Unfortunately, the good folk at Good Games Ballarat then ordered it in, and I fell in love with the box. I mean, it's so wonderful a design! Don't look at the back - you'll see a boring Euro there - but the front of the box is brilliant!
So I bought it, and brought it to last week's Board Game session with Randy, Jesse, Rich and Josh. After we finished the BoardGameGeek game, this was the next game we played.
And I'm going to keep on spelling this game as "Endeavour". That's the name of the ship which James Cook was sailing when he discovered my land, so I'm going to keep that "U"!
But, on to the game!
Endeavour shares a number of features with other Eurogames, whilst having its own distinct identity. It is something of a worker placement game, although more complex than Agricola or Caylus in its interactions. It has different levels of technology, such as Goa, and also buildings you can construct to change how you play the game, such as in Puerto Rico or Caylus. The position of markers on the board also matters - trade chains give extra points, which is reminiscent of Taj Mahal.
However, by the time you add together all of these elements from these separate games, you end up with something that is quite its own thing. What's more, Endeavour is fun. It's also a game that you're very unlikely to properly "get" the first time you play it. Early moves have implications throughout the game. With experienced players, I'm not sure how forgiving it would be of early mistakes.
However, given our novice status, we made mistakes and we made a lot of them. Few with the rules, as far as I could tell. No, it was all strategical or tactical from us. In my first turn, I took the Market, thinking I would use it first turn. Hmm, I don't have enough colonists for that. Perhaps the Workshop would have been better - quite likely.
One of the really good things about the game is that there were a lot of different avenues you could explore. Four technologies, cards to draw, settlements to make, trade goods to take. They were all interlinked, but the emphasis of each player was different. Rich and I did a lot of good work controlling the Old World and its tradegoods, whilst the others were exploring new worlds. Jesse and I dipped into slavery, and - as no-one was really gaining control of the Old World - never really feared the consequences of slavery ending. Randy wanted cards, but he didn't have the actions to take the better cards without opening them up to the rest of us...
For a lot of the game, it looked like not all of the areas would be colonised, but this is one of those games where you can do more and more as the game continues: you have more workers and more options. So, eventually it was all claimed (except for one or two points that probably didn't count, anyway!) It took me a very long time indeed to start shipping to the New World, but when I did so, I did so with a vengeance - two Cartographers working overtime to put my colonists on the trade-routes. Of course, I was only good at discovering the places; by the time I wanted to colonise, I was out of men.
I took an Museum for my last building, but, like the first, I didn't have enough colonists to use it properly. I'm going to have to play this game more to learn the tricks.
When the game ended, I thought I was in a good position. I was: solidly in third position. It was Jesse and Randy who had done the best, and the difference between them was only two points. Jesse had drawn some amazing cards in the last turn, but he didn't have enough places to put them all.
Final scores: Randy (purple) 53, Jesse (black) 51, Merric (green) 47, Rich (red) 38, Josh (white) 35.
How did Randy win it? How did I come third? I'm not quite sure. I can look at the table and say that Randy got some great trade links at the end there which helped, and some good cards, but the full analysis escapes me. This is going to be a fun game to explore, and I look forward to playing it more in the coming months.
Posted Thu Nov 19, 2009 3:30 am
