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viktor_haagLast week-end was held another "crunchy boardgame event" at the Old Huron Redoubt.
Indonesia
One of my regular guests is very, very enthusiastic about this game, and I like it a lot as well. And with these longer heavier games, often the more you play, the more reward you get, and the better and better time you have on subsequent playing.
Because the last time we played my shipping strategy was a bold-faced disaster, I decided to try and replicate the path to victory for the winner of the last game. My first two companies were a spice and a shipping company. Then, I sold off my shipping company through a merger to get capital, and acquired a rice company in the just created empty slot. On the following turn, I had enough capital to protect the merger of my own two companies into a microwave dinner company, and acquired another spice company.
My strategy this time was all about generating capital and using it to ladder up production companies. After that initial sell off of my shipping line, I stayed well clear of shipping. I diversified and expanded as much as I could, even though it meant turns without free expansions (one of the other players purposefully kept his shipping company away from my goods fields, and so I couldn't use both remaining shipping lines to move goods).
I cemented my victory with three hostile takeovers: first I force-merged two rubber companies both owned by my competitors and purchased the result. Then, in the end-game, I forced the merger between my oil company and one of my competitors, and followed that up the next turn with a forced merger between my oil company and one from my other competitor. In the last era of the game, I owned a third of the microwave dinner production, all the rubber production, and three quarters of the oil production.
However, I still only managed to win by a few hundred dollars, leaving me believing that I wasn't quite as efficient during play as I thought, and my strategy was "expensive". But it still proved several sound principles to me:
• Get out of shipping in the early game, and use the capital generated to fund expansion and diversity of production companies.
• Don't over pay for mergers. Most important corollary: the most profitable merger you can make is to take one of your spice and one of your rice and merge them into a microwave dinner company. If at all possible you must do this, and you must do it early. Make sure you have enough capital to protect this merger, but timing can also help you: if you do it when no other player has an extra slot, for example, or the one who does have a slot is cash poor.
After three plays, I still have yet to see a shipping magnate do well. In my opinion, shipping companies are a mill-stone and a necessary evil. You need to have access to shipping in the early game to generate capital, but owning it yourself should only be done as a last resort. Shipping doesn't pay well, it occupies slots, and shipping companies are volatile because they're relatively cheap to take over.
Of course, if everyone in the game views shipping as a necessary evil, then disposing of a shipping line you own may prove difficult (no-one else will propose a merger, and if you do, you'll get stuck owning it, and liberating someone else's slot and paying them money).
I anticipate that we'll play this game one or two more times in the next while, so I may have more to say on it in the near future. Then, I anticipate we'll move on to another longer game.
The End of the Triumvirate
This is not a longer game, but it is a good one, and very possibly the best three-player game I know. Alan Moon lists it as a runner up (to Stefan Feld's Roma) of his favourite game from last year, so I figured, "Hey, if Alan likes it that much, I should probably buy it".
The game is a tense, short, gripping three-player filled with interaction and conflict. If you do not like inter-player conflict, you'd best avoid this game. Each player assumes the role of one of the first, great Roman triumvirate (Caesar, Pompey, Crassus). The game set-up is precise and fiddly, but after that, the game is very simple to play and motors along quite nicely.
The game offers different paths to victory: win through conquering provinces, win through amassing political support, win by proving yourself a balanced and worthy leader. There are three different province types on the board to support optimal pursuance of each type of strategy. The game appears to be very well balanced: all types of victory seem possible and within reach. In the first game we played, a player suddenly achieved the military victory by conquering the magic number of provinces. In the second game we played, a player suddenly achieved the political victory with a stab attack to liberate just enough funds to purchase enough support in the senate to win.
This is an awesome three-player game and is a perfect game for this nights when you want to play two games, since it takes about an hour. If your group regularly has three-player tables in it, and you don't mind a bit of nastiness, then I highly recommend you buy this game.
Indonesia
One of my regular guests is very, very enthusiastic about this game, and I like it a lot as well. And with these longer heavier games, often the more you play, the more reward you get, and the better and better time you have on subsequent playing.
