Tag Archives: Cities of Splendor

22nd January 2019

Green was delayed, so once food had been dealt with, we started with the “Feature Game”, Auf Teufel komm raus. This is a fun, push-your luck game with a betting element, in the vein of games like Incan Gold. “Auf Teufel komm raus” literally translates as “On Devil come out“, but roughly means “by hook or by crook” or according to rule book, “The Devil with it” (as the title is officially translated). None of these really give any information about the game though they inspire the lovely artwork. The game itself is fairly straight-forward though: everyone simultaneously places bets on the maximum value of coal that will be drawn out of the fire by one player in the round. Players then take it in turns to draw coals, either stopping when they choose or going bust if they draw a piece.

– Image by boardGOATS

The player who draws the highest total value coals without going bust gets a fifty point bonus, as does the player who draws the most pieces of coal without drawing a Devil token. Everyone whose bet was exceeded by the maximum value keeps their stake and wins the equivalent value from the bank. If the player with the highest bid was successful, they win double their stake money. This is key as it means the largest stakes are very lucrative making it in everyone else’s interest to stop once their stake has been met, unless they are in the running for the largest total or the most coals of course… The game ends when one player passes one thousand six hundred at the end of the round and the winner is the player with the highest score.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game is beautifully produced with lovely poker chips, nice wooden coal tokens, a colourful board and chunky score tokens, but it is the little things in the game play that make it enjoyable. Bizarrely though, it took the group several rounds to really get the hang of what decisions they were making. Firstly, players had to work out what a reasonable level for bidding was. There are approximately the same number of tens, twenties, twenty-fives, fifties and Devil coals with a smattering of seventy-fives and hundreds, but it took a round or so for people to get a feel for the statistics. Then there was an understanding of the tactics when drawing coal—it took most of the game for players to realise that once the highest bid had been matched, players might as well keep drawing until they win something as there was no penalty as long as nobody had “made a pact with the Devil”.

– Image by boardGOATS

Making a pact with the Devil is not something one generally chooses to do; it is simply a catch-up mechanism, but significantly changes the dynamic of the game. Basically, a player alone at at the back is given fifty points by any player who draws a Devil token. This prevents the “devil may care” attitude once the maximum bid has been met. It only happens rarely though (especially with six), as players don’t reveal their precise score, only the range of their score. As Black put it, players only know the rough size of each other’s “wad”. The aspect that makes the game fun though, is the encouraging, discouraging and general barracking as players try to manipulate others to their own ends.

– Image by boardGOATS

With the “wad” scoring and everyone feeling their way, it wasn’t entirely clear how people were doing to begin with, but Mulberry suffered from a huge unsuccessful overly optimistic bid in the first round. Making a pact with the Devil helped Mulberry catch up, while Pine pulled away at the front. Burgundy, Black and Blue weren’t going to let him get away with that and started pushing the boundaries with their bids and their draws. As players began to get a feel for what was a safe bid and what was a risky bid, everyone joined in with lots of “Ooos” and “Aaahhs” as coal was drawn from the Devil’s cauldron. Purple seemed to have an unerring knack of finding Devil tokens, but despite languishing at the back, the fact she had Mulberry for company meant neither of them could benefit from making a pact with Lucifer (maybe something that could be “House Ruled” in future). In the final round everyone put in large bids, but Blue’s was the largest, a hundred and fifty. Purple had gone bust while trying to meet Blue’s target, but the slightly more modest bids from Burgundy, Pine and Black had all been achieved, leaving all or nothing for Blue as the last player to draw.

– Image by boardGOATS

When the first token Blue turned over was one of the scarce hundreds, Black commented in jest that Blue had “marked it”. The reason for Blue’s slightly indignant reply of “Hardly!” became clear in the post-game chit-chat. There are several online reports of the coal tokens being identifiable. Blue had therefore looked carefully at the tokens that had arrived covered in tiny specks of white paint which she had spent an hour scraping off. This wasn’t entirely successful leaving some small scratch marks, so she had then carefully spent another hour inking the backs to try to homogenise them. This had left the coals with a wide variety of glossy sheens, so she had carefully spent another hour rubbing them all with carnuba wax to try to make them all similarly shiny. Unfortunately, the grain meant the pieces looked more even more varied with white wax deep inside the grain for some tokens and others smooth and glossy.

– Image by boardGOATS

Blue had then spent another hour rubbing all the tokens with oil which finally had the desired effect – there was still variety in the pattern of the grains, but there wasn’t an obvious trend. Once Blue had explained that she’d spent most of Sunday evening on the exercise, trying hard not to identify any of the pieces while getting inky, waxy, oily, numb fingers, the Irony of Black’s comment was appreciated by everyone. With Blue having drawn a hundred, everyone was on tenterhooks to see if she could draw the fifty she needed to make her bid successful. Pine’s successful bid meant he had just exceeded the sixteen hundred needed to end the game; draw a Devil and Blue would lose a hundred and fifty and finish some way down the rankings. It wasn’t to be though, with a flourish she produced a fifty, giving her three hundred points for the bet plus a fifty point bonus and with it, the game.

