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14 November 2007 00:01![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kmusserI'm back from Euroquest. As usual lots of new games available to try, I got to play some of them. Over the course of the weekend I played:
Age of Empires III, Alchemist, Cuba x2, Friedrich, Galaxy Trucker x2, Get Bit!, Ghost for Sale, Kingsburg, Louis XIV, Parthenon, Puerto Rico, Ra, Red Dragon Inn, Rosenkönig, Thurn & Taxis, Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, Vegas Showdown, Yspahan,
Age of Empires III - I'm usually wary of board games based on PC games, but this one is quite good. Resource management game with a theme of colonizing the new world, lots of decisions and different ways to win as you can work on exploration, accumulating wealth, or settling the new world, but don't have enough colonists to do everything. A little more luck and conflict then typical of the Eurogames, but definitely not a wargame.
Alchemist - A nifty little game where you are making potions and trying to get the other players to use a certain secret ingredient - you can make up the recipe and assign it whatever victory points you want, the trick being to get other to use your ingredient without giving away too many points (or which ingredient is yours).
Cuba - The bastard child of Puerto Rico and Caylus - yet another resource management game of collecting stuff to build other stuff. Has lots of different buildings, which allows for many different strategies, but also means there is a bit of a learning curve as you need to figure out what they all do. Enjoyable, but in a niche with lots of similar games.
Galaxy Trucker - I really liked this one. You get to design your own starship and then see if it can survive the rigors of space travel, what with the meteor swarms and pirates shooting at you - if you're lucky you might even deliver some cargo. Very luck dependent, but I found it entertaining just seeing how well your ship does.
Get Bit! - Wins for cutest new game, includes plastic figures with detachable limbs for when the shark bites them off :-) On the buy list.
Ghost for Sale - An interesting auction game about buying haunted castles, the values of the castles change based on how haunted they are, players can say which castles they've seen ghosts at, but they might be lying.
Kingsburg - Another game of collecting resources in order to build stuff. This one has an interesting dice mechanic of rolling sets of 6-siders and assigning different numbers of them in order to claim stuff. Then build buildings either for victory points or to help fend off enemies of the realm - which include zombies, so that's a bonus. I'd probably pick this one over Cuba.
Red Dragon Inn - Already reviewed in these pages, but have to plug it for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ninjaslug, I'm pleased to report it was getting quite a bit of play.
Ticket to Ride: Switzerland - A new board for a 3-player version of Ticket to Ride, nothing really new rules-wise, but it is a lot better balanced for 3-players than the U.S. or Europe boards.
Friedrich - Not a new release, but wanted to mention it because it's really cool. Recreating the 7 Years War in which everyone gangs up on Prussia, features an interesting card management mechanic for resolving battles. Probably my favorite war game - I'd buy it if I thought anyone would play it with me.
Parthenon - Not new, but new to me. This a fairly crunchy trading game involving the Greek city states, again you're collecting resources to build stuff, but you definitely need to trade with the other players to get them. I liked it, but it does have a fairly high luck component which might be a turn-off for some folks.
Not played by me, but other new games that were getting a lot of play time at the con:
1960: The Making of the President - this looked really cool, and as a political junky I'd be tempted to just buy it, but as a fairly involved 2 player game my "would I ever get to play it" meter is low.
Agricola - Probably the new game getting the most buzz, I'm sorry I didn't get to try it, it's another resource management game, looks a bit more involved than most of them.
Imperial - New release from last year, a Diplomacy-like strategy game I suspect I'd really like, but still haven't had a chance to play (Dubbed as an improved version of Antike which I have played and liked).
Notre Dame - Because we don't have enough resource management games about building cathedrals.
Pillars of the Earth - Speaking of which, this one came out last year and I still haven't had a chance to play it. Looks neat.
Race for the Galaxy - This was getting lots of play, looks like basically a more complicated version of San Juan, which doesn't have a lot of appeal for me (I like San Juan just as it is, thank you).
Vikings - I got to play the German edition last year and reviewed it then, pretty cool game and I was hoping to play it some more, but there were too many other things. I'll probably buy this one.
As a bonus there was an Irish festival taking place a mile down the road, kindly pointed out to me bymisha_bunny. I took a break from gaming to go hear a couple of awesome sets from Seven Nations. They have also been kind enough to indulge my love of bizarre covers by releasing a celtic rock tribute album to The Cure. Yay!
And now no more travelling until Christmas!
