Game(s) Played:
And welcome back to another edition of our monthly meet-ups to teach, learn & play boardgames for the niche group of us who are strangely only free on Saturday mornings. One of the featured games for the month is … …
Session – Concordia
Game: Concordia
Designer: Mac Gerdts
Players: 2 – 5 Players
Playing Time: 100 minutes (This Play: 150 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Hand Management, Point to Point Movement, Economic
Player(s):
I've played Concordia quite recently with Moses on our own but we haven't brought Concordia back to the monthly meet-ups since the ill-fated meet-up in KFC two years ago. Perhaps it is the trauma or even the bad juju from that incident that has prevented its return but Edward recently brought Concordia up again in one of our conversations and I decided it was time to facilitate its triumphant return.
I've already done a "Play Better" segment before plus I didn't actually play Concordia this time round so I will regale you with some lovely pictures of Concordia and the Players who sat down to play it.
In the beginning, there was Roma (Rome) and it was filled with colourful colonists
Here we see that Crystal of House Viridi has discovered something interesting, piquing the interest of Christine of House Flavus
The colonists of the various Houses are colonizing the entirety of Rome, bringing job opportunities, wages, higher standards of living for the low cost of resource exploitation
Victory goes to Jimmy of House Rubeus! Long may his House reign
Results Of Game(s)
WINNER – Jimmy
2nd – Crystal
LAST – Christine
Session – Dice Forge
Game: Dice Forge
Designer: Régis Bonnessée
Players: 2 – 4 Players
Playing Time: 40 minutes (This Play: 40 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Dice Rolling, Dice Upgrading
Player(s):
I actually didn't realize until just a moment ago that Dice Forge was designed by the same designer as Seasons, one of my favourite games. I've been wanting to get a game in for a while now since finding out that Sean has a copy, the ability to "upgrade" your dice faces seemed really unique and I wanted to give it a try.
So for those not familiar with the game, a very (x∞) brief summary of what Dice Forge is all about. There are four types of resources: Gold (which lets you buy new faces for your dice, like lego pieces), Sun & Moon Shards (to buy cards that manipulate dice / give resources / screw other Players) and Victory Points (which give you VPs, duh). The different faces of your dice show these four resources which you roll to accumulate and spend on each of your turns. Highest VPs score wins!
So…
TIP #1 – Beat The Luck Factor By Increasing The Outcomes
Dice manipulation does not exist in Dice Forge. At most, you increase the outcome of your rolls by literally peeling off a face of the die and replacing it with a better outcome. Naturally, having five "6"s on a d6 does not prevent you from rolling a "1" five times in a row. Neither are there any cards that allow you to change the result of your rolls but some cards allow you to increase your rolls, so the more you roll, the more chances you have of getting the result you want.
Just keep rolling, rolling, rolling, rolling
TIP #2 – Spend Don't Save
It may be tempting to pick up the Card or Dice Face you've been having your eye on since the start of the game once you have the necessary resources accumulated but if you are close to maxing out the other resources, it is best to spend them on something else. Because of the maximum cap, any subsequent rolls for resources that exceed this cap get burned. The higher the Player count, the more important this becomes as it takes longer for your turn to come around and you are accumulating resources continuously throughout the other Players' turns.
Buy, Buy, Buy! Spend your hard-rolled resources here!
TIP #3 – Try The Gold Strategy
If you are lost, you can try the Gold strategy. Simply upgrade your Gold faces for higher values and purchase a Blacksmith's Hammer card. Every Blacksmith's Hammer card you complete is 25 VPs, so you just keep taking a new card after you finish one and keep upgrading for more Gold faces as you go.Results Of Game(s)
Game 1:
WINNER – Sean (100 VPs)
2nd – Justin (96 VPs)
LAST – Gideon (87 VPs)
Game 2:
WINNER – Gideon (126 VPs)
2nd – Justin (101 VPs)
LAST – Gideon (93 VPs)
Some of the Heroic Feat card abilities, most of them involve more rolling, rolling, rolling
For my first game my strategy was to go for a simple roll until you get the resources needed to buy the Heroic Feat cards with lots of VPs. For a first timer this seemed to work very well.
Show me da MONAY!!!
I decided to try the Gold strategy for my second game and surprisingly did really well. I even thought I was going to take the win but Gideon pulled off an epic last turn come back that saw him gain 30 VPs or more. It didn't help that I actually contributed to his win by rolling the Tenacious Boar face Gideon put on my dice.
Session – Hansa Teutonica
Game: Hansa Teutonica
Designer: Andreas Steding
Players: 2 – 5 Players
Playing Time: 90 minutes (This Play: 60 minutes)
Main Mechanisms: Area Control, Route Building
Player(s):
Hansa Teutonica is an old gem, whose position in the top 100 (now 109) previously confounded newcomer reviewers like Shut Up & Sit Down (and they were the brave ones to admit it, the others won't even touch it) because it looks uglier than Otzi the Iceman (even when he was alive).
Those in my group call this the "Destroyer of Friendships", "Mean to the Extreme" & "Get Out Of My Way". So this has a warning label of PG-13 for Violence.
Cube Violence at Gottingen... All units be advised
Results Of Game(s)
Winner – Sean (48 VPs)
Second – Justin (33 VPs)
LAST – Gideon (23 VPs)
So I totally ignored all my tips in my previous "Play Better" write-up. I upgraded my Actions ability then proceeded to corner all the different cities to try and pull in the points from other Players trying to upgrade their abilities. This worked for a bit, then Sean took over control of Gottingen and then it was a mad rush for Action upgrades which gave Sean a tonne of points. I was still in the game because I had control over more cities but Sean synergized his control over Gottingen by spreading to the nearby Halle which upgrade his Key ability for more points to connected cities, giving him the win.
I rarely appear in pictures so this is nice, thanks Jimmy and everyone else for coming!
Until next time, keep calm and play better.
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