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viktor_haagThis weekend we had another game day at the Old Huron Redoubt. And once gain, it was (for my game play) an unmitigated disaster. On the table were Tresham's 1825 Unit 1, and the Outpost fantasy refit Scepter of Zavandor.
1825 Unit 1
The geek rates this game with an average of 6.5/10, and a rank of 1401: oh well; that doesn't bother me. I rate it an 8, and it's by one of my favourite designers, Francis Tresham. I suspect the game has such a low rating because of a variety of factors that have it rated only by 18xx hardcore gamers (who twit it for not being as hardcore as their favourite 18xx variants) and those perhaps a bit ambushed by the game (who could be perplexed perhaps by how much longer and more complex it is than, say, Railroad Tycoon, Age Of Steam, or similar). The only 18xx games I own are Treshams 1825 units (all three of them, none of the expansions, sadly), and 1829 Mainline.
And I like them; all of them. I'm quite happy to have these, and play only these: I'm probably in a small minority of people that like Tresham's design first and foremost, and are not necessarily looking for the hardcore, perfect information, 18xx engine in full-flight (viz 1830).
Unfortunately, because all the recent Tresham-created 18xx games are kitchen-table home built kits, at this point evangelizing it beyond my own gaming table is probably not all that easy. At least Indonesia is still available in distributor chains.
As in all 18xx games, the winner is the one with the most personal money. You make personal money by either (a) owning shares in successful train companies run by other players, or (b) owning enough shares to direct the activity of a successful train company yourself. Since the size of your portfolio is limited, you can make money with shares in an unsuccessful train company as well, but you won't make enough to do well, and so, you really want to fill your portfolio with as many plums as possible. Thus the challenge.
The people who own controlling interests in train companies, on every round, get to direct the activity of those trains: building track between cities and towns, purchasing trains, and then "running" those trains to sop up the ambiguously defined economic opportunities represented by those towns and cities.
The game plays with a fixed size bank, so when the bank runs out of money, the game is over.
As with most economic games, the game plays much faster (and better) with poker chips rather than paper money; however, if you play with poker chips, the local Resident Train Guru recommends playing with the same chips to represent company money and personal money: this makes judging the approaching end of the game more difficult as you have to be practiced at judging the size of your opponents' cash stacks rather than seeing the dwindling pile of bank funds.
You could probably play with paper money for company funds, and chips for player funds (or vice-versa) but I suspect that would slow the game down enough to not be worthwhile.
You could also probably play with computerized accounting (and people do). This would speed the game up as well, but I far prefer to play with physical artifacts and the way we play (with chips, in one pool, and being careful to say "woah! count your stacks, it looks like we're getting close!") works for us.
Hardcore 18xx players (including the RTG) twit the game for its eccentric track counter mix: you build track by using hex tiles with pre-printed track configurations on them, in two ways: track can extend (by laying new tiles on the map) and also become more complex and useful (by "upgrading" laid tiles with newer technology tiles). There are certain track builds which are valuable and in very short supply (tight turns) and certain builds which are annoying dead ends (what does that tile upgrade to? nothing!), and I'm sure that Tresham very intentionally crafted his track tile mix. I'm happy to have the mix the way it is: I like the interesting little risk-reward sharp corners he seeds into his games (be very careful when you buy Mysticism in Civ, for example). Others are not so sanguine.
The order in which you get to bid for stock shares is very important, and it may seem that the game is programmed (and the choices at the start of the game are, indeed, quite limited), but as with most Tresham (and indeed most economic) games, small choices made at the start of the game have massive follow-on effects. With three or four players, if you don't control the activity of two companies by the end of the game, you will almost certainly have to work much, much harder to do well, and most probably will not win. How good are the companies? Well, some are better than others, but a poorly placed company in the hands of a good player is also much better off than a well-placed company in the hands of a poor player. Thus, the game rewards replay with the same group of people, as you get better able to judge how well a company will do in the hands of particular players: this can help even out the game a bit. Our RTG almost always wins 18xx games (heck he almost always wins most train games, thus the moniker), but knowing this, of course, makes it vital to own shares in the companies he controls, and thus one can also compete by controlling a company and running it well if he doesn't own too many shares in it. This strategy has done well for me on several occasions. On this particular afternoon, not so much.
