Euroquest report

[kmusser]

Games played: 7 Wonders (x2), Agricola, Can't Stop, Dominant Species, Eminent Domain (x4 at least), Race for the Galaxy (x2), Roll Through the Ages (x2), Troyes

The big new game was definitely Eminent Domain, a sort of combination of Dominion and Glory to Rome/Race for the Galaxy with a space exploration theme. I liked it, in many ways simpler than its parent games (or at least easier to explain), it still has enough depth to keep it interesting and will probably gain more with the inevitable expansion. This will be at Brunswick Games Day.

The only other new to me game I played was Troyes, a very Euro, worker placement kind of game, where your workers are dice. It has an interesting scoring mechanic in which in player secretly knows one element that will be worth points in the end game - but those apply to everyone, so it's worth trying to figure out what your opponents have so that you can work towards those points as well. Will play again, but not a must buy.

Comments

[arashinomoui.livejournal.com]

So want to go more into depth on Eminent Domain? As I'm a fan of Dominion and a huge RftG fan?

Admittedly I can just look it up here (http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/68425/eminent-domain) but I like the opinion of someone I trust.

[selki.livejournal.com]

It looks like a lot of fun. I look forward to playing it at Brunswick Games Day!

[kmusser]

I think you'd like it, but I don't know if you'd favor it over its parents. So like Dominion your building your own deck as you go, there are 5 base cards, each with a corresponding phase. On your turn you choose one, add that card to your deck, and cause that phase to happen, with you getting some bonus, but everything getting to participate ala RftG. The cards will let you take over planets which are worth points and affect the capabilities of your deck. There's more to it than that, but that's the basics. It's simpler than Dominion or RftG in that there aren't that many different combinations of cards, but you can definitely tailor your deck to different strategies and I like the base mechanism.

[arashinomoui.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...I think I'll pick it up then. And having played base Race at work many times, I can say that the basic game didn't have a huge number of combinations of cards, so Eminent Domain, assuming it gets onto the lifecycle of expansions will probably gain some of the complexity.

[rigelkitty.livejournal.com]

Troyes was a must-buy for me, after the first play. The perfect balance of Carc-like worker placement, Kingsburg-like dice mechanism, enough randomness to prevent it being San Juan or Caylus, enough strategy to prevent it from being Settlers, huge amounts of interfering with other players, and a very pure do-your-best-with-what-you've-been-dealt base.

It involves having plans, backup plans, and backups for your backup plans. If someone takes your move or you roll badly, it's not game-over like many of the pure-strategy chess-likes - there are many alternate paths to victory. Everyone thinks they might be winning, or that they can still pull out a victory right to the very end.

I tend to lose Troyes plenty, but I still love playing it. I feel the same way about Tigris & Euphrates, a game I'm not particularly good at, but love playing because even if I'm losing, I think I might be winning, and if not, there still might be a move I could make that would turn the tables, even against experienced players.