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Todays Blatherings
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In what is clearly a unique experience for me, I’ve actually played several of the Spiel des Jahres nominees BEFORE the award is announced. While I love playing new games and tend to be on the cutting edge of my local game group, I do not import games nor do I attend boardgame gatherings where I would have access to prototypes. However, with two of the five titles developed here in the US, I’ve managed to get ahold of them before the nominees were announced! As the winner will be announced in a matter of days, I thought I’d share my unsolicited opinion on the three that I have played: Finca, Pandemic, and Dominion.
Finca
Disclosure: I received a free copy of this game from Rio Grande Games to review.
This title is the game I’ve played the least of the three, but I do find it an interesting experience. Players move pawns around a rondel (circle) to gather fruit or choose to deliver fruit to one or more spaces on the game board to collect tokens worth points. Extra points are awarded for collecting sets of fruit (one through six) or for having the majority of a fruit delivered when a game board space is devoid of tokens. When enough spaces are cleared the game ends. While not a complicated game, there are still some strategic and tactical decisions to be made. Should I go for collecting sets or try to get majorities in specific fruits? Should I horde fruit looking to seize prime opportunities or should I deliver as quickly as possible to the tokens I want? In a nice touch, if everyone hordes resources there is a good chance that the resources will get dumped back into the bank. I think the game would be just a bit dry for me if it weren’t for the four rules exceptions given to each player to use once during the game. Just when and where to perform an extraordinary action can really leverage one’s position. The game is colorful and has great bits to help attract the game-adverse. I prefer a bit more strategic interaction to my games when I can, but I think it does a great job of being a unique candidate in the family-friendly category. It could be a fine introduction for new gamers to a rondel mechanism as well as set collecting and area majorities for victory points. It plays fairly fast even with four players, making it a good warm-up game for a longer gaming evening.
Pandemic
Disclosure: I traded for this game via a BGG trade, but have sometimes received discounted games from Z-Man games in past years. I have also met Zev personally at GenCon.
I was very happy to see Pandemic get a nomination this year. I’m a big fan of cooperative games as they fill a needed niche within the hobby. Some folks just don’t take to the forced competitiveness of a standard boardgame and it is nice to have options where everyone can win or lose together. Pandemic stands out for me in this category as it is easy to explain and plays in a moderate amount of time. Most importantly, rather than having a rigid story or path for the players to follow on a set board (as in Lord of the Rings, Arkham Horror, or perhaps even Shadows over Camelot), Pandemic’s board ebbs and flows according to the order of the cards making some games a race against outbreaks while others are more of a struggle to collect the right cards for a cure. Rather than rely on cards or events to drive changes to the board, all the rules and effects are known at the start of the game. This means beginners have a better chance at making reasonable decisions and lessens the likelihood of other players running the game for the new players. Pandemic has also earned my respect as it functions very well as a two-player cooperative game. It has served me well for game evenings with my wife, and I know it is popular with other couples. It may be just a cult of the new showing through, but I feel it has better long-term replay ability than other cooperative games I’ve tried.
Dominion
Disclosure: I bought this game with my own money, but I did play the game when Dale Yu (one of the developers) was in the same room sitting a few tables away. I also once played the game In the Year of the Dragon with Dale’s brother.
Of all the games I’ve played this year, Dominion is still my favorite. I don’t’ often get to play games over and over again, but I have played more Dominion in the past 9 months or so than any other game. It helps that it was a favorite at the high school game club as well as the local club. Dominion hits a sweet spot for me as it seems to me to pack nearly everything I want out of a game into as short a time frame as possible. I love building up an economic engine (also why I like gardening) which is then turned into points. I also like having multiple choices for a path to victory. Sometimes a set of 10 cards will have only one or two recommended victory paths, but there are usually a few different options. The many different combinations of available cards helps to keep the game fresh after many different plays. I’ve even made the game one of my most portable ones by placing the entire deck into a box for trading card games, complete with dividers I made to keep them separate. (I plan to upload the dividers I designed to BGG someday, they have the rules info for each card right on the dividers so I don’t have to cart the rulebook around either…) There are some drawbacks to the game, primarily the constant shuffling which can grate on the nerves of those who find it too fiddly. (I don’t mind.) It can also be a bit much for a non-gamer to jump into for their first taste of eurogames. Thus, I don’t spring it on anyone who hasn’t already played a few of these games of ours. Finally, Fate can be a harsh mistress in the game with the luck of the draw giving a player a significant boost or hindrance in the early game, stalling out the game for that player while others forge ahead. This doesn’t happen too often, but often enough to be a little frustrating. I love going through a game in my head after finishing to think about what might have gone wrong, but I will occasionally have games of Dominion where I lose fairly seriously and have very few of my own poor decisions to blame. Despite these minor drawbacks, I really enjoy the game and still bring it out to play as often as I can. I look forward to the upcoming sequel with anticipation, although I was a bit disappointed with the recent BGG 2-card expansion. The one was somewhat interesting for variety, but the Black Market card was fun but also slowed down the game immensely as players had to pause to peruse which of the three cards they were interested in purchasing.
