Post by Gilvan Blight on Mar 17, 2007 11:23:40 GMT -5
Quickly: another great one from Rio Grande. Excellent 2 player. Unique gameplay.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary: [/glow]Each player takes the role of a fresh starting postal company in historic Germany. Players complete to build postal routes. Players start with a coach house and 10 postal office tokens and nothing else.
Each turn players must draw a card. This is chosen from 6 face up cards on the board or from a random stack. The cards represent the cities scattered around the board. After drawing a card the players MUST play a card.
Card play is pretty much the meat of the game. Players play their first card in front of them starting a new postal route. As they play more cards they have to go on either side of this card, and the cities the cards represent must be physically located next to each other on the board. Further cards are added to the ends of the now growing route. Cards can never be added to the middle of a route and the same city can't be used twice in a route. If for some reason none of the cards in your hand can be added to your existing route, you need to scrap it, discarding the entire route and start a new one.
Once players have drawn a card and played a card they can then chose to close their route assuming it's at least 3 cities long. This is the way players score points. The board is divided into a bunch of different sized regions, which are all colour coded. Each region or pair of regions has a set of score counters on it. Once closing a route players first see if they are eligible for any of the length counters, there are ones for routes of 5, 6 and 7th length. They then get an upgraded carriage, starting with a level 3 carriage, then moving up to 4, 5, 6 and finally 7. To get a carriage upgrade you must have just closed a route of at least the same length as the carriage number. Once getting this the player then places his post offices. They get two options. They can either place one office in each of the regions their route went through, or they can play any number of offices in one region. All offices must go on cities that the route touched. When a player has an office in a region or pair or regions with a counter they get that counter.
The various counters all start high and drop to lower numbers as they are taken. Thus the player who completes a long route or scores a region first will get more points then the player who does it second, etc.
The game ends the round after one player gets the 7th level carriage or plays their last post office.
The odd twist: there are 4 Postal officers that can help you out during your turn. You can only call on one of the 4 a turn. I don't remember the exact names, but they each let you do something different. One lets you clear the 6 face up cards you get to pick from and replace them with a new 6. Another lets you draw 2 cards instead of one. Another lets you play 2 cards instead of one. The last, the Cartwright lets you upgrade your Carriage even if your route is 2 less in length then required.
[glow=red,2,300]The good[/glow]
Finally a box designed for the game that it contains. I was getting really sick of trying all these games with generic plastic holders. There's a place for everything and everything has it's place. The components on this are very nice. It has one of the best board graphics I have seen in a long time. Unique mechanics. Yet another great game that does things differently. If there is any similarity to another game it may be one of the Rail Road games, but just because you use cards to make routes. Yet again a great game that is really simple to learn but holds lots of strategic options. A variety of play stiles are supported. You can try to make a ton of short routes, you can go for long routes, you can try to hit all regions, you can go for the biggest region in the middle, etc. There doesn't seem to be a right way to play. Excellent 2 player, many games don't hold up to duo play and this does. Rather quick, the two games we played were both done in under an hour, which is nice.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad[/glow]
It's easy to forget to use the postal officers for help. Multiple times I would play my 1 card then remember I could have drawn two cards since I didn't want to use the other special abilities. Perhaps some form of token for each player would help and they place it on the guy they used that turn. It think it would be pretty easy to forget and use two in a turn as well without some indicator. If we did that in our plays last night I didn't notice it. It would have been nice to have more players. I am getting used to my games supporting up to 6 players and usually end up with a group wanting to play about that size. This one only goes to 4. The luck element may be a bit high for some people, as the randomly drawn city cards can be frustrating at times when you need a specific set of cards. I didn't mind it, but strategy purists may.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly[/glow]Small Cards! I hate small cards! Why do all new games use what I could consider 'travel edition' cards? Having just played Alhambra with nice big normal cards, shuffling the city deck for this stank.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow] A great game, well deserving of it's SDJ (game of the year) award last year. Quick to learn with lots of strategic options. The random factor is a lot higher then other high ranking games, which may turn off some strategy purists. Some great art, background and box design.
