Century : Spice Road and Magic Maze

The quiz picture is I think a bit easy but may catch a few of you out.

The last quiz picture was of Bauernschlau  an area control game with a small memory element, it does not quite get the play I hoped it would but it is still a nice game and was a 1991 nominee for “Spiel des Jahres”.

A Player board in Helios which uses various methods for collecting victory points, a lovely game.

Louix XIV an excellent resource and territory control game

Above and Below player board for the yellow player who seems to be struggling for goods (the main way to get victory points).

Table 1 – Pit, Magic Maze, Century: Spice Road, Helios   

Table 2 - Louis XIV
Table 3 – Above and Below, Century: Spice Road, Sushi Go!

The spotlight is on Magic Maze a new release from Ghenos Games, Pegasus Spiele & Sit Down!. The box contains lots of tiles with a 4 x 4 grid thereon, each square may be blank, contain a board element or be completely blocked, there are also quite a few walls drawn on all the tiles between the squares so that when tiles are laid together they form a maze. It is a co-operative game where the players are trying to maneuvre four coloured pawns around the board onto colour specific target spaces (there is only one for each pawn), once all four pawns are on their targets the players then try to manouvre all the pawns off the board through colour specific doors.

The start tile is in the middle, the exit door on the far right is for the green player

So far a very simple idea but what makes it fun is that each player in the game will get dealt a random tile which will have one or more basic manouvres on it (dependent on the number of players) from Move North, Move South, Move East, Move West, Use Escalator, Use Teleport, Explore, a player may move any pawn at any time in the game (there are no turns) but may only use the manouvres they have on their card, what adds a layer of difficulty and much frustration is that the game is played against a 3-minute egg timer and once the game is under way no one is allowed to speak, make a noise, give a non-verbal indication or make any attempt to communicate with the others in any way, however there is a giant red pawn which anyone may place in front of someone if they believe that person should be making a move, it is surprising how expressive the placement of that pawn can be, from slamming it down to repeatedly place it in front of someone with the rapidity of a woodpecker.

Some of the movement tiles used in our game

Yet another complication is that new tiles may only be placed by the player with the explorer icon and only if there is a pawn on its own colour explorer icon on the board and as pawns cannot pass through one another it is often awkward even from the very start to get the other pawns out of the way so that the correct pawn can get to the explorer space, and as one of the target icons or exit icons is often on the last tile in the deck it is important to explore as quickly as possible. Remember the 3-minute timer? It is possible to extend exploring time by moving any pawn onto an egg-timer element on one of the boards but as these are all one time use only, time can run out and in fact the egg timer is often forgotten as players try to keep pace with making their moves as quickly as possible.

An example of the problems that can arise, Orange is needed to explore the South doorway and is waiting for a move along the escalator to the door to its North. Green is waiting for purple to move so that it can explore the North west door. yellow needs to move East than an escalator to explore further.

We played the introductory game which was completed fairly easily then we went into the first and simplest scenario and ran out of time, with seven of us and 4 pawns moving in different directions it was chaos and with everyone concentrating on the pawns the egg-timer was forgotten, everybody wanted to try it again so we did and this time crushed it, what was fascinating was the run for the exit which was done one pawn at a time micromanaged with four different hands hovering within a few inches of it the whole journey until it was off the board.

As it has received a number of accolades from various corners of the board gaming community I was glad to play Century: Spice Road to see if it lived up to everyones high praise. In the box you get 4 small plastic bowls containing 4 different colour cubes (Yellow being the easiest to come by then increasing in rank to Red, Green and Brown) – these are finite for the game but playing 4 player we did not come close to running out of any particular colour, the other contents are 2 decks of cards, one pile being victory point cards the other being “merchant” cards, as with a lot of games at the moment this is a (yawn) deck building game, each players deck being a number of “merchants” cards, these cards either give you cubes or allow you to exchange cubes thus slowly by playing your “merchant” cards you can increase your holding.

The cute (but light) bowls which tend to move around each time you dip into them for cubes

On a turn you have 4 options, 1) play a “merchant” card from your hand into your own discard pile, 2) take a card from the “merchant” card line, the first is free however you must put a cube on each card you pass over to take a card further up the line, 3) collect a victory point card paying the costs shown and 4) you may pick up your discard pile to have a full hand again. The rules are that simple and are on one piece of paper, it is refreshing to find a game with a good clean mechanism that has the rules on one sheet; so many games these days come with both a rules manual and a glossary booklet.