So, which game do I think will win? I don’t have enough information to guess. If I were going by my personal favorite, I think Dominion is unique enough and definitely fun enough for the win, however it is a bit more of a stretch to play for those who aren’t already into the gaming hobby. Finca is a solid title and is a good family game, but is a bit abstract and dry for me. Pandemic is great all the way around, but I fear some might accuse it of having less replay value and the cooperative nature may put some folks (judges?) off. If I’m forced to guess what’s in a German judge’s mind, I’d go with Finca as it is most like games that have won previously. If they’re not afraid of a little innovation, I’d love to see Pandemic or Dominon take home a win. Best of luck to all the publishers, designers, (and developers!) for the final announcement next week! Feel free to chime in with your own opinions below (if you haven’t already burnt yourself out on the discussion.)
In other, videogame news, I’ve been playing a bit of Hey, That’s My Fish on the Wii console as a download game and a lot of Magic: the Gathering as an Xbox 360 download. Both are fairly well implemented, with Hey, That’s My Fish having very cute graphics and Magic having a decent computer AI. I haven’t played either enough for a good review yet, however I have enjoyed my Magic games despite most games vs the computer coming down to who draws better cards and the game’s too harsh of restriction on deck modification. I hope to let everyone know my thoughts on them in a future post.
Vinícola - What’s your game
Todays Blatherings
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Morreu Michael Jackson
Kris Hall: The 2nd Michael Tan Interview
Last week I interviewed Dan Holte about his upcoming grand strategic World War II in Europe game. This week I interview for the second time Michael Tan whose game Sturm Europa! is also an upcoming grand strategic WWII in Europe game.
Kris: Sturm Europa! is now going to be published by Academy Games. Congratulations! How did that happy event come about? When is SE likely to be published? When is it likely to be available for pre-order? Does Academy Games even do pre-orders?
Michael: I was contacted directly by Uwe Eickert at Academy Games who saw my design on boardgamegeek.com. A TON of interest was generated by previewing game components such as event cards and block labels. I was very fortunate to receive offers from three major publishers. I felt each would have done a fine job publishing my design but the clincher was Academy’s commitment to a large print run with no P500 contingency and the assurance that Sturm would have the same first rate production value as Conflict of Heroes.
SE is likely to be published by the end of this year. The original target was in time for Essen, but Uwe and I both agree it is better to wait until I am thoroughly satisfied with the design than to rush something off to the printers.
Academy Games does pre-orders but the timetable has not been set. One thing that has been discussed is a limited edition bonus item to ship with pre-orders like custom dice or optional cards.
Kris: What aspects of the game have evolved since last we talked? From what I read on Comsimworld it seems that maybe the production and tech tree mechanisms of the game have changed or improved.
Michael: I’m excited about both the production and technology rules because I believe they offer a fresh and unique approach for the WWII genre. The production system is reminiscent of a “euro” as players collect colored cubes representing cadre, capital, manpower, steel, and oil and spend them to produce units. It’s a distinct departure from the traditional Third Reich / Axis & Allies style system that emphasizes the accumulation of huge production point totals through territorial expansion – to me that’s just not a very realistic model. It was often the case that vast territorial expansion created more of a strain than a boon for the Nazi war economy. The real life shortages in manpower for the Brits, oil for the Germans, and cadre for the Soviets, present unique challenges for players to overcome that can’t be simulated with generic production points.
Technology played a very important role in World War II, and it will also in SE. Tech cards are played face down with development often taking years. There is a great deal of suspense because opposing players don’t get to see what you are researching and you don’t even know if it will work until it hits the battlefield. With sufficient investment every new technology will be successful, but the temptation to rush new designs into production may result in delays, teething problems, or even total disaster. Events cards can also force your opponent to reveal his tech research, allowing you to copy his designs or even strategically bomb his research. The latter can be critical in games where a two-way race for the a-bomb develops.
