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Yesterday was another boardgame afternoon at the Old Huron Redoubt. We had six players, and then four. So we played two of (quite possibly) the top 10 games from the last 30 years: Civilization and Puerto Rico.
Civilization
"If only this game were shorter, it would be perfect!" This seems to be the constant complaint about Tresham's masterpiece, and most certainly how it manages to weigh in at place sixty-three on the Geek's rating system behind a host of much poorer games. My contention is that Civilization is already near perfect as it is. Yes, a good play will take between 5 and 8 hours; if it takes longer than that, then that should be a sign that either you're playing incorrectly, or that it's just not the game for your group. That doesn't mean the game is "too long". Rather, Civilization's thematic depth and strategic wealth demands the length.
While it's true that Civilization is not a sprint to the finish like many more modern boardgames, it's involving, engaging, and demands attention and thoughtfulness throughout. It is true that it punishes those who fall behind, and true that it's obviously less pleasant to be in the lower half of the standings when the game you're playing is six hours long than when it's only sixty minutes. But, again, I don't think this means the game is not as good as the sixty-minute sprinters: what it does is demand more from the players.
But Civilization is not a chit-fest, nor a complex simulation exercise; the mechanisms in play are easily graspable by anyone who can get a grip on Age of Steam, Power Grid, or similar. And the length of the game also gives those in the back half time to make up lost ground: granted, there comes a point where you will be unable to get yourself back in (so it is quite important not to fall too far back off the pace), but it's not like some of the modern german-style games where you can be lost from a few steps out of the gate. These types of games hide this lack of balance through play brevity; the reason that Die Siedler caught on like wildfire was that, despite the fact that you could be royally hosed after the first third of the game and impossibly behind, you could be comforted by the knowledge (a) that your pain would last only another half hour or so, (b) that perhaps the dice would come to your aid, and (c) that you could then have time to reset the pieces and try your luck again.
I think both styles of games have their place, but Civilization still stands at or near the top of my list.
Our six-player game was reasonably close; slowly, over the course of the game, the race divided into two groups. Had there been more interaction and deal-making going on, the gap between the groups might have been kept a bit closer, but once the discrepancy started, those in the upper group had an interest in keeping it going, and those in the lower group didn't do anything effectively to change it.
At about five and a half to six hours, we had to end early because two of the players had to leave; however, the game's end was no more than another hour off, and it was fairly clear at that point who the likely winning candidates would be. I think it was a satisfying experience for everyone at the table, but this is not a game we're going to play every two weeks (nor should we; do you run a marathon every month?)
Puerto Rico
This was quite possibly the fastest game of PR I've ever played. It lasted barely more than an hour, and had several suspension points when one or both of us dealt with getting the kids to bed. Nobody in the four-player game got more than 39 points. Wow. How did this happen? Fairly clearly, the players as a whole invested heavily in production infrastructure in advance of capacity. This ensured that the game rocketed through colonists quickly. In the latter half of the game, when people's settled fields started being able to take advantage of production buildings, people still chose Mayor frequently because there was a race to populate the key expensive buildings they were moving to put in place.
This was an interesting game, and fun, but a bit of a strange ride. I can't shake the feeling that Puerto Rico basically shakes out what the successful strategies would be in the first few turns, and woe betide you if you aren't in accord with one of them. The game just isn't long enough for you to correct your course.
The longer Civilization provides you with opportunities to make subtle adjustments, throughout play, to what your turn-over-turn goals have to be to make progress. You have to follow several basic principles (or be very, very lucky) to avoid getting hosed in Civilization, but within that framework there's some opportunity for a slower pace: you can try things that might not work, and rebound; you can get smacked with an unlucky event or series of events, and rebound.
In the shorter Puerto Rico, your success is pretty much tied to how quickly you can make the right decisions about how to finesse the state machine that gets set up in the first few turns. And even then, there's really only two ways to win: do you produce and ship, or do you trade and build? The strategy that will work for you depends on what the other players choose to do, and where you're sitting relative to them at the table. (One solid lesson I learned last night, is that if both Hospices are in play, then "trade and build" is a lot less likely to win, because you just can't get enough high value buildings on the board quickly enough to keep pace with the "produce and ship" crowd.)
But once you determine that your choice to "trade and build" is met with the other players investing heavily, early, in production infrastructure, buying out all the hospices, and then producing and shipping like mad, what can you do to correct? Nothing, because at that point you've lost any control you might have had on the game's machine to turn it to your favour.
Puerto Rico is a fun game, but easily half its virtue lies in its brevity; players have much less control over their circumstances than it appears, but the length of the game keeps this from stinging too harshly. In general, the play experience is a fun one. What's interesting to me about Puerto Rico is the lack of randomness: on the surface, you'd think this would be a positive thing -- you can't get hosed by dice, therefore you must have more control! But I think this is a sly misapprehension. What Settlers brings to the table, with its dice, is that Lady Luck can help to bring you back into the game. In Puerto Rico, once the game's machine is against you, you're done. In Settlers, you can always hope for a lucky, and against-the-odds, string of rolls to bring you a surplus of production you can parlay into buildings and card draws.