– Image by boardGOATS

Everyone had enjoyed the game though all were agreed that they’d start differently next time. It had been a lot of fun once we’d got going though, so it will probably get another outing soon. Poor Green had missed out, arriving about half-way through. That left us with seven though, and a conundrum as to what to play next. Time was getting on, but Green was keen to play something a little meatier. Although Burgundy was happy to join him in Endeavor: Age of Sail with the new Exploits, nobody else was in the mood and it is a game that really needs at least three. Blue was tempted, but with her fuzzy, “fluey” head wasn’t up to something new (she hadn’t played with the Exploits before) and Black was of a similar mind. Inevitably Bohnanza got a mention, and as Mulberry hadn’t played it before, it was looking a likely candidate. Pine wasn’t enthusiastic, but was even less keen on Endeavor. In the end, the group split into two with Blue, Burgundy and Purple opting to teach Mulberry “The Bean Game”, while Pine and Black joined Green in a game of Marrakech.

– Image by boardGOATS

Strictly speaking, Marrakech is a game about selling Rugs, but the group just couldn’t stop themselves calling them Carpets. The game itself is a very clever little abstract game made all the better by the addition of fabulous fabric “Carpets”, wooden coins, a large chunky bespoke die and a cool salesman who goes by the name of Assam. The idea of the game is that players take it in turns to roll the wooden die and then turn Assam zero or ninety degrees and move him the given number of spaces. If Assam finishes on an opponent’s coloured piece of Carpet (or Rug), the player must pay rent equal to the size of the contiguous area. Finally, the active player places on piece of Carpet covering one square adjacent to Assam (and one other square as the Rugs are rectangular), before passing the problem on to the next player. The player who ends with the most money and visible squares of Carpet combined, is the winner.

– Image by boardGOATS

After the first few placements it felt very obvious which direction the seller would have to be facing and then it was luck of the die. Green quickly built a nice large area in one corner of the board, but thereafter game-play resolutely remained in the other areas of the board. This was a bit of a mixed blessing as it meant Green kept his high Rug count, but did not receive any earnings from it. This was compounded when he made a tactical error, turning the faceless Assam into the path of everyone else’s Rugs. From there on, Pine and Black made regular visits to each others Rug areas, although Pine seemed to be coming off slightly better from the exchange.

– Image by boardGOATS

Eventually, with the Green and Black down to their last three Rugs in hand, for some reason Pine had an extra and still had four left. The group decided that he must have failed to place one at some point, so let him to place two on the next turn. It wasn’t clear how much that affected the outcome, but on final count, Pine had just one more Rug visible than Green, but had a advantage in coins so was declared the winner. With Bohnanza ongoing on the next table, the group looked for something short-ish and familiar and settled on Splendor, but decided to add The Orient module (from Cities of Splendor expansion), for no better reason than the fact that one of Pine’s favourite football teams is Leyton Orient.

– Image by boardGOATS

Splendor is a very simple game: on their turn, players take gems (rubies, sapphires, opals, diamonds and emeralds, in the form of special poker-like chips), buy a gem-card, or reserve a gem-card taking a wild, gold chip as a bonus. When taking chips, players must take three different chips, or, if there are enough chips in the stack, they can take two the same. Each card features a gem which acts as a permanent chip (i.e. where chips are spent when buying cards, gem-cards remain in the player’s display). Some cards also give points, and the first player that achieves a set combination of gem-cards also gets points for “attracting a Noble”. The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the round where one player reaches fifteen. The Orient expansion module adds an extra three decks of cards (one for each tier), which have special powers, like double bonus cards or joker cards which help players entice Nobles to their store.

– Image by boardGOATS

This time all the randomly drawn Noble tiles required ruby cards; three of them also needed opals and three needed diamonds as well. When laying out the Level One cards, all four came out as white diamonds and a quick check on the rest of the deck showed this was no fluke, and the deck really did need shuffling further! Once the cards had been randomised, the usual cat and mouse game ensued until Green took one of the Level Two Orient cards. This meant he was able to reserve one of the Nobles, much to Black’s chagrin, as he then had to change tac. The extra gold and additional gems that the Orient cards gave were used a few times to add a new twist to the classic game and Pine managed to use the ability to choose any Level One card he wanted to good effect as well. When Green managed to reserve a second Noble, the writing was on the wall.

– Image by boardGOATS

With only two Nobles remaining for Pine and Black to fight over, Pine decided that he would also go the reserve route and took the third, leaving Black floundering with just the high scoring cards as targets. Green managed to get his first Noble to take a one point lead, and very soon after completed his second reserved Noble to jump to a very good score of nineteen. Neither Black nor Pine could reach the fifteen in their final turns, although Pine was only a turn or two away from completing his Noble. Although we’ve played this expansion has been before, the question arose as to whether the ability to reserve a noble is to powerful. The conclusion was “possibly”, and there was some discussion about a “House Rule” to limit players to holding one Noble in reserve at a time.

– Image by boardGOATS

Meanwhile, on the neighbouring table, Mulberry was learning the delights of “Bean Farming” in Bohnanaza from Blue, Purple and Burgundy. The game is really simple, but very engaging as players are involved even when it isn’t their turn. The really key part of the game is that players cannot rearrange the cards in their hand, playing them in the order they draw them. Thus, at the start of their turn, they must “plant” the first card in their hand into one of the two fields in front of them, and may plant the second if they choose. Two cards are then turned over from the central draw deck, which these must be planted, but not necessarily by the active player. These cards can be traded or even given away, but must be planted in one of the fields on the table. Once these cards have been dealt with, the active player may trade some (or all) of their cards with others round the table, before they draw cards to refill their hand.