Age of Empires III, Alchemist, Cuba x2, Friedrich, Galaxy Trucker x2, Get Bit!, Ghost for Sale, Kingsburg, Louis XIV, Parthenon, Puerto Rico, Ra, Red Dragon Inn, Rosenkönig, Thurn & Taxis, Ticket to Ride: Switzerland, Vegas Showdown, Yspahan,
Age of Empires III - I'm usually wary of board games based on PC games, but this one is quite good. Resource management game with a theme of colonizing the new world, lots of decisions and different ways to win as you can work on exploration, accumulating wealth, or settling the new world, but don't have enough colonists to do everything. A little more luck and conflict then typical of the Eurogames, but definitely not a wargame.
Alchemist - A nifty little game where you are making potions and trying to get the other players to use a certain secret ingredient - you can make up the recipe and assign it whatever victory points you want, the trick being to get other to use your ingredient without giving away too many points (or which ingredient is yours).
Cuba - The bastard child of Puerto Rico and Caylus - yet another resource management game of collecting stuff to build other stuff. Has lots of different buildings, which allows for many different strategies, but also means there is a bit of a learning curve as you need to figure out what they all do. Enjoyable, but in a niche with lots of similar games.
Galaxy Trucker - I really liked this one. You get to design your own starship and then see if it can survive the rigors of space travel, what with the meteor swarms and pirates shooting at you - if you're lucky you might even deliver some cargo. Very luck dependent, but I found it entertaining just seeing how well your ship does.
Get Bit! - Wins for cutest new game, includes plastic figures with detachable limbs for when the shark bites them off :-) On the buy list.
Ghost for Sale - An interesting auction game about buying haunted castles, the values of the castles change based on how haunted they are, players can say which castles they've seen ghosts at, but they might be lying.
Kingsburg - Another game of collecting resources in order to build stuff. This one has an interesting dice mechanic of rolling sets of 6-siders and assigning different numbers of them in order to claim stuff. Then build buildings either for victory points or to help fend off enemies of the realm - which include zombies, so that's a bonus. I'd probably pick this one over Cuba.
Red Dragon Inn - Already reviewed in these pages, but have to plug it for
ninjaslug, I'm pleased to report it was getting quite a bit of play.Ticket to Ride: Switzerland - A new board for a 3-player version of Ticket to Ride, nothing really new rules-wise, but it is a lot better balanced for 3-players than the U.S. or Europe boards.
Friedrich - Not a new release, but wanted to mention it because it's really cool. Recreating the 7 Years War in which everyone gangs up on Prussia, features an interesting card management mechanic for resolving battles. Probably my favorite war game - I'd buy it if I thought anyone would play it with me.
Parthenon - Not new, but new to me. This a fairly crunchy trading game involving the Greek city states, again you're collecting resources to build stuff, but you definitely need to trade with the other players to get them. I liked it, but it does have a fairly high luck component which might be a turn-off for some folks.
Not played by me, but other new games that were getting a lot of play time at the con:
1960: The Making of the President - this looked really cool, and as a political junky I'd be tempted to just buy it, but as a fairly involved 2 player game my "would I ever get to play it" meter is low.
Agricola - Probably the new game getting the most buzz, I'm sorry I didn't get to try it, it's another resource management game, looks a bit more involved than most of them.
Imperial - New release from last year, a Diplomacy-like strategy game I suspect I'd really like, but still haven't had a chance to play (Dubbed as an improved version of Antike which I have played and liked).
Notre Dame - Because we don't have enough resource management games about building cathedrals.
Pillars of the Earth - Speaking of which, this one came out last year and I still haven't had a chance to play it. Looks neat.
Race for the Galaxy - This was getting lots of play, looks like basically a more complicated version of San Juan, which doesn't have a lot of appeal for me (I like San Juan just as it is, thank you).
Vikings - I got to play the German edition last year and reviewed it then, pretty cool game and I was hoping to play it some more, but there were too many other things. I'll probably buy this one.
As a bonus there was an Irish festival taking place a mile down the road, kindly pointed out to me by
misha_bunny. I took a break from gaming to go hear a couple of awesome sets from Seven Nations. They have also been kind enough to indulge my love of bizarre covers by releasing a celtic rock tribute album to The Cure. Yay!And now no more travelling until Christmas!
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Date: 14 Nov 2007 05:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Nov 2007 12:38 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Nov 2007 15:18 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Nov 2007 15:40 (UTC)no subject
Date: 14 Nov 2007 19:43 (UTC)Pillars of the Earth
Date: 16 Nov 2007 22:17 (UTC)One I really one and should have bought was Thebes...which is a great game.
Thanks for playing Alchemist will me.