22nd November 2022

Tuesday is here again and that means we're with the Woking Gaming Club at The Sovereigns for a evening of gaming.

Space... is it the final frontier? I mean it's pretty large with enough room for separate civilisations to expand without impinging on each other's territory. Except in Cosmic Encounter, it's not! Players take on the roles of one of numerous alien civilisations with the purpose of invading other player's planets in this game of bidding and bluffing.

• Cards: Cosmic Encounter uses a variety of cards.
  Destiny cards: This deck is used to determine who the active player will attack.
  ​Encounter cards: By far the most numerous type of card and form the cosmic deck. As the name suggests, these are used during encounters between players. They contain cards numbered 1-to-40 as well as 'negotiate' and 'morph' cards.
  Artefact and tech cards: These are cards that can also be used during encounters and add extra effects or actions to an encounter.
  Flare cards: Flare cards are specific to each race and pertinent flare cards for the aliens in play are added to the cosmic deck. Unlike most cards, once a player has a flare card for their alien race, it is not discarded when played.
  Reinforcement cards: These can be played after the encounter cards have been revealed to alter the outcome.

The component quality is all good, the tiles and tokens are made of suitably sturdy board while cards are average.
The spaceships are plastic with a nice bit of detail and being able to stack them keeps the game area relatively clutter free.

In terms of art direction, the tiles are colourful and mostly ​space-themed with the planet tiles looking like well, planets. The hyperspace and warp tiles are appropriately cosmic looking.
Artwork is used sparingly on cards with space (SIC) given over to text instead.
For the most part, illustrations are reserved for the alien sheets and used to represent the various different alien races. This artwork is fairly good with a lot of diverse and interesting sci-fi artwork.

Cosmic Encounter has little in the way of iconography, numbers are used on encounter cards but otherwise text is used to convey information.
​Nothing here is tricky to understand

How's it play?
Setup

• ​Players:
  Alien sheet: Shuffle the flare cards into a face-down deck and deal 2 to each player.
  Each player should then take the alien sheets corresponding to the flare cards and choose one sheet for this game, players should take any tokens relevant to the sheet they have chosen.
  Home system: Give each player the planet tiles and space ships in their player colour.
  Each player should put out their planet tiles in a row, they should then stack 4 spaceships on each tile.
• Central playing area:
  ​Warp tile: Place the warp tile in the middle of the central playing area.
  Players should place their colony tokens at the '0' starting spot.
  Destiny deck: Remove cards that would refer to any unused player colours for the game and shuffle the remaining into a face-down deck.
  Cosmic deck: Add the flare cards for the chosen alien sheets to the encounter cards then shuffle them into a face-down cosmic deck.
  Starting hand: Deal 8 cards face-down to each player.
• First player: Determine the starting player.

On to play
In Cosmic Encounter players will be trying to create colonies on other players' home systems in the form of land their spaceships on those planets while also preventing their own system from being colonised.
The game employs a traditional turn order with the active player resolving their turn before the game progresses to the player on their left.
Each turn consists of 6 phases.