– Image by boardGOATS

Fields can only hold one type of bean at a time, but can be harvested at any point. Harvested beans give money according to the “Beanometer”, and the rarer the card, the more money it yields when harvested. Thus for Garden beans (of which there are only six), three beans will earn three coins whereas it will require ten of the twenty-four available Coffee beans to give the same return. The coins are taken from the harvested beans (the card is turned over to show the coin on the reverse), so the number of common cards reduces as the game progresses, but the rare cards become ever more scarce. The winner is the player with the most points after three trips through the deck.

– Image by boardGOATS

The game followed the usual flow with some players trying to persuade others to take unfavourable trades. Blue spent much of the first part of the game alternately drawing Green bean and Wax bean cards; with two substantial fields and a hand full of them she then benefited from lots of donations and nobody else fancied grubbing their plantations when Blue already had the majority of the cards. All in all, it was a very generous game with everyone giving away cards left, right and centre. Everyone benefited; Purple did particularly well with her Garden beans, but Burgundy got a couple of cheap Soy beans and Mulberry did well too. It was Blue who benefited the most though and it showed in the final scores…

– Image by boardGOATS

Splendor was still on-going, so Blue persuaded Mulberry to stick about for one more short game, NMBR 9. This was another one she’d not played before and Blue felt it would appeal to her natural spacial awareness. The idea is that one player turns over cards in the deck one at a time, and everyone takes the indicated card and adds it to their tableau, ensuring that the edge touches one of the other tiles. Once a few tiles have been placed to form a base layer, then tiles can be placed on top of other tiles as long as there are no overhanging parts, and the tile sits squarely on more than one other tile and it shares an edge with at least one other tile on that level. The higher the tiles are placed the more they score (tile value multiplied by the “floor” number).

– Image by boardGOATS

It was late, and Mulberry got into a bit of a tangle with the higher levels, but the generosity of spirit from Bohnanza lingered and everyone else let her rearrange her tiles so they conformed to the rules. And quick as it is, it wasn’t long before everyone was adding up their scores… With that over, Mulberry headed off while everyone else chewed the cud, discussed “Monster Games” at the Weekend (Food Chain Magnate or a repeat of The Gallerist) and whinged about Brexit. When the Landlord suggested we moved away from controversial subjects and tried Religion and Politics instead, we knew it was home time.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Some combinations of games and groups benefit from “House Rules“.

15th May 2018

As Blue and Burgundy finished their dinner, everyone else arrived and we began the “Who wants to Play What” debate, and particularly, the “Who wants to play the “Feature Game” tonight” discussion. The “Feature Game” was to be Caverna: The Cave Farmers, a game that is so similar to Agricola, that it is often referred to as “Agricola 2.0”. In Agricola, the idea of the game is that players start with two farmers, a large field and a wooden hut and try to build a farm, by planting wheat and vegetables, buying and breeding animals, extending and upgrading their hut, and expanding their family. It is a worker placement game which takes place over a set number of rounds and in each one, each family member takes one action. The actions that are available are very limited at first, but more are added as the game progresses.

– Image by BGG contributor MisterC

There are three main differences between the Caverna and Agricola, and the first (and most obvious) is the theme. Instead for medieval farmers, players are dwarves living in the mountains, building a dwarfish community with dogs and donkeys. This means players are developing their cave system (rather than their hut) and cultivating forest land rather than pasture. The game play is very similar though with players taking it in turns to place one of the dwarves from their community on one of the action spaces and then carrying out that action. Again during the game, the number of actions available increases. Many of the actions are different though as players cultivate the forest in front of their cave and dig into the mountain, furnishing caves for their clan as well as mining for ore or ruby. This leads to another obvious differences: Expeditions. In order to go on expeditions dwarves need ore to forge weapons, and the better armed the dwarf, the more exciting the adventures they can go on and the better the rewards.

– Image by BGG contributor saksi

These features are largely cosmetic though, and the real differences are in the game play. In the advanced game of Agricola, each player is dealt a hand of fourteen cards at the start, which are used to add variety and interest to the game. There are hundreds of possible cards available and players can either choose from their starting hand, or to make the game fairer, they can be drafted. The problem with this is that for players who are unfamiliar with the game, choosing which cards might be useful or will work together is a very painful process. In Caverna, the depth is introduced by the addition of forty-eight different buildings tiles which laid out so players can see what the options are throughout the game. Critically, there is one set of tiles and they are all used in the advanced game. This means Caverna doesn’t have the infinite variety of Agricola, but the buildings deliver a more balanced game with a lot of options that are available every time.

– Image by BGG contributor saksi

The games also feel very different: with Agricola the game is always a struggle, with players fighting to balance feeding the family and developing the farm. At the end of the game, a large proportion of players scores come from fulfilling a checklist of animals and vegetables. This means that there are one or two main strategies and successful players are generally those who are most efficient in these. In Caverna, there is more variety in the strategies available, but without the feeding mechanism and associated peril of starvation, there is a lot less stress in the game. All in all, it is generally a lot easier to build a productive engine and more difficult to make a total mess of it in Caverna, while still providing a lot of the same sort of challenges.

