![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
viktor_haagSmall turn out this weekend at the Redoubt, but I was eager to start prying my money's worth out of Duck Dealer, so we tried it out with two players. After that, we got one more player and had a three-handed Agricola session.
Duck Dealer
The Geek is not being all that kind to this game, with an average of 6.63/10 on (currently) 148 ratings. Personally, I ranked it an eight after two plays, and I still think it's that high. I have played the game with four players twice, and two players now once, and I was pleased at how it scaled down to two players. I was also pleased that the two player length was more around 120 minutes than the posted 180.
However, I think the 120 minutes was squarely down to the playing style of the two players involved. My opponent built up huge reserves of energy, and then several times threw away discs (his strategy seemed to be "acquire enough disks so I can be sure I can do what I want to do"); my practice was to build up enough discs to accomplish only two or three strategic goals, and then take a turn -- I did not ever have a "monster turn", probably because I find it very difficult to keep in my head what, in fact, all those discs I'm collecting are precisely for.
This game is a small-press run, and rather expensive. It has a quirky theme ("What am I trading? Rubber duckies? Blue paint? Diet pills?") that not everyone will find pleasing. It has simple rules, but deep, deep complexity (as with the other Splotter titles I own and like (Indonesia and Antiquity), so it may not be appropriate for every gaming table. It can verge on being longer than most German-style game fans will like (180 minutes, more with a group that includes analysis paralysis folks, or folks who don't play a bit friendly and loose).
However, if you like games with route planning and an economic theme (Taj Mahal, oddly, comes to mind, as do Maharaja and all the 18xx family of games), then I can heartily recommend Duck Dealer. What I like about all the Splotter games I own is that I can easily see that they have years and years of play in them, and I also like that they also have that "default choice" feel to them ("What shall we play?"; "Ummmm.... Indonesia?") -- the sign of a game that offers a consistently excellent experience.
Caveats: Duck Dealer, like many route-planning and economic games, requires that players be able to plan routes and start out with a small infrastructure and build it over the entire course of a game. If you have difficulty with these types of gaming skills, you will be challenged with this game. Critics have said that there's a lot of down-time in this game when other players take action turns; this is true, but I don't see it as much of a drawback, really. In all the games I've played, the downtime hasn't been annoying; but, the game does have an uneven flow which folks may not like all that much. Finally, as with so many other economic system games where your early choices hugely affect your later outcomes, this game will punish folks amongst a group with more experience, and the weighting in the VP track accentuates this tremendously: warn new players ahead of time! This game is best played amongst a group of folks who regularly meet and regularly play the same types of games and about the same number of times. Personally speaking, I think this game is also best played with a bit of a fast and loose mentality, especially if everyone at the table is willing and can find joy in playing that way: don't worry about precisely figuring out all your moves down to the last energy disc (yes, of course, this is the best path to victory), but rather trust that you will be playing this game for many many sessions, and gradually you will get better. If in doubt, take more discs, and don't worry too much if you have to throw away a few at the end of your action turn.
For beginners, I would strongly recommend a starting ship mix of 1 blue crew, 1 red crew, and one cargo hold. On your first turn, try to make sure you have enough yellow discs acquired to build at least one factory, and perhaps acquire a privilege (a mine most likely). This will require four yellow discs, and so you'll be gathering discs at least four times before you take an action turn. More experienced players may want to try going without a cargo hold to start with, in favour of a third crew member (probably blue or yellow).
Also, from a strategic point of view, when you want to upgrade your ship, try to gather enough discs to upgrade an entire tier at once. That is, plan what your three speed-five upgrades should be, and try to do them all at once in a single action turn. Then, plan what your speed-two upgrades should be, and try to do those all at once. Because of the speed penalty for upgrades, it makes good sense that, if you must take a speed hit, you should make sure you get maximum benefit for that penalty, and that means not spending action turns at a reduced speed without also getting the extra ship components you can have at that speed. To me, you should only consider not doing this if your hand is being forced by other players' activities and developments.
Agricola
I've been playing a lot of two-player, E-deck Agricola lately as my wife likes the game, and likes the challenge built into it of trying to do better. This weekend, when she was able to join us, we played a three-handed E-deck game. There's lots of chatter about this game on the 'net, so I won't spend a lot of time nattering. However, I have noticed two things over the past 10 months or so with this game.
