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viktor_haagIn a coda to saying farewell to the Resident Train Guru (thanks to paperwork snafus), last weekend we decided it needed to be all Splotter all the time, so we put their two newest titles onto the table: Duck Dealer and Indonesia.
Duck Dealer
My first play of this game was superficially distressing. The first place player had somewhere between a hundred and two-hundred points (I think); the last place player (me) had maybe forty. Moreover it was plainly clear for the latter half of the game that this would happen. This effect is demoralizing, and reminded me solidly of other exceedingly sour-taste experiences (the most obvious analog being Sceptre of Zavandor) where, once you get behind, you are plainly and simply doomed. The RTG points out that most games that seem kinder are not, in fact, any kinder: you're just as unable to catch up if you get behind, but the point structure only makes it seem like you're not getting waxed. That may be fair enough, but there's still something to say for optics, and on top of that, it's hard to encourage casual gamers for those vital first three or four games they'd need to put in to do reasonably well at these kinds of economic engine games.
But I digress.
Like most Splotter games, Duck Dealer combines a relatively simple and elegant game engine with a staggering amount of depth in the game play. The game set-up is straightforward: you're a space merchant, the board is the collection of planets you can reach (some farther apart than others). Your goal is to acquire basic goods from mines, build (and then use) factories that can turn basic goods into intermediate goods into refined goods, build (and then use) "markets" that can turn intermediate and refined goods into points. There's two ways to get points: building infrastructure (factories and markets), and using infrastructure (markets) to dispose of goods.
One vital strategic key players must realize is that the award system in the game is heavily weighted towards the refined goods: building the factories for the refined goods is highly rewarded, factories for intermediate goods slightly less so; being the first to use a market for refined goods is highly rewarded, subsequent use of those markets slightly less so. All other rewards seem piddlingly small by comparison. Additionally, all the big point awards are one-time awards (build a refined goods factory, first-use of a refined goods market).
There is some merit into building a functional trade route that you can then milk for points, but this seems more than offset by the massive awards for "getting their first".
Another unique feature of the game is the flow of tempo. To take action, you must spend "energy disks" (which, essentially, amount to various currencies of action points). On your turn, you can either acquire tempo (get energy disks) or spend tempo (take actions by spending disks). This leads to an interestingly bumpy flow of the game: some rounds go by very swiftly as players are acquiring energy disks. Then, someone will decide to "take action", and spend stacks and stacks of disks to move their ship around the board, acquire goods, trade goods, dispose of goods, and get points.
Thus, this game massively favours players who are good at mental, complex route planning. Because the number of action turns in this game is limited (not rounds), one obvious plan for success is to push the envelope, gathering as much energy as you can, and take as few actions as you can get away with, so that you can maximize your point profit for tempo expenditure. To encourage this bumpiness, the energy disk supply is intentionally limited, and if, on your turn, there aren't enough disks to satisfy your energy gathering request, you get to gather the energy you are due (including a one-time gift of "virtual disks" to make up for the shortfall), and then you must take an immediate action turn. This rewards all players for gathering huge whacks of energy disks, carefully, to try and force the moment when they can get "free" action turns.
So, with my traditional loathing of bootstrappy economic games (such as Sceptre of Zavandor, Container, etc), why did I plunk down CDN112.00 for my copy of Duck Dealer? Especially after getting spanked on my very first play?
Because despite my difficulties with it, I think this is a very, very good game. It has simple, elegant rules, and an alarming amount of depth. Unlike many German-style games, which seem almost fast-foody in their depth (play it five to ten times? *bing* that's enough! now it's boring!), Splotter's games again and again provided excellent value for their high-prices.
It has some flaws, but those are really more to do with the players who might play it, I think, and not of the game design itself. If you cannot plan moves ahead more than three or four "if I do this, then I do thats", you will find this game quite frustrating -- especially if you play with others who can do that kind of planning. If you cannot clearly strategically plan out infrastructure to maximize your ability to harvest points from a bare sketch of available resources at the start of the game ("I need to build these factories on these planets, next to these mines, and then try to get these market stalls on those planets, and then..."), you will find this game quite frustrating -- especially if you play with others who can do that kind of planning.
As with most bootstrappy economic games (of which Puerto Rico is perhaps the most popular, and player-friendly, example), for optimum fun, the game really shines when all players at the table have similar levels of experience with the game, and similar levels of ability. The point award economy in the game is brutally weighted: morale crushingly so (unlike, say, Puerto Rico, where the difference between a finish in the thirties and a finish in the forties is a much, much wider gap than it seems, and wider than a finish in the high forties and low fifties). If you are the type of person to get irretrievably upset at a game when you, for example, finish with 35 points to the RTG's 185, then you will probably have difficulties getting up enough mustard to play Duck Dealer enough to get good at it.