Top row is the victory point cards, bottom row is the merchant cards, all currently showing some sort of trade.

So how does it play? It is smooth, clean and quick, there is only a little interaction in that you need to keep an eye on other players cubes to ensure someone else does not take the victory point card you are going for, other than that the game is easy and an ideal gateway game with very little downtime, each player is designing their own cube engine which no-one else can interfere with so on a turn you should already have decided what you will be doing next. I have heard this game compared with Splendor, they are two separate games, the mechanisms are not alike and there is room in most collections for them both and I would say that I would happily play Splendor as readily as I would play Spice Road again. In fact it has more in common with the great Sid Sacksons’ Bazaar  (aka BierBörse) than Splendor however the deck-building mechanism makes Spice road a much faster game.

Each player has a caravan card to store their cubes on, each caravan has a limit of 10 cubes

So does it live up to the hype? Yes it does and I highly recommend you give it a go, though it is not in any way a replacement for Splendor.

Junk Art and Tammany Hall

Not sure if I have done this before but the quiz picture is of the first game I ever bought at Essen.

The last quiz picture was of a Reed Bunting, not the most tuneful of birds but you should see it flitting about if you take a walk along reeded coastal shores.

Only one week since the last report, however we have also had a Saturday session which is also listed below.

Darjeeling which is a set collecting game but has a nice couple of twists to it.

New England early in the game

Table 1 - Darjeeling, New England
Table 3 - Flamme Rouge, Kanagawa, Taluva, Sushi Go!, BANG! The Dice Game, Om Nom Nom

Flamme Rouge cyclist in rouge

Kanagawa an interesting set collecting game

Saturdays Club Session

Sushi Go!, Tammany Hall, Africa, Portal of Heroes, BANG! The Dice Game, Kanban: Automotive Revolution, Eclipse, Automobiles, Junk Art, Flamme Rouge, One Night Ultimate Alien, Roar-a-Saurus, Dancing Eggs.

A mini spotlight on Junk Art, in this game there are 4 sets of wooden bits each set of a different colour, there is also a card for each piece in the game. There are several rounds in the game and each round is different but generally consists of choosing cards from a small hand, selecting the piece shown on it and building it on a tower, either your own or a central communal tower. This is a fun game and a steady hand and a firm table is required, as you can see from these pictures there are a wide variety of structures that can be built.

Just some of the many towers we built on Junk Art

With so many games played on Saturday it was hard to pick a spotlight game but I think it has to be Tammany Hall which we played on Saturday near the end of the session. The game was originally released in 2007 under the Stratamax label which was the last time I played it, there have been several versions released since then the latest in 2014 but little has changed from its earliest edition other than the artwork and a couple of additions to the board to make 5 of the areas more attractive.

1st edition box (not the one we played)

The gameboard consists of 15 wards and the players are seeking victory points through control of these wards and their citizens through four terms of government, the game lasts 16 rounds and there is a scoring and election every fourth round. The set up consists of placing a random citizen in each of the wards on the board, these are represented by cubes of four different colours each representing a different immigrant nationality.

Red controls wards 15, 17, 8 and 10 thus gaining 4 points

On a turn a player has two choices, they can either send out 2 campaign workers of their colour by placing them on one or two different wards or they may place a single campaign worker and then place a citizen of any nationality and take a political favour chip of that citizens colour. After four rounds of placement an election takes place, each ward is taken in turn and assessed, if it is contested (that is more than one player has a campaign worker there) players tally the strength of their campaign they secretly hold in their hand any number of political favour chips they wish (provided that nationality is represented in the ward), these are revealed and added to the number of campaign workers in that ward, the highest total wins and all campign workers bar one of the winning players are removed, all used political favour chips are lost. This is continued through all wards, at the end everyone gets victory points equal to the number of wards they control. Players next tally the number of citizens of each nationality in the wards they control, the players with the most of each gain three political favour chits of that nation.

Tammany Hall first edition lacking the bonuses from wards 1,2, 4, 7 and 14

The player with the most wards becomes Mayor collects 3 bonus points and dishes out a job to each of the other players, each job has special abilities which can be used throughout the next term and consist of removing or moving citizens, collecting political favours or removing campaign workers. After the first scoring players may smear other candidates, this has the effect of removing campaign workers from the ward however each player may only do this three times in the game and if not used and the correct time can be countered by the affected player.