I placed in a closely fought fourth out of four spots because (a) I didn't harvest enough cash from the line I controlled early, and (b) I didn't play my line riskily enough. I also made a mid-game error by thinking I could effect surprise control of a line, watch it, instead, get snapped by our RTG, and then not throwing the last jots of my cash at the bank for a single additional share in that line. I suspect that not having that one additional share at the end of the game probably cost me third place, and in combination with the small bad choices I made on my own controlled line, second place.
There were several turns at the near the end of the game where I had my line hold its earnings rather than pay out dividends, and this was a costly error: I held money for essentially defensive play which (a) wasn't needed because smarter track building would have been just as effective, and (b) which meant that while I was able to keep the company reasonably valuable, it probably could have ended the game both slightly more valuable and with more cash to line the pockets of my coat.
And since that last goal is the only way to win the game, when the end-game arrived I should have been properly prepared for it, instead of "needing just one more turn" to squeeze more profits out of my line: those profits were there to be had, but I pushed them off when I didn't need to.
The best way to learn an 18xx game is from someone who knows. If you have the same kind of affection for Tresham's designs that I do, then you might find the 1825 units fun to play (I'd recommend owning all three of them, as well, for the modular ways in which you can combine them, although we've never done that). But I suspect that the cheapest and easiest way to get into 18xx games these days is from some other, more hardcore, representative of the style. I'm happy to play my copies whenever it's suggested though.
Scepter of Zavandor
By contrast, Scepter is also an economic game, and one that I'm much more ambivalent about. It's hard to explain why, but here's some observations I will make about my disastrous showing on the weekend (another last place finish):
* About a third of the way into the game, I fell three or four points behind the pack, and at that very point, I knew that I was doomed, could never catch up, and I had another 90 to 120 minutes to play. By the end of the game, I think, I did manage to correct my course a bit, make some reasonable plays, and not fall completely apart (and it's true that there's no way in the game to be busted out, as with Age Of Steam), but for the last two thirds of a long game, my play was useful only as a solitary (and not very fun) exercise in tinkering with my own state machine, hoping that the parts I'd eventually incoporate would still be there when I arrived at the finish line, left as scraps by the other players. This kind of game may present challenge, but it is not fun, or at least, I find precious little fun in it. Contrast this with the 1825 game: it's entirely possible that a stumbly start at the beginning can lead to exactly the same problem; halfway through the game (perhaps earlier) you will end up with a portfolio that you cannot improve, and you will be too far behind to make any kind of showing at all. And yet, with Tresham games I always feel like I have something fun to do throughout the game, even if it's clear I'm just counter-pushing.
* The only interaction that's possible is to outbid others for the special-power-scoring chotchkies that appear throughout the course of the game. However, I strongly feel that this can be a relatively false choice: by the time you fall behind, you're done. You don't have enough capital to truly interact with the other players in this regard, and so you're forced off to the kiddie table, picking up only from that set of things that others haven't chosen. Again, not fun. There seems to me to be a bitter shift of focus in this game away from "trying to do well" to stay close and compete, and so forth, and "trying to avoid getting banished to the kiddie table". Again, in 1825, this may also be the case. If you don't get a portfolio with good shares by a certain point in the game, you're hosed: the portfolios become inflexible, and you'll never improve your mix of investments. And, most likely, if you haven't managed to get good investments in your portfolio, you'll also find that the other train lines have put yours in a position where you can do nothing to really improve the position of your own line. That said, however, 1825 presents you with more opportunity for interaction, even as a minor player: you can lay track. The eccentric counter mix can let you play the puzzle game of taking away valuable track tiles from other lines that might need them, playing track tiles to the detriment of other lines if not the benefit of your own: you can even purchase additional station tokens that can block the rail utilization of the other lines in nasty ways. You have all these tools at your disposal throughout the game in ways that just aren't available in Scepter.
