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In an effort to get my blog posting back to a semi-regular occurrence, here's capsule reports on my last three board-games played.
Indonesia
A couple weekends back was the inaugural edition of my "crunchy board-game club biweekly extravaganza"; or, for short, "hey you want to come over and play a longer game?" For the first session, we had three people in attendance and after some discussion and some steely resolve (The End of the Triumvirate is a great three-player game, but it's short, and that's not the purpose of my event) we settled down to put Indonesia on the table. It helped that two of the three of us had played Indonesia once, and very much enjoyed it, so we both talked the game up to the third player who had never tried it before.
My opinion was even more favourable this time around than in our first game. I was a bit concerned the game wouldn't scale well down to three players, but, if anything, it's an even better three player game than it is a five player game. Still quite gripping choices with a light spicing of take-that interaction and the advantage of simply less clutter on the board (especially in the end-game) -- because of the game's production choice of art over utility, this lack of clutter is a fairly important point, actually.
The action was gripping and tight all the way through to the late-middle game; at that point it became clear that I was lagging behind and was not going to catch up. We raced through the endgame once it became clear who was obviously going to win, but that didn't diminish the fun much at all. Afterwards it became clear that we had been playing slightly wrong, in a fashion that had pretty much hurt my chances only -- players are not allowed not to operate all their companies, they're only allowed to choose in which order to operate them -- however, I don't believe the difference would have been overwhelming. I think the "shipping strategy" is weak and very difficult to pull off. After two plays it seems clear that the right choice is to try and time exactly the right moment when you dump your shipping lines to someone else and use the resulting capital to finance growth in production companies. And, this is the second game where the person with the microwave dinner empire (sic) has run away with the game. I hope the game is as balanced as it seems to be, that shipping can be used more effectively than it appears, and that the deadly microwave dinner companies can be kept somewhat in check.
Mission Red Planet
Sigh: I want to like this game. It's got an interesting theme (Victorian steam punk). It plays in a short amount of time. The components are nicely put together. And yet, it's really only a B to a B+ game. It's not a bad game, but after playing a number of his designs, I've yet to find a Faidutti creation that resonates strongly with me over a long period of time. The one that comes closest to me is Citadels, and yet it's much, much too long -- even when I ruthlessly push players quickly through the game (not by nagging them to play, but by firmly taking the administration of the game's structure in hand and keeping it moving along), it still outlasts its welcome.
Mission Red Planet does not outstay its welcome: it's problems are different. Really, MRP is an area control game with the interesting fillip of "character roles". But if you already own El Grande (and you should), especially the latest El Grande reprint that includes the expansions, then you really don't need MRP. MRP is more chaotic, quicker, and light-hearted, but it just doesn't add enough to be worth its price-tag.
I would not refuse to play MRP (and there are Faidutti games I refuse to play: China Moon, for example), and, in fact, I'd probably enjoy playing as long as it moved swiftly and was played in a light-hearted fashion. But I won't buy it.
Amun Re
Amun Re, on the other hand, is a classic. It's probably a tie between Amun Re and Ra for "my favourite Knizia game". If you own "gamer games", then you must ensure that Amun Re is in your collection. Money is tight, choices are tough, timing is extremely important. There is very little in the way of down-time. Amun Re is a gripping 90-120 minute roller coaster ride.
That said, Amun Re is not a perfect game; a gaming group member feels that the bonus cards are not quite well balanced enough and that randomly drawing them can lead to frustration. I don't think this criticism is entirely out of bounds, but I think Knizia's games often incorporate the theme of "managing risk" (i.e. building a game plan that can adapt to, and deal with, random elements -- look at the tile draws in Ra and Tigris and Euphrates, for example).
But Amun Re also has features that I just don't see in other games. I like the two-era approach: you can't go crazy in infrastructure development in the first era, as you risk someone else capitalizing on that infrastructure in the second era (the pyramids you build in era one can be bought by other players in era two). It's well advised never to run low on money, so you constantly have to guard against making the "strong play" -- the player that makes slow, steady course adjustments in Amun Re by prudent and careful spending of money throughout the game will almost certainly be more successful than the player that splurges. When playing this game, you should always be looking for the "good choice" and not the "great choice": the great choices are, almost always, too expensive over the long run than their short term gains would seem to indicate.
If you enjoy games that incorporate auctions and resource management with a small amount of take-that-ness, then you should definitely give Amun Re a look.