But yet, I highly recommend this game, easily over Sceptre and Container (two games which seem to be of a similar type). Duck Dealer seems fun despite the high potential for frustration. Both games I have played were fun, and seemed fast. They did not drag in the end despite me getting frustrated. My last game of Sceptre was a half hour of interest followed by two hours of dreadful, mind-numbing pain.
Perhaps, because with Duck Dealer the goals are clearly out there, and pretty clear to see and attempt to plan towards. Reaching them, on the other hand, is not tremendously easy. Also, because, unlike Sceptre, or Container, there's enough variation in the game's starting condition (random placement of mines on planets, some variation in the resources you choose to start with, the special "jump gate" infrastructure tiles that let you drastically alter the movement costs between routes) to provide for generous amounts of re-playability.
So, here's my recommendation. If you have a regular group of three or four players who really, really like Puerto Rico, and play it quite often. If those people are happy to play games that last two to three hours, instead of one to two hours. If those people enjoy route planning puzzles, and are not too susceptible to dithering or analysis paralysis. Given those ifs, then I highly recommend you get a copy of Duck Dealer. It will be hideously expensive. But it is worth the expense: it is a very good game design, with lots and lots of depth. It rewards repeated play, and is fun.
But if you want to get your money out of the game, then you better play it often, and you'd better take the responsibility of properly introducing newbies to the game. Be kind with them. Warn them ahead of time that the point system is strongly skewed. Warn them ahead of time that points mean prizes, and that trying to get by with the cheaper awards may seem like a good strategy, but is in fact much, much more difficult to make pay off than the big, one-time awards. Warn then off the strange bumpiness in tempo, and the brain-burning quality of the action point system. Otherwise, you're going to poison your own pool of potential players for this really very rewarding game.
Indonesia
One of the most fun games of Indonesia I've ever played. It had a very interesting start: I was backed into the shipping strategy in the first few turns, but was able to make it work reasonably well for myself (fields far from hungry cities, with my own boats the only choice for at least half the game, if not longer). It quite helped that the only person who took mergers in the game never really had the cash to shake it around like a big stick. The RTG and I ruthlessly took advantage of this fact, and were able to build profitable production empires without ever really needing to worry about having them snatched away from us more than once or twice in the game.
The nerve wracking moment came right at the end of the game where the third player proposed a merger of her oil company with the RTG's oil company. I had more cash than either of them, and the proposer had the least amount of cash. I'm not sure she had any option than to propose the merger, and then try to take it over. However, what she didn't bargain on was that I was in the position that in order to have a chance at winning, I had to both ensure that the RTG did not get any profit from his oil companies, and that I could get at least one (preferably two) turn's income from it. It seemed fairly clear to me that I could force two pay-outs (actually three, because the last pay-out is doubled) out of the oil company, so the bidding went crazy high. I was forced to overpay for the resulting company and lost by roughly 300 rupiah. However, I'm pretty sure that had I bid up the RTG and then backed out, forcing him to dump cash onto the proposer of the merger, that he still would have come out ahead.
This "pretty sure" feeling was no doubt incorrect, and is one of the things I really really like about Indonesia. The end of the game is filled with this kind of nerve-wracking tension, and your whole goal throughout this wonderful economic game should be to put yourself in a position to be a "player" at the end: to be at that table that has to make those agonizing decisions and not just be a bystander to them.
Like Duck Dealer, Indonesia rewards a mixture of strong tactical planning, as well as careful strategic flexibility. There are also interesting, subtle moments in the game where experience with the game can be immensely rewarding. It's not always good to go first. Remember that the last turn provides double-payouts. Remember that there are several ways to force one of the three phases of the game to end (the last also ending the game). Shipping can be rewarding: pay attention to your city placement opportunities to know whether it can be rewarding for you. Sometimes, it pays to make slightly odd decisions about how you grow your production empire, to reward your opportunity for city placement in later phases of the game.
Indonesia is slightly cheaper than the other great Splotter titles I have played (Roads & Boats, Duck Dealer, Antiquity), and represents to me the best value for the moment. So far it's my favourite Splotter title, and has been played easily 15 times at my table, if not more. This brings the experience well within the cost of a single movie, or cheap dinner or lunch out.
The component design is pretty, the theme is just as thick as it needs to be, the game play is deep. Detractors will tell you that the component design is anti-functional: I decry that. The component design is as functional as it needs to be, after a single play or two, and it's elegance is a comfort after those first few plays.