– Image by BGG contributor haslo

Both Agricola and Caverna take up a lot of table space and a while to set up. As Ivory had never played it before, and even Burgundy, Magenta and Green had not played it in nearly four years, we decided to play the introductory game. It turned out that this was just as well, as it still took the best part of three hours to play. By random selection Burgundy got to go first and effectively choose his own strategy, while Green went last and was more or less forced to let his strategy be dictated by what was left over. The first few turns were the inevitable resource grab—anything and everything that players could get hold of. Being a cave based game, stone and ore were particularly popular to such an extent that Green found he was struggling to get any by the time his turn came round, which pushed him towards a more Agricola-style farming strategy.

– Image by BGG contributor haslo

Although Magenta had played Caverna once before she had little recollection of it as it had been at 3am one Christmas Holiday. As a result, the game was all a bit of a mystery at the start. Nevertheless, she got into sheep farming early, but did not neglect her mountain either, regularly chipping away giving her ample opportunities for rooms and mines. She was struggling outside though: she managed to get some more animals, but couldn’t get the pastures to keep them in, and without crops she was constantly struggling for food. She was able to build an oven, but this meant that as fast as her flock grew she had to slaughter them to keep her hungry dwarves fed. With her lack of outdoor enclosures though, this might actually have been a help. In the end, it was her mining and interiors that helped give her the best scores and she did eventually manage to cover her whole player board by the end of the game to avoid negative points.

– Image by BGG contributor haslo

Ivory and Green were the first to grow their families and, fed up with being last in the turn order, Green used his larger family to good effect and nabbed the start player marker. So the very next turn he was able to grab a wheat and veg while planting a field and pasture at the same time. Then, with his second dwarf he immediately planted another field and pasture to plant that self same wheat and veg, and thus started his crops growing. He then supplemented this with an improvement tile which enabled him to convert a wheat and a veg into five food which meant he was never short of food to feed his family and was free to expand whenever he was able to mine the mountain and build extra rooms. With crops aplenty, he then set about acquiring animals and fencing in fields, leaving his mining for the last few turns in a frantic dash to increase his final score.

– Image by BGG contributor saksi

Burgundy and Ivory, both decided to bet heavily on arming their dwarves and sending them on expeditions to bring back lots of exciting goodies. Several times, Ivory exchanged a precious ruby to play his fighting dwarf out of turn and grab the four-goods expedition before Burgundy could. This strategy served them both well, especially as they were able to keep mining in order to locate more and more ore to help weaponise more dwarves. Burgundy held on to his gems and managed to build a special room to help them score him more points. He also managed to also cover his whole area and “discovered” two ruby mines. Ivory neglected his farming and failed to plant anything till right at the end of the game. Ultimately, that counted against him as he was left him with empty spaces that lost him six points.

– Image by BGG contributor saksi

The last two harvests were both interrupted by the special tiles which caused everyone a few problems and in the end it was really quite close. It was Burgundy who took the glory though, a handful of points ahead of Green who was a single point ahead of Ivory. It was a good game though and everyone enjoyed it—Burgundy professed to prefer it over Agricola too, a game where he reckons he always struggles to do well in. Meanwhile, the next table started with a big debate about what to play. Several games were considered, but Black made the mistake of mentioning Keyflower, which is one of Blue’s favourites and thereafter, there was only one game she wanted to play. Other games were suggested, but for the most part, there was a good reason why these were not ideal, and, in the end, Black pointed out Blue’s interest in Keyflower, and everyone else agreed to play it.

– Image by boardGOATS

Everyone had played the game before, but it was a while ago and Pine had little recollection, so a rules run-through was necessary first. The rules of the game are not terribly difficult to understand, but combine to make a complex game. Played over four rounds (or Seasons), players bid on hexagonal tiles which are added to the winners’ village at the end of the round. Bidding is carried out with coloured meeples (or Keyples as they are known in this game), and counter-bids must follow colour, usually red, blue or yellow. Most tiles are action spaces, so as well as currency for bidding, Keyples can also be used to activate spaces. Any space can be activated at any time by any player when they place one of their Keyples on a tile, any tile, one in their own village, one in someone else’s, one still being auctioned. At the end of the round, Keyples used in winning bids are lost, while those involved in losing bids return to their owners and any used to activate tiles are adopted by the tile owners.

– Image used with permission of
BGG contributor punkin312

Essentially, that is really all there is to the game, but there are lots of consequences of this simple mechanism and a lot of complexity underlies what players can do with the actions on the tiles. In Spring, most of the tiles available provide resources of some description, in Summer there are more advanced resource and related tiles, while in Autumn the first of the scoring tiles arrive. The majority of the scoring comes from the Winter tiles though, and these are selected by the players, who are dealt a small number at the start of the game and choose which to introduce at the start of the final round. This is particularly clever as it provides players with possible strategies if they choose to follow them. Invariably, though, the best laid plans go completely awry and players are left choosing which of their tiles will be the least useful to their opponents and hope that others will be forced to play something more helpful.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Once we’d run through the rules, we laid out the Spring tiles and began. Keyflower plays two to six players and unusually, it plays well acrioss the whole range, but is different at each number due to the fact that different numbers of tiles are used during the game. With two players nearly half the possible tiles are removed from play, so the game becomes very tactical rewarding players who can keep their options open and change their plans like a politician changes policy, when they find the tiles they need are not available. With six players, all the tiles are available, however, with so many opponents lots of competition is guaranteed. Black pointed out that Keyflower is particurly good with four though as almost all tiles are in play, and there is lots of competition as well.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