Because the last time we played my shipping strategy was a bold-faced disaster, I decided to try and replicate the path to victory for the winner of the last game. My first two companies were a spice and a shipping company. Then, I sold off my shipping company through a merger to get capital, and acquired a rice company in the just created empty slot. On the following turn, I had enough capital to protect the merger of my own two companies into a microwave dinner company, and acquired another spice company.
My strategy this time was all about generating capital and using it to ladder up production companies. After that initial sell off of my shipping line, I stayed well clear of shipping. I diversified and expanded as much as I could, even though it meant turns without free expansions (one of the other players purposefully kept his shipping company away from my goods fields, and so I couldn't use both remaining shipping lines to move goods).
I cemented my victory with three hostile takeovers: first I force-merged two rubber companies both owned by my competitors and purchased the result. Then, in the end-game, I forced the merger between my oil company and one of my competitors, and followed that up the next turn with a forced merger between my oil company and one from my other competitor. In the last era of the game, I owned a third of the microwave dinner production, all the rubber production, and three quarters of the oil production.
However, I still only managed to win by a few hundred dollars, leaving me believing that I wasn't quite as efficient during play as I thought, and my strategy was "expensive". But it still proved several sound principles to me:
• Get out of shipping in the early game, and use the capital generated to fund expansion and diversity of production companies.
• Don't over pay for mergers. Most important corollary: the most profitable merger you can make is to take one of your spice and one of your rice and merge them into a microwave dinner company. If at all possible you must do this, and you must do it early. Make sure you have enough capital to protect this merger, but timing can also help you: if you do it when no other player has an extra slot, for example, or the one who does have a slot is cash poor.
After three plays, I still have yet to see a shipping magnate do well. In my opinion, shipping companies are a mill-stone and a necessary evil. You need to have access to shipping in the early game to generate capital, but owning it yourself should only be done as a last resort. Shipping doesn't pay well, it occupies slots, and shipping companies are volatile because they're relatively cheap to take over.
Of course, if everyone in the game views shipping as a necessary evil, then disposing of a shipping line you own may prove difficult (no-one else will propose a merger, and if you do, you'll get stuck owning it, and liberating someone else's slot and paying them money).
I anticipate that we'll play this game one or two more times in the next while, so I may have more to say on it in the near future. Then, I anticipate we'll move on to another longer game.
The End of the Triumvirate
This is not a longer game, but it is a good one, and very possibly the best three-player game I know. Alan Moon lists it as a runner up (to Stefan Feld's Roma) of his favourite game from last year, so I figured, "Hey, if Alan likes it that much, I should probably buy it".
The game is a tense, short, gripping three-player filled with interaction and conflict. If you do not like inter-player conflict, you'd best avoid this game. Each player assumes the role of one of the first, great Roman triumvirate (Caesar, Pompey, Crassus). The game set-up is precise and fiddly, but after that, the game is very simple to play and motors along quite nicely.
The game offers different paths to victory: win through conquering provinces, win through amassing political support, win by proving yourself a balanced and worthy leader. There are three different province types on the board to support optimal pursuance of each type of strategy. The game appears to be very well balanced: all types of victory seem possible and within reach. In the first game we played, a player suddenly achieved the military victory by conquering the magic number of provinces. In the second game we played, a player suddenly achieved the political victory with a stab attack to liberate just enough funds to purchase enough support in the senate to win.
This is an awesome three-player game and is a perfect game for this nights when you want to play two games, since it takes about an hour. If your group regularly has three-player tables in it, and you don't mind a bit of nastiness, then I highly recommend you buy this game.
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 15:10 (UTC)::B::
P.S. And given the recent (and ongoing) election theme, Die Macher when it finally gets reprinted.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-08 15:57 (UTC)You may find it cheaper to attempt to find a Sunday afternoon to attend a session at the Old Huron Redoubt. (I know that your on-call schedule makes this difficult: the next session will almost certainly be the 19th of November.)
(Note to