• Regroup: The active player may retrieve one of their spaceships from the warp (If possible.) and add it to a planet in their home system.
• Destiny: A card is drawn from the destiny deck and immediately resolved.
  Colour: If a colour card is drawn from the destiny deck, the player with that player colour will be the active player's target for their 'encounter' (Or attack really!).
  In some circumstances, the active player may target one of their own planets if it has been totally overrun by other players.
  Wild: If a wild card is drawn, then the active player must choose which player to target.
  Special: These are unique cards that have specific outcomes. If a special card is drawn, it will contain text to explain how it is resolved.
• Attack!: The active player takes the hyperspace tile and points the er... pointy end at one of the planets in the targeted system. Then they add 1-4 spaceships sourced in any combination from any of their planets to the other end, signifying how many ships they commit to the encounter.
• Alliances: Now the active player who is considered the attacker may invite any number of other players to join with them in the attack.
  ​The targeted player who is now considered the defender may also invite any number of other players to join with their defence.
  Once invites have gone out, the invited players may choose to accept or decline the invitation. If a player is invited to both sides, they must choose one side only or decline.
  Any player that accepts the invitation to form an alliance must commit 1-4 of their ships to their alliance's side by placing them on the hyperspace tile or alongside targeted planet respectively.
• Planning: During this phase both the attacker and defender choose a card and play it face-down.
• Reveal: Now both player simultaneously flip their cards face-up and calculate their values which is the card's value plus the number of spaceships committed to the encounter.
  Usually, whoever has the highest total value wins the encounter, ties go in the favour of the defender. However, there are several ways this can change. 
  Reinforcements: After cards are revealed, reinforcement cards may be played to alter scores, this can be done the attacker, defender or any of their respective allies.
  Negotiate: If either the attacker or defender has played a 'negotiate' card, they immediately lose the encounter but as compensation, they get to take cards from their opponent.
  Double negotiate: If both attacker and defender played negotiate cards, then they get 1 minute of real-time to actually negotiate an actual settlement between them!
  If they fail to reach a deal, then both players lose 3 spaceships to the warp tile.
  Morph cards: When a morph card is played, it 'adapts' to have the same value as the card played by the opposing player, essentially negating it.
  Resolution: Once all cards and special abilities have been taken into account and a winner has been determined, the results must be resolved.
  • Attacker wins: If this is the case, all the defender's ships (And those of their allies.) are placed on to the warp tile.
    All of the spaceships committed to the attack by the attacker as well as allied attacker's spaceships are placed on to the targeted planet. Each respective attacking player gets to advance their colony token 1 space on the score tracker.
    Finally, if the successful offensive was the player's first action, they get a second.
  • Defender wins: If this occurs, all of the spaceships committed to the attack by the attacker and their allies are sent to the warp tile.
    The defender's spaceships are unaffected and those committed by allies are safely returned to their planets.
    The score tracker remains unchanged but allies of the successful defender also get to recover ships from the warp tile and/or draw cards as a reward.
• Next player: Once the active player taken their available action(s), play moves on to the player on their left.

There are some other situational rules and variants but this pretty much sums up the essence of what goes on in Cosmic Encounters.

Endgame
The first player to reach 5 on the score tracker wins!
Because of alliances and such, it is possible for more than one player to reach the 5 score at once. if this is the case, all those players share the victory.

Overall
​Mechanically, Cosmic Encounter is straightforward, at its core it's essentially a single blind bid auctioning game albeit one where players bid within the constraints of their limited hand of encounter cards in order to win encounters
On a basic level, a player only has to win 5 bids to win the game.

There is of course more to it than that.

It's vital that players will have to exploit the stronger cards in their hand and mitigate the risk from weaker cards. High value cards are obviously useful because they can win encounters but weak cards can also have a use.
A low value card can be used as a bluff or ruse to flush out an opponent's higher value card, potentially altering what a later outcome might be. Or, if a player think's they're going to lose, why not throw the lowest value card into the mix? 
Negotiate cards can also prove useful when a player knows they are going to lose and can be used to not only fill their hand but deplete the cards of an opponent.
Managing the luck of the draw is vital for victory.

The alien sheets can throw some real curveballs into the game and how players behave. Some of the sheets provide some really radical changes to strategies.

For example; in one game I played as the 'Spiff' who have the ability can crash land a spaceship on a planet if they are a part of an attack that loses badly.
It suddenly introduced a whole new dynamic into attacks which involved the Spiff (And I involved the Spiff with as many attacks as I could!) because defending players were now faced with the conundrum of having to worry about winning too big which might mean playing a lower value card instead and the risk of doing that meant that they might just flat out lose if I played a high value card! Choices, choices!

With 50 different alien sheets available in the base game (With more in expansions.) it means there will be a lot of variation in games and a lot of unique interactions from game-to-game. 

The rules for the destiny deck can also throw a curveball into the game.
I feel one of the primary purposes of the destiny deck is prevent a 'pick on a player' tactic and in this regard it does it well.
It also means that game has constant shifting alliances, 2 players have been allies in a previous turn but the destiny deck could quickly have one targeting the other in the next run.

