After the bustle of last time with three parallel games, it felt really quiet to be back to a single table.  Unfortunately, the missing people were those that the “Feature Game”, Bania had been aimed at, but we decided to give it a go anyhow as it was supposed to be short.  It had also received an uncharacteristically poor review in the latest edition of the SpielBox magazine, and we were curious as to why.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is simple enough, comprising the elements of hand-management and tile laying.  The idea of the game is that players are building tents in the desert.  When they build a tent, there is no cost if they can place it next to other tents of the right colour, otherwise they must any additional cost in cards from their hand.  Thus if a tile needs red, purple and yellow but can only be placed next to a red and yellow, a purple card is also required.  On their turn, the active player can place as many tiles as they want to from their hand four and if they place all four, then they can draw another four tiles and keep going as long as they want or are able.  Once they can no longer place tent tiles or otherwise choose to stop, they draw tiles to replenish their hand back to four and play passes to the next player.

– Image by boardGOATS

Points are scored during the game for building tents which can be placed more or less anywhere.  However, once a settlement consists of seven tiles it is “complete” and it cannot be added to.  Adding to a growing settlement scores one point whereas starting a new one scores three points.  Thus extending a settlement costs less, but also earns fewer points  and the key part of the game is the source of cards.  These come from the elephant:  if it is on the board at the start of the active player’s turn then they can take a card corresponding to each colour present in that settlement.  When a settlement is completed, the elephant is returned to its owner and will yield nothing at the start of their next turn (although they can place it on any tile they as they lay it).  So players want their elephant to stay in a settlement consisting of four different colours, but want to complete it themselves so they can place it again straight away.

– Image by boardGOATS

In the event that a player needs more cards then they have, instead of laying tiles (and placing their elephant), they can roll the four dice a total of three times, saving as many as they choose from each roll.  There are six options corresponding to the four colours, and additionally an elephant’s head and an “elephant aaarrrse” (as it quickly became known thanks to Grey and his cool accent). A complete elephant gives the player their “elephant cards” again (which is only useful if the elephant is on the board), otherwise they get the resources shown on the dice.  The game ends when no more tiles can be placed and the winner is the player with the most points once the all important bonus points (for the player with the most of each resource) have been added to the tally.

– Image by boardGOATS

Grey got the game under way but it was Burgundy who showed us how to deal with the elephant.  By completing the settlement his elephant was occupying and then placing a new tile, he was able to pick up cards at the start of consecutive rounds.  Meanwhile, Green picked up on another trick for scoring extra points.  Starting a new settlement and then placing a second tent tile to link it to another settlement could give four points for the cost of three cards if the placement was chosen carefully;  placing the tiles in the same place but reversing the order could still cost three cards, but would only yield two points.  Eventually, we came into the home straight, but as it was all quite tight, bonus points suddenly seemed really, really important so nobody wanted to end it and we spent nearly two full rounds just collecting cards before the last tile was laid.  In the end it was a tight game with just five points between first and last, but Blue finished in front, two points ahead of Burgundy.

– Image by boardGOATS

We had had very little difficulty with the rules of Bania, but quickly realised that the chief downside of the game was “analysis paralysis”.  Because each player can place as many tiles as they want, there is very little planning a player can do in advance as everything will have changed by the time it is their turn.  The fact players couldn’t plan much in advance slowed everything down a lot (we even managed trips to the bar between turns!), although we felt this might be a bit alleviated a little with fewer players as the rounds wouldn’t seem quite so long.  The analysis was sometimes a bit negative too as it was often a case of, “Can’t do this, or this or this, so, um, well, I’ll have to do something with these then…”  On reflection, we decided that part of the problem was that we all got a bit hung-up on picking up “cheap single points” for adding to settlements rather than trying to get the three points for starting a new one.  The biggest problem we found, however, was simply that the game outstayed its welcome – the box claimed it would take half an hour and it took us well over twice that.  We still weren’t sure it deserved the stand-out negative review that it got from SpielBox though.

– Image by boardGOATS

Next we had a big discussion as to what to play next.  Green had some new toys he was desperate to play with, but Blue felt that since Grey could stay as long as he wanted this time, it was a good opportunity to play something a bit longer.  Burgundy had played recently been introduced to Castles of Mad King Ludwig and had loved it and was keen to give it another go, so that clinched it.  Grey and Green were new to it, so Blue explained while Burgundy got on with arranging tiles chipping in when Blue missed stuff out.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Castles of Mad King Ludwig is a tile laying game where players are building an amazing, extravagant castle for King Ludwig II of Bavaria, one room at a time.  Rooms selected randomly are sold off in batches with one player, the Master Builder, setting the prices for each room in the batch.  Payment is made to the Master Builder (similar to the auctions in Goa), but as they are the last player to buy, there is a large element of “I divide, you choose” (similar to games like …Aber Bitte Mit Sahne).  Thus, the idea is that the Master Builder wants to arrange the tiles such that rooms desired by the other players are expensive, but generally not too expensive, and similar to Goa, having a lot of money is powerful, but when you spend it, you give that advantage to the active player.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor aleacarv

The other interesting mechanism is controlling the room layout so that rooms that work well together are daisy-chained yielding the most points.  When a room is placed, points are scored for that room, but also the room it is attached to.  Most of the points are dependent on the type of room they are connected to, so, a large purple living room with (say) six doors, will score every time a room is added to it.  If it scores two points for every “blue sleeping room” that is connected to it, it will score two points when it is first placed (next to a sleeping room, but four when the next is added to it, then six and so on.  However, the difficult part is trying to find six blue rooms that also score when they are placed next to a purple living room.  Balancing the synergistic effects are really what make the game interesting.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

When a room is completed, there is a bonus, this can be extra points or some other advantage like an extra turn or money etc..  At the end of the game there are also bonus points for the player who best fulfills the requirements for the “King’s Favours” as well as points for personal bonuses.  The game uses a card-deck to determine which rooms are drawn and when it is exhausted it triggers the end-game.  One last round is played before all the bonuses are calculated and the winner is the player who finishes with the most points.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Burgundy started off launching himself into the lead with the aid of several yellow food rooms which gave him an extra turn.  Green and Blue started out fighting over the downstairs rooms before Blue took herself off and started building purple living spaces to try to compete for one of the King’s Favours.  Meanwhile, Grey was struggling a little with the peculiarities of scoring but as he got the hang of it, he started to amass points with several large red activity rooms.  It was when Blue jumped from a distant fourth place to the front of the pack by completing a purple living room surrounded by corridors, which when completed was re-scored giving her some twenty-plus points in one round, that the game was blown apart.  Blue had built up a significant lead, but Burgundy and Grey were catching her, when the game moved into the final round leaving it all down to the bonuses.  Grey took the highly contested points for “square rooms”, and Green took the points for the most downstairs rooms.  Blue took the points for small rooms and purple rooms.  It was really the personal bonus cards that made the difference though, and they left Blue the winner, some ten points clear of Burgundy.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Learning Outcome:  Experience often helps.