Civilization
"If only this game were shorter, it would be perfect!" This seems to be the constant complaint about Tresham's masterpiece, and most certainly how it manages to weigh in at place sixty-three on the Geek's rating system behind a host of much poorer games. My contention is that Civilization is already near perfect as it is. Yes, a good play will take between 5 and 8 hours; if it takes longer than that, then that should be a sign that either you're playing incorrectly, or that it's just not the game for your group. That doesn't mean the game is "too long". Rather, Civilization's thematic depth and strategic wealth demands the length.
While it's true that Civilization is not a sprint to the finish like many more modern boardgames, it's involving, engaging, and demands attention and thoughtfulness throughout. It is true that it punishes those who fall behind, and true that it's obviously less pleasant to be in the lower half of the standings when the game you're playing is six hours long than when it's only sixty minutes. But, again, I don't think this means the game is not as good as the sixty-minute sprinters: what it does is demand more from the players.
But Civilization is not a chit-fest, nor a complex simulation exercise; the mechanisms in play are easily graspable by anyone who can get a grip on Age of Steam, Power Grid, or similar. And the length of the game also gives those in the back half time to make up lost ground: granted, there comes a point where you will be unable to get yourself back in (so it is quite important not to fall too far back off the pace), but it's not like some of the modern german-style games where you can be lost from a few steps out of the gate. These types of games hide this lack of balance through play brevity; the reason that Die Siedler caught on like wildfire was that, despite the fact that you could be royally hosed after the first third of the game and impossibly behind, you could be comforted by the knowledge (a) that your pain would last only another half hour or so, (b) that perhaps the dice would come to your aid, and (c) that you could then have time to reset the pieces and try your luck again.
I think both styles of games have their place, but Civilization still stands at or near the top of my list.
Our six-player game was reasonably close; slowly, over the course of the game, the race divided into two groups. Had there been more interaction and deal-making going on, the gap between the groups might have been kept a bit closer, but once the discrepancy started, those in the upper group had an interest in keeping it going, and those in the lower group didn't do anything effectively to change it.
At about five and a half to six hours, we had to end early because two of the players had to leave; however, the game's end was no more than another hour off, and it was fairly clear at that point who the likely winning candidates would be. I think it was a satisfying experience for everyone at the table, but this is not a game we're going to play every two weeks (nor should we; do you run a marathon every month?)
Puerto Rico
This was quite possibly the fastest game of PR I've ever played. It lasted barely more than an hour, and had several suspension points when one or both of us dealt with getting the kids to bed. Nobody in the four-player game got more than 39 points. Wow. How did this happen? Fairly clearly, the players as a whole invested heavily in production infrastructure in advance of capacity. This ensured that the game rocketed through colonists quickly. In the latter half of the game, when people's settled fields started being able to take advantage of production buildings, people still chose Mayor frequently because there was a race to populate the key expensive buildings they were moving to put in place.
This was an interesting game, and fun, but a bit of a strange ride. I can't shake the feeling that Puerto Rico basically shakes out what the successful strategies would be in the first few turns, and woe betide you if you aren't in accord with one of them. The game just isn't long enough for you to correct your course.
The longer Civilization provides you with opportunities to make subtle adjustments, throughout play, to what your turn-over-turn goals have to be to make progress. You have to follow several basic principles (or be very, very lucky) to avoid getting hosed in Civilization, but within that framework there's some opportunity for a slower pace: you can try things that might not work, and rebound; you can get smacked with an unlucky event or series of events, and rebound.
In the shorter Puerto Rico, your success is pretty much tied to how quickly you can make the right decisions about how to finesse the state machine that gets set up in the first few turns. And even then, there's really only two ways to win: do you produce and ship, or do you trade and build? The strategy that will work for you depends on what the other players choose to do, and where you're sitting relative to them at the table. (One solid lesson I learned last night, is that if both Hospices are in play, then "trade and build" is a lot less likely to win, because you just can't get enough high value buildings on the board quickly enough to keep pace with the "produce and ship" crowd.)
But once you determine that your choice to "trade and build" is met with the other players investing heavily, early, in production infrastructure, buying out all the hospices, and then producing and shipping like mad, what can you do to correct? Nothing, because at that point you've lost any control you might have had on the game's machine to turn it to your favour.
Puerto Rico is a fun game, but easily half its virtue lies in its brevity; players have much less control over their circumstances than it appears, but the length of the game keeps this from stinging too harshly. In general, the play experience is a fun one. What's interesting to me about Puerto Rico is the lack of randomness: on the surface, you'd think this would be a positive thing -- you can't get hosed by dice, therefore you must have more control! But I think this is a sly misapprehension. What Settlers brings to the table, with its dice, is that Lady Luck can help to bring you back into the game. In Puerto Rico, once the game's machine is against you, you're done. In Settlers, you can always hope for a lucky, and against-the-odds, string of rolls to bring you a surplus of production you can parlay into buildings and card draws.