This brings me to the next thing that's really strong in Cosmic Encounter; which is player interactivity.
Players will be bidding and bluffing against each other, forming temporary alliances, looking to exploit their abilities and take advantage of their unique ability and circumstances as they might arise.
I also think that the quality of the experience the game provides will in part rely on the people playing it. If players buy into the somewhat boisterous, confrontational and luck-based gameplay, then it'll be a positive, enjoyable experience. 

I will add that this game has a lot direct confrontation between players and a hefty dose of 'take that' that goes on as well.
If you find this sort of thing unappealing, it's probably a safe bet to say that you won't like this game and to be fair, sometimes I'm not in the mood for this kind of game.

Otherwise, it's hard to find fault with Cosmic Encounter, the rules are quick to learn and presents players which meaningful decisions to make whenever they attack or have to defend - which is reasonably often, they'll also be faced with whether to join alliances or not and deal with the outcome of those decisions.

Cosmic Encounters is a lot of fun to play and worth trying.

11th November 2022

It's a Friday and I'm at the office in Woking for some end-of-week gaming fun.

You know you can't go wrong when you're playing a board game set in Renaissance Italy.
In this case it's Florence and about princes which is about as Renaissance as it gets! All you need are some Medici and Borgia to round it all off!

In The Princes of Florence players take on the role of wealthy nobles trying to out do each other by enticing artist and scholars to their estates to create 'works' which in turn gives players bragging rights - which is what is important obviously.

• Cards: There are several types of cards in The Princes of Florence.
  Bonus cards: These cards can increase the value of works when they are created. 
  Prestige cards:  Endgame bonus PPs can possibly be earned by prestige cards.
  Profession cards: There are 21 professions in the game that players will be looking to recruit.
  Recruiting cards: Used to err.. recruit professions! Specifically, profession cards played by other players.
• Tiles: There are landscape and building tiles and they're sort of tetramino shaped. Building tiles: There are 10 types and they come in small, medium and large. Each one depicts a building of some sort, ranging from a chapel to a university.
  Landscape tiles: There are parks, lakes and forests.
• Tokens: There are a number of card tokens.
  Freedoms: There are rectangular tokens for each of the 3 'freedoms', freedom of travel, opinion and religion.
  Builders: Square tokens represent builders, which aid when acquiring building tiles.
  Jesters: These are circular tokens. Jesters provide bonuses when scoring the value of a work.
  Money: Finally, there's circular tokens of various sizes to represent differing denominations of florins; the game's currency.
• Pawns: There's a pawn in each player colour used to track PPs as well as a black 'first player' pawn.
• Discs: There are also chunky scoring discs in each player colour to track work values, there is also a black disc is used to track the round count.

All the components in The Princes of Florence are well made. The tokens and cards are what you'd expect. The tetramino tiles feel nice and sturdy, as do the game and player boards.
Amusingly, the pawns are all wearing wide-brimmed hats, got to have some protection from that scorching Mediterranean sun!

Broadly speaking there there are 2 art styles utilised in The Princes of Florence.
Tiles, tokens and some of the player boards are decorated with full colour illustrations. They are quite stylised and almost simplistic illustrations but they are effective and feel appropriate for the setting.
All the game's cards (Particularly the profession cards.) are illustrated with a sepia coloured line art style. It contrasts with the art style but also compliments it and again, is appropriate for the setting.
The standout art-wise is the game board where nearly each space on the scoring track has its own unique illustration. It shows that little extra effort put into the presentation that shows care for the game which I appreciate.

There's little in the way of iconography, mostly its appears on the player boards in the form of silhouetted tetramino shapes for buildings but even so, they are also labelled.
Most information is relayed through text. Speaking of which...
The game uses a distinct and flowery font for text. It looks suitable for a renaissance themed game but can be a little harder to read than it could be and also tends to make the player board and cards a little more complex then they actually are.
It's a minor quibble and in no way a gamebreaker though.

On to play
The Princes of Florence is played over 7 rounds.
Each round is divided into an auctioning phase and an action phase.
Auctions allow players to bid for items which will aid them during action phases.
The action phase uses the usual turn structure with the active player taking their turn before play progresses to the player on their left.

