Although we’re already in November, this is the sessrep for Episode 03 because the other members couldn’t find the time to organize a meetup in October either, I guess real life caught up to everyone. Sadly, due to it being the end of term exams period, we were down to 4 Players this time. Moreover, December months being what they are, it is likely that (the now redubbed) KFCgamers will be going on another 1 month hiatus until 2014. Never fear, I will be trying to have 1 or 2 boardgaming sessions with the siblings now that I’ve heard some of the kickstarter stuff has arrived / coming soon so do look forward to sessreps (or the very least, pics) of Euphoria (Dystopian society theme had me hooked), Tash-Kalar (I’m a Vlaada Chvatil fanboy), Coal Baron (rated highly at Essen 2013) & Caverna (Agricola meets Dwarf Fortress). And if The Agents makes it then definitely that too.
4th shelf? Hmm
Game(s) Played:
For Sale
Tokaido
Hansa Teutonica
We decided to give KFC a go as our venue this time around. Where McD’s was stiflingly warm, KFC was like a spring day in the cooling shade of an elm tree. There was plentiful space and the staff kindly ignored us making it easy to have a relaxing good time. Henceforth, this is the place we shall gather and rechristen ourselves as KFCgamers lol.
Gideon was running late due to a meeting he had, so to gently break in our newcomer, Esther (one of Jimmy’s friends), we played one of the "funnest", "cutthroat-est" games in our arsenal, For Sale! Unfortunately it was Jimmy who fell into the alluring trap of overbidding and was the first to lose all his start-up capital.
The properties I managed to grab were in the low to mid twenties (property values go from 1 to 30 with 1 being the dog house) and somehow (I myself cannot explain this phenomenon) I kept selling properties that were only 1 value higher than Jimmy’s each round. He was at a loss to explain it himself too. This was one of the few times I’ve played For Sale whilst counting cards (usually I just go with my gut feel and enjoy the wild results) but I didn’t expect to out-guess Jimmy each time.
Esther seemed to enjoy playing (I haven’t found anyone who doesn’t enjoy For Sale) and For Sale is turning out to be one of those surprise hits which most people don’t buy. I only picked it up because I needed a small item to qualify for a bigger discount a couple of years ago. I’m glad to be surprised on this count.
Results Of Game
Winner – Justin
Second – Esther
Third – Jimmy
Gideon had arrived in time to see the hilarity go down between Jimmy & I. Once we cleared up For Sale, we moved on to Jimmy’s latest purchase Tokaido. Designed by the now many award winning Antoine Bauza, Tokaido has Players acting as travellers on Tokaido (East Sea Road), a road that connected Edo & Kyoto during the feudal era of Japan. Players will be doing basically everything that a normal tourist would do such as sightseeing, dipping at the hotsprings, shopping for souvenirs, chatting up the locals, visiting the temples, participate in the local industry and visiting the inns for the local delicacies, everything except camwhoring really.
More than the game design, Tokaido has really got its art going for it, courtesy of French artist Naïade who has also done the artwork for games like Isla Dorada, Seasons, Coup & The Phantom Society. What can I say other than that Tokaido is a really beautiful game.
We played some rules wrong (as we are wont to do with new games) but the errors made would not have influenced the outcome in a significant way. I planned to ignore seeing the sights and just focus on buying souvenirs, making big fat donations to the local deities, dip into a hotspring or two and eat all the delicious goodies feudal Japan had to offer by being FIRST at the local foodstops.
Tokaido - Let's go on a journey to Edo
My loot from travelling along Tokaido so far... Dango, oishi-desu!
This was my first and last mistake. You see, taking in the picturesque sights gives you an average of 7 points for each type of scenery (plains 6VP, mountains 10VP & sea 15VP). Esther was really into this and took home more than 21 points on scenery alone. Coupled with a little of all the other activities, this gave her the win easily whilst Jimmy & Gideon who also had a little of everything came in before me, who was dead last despite being first to the finish line.
Esther ponders her next move...
