10-23-2007, 01:06 AM
Pevans Perspective - July ´03
Moon and Weissblum go from strength to strength
PEVANS overview of board and card games ...
THE GAME designing team of Alan R Moon and Aaron Weissblum is going from strength to strength. Since Alan's success as the man behind Union Pacific and Eflenland a few years ago, his collaboration with Aaron has seen several new games appear. This year they already have five games on the shelves: card games King Lui (King's Breakfast) and Stop It, big box boardgames New England and Eiszeit (The Mammoth Hunters) and the smaller box of Europa Tour. I've played three out of the five so far and here is my verdict on them.
From German publisher Schmidt comes Europa Tour, which is a relatively light game with a large luck element. The focus of the game is a small board depicting a map of Europe - though it will probably be out of date by the end of the year, given the way countries keep appearing. Also shown on the board are sea lanes connecting countries (thus England is connected to France, Germany, Ireland, Norway and so on). For each country on the board there is a corresponding card. Other cards in the deck show ships and aeroplanes. The ships are used to connect countries that have a sea lane between them. The planes come in the same colours as the countries on the board. Each colour of plane can connect any two countries of that colour. Each player has a rack with spaces for ten cards and the aim is to have a sequence that starts and ends with a country and is completely connected. That is, a country is followed by another country with which it has a land border. Or by a ship that is followed by a country with which it has a connecting sea route. Or followed by an aeroplane in its colour and then another country of the same colour.
You start with ten cards drawn at random and placed in your rack one at a time - hence you may place England to draw Scotland later and have to place it at the other end of your rack. Some of the remaining cards are turned face up, the rest form a draw pile, face down. In turn, players draw a card - either face-up or from the draw pile - and use it to replace a card in their rack. The replaced card goes onto one of the face-up piles. First person to complete their sequence wins. As far as I can see, you need to optimise what's in your rack to give you the biggest chance of completing a sequence. Hence it's limiting to have England one card from the end of your rack. The only card with which it shares a land boundary - and thus can go in the end space - is Scotland. I can't say I was particularly taken with the game. 5/10 on my personal and very subjective rating scale.
King's Breakfast is Rio Grande's English language edition of King Lui (German for Louis, I assume). This game is published in German by Abacusspiele. This is a clever little card game. The bulk of the cards represent things the King likes to eat for breakfast (you know, trifle, mixed grill and so on), each of which is effectively a suit. A few of the cards show the King's pet dragon, who snaffles things from the breakfast table. Cards (the number depends on how many are playing) are dealt face-up on the table and arranged into sets by suit. In turn, each player adds a set to their hand. The cards left over are placed in front of the King (represented by the game box). If a dragon card is available, players can use this instead to remove cards from in front of the King. Pretty simple, eh? The hand ends when the deck runs out. Players score points by multiplying the number of cards they hold in each suit with the number in front of the King. Provided they don't have more cards in that suit than the King - a terrible faux pas and a score of zero for that suit. And suddenly the game isn't quite so simple! Total up your scores and the highest wins - though I think the game needs to be played over several hands. You can see how neat this is immediately. Ideally you want to have just as many cards in your hand as the King has. But every card you pick up is one less that could go in front of the King. And then other people will pick up the same suit. Or take them away with that pesky dragon. And each turn you usually have to pick up more cards. Not a deep game, but there's clearly skill involved - judging by the way those who'd played it before trounced the newbies! I give it 8/10 on first glance.
New England (published in Germany by Goldsieber) is a very different kettle of fish. The board represents a part of New England with sea on two sides and Plymouth Rock at the seaward corner. It is broken into a grid of squares on which the players will place tiles representing different uses of the land: for buildings, crops or livestock. There are also cards, all of which are worth victory points, if you have them played in front of you at the end. These are either for specific formations of land (such as a row of two livestock tiles) or for special pieces played on to tiles: Pilgrim Fathers, Barns and Ships. Each of these gives players something extra and there is a victory point bonus for whoever has the most of each type at the end.