• Auction phase: During this phase, players may bid on 1 of 7 different objects, there are some rules for auctions.
  • Auctions: In a round, there will be a number of auctions equal to the number players, additionally, there are some rules when resolving auctions.
  • Opening bid: Whoever starts a bid chooses 1 of the 7 objects to bid on. The objects are: Forest/Lake/Park landscape tile, builder token, jester token, prestige card or recruitment card.
    Once they've placed their opening bid, other players in clockwise order may place a higher bid or pass.
  • Passing: If a player passes on a bid for any reason, then they are out for the rest of that particular auction.
    Winning: When all players bar one pass, that player wins the auction, the winner take the object they won pays for it and cannot participate in any further auctions in that round. Thus, a player can only 1 object per round through auctions.
  • 1 auction per object type: Once a object has been won in an auction, no further objects of that type can be bid on.
  • Objects: When a player wins a bid, they take 1 of the 7 following objects as explained below:
    Landscape tiles: Forest lakes and parks. When one of these is taken, it must immediately be placed on their board's grid.
    Builders: These tokens are added to their allotted spaces on the player board going from left-to-right. They will provide bonuses when building.
    Jesters: These tokens should placed on the palazzo space, they increase the value of works... with the strength of their humour I guess!
    Prestige cards: Draw 5 and keep 1, placed the remainder at the bottom of the deck.
    Recruitment cards: Take a recruitment card, it can be used immediately or saved and used during the controlling player's turn later.
    Playing recruitment card allows a player to take a profession card that has been played by another player.
  • End of auction: Once all players have won an auction, play progresses to the action phase.
• Action phase: During their turn, the active player may perform 2 actions from the following list of 5.
  • Build: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    The active player may buy and place a building tile on their grid. The tile can be placed in any orientation on the grid but cannot be directly adjacent to another building unless the player has acquired at least 2 builder tokens. Builder tokens can also give discounts to the cost of buying buildings.
    Finally, when a building has been placed on the grid, the player immediately earns 3PPs.
  • Acquire a bonus card: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    The active player pays for a bonus card and draws 5 cards from the deck and keeps 1, returning the 4 other cards to the bottom of the deck.
  • Buy a 'Freedom': This action can only be performed once per round.
    The active player may buy one of the freedoms and immediately places it on the appropriate space on their player board.
  • Buy a profession card: This action can only be performed once per round.
    The active pays for a profession card then draws 5 and keeps 1, returning the other 4 to the bottom of the deck.
  • Complete a work: This action can be performed twice in a round.
    With this action, the active player may complete a 'work', this has several steps and involves calculating the work's 'value'.
    Play profession card: The active must play a profession card from their hand. Each profession has 3 things they 'want'; a building, landscape and freedom. Each one of these that that the active player owns will add to the work's value.
    Jesters and profession cards in hand or played also add to the value.
    Finally, if the active player has a bonus card, it can be played now to add to the value of the work.
    From this, the value of the work will be calculated.
    Minimum work value: If a work's value does not meet the minimum value of works for the round, it cannot be completed. Minimum values start at 7 in round 1 and go up to 17 in round 7.
    Rewards: Once a work has been completed and it's value has been calculated, the active play will gain rewards.
    ​Firstly; the active player moves their disc to along the scoring track to the number that matches the work's value.
    Then the active player gains 100 Florins per point. The player can choose to keep the money or immediately trade it in for PPs at a cost of 200 Florins per PP. This must be done immediately, it cannot be done later.
• Earn money: This is not one of the actions a player can take per se but any point in the game, any player may spend PPs to gain Florins at a rate of 100 Florins per PP.
• ​Next Player: Once the active player has completed their 2 actions, play progresses to the player on their left.
• Next round: Once all player have completed their turns, the round is over and the following 2 steps occur.
  Best Work: Whoever has created the single highest value work for the round gains 3PPs. All players should remove their discs in preparation of scoring works in the following round.
  First player: The first player marker should be moved to the player on the left who will start the bidding in the next round.