Some thoughts on Tokaido:
1. The slower you go, the more turns you get (it is an interesting mechanic but may be a game breaking one)
2. The game is short so having more turns gives you a much higher chance of winning
3. Game becomes a snooze fest where having more turns is more important than being first to certain spots
4. Everybody’s new strategy is to just move to the next spot available
Nevertheless, I enjoyed playing Tokaido and would be willing to play if asked (which makes it a 7 according to BGG’s ratings guide). There’s a small element of chance in the card drawing where you can get lucky, like Gideon when he needed money but the local industry spot was taken and he chatted up a local who gave him money instead. And we all know that luck is one of the main components for fun and interesting times.
The artwork is really nice
I had originally wanted to give Suburbia its first day in the sun but thought it would be too heavy with only an hour and a half left, so I opted for my tried & tested "short" Euro – Hansa Teutonica.
Whilst Hansa Teutonica has a supremely lengthy rules explanation with no theme whatsoever to go with it, the game is very surprisingly intuitive even for non-eurogamers once the cubes are laid down. Hansa Teutonica is a game about amassing Victory Points and there are a grand total of 8 different ways to get them. Talk about multiple paths to victory, or not, let me explain in a bit.
I’ve always abhorred the "Actions" strategy in Hansa Teutonica, where you pump yourself full of steroids as it were and take more actions than everybody else, powering you to victory. I usually level myself to 3 actions then get on with conquering the Coellen Table which involves levelling my "Move" & "Color" abilities and if I get that done before the game ends, I move on to having control over as many cities on the board as I can before time runs out. (If this is gibberish to you, check out the review)
And that’s the thing, time runs out obscenely fast in Hansa Teutonica. 3 ways to score VPs are available to you in game but when a Player reaches 20 VPs, the game suddenly ends and you get to do the end game scoring from the remaining 5 ways to get VPs. I can hardly complete the first part of my strategy in time and that is if I don’t have to put the brakes on it to stall someone else’s plan along the way. Because Player turns can zoom by quickly (think speed chess), you have to be on your toes as to what other Players are doing all the time.
Which is kinda what happened this time around as well. I had a monopoly on the "Move" upgrade city and was trying to establish one on the "Draw" upgrade city as well but kept being interrupted by Gideon & Esther. Meanwhile Jimmy was putting the moves on the Bonus Tokens whilst Gideon had control on both sides of the "Color" upgrade city pushing both of their VPs past my early lead. By the time I had fully upgraded my "Move" ability to get the discs that I needed for the Coellen Table, everybody else had a share of the pie and Jimmy was literally one turn away from being able to end the game himself. On top of that, he had taken building a chain network of cities to heart and managed to connect 7 cities before upgrading his "Chain" ability on the last turn. Guess where I ended up being again twice in one day, dead last. Woohoo. Despite the sore loser in me coming out in this post, I have to say that I genuinely had a good time today, because victory when it comes will upgrade a "good time" to ecstatic levels. *cue evil laughter*
Too bad I'm not a wookie
Whilst Hansa Teutonica really does have multiple paths to victory, some paths seem more overpowered than most. In my limited experience of playing Hansa Teutonica, those who opt for control of many cities earn heckuva lot of points making it actually the most viable strategy and those with a fully pumped "Actions" ability also tend to win most games. Maybe it is the natural tendency of Asians to avoid "crowd-bullying" which is entirely necessary in Hansa Teutonica to prevent a leader from pulling further & further away from the pack, what is worse is that the Player who "sacrificed" himself to try and stop the leader from pulling away ends up getting trampled in the backwash. I still intend on carrying out my anti-"Actions" campaign but will probably relax my limit to 4 Actions from now on. I refuse to believe that you can’t win this game without abusing the "Actions" ability.
Hansa Teutonica - Cutthroat euro at its best
Jimmy was Green and based on the opposite end of the board, he won quite handily
Results Of Game
Winner – Jimmy (66 VPs)
Second – Esther (48 VPs)
Third – Gideon (43 VPs)
Dead Last – Justin (36 VPs)
No comments:
Post a Comment