If you have a group that can deal with longer games (two to three hours), and enjoys economic games without trading, I highly recommend this title, as I have said many times.
Duck Dealer
My first play of this game was superficially distressing. The first place player had somewhere between a hundred and two-hundred points (I think); the last place player (me) had maybe forty. Moreover it was plainly clear for the latter half of the game that this would happen. This effect is demoralizing, and reminded me solidly of other exceedingly sour-taste experiences (the most obvious analog being Sceptre of Zavandor) where, once you get behind, you are plainly and simply doomed. The RTG points out that most games that seem kinder are not, in fact, any kinder: you're just as unable to catch up if you get behind, but the point structure only makes it seem like you're not getting waxed. That may be fair enough, but there's still something to say for optics, and on top of that, it's hard to encourage casual gamers for those vital first three or four games they'd need to put in to do reasonably well at these kinds of economic engine games.
But I digress.
Like most Splotter games, Duck Dealer combines a relatively simple and elegant game engine with a staggering amount of depth in the game play. The game set-up is straightforward: you're a space merchant, the board is the collection of planets you can reach (some farther apart than others). Your goal is to acquire basic goods from mines, build (and then use) factories that can turn basic goods into intermediate goods into refined goods, build (and then use) "markets" that can turn intermediate and refined goods into points. There's two ways to get points: building infrastructure (factories and markets), and using infrastructure (markets) to dispose of goods.
One vital strategic key players must realize is that the award system in the game is heavily weighted towards the refined goods: building the factories for the refined goods is highly rewarded, factories for intermediate goods slightly less so; being the first to use a market for refined goods is highly rewarded, subsequent use of those markets slightly less so. All other rewards seem piddlingly small by comparison. Additionally, all the big point awards are one-time awards (build a refined goods factory, first-use of a refined goods market).
There is some merit into building a functional trade route that you can then milk for points, but this seems more than offset by the massive awards for "getting their first".
Another unique feature of the game is the flow of tempo. To take action, you must spend "energy disks" (which, essentially, amount to various currencies of action points). On your turn, you can either acquire tempo (get energy disks) or spend tempo (take actions by spending disks). This leads to an interestingly bumpy flow of the game: some rounds go by very swiftly as players are acquiring energy disks. Then, someone will decide to "take action", and spend stacks and stacks of disks to move their ship around the board, acquire goods, trade goods, dispose of goods, and get points.
Thus, this game massively favours players who are good at mental, complex route planning. Because the number of action turns in this game is limited (not rounds), one obvious plan for success is to push the envelope, gathering as much energy as you can, and take as few actions as you can get away with, so that you can maximize your point profit for tempo expenditure. To encourage this bumpiness, the energy disk supply is intentionally limited, and if, on your turn, there aren't enough disks to satisfy your energy gathering request, you get to gather the energy you are due (including a one-time gift of "virtual disks" to make up for the shortfall), and then you must take an immediate action turn. This rewards all players for gathering huge whacks of energy disks, carefully, to try and force the moment when they can get "free" action turns.
So, with my traditional loathing of bootstrappy economic games (such as Sceptre of Zavandor, Container, etc), why did I plunk down CDN112.00 for my copy of Duck Dealer? Especially after getting spanked on my very first play?
Because despite my difficulties with it, I think this is a very, very good game. It has simple, elegant rules, and an alarming amount of depth. Unlike many German-style games, which seem almost fast-foody in their depth (play it five to ten times? *bing* that's enough! now it's boring!), Splotter's games again and again provided excellent value for their high-prices.
It has some flaws, but those are really more to do with the players who might play it, I think, and not of the game design itself. If you cannot plan moves ahead more than three or four "if I do this, then I do thats", you will find this game quite frustrating -- especially if you play with others who can do that kind of planning. If you cannot clearly strategically plan out infrastructure to maximize your ability to harvest points from a bare sketch of available resources at the start of the game ("I need to build these factories on these planets, next to these mines, and then try to get these market stalls on those planets, and then..."), you will find this game quite frustrating -- especially if you play with others who can do that kind of planning.
As with most bootstrappy economic games (of which Puerto Rico is perhaps the most popular, and player-friendly, example), for optimum fun, the game really shines when all players at the table have similar levels of experience with the game, and similar levels of ability. The point award economy in the game is brutally weighted: morale crushingly so (unlike, say, Puerto Rico, where the difference between a finish in the thirties and a finish in the forties is a much, much wider gap than it seems, and wider than a finish in the high forties and low fifties). If you are the type of person to get irretrievably upset at a game when you, for example, finish with 35 points to the RTG's 185, then you will probably have difficulties getting up enough mustard to play Duck Dealer enough to get good at it.