* The way in which the game scores itself berates you. Unlike 1825 where your score is essentially used as a resource (so the more money you have, the easier it is for you to invest, and the more money your train companies have, the easier it is for them to buy trains and stations), Scepter's score is a tracking mechanism only, that's always on, and determines your turn order. Thus, I think, you always have the sword of Damocles hanging over the gaming table, and once you find yourself in last place by only a small measure on the scoring chart (I contend three or four victory points, after the first player gets to, say 11 or 12, maybe?), you're basically doomed unless one of the other players makes a mistake. You're in fourth place, and you'll stay there until the end of the game, never catching up, always picking up scraps, never really interacting with the other players. Boo. I have the same kind of gripe about Ursuppe, but at least there you have the fillip of leaping over occupied spots on the scoring track to add a little jockeying possibility to the scoring mechanism. I would be interested to see what would happen if you took the scoring track away from Scepter, and instead added an auction for turn order on every turn. It would slow the game down a bit, and you'd probably need then to cut some chrome out of the game to avoid making it even longer (or you could maybe use Indonesia's clever once around turn order auction to speed up). However, this would remove the constant berating effect of the score chart, add a bit more mystery into the game for most players (I think), and also add a touch more interaction into the system (where now you're bidding for turn order as well as bidding for chotchkies). However, because the only other point of interaction is the chotchkie auctions, I'm not at all sure that turn order is all that relevant, really, other than a way to slightly penalize the people who are winning as a minor way (in the early mid-game only, I contend) to help laggers to catch up.
Could I get better at playing Scepter? Sure. Would it make the game more fun if I didn't get totally pasted every time I played? Sure. However, a three-hour four player game has got to be more fun for me to want to play it. Given the length of time that Scepter takes, the amount of player interaction in it, and its relatively dry perfect information economic engine (cute fantasy theme aside) there are just so many other games in my collection that I'd rather put on the table. If I wanted a state machine puzzle, I wouldn't need to take time out of my schedule to have friends over and play a social game together: I could just run down to the drugstore and get a book of Sudoku puzzles; or I could play Agricola with one player (something else I haven't done, and doubt I will ever do).
Tresham seems to understand that games are social occasions, and even with his economic games he provides a wonderful touch of puzzle and interaction and even a bit of eccentric corners for interest. I find none of that in Scepter. If someone absolutely insisted, I'd agree to play again, but this box is going down in my basement on the also-ran shelf, and I doubt I'd ever want to play it without the opportunity to immediately then play something else. And even then, it would be a stretch. I can think of so many better ways from my collection to spend three hours of my life.
Even if you like exactly this kind of perfect information economic game, I suspect I'd not recommend this game at all, and would push you towards something else (like an 18xx game).
1825 Unit 1
The geek rates this game with an average of 6.5/10, and a rank of 1401: oh well; that doesn't bother me. I rate it an 8, and it's by one of my favourite designers, Francis Tresham. I suspect the game has such a low rating because of a variety of factors that have it rated only by 18xx hardcore gamers (who twit it for not being as hardcore as their favourite 18xx variants) and those perhaps a bit ambushed by the game (who could be perplexed perhaps by how much longer and more complex it is than, say, Railroad Tycoon, Age Of Steam, or similar). The only 18xx games I own are Treshams 1825 units (all three of them, none of the expansions, sadly), and 1829 Mainline.
And I like them; all of them. I'm quite happy to have these, and play only these: I'm probably in a small minority of people that like Tresham's design first and foremost, and are not necessarily looking for the hardcore, perfect information, 18xx engine in full-flight (viz 1830).
Unfortunately, because all the recent Tresham-created 18xx games are kitchen-table home built kits, at this point evangelizing it beyond my own gaming table is probably not all that easy. At least Indonesia is still available in distributor chains.
As in all 18xx games, the winner is the one with the most personal money. You make personal money by either (a) owning shares in successful train companies run by other players, or (b) owning enough shares to direct the activity of a successful train company yourself. Since the size of your portfolio is limited, you can make money with shares in an unsuccessful train company as well, but you won't make enough to do well, and so, you really want to fill your portfolio with as many plums as possible. Thus the challenge.
The people who own controlling interests in train companies, on every round, get to direct the activity of those trains: building track between cities and towns, purchasing trains, and then "running" those trains to sop up the ambiguously defined economic opportunities represented by those towns and cities.
The game plays with a fixed size bank, so when the bank runs out of money, the game is over.
As with most economic games, the game plays much faster (and better) with poker chips rather than paper money; however, if you play with poker chips, the local Resident Train Guru recommends playing with the same chips to represent company money and personal money: this makes judging the approaching end of the game more difficult as you have to be practiced at judging the size of your opponents' cash stacks rather than seeing the dwindling pile of bank funds.
