Post by Gilvan Blight on Dec 31, 2006 9:37:50 GMT -5
Picked this one up uber cheap at Hugin and Munin's end of year Sale.
Summary: a tile game for 2-4 players. Players compete to have the most influence on a particular building in the city by building districts around that building. Once that building is surrounded by districts it is scored and a new building is placed. This continues for 10 buildings. Each building has it's own victory point awards for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Each is either considered a 'safe' location or an 'unsafe' location, which affects whether players can play on top of openents districts (we ended up calling this trumping). 3 of the locations also have special rules affecting what type or how many districts can be played. Characters are also included and are awarded to the winning player of each building. These add interesting twists to the game as a player can play them with a district and change certain rules (ex. The King changes a safe building to an unsafe, the Wizard lets you play two of the same district at once instead of one at a time, etc.) Districts are numbered 1-5 and include an inn and dragon. A few special rules apply, like you can play any number of 1 tiles, and 3 tiles can't be trumped. Play continues until all buildings are played or a player runs out of districts.
The Good: potentially the best two player game I have played. Only played two times but this blows away Starship Catan, beats Attika and potentially even beats Hacienda for two player gameplay. There is a perfect mix of strategy and minor luck. Both games we played were incredably close. Due to the fact that both players start with an exact stack of tiles, gameplay is perfectly fair. Often the balance switches mid game as one player uses up all of thier high or low cards.
The Bad: Remembering the special rules can be difficult. There are 3 of the 10 buildings that have special rules, and these aren't indicated on the building tiles at all. You have to remember and then know or referance the rules to know what changes in the gameplay. The same goes for the characters. You get little round chits to represent them but they don't give any indication on what they do so you either have to remember or keep the instructions handly. This could have easily been fixed by putting game text on the tiles/chits or at least some form of quick referance.
The Ugly: this is a tile game, but could have been better as a card game. The reason for this is that the entire game you hold a 'hand' of 6 tiles. The tiles are about 1.5" square and rather think and don't at all lend to 'fanning'. Tiles are also difficult to shuffle well. I would have much prefered larger square cards.
Overall: This game only retails for $25 and I managed to get it for less then that, and it's worht the price of the 5 games I bought that day combined. I have picked up $60 games that were no where near as good. This is one of the best two player games I have played if not the best. I can only assume that it gets better with 3 or 4 players. Quick gameplay, simple to learn rules, and complex deep strategy make this a winner.
Summary: a tile game for 2-4 players. Players compete to have the most influence on a particular building in the city by building districts around that building. Once that building is surrounded by districts it is scored and a new building is placed. This continues for 10 buildings. Each building has it's own victory point awards for 1st, 2nd and 3rd. Each is either considered a 'safe' location or an 'unsafe' location, which affects whether players can play on top of openents districts (we ended up calling this trumping). 3 of the locations also have special rules affecting what type or how many districts can be played. Characters are also included and are awarded to the winning player of each building. These add interesting twists to the game as a player can play them with a district and change certain rules (ex. The King changes a safe building to an unsafe, the Wizard lets you play two of the same district at once instead of one at a time, etc.) Districts are numbered 1-5 and include an inn and dragon. A few special rules apply, like you can play any number of 1 tiles, and 3 tiles can't be trumped. Play continues until all buildings are played or a player runs out of districts.
The Good: potentially the best two player game I have played. Only played two times but this blows away Starship Catan, beats Attika and potentially even beats Hacienda for two player gameplay. There is a perfect mix of strategy and minor luck. Both games we played were incredably close. Due to the fact that both players start with an exact stack of tiles, gameplay is perfectly fair. Often the balance switches mid game as one player uses up all of thier high or low cards.
The Bad: Remembering the special rules can be difficult. There are 3 of the 10 buildings that have special rules, and these aren't indicated on the building tiles at all. You have to remember and then know or referance the rules to know what changes in the gameplay. The same goes for the characters. You get little round chits to represent them but they don't give any indication on what they do so you either have to remember or keep the instructions handly. This could have easily been fixed by putting game text on the tiles/chits or at least some form of quick referance.
The Ugly: this is a tile game, but could have been better as a card game. The reason for this is that the entire game you hold a 'hand' of 6 tiles. The tiles are about 1.5" square and rather think and don't at all lend to 'fanning'. Tiles are also difficult to shuffle well. I would have much prefered larger square cards.
Overall: This game only retails for $25 and I managed to get it for less then that, and it's worht the price of the 5 games I bought that day combined. I have picked up $60 games that were no where near as good. This is one of the best two player games I have played if not the best. I can only assume that it gets better with 3 or 4 players. Quick gameplay, simple to learn rules, and complex deep strategy make this a winner.