Tammany Hall, The nearest ward is being contested by Yellow brown and Black, political favour chits will probably decide the result, 

This is an excellent game and well deserving of its 7.3 geek rating, our experience bore out how good a game it is with no one player dominating and cool steady play rewarding those looking for small gradual gains, play itself is very simple and the rules very clear. I do count myself extremely fortunate with the group of players at my table as this is not my type of game at all, play sometimes needs to be aggressive and it is quite possible for several players to gang up and completely nullify one player (not something I appreciate in a game), fortunately this did not occur and I was left with happy memories. The game was won by the best player who did some excellent moves in the last round to secure dominance of 2 nationalities and more areas than any other player.

Even if like me this is not your type of game I strongly recommend you give it a try, if you get the right crowd it will be an excellent experience.

Remember Remember 3rd June 2017

The break in the Blog has been due to a short holiday and lots of stuff to do at home, so the quiz picture is a little different this time. I was hoping to link this to a game but sadly I cannot think of any, cryptic answers please to this bird which is fairly common in reed and sedge beds in Kent, the answer will be given next week. 

The last quiz picture was Glastonbury the multiple player version of Kupferkessel (Copper Kettle) an excellent 2 player game.

The 3rd June 2017 we have hired the room at the Style and Winch PH in Maidstone for all-day gaming so if you are a reader of this Blog why not call in and play a game with us, unlike all the boardgame cafes there is no table fee just buy a drink at the bar on your way through, just introduce yourself to the chap in the Yellow MAB polo shirt or the guy with the magnificent whiskers and we will get you playing.

Over the last two sessions the following games have been played.

Two weeks ago

Table 1 - Zooloretto: The Dice Game, Kanagawa, Neuroshima Hex!, Fox and Geese, 7 Wonders Duel

Table 2 - Jórvík, Port Royal, Incan Gold

Table 3 - Port Royal, Bohemian Villages, If Wishes Were Fishes!

Last week

Table 1 - Panamax, Jaipur

Table 2 - Golden Horn: Von Venedig nach Konstantinopel, Imhotep, Pyramids

Table 3 - Isle of Skye: From Chieftain to King, Escape from the Aliens in Outer Space, Celestia

Kingfisher - a heavily cropped picture as it was at a distance

I would normally go into a couple of games to give you an idea of what we played, however this time will be a quick diversion to what can be found in Norfolk. Half of these pictures were taken at RSPB Titchwell Marsh which I cannot recommend enough, not only a nice reserve with more species than I have ever seen at Dungeness but very friendly and helpful staff.

There were lots of ducklings and goslings about most prettier than this chap a young Grey Lag Goose. 

A rare spot in Kent (though they have appeared at Oare Marshes on the odd occasion), a Bearded Reedling (aka Bearded Tit), it is a gorgeous bird.

A Common bird on the Medway is an Oystercatcher (this one was at Snettisham Marshes)

Another nicely coloured bird the Linnet was at one time kept as caged birds for their song.

A Black Tailed Godwit, one of the larger waders you can see along British coastlines

A Common Tern hunting at RSPB Titchwell Marsh, we also saw Little Terns and the reserve claims to have Sandwich Terns (but not seen by us) 

Probably one we all know the Jay is the prettiest of our Corvids (Crows)

They are not all birds there were plenty of butterflies although most were Red Admirals with a few Whites and Blues. There were also a few Odonata about (but not many) this one was taken at RSPB Lakenheath Fen Nature Reserve

There are 52 different species of Dragonfly and Damselfly shown on the British Dragonfly Society website, this Dragonfly is a Scarce Chaser.

I know none of these were game related but I was short on time and I hope you enjoyed.

Days of Ire: Budapest 1956 and Yamatai

The quiz picture this time is a favourite of mine played 2-player, the artwork on the cards is very nice and the game mechanics mesh well together.

Last time the picture was of the box of Planetarium, played at the club this week.

Last week we played the following games at the club.

Planetarium at game-start. The lines show permitted paths of movement. The iconography can catch people out in their first game, after that it all becomes second nature.

End of a game of Battle Sheep Red suffered badly by being double teamed early in the game, you can even see some of the sheep crying.

Some sort of chart in Santo Domingo

Die Holde Isolde - looks like a 2-player game

Table 1 - Days of Ire: Budapest 1956, Planetarium, Battle Sheep, Tsuro

Table 2 - Santo Domingo, Firefly Fluxx, Tsuro, No Thanks!, Die holde Isolde

Table 3 - Pyramids, Yamataï
 

Saturday 3rd June 2017 we are holding a special club day at the Style and Winch which gives us a chance to revisit some of our favourites which do not get a look in because of all the new releases. There will also be some of the more fun/party style games available along with some short “gateway” games available if people want to come and try us out, there will no doubt be the odd long game for the hardened gamer too.