Each turn players have nine tiles and cards to bid for, the first player deciding what the mix is. S/he also has the first chance to select a price from the coins numbered 1 to 10. The value represents both the order in which players buy things (highest first) and the price paid for them.
What a clever mechanism! If you really need to buy something you have to bid high enough to close everybody else out. But you may bankrupt yourself for future turns by doing so - though the standard income each turn allows you to recover slowly. In bid order, then, each player can buy one or two things. Tiles must be placed adjacent to the tiles of that type the player already has on the board (there is a little sub-game of placing your starting tiles in the most advantageous positions). A victory point card can only be claimed if you can immediately develop (that is, turn over) the appropriate formation of tiles. And a special piece can only be claimed if you have an unoccupied, undeveloped tile to place it on (ships must also go adjacent to the sea). A Barn gives you storage space: you can claim a card and store it until you can use it. A Pilgrim Father adds one to your income. And the player(s) with the most ships have the option of drawing an extra tile or card before making their purchases for the turn. The game continues until either tiles or cards run out. The player with the most victory points wins. Most points come from the cards representing formations of tiles on the board. But you need to have the tiles to claim the points. So there is a balance between building up tiles on the board, gaining special pieces, grabbing point-scoring cards and keeping cash for next turn.
From my experience so far I think the player who uses his resources most efficiently will win. Given that you can't predict what cards and tiles are going to come up when, this is easier said than done. A definite 9/10 for the time being - there's a lot to this game.
I haven't yet played the other two games. Eiszeit (Ice Age) comes from alea and is published in English as The Mammoth Hunters by Rio Grande. Given alea's track record with strategy games this should be good, but I've had mixed messages from those who've played it. Some like it, some don't. I look forward to trying it myself. Finally, Stop It is another card game, from Schmidt in Germany. This is in the mould of Speed, Ligretto and Racing Demon: a game that's played fast and furious. These games are not really my cup of tea as I don't think/react fast enough. But I shall give it a try when I get the opportunity and let you know what I think.
A large number of boardgames reviews and articles by Pevans can be found on his website at:
http://www.pevans.co.uk/Reviews/
Moon and Weissblum go from strength to strength
PEVANS overview of board and card games ...
THE GAME designing team of Alan R Moon and Aaron Weissblum is going from strength to strength. Since Alan's success as the man behind Union Pacific and Eflenland a few years ago, his collaboration with Aaron has seen several new games appear. This year they already have five games on the shelves: card games King Lui (King's Breakfast) and Stop It, big box boardgames New England and Eiszeit (The Mammoth Hunters) and the smaller box of Europa Tour. I've played three out of the five so far and here is my verdict on them.
From German publisher Schmidt comes Europa Tour, which is a relatively light game with a large luck element. The focus of the game is a small board depicting a map of Europe - though it will probably be out of date by the end of the year, given the way countries keep appearing. Also shown on the board are sea lanes connecting countries (thus England is connected to France, Germany, Ireland, Norway and so on). For each country on the board there is a corresponding card. Other cards in the deck show ships and aeroplanes. The ships are used to connect countries that have a sea lane between them. The planes come in the same colours as the countries on the board. Each colour of plane can connect any two countries of that colour. Each player has a rack with spaces for ten cards and the aim is to have a sequence that starts and ends with a country and is completely connected. That is, a country is followed by another country with which it has a land border. Or by a ship that is followed by a country with which it has a connecting sea route. Or followed by an aeroplane in its colour and then another country of the same colour.
You start with ten cards drawn at random and placed in your rack one at a time - hence you may place England to draw Scotland later and have to place it at the other end of your rack. Some of the remaining cards are turned face up, the rest form a draw pile, face down. In turn, players draw a card - either face-up or from the draw pile - and use it to replace a card in their rack. The replaced card goes onto one of the face-up piles. First person to complete their sequence wins. As far as I can see, you need to optimise what's in your rack to give you the biggest chance of completing a sequence. Hence it's limiting to have England one card from the end of your rack. The only card with which it shares a land boundary - and thus can go in the end space - is Scotland. I can't say I was particularly taken with the game. 5/10 on my personal and very subjective rating scale.