But yet, I highly recommend this game, easily over Sceptre and Container (two games which seem to be of a similar type). Duck Dealer seems fun despite the high potential for frustration. Both games I have played were fun, and seemed fast. They did not drag in the end despite me getting frustrated. My last game of Sceptre was a half hour of interest followed by two hours of dreadful, mind-numbing pain.
Perhaps, because with Duck Dealer the goals are clearly out there, and pretty clear to see and attempt to plan towards. Reaching them, on the other hand, is not tremendously easy. Also, because, unlike Sceptre, or Container, there's enough variation in the game's starting condition (random placement of mines on planets, some variation in the resources you choose to start with, the special "jump gate" infrastructure tiles that let you drastically alter the movement costs between routes) to provide for generous amounts of re-playability.
So, here's my recommendation. If you have a regular group of three or four players who really, really like Puerto Rico, and play it quite often. If those people are happy to play games that last two to three hours, instead of one to two hours. If those people enjoy route planning puzzles, and are not too susceptible to dithering or analysis paralysis. Given those ifs, then I highly recommend you get a copy of Duck Dealer. It will be hideously expensive. But it is worth the expense: it is a very good game design, with lots and lots of depth. It rewards repeated play, and is fun.
But if you want to get your money out of the game, then you better play it often, and you'd better take the responsibility of properly introducing newbies to the game. Be kind with them. Warn them ahead of time that the point system is strongly skewed. Warn them ahead of time that points mean prizes, and that trying to get by with the cheaper awards may seem like a good strategy, but is in fact much, much more difficult to make pay off than the big, one-time awards. Warn then off the strange bumpiness in tempo, and the brain-burning quality of the action point system. Otherwise, you're going to poison your own pool of potential players for this really very rewarding game.
Indonesia
One of the most fun games of Indonesia I've ever played. It had a very interesting start: I was backed into the shipping strategy in the first few turns, but was able to make it work reasonably well for myself (fields far from hungry cities, with my own boats the only choice for at least half the game, if not longer). It quite helped that the only person who took mergers in the game never really had the cash to shake it around like a big stick. The RTG and I ruthlessly took advantage of this fact, and were able to build profitable production empires without ever really needing to worry about having them snatched away from us more than once or twice in the game.
The nerve wracking moment came right at the end of the game where the third player proposed a merger of her oil company with the RTG's oil company. I had more cash than either of them, and the proposer had the least amount of cash. I'm not sure she had any option than to propose the merger, and then try to take it over. However, what she didn't bargain on was that I was in the position that in order to have a chance at winning, I had to both ensure that the RTG did not get any profit from his oil companies, and that I could get at least one (preferably two) turn's income from it. It seemed fairly clear to me that I could force two pay-outs (actually three, because the last pay-out is doubled) out of the oil company, so the bidding went crazy high. I was forced to overpay for the resulting company and lost by roughly 300 rupiah. However, I'm pretty sure that had I bid up the RTG and then backed out, forcing him to dump cash onto the proposer of the merger, that he still would have come out ahead.
This "pretty sure" feeling was no doubt incorrect, and is one of the things I really really like about Indonesia. The end of the game is filled with this kind of nerve-wracking tension, and your whole goal throughout this wonderful economic game should be to put yourself in a position to be a "player" at the end: to be at that table that has to make those agonizing decisions and not just be a bystander to them.
Like Duck Dealer, Indonesia rewards a mixture of strong tactical planning, as well as careful strategic flexibility. There are also interesting, subtle moments in the game where experience with the game can be immensely rewarding. It's not always good to go first. Remember that the last turn provides double-payouts. Remember that there are several ways to force one of the three phases of the game to end (the last also ending the game). Shipping can be rewarding: pay attention to your city placement opportunities to know whether it can be rewarding for you. Sometimes, it pays to make slightly odd decisions about how you grow your production empire, to reward your opportunity for city placement in later phases of the game.
Indonesia is slightly cheaper than the other great Splotter titles I have played (Roads & Boats, Duck Dealer, Antiquity), and represents to me the best value for the moment. So far it's my favourite Splotter title, and has been played easily 15 times at my table, if not more. This brings the experience well within the cost of a single movie, or cheap dinner or lunch out.
The component design is pretty, the theme is just as thick as it needs to be, the game play is deep. Detractors will tell you that the component design is anti-functional: I decry that. The component design is as functional as it needs to be, after a single play or two, and it's elegance is a comfort after those first few plays.
If you have a group that can deal with longer games (two to three hours), and enjoys economic games without trading, I highly recommend this title, as I have said many times.