The Eurovision Song Contest ate up all my time this week so no actual review just some brief thoughts on Days of Ire: Budapest 1956. This is a historical co-operative game with either a fully co-operative mode or a “conflict” mode where one player represents the Russian side and the others co-operate against them. Playing one of the revolutionaries I found the game a little dull mainly because of the amount of downtime between turns, the Russian player in contrast has quite an exciting time, a round of the game consists of the Russian player playing a number of cards which have effects on the game and gives them action points to then spend on various actions (bringing on more troops, moving, attacking), then the revolutionaries split 4 actions evenly between them, then the Russian player then gets more actions this time with local government forces. So it appeared to me that in a 4 player game the Russian player gets about 8-10 actions whereas the other players get 1 or 2 actions, this was highly disproportionate and I got the impression that it would play a lot better as a 2-player game (I have no idea how the fully co-operative version works).

The photos on the board are locations in Budapest, the red lines depict routes, the standees are the revolutionary players, green are revolutionist characters and the brown pieces are SPA forces.

On the upside this is a very atmospheric game crammed with information about the actual event, we barely scratched the surface of how the game played, some of the cards interact with one another so knowledge of the cards in the headline deck (which is stacked for various events) would be very useful for both sides. The two sides in the conflict seemed well balanced and I am sure with repeated plays hidden depths would be revealed however it is unlikely I would be willing to play the conflict version 4 player again.

Yamatai game set up

BQ gives us a brief insight into Yamataï.  I enjoyed "Yamatai" rather a lot - whilst it had a minor echo of some of Bruno Cathala's other designs such as "Abyss" or Five Tribes" - in that you could recruit characters with a special power, similar to the Lords in "Abyss" or the "Djinns" in Five Tribes - the core of the game was pretty different from either of those games, using strategic placement to create chains of boats through the islands shown on the board, in order to open up opportunities to place buildings on the islands, and acquire the aforementioned characters (called "Specialists").

Yamatai later in the game

The key mechanism was the use of the "Fleet Tiles", which are chosen by each player at the start of each round, and simultaneously determine player order for the following round, confer a boat or two, and give a unique ability to be used during that round only (such as moving a boat from one spot to another, or giving a discount on building costs). As with Kent's experience of "Days of Ire", I felt like I'd only scratched the surface of the interactions between the various elements, so it's one I'd like to play again soon...  

Yamatai even later in the game

New York Slice and Lancaster

The quiz picture this time is a very new game to my collection, lovely box artwork the piece of paper masks title and author.

Last time the picture was of the box of Fields of Arle. I had thought to add the clue that it was a 2 player game but then I thought that the farming association in the picture was enough to take you to Uwe Rosenburg and thence to the game itself. I was wrong.

Last week we played the following games at the club.

A players Pyramid in the game Pyramids

Costa Rica layout at game start

The special "Apple" piece in Santo Domingo

Table 1 - New York Slice, Lancaster
Table 2 - Pyramids, Costa Rica, Animal Olympics, Santo Domingo, World's Fair 1893
Table 3 - Santo Domingo, Tutankhamen,  Deep Sea Adventure, Balloon Cup
 

Although not my type of game I did enjoy playing New York Slice which is a simple set collecting game for 2-6 players. There are 69 slices of pizza which after shuffling are placed face down into 6 stacks of 11 slices (leaving 3 left out of the game), each slice has several pieces of information, the first is a number of pepperoni slices which each count as 1 point if you eat them, the second is there may be 1 or more anchovies on the slice, these each count as a negative point if the slice is kept face up for scoring, the third is the background toppings of the pizza, each different background counts as a different “suit” for collection, to help each different “suit” is indicated by a specific number, this number also indicates how many of that slice there are in the game and how many points it is worth at the end of the game for the player that has a clear majority of that “suit” (number).