Indonesia
A couple weekends back was the inaugural edition of my "crunchy board-game club biweekly extravaganza"; or, for short, "hey you want to come over and play a longer game?" For the first session, we had three people in attendance and after some discussion and some steely resolve (The End of the Triumvirate is a great three-player game, but it's short, and that's not the purpose of my event) we settled down to put Indonesia on the table. It helped that two of the three of us had played Indonesia once, and very much enjoyed it, so we both talked the game up to the third player who had never tried it before.
My opinion was even more favourable this time around than in our first game. I was a bit concerned the game wouldn't scale well down to three players, but, if anything, it's an even better three player game than it is a five player game. Still quite gripping choices with a light spicing of take-that interaction and the advantage of simply less clutter on the board (especially in the end-game) -- because of the game's production choice of art over utility, this lack of clutter is a fairly important point, actually.
The action was gripping and tight all the way through to the late-middle game; at that point it became clear that I was lagging behind and was not going to catch up. We raced through the endgame once it became clear who was obviously going to win, but that didn't diminish the fun much at all. Afterwards it became clear that we had been playing slightly wrong, in a fashion that had pretty much hurt my chances only -- players are not allowed not to operate all their companies, they're only allowed to choose in which order to operate them -- however, I don't believe the difference would have been overwhelming. I think the "shipping strategy" is weak and very difficult to pull off. After two plays it seems clear that the right choice is to try and time exactly the right moment when you dump your shipping lines to someone else and use the resulting capital to finance growth in production companies. And, this is the second game where the person with the microwave dinner empire (sic) has run away with the game. I hope the game is as balanced as it seems to be, that shipping can be used more effectively than it appears, and that the deadly microwave dinner companies can be kept somewhat in check.
Mission Red Planet
Sigh: I want to like this game. It's got an interesting theme (Victorian steam punk). It plays in a short amount of time. The components are nicely put together. And yet, it's really only a B to a B+ game. It's not a bad game, but after playing a number of his designs, I've yet to find a Faidutti creation that resonates strongly with me over a long period of time. The one that comes closest to me is Citadels, and yet it's much, much too long -- even when I ruthlessly push players quickly through the game (not by nagging them to play, but by firmly taking the administration of the game's structure in hand and keeping it moving along), it still outlasts its welcome.
Mission Red Planet does not outstay its welcome: it's problems are different. Really, MRP is an area control game with the interesting fillip of "character roles". But if you already own El Grande (and you should), especially the latest El Grande reprint that includes the expansions, then you really don't need MRP. MRP is more chaotic, quicker, and light-hearted, but it just doesn't add enough to be worth its price-tag.
I would not refuse to play MRP (and there are Faidutti games I refuse to play: China Moon, for example), and, in fact, I'd probably enjoy playing as long as it moved swiftly and was played in a light-hearted fashion. But I won't buy it.
Amun Re
Amun Re, on the other hand, is a classic. It's probably a tie between Amun Re and Ra for "my favourite Knizia game". If you own "gamer games", then you must ensure that Amun Re is in your collection. Money is tight, choices are tough, timing is extremely important. There is very little in the way of down-time. Amun Re is a gripping 90-120 minute roller coaster ride.
That said, Amun Re is not a perfect game; a gaming group member feels that the bonus cards are not quite well balanced enough and that randomly drawing them can lead to frustration. I don't think this criticism is entirely out of bounds, but I think Knizia's games often incorporate the theme of "managing risk" (i.e. building a game plan that can adapt to, and deal with, random elements -- look at the tile draws in Ra and Tigris and Euphrates, for example).
But Amun Re also has features that I just don't see in other games. I like the two-era approach: you can't go crazy in infrastructure development in the first era, as you risk someone else capitalizing on that infrastructure in the second era (the pyramids you build in era one can be bought by other players in era two). It's well advised never to run low on money, so you constantly have to guard against making the "strong play" -- the player that makes slow, steady course adjustments in Amun Re by prudent and careful spending of money throughout the game will almost certainly be more successful than the player that splurges. When playing this game, you should always be looking for the "good choice" and not the "great choice": the great choices are, almost always, too expensive over the long run than their short term gains would seem to indicate.
If you enjoy games that incorporate auctions and resource management with a small amount of take-that-ness, then you should definitely give Amun Re a look.
