Glenn Drover's Empires: The Age of Discovery is themed around exploring the new world. You score three times during the game by colonizing and conquering the new world, as well as by building an economy from the trade goods found there.The brilliance (and fun!) lies in many clever mechanics working in harmony. The primary mechanic is a draft of game actions and resources. You start with five meeple each turn, and players place them on the board in turn order to do things like explore the new world, colonize the new world, collect goods, train specialty units for next turn, and select turn order for next turn. Once all the meeple are played, each action is resolved in order (top to bottom, see picture below) . Placement in the new world is done in the order that you place your meeple. Selection of trade goods is done similarly. Conquering of the new world however is done wholly differently: when that phase is executed, players decide in turn order if they would like to use the meeple they have played there to explore a territory in the new world. Declining means meeple placed there build up until subsequent turns. There is a trade good "wild card" that's earned auction style ("Merchant Ship"), whoever places the most meeple on that space wins it. You can see that turn order is important, but not critical. Interestingly, one of the actions you can choose in the draft is to go first in the next round. But if it's already been taken, don't fret, you can choose to go second!
Right hand side of board devoted to player draft choice, with after draft are resolved
top to bottom. Left hand side devote to player's units shipped to new world.
At 2-3 solid hours, this tests my limits for game length. But because in my experience it's best with five, I tolerate the length. And it has so much going for it, you never really feel out of it until the last round. Not good with three players.
There are really just three primary strategies, with some ability to alter your course midstream. Primary strategies revolve around straight colonization, Colonization mixed with military/conquering, and merchantile option. There are "capital buildings" (another draftable resource, but this one costs gold) that support each option and they come up randomly making each game different.
One limitation of this game is that early mistakes are difficult to over come. The most important thing to understand is you must pick a strategy on the first or second turn (of eight turns) and stick with it. However, I have found that with some coaching on the known strategies, new players can win their first game. I enjoy this game so much, that I wrote up a crib sheet of where players shuold focus their resources depending on which direction they are trying to go, as well as which capital buildings go with with each strategies. Maybe I will include something like that in the comments section.
It also seems that the Capital Building "Inca Gold" might be broken. This capital building is really straight forward, it costs you 10 gold and gives you 20. you spend that 20 the next round to buy two more capital buildings. It turns out that an extra capital building, ANY extra capital building is pretty darn good. So while this costs you three draft picks over two rounds (one very very early pick in the first round), it pays off big by game end. If this turns out to be a problem for you, it is most likely sufficient to just re-draw capital buildings before the game starts if Inca Gold is in the first set.
TIPS!
*See comments for details.
8.5/10 - super fun, but a little long. Issues with the game can be managed by good pre-game coaching for new players. Also don't play three player, and tweak Inca Gold capital building if it's producing lots of winners.
as with any game with a military option, Ryan will be the first to try it.
ReplyDeleteMy only gripe with this game is that if you do badly early in the game, as pointed out in the post, it is almost impossible to recover... and when you combine that with a 2-3 hour game you are likely to have 1 or 2 players in the game extremely bored and distracted... which makes for an even longer game.
ReplyDeleteI'll post my strategy info tonight!
ReplyDeleteFour ways to earn victory points:
ReplyDeleteOccupying the New World: A pool of a maximum 150 points
Exploring/Discovering the New World: A pool of 33-50 points (~33 with 3 players, ~50 with 5 players)
Capital Buildings: Perhaps a pool of ~100 points.
Economy: 10-20 points per player
Colonization - Winning combination: 60% Occupying, 10% exploration, 20% capital buildings, 10% economy
Conquering- Winning combination - 45% Occupying, 25% exploration, 20% capital buildings, 10% economy
Mercantilism- Winning combination - 10% Occupying, 5% exploration, 65% capital buildings, 20% economy
Three known strategies:
ReplyDeleteColonization: In three players, this may be the only way to win. In a three player game, the points for colonizing the new world are going to spread amongst only 3 players, and that becomes a tidy sum. If there are 9 regions in the new world, and three colonized by the first turn, six by the second turn, and nine by the third turn, that's 18x6+18x2=144 points. More if it's settled faster, less if there are disputes or no second place players. Anyway, if one player controls two regions the first turn, four the second scoring turn, and six the final scoring turn, that's 72 points. I think it's safe to say 72 points from colonies is a guaranteed win. Therefore, in a three player game, I tend to agree with Ryan that the monastery may be broken. we should keep an eye on that. or not play it three player :)
In a four player game, I believe colonization is still the winning strategy if only one player is doing it with the full gusto :) if the missionaries and monastery go to the same player unopposed, i think that player has a strong advantage.
Colonization will have problems with soldiers, but if you luck out and get militia in the end, it can nearly wipe that concern completely away for just 20 gold :)
Conquest/Colonization: aka, killing people in the name of progress. Discovery can get you a tidy amount of points, each exploration is worth between 4 and 7 points. so let's say you get 5.5 points per conquest. I think SIX conquests has got to be the maximum. So best case, this is about 33 points. That's not a lot if you need 85 points to win, so you have to leverage the other parts of discovery to make it worth. You get a doober in the area conquered, so if you can end up controlling some of those colonies after conquest, then perhaps you can match the massive 72 point threshold set by best case Colonization Strategy above. Furthermore, there is money in conquering (really there is Darren, I know you have solid experience that says otherwise). I don't believe that this income can be a substitute for an actual economy because this strategy is a little light on the victory points, so you probably need a viable economy to get your over the 85 point hump at the end. And finally, there's a good in that new colony, but too often, it's a good for someone else because the conquering player is rarely the controlling player. It costs five units to discover safely (less with captains). Compare that to a best case scenario of three colonists to score 6 points PER SCORING ROUND, so there is a balance here, and it's a difficult balance. Conquest alone is not viable.
