Euroquest report

[kmusser]

Games played:

Alchemists, Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Istanbul, Machi Koro, Robinson Crusoe, Russian Rails, Splendor (at least 3 times), Stone Age, The Game of 49, Thurn & Taxis, Unpublished Prototype

Honorable mention to Panamax, which I did not get to play, but looked really cool.



Alchemists - a deduction game in which players are mixing different potions in order to figure out a formula, the gimmick with this game is that the hidden information is kept by a smart phone app. I liked the idea of the game, but found the actual execution of it kind of finicky.

Castles of Mad King Ludwig - probably my favorite of the new ones, a building game, has a neat mechanic where the player who's turn it is sets the prices for that turns available tiles and the other players pay them when they buy something, so you have to offer your opponents something worth buying or you won't get any money, but you don't want to offer them something too good or they'll out score you in points. Does have a similar feel in the tile acquisition/placement aspect to Suburbia (which I also like), but I think I like it more, the rules are both a little simpler while offering a bit more interaction between the players, plus I like the castle theme.

Istanbul - a very Euro-ish working placement/resource management game, collecting goods to turn in for special abilities, money, or directly to victory points; or money can buy points a little more efficiently, played to only 5 points, so is really a race to see who can get there first. There's a little more too it than that, but not much to distinguish it from the host of other working placement/resource management games - I liked it and would certainly play again, but not rushing out to buy it.

Machi Koro - a simple dice rolling/building game, dice are rolled to collect resources ala Settlers, building are built to collect more resources on certain die rolls. There aren't all that many different buildings, so there's not a lot to it, but it does win extra points for having a cheese factory.

Robinson Crusoe - a complex cooperative game about trying to stay alive on an island. We lost horribly and it strikes me that is would be a difficult game to win, I think it would take many plays to get good at it and I'm not sure it's worth the effort. I do like the theme though, might be willing to give it another play, but not a buy.

The Game of 49 - a simple bingo-like auction game, where squares of the board are auctioned off and the first to 5 in row wins. Seems like a straight forward person that runs out of money last wins, not much of a game there.

Unpublished Prototype - sadly I forget the name, but was basically a Spades variant with a fantasy theme and each card has two suits, and you can follow either suit. Definitely a filler game, but I liked it, I thought the twist of having dual suits does make it more interesting than Spades is.

Comments

[radiant-one.livejournal.com]

What about Russian Railroads?

[kmusser]

That wasn't new to me, though it also never got a mini-review since my first play wasn't at a convention so . . .

Russian Railroads - a working placement game with a railroad theme, players are trying to advance down 4 tracks, 3 of them representing rail lines and the 4th, technology. Different points along the various tracks unlock various special abilities or bonus point opportunities. There are a lot of possibilities, I like it a lot and did pick up a copy (so it'll be available for play at Thanksgiving and Brunswick Games Day).

Robinson Crusoe

[byronczimmer.livejournal.com]

Robinson Crusoe is going to take a bit of study to get good at.

Some things we got wrong:

1) Resources at Camp can't be scavenged, because they are automatically gained. That would've saved a ton of problems.

2) Start player *does* move (clockwise), it's hidden in middle of the last paragraph of the night phase, instead of being its own numbered entry.

3) Scenario 1 doesn't have you draw treasures/traps/etc due to totems; we started doing that after a discovery token had us draw one.

4) Discovered beasts aren't revealed when entering the 'Hunt' deck, they just go there (and get shuffled in).

We got a lot right, but apparently losing the first few games is to be expected, and due to set up overhead, most people end up playing 2 or 3 (if you die really fast) games back to back; which likely helps with the learning curve.

I mostly want to learn/get good at the base game so we can do the expansion (Voyage of the Beagle) which is 5 scenarios surrounding Darwin's journeys.

Re: Robinson Crusoe

[kmusser]

Good to know, I'd be up for it again at some point. I don't know if we'll have time at Thanksgiving, but may Brunswick Games Day.

[kmusser]

Re Castles, that isn't much of a danger, abilities of the tiles don't generally multiply, so it's more set collection than it is engine building. You do have to pay attention to what the other players are doing, in the sense that hey, looks like player X is collecting Orange tiles, I should probably try and extort some extra money from them for this Orange one rather than let them have it for cheap. I thought the hardest choice was how to price the tiles you wanted for yourself, you don't want to pay to much for them, but make them cheap and the other players will snatch them up.

Machi Koro would make a good intro to gaming game, it's quick and the rules are very intuitive, probably just limited in its replayability for folks that like more strategy (and that could be fixed with an expansion).