Also of particular note is that the Battle of the Atlantic really hinges on the technology race. The Axis have a decided advantage early on but the convergence of ASW efforts, ULTRA code breaking, RADAR, and the long range B-24 Liberator usually lead to the demise of the U-boat fleets unless Germany offsets Allied technologies with their own developments like Triton Enigma code changes, Schnorkel technology, and the Type XXI u-boat.
Kris: How has the card play aspect of the game changed? What numbers of cards are you dealing with now? Does each player have his own deck? Are the decks divided into early war, middle war, and late war sections?
Michael: Players used to draw from 3 separate decks representing military, political, and tech events but that has been eliminated. Each side now draws from their own dedicated deck of 55 cards but the military, political, and tech cards are all mixed in. With 3 sides, there are 165 cards in total. Each deck is divided into 30 early, 15 mid, and 10 late war cards. After experimenting with many alternative systems, I eventually settled on the CDG ops or event mechanic which is really an excellent system.
Kris: The Sturm Europa! page on the Academy Games site says the game board will likely be made of two mounted 22” x 33” mounted maps. As a fan of large maps I approve. Academy Games was often commended for the physical production of Conflict of Heroes, and I assume that Sturm Europa! will have the same quality physical production. But I also assume the quality comes at a price. Is it too early to know roughly what the game will cost?
Michael: As I mentioned previously, the production quality of CoH was one of the critical factors in my decision to have Academy publish my design. It will absolutely have that level of physical production if not better. Price has not been set but it should be right in line with Awakening the Bear or Storms of Steel.
Kris: One of the things that makes the card system of SE sound attractive is the ability of players to change of the course of political, economic, or technological history through the use of cards. Can you list some of the alternative events players can create in the game?
Michael: I’ve made every effort to design SE to be as open ended and unscripted as possible. It’s conceivable that the Germans and Soviets never go to war. Given the right circumstances, a successful Sea Lion invasion is possible. Spain can join the Axis and although unlikely, even Turkey might. It is feasible for Germany to develop the a-bomb if the Allies ignore Axis research. The Soviets can build a sizeable navy and develop advanced technologies if they are never invaded. There are many fringe strategies and outlier results that aren’t possible without the correct combination of cards but one of my design intents is to keep players “honest” by allowing for their possibility. Just the mere threat discourages players from employing extreme strategies like emptying the West and overloading on the Eastern Front or ignoring tech or politics altogether. For example, in a recent play test the Allied player redeployed the British forces normally stationed in the Middle East to North Africa to shift the balance against the Afrika Korps in his favor. When the Axis player played the Muslim Uprising event, there were no British forces to suppress the Golden Square coup in Iraq. By the subsequent season Axis influence spread to unoccupied Egypt as well and all the British forces in the North Africa were cut out of supply. One unit left in the Middle East would have prevented all the mayhem.
Many event cards were very specific in nature when I first conceived of them and were inspired by a particular historical event that I wanted to pay homage to. Over time, most of those cards have become much more generic in nature. For instance, there used to be a Gran Sasso Raid and Operation Panzerfaust event to allow Germany to retain control of Italy and Hungary after Allied and Soviet coups respectively. Now those events have been combined into a single replayable Otto Skorzeny card that allows the Axis player to retain control of ANY ally nation if played after a coup. That way if Turkey or Sweden join the Axis, even those nations can be protected against Allied coups.
Kris: Thanks for the interview. Sturm Europa! may be available this Fall.
Todays Blatherings
Does Winning a Game Make You Like It?
Designer Postview: Dominion: Intrigue
By Donald X. Vaccarino
June 25, 2009
Designer: Donald X. Vaccarino
Publisher: Rio Grande Games / Hans im Glück / Filosofia Games / others
Players: 2-4
Ages: 8+
Playing Time: 30 minutes
Release Date: June/July 2009
Price: $45
Links: 
When W. Eric Martin asked me to write a Dominion: Intrigue preview, it seemed like a daunting task, since I’d already written a “Secret History of the Intrigue Cards” thing for posting at BoardGameGeek around the time the set came out. I didn’t want to just repeat myself, so what did that leave? Then someone spoiled all of the Intrigue cards. A preview became impossible; at best I could write a view. Then I waited and waited, and now the set is out some places and the only option left is a postview.
And I’ve written one! I’m just assuming that as I type these words, but you in the future reading this know it to be true because why would W. Eric Martin just post these two paragraphs? No, there must be a postview coming.