King's Breakfast is Rio Grande's English language edition of King Lui (German for Louis, I assume). This game is published in German by Abacusspiele. This is a clever little card game. The bulk of the cards represent things the King likes to eat for breakfast (you know, trifle, mixed grill and so on), each of which is effectively a suit. A few of the cards show the King's pet dragon, who snaffles things from the breakfast table. Cards (the number depends on how many are playing) are dealt face-up on the table and arranged into sets by suit. In turn, each player adds a set to their hand. The cards left over are placed in front of the King (represented by the game box). If a dragon card is available, players can use this instead to remove cards from in front of the King. Pretty simple, eh? The hand ends when the deck runs out. Players score points by multiplying the number of cards they hold in each suit with the number in front of the King. Provided they don't have more cards in that suit than the King - a terrible faux pas and a score of zero for that suit. And suddenly the game isn't quite so simple! Total up your scores and the highest wins - though I think the game needs to be played over several hands. You can see how neat this is immediately. Ideally you want to have just as many cards in your hand as the King has. But every card you pick up is one less that could go in front of the King. And then other people will pick up the same suit. Or take them away with that pesky dragon. And each turn you usually have to pick up more cards. Not a deep game, but there's clearly skill involved - judging by the way those who'd played it before trounced the newbies! I give it 8/10 on first glance.
New England (published in Germany by Goldsieber) is a very different kettle of fish. The board represents a part of New England with sea on two sides and Plymouth Rock at the seaward corner. It is broken into a grid of squares on which the players will place tiles representing different uses of the land: for buildings, crops or livestock. There are also cards, all of which are worth victory points, if you have them played in front of you at the end. These are either for specific formations of land (such as a row of two livestock tiles) or for special pieces played on to tiles: Pilgrim Fathers, Barns and Ships. Each of these gives players something extra and there is a victory point bonus for whoever has the most of each type at the end.
Each turn players have nine tiles and cards to bid for, the first player deciding what the mix is. S/he also has the first chance to select a price from the coins numbered 1 to 10. The value represents both the order in which players buy things (highest first) and the price paid for them.
What a clever mechanism! If you really need to buy something you have to bid high enough to close everybody else out. But you may bankrupt yourself for future turns by doing so - though the standard income each turn allows you to recover slowly. In bid order, then, each player can buy one or two things. Tiles must be placed adjacent to the tiles of that type the player already has on the board (there is a little sub-game of placing your starting tiles in the most advantageous positions). A victory point card can only be claimed if you can immediately develop (that is, turn over) the appropriate formation of tiles. And a special piece can only be claimed if you have an unoccupied, undeveloped tile to place it on (ships must also go adjacent to the sea). A Barn gives you storage space: you can claim a card and store it until you can use it. A Pilgrim Father adds one to your income. And the player(s) with the most ships have the option of drawing an extra tile or card before making their purchases for the turn. The game continues until either tiles or cards run out. The player with the most victory points wins. Most points come from the cards representing formations of tiles on the board. But you need to have the tiles to claim the points. So there is a balance between building up tiles on the board, gaining special pieces, grabbing point-scoring cards and keeping cash for next turn.
From my experience so far I think the player who uses his resources most efficiently will win. Given that you can't predict what cards and tiles are going to come up when, this is easier said than done. A definite 9/10 for the time being - there's a lot to this game.
I haven't yet played the other two games. Eiszeit (Ice Age) comes from alea and is published in English as The Mammoth Hunters by Rio Grande. Given alea's track record with strategy games this should be good, but I've had mixed messages from those who've played it. Some like it, some don't. I look forward to trying it myself. Finally, Stop It is another card game, from Schmidt in Germany. This is in the mould of Speed, Ligretto and Racing Demon: a game that's played fast and furious. These games are not really my cup of tea as I don't think/react fast enough. But I shall give it a try when I get the opportunity and let you know what I think.
A large number of boardgames reviews and articles by Pevans can be found on his website at:
http://www.pevans.co.uk/Reviews/
PEVANS
2004-12-06
2004-12-06