There are other consequences of changes in player number. For example, at the start of each Season, ships arrive delivering Keyples and Skill tiles; players bid to have first choice of these. The number of arrivals is dependent on the number of players, however, no matter how many arrive it is never enough, worse, as the game year progresses the number of Keyples arriving steadily decreases. This is because players are spending less on buying tiles and instead are reusing workers that have been activating tiles. Regardless, having a means to get extra Keyples is invaluable and it was with this in mind that Black began bidding for the Ale House. This tile generates another Keyple, each time it is activated, two once it has been upgraded. Largely on the principle that if someone else wants something, they should not be allowed to have it, Blue started a bidding war.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Unfortunately for her, Blue won, but at a cost. This was very much counter to her usual strategy, as she usually avoids overpaying at all costs, often leaving her with the fewest tiles at the end of Spring, sometimes none at all. Pine on the other hand, fancied the Pedlar, a tile that turned yellow Keyples into green ones, and green ones are Special. Green Keyples behave in exactly the same way as red, yellow and blue Keyples, except there are none in the game at the start so their extreme scarcity means they are very powerful, especially when bidding. Pine also went for gold and Purple took the Keywood, which gave her substantial wood producing capability and the Workshop which allowed her to produce any resources she wanted.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Summer and Autumn proceeded in a similar fashion, except that everyone started out much more careful with their Keyples, which meant everyone ended Summer with lots of stuff they didn’t want. Black finally got his Keyple generating tile when he took the Brewer, however, that needed Skill Tiles and he didn’t have a source of them. Blue was worse off finishing Summer with a random assortment of boat tiles she didn’t really need. Pine and Purple did slightly better, taking tiles that convert Skills into resources and transport/upgrade tiles and adding to their gold producing ability. Autumn saw the advent of round two of the bidding war when Blue started bidding for the Sculptor and Sawmill and Black decided to join in. It ended with honours even, but there was more to follow.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

In the final round, some of the strategies became clearer, when the Jeweler, Craftsman’s Guild and the Windmill appeared. Everyone was hustling for the tiles they wanted, trying to maximise their points for the end of the game. It was then that Black finally finished the bidding war, taking the Sea Breese boat tile, which gave him only one point, but cost Blue nearly twenty points. Pine who had struggled throughout the game suddenly found he had lots of points, sixty in total, just two behind Black who finished in first place, thanks largely to the vast number of Keyples he finished with. On the next table, Caverna still had some way to go and there was still time for one more game, so Pine dipped into Burgundy’s back and brought out Splendor—at least with Burgundy occupied elsewhere, everyone else had a chance of winning for a change…

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

We’ve played Splendor a lot within the group, an awful lot, and have just begun exploring the Cities of Splendor expansion, but after the last game, everyone wanted something they were very familiar with, so we stuck to the base game. And it is a simple game of chip collecting and engine-building with a very loose gemstone theme. Basically, on their turn, players can take gemstone poker chips, or use chips to buy a card. Some cards have points on them and all can be used like the poker chips to buy cards (but without having to return them). The cards also give players access to “Noble tiles” which also give points. The winner is the player with the most points after someone reaches fifteen points.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

The game play was very unusual this time, because the black Opals came out very late, and on the odd occasion that they did appear Blue pounced on them and immediately reserved them. This had two effects as it both prevented anyone else from getting them and also ensured that she had a plan each time she had to pick up gemstone poker chips. The problem was made worse by the fact that three of the Nobles required Opals. With the strangle-hold she had on the game, it was not surprising that she was the only one to get any Nobles and quickly brought the game to an end finishing with eighteen points, well clear of Pine in second place.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Learning Outcome: Sometimes winning a bid can be worse than losing.

23rd January 2018

Once the inevitable pizzas were dealt with, we settled down to the “Feature Game”. This was Cities of Splendor, the expansion to Splendor, a splendid little game that we’ve played quite a lot since its release in 2014. The base game is really quite simple, but although a lot of groups apparently find it very dull, our group seem to find quite a lot of mileage in its subtlety and trying to get the better of Burgundy who mostly seems pretty unbeatable. According to the rulebook, players are Renaissance merchants trying to buy gem mines, transportation methods and artisans in order to acquire the most prestige points. The most wealthy merchants might even receive a visit from a noble, which will further increase their prestige. Despite all this, the game itself is, in truth, really quite abstract. Players have essentially have three options on their turn: they can pick up gem tokens; buy a development card, or reserve a development card (and take a Gold token).

