Two groups tonight, one group played the Great Fire, we played this Golden Oldie (relatively speaking).
It's a bit of a brain burner with quite a substantial luck element. Despite that it was extremely close at the end, a 3 way tie break between me Dave and Ben:
1. Andy E 18 +4 cards 2. Dave C 18 +3 cards 3. Ben 18 4. Mike 17
My second play of this and it went very differently to the first. Dave D, who has been party to play-testing since the early development of the game, said that it is difficult to predict how the fire will spread, and so it proved.
I am deeply impressed by this game. It is thematic, interesting and has tough choices. The fire-spreading mechanism is simple and ingenious. It looks great as the fire rips through the city.
I think I was quite hard on this simple but interesting game. I tend to be a bit polar after a first play. On reflection, it seems like a nice little filler, but the lack of theme means that I'll never find it truly involving. That's why I gave up chess (that and the fact that I was rubbish at it).
I like games to tell me a story, even if it's only: "This is how we pay for the trash, that fuels the station we decided to buy when trash was cheap, before everybody else decided it was a good idea, and bumped the price, so we can't afford to power the cities we built in the last round".
If the story doesn't work, the game doesn't work. I don't care how mechanically elegant it is. By the same token, I'm prepared to forgive a bit of mechanical clunkiness (I'm looking at you, Through the Ages and your itty-bitty resource management) if the overall experience makes it worthwhile.
This is the new Martin Wallace game. I've always been a bit of a Martin Wallace fan but I don't think this one is up to his usual standard. It's more of a card game than a board game with the board being of limited use. There is little interaction between players and occasionally a fair amount of downtime between turns.
Saying that though it's still a fun game, with some interesting strategies available to players. I'm probably just being a bit more harsh than usual as I'm a MW fan.
1. Andy E 59 2. Claire 46 3. Andy S 39 4. Dave D 30
Another Essen 2010 release. Not a game I know much about but as the BGG entry lists Auction/Bidding & Tile Placement under mechanics it sounds like my cup of tea.
1. Dave F 114 2. Steve H 93 3. Mike 91 4. Don S 62
This was my first play of the final version, and it was pleasing to see that some of my concerns had been addressed. For example there is now a more even distribution of houses, and the objective cards are likely to be fairer.
I managed to win the game by loitering with intent with the fire bands:
1. Andy E 42 2. Dave D 39 3. Dave F 38 4. Claire 37
NB: I was a little surprised to see the game currently have an average of 2.6 for Game Weight ie a Medium Weight game. Had the previous voters only been playing games like Animal Olympics until now? This is definately at the lighter end, it's a decent gateway game.
This was one of my post-Essen purchases and this was a first play for all involved.
This is one of those games where the game system poses a big challenge in addition to your opponents. You start with no money and have to take out loans to start with - the game ends when someone manages to pay back their loans or goes bankrupt if forced to take out more than 11 loans.
As you can see by the scores I didn't do very well. Different grape vines are up for auction, the cheaper varieties mature quickly whilst varieties like Pinot noir take a few years. Go for the former and you'll never make much money, concentrate on the latter and you'll spend years with a negative cash flow.
An interesting game, I think I need to pay more attention next time!