I say often when initially reviewing a game that I haven’t
played it enough to make a firm review yet.
So here’s the first revisit post.
Mike actually reviewed this, and I posted that I hated it in
the comments and elsewhere. I am now
backing off of that for a couple of reasons.
·
I have improved at this game. Totally self centered and self serving, but
something clicked and while I still don’t think I will win often, I am no
longer completely over matched.
·
Nerdy Friday went/is going through a stretch of
playing mostly 3 player games. There
quite frankly are not many games that play well with 3. Samurai plays 3 quite well. And while it will never be my first choice,
if it comes down to playing Lost Cities or Galaxy Trucker for the 3rd time in a row, or breaking
out the under played Samurai, I say Samurai.
Tip: This game
requires an ambush mind set. If you just
close your own cities the best return you can hope for is 2 tiles for 1 goodie. I don’t know what the winning goodie
ratio is, but it is certainly lower than 2-1.
You must get help from other people to lay tiles onto cities you capture, and
the best way to do that is plan/improvise ambushes.
I still like this game, but it might be played out. We haven’t played it in months and I haven’t
really missed it. While not as set piece
as chess, there are axioms to follow that makes early turns into a predictable choreograph. This is made worse with fewer players at the
table. I really feel this game needs 5
to function well, and if we get 5 at NF, we are probably playing something we
don’t get the chance too as often as 7 Wonders.
Tips: The set piece
choreography is resources early in round 1, especially if they match your
recipes for Wonder builds. Military late
in every round so your neighbors have less chance to match you.
My main problem with this game is how to win. A colonizing strategy wins entirely too much,
military/exploration wins entirely too little (and by little I mean you can’t
focus on these at all, they are only useful as support for colonizing), and
mercantilism depends so much on what you can buy. Also the ‘Incan gold’ buy is broken broken
broken. So the game devolves down to who
can maximize the priest landings and whether the mercantile player gets good 3rd
round draws. Game takes way too long for
two paths to victory.
I actually really like this game which is amazing since if I
play with Mike I will not win. It might
be played out for a while though. The
game can be incredibly frustrating, and while I laugh at myself for screwing
this up I can see where this makes it not much fun. This might be an instance where the game is
only good when similar skill levels play.
I mean if most everyone sucks at building the ship, hilarity
ensues. If most everyone builds a good
ship, it’s competitive and fun. If the
table is split between the two, it’s not much fun at all.