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

When picking up tokens, the active player can either take three different gems, or, as long as there are four or more available, two the same, with a hand-limit of ten. These are then used to buy development cards which provide the player with a permanent supply of gems of a given colour and sometimes, some prestige points. The development cards come in three decks, and the Level Three cards as significantly more difficult to obtain, often requiring many gems. Sometimes it can be a good idea to reserve a particular card, preventing another player from taking it and getting a Gold token in return, which can be used in place of any gemstone when buying a development card. At the start of the game there is a small number of noble tiles each with with a requirement (e.g. four opals and four rubies); the first player to fulfil this requirement gets the noble and the associated number of prestige points. The first player to fifteen prestige points is the winner.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

The expansion, Cities of Splendor, consists of four small modules: Trading Posts; Strongholds; The Orient, and the eponymous Cities. We were a little concerned that these expansions were going to take a game we enjoyed largely because it is so very simple, and make it unnecessarily complex (a phenomenon we had experienced previously with some parts of the Between Two Cities expansion, Capitals). However, unusually, these modules must be used independently of each other, each providing a really very small tweak to the game, but potentially changing the dynamics quite dramatically. For example, Strongholds provides three little plastic towers for each player, which can be moved by the active player whenever they take a development card. The active player can either place or move one of their own strongholds, or remove someone else’s, thus providing another way to reserve a development card. Alternatively, this effectively provides a way for everyone to “gang up” on one player, so this module has been renamed the “Get Burgundy” module…

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

We only had one copy of the expansion, but with several copies of the base game we decided to split into two groups, each playing different modules. The groups were split along the lines of who wanted to get beaten by Burgundy and who didn’t. The first group to get going contained Black and Blue, who were optimistic that the changes introduced by the expansion might upset Burgundy just enough to give someone else a chance to win. As they don’t normally get the chance to play with them, they started with nobles drawn at random from the 2016 and 2017 Brettspiel Advent calendars and the promotional set and then had to decide which expansion module to use. Rather than opting for the “Get Burgundy” module, they decided it would be fairer to choose something else and opted for the Trading Posts module. This provides an additional small board with five “Posts” with specific requirements, which if fulfilled give players extra options. For example, a player with one diamond and three ruby development cards is allowed to collect a single token every time they buy a development card.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Although Splendor is normally quite a thoughtful game, it usually moves along quite quickly. However, the addition of the expansion, slowed the normal fast pace quite noticeably as everyone spent more time working through the options for each turn, especially at the start. It wasn’t unpleasantly slow though, particularly as everyone had plenty to think about during the down time. Burgundy grabbed lots of diamonds and quickly began to claim some of the special powers available from the Trading Posts, making particularly good use of the first one which allowed him to collect a token every time he picked up a development card. Black tried to go for the last two Trading posts, one of which gave him two a point for each other Trading Post he had claimed and another which gave him a straight five points. Blue had started well, but was finding that all the diamond cards had evaporated which brought her game to an abrupt halt.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

It wasn’t long before Burgundy was picking up his second noble, and with Black two turns away from finishing the game himself, the game came to an end as Burgundy claimed his fifteenth point, six more than anyone else. Meanwhile, on the neighbouring table, they were playing with The Orient Module. This provides ten extra development cards at each of the three levels, a total of six of which are placed face up (two from each level). These red-backed, “Orient” cards have interesting and unusual powers. For example, there is a level one card which acts as a single use, pair of gold tokens which can be used at any time during the game. The other card available from the level one deck is an “Association” card which is immediately associated with one other card and increases the yield of that card by one. There are also some double gem cards and one that enables players to reserve a noble. Everyone made good use of the double gold cards and the “money bag” Association cards (aka “onion” cards) in the first row of Orient cards.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

The second row expansion cards remained in place for quite some time. Purple took a lot of development cards using gold tokens, Green plodded away with opal and sapphire development cards, while Red was trying to hold on to her double gold cards to use on those difficult to get top row cards. Eventually Green claimed a level two Orient card, a double red gem, which got him to within a whisker of getting the first noble, but Red had other plans. An Orient card swiftly enabled her to reserve the noble, take from under Green’s nose and thus preventing him from taking a commanding lead. Before long, Green was back, however, having built up his opals and diamonds which enabled him to claim Isabelle of Castile (with four opals and four diamonds). Then it was only a matter of time, Red claimed her noble, but couldn’t stop Green taking a top row card to finish the game with sixteen points leaving Purple, who had started, very frustrated—she was just one turn from claiming her reserved card which would have given her the last noble and fifteen points.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Red had really enjoyed the extra challenge and had felt that the higher level expansion cards hadn’t really come into play and fancied giving it another go. So, unusually for the group, rather than packing up, it got a second game. There was a brief debate whether going first in Splendor is an advantage or not and the discussion spread to the next table. It seems to be perceived wisdom, but there was a debate about whether the fact that players at the end of the round can get an extra turn (and so play for more points) might offset that. Ultimately, no-one felt it made much of a difference and since Purple had started last time, it was between Green and Red, so they played Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide. With the excitement building, the count began, 1, 2, 3! Round One was a draw: both had paper. With the tension so tight you could cut it with blunt knife they started across the table at each other and prepared for the second round; a switch from paper was likely, but which way: Green went Scissors, but Red took the game with a well timed Rock and started the second game of Splendor.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Playing for a second time did not change the amount of thought that went into each turn; it always felt like a conundrum, one where several moves looked like good ones. Perhaps the Orient cards hadn’t been shuffled very well, but all the level one “Onion” Association cards came out first and the double gold cards seemed to be stuck at the bottom of the pile. Red claimed to not know what she was doing, but made efficient use of her “Onions” nonetheless. Purple continued her gold token strategy making sure she took whatever looked useful to Green while Green ironically, just couldn’t get any green emerald cards. In fact the emerald development card handicap became quite a problem, especially since the other two were holding on to their green tokens and while an “Onion” card might have helped, he still needed one emerald card to start with! Eventually, Green was forced to change his strategy and picked up a level two expansion card to reserve the noble he was after before someone else had the chance to pinch it—all the more critical since it was the only one he could get under the circumstances.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Red took the lead when she gained her first noble, but she said it wouldn’t last long, and she was right. Purple was next and was able to reserve a noble for herself, then Green claimed his reserved noble. The game continued to be quite tight and even though Green managed to claim a second noble, it wasn’t enough to end the game. That privilege fell to Red who finished with seventeen points. Purple was left with nothing she could do to increase her score, but that led to a debate as to what Green might be able to do. With twelve points, green needed five to draw level with Red and there was a five point card he could claim on the table. However, if Purple took that he would then only be able to claim a three point card, unless the card purple took was replaced with another five point development he could claim. Purple decided to play king-maker and took the card leaving an unhelpful replacement card leaving him two points behind Red, the winner.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor punkin312