You could probably play with paper money for company funds, and chips for player funds (or vice-versa) but I suspect that would slow the game down enough to not be worthwhile.
You could also probably play with computerized accounting (and people do). This would speed the game up as well, but I far prefer to play with physical artifacts and the way we play (with chips, in one pool, and being careful to say "woah! count your stacks, it looks like we're getting close!") works for us.
Hardcore 18xx players (including the RTG) twit the game for its eccentric track counter mix: you build track by using hex tiles with pre-printed track configurations on them, in two ways: track can extend (by laying new tiles on the map) and also become more complex and useful (by "upgrading" laid tiles with newer technology tiles). There are certain track builds which are valuable and in very short supply (tight turns) and certain builds which are annoying dead ends (what does that tile upgrade to? nothing!), and I'm sure that Tresham very intentionally crafted his track tile mix. I'm happy to have the mix the way it is: I like the interesting little risk-reward sharp corners he seeds into his games (be very careful when you buy Mysticism in Civ, for example). Others are not so sanguine.
The order in which you get to bid for stock shares is very important, and it may seem that the game is programmed (and the choices at the start of the game are, indeed, quite limited), but as with most Tresham (and indeed most economic) games, small choices made at the start of the game have massive follow-on effects. With three or four players, if you don't control the activity of two companies by the end of the game, you will almost certainly have to work much, much harder to do well, and most probably will not win. How good are the companies? Well, some are better than others, but a poorly placed company in the hands of a good player is also much better off than a well-placed company in the hands of a poor player. Thus, the game rewards replay with the same group of people, as you get better able to judge how well a company will do in the hands of particular players: this can help even out the game a bit. Our RTG almost always wins 18xx games (heck he almost always wins most train games, thus the moniker), but knowing this, of course, makes it vital to own shares in the companies he controls, and thus one can also compete by controlling a company and running it well if he doesn't own too many shares in it. This strategy has done well for me on several occasions. On this particular afternoon, not so much.
I placed in a closely fought fourth out of four spots because (a) I didn't harvest enough cash from the line I controlled early, and (b) I didn't play my line riskily enough. I also made a mid-game error by thinking I could effect surprise control of a line, watch it, instead, get snapped by our RTG, and then not throwing the last jots of my cash at the bank for a single additional share in that line. I suspect that not having that one additional share at the end of the game probably cost me third place, and in combination with the small bad choices I made on my own controlled line, second place.
There were several turns at the near the end of the game where I had my line hold its earnings rather than pay out dividends, and this was a costly error: I held money for essentially defensive play which (a) wasn't needed because smarter track building would have been just as effective, and (b) which meant that while I was able to keep the company reasonably valuable, it probably could have ended the game both slightly more valuable and with more cash to line the pockets of my coat.
And since that last goal is the only way to win the game, when the end-game arrived I should have been properly prepared for it, instead of "needing just one more turn" to squeeze more profits out of my line: those profits were there to be had, but I pushed them off when I didn't need to.
The best way to learn an 18xx game is from someone who knows. If you have the same kind of affection for Tresham's designs that I do, then you might find the 1825 units fun to play (I'd recommend owning all three of them, as well, for the modular ways in which you can combine them, although we've never done that). But I suspect that the cheapest and easiest way to get into 18xx games these days is from some other, more hardcore, representative of the style. I'm happy to play my copies whenever it's suggested though.
Scepter of Zavandor
By contrast, Scepter is also an economic game, and one that I'm much more ambivalent about. It's hard to explain why, but here's some observations I will make about my disastrous showing on the weekend (another last place finish):
* About a third of the way into the game, I fell three or four points behind the pack, and at that very point, I knew that I was doomed, could never catch up, and I had another 90 to 120 minutes to play. By the end of the game, I think, I did manage to correct my course a bit, make some reasonable plays, and not fall completely apart (and it's true that there's no way in the game to be busted out, as with Age Of Steam), but for the last two thirds of a long game, my play was useful only as a solitary (and not very fun) exercise in tinkering with my own state machine, hoping that the parts I'd eventually incoporate would still be there when I arrived at the finish line, left as scraps by the other players. This kind of game may present challenge, but it is not fun, or at least, I find precious little fun in it. Contrast this with the 1825 game: it's entirely possible that a stumbly start at the beginning can lead to exactly the same problem; halfway through the game (perhaps earlier) you will end up with a portfolio that you cannot improve, and you will be too far behind to make any kind of showing at all. And yet, with Tresham games I always feel like I have something fun to do throughout the game, even if it's clear I'm just counter-pushing.