Endgame
Once the 7th round has been completed, the game goes to scoring.
Players now reveal any prestige cards they've acquired and score them, adding whatever they're worth to their score on the game board.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
In terms of gameplay, there's some nice mechanics going on. There's some interesting balancing that occurs with buildings. By virtue of their sizes, the larger buildings will be harder to fit in the grid and take up more room but they are wanted by more professions.

Auctioning in particular is also well balanced.
Because a player can only win 1 auction per round, it means someone who has a lot of cash cannot dominate all the proceedings. It means that every player can only ever get 1 object per round and it means that if a player has lost every auction and is the last player left in it, they can get any remaining object, unopposed and for just the cost of the opening bid.

During the action phase, synchronicity is important. Getting landscapes, buildings, freedoms and professions that 'riff' off each is very useful. E.g., both the goldsmith and bell maker want a 'workshop, or both the theologian and painter want freedom of travel.

Players will be looking to optimise their decisions especially when it comes to creating works which is a major source of income and potentially PPs.
Why is this so important? The Princes of Florence only has 7 rounds, which is only 7 auctions and 14 actions! Even the most efficient of players will probably find themselves unable to do everything they want they want to do in the rounds given. This forces them to make difficult decisions which is generally a good thing.

The Princes of Florence also has distinct early and late game states. Early on players will be looking to build up their estate, buildings, freedoms etc. In the late game they will likely be looking to create as many works as possible and convert them to PPs. If a player creates 2 works in a round, only the highest value one counts for end of round best work bonus but both will pay out Florins and consequently PPs.

I suppose that The Princes of Florence is a sort of 'mid-weight' game and by that I mean a game that isn't too complex but probably has a bit too much going on to be a good introductory or crossover game.
With having to win auctions to gain certain objects and cards, buildings to place, works to create and more, as well as having to consider how everything relates to everything else, there's a lot to think about.

But for more seasoned players, The Princes of Florence is a solid experience with well structured gameplay elements that all have a clear purpose which in turn presents players with meaningful decisions to make.
It also blends the individual aspect of a player building up their own palazzo and estate with the interaction of auctioning and drafting.
The Princes of Florence is definitely one to try.

18th October 2022

It's a Tuesday and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club.

​The Victorian era; a time of expansion, industrial and otherwise. Become a capitalist! Create your business and run your production line.

What's in a game?

• Cards: Furnace features several types of cards.
  • Capitalist cards: There are 5 of these, each one is unique and as well as an illustration of the capitalist in question also feature a way in which the owning player can 'break' a rule. Capitalist indeed!
  • Start-up cards: There are also 5 of these starter cards. Each one contains a illustration of a factory, above and below the picture it displays the card's abilities, this will always include the ability to gain (And use.) upgrade tokens.
    Abilities on cards may include production of a certain resource, or a process such as converting one resource into another or selling a resource for money.
  • Company cards: These form the bulk of the game's cards and they are double-sided.
    Basic side: At the top of each company card it will show a production or process ability, this is the compensation effect, more on this later. Next will a picture, usually of a factory, industrial plant or some such.
    Finally, below the picture will be 2 lines of abilities. The 2nd line will be 'greyed out' as it is 'inactive' at this time.
    Upgraded side: The other side of a company card is more or less identical to the basic side except for the compensation effect which is now gone and the 2nd ability line which is now coloured in and 'active', (As a result of the upgrade.)
• Round tracking tiles: A pair of tiles are used to represent and track the game's four rounds with a sort of replica cog-and-teeth mechanism.
• Tokens: Furnace has several types of tokens.
  • Resource tokens: There 3 types of resources in Furnace which are represented by shaped wooden tokens.
    Coal: Little black cubes are used to represent coal, OK, cubes are not very coal shaped items but they are little wooden cubes.
    Iron : These blue-grey rectangular cuboid tokens sort of iron-bar shaped and used to represent iron.
    Oil: Yellow octagonal cylinders are used to represent oil or more accurately, drums of oil. 
  • Bidding tokens: There are 4 differently sized bidding tokens in each of the 4 player colours.
    These are discs number from 1-4, additionally, the higher the number, the larger the disc.
    Neutral bidding token: There is also a 'colourless' bidding token that is only used when a particular capitalist card is in play.
  • Player marker token: For each player colour there is a uniquely shaped and illustrated card token. Black gets a top hat (Very dapper.), red gets a wallet (Displays of wealth are so uncouth!), white gets a pair of white gloves (Very suave.) and yellow gets a pocket watch.
  • Money: Circular card tokens are used to represent money which comes in various colours/denominations.
  • Upgrade tokens: There are also circular card tokens. They show a spanner inside a cog.