Since Red, Green and Purple had gone onto a second game, Blue and Black decided to do likewise and have another pop at Burgundy. This time, Blue went on the offensive and decided that black opals were essential to her game plan and a couple of rounds in, suddenly realised that she had almost all the black tokens and there were no attainable opal development cards available. With the others in dire straights, Blue was able to completely strangle the game. The problem with this strategy is that holding all the tokens of one colour is a very powerful position to be in, but that power is useless unless those tokens are spent and then the power is gone. Additionally, the other players will inevitably build up their cards in other colours and eventually this will lead to accessible cards for the rare gem turning up. So, timing is critical and there is a lot of luck involved as well. Perhaps the key part is to ensure that the amount of effort put in to controlling the game doesn’t exceed the value obtained. Inevitably, Blue didn’t have the perfect timing required and eventually Burgundy broke free, finishing the game with a massive twenty points, leaving the others standing.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor dotkeller

The fact that both tables wanted to give their module another go says a lot about what we thought of them. Clearly, the changes to the rules were not enormous but added a nice little bit of variation to a game we’ve played and enjoyed a lot. Inevitably, we felt some of the Trading Posts some seemed much more powerful than others. For example, the second Post enabled a player to take an extra gem of a different colour when taking two gems of the same colour. The problem with this is that taking two tokens of the same colour is only possible if there are at least four tokens available in that colour. In the two and three player games this is relatively unusual until later on when players have a lot of cards and no-longer need tokens, by which time it is too late. In the four player game, we felt this would become much more valuable though. On the other table, the players still felt they had been unable to use the high value Orient cards, even after a second attempt. This led to a lot of discussion, in particular whether raising end-game trigger from fifteen to twenty, might encourage their use. Certainly it could be an interesting variant to try on another occasion, either way, Cities of Splendor is certainly going see the table again for lots of reasons: it has breathed new life into the old game, we have two the other two modules to try, and Burgundy went straight out and bought a copy as well!

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

While Burgundy was finishing beating Black and Blue black and blue, the other group were looking for something to play. Red had started the evening relating her failed attempts to acquire Kingdomino for less than a fiver. She had been keen to get hold of it even though she had not played it, so this seemed an opportune moment for Red to be properly introduced to the game. It’s such a simple game that the rules explanation was quickly done: Players take a domino which they add to their kingdom and then place their meeple on one of the dominoes on display for the next round. There are a couple of really clever bits to this game though. Firstly, since the dominos have a numerical value and are set out and taken, from low to high, players going for the more valuable tiles are trading this value against their position in the turn order. Secondly, the two ends of the dominos depict terrain and when placed one end must connect to terrain of the same type already in the kingdom (or connect directly to the start tile). Since all dominoes must fit in a five-by-five space (or be discarded) keeping options open is an essential part of the game.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

Finally, some tiles also depict one or more crowns, which are the key to scoring as each player multiplies the number of tiles in each contiguous region of terrain with the number of crowns on the tiles in that region. This means that no matter how big an area is, it is worthless without any crowns. Although it is a simple little game, it is easy to make a fatal mistake, and that’s exactly what happened this time. Somehow, Purple messed up her grid patterns, but worse was to come. She had been targetting mountains and pastures, while both Red and Green were looking to forests and lakes to fill their kingdoms. With only three playing a dozen dominoes were removed and it was not until the end of the game (face down). It was only at the end of the game that it became apparent why Red and Green had found it so much easier to fulfil their plans—the high scoring mines and lots of pasture (including three of the crown tiles) had been removed. The odds had been heavily stacked against Purple this time. With the others both getting a full set of bonus points, it was very close between first and second despite the fact that Green had played the game several times. In the end there was only two points in it, with Green the narrow victor.

– Image used with permission of boardgamephotos

On the other table, Cities of Splendor had finished and the group were looking for something to play. Inspired by the nearby game of Kingdomino, Black spotted Queendomino which he had not yet played. Blue commented that she was happy to play it and be proven wrong, but that she felt it took all the good things in a great little game and broke it. In her mind, the comparison was similar to that of Tsuro and Tsuro of the Seas. The former is a short, light game that plays lots of people and despite player elimination is still great fun with minimal downtime. On the other hand, playing Tsuro of the Seas at the Didcot Games Club had, on one notable occasion, ended up with Burgundy getting knocked out a couple of turns in and spending the next hour and a half as a spectator. In Blue’s eyes, Queendomino’s first offence was the fact that instead of the tidy little box that Kingdomino came in, it had a huge, Ticket to Ride sized box, mostly because there was a tile-tower included. This offended her sense of efficiency, but wouldn’t have been so bad, if it had worked properly. Although the magnetic closing mechanism was cool, Blue in particular had repeated difficulties getting the tiles out of the bottom, a problem that was exacerbated as the stack got smaller and the reduced mass pressed less on the tile being drawn out, making it increasingly difficult.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Toynan

