Wednesday, February 20, 2008

New games!

I usually don't buy games, but I decided to get 2 games at the convention last weekend. One of them I ended up getting for about 30% off if you count the Dealer Dollars I won (I should work on winning more of those next time!). the other I got for about %15 off, but with no tax - not as good a deal, but I decided I wanted the game. Here's what I got:

In the Year of the Dragon
I've never played or even seen this game in action, and I really don't know anything about it except that it's by the guy that designed Notre Dame. I've heard some good things about it though.

Kingsburg
I played Kingsburg once at BGG.con last November, and I remember thinking that I was not as enamored as I thought I'd be. I like the idea of splitting up your dice and placing them on several spaces vs adding them all up and placing them on 1 space. I remember thinking though that the rewards were largely the same whichever way you did it. I figured that in general you'd get fewer but better rewards if you clump your dice, and more but weaker rewards if you split them up. Instead you usually get about the same number of resources, maybe +/- 1 if you split them up. It didn't seem to make a difference in the game I played. However while watching some people play this weekend and thinking about it a little, there are things you can collect that allow you to add 2 to the dice you are placing, which you can use once per placement - that would make each placement better when splitting up dice, giving the effect I was probably looking for. So I'm looking forward to trying the game again.

I guess I know what I'm bringing to game night tomorrow night!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm really curious about Kingsburg.

I like ItYotD a lot! I just posted a solitaire variant on the Geek last night.

Like Notre Dame, it doesn't have a huge amount of player interaction, but I tend to like that in a game.

There's debate about whether the ability to get a double-privilege in the first turn is overpowered. I'm curious to know your thoughts.

Seth Jaffee said...

I think there's a TON of interaction in ItYotD! There's very little money income, and having to choose the same action as someone else might either be impossible, or leave you broke.

I've only played 1 game so far, but in that game, the first turn double dragon player did not win. I think going broke in that game is too much of a drawback. I might consider a single dragon turn 1, as that leaves you enough money to double up 1 time, twice if you ever take money.

I have a suspicion that you can do OK not buying dragons, not taking money, and saving your starting cash for doubling up on an action.

I can see a couple different strategies sort of unfolding in my head, and I look forward to playing some more to explore them.

Anonymous said...

I don't know if there's a ton of interaction! There is some, but I've seen Ameri-style players get frustrated at not being able to rein in a runaway leader by attacking him.

I agree with you about the riskiness of the first-turn double dragon. The first-turn single dragon is helpful too, but a first-turn build to a new palace does the same thing VP-wise, with the added bonus of being able to hold more People. It all depends on where the Droughts are.

It's a finely-tuned game, and one I get a big kick out of.