Component quality ranges from good to very good in Furnace. Cards and card tokens are the pretty standard good quality most games now have while all the wooden tokens are solid and good quality. The bidding tokens in particular standout as really chunky, tactile discs.

Artwork is good throughout the game with a nicely illustrated buildings and businesses.
It makes good use of a varied and colourful palette which helps to differentiate between the company cards which depict a variety of factories or offices and warehouses etc, which despite all being different sort of look a little samey.
Portraits used for capitalist cards are equally good quality.

The game's iconography looks a little daunting but in practice is straightforward and fairly practical. There are essentially 5 resources depicted and some basic mathematics mostly saying how to turn one resource into another and how may times it can be done.

How's it play?
Setup

• Players: Give each player the following.
  Capitalist cards: Shuffle the capitalist cards into a face-down deck and randomly deal 1 to each player.
  ​Start-up cards: Next, shuffle the start-up cards into a face-down deck and deal 1 to each player. Start-up cards also determine a player's starting resources.
  Tokens: Give each player the player token and bidding discs in their colour.
• Company cards: Take all the company cards and shuffle them into a deck with the basic side face-up.
• First player: determine a starting player.

On to play
Note: The rules described below use the 'advanced' variant rules, there's a reason for this which will be discussed further down.
The goal in Furnace is to acquire the most money by the end of the game.
Furnace is played over 4 rounds. In each round players will be bidding for company cards then adding them to their personal production lines. Next they will run their production to produce goods and ultimately generate money which is what wins the game.
The game uses a normal turn order during auction, with the first player bidding first before bidding moving to the player on their left. The production phase can be played out simultaneously.

• Auction phase: During this phase players will bid on the available company cards.
  • Deal company cards: At the start of each auction phase, the top card on the deck is shuffled back into the deck (To stop 'canny' players from knowing what the first card will be!), then deal 6-8 cards depending on player count with the basic side still face-up in a row. Placing them in a row can be important during the auction resolution.
  • Bidding: The first player bids for one of the company cards by placing any one of their bidding discs on the card they are bidding for.
  • Next bidder: Once the active player has placed their bidding disc, play progresses to the player on the left who can then make their bid.
    • Restrictions: There are however, some restrictions to bidding.
      No same colour: No 2 discs of the same colour may be placed on the same card. Thus, a player can only bid once on a card.
      No same number: If a card already has a bidding disc on it, no other player may bid on that card with a disc that has the same value.
  • Resolve auction: Once all players have placed all their discs, the bids on each card - going from left-to-right - are resolved, this  consists of 2 phases.
    • Highest bid wins: Whoever played the disc with the highest value wins the card, which they will add to their production line in the next phase. If a player wins more than 1 company card during the phase, they are all added to their production line one-by-one.
    • Compensation: It's not all bad for players that put a losing bidding token on a card, instead they get the compensation effect.
      The compensation effect is listed at the top of a company card, it might be produce resources or process them.
      Production: If it's resource production, the losing player(s) gain an amount of that resource multiplied by the value of their failed bid.
      E.g., if a player failed a bid with a 2-value bid on a card which has a compensation effect of 1 oil barrel, they would gain 2 oil barrels.
      If someone failed with a 3-value bid on card with 2 coal as compensation effect, they would gain 6 coal!
      Process: ​Alternatively, a compensation effect may include a process. In this case, the losing player may use that effect as many times as the value of their losing bid.
      Thus a player with a losing bid of 2 and a compensation effect process that allows 2 coal to be turned into 1 iron can use this process twice. Note: This must be resolved immediately, if a player does not have the required resources to complete a process when the auction on it is being resolved, they cannot resolve it later.
  • End of phase: Once all auctions on all company cards have been resolved, play progresses to the next phase.
• Production phase: During this phase players will add their newly acquired cards to their production line. Then players will run through their production line.
  Unlike the previous phase, players can choose to resolve their production phases one at a time or simultaneously.
  • Production line: First, a production line needs to be defined. A production line is a row of cards that run from left-to-right. The order of cards in a production line can never be changed.
  • Add cards to production line: Each player now add their newly acquired cards to their production line.
    Positioning: Cards maybe added to the start or end of a production line. They may also be placed in between 2 other cards, so long as the relative positioning of cards already played is not changed.
  • Run production: Once a player has added all the new cards to their production line, they must run it with the following stipulations.
    Left-to-right: All production lines start with their leftmost card and work through to their rightmost card.
    A card must be fully resolved (Or as much as a player can or wants to.) before the next card is addressed.
    Top-to-bottom: If card has multiple abilities - which is likely - they will be displayed in lines on the card. Abilities are resolved individually, going from top-to-bottom. An ability must be fully resolved (Or as much as wanted or can be.) before the ability below is resolved. Furthermore, if an ability can be used multiple times, they must all be completed before moving on.
    Upgrades: If a card that has already been used in a production is upgraded, it's new ability cannot be used. If the upgraded card is further down the line, then it's new ability can be used.
• End of round: Once all players have finished running their production lines, the round is over.
  Play progresses to the next round. Advance the round marker and begin the next auction phase.