You might as well go look at the spoiler. I’ve got the links handy and everything. The first three – page one, two and three – show eight cards each with the 25th card by itself in French in the last one. Someone has handily translated it back into English; just scroll down.
So there are the cards, and now I will say some stuff about them that isn’t just stuff about how they changed over the years since that’s covered in that other article, which I would link to only I haven’t posted it yet. I see this postview as falling into say four sections. I can talk about What You Get in the expansion: an overview of the set, for people who haven’t run any statistics on those images yet. Then there’s Anatomy of an Expansion, explaining the way in which different kinds of cards contribute to making a Dominion expansion work. And then, naturally, The Throne Room Variations. But wait, first:
Do You Even Know What Dominion Is?
You probably do, to be reading this, but I might as well make sure. Dominion is, uh, this game I made. You build a deck while playing it. It being the deck. Dominion‘s been previewed already on this site, so let’s just have that link.
Dominion: Intrigue is just like that only with different cards. If you haven’t played Dominion before, I recommend starting with the main set. It’s simpler and not in a bad way. If you’ve played Dominion with friends but don’t own it, you can start with Intrigue because hey, you can play it by itself, and when you get together with those friends you can mix the two sets. Or you can still start with the main set. I don’t mind. If you already own the main set, then at this point I recommend getting Intrigue. Two copies of the main set, that’s just silly.
What You Get
Physically, Dominion: Intrigue is the same as Dominion except that the 25 kingdom cards have been replaced with 25 new ones (at 10-12 copies each, as with the main set). Intrigue includes Copper, Estate, Curse, etc., just as Dominion does. This means it stands alone; you can play Dominion with just Intrigue, or you can combine the main set and Intrigue. Of course the rulebook is also different since it needs to explain the new cards instead of the old ones. Also the placeholder cards for Copper, etc. are gone because people didn’t tend to use them, and you can use blanks there anyway. There are still placeholder cards for the kingdom cards, although now we refer to them as randomizers since that’s what they are really.
Because Intrigue comes with Copper, etc., you have enough components for playing with five or six players, and we provide rules for doing so. Alternatively, if you have both the main set and Intrigue, you can split into two groups of up to four each and still have everything you need to play with both sets in both games. You won’t be able to have the same kingdom card in both games at once, but that will be fine.
Anyway: 25 new cards. What that means is variety. The number of card interactions shoots up; it should take way longer to feel like you’ve seen everything than with just the main set.
The main set doesn’t really have a functional theme. It had the game itself to offer up; it didn’t need to go further. The closest thing the main set has to a functional theme is “simplicity.” For example the main set has six cards that just have some +s on them – no additional text. Intrigue has only two. With Intrigue we are assuming you’ve played already and are ready for some more complex cards. Not that they get too complex. They are a good amount of complex. Man, these articles are tricky.
Intrigue has two main functional themes: 1) victory cards that do something, and 2) decision-making.
In the main set, victory cards are useless until it’s time to score. That is still mostly true with Intrigue; you still have those starting Estates and those eventual Provinces. However Intrigue adds three new victory cards that actually do something useful. Great Hall just replaces itself, but that means it effectively doesn’t take up space in your deck. Harem doubles as a Silver. And then Nobles is a card-drawing engine by itself.
The main set was purposely low on decision-making on cards in order to keep the game faster for new players. There’s plenty of decision-making just in picking what to buy. The main set does have decision-making cards, but you know, not a ton of them. Intrigue has a ton of them. More than half of the cards in the set involve a decision. Sometimes you make the decision, and sometimes your opponents do. Decisions all around! You might be thinking, uh-oh, that means it will play slowly. It doesn’t play slowly. Okay, there’s one slow card, Pawn, but that’s it. The main set plays really fast with experienced players; there’s room to slow it down a little with Intrigue and still be shuffling when your turn comes around.
The victory-cards-that-do-something theme is supported by a pair of cards that care what types a card is (Ironworks and Tribute), and another card that specifically looks for victory cards (Scout). And it’s joined by two cards that get more use out of the base victory cards: Baron likes Estates and Duke likes Duchies.
Another thing of note is the ways to trash opposing things. The main set provided just one way to trash cards from an opponent’s deck: Thief. Intrigue contains three cards in that vein, and they don’t stop at Treasures. Saboteur can trash anything costing three coins or more; Swindler can replace anything with something else with the same cost (not too effective on Provinces, but pretty good vs. Coppers); Masquerade makes players pass a card left, which early on just makes Estates dance around, but later on can be painful.
