only played the game once and it was a two player game (last night) using the standard rules. I came away with a "that's it?" kind of response. My wife immediately gave it a thumbs down - a first for a Euro. We used the standard 2-player varient at the back of the rulebook. We both agreed it would probably be a better game with 4.

So, I agree with you.

Today, every time my brain is free I'm thinking about how I could "fix" the 2-player game. My first cut will be to play with the standard rules and as a 4-player game - with each of us playing two different colors alternately. We will probably add the scores of both our "hands" to determine victory.

Hopefully, that will fix it. Have you tried it again? Specifically how? Did it improve?

Foob

Thread: Re: Game end

dklx3 — 2006-03-29T18:22:15+00:00

jonathan,

You are incorrect. The number of such tiles IS a limit and a barrier if you run out and would like to use one.

Thread: Re: Game end

quozl — 2006-03-27T19:03:26+00:00

Actually, I think the rules say that the number of mountain tiles or forest tiles is not a limit and that any tile can be used if you run out.

Thread: Re: Game end

dklx3 — 2006-03-27T14:55:14+00:00

U R correct. The conditions include 1) having no ability to build a road that costs 10 or less, 2) being out of city markers, or 3) being unable to build to a city through NOT having a required type of road tile (ie. the only possible route to a city is through a mountain and you have used all of your mountain road tiles.)