Endgame
Once 4 rounds have been completed, the game is over.
Players calculate how much money they have accumulated.

Monies are tallied, most money wins

Overall
Furnace packs a lot of gameplay options into what is in essence quite a small package. The game consists of a deck of cards, some tokens and that's it

Even so, each of the main 2 phases provide players with interesting and meaningful decisions.

There are 2 mechanics to the auctioning and both are unique and present players with unusual options and interactions with other players.
Using bidding discs instead of money in auctions is an interesting proposition. First it means players only have 4 bids they can make and they can't re-bid on the same card if they get outbid. Players will need to determine what's important to them and bid appropriately. Turn order can make a difference here. A player going first who bids their 4-value disc on a card guarantees they will get it. Going later or last in bidding is not necessarily a bad thing to do, it allows a player to see what opponents are going for and bid accordingly.
There's definitely a higher level of play at work here from watching what other players look like they need and potentially taking it or denying it to them. Hate bidding I guess?

Which brings me to the other auction mechanic; compensation. Firstly, compensation works as sort of balancing mechanism, if a player loses a bid, they may still get something for their losing bid. Secondly, it's a mechanic that can potentially be exploited by players to gain resources quickly. A player make take the risk of making a lower value bid on a card, hoping to be outbid for the compensation, of course this can backfire and they may end up with a card they don't want to play.

Talking of playing cards, the next interesting mechanic how cards are played during the production phase.
I'll start by saying that whenever we played Furnace it was always using the 'advanced' variant 'production line' rules. By default the game does not use a production line, instead players just activate cards in any order they choose. In my opinion this makes the game less engaging.
I can't stress enough that the variant rules are vital to what makes Furnace a good game.
Having to think about where to place company cards is compelling and intriguing. Frequently cards will be useful both at the start and end of a production line forcing players to think hard make meaningful decisions in order to optimise their production lines.
Additionally, it's genuinely gratifying to run a production line that has been put together efficiently and ends up generating lots of cash.

Furnace is a game with a quick play time. In fact I found that the game's 4 rounds came to a conclusion all too soon, still having the urge to continue building my engine and that's a pretty good sign of a game I enjoy.
It's also a sign of good design balance; having a 4 round limit forces players to be as ruthlessly efficient as possible with little room for unnecessary moves. 4 round limits are something I've seen in other engine building games too.

