#1: Agricola
#2: Puerto Rico
#3: Power Grid
#4: Twilight Struggle
#5: Tigris and Euphrates
#6: El Grande
#7: Caylus
#8: Race for the Galaxy
#9: The Princes of Florence
#10: Through the Ages: A Story of Civilisation
Agricola, Yes, and love it.
Puerto Rico, No.
Power Grid, Yes. It fills the roll of a monopoly game that is much less sucktastic than actual monopoly. When I want to play with paper money, this is the game to go for.
4. No.
5. No.
6. No.
7. No.
8. No.
9. No.
10. No.
A lot of these games I've had the opportunity to play, and I've researched, but I haven't actually been willing to sit down and spend the (often large) time investment required to learn to play them competently enough that I could start to enjoy myself. I just don't want to spend the time I'd need to spend to learn, say, Caylus well enough that I don't get butchered by the Caylus Commandoes, and can maybe even enjoy playing it. I'd rather play Agricola or Dominion or Modern Art or even Robo Rally. I'm more a fan of medium weight games, or of heavy weight games that *feel* medium weight, like Agricola.
Agricola, Yes, and love it.
Puerto Rico, No.
Power Grid, Yes. It fills the roll of a monopoly game that is much less sucktastic than actual monopoly. When I want to play with paper money, this is the game to go for..
I love Power Grid, but I always play it with poker chips these days.
I love Power Grid, but I always play it with poker chips these days.
Cheers!
Amen to that. I mean, I've never played Power Grid, but from experience I can tell you that using poker chips for monopoly dramatically cuts its playtime (shaves off hours).
So far I've only played Twilight Struggle, which was last night. And we were doing the scoring wrong. I should have guesses something was up when the cold war ended during Eisenhower's administration.
I'm thinking about getting Tigris & Euphrates because it sounds pretty cool, and I like the idea of civilization building, but I've heard that in reality the theme is pretty shallow and superficial. Can anyone corroborate that?
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So far I've only played Twilight Struggle, which was last night. And we were doing the scoring wrong. I should have guesses something was up when the cold war ended during Eisenhower's administration.
I'm thinking about getting Tigris & Euphrates because it sounds pretty cool, and I like the idea of civilization building, but I've heard that in reality the theme is pretty shallow and superficial. Can anyone corroborate that?
T&E does have a pretty shallow and superficial theme; it's a great game, but the theme isn't really that strong. It's there, but not to a great degree.
Far stronger is the theme in Through the Ages.
In T&E, each player has four leaders (King, Merchant, Priest and Farmer) and plays tiles to improve kingdoms. You score a point of the matching colour if you have the same leader in the kingdom. A kingdom is a group of connected tiles and leader. You can have your leaders in kingdoms with other player's leaders... just not two of the same type.
If a second leader is played into one kingdom of the same type as one already there, you have an internal conflict and whichever leader has the most support of the priests wins and forces out the other leader.
If two kingdoms are merged by a tile play, then you have an external conflict for each pair of same-type leaders, where their strength is based on how many tiles of the matching type they have in their own kingdom. So, two farmers warring, one with 2 farm tiles and one with 6 farm tiles will have a 2 to 6 deficit; the loser is returned to it's owner and all farm tiles in the losing kingdom are removed from the game.
All of this scores points in the relevant colours.
You can also build monuments, which give you bonus points every turn, but severely reduce your strength in that kingdom and make them vulnerable to external conflict.
It's a very, very cool strategy game, but it's not really a civilisation game in the sense I'd make of the word; the theme is there, but not very strong.
T&E does have a pretty shallow and superficial theme; it's a great game, but the theme isn't really that strong. It's there, but not to a great degree.
Far stronger is the theme in Through the Ages.
In T&E, each player has four leaders (King, Merchant, Priest and Farmer) and plays tiles to improve kingdoms. You score a point of the matching colour if you have the same leader in the kingdom. A kingdom is a group of connected tiles and leader. You can have your leaders in kingdoms with other player's leaders... just not two of the same type.
If a second leader is played into one kingdom of the same type as one already there, you have an internal conflict and whichever leader has the most support of the priests wins and forces out the other leader.
If two kingdoms are merged by a tile play, then you have an external conflict for each pair of same-type leaders, where their strength is based on how many tiles of the matching type they have in their own kingdom. So, two farmers warring, one with 2 farm tiles and one with 6 farm tiles will have a 2 to 6 deficit; the loser is returned to it's owner and all farm tiles in the losing kingdom are removed from the game.
All of this scores points in the relevant colours.
You can also build monuments, which give you bonus points every turn, but severely reduce your strength in that kingdom and make them vulnerable to external conflict.
It's a very, very cool strategy game, but it's not really a civilisation game in the sense I'd make of the word; the theme is there, but not very strong.
Cheers!
I love through the ages, but the more I play it, the lower my score goes on it. It started as a 9.5 to me, and though still great its holes are showing. Part of it is in the logic of the game. There just feels like their shouldbe a mechanism to prevent things like building tanks when you've only researched bronze or having airplanes but you still don't have access guns. I think the games abstractness is its greatest strength and weakness.
Not to mention, the game designers seemed to give up on the last age. When they have wonders like fast food restaurants and leaders such as "elvis and game designer" it really feels like the game designers didn't put in any effort in the last age. I can' think of a half dozen things more important than fast food restaurants this century and a dozen important figures of the modern age that have nothing to do with dead rock stars.
I agree with you about T and E. I've only played it once, didn't like it too much and fail to see why so many like it. It awasn't bad, but it as just ho hum.
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Just played Le Havre. Took forever. Loved it though.
Its like Agricola, except not. In Agricola, you own all of your farm upgrades. In Le Havre, you "own" buildings, in the sense that you get points for them and get a tiny advantage in using them, but mostly they're held in common for the benefit of all. What you really OWN is your resources, and you get the best benefit sometimes from using them, and sometimes from processing and moving them about. You don't really build up an engine like you do in Agricola, you make round by round tactical decisions.
Its a nice change of pace. And it really does a good job of feeling like a city builder.
#1: Agricola - yes
#2: Puerto Rico - yes
#3: Power Grid - yes
#4: Twilight Struggle - no
#5: Tigris and Euphrates - yes
#6: El Grande - no
#7: Caylus - yes
#8: Race for the Galaxy - no
#9: The Princes of Florence - no
#10: Through the Ages: A Story of Civilisation - no
Agricola is good but the random hand of cards determines the outcome amongst similarly skilled players. You can be out of the game before it starts. use a house rule that involves picking cards.
Caylus is also good but each amongst the same group of friends is going to play too similarly.
I played Puerto Rico and Tigris too long ago to recall much.
Power Grid is a cute game. Its basically an easy-mode train game.
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