* The only interaction that's possible is to outbid others for the special-power-scoring chotchkies that appear throughout the course of the game. However, I strongly feel that this can be a relatively false choice: by the time you fall behind, you're done. You don't have enough capital to truly interact with the other players in this regard, and so you're forced off to the kiddie table, picking up only from that set of things that others haven't chosen. Again, not fun. There seems to me to be a bitter shift of focus in this game away from "trying to do well" to stay close and compete, and so forth, and "trying to avoid getting banished to the kiddie table". Again, in 1825, this may also be the case. If you don't get a portfolio with good shares by a certain point in the game, you're hosed: the portfolios become inflexible, and you'll never improve your mix of investments. And, most likely, if you haven't managed to get good investments in your portfolio, you'll also find that the other train lines have put yours in a position where you can do nothing to really improve the position of your own line. That said, however, 1825 presents you with more opportunity for interaction, even as a minor player: you can lay track. The eccentric counter mix can let you play the puzzle game of taking away valuable track tiles from other lines that might need them, playing track tiles to the detriment of other lines if not the benefit of your own: you can even purchase additional station tokens that can block the rail utilization of the other lines in nasty ways. You have all these tools at your disposal throughout the game in ways that just aren't available in Scepter.
* The way in which the game scores itself berates you. Unlike 1825 where your score is essentially used as a resource (so the more money you have, the easier it is for you to invest, and the more money your train companies have, the easier it is for them to buy trains and stations), Scepter's score is a tracking mechanism only, that's always on, and determines your turn order. Thus, I think, you always have the sword of Damocles hanging over the gaming table, and once you find yourself in last place by only a small measure on the scoring chart (I contend three or four victory points, after the first player gets to, say 11 or 12, maybe?), you're basically doomed unless one of the other players makes a mistake. You're in fourth place, and you'll stay there until the end of the game, never catching up, always picking up scraps, never really interacting with the other players. Boo. I have the same kind of gripe about Ursuppe, but at least there you have the fillip of leaping over occupied spots on the scoring track to add a little jockeying possibility to the scoring mechanism. I would be interested to see what would happen if you took the scoring track away from Scepter, and instead added an auction for turn order on every turn. It would slow the game down a bit, and you'd probably need then to cut some chrome out of the game to avoid making it even longer (or you could maybe use Indonesia's clever once around turn order auction to speed up). However, this would remove the constant berating effect of the score chart, add a bit more mystery into the game for most players (I think), and also add a touch more interaction into the system (where now you're bidding for turn order as well as bidding for chotchkies). However, because the only other point of interaction is the chotchkie auctions, I'm not at all sure that turn order is all that relevant, really, other than a way to slightly penalize the people who are winning as a minor way (in the early mid-game only, I contend) to help laggers to catch up.
Could I get better at playing Scepter? Sure. Would it make the game more fun if I didn't get totally pasted every time I played? Sure. However, a three-hour four player game has got to be more fun for me to want to play it. Given the length of time that Scepter takes, the amount of player interaction in it, and its relatively dry perfect information economic engine (cute fantasy theme aside) there are just so many other games in my collection that I'd rather put on the table. If I wanted a state machine puzzle, I wouldn't need to take time out of my schedule to have friends over and play a social game together: I could just run down to the drugstore and get a book of Sudoku puzzles; or I could play Agricola with one player (something else I haven't done, and doubt I will ever do).
Tresham seems to understand that games are social occasions, and even with his economic games he provides a wonderful touch of puzzle and interaction and even a bit of eccentric corners for interest. I find none of that in Scepter. If someone absolutely insisted, I'd agree to play again, but this box is going down in my basement on the also-ran shelf, and I doubt I'd ever want to play it without the opportunity to immediately then play something else. And even then, it would be a stretch. I can think of so many better ways from my collection to spend three hours of my life.
Even if you like exactly this kind of perfect information economic game, I suspect I'd not recommend this game at all, and would push you towards something else (like an 18xx game).