So in conclusion; Furnace is pretty easy to learn, has a fast playtime but still manages to present players will a variety options both in auctioning and engine building. If these styles of games interest you, then Furnace is definitely a game to try.
I found it a engaging and entertaining experience.

5th July 2022

It's a Tuesday and we're at The Sovereigns with the Woking Board Gaming Club for an evening of gaming.

​The world of Victorian anthropomorphic railroad magnates is a cutthroat one in this game of acquiring train lines and towns. Buy low and sell high to become the... Raccoon Tycoon!

What's in a game?

• Game board: The game board background depicts a idyllic rural landscape with the beginnings of a burgeoning industrial age.
  The board is broadly speaking divided into 2 halves. The top half has 6 tracks for the game's 6 commodities while the bottom half features spaces and tracks for railroad cards, town cards and building tiles.
• Cards: Raccoon Tycoon has several types of cards:
  Price & Production cards: Each of this type card has 2 halves. The top half with a blue background is for price and pushes up the value of the variously depicted commodities while the bottom half with a red background displays various commodities that the player can produce/acquire.
  ​Railroad cards: These cards feature anthropomorphic artwork, cats, dogs, bears, foxed and of course raccoons.
  In the bottom-right corner is the card's initial price (Railroad cards are acquired via auctioning) while the centre-bottom shows a series of numbers. These are VPs related to set collecting, thus the more copies a player has of a certain set of railroad cards, the more VPs that set is worth.
  Town cards: These cards have smaller illustration that usually depicts some part of the countryside.
  At the bottom of each town card are 2 purchasing costs, 1 is a cost for a specific commodity while the other is for any commodities. The cost for buying a town card with any commodities is always greater that using the required specific commodity.
• Building tiles. These chunky square tiles depict various different types of businesses and industries. They come in 2 types (Basic and Advanced.) are double-sided and one side is the initial version of a building while the other shows the upgraded, improved version.
  In the bottom-right corner on both sides is the cost, initially to buy the tile, then to flip the tile to the upgraded side. Each tile has a special ability of some sort and the upgraded version is always a improved version of the initial building. Bonuses might include gaining extra commodities or selling more of them, discounts to certain costs etc.
  Additionally, some tiles are marked with a 'B' or a 'P' and basically only one of each can be used in a turn.
• Commodity tokens: Raccoon Tycoons uses 6 types of commodity and each has it's own token and colour.
  Coal: These black tokens are shaped in a minecart filled with coal.
  Iron: These are grey anvil shaped tokens.
  Luxury goods: These tokens are green bottles, filled with wine I guess? Wine is certainly a luxury good!
  Manufactured goods: Red cubes are used to represent manufactured goods.
  Wheat: Yellow tokens shaped as bundles of wheat.
  Wood: Brown tokens depicting piles of logs.
• Money: Paper money! Whooo! I like it!
• First player meeple: I don't usually bother to mention any first player tokens when blogging (Because they're just first player tokens.) but this one is a unnecessarily big token. Basically a gimmick and something I wholeheartedly approve of!

Raccoon Tycoon has excellent production values.
Wooden tokens are used for commodities and first player token which is a good move, they always have a quality to them and also look cool.
The cards (And paper money) have a sturdy feel to them while the tiles are satisfyingly thick.

The game's art direction is also equally high.
Anthropomorphic art is used throughout the game and I've found that it's a divisive style which most people do or don't like. Regardless of your view on this, it's undeniable that the quality of the art is high.
The standouts are the railroad cards which use a oil painting style to display whimsical characterful animals in Victorian clothes.
Curiously, the building tiles use a completely different style, instead displaying line illustrated buildings and subjects with mostly flat and barely shaded colours. It's a striking contrast that should theoretically ​be jarring but actually fits quite well.

Icons used to represent commodities on cards are easily understood. Most other game information is relayed via text which is usually very clear.

How's it play?
Setup

• Board: The number of cards and tiles used on the board is dependant on player count.​
  • Railroad cards: Shuffle these into a face-down deck on its allotted space on the board and deal 2 face-up cards on to their spots.
  • Town cards: These cards are arranged into a face-down deck by VP value with the