As for the game, the basic mechanism is the same as Kingdomino, however, there is an extra tile type: red building plots. These act exactly the same as the other terrain types, except that there are a number of building tiles on display that payers can buy and add to their kingdom. This building display is only refilled at the end of the round which can make being late in the turn order more of a problem. This can be compounded if someone chooses to bribe the dragon to burn down one of the buildings. Amongst other things, these buildings provide knights and turrets that players can use to collect taxes and score more points. While this has the potential to make the game deeper, the downside is that it can make the already slightly mathsy scoring even worse. Despite all this and Blue’s really rather appalling rules explanation, everyone was surprisingly keen to give it a go. Burgundy inevitably, tried to profit from the new components and eagerly started collecting wooden turrets. Blue and Black were a little more circumspect, though both of them picked up a few knights and used them to good effect to collect enough in taxes to ensure they were able to build a couple of nice buildings.

– Image used with permission of BGG contributor Toynan

In the end, it surprisingly close, and after several re-counts, Black was deemed the winner, six points ahead of Burgundy in second place. Looking at the scores, it turned out that both Black and Blue had made most of their points on the original terrain, and it was arguable how much the new buildings had really helped. Burgundy’s entire game plan had revolved around the new buildings, but somehow, although it looked like he was running away with it, the game hadn’t quite panned out like that. Blue asked what the others thought of it and Burgundy commented that he’d be happy to give it another go, but that was in complete contrast to Black, who’s one word answer, summed up Blue’s feelings, “Terrible”. At some point point during the game, Red had asked whether Blue would feel better about the game if it didn’t have the tower, to which Blue replied that it wasn’t the tower per se, it was more that the tower was a metaphor for all all the stuff they had added to the original Kingdomino game: it was nice to look at, but fiddly, totally un-necessary and overall made the whole experience much less enjoyable. With that, she had removed the tiles from the tower and immediately felt better about the whole thing, but not enough to save the game from being sold at the earliest opportunity. So, Burgundy might not get his second chance to play it after all.

– Image used with permission of
boardgamephotos

Meanwhile on the next table, everyone was feeling a little tired, but as the hugely complex game of Queendomino, was still going on, Red and Green decided not to leave Purple relegated to observer, and chose to play one more short game. The game in question was Battle Kittens, primarily because it’s got kittens in it, but also because it’s quite quick. This was a game Blue picked up on a trip to Reading with Green, and, as he had enjoyed it more than she had, he’d received it as a little gift at the GOATS New Year Party. At it’s core, it is a card drafting game where players draft their hand of kitten cards and then send them off to battle. Each of the three arenas will contest three of the four kittenny attributes: agility, strength, wisdom and cuteness. Players decide which kittens they want to put into each arena and then resolve any special cards with the highest total running out the winner. At various times, both Purple and Red had a victory cruelly snatched away from them to the benefit of Green. The first time this happened was to Red who had a high score with three kittens and had it ended there she would have won that battle. Unfortunately, she was forced to take a King card first, and lost all her other kittens and ended up losing the battle. Similarly, in the second round, Purple managed to get some really good Crown cards and won a couple of battles quite convincingly, but they either gave more fish for coming second or gave an equal number for first and second place and thus did nothing to dent Green’s growing pile of fish as his kittens gambolled their way to victory.

– Image by boardGOATS

Learning Outcome: Some expansions really add to the game, others can take a great game and make it “terrible”.

UK Games Expo 2017

Last weekend, 2^nd-4^th June, gamers once converged on Birmingham for three days of fun and games for UK Games Expo. Whereas Essen, is primarily a trade fair so is all about the business surrounding games with lots of buying and selling, Expo focusses on gamers playing games and includes Euro Games as well as lost of role playing games, miniatures games, and war games. In addition to tournaments there is lots of “open gaming” space and demonstration events for new designs. There are lots of activities specially designed for kids in the “Family Zone” as well as a trade fair with all the latest games for their parents and seminars presented by industry experts, panels and celebrity guests.

– Image by boardGOATS

This is the eleventh year of Expo and the event gets ever larger. Like last year, there were activities in both the NEC and the NEC Hilton Metropole, though this year it spread into Hall Three at the NEC as well as taking over the whole of Hall One with the food fair outside. The focus of Expo is on playing games rather than marketing, so there are generally fewer new releases available than at some of the other conventions. The trade fair is growing though and as a result there were more new games available this year than previously, including The Cousins’ War (a two player game from Surprised Stare Games); Santo Domingo (a new light card game in the style of Port Royal) and Capitals, the new expansion to one of our favourite games, Between Two Cities. There were also demonstrations and play-testing of of some exciting pre-release games including the new Splendor Expansion and the upcoming stand-alone Snowdonia variant, “A Nice Cup of Tea”.

– Image by boardGOATS

A number of GOATS went to play and make purchases with some taking time off work to go on the slightly quieter Friday, while others braved the hoards over the weekend. A fun time was had by all and it will no-doubt be a topic of conversation next week. when we will surely play some of the new acquisitions.

– Image by boardGOATS