Boardgame Session @ OTK Cheras 25 April 08
Ξ April 30th, 2008 | → | ∇ Boardgames |
I arrived with Phuah at 9pm to find ceternal already brought out his copy of Race for the Galaxy (RftG) and teaching it to lostboyz, aanemesis and rhyen.
Had a quick dinner and then proceeded to open another table of RftG with my set. Taught jack208, Phuah and jeffgoh and they all love the game!
A RftG game in session.
I’ve posted elsewhere my description of the game, which i reposted bellow:
So how does the game play? It plays like San Juan/Puerto Rico, in that there is a role selection mechanic. However, in RftG, the role selection is simultaneous. The term role selection is also a misnomer too. It’s more like action-selection. Allow me to explain.
There are 7 types of actions to be chosen. These 7 actions corresponds to one of 5 phases in RftG. The phases and possible actions are:
Phase Actions
1. Explore - Deep Exploring (draw 7 cards, keep 1) or Wide Exploring (draw 3 keep 2)
2. Develop - Build new developments
3. Settle - Settle peaceful planet or subjugate hostile planet
4. Trade/Consume - Trade goods for cards and/or consume goods for VPs
5. Produce - Produce trade goods.
Depending on what the players chooses, only those phases will occur. And unlike San Juan, some actions, like Explore and Trade/Consume, have two special bonuses for the action-chooser.
The game ends when all victory points are exhausted, or when a player has built his/her 12th card.
This can happen quite fast as there are only 12 victory points per person in the game. If all players pursue a produce/consume strategy, the game can end fast.
Another way for the game to end and this happens in both our games, a player can set himself up to play two cards a turn - a build development card and a settle world card. (a develop/settle strategy) This can also quickly end the game with 12 cards built.
The key interaction in the game is that you have to guess and out-think your opponents on what actions they are going to choose. ideally you would like to do a few actions a turn and you like to get away by having your opponents choose those actions for you. You also have to be careful not to choose action that will benefit other players.
Other than that, the game itself can be quite… solitaire-like. you managing your own hand, settling, producing, consuming. Actions are simultaneous, so it feels like everyone is doing their own thing at times.
The good thing about this game is that there are lots more strategies to pursue than in San Juan. There are two card draw options in the Exploration action which lets you choose to go deep or go wide.
There are also two types of world to conquer, which require different strategies.
There are also 4 different type of trade goods for 4 different types of consume strategy.
There are also about 9 - 16 types of end game big VPs developments to pursue.
Except for a few duplicates, most of the cards are singletons. This makes for a different game everytime. The strategies will be subtly different depending on the cards you get.
This unfortunately also makes it difficult for beginners as the multitude of cards can overwhelm and makes card discarding a slow and involving affair. You have to read all the cards and then choose between them.
The symbols on the cards are simple but takes some getting used to. But for a newbie, it’s downright intimidating.
But for gamers who presevere, you’ll find RftG a meaty filler. a 30-60 min satisfying meals before the next game.
an 8/10 for me
Jeffgoh (right) snickering with his good military cards, whereas jack208 (left) contemplates his hand of alien technologies
Lostboyz (left) giving some pointers to Phuah (right) for his first game.
After that, we moved on to Darjeeling, with rhyen joining our table after getting confused by the RftG game at ceternal’s table. Phuah won this handily as nobody stop his timely flooding of the market with his tea as everyone else was struggling to scrounge together a shipment.
here’s a pic of the game at ending to make up for the lack of a pic for the last session.
Jack208 and jeffgoh wondered what went wrong in Darjeeling as they head on to the other table to join ceternal, aanemesis and lostboyz in an ‘easier’ game of 18AL. Highlights of the game was heard to be lostboyz’s almost triple hotsun in 18AL’s brutal economic system.
(from left) ceternal, jack208, jeffgoh, aanemesis (back towards camera) lostboyz playing 18AL.
Over at this table, a competitive game of Mystery of the Abbey was held between four Sherlock Holmes wannabes. There’s Phuah Holmes, Patomas Holmes (fresh from an indoctrination of RftG at the other table), Rhyen Holmes and myself.
Mystery of the Abbey is a cluedo like game with lots of special rules/powers thrown in. The game is played on a map of a monastery where the players will visit rooms to trigger certain actions. The Parlor Room acts like a traditional Cluedo room in that you may ask another player to show an innocent murder suspect that matches a certain description.
The Scriptorium, Library and Crypt each grants the players special powers to aid in their quest to uncover the murderer. The confessions and cell rooms will yield some random information about innocent suspects from the other players.
In addition, there is also a chamber for the players to declare their accusations and/or information about the murderer.
The winner of the game is the player who made the correct accusation and/or provide the most correct information on the murderer’s characteristics.
In first game, the players were too cooperative, resulting in a quick elimination of suspects and a dash to the chamber to make the first accusation.
The second game saw a bit more information restriction as the players used their vow of silence to deny vital information.
However the game has more subtle strategies than that and in both games, questions asked were either too inane to be of use or too direct such that it helps everyone else at the table. There’s is also the possibility of making false accusations early to confuse other players and send them down false paths.
This is certainly an interesting game and one which is far from being ‘broken’ as someone had suggested.
Phuah Holmes asked too much direct questions which results in the whole table sharing too much information about the murderer.
Patomas Holmes on the other hand asked too specific questions which is too slow in withering down the suspect list.
Rhyen Holmes tried to solicit the help of the powerful Library but both times failed to help him win despite giving him a big edge.
A final RftG game before settling into a long chit chat session before going home.
The winner in this gaming session? The RftG game. everyone who played it seem to like it and instead of playing it as a 30 minute filler, everyone plays multiple times of it!