The cards have a variety of costs to ensure that dealing out ten at random probably gives you a good mix. Of particular note here is that the set has two cards that cost six coins, further reducing the number of situations in which you might automatically reach for Gold with six.
Flavor-wise the expansion is, well, intrigue themed. This came about due to the functional themes, including one that isn’t in the set. Originally, the set also had a one-shot theme. Cards that do something just once and are then trashed, like Feast. It turns out this isn’t a good theme. One-shots are a sometimes food. Some people just don’t like the idea; if you build a Feast deck, in the end it has no Feasts and that bugs them. Other people don’t like penalties, and only getting to use a card once sounds like a penalty. Anyway it didn’t work as a theme and it’s gone. There is only one one-shot left in the set, Mining Village, and even that one’s optional.
But once, there were many one-shots, and what is a one-shot flavor-wise? It’s an event; a one-time occurrence. Like a Feast, which was originally in this set.
At the same time the set had a lot of “choose one” cards, and those often got named after underlings. People who might scurry about doing different tasks for you. Put underlings and events together and there it is: Intrigue. Then the events left, but well, what can you do. I stuck with the intrigue theme.
One final thing about “what you get.” What you get, really, is more Dominion. Intrigue doesn’t try to veer things off in an unusual direction. It doesn’t try to change the game. It’s true to the main set, with new mechanics that any expansion might dabble in rather than exotic things. I felt this was important for the first expansion. Suppose instead that the first expansion took the game off in a radical new direction. Well for a while all there is is the main set and the first expansion. So half the cards would be the radical new thing. It seems much better to me to have a solid base of game before veering off. So that’s what we’ve done!
Anatomy of an Expansion
From the start, I knew the expansions had to work by themselves. (I mean once you add Coppers and Estates and so forth; they don’t all need to include those.) There are two reasons for this. First, I knew that many people would want to play sets by themselves when they first bought them. Let’s see nothing but new cards! Second, if you have multiple expansions, you aren’t necessarily playing all of them; and whatever combination you have, that combination has to work. If a set needs two or three ways to get +2 Actions to work by itself, then every set needs that in order for the game to still work when you combine sets. Making expansions work by themselves is necessary for making expansions work when you mix all the ones you have together.
So what makes an expansion work by itself? The big thing is, when you deal out ten random kingdom cards, there should be a variety of strategies possible. The more basic to the game a particular type of strategy is, the more cards that have to support it.
One way to categorize strategies is, how do you deal with the one-action-per-turn rule? It looms large over how you build your deck. There are four main ways to address it, plus a way not to:
- Only play with two or three actions. Then you probably don’t draw them together too often. To do this you need “end” actions with big effects; those 2-3 actions have to count. Saboteur, Torturer, Trading Post, Tribute, and Nobles can fill this role, and to a lesser degree some cheaper cards: Baron, Bridge, Coppersmith.
- Play with “free” actions, actions that give you +1 Card and +1 Action. You can play as many of these as you draw. Intrigue has a lot of these. Wishing Well, Mining Village, and Upgrade are all straight free actions. Pawn and Great Hall are free but don’t do anything when they are. Scout and Minion are basically free. Shanty Town and Nobles are free in combinations. Conspirator and Tribute are sometimes free. Those of you that like to play a line of cards will get a lot of ways to do it.
- Play with ways to discard or trash actions usefully, things like Cellar and Remodel. If you draw an action you can’t play, there’s still something you can do with it. Intrigue provides Secret Chamber in the Cellar role and Upgrade in the Remodel role. Also Courtyard and Secret Chamber can hold an extra action for next turn.
- Play with cards that give you +2 Actions, like Village. These directly let you play more actions. Intrigue has Shanty Town, Mining Village, and one of the functions of Nobles.
- You can just live with drawing actions you can’t play. This usually isn’t the move, but certain strategies make this okay. I don’t specifically feel the need to support drawing too many actions and just living with it, but Ironworks can let you build that kind of deck.
- Estate: For people who want the cheapest of Victory cards, Intrigue offers up Baron explicitly and Bridge less so.
- Duchy: Duke provides a reason for Duchies to be your thing.
- Province: The most common strategy, needing no specific support.
- Curse: Torturer and Swindler provide new ways to dole out Curses.
- Special victory cards: The main set just has Gardens; Intrigue has Duke, Great Hall, Harem, and Nobles. Great Hall provides another way to go for fast victory points; Harem and Nobles are stepping stones to Provinces that give you victory points on the way.
