Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 14, 2007 8:40:26 GMT -5
One of the games we picked up on our recent trip to London and Toronto.
Quickly: a pretty good game, hate the colours though.
Summary: For 2-5 players. The board consists of a large destert with one mountain on it. Scattered around the board are oasis' and watering holes. Players start by placing coloured camels with riders in their colour around the board. They then take turns placing two coloured camels in a chain with their existing camales making a growing caravan. As camels are placed over watering holes players get 1-3 points. As caravans reach oasis players receive 5 points. Players can also surround areas using the board edges, the mountain or circling an area with a caravan. This scores everything thus surrounded. Some placement rules make all of this a bit more interesting as camels of the same colour can not be placed next to each other, and no caravans can start next to an oasis. This continues until one of the 5 colours of camels runs out. That this point you do end game scoring. Points are awarded for the largest caravan of each colour (10 points), and for surrounded areas (1 point per surrounded hex). The player with the most points wins.
The Good: a silverline game from Fantasy Flight, this means it's a smaller box and at a much reduced price then larger games. Now I didn't find this one as cheap as some other Silver Line games, but it was still cheaper then say Arkham Horror. Lots of bits, Fantasy flight is becoming rather famous for having lots of little bits in their games, this one is no exception. Very easy to learn but with lots of strategy, this is becoming the staple of a good game to me. Very quick, it doesn't take long to play a complete game, which is nice compaired to some of my recent games.
The Bad: For some reason this game comes with an odd mix of point tokens. They give you 5s with oasis on them, 5s with camels, 10s with camels, 1-3 in all kinds of water colours. The 1-3 in water colours make sense as they represent the water holes, but then you use these to 'make change'. Why not just include a bunch of generic tokens in 1,3,5,10 denomination like most games. Heck skip the 3 if you want. It was just dumb that during the final scoring you would mix up all the different types of tokens to figure out your end total. A little too simple, this one came recommended as similar to Hacienda, and yes there are some minor similarities (getting caravans to oasis vs getting heards to market) but I found Hacienda to be a much more involved and much more fun game. For all the bits Fantasy Flight likes to include with their games, they never give you any extra. It could be very easy to loose some bits and you would have no replacements.
The Ugly: why oh why did they have to make the camels in pastel colours? They look more like Candy then play pieces!
Overall: really not a bad game. Nice and quick to learn with enough strategy to make it interesting. This would probably be a great game for a younger generation, especially with the candy cloured pieces. The discounted price and smaller presentation is pretty nice. I think this may become a regular at Gatherings as it's easy to explain and quick to play so good for waiting for other players.
Quickly: a pretty good game, hate the colours though.
Summary: For 2-5 players. The board consists of a large destert with one mountain on it. Scattered around the board are oasis' and watering holes. Players start by placing coloured camels with riders in their colour around the board. They then take turns placing two coloured camels in a chain with their existing camales making a growing caravan. As camels are placed over watering holes players get 1-3 points. As caravans reach oasis players receive 5 points. Players can also surround areas using the board edges, the mountain or circling an area with a caravan. This scores everything thus surrounded. Some placement rules make all of this a bit more interesting as camels of the same colour can not be placed next to each other, and no caravans can start next to an oasis. This continues until one of the 5 colours of camels runs out. That this point you do end game scoring. Points are awarded for the largest caravan of each colour (10 points), and for surrounded areas (1 point per surrounded hex). The player with the most points wins.
The Good: a silverline game from Fantasy Flight, this means it's a smaller box and at a much reduced price then larger games. Now I didn't find this one as cheap as some other Silver Line games, but it was still cheaper then say Arkham Horror. Lots of bits, Fantasy flight is becoming rather famous for having lots of little bits in their games, this one is no exception. Very easy to learn but with lots of strategy, this is becoming the staple of a good game to me. Very quick, it doesn't take long to play a complete game, which is nice compaired to some of my recent games.
The Bad: For some reason this game comes with an odd mix of point tokens. They give you 5s with oasis on them, 5s with camels, 10s with camels, 1-3 in all kinds of water colours. The 1-3 in water colours make sense as they represent the water holes, but then you use these to 'make change'. Why not just include a bunch of generic tokens in 1,3,5,10 denomination like most games. Heck skip the 3 if you want. It was just dumb that during the final scoring you would mix up all the different types of tokens to figure out your end total. A little too simple, this one came recommended as similar to Hacienda, and yes there are some minor similarities (getting caravans to oasis vs getting heards to market) but I found Hacienda to be a much more involved and much more fun game. For all the bits Fantasy Flight likes to include with their games, they never give you any extra. It could be very easy to loose some bits and you would have no replacements.
The Ugly: why oh why did they have to make the camels in pastel colours? They look more like Candy then play pieces!
Overall: really not a bad game. Nice and quick to learn with enough strategy to make it interesting. This would probably be a great game for a younger generation, especially with the candy cloured pieces. The discounted price and smaller presentation is pretty nice. I think this may become a regular at Gatherings as it's easy to explain and quick to play so good for waiting for other players.