The two-player E-deck game seems like it should have variety and options, but I'm beginning to expect that it really doesn't. I suspect that the two-player game boils down into one person playing an animal strategy and one player playing a gardening strategy, with very little room for venturing off into a more balanced approach. It's possible that with more play (as with Puerto Rico), as we get better at taking optimal action choices, this will be a hump to get over. But it's also true that I'm starting to get a bit tired of almost always being backed into planting grain. Unfortunately, the paths you have to victory are strongly influenced by cards and by other players action choices, so it's no good really saying "this time I promise I will breed livestock": if you have gardening cards, and the other players consistently snap wood away from you, then you're basically down to plowing those fields again, my son.
The three-player E-deck game is perhaps the most parsimonious and unpleasant configuration of this game I've tried (followed very shortly by the five-player). Whenever I've played with three players, it always seems to me that the resource mix is just a wee-bit short and that the third-place player in the turn order gets regularly hosed. Moral of the story? Try to always make sure that you're set up to build your "next logical minor improvement", or that you're a very short trip away from it. You will want to take the Starting Player token at least two or three times during a three-player game, and you don't want to waste tempo when you must do this.
I rather like the way that Rosenberg provides a set of basic actions for all configurations, and then adds to them in different ways for more than two players; however, I strongly suspect that the game could have been balanced a wee bit better if he had taken that one extra step of having some of the basic actions replaced in some of the game configurations. For example, I strongly suspect that the "Starting Player" action in the three-player game should offer a food or a resource as well as the starting player token, instead of a minor improvement. I think the game would be a little bit less lumpy for three and five players if the developers had twiddled with the basic actions mix, instead of simply adding actions to the basic set. But it's also probably true that this game received more heavy testing and development than most German-style games, so I'm willing to bet that this approach was tried and dropped for some reason (there is, after all, something to be said for favouring a bit of elegance over complexity, even if it comes with some unfavourable side effects).
The way it stands now, I'm pretty sure that I'd play Agricola with two or with four, but have other, better things to suggest with three or five: Le Havre, for example (although it also borders on overly lengthy).
Duck Dealer
The Geek is not being all that kind to this game, with an average of 6.63/10 on (currently) 148 ratings. Personally, I ranked it an eight after two plays, and I still think it's that high. I have played the game with four players twice, and two players now once, and I was pleased at how it scaled down to two players. I was also pleased that the two player length was more around 120 minutes than the posted 180.
However, I think the 120 minutes was squarely down to the playing style of the two players involved. My opponent built up huge reserves of energy, and then several times threw away discs (his strategy seemed to be "acquire enough disks so I can be sure I can do what I want to do"); my practice was to build up enough discs to accomplish only two or three strategic goals, and then take a turn -- I did not ever have a "monster turn", probably because I find it very difficult to keep in my head what, in fact, all those discs I'm collecting are precisely for.
This game is a small-press run, and rather expensive. It has a quirky theme ("What am I trading? Rubber duckies? Blue paint? Diet pills?") that not everyone will find pleasing. It has simple rules, but deep, deep complexity (as with the other Splotter titles I own and like (Indonesia and Antiquity), so it may not be appropriate for every gaming table. It can verge on being longer than most German-style game fans will like (180 minutes, more with a group that includes analysis paralysis folks, or folks who don't play a bit friendly and loose).
However, if you like games with route planning and an economic theme (Taj Mahal, oddly, comes to mind, as do Maharaja and all the 18xx family of games), then I can heartily recommend Duck Dealer. What I like about all the Splotter games I own is that I can easily see that they have years and years of play in them, and I also like that they also have that "default choice" feel to them ("What shall we play?"; "Ummmm.... Indonesia?") -- the sign of a game that offers a consistently excellent experience.
