viktor_haag | Played last weekend: Taluva, Indonesia, Age Of Steam, Yspahan

Another weekend event at the Old Huron Redoubt put four games on the table; a two-player Taluva, then four-player Indonesia, Age Of Steam (Ireland), and Yspahan to close off.

Taluva
I continue to be impressed by this game. It's so fast to explain, and so quick to play. The two-player game we played took 15 to 20 minutes including rules explanation (one of us was a first time player). But still, this game has beautiful bits, and depth that goes beyond most other quick two-players. And, in addition, it plays with three or four. Taluva is reminiscent of the kind of speedy play and re-play that you can find in Carcassonne. It's a perfect warm-up or warm-down game.

Indonesia
Another game that continues to impress, Indonesia is a small-run game from Splotter with a hefty price tag. On the other hand, it's already paid for itself entertainment-wise having played it six or seven times. The board and bits are beautiful to the point of being nigh unfunctional, but really not a problem after a few plays. The game has great depth, and hardly any randomness; there are only two random moments in the game:

• You, along with everyone else, are randomly assigned a card for each era that tells you where you may place a city marker in each era, and unless you're playing with five players, some of those cards will randomly be out of play.

• At the start of the game, turn order is randomly determined. This affects your first city placement, and affects your position in the first round of turn order bidding. I might be inclined, on the very first turn, to switch the first two phases (i.e. bid for turn order first, and then have the initial city placements). However, you might also argue that it's important to know where the initial city placements are before you bid for turn order, and that the city placement order nicely complements the first turn bid order to put everyone on a roughly equal footing to start with.

Age Of Steam (Ireland map)
If there was any doubt that Age Of Steam is a meat-grinder, then the Ireland map available in the first expansion should put those doubts to rest. This started as a four-player game. I made a bad build choice on my first turn. On turn two, the player to my left took advantage of that mistake. On turn three, the player to my left took advantage of that mistake again and effectively put me out of the game. To be fair, I lost my cool (not enough sleep the night before, and one brain-burning game right after another were mitigating factors, I suppose), and cut off my nose to spite my face with my third build and made it absolutely impossible for me not to go broke. However, my gut was telling me that even with out the nose-cutting, my mistake in turn one had turned me into chum for the shark to my left and his turn-three build had made it impossible for me to get out of a huge hole: if I hadn't immediately gone broke, I'm pretty sure that would have been my fate on the subsequent turn. Shame on me for not verifying that this was the case, but I needed a break. So I declared bankruptcy, got up, did a load of laundry, and then came back to the table. Lessons?

• Know your thinking-endurance limits. Playing Age Of Steam of any kind after playing Indonesia is probably going to pose a test of those limits.

• The AoS Ireland map is tough and not for the faint of heart. If you make a bad build on your first turn, you can easily be meat for another player. Ireland really wants to be a three-player map, and I can't help but feel that you must protect yourself on the first turn with a good build: if you don't, then you have only yourself to blame as one of the players will almost certainly steal your lunch.

• Specifically, I have come to realize that I should never put myself in a situation where I must be able to have Engineer and not have anyone build where I need to build before me. If I play Ireland again, then I must remember this lesson. There seem to be board positions that pretty much require Engineer to make useful, and these are inherently dangerous. Lesson learned: ouch.

I like Age Of Steam, but it's a cruel enough game to begin with. Some players see this as a challenge, and may not mind spending the entire game scrabbling to get by, swimming up stream, and constantly fighting bankruptcy. The constant threat of a put-out might provide them with interest. I don't think I'm one of those people. I don't mind challenge in a game, but I far prefer games that keep you in the mix, trailing or not, for the entire game. Some Age Of Steam boards with the right number of players give you at least this amount of relief. Some boards with the wrong number of players are not so generous. I think Ireland with four seems to be one of those combinations (and I understand that there are third party maps which cater to the "sink or swim" taste which I do not share). I'm not sure that Age Of Steam shouldn't be docked marks for its cruelty: how do you give someone new an enjoyable time with the game? I know I'm not the only one who doesn't like games where you can make one mistake, get leapt on, and then find yourself making coffee for the next hour or so.

Yspahan
Another light-weight filler game that has some depth. I like the randomness in this game; after three plays I still have the suspicion that there's sufficient opportunity in this game to have some control over managing the randomness. And it's short enough to be pleasant despite the randomness factor: get done in by a bad dice roll? No problem, play again! I still feel that I'd like to play this game once or twice more, to try a few other things. Does it have legs beyond that? I'm not sure; it might. While Taluva feels like it has more length in it than this one as a filler, this game still seems more fun. Ystari seems to have a good sense for game designs that have a high fun factor. With time, I hope they'll acquire the development expertise that longer established companies have.