Session - BGN in Puchong (Revolution & Zong Shi)

25th of April 2012 (Wednesday)

Game(s) Played:
Revolution

Zong Shi

Session – Revolution

I recently read up about Revolution on GamerChris’ blog as well as Phillip Dubarry’s blog and when I saw it at the bottom of the gaming bag of holding at BGN I leapt at the chance to play it. We quickly assembled our revolutionary leaders of four, (I picked yellow in the spirit of our country’s Bersih movement) and proceeded to beat the stuffing out of each other with violence, blackmail and corruption!

This was the first play of Revolution for all of us but learning the game is fairly simple and intuitive. Each player is basically given a player mat with a slew of actions on them, successfully taking an action basically gives a Player one or some of the following:
1) Resources (Force, Blackmail and Coins)
2) Influence in an area of the city
3) Support (which are basically Points)

Revolution is a combination of two mechanics, namely area control & the blind auction mechanic. Each turn Players use their resources to bid on actions (some actions have resource restrictions) behind a screen and at the simultaneous reveal, the Player with the highest bid is successful whilst ties and lesser bids are discarded. The blind auction mechanic is really the star of Revolution, we kept second guessing each other and suffered so many ties it was heartbreaking to see our hard earned resources go down the drain through ties. It was a real study of human nature for me, trying to guess who was going to go all in or diversify across many actions or do a combination of both whilst eliminating those Players who didn’t have the correct resource for a resource restricted action. What adds to the pressure of all these different probabilities in your mental calculation is the existing support of each Player.

I can see you peeking!

Ultimately it is the support that matters at the end of the game but Players can accumulate support throughout the game and get a fat bonus for those areas of the city which the Player has majority influence at game’s end. So there is extra pressure to gain support at the expense of area control when a Player sees that they are lagging behind as well as pressure from the limited spaces of influence available at each area of the city. Basically pressure everywhere and although that’s usually a sign of a game with Analysis Paralysis, the truth is that you’re unlikely to do more than triple guess yourself and with simultaneous turns, it does speed things up and we got by fairly quickly.

Sometimes you can see this happening in real life, just substitute the pot for a Player's head

From the get go it was clear that dwolve was going for the areas with big points, I managed to yank the Tavern away from him but he still managed to end up with the Fortress and Town Hall which sent him straight to the top at the end. I had the Cathedral & Tavern at the end and had to choose between reinforcing my stake in the Cathedral or stealing the Market and potentially losing the Cathedral. I really shouldn’t have thought out loud about this move, then I might have gotten away with it, but then again dwolve thought out loud on my behalf too so…

Maybe there should be signs at game tables

Great fast paced game with lots of groans and cheers of excitement although I ended up being last (hidup Bersih!).

Session – Zong Shi

It was a bit too late for a round of Ora Et Labora, so we turned to Zong Shi instead since Kareem’s group seemed a bit busy sounding like pimps playing Helvetia and dwolve could teach us Zong Shi instead. Zong Shi is a euro set in ancient China where Players take on the role of a master craftsman and his apprentice in their quest to craft the ugliest statues I’ve ever beheld in any game. Each turn the Player assigns the master and the apprentice to various locations around the game board as follows:
1) The Kopitiam or Coffeeshop (a.k.a. Respectful Visits in game) – exchange materials for points
2) The Marketplace – obtain materials
3) The Temple – obtain scrolls of power
4) The Pawn Shop – buy the ability to use different materials interchangeably

Both masters and apprentices can take the actions at these locations with the master’s taking a slightly powered up action but the key to masters is that they’re the only ones who can start a project. A project will be either a normal project (which gives abilities) or a masterwork which gives big points but whilst the project is underway, the master is unavailable for the number of turns it takes to complete the project, reducing the Player’s number of actions and restricting the Player to only the underpowered apprentice. The Player with the most points at game end (Zong Shi is one of those euros that rewards hoarders so collect as many things as you can) wins.

I must admit in the beginning that I pretty much followed everything that dwolve did just to find my footing. In the process I discovered that Zong Shi is very much about timing your actions so that you don’t end up competing with other Players particularly for resources, many times its waiting for other Players’ masters to be tied up in a project or a Player has exhausted his material limit and then swooping in for the kill. Buying the ability to interchangeable usage was my key to winning as you not only get points for collecting the entire set, you end up not worrying what types of materials are available on the board. The reason you don’t have to keep jumping for resources is primarily due to the scrolls of power, which literally break the game. The scrolls give you material discounts, speed up a project, let’s your apprentice be a master and wreaks all sorts of havoc across the game board.

Scroll of P-O-W-E-R!

Ultimately dwolve pushed the game to end (complete 6 projects) when I only had 5 projects completed because of the unbelievable luck I had in the masterworks department where I got the kickstarter bonus masterwork worth 12 points not once but twice with enough resources at that exact moment to construct it.

I’m not sure if I would consider playing Zong Shi again though, certain aspects of the game seemed overpowered and it may all come down to the luck of the draw (either materials or scrolls) to determine the winner. I get the same feeling coming away from a game of Alien Frontiers but only further plays will tell if my thoughts about the game are valid.