Caveats: Duck Dealer, like many route-planning and economic games, requires that players be able to plan routes and start out with a small infrastructure and build it over the entire course of a game. If you have difficulty with these types of gaming skills, you will be challenged with this game. Critics have said that there's a lot of down-time in this game when other players take action turns; this is true, but I don't see it as much of a drawback, really. In all the games I've played, the downtime hasn't been annoying; but, the game does have an uneven flow which folks may not like all that much. Finally, as with so many other economic system games where your early choices hugely affect your later outcomes, this game will punish folks amongst a group with more experience, and the weighting in the VP track accentuates this tremendously: warn new players ahead of time! This game is best played amongst a group of folks who regularly meet and regularly play the same types of games and about the same number of times. Personally speaking, I think this game is also best played with a bit of a fast and loose mentality, especially if everyone at the table is willing and can find joy in playing that way: don't worry about precisely figuring out all your moves down to the last energy disc (yes, of course, this is the best path to victory), but rather trust that you will be playing this game for many many sessions, and gradually you will get better. If in doubt, take more discs, and don't worry too much if you have to throw away a few at the end of your action turn.
For beginners, I would strongly recommend a starting ship mix of 1 blue crew, 1 red crew, and one cargo hold. On your first turn, try to make sure you have enough yellow discs acquired to build at least one factory, and perhaps acquire a privilege (a mine most likely). This will require four yellow discs, and so you'll be gathering discs at least four times before you take an action turn. More experienced players may want to try going without a cargo hold to start with, in favour of a third crew member (probably blue or yellow).
Also, from a strategic point of view, when you want to upgrade your ship, try to gather enough discs to upgrade an entire tier at once. That is, plan what your three speed-five upgrades should be, and try to do them all at once in a single action turn. Then, plan what your speed-two upgrades should be, and try to do those all at once. Because of the speed penalty for upgrades, it makes good sense that, if you must take a speed hit, you should make sure you get maximum benefit for that penalty, and that means not spending action turns at a reduced speed without also getting the extra ship components you can have at that speed. To me, you should only consider not doing this if your hand is being forced by other players' activities and developments.
Agricola
I've been playing a lot of two-player, E-deck Agricola lately as my wife likes the game, and likes the challenge built into it of trying to do better. This weekend, when she was able to join us, we played a three-handed E-deck game. There's lots of chatter about this game on the 'net, so I won't spend a lot of time nattering. However, I have noticed two things over the past 10 months or so with this game.
The two-player E-deck game seems like it should have variety and options, but I'm beginning to expect that it really doesn't. I suspect that the two-player game boils down into one person playing an animal strategy and one player playing a gardening strategy, with very little room for venturing off into a more balanced approach. It's possible that with more play (as with Puerto Rico), as we get better at taking optimal action choices, this will be a hump to get over. But it's also true that I'm starting to get a bit tired of almost always being backed into planting grain. Unfortunately, the paths you have to victory are strongly influenced by cards and by other players action choices, so it's no good really saying "this time I promise I will breed livestock": if you have gardening cards, and the other players consistently snap wood away from you, then you're basically down to plowing those fields again, my son.
The three-player E-deck game is perhaps the most parsimonious and unpleasant configuration of this game I've tried (followed very shortly by the five-player). Whenever I've played with three players, it always seems to me that the resource mix is just a wee-bit short and that the third-place player in the turn order gets regularly hosed. Moral of the story? Try to always make sure that you're set up to build your "next logical minor improvement", or that you're a very short trip away from it. You will want to take the Starting Player token at least two or three times during a three-player game, and you don't want to waste tempo when you must do this.
I rather like the way that Rosenberg provides a set of basic actions for all configurations, and then adds to them in different ways for more than two players; however, I strongly suspect that the game could have been balanced a wee bit better if he had taken that one extra step of having some of the basic actions replaced in some of the game configurations. For example, I strongly suspect that the "Starting Player" action in the three-player game should offer a food or a resource as well as the starting player token, instead of a minor improvement. I think the game would be a little bit less lumpy for three and five players if the developers had twiddled with the basic actions mix, instead of simply adding actions to the basic set. But it's also probably true that this game received more heavy testing and development than most German-style games, so I'm willing to bet that this approach was tried and dropped for some reason (there is, after all, something to be said for favouring a bit of elegance over complexity, even if it comes with some unfavourable side effects).
The way it stands now, I'm pretty sure that I'd play Agricola with two or with four, but have other, better things to suggest with three or five: Le Havre, for example (although it also borders on overly lengthy).