ReplyDeleteThere are THREE capital buildings that give you a soldier each turn, one in Age I, and two in Age II. There is also a capital building in Age I that gives you a soldier in the discovery box.
It's tough to commit to, but sending soldiers to the new world as part of this strategy may be worth while. The thing is, once those soldiers are in place, they can only kill the people in that spot, they can never move (because no one in their right mind would ever take stables). And there are not many scenarios where someone would come to your colony if you have soldiers there. So figure that when you send a soldier somewhere, the only people he will ever kill are the people already in that spot. Therefore there are several possible moves: dump two soldiers into a spot contested by your opponents and kill them both (massacre strategy). Dump one soldier into a spot contested by you and an opponent (pew pew pew strategy). Dump one soldier into a spot that is not contested, thereby preventing it from ever being contested (line in the sand strategy). This part of the Conquest/Colonization strategy can fuck up the straight Colonization strategy real good.
Mercantilism: This is the hardest strategy in three and four players, it might be easier with more players as the victory points for controlling the new world are more spreadout. I think you definitely have to do this strategy on your own, if two people are attempting it, there doesn't seem to be much hope. maybe in a 5 or 6 player game things are different. Economies: I don't know what the biggest economy we've ever built by turn 8 is. Let's say it's 30 coins. That is a NICE sum if you can manage it! You're a third of the way to 85+ victory points. I know that by not even trying, you can easily generate 10 coins a turn by games end, so the effort involved in generating 20 coins or 30 coins by game end should be compared to the minimal effort you can make to generate 10. Furthermore, Mercantilism relies heavily on capital buildings. I think the benefit is that you have lots of extra guys and you can do lots of crazy stuff to fuck with the other players. For example, you can put a soldier the west indies on turn two and shoot people whenever you fancy it. You can go first every single turn. But anyway, it relies capital buildings, so I'll talk about capital buildings next.
ReplyDeleteCapital Buildings and Victory Points:
ReplyDeleteI'll go through each age and address the more interesting buildings that are worth victory points. My theory is that a capital building should be worth about 12 points to you.
Age I:
New World Cartography - this may be more valuable than we give it credit for. It would allow a player who picks it and has a missionary to get a good needed to complete a set and earn 6 points in each phase, +4 victory points for picking it (the building itself is worth 4 points). That's best case scenario of course, but 22 points?!! Wow!
Age II:
Indian Allies - You drop two soldiers into a contested area, and you're going to kill everyone, deny them points, and get 6 points for the next two rounds for limited investment. So it's 12 points, plus you deny 6+2 points to your opponents.
West Indies Co. - (Draw a trade good each turn) - so best case, you're going to draw 5 trade goods. This could be very helpful in creating a powerful economy which will score at the end of the game. And the "Mercantile" capital building gives +1 victory point per trade good, so that would make this worth 5 points in concert with that. *IF* your draws help you complete two sets, AND you buy Mercantilism later, this could be worth big points.
Age III: There are only 10 of these, so it's not as big a risk as I thought to rely on a certain combination of these coming out.
Militia - Already discussed, could save a player using the Colonization strategy 12 victory points easily under certain circumstances.
Mercantilism - +1 victory point for each trade good. Should keep in mind that while mercantilism is GREAT for the player using that strategy (20+ points?), it's not bad for every other player either (minimum of 10 points without trying). It's an easy candidate for a denial move.
Population - +1 point for every two colonists (and specialist) in the new world. Great for a player playing that strategy. Three guys on the boat per turn is 24 guys, that's 12 victory points minimum. It starts to suck when people are getting shot.
Navy - good for the merchant, easily 12 points, could be 20.
Power - 2 points per soldier. I have never seen more than 12 points for this.
Prosperity - 2 points per capital building - I've gotten 14 points with this one.
Glory - 2 points for any region with a colonist in it, there are 9 regions. I think 12 is about the realistic maximum for this.
Migration - move two colonists each turn - this seems really situational.
Wealth - 1 point per 5 dollars. So technically, this is the best capital tile available because it has the greatest potential. I think there is probably a mercantile strategy around just this tile. With +5 coins per turn tile, +10 coins per turn tile, +30 coins per turn tile, with privateers, with a strong economy (20-25 per turn for the last few turns), with merchants, i think you can earn 30 points from this tile. But 30 from this, and 30 from your economy is still only 60 points :) and we're in the best case world here. So you have to do more.
Factory - 5 victory point and +30 coins per turn. Without wealth, this is terrible. With wealth in the optimal combination, this is 17 victory points.
It's not a real game of Age of Empires III: The Age of Discovery II Electric Boogaloo unless you are making people place their meeplers in the war boxes just to prevent you from shooting them.
ReplyDelete