The tiles in New York Slice, the presentation is brilliant

On a turn one of the players becomes the “slicer” (this role passes round the table each turn) and takes one of the stacks and deals in the order of the stack the slices out into a complete pizza, they then divide the pizza however they wish into as many portions as there are players, they may not alter the position of any of the slices they just indicate what the portions are, each turn the player also adds a “Today’s Special” card which is a special ability to one of the portions. The players then around the table take one of the portions, they then decide what to do with each slice of that portion, keep it as part of a set or eat it for the pepperoni points, once the choice has been made that cannot be changed, if they take a “Today’s Special” card they keep it in front of them until used, they are all self explanatory. There are some special slices, a joker slice and some with two “suits” on, they act as half points for both “suits” (effectively tie-breakers). The game is quite quick and generally fairly intuitive, however as the game goes into its last 2 rounds it slows down a bit as some serious decision making has to be made. We played it twice 3-player and it was quite enjoyable, the win went to the player who had the most “Today’s Special” cards however I do not think they were the cause of the win, they just helped. It would be interesting to play it with more players however I cannot help thinking that 6-player there will be little control and it may be more of a lottery, but this is just a guess. Strongly recommended as a filler game, give it a try if you can.

Lancaster was released in 2011 and is quite an intricate game for the amount of rules you get, I will not be able to cover it all in these brief paragraphs but I will do my best. In short it is a worker placement game where you are trying to obtain victory points through placement of Knights (your workers). Each player has a pool of knights, 3 level 1’s, 2 level 2’s, a level 3 and a level 4, however you only start off with a level 1 and a level 2 Knight, these levels are important as level/rank is not only their fighting strength but also grants access to certain areas of the board. The board itself shows most of England with 9 cities dotted about, each city has a reward and three (in a 4 player game) Noble tokens, each City has a different type of Noble, at the bottom of the board is France where there are always 2-4 conflicts to be resolved, to the side of the main board is the “Laws board” which contains 3 current laws and 3 laws which may come into being.

England showing the cities and their rewards.

Victory points come from three main sources namely conflicts in France, Laws in force and some end-game scoring which can be worth up to 52 points, there is also one city on the board that has a reward of 6 points. A round of the game (of which there are 5) is split into three phases 1) Placement of Knights, 2) Voting on Laws, 3) Collecting Knights and rewards. Knights are placed in 3 areas, either in a city (in which case their personal strength has got to be at least that of the City), on a conflict space in France or on their own castle, however Knights on City Spaces (for which there is only room for one Knight) can be replaced provided the replacer can match the City strength of the City and can beat the strength of the Knight currently holding it and for this purpose he may add squires each squire adding 1 strength), the usurped Knight goes back to the player and can be used again this round. Knight Placement continues until all players have placed all there Knights.

The conflict part of the board, rewards for going to France are shown on the blue octagonal tiles

3 Current Laws, the first gives 3 VP for every conflict you are involved in.

The next phase is Laws, there are 3 new Laws which are voted on one at a time every round, if the Law is successful the oldest Law is removed from play and the new Law added to the end of the queue, it is possible that none of the new Laws are passed or all three are passed, it all depends on the voting, for each vote a player has a Nay and Yea vote to which he may add extra weight with voting cubes (each Noble provides 1 vote and further votes can be obtained as rewards). After all the voting the three Laws are processed one at a time and have a criteria which must be met and a reward early in the game it is an advancement of some sort but later in the game it rewards Victory Points.

A player board showing 3 Nobles (at top) 3 renovations to the castle, and some Knights on the left ready to be placed.

In the last phase Knights are retrieved from the board first from the Cities for which a player may take either the Noble token for that City or the reward for the City or for a payment of 3 coins they may take both, rewards are 1) Increase a Knight level, 2) Take a new level 1 Knight, 3) Build a section of Castle, 4) collect 2 coins, 2 squires and the start token, 5) collect 6 points, 6) Journey to France for Conflict, there are 2 of each of the first 3 rewards. Rewards are then collected from Knights placed in your Castle and from built sections of your Castle (for which no Knight is required to collect the reward). Finally conflicts in France take place, the conflict is won if the total strength of all Knights present matches or exceeds the total on the Conflict tile if so victory points are awarded dependent on the Individual player strengths with the highest reward going to the strongest player, ties are broken in favour of “last to arrive” which can lead to some interesting situations.    

The scores at the end of our game at the club, the differences belie what was a close fought contest

The game mechanics interlock excellently to make a nice tight game, resources (money, squires and votes) are hard to come by but you cannot be locked out from them, there is a lot of interaction whereby players fight for control of Cities and for dominance of the Conflicts in France. Although it plays 2-5 the 2 player version (with special rules) was nowhere as interesting as 3 player and 4 player games I have played. I can highly recommend Lancaster but not as a 2 player game.