Recently played: Phoenicia
Nov. 5th, 2007 11:49![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
viktor_haagFriday night we were looking for something new to play, so we put Phoenicia on the table.
It took us a while to go over the rules; it had seemed straightforward when I had previously read the rules, but on going over them again with everyone else, it started out seeming a bit complicated. However, after a bit of play, it quickly became plain-ish to everyone how the game should proceed.
Phoenicia is one of those economic bootstrap games, in the same mould as Goa or Scepter of Zavendor (upon which's mechanics it is based), that has not a great deal of player interaction but makes great demands on the players to make the correct decisions early in the game or get left in the dust.
What's nice about Phoenicia is that it doesn't feel hurried or drawn out, and is significantly shorter than Zavendor (maybe half the length) and Goa (maybe two thirds of the length). It also seems like it would make a good two-player game, but we haven't tried that yet.
Like most bootstrappy games, Phoenicia accelerates strongly near the end, and unless your close to the leader it becomes quite apparent in the final phase of the game that you're not going to win; however, because the game really does take the advertised 60-90 minutes, this feature is not as brutal as it is in the longer games in this family.
Also, like most bootstrappy games, it's important to realize that this game will be best if all players have roughly the same level of experience with the game (or similar types). Newbie players learning from experienced players will almost certainly get feasted upon, so you should be prepared for this going in.
We played with the starting out option of "you can only buy one development per turn, maximum", and while it's true that this might moderate the "rich get richer" phenomenon, it also has, I think, an odd effect on the mid to end-game. Because of the randomness of the development card draw, there were times when my chief opponent got hosed by the card-draw (twice, I think) because two cards that he needed for his strategy got dealt out for the same turn. This basically hosed him; earlier in the game, he had a more realistic hope that he could buy one of the cards and then wait for the following turn to have the second. Later in the game where everyone had enough money to buy cards, he was stuck having to choose which of the two cards he wanted, and having to watch the other get purchased by someone else at a more economical price.
I think this will be a substantially more textured game when players can acquire more than one card in a turn; but it's also true that this will make it even more difficult to catch leaders so it will be even more important for players not to lag behind the leaders.
It took us a while to go over the rules; it had seemed straightforward when I had previously read the rules, but on going over them again with everyone else, it started out seeming a bit complicated. However, after a bit of play, it quickly became plain-ish to everyone how the game should proceed.
Phoenicia is one of those economic bootstrap games, in the same mould as Goa or Scepter of Zavendor (upon which's mechanics it is based), that has not a great deal of player interaction but makes great demands on the players to make the correct decisions early in the game or get left in the dust.
What's nice about Phoenicia is that it doesn't feel hurried or drawn out, and is significantly shorter than Zavendor (maybe half the length) and Goa (maybe two thirds of the length). It also seems like it would make a good two-player game, but we haven't tried that yet.
Like most bootstrappy games, Phoenicia accelerates strongly near the end, and unless your close to the leader it becomes quite apparent in the final phase of the game that you're not going to win; however, because the game really does take the advertised 60-90 minutes, this feature is not as brutal as it is in the longer games in this family.
Also, like most bootstrappy games, it's important to realize that this game will be best if all players have roughly the same level of experience with the game (or similar types). Newbie players learning from experienced players will almost certainly get feasted upon, so you should be prepared for this going in.
We played with the starting out option of "you can only buy one development per turn, maximum", and while it's true that this might moderate the "rich get richer" phenomenon, it also has, I think, an odd effect on the mid to end-game. Because of the randomness of the development card draw, there were times when my chief opponent got hosed by the card-draw (twice, I think) because two cards that he needed for his strategy got dealt out for the same turn. This basically hosed him; earlier in the game, he had a more realistic hope that he could buy one of the cards and then wait for the following turn to have the second. Later in the game where everyone had enough money to buy cards, he was stuck having to choose which of the two cards he wanted, and having to watch the other get purchased by someone else at a more economical price.
I think this will be a substantially more textured game when players can acquire more than one card in a turn; but it's also true that this will make it even more difficult to catch leaders so it will be even more important for players not to lag behind the leaders.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 21:53 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-05 22:47 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 15:51 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 16:22 (UTC)However, when playing with the right rules, the game improved dramatically (oddly enough!)...
no subject
Date: 2007-11-06 21:52 (UTC)