- Add good cards. Gaining more than the usual one card per turn helps you drown out your weaker cards. Intrigue has three +1 Buy cards – Bridge, Baron, and one of the tricks Pawn does – plus Ironworks as a Workshop variant.
- Take out bad cards. Those initial Coppers and Estates aren’t so hot, and it’s usually great to get rid of them. Steward and Masquerade both let you trash cards.
- Improve your cards. Taking out a bad one and adding a good one at the same time. Trading Post and Upgrade do this.
- Draw more cards. You can make do with weaker cards if you draw lots of them. Minion can put you up as many as +4 Cards; Torturer and Nobles give you +3 Cards; Masquerade and Steward give +2 Cards; Courtyard effectively gives +2 Cards; Shanty Town sometimes gives +2 Cards; Wishing Well is sometimes a Laboratory; and Scout and Tribute, who knows.
- Muck with your draw. Skip past the weaker cards to the better ones. Scout can be one way to do this. Courtyard and Secret Chamber let you improve how your cards show up between this turn and next turn.
- Attack! Attacks slow down your opponents. Intrigue has Swindler, Minion, Saboteur, and Torturer, letting you trash opposing cards, put bad cards into opposing decks, and make the other players discard. Masquerade can also sometimes hurt.
- Defend! Avoiding being slowed down is almost like speeding up. There are lots of ways to defend from attacks, but Secret Chamber is a blatant one.
- End the game. At the end of the game, only victory cards matter. While your opponents are building up spiffy engines, you can scrounge up some points, then try to cut the game short. Baron and Coppersmith are examples of cards that let you quickly get some victory cards, while Ironworks, Bridge, and Upgrade are examples of ways to quickly empty stacks.
The Throne Room Variations
Finally, some Throne Room combos. I wanted to actually talk about some of the specific fun to be had with the cards. At the same time I didn’t really want to spoil anything. It’s fun to find the combos for yourself. I’ve compromised by only looking at combos with the card Throne Room. Throne Room gives you some of the most obvious combos, and in some cases some of the most confusing combos. So let’s just see what you can get.
Baron: With two Estates in hand, that’s $8 right there. Baron can offer you the chance to buy Provinces at earlier points in the game than you’re used to – as soon as turn three, off of a Baron / Silver start. Do you actually want a turn three Province? Well, sometimes…
Bridge: This is one of the ones you really want to Throne Room. One of my playtesters had a turn that went, Throne Throne, first Throning Bridge, then Throning Bridge… buy 5 Minions. Minion costs $5. Maybe it’s a better story if you know what all these cards do. Anyway Throne Room / Bridge, that’s one people really go for.
Conspirator: Throne gets you all the way there. You played Throne Room, that’s one action; you play Conspirator, that’s a 2nd action; Throne makes you play Conspirator a 2nd time, that’s your 3rd action, so you get your +1 Card, +1 Action from Conspirator.
Coppersmith: Coppers worth $3 each! Not shabby.
Great Hall: The beauty of this combo is just that it’s insurance. You don’t want to draw Throne and have nothing to Throne with it. Great Hall helps you reduce the risk of drawing a dead Throne.
Masquerade: The second time Masquerade goes off, everyone just passes the card they got passed the first time. It’s certainly fine to be drawing four cards and trashing two things and passing two things, but it doesn’t hurt the other players any extra the second time.
Mining Village: This is a confusing one. Mining Village says, you may trash Mining Village, “if you do...” If you Throne a Mining Village, and trash it the first time you play it, you won’t manage to trash it the second time. It’s trashed already. The “if you do” test fails; you did not. You can Throne it and trash it once, but you can’t get $4 from one Mining Village this way.
Minion: Probably you take +$2 for the first one, then get a new hand with the second one and take it from there. There are other options though. Minion is a combo with itself, so Throne / Minion is a fine path to be on.
Nobles: This is a strong one. Typically you take +3 Cards the first time, then pick Actions or Cards based on whether or not you have more actions to play.
Pawn: Throning Pawn lets you pick one of everything, and get Market the hard way. I don’t really recommend that. Throne the most expensive card you can, that’s my advice. Still, you work with what you’ve got.
Saboteur: Expensive attacks are usually some of the more exciting things to Throne Room. If you can get enough Saboteurs played, you can stop the other players from getting anywhere. Of course that doesn’t just happen easily because well, what fun would that be.
Torturer: No one wants to get Tortured twice, but when it happens at least you can gain a Curse the first time, then discard the Curse with something else the second time.
Tribute: This could get you anything from nothing (hitting four Curses) to +8 Cards +4 Coins +4 Actions (Nobles / Harem twice). You may get unlucky and hit duplicates, or hit actions when you can’t use them, but this turn is probably going to be pretty impressive.
Throne Room is certainly fine with Courtyard, Ironworks, Shanty Town, Steward, Swindler, Upgrade, and Wishing Well; it’s not so hot with Secret Chamber or Trading Post, and can’t be used at all on Duke or Harem. It’s sometimes good with Scout but often not. That’s everything!
So there you go: there’s a Dominion expansion out, it has 25 new kingdom cards, they support a variety of strategies, and hey, you can Throne Room most of them. I hope this has been informative!
Postcards From Berlin #37: The Naked Truth
By Jeff Allers
June 25, 2009
German Word of the Month: freier körper kultur (free body culture)
Despite the time of year, the weather in Berlin has remained as brisk and wet as it was in the long winter months. Sweaters and jackets are still in full rotation in my weekly wardrobe, and rare are the days for shorts or short sleeves, not to mention opportunities for shedding even more clothing. I can imagine, for some Germans at least, that must be very difficult.
Because, as many American teenage boys know, German beaches are places where even the skimpiest of swim suits are sometimes discarded in favor of bathing au naturale. It’s true that the naturist movement has been popular here for some time, but those of us who come from a more conservative background are still surprised to see the beach areas marked freier körper kultur, or FKK.
I find its popularity in this country quite ironic, considering the guardedness of most Germans and their high value on privacy, as they will often only offer their last name on a first meeting. And to tell you the truth, a stroll on one of those beaches will quickly dispatch any teenage fantasies, as you are confronted with the reality of who actually uses them. Just imagine a picnic with your extended family dressed “as God intended,” and you might get the picture – not exactly the Garden of Eden.
If you’re an outsider, however, trying to find the cultural consistencies and fit in with the cultural norms, it can throw you off-balance. My first summer in Berlin, for example, was much more balmy than this one, and I often made for one of the lakes on the weekend, exploring new parts of the city as I went. Most of the lakes offered grassy banks to sunbathers rather than beaches, so I threw down my beach towel in a nice open spot and quickly fell asleep in the sun. When I awoke, the bank had reached its capacity and the grass had disappeared beneath a sea of colorful towels as I was “fenced in” Domaine-like on all sides. But what made me sit up with a start was the man calmly reading a book right next to me, unaware that I did not appreciate him declaring the spot his own personal FKK area.
For the most part, however, one can avoid such situations if one wants to. There was only one time, in fact, that I intentionally ventured to one of those specially-marked beaches. A good friend of mine was a beach volleyball club player, and once invited me to play as his partner with some of his other buddies. We drove out to the beach, and when I saw the sign and gave him a look, he told me with a completely straight face, “There is really good sand here.” Thankfully, we kept all of our gear on as we played some pretty fierce 2-on-2 competition, but I glanced down the beach to another group of men who were also playing volleyball – wearing shirts and caps but naked below the waist. I couldn’t help but think just how silly that was, not to mention extremely uncomfortable. Sometimes, trying to break taboos and make statements is just a little ridiculous.
Of course, this is no surprise to anyone involved with the arts. There are artists in every medium who make a living trying much too hard to be controversial. There is a difference between art for the sake of shock, and art that thoughtfully reflects and critiques culture, but the former is easier to produce and, unfortunately, much more profitable these days.
The game hobby is, of course, much different, despite claims by some that board game design is an art form. Games with controversial themes remain on the fringes, perhaps attracting a bit of attention upon their release, but usually disappearing from the radar soon afterwards. Whether they be politically-charged or politically incorrect, most of these themes seem to be pasted onto uninspired mechanics for the shock value alone. Thankfully – at least in the hobby games market – that is not enough to ensure success.
And even if a talented designer were able to provide a novel game behind the veneer, I’m not sure games are the right medium to challenge cultural norms or break taboos. Speaking about a controversial subject – and thus, breaking a taboo – is much different than playing a game about that same subject. It is important to me, for example, to be able to discuss subjects such as sexual abuse and suicide bombings, and many art forms could successfully encourage discussion in these areas, but I do not feel that playing a themed board game is one of them. As it stands, the culture of the gaming table is just different from that of the cinema or the gallery – not only in the expectations of the players, but also in the level of participation (and sometimes role-playing) that is required.
Recently, for example, computer game designer Brenda Brathwaite created a board game called Train in which players compete to load pawns into black box cars. The game is supposed to have a surprise ending, in which the players suddenly learn that the train is headed for Auschwitz, although I cannot imagine that a person with any historical knowledge would not see this coming. Although Brathwaite’s idea is well-intentioned, it has not convinced me that it works successfully as a game. Not only would the determinism of the theme (i.e. lack of choices) be frustrating, but I could hardly imagine a player wanting to continue once their role as the Gestapo was clear and the pawns suddenly took on human faces.
That said, I do not believe that the game design medium is doomed to superficiality. I must admit that even I have a game design simmering that touches on a deeper – and possibly controversial – theme, as the pure challenge of it is motivation enough. But I think that such themes need to be integrated more subtly in order to be successful. Just as hobby gamers enjoy more choices in their gaming experience, they need to be given choices on how they might engage the theme, even allowing the option to ignore it altogether. The social experience of gaming face-to-face sometimes invites conversation about deeper issues, and game themes can be cues that initiate discussion, as long as too much is not revealed. Preachy games, however, have the opposite effect, as players feel forced to confront the theme.
Just as nakedness does not – by itself – promote intimacy, neither does a game that flaunts its controversial theme promote productive discussion and reflection…
…even if there is some really good “sand” there.
AEG Announces The Adventurers
Shannon Appelcline: An Ode to Games
One of my brothers, Jason, got married on Saturday. My wife and I selected a wedding present straight from our hearts, rather than from a registry: two German board games. Ticket to Ride and Carcassonne, to be precise. We thought that both Jason and his new wife would enjoy them, as they both enjoy games, though they more frequently play Monopoly than something from the German family.
But, it wasn’t just about fun. We gave them games for another reason: because of their particular ability to draw people together.
It’s usually lost on me that so many German games work best for four players because they’re often designed around the idea of couples getting together to play. That’s certainly not how they’re played here in the US, where more often than not German Games are the arena of we geeks, who come to the table singly to play them--but even given that, they still tend to accomplish the same goals here, in the United States. They give people an excuse to meet and talk, to laugh and smile, to socialize and be a part of a community.
I could have easily written this ode to roleplaying games, for I’ve had the longest experience with the communities that those games create. Today I still roleplay almost every Saturday with a group that I’ve been gaming with for twenty years. Dave P., Dave S., Dave W., Donald, and Kevin are all people that I’ve known since college days. There’s just no way we’d still be in contact if not for the fact that we have this weekly excuse to get together. And there are people who have joined us since, like Chris W. and Corina and Eric F. who are just as important to our gaming community. If some people have moved away (like Eric R. who’s now in New Zealand, Doug L. who was last seen headed toward the south, Bill who’s off in Massachusetts, Matt S. who’s in Texas, and so many others) or even passed away (my friend Chris V., who died much too young, last Christmas), they’re still near and dear to our hearts, because that community of gaming drew us so closely together for so long.
But even if my experience with a roleplaying community is the greatest, the community that I’ve discovered around Eurogames is no less impressive. There are 20 or 30 people that I regularly game with at Endgame, 6 or 7 of which I game with with some regularity. Another couple of people join me most weeks for my “review gaming nights.”
Overall, games connect me to a community of scores of people, and each of those people are connected to scores more. That’s one of the powers of our hobby.
And then there are all the games I’ve played with my wife: Ticket to Ride, Carcassonne, Memoir ‘44, Seasons, Mystery Rummy, Alhambra, Lost Cities, and many more. We’ve literally spent hundreds of hours playings various games hundreds of times. It gives us another activity to do together, another way to appreciate each others’ company.
That’s why we gave my brother and my new sister-in-law some games for their wedding. They may not have been in their registry, but as long as they enjoy them (and I think they will) those games will help them to be together better than any steak knives or flatware.
And that’s why I’ve written this ode to games today, because in many ways small and large, for married partners, for couples, and for ever-increasing webs of friends, games help bring people together. So, kudos to them and the designers who make that possible.
And finally, congrats to Jason and Lisa.
Around the CornerMy most recent board-game reviews have covered Looting London and Waterloo. If you’re a Martin Wallace fan, you should definitely read the latter one, to figure out if a war game is to your liking. Over in my journal, I’ve written about two other Alea games, Wyatt Earp and Royal Turf.
Finally, if you’re a roleplaying fan, you may be interested in the things that I’m writing about the Traveller RPG, including: a review of Space Viking, which represents a first look at Traveller-related fiction; a whole series of Spinward Marches reviews; and a Traveller Actual Play thread.
And with that, I’ll see you back here in 14.