[glow=red,2,300]Summary: [/glow]Each player takes the role of a fresh starting postal company in historic Germany. Players complete to build postal routes. Players start with a coach house and 10 postal office tokens and nothing else.
Each turn players must draw a card. This is chosen from 6 face up cards on the board or from a random stack. The cards represent the cities scattered around the board. After drawing a card the players MUST play a card.
Card play is pretty much the meat of the game. Players play their first card in front of them starting a new postal route. As they play more cards they have to go on either side of this card, and the cities the cards represent must be physically located next to each other on the board. Further cards are added to the ends of the now growing route. Cards can never be added to the middle of a route and the same city can't be used twice in a route. If for some reason none of the cards in your hand can be added to your existing route, you need to scrap it, discarding the entire route and start a new one.
Once players have drawn a card and played a card they can then chose to close their route assuming it's at least 3 cities long. This is the way players score points. The board is divided into a bunch of different sized regions, which are all colour coded. Each region or pair of regions has a set of score counters on it. Once closing a route players first see if they are eligible for any of the length counters, there are ones for routes of 5, 6 and 7th length. They then get an upgraded carriage, starting with a level 3 carriage, then moving up to 4, 5, 6 and finally 7. To get a carriage upgrade you must have just closed a route of at least the same length as the carriage number. Once getting this the player then places his post offices. They get two options. They can either place one office in each of the regions their route went through, or they can play any number of offices in one region. All offices must go on cities that the route touched. When a player has an office in a region or pair or regions with a counter they get that counter.
The various counters all start high and drop to lower numbers as they are taken. Thus the player who completes a long route or scores a region first will get more points then the player who does it second, etc.
The game ends the round after one player gets the 7th level carriage or plays their last post office.
The odd twist: there are 4 Postal officers that can help you out during your turn. You can only call on one of the 4 a turn. I don't remember the exact names, but they each let you do something different. One lets you clear the 6 face up cards you get to pick from and replace them with a new 6. Another lets you draw 2 cards instead of one. Another lets you play 2 cards instead of one. The last, the Cartwright lets you upgrade your Carriage even if your route is 2 less in length then required.
[glow=red,2,300]The good[/glow]
Finally a box designed for the game that it contains. I was getting really sick of trying all these games with generic plastic holders. There's a place for everything and everything has it's place. The components on this are very nice. It has one of the best board graphics I have seen in a long time. Unique mechanics. Yet another great game that does things differently. If there is any similarity to another game it may be one of the Rail Road games, but just because you use cards to make routes. Yet again a great game that is really simple to learn but holds lots of strategic options. A variety of play stiles are supported. You can try to make a ton of short routes, you can go for long routes, you can try to hit all regions, you can go for the biggest region in the middle, etc. There doesn't seem to be a right way to play. Excellent 2 player, many games don't hold up to duo play and this does. Rather quick, the two games we played were both done in under an hour, which is nice.
[glow=red,2,300]The Bad[/glow]
It's easy to forget to use the postal officers for help. Multiple times I would play my 1 card then remember I could have drawn two cards since I didn't want to use the other special abilities. Perhaps some form of token for each player would help and they place it on the guy they used that turn. It think it would be pretty easy to forget and use two in a turn as well without some indicator. If we did that in our plays last night I didn't notice it. It would have been nice to have more players. I am getting used to my games supporting up to 6 players and usually end up with a group wanting to play about that size. This one only goes to 4. The luck element may be a bit high for some people, as the randomly drawn city cards can be frustrating at times when you need a specific set of cards. I didn't mind it, but strategy purists may.
[glow=red,2,300]The Ugly[/glow]Small Cards! I hate small cards! Why do all new games use what I could consider 'travel edition' cards? Having just played Alhambra with nice big normal cards, shuffling the city deck for this stank.
[glow=red,2,300]Overall:[/glow] A great game, well deserving of it's SDJ (game of the year) award last year. Quick to learn with lots of strategic options. The random factor is a lot higher then other high ranking games, which may turn off some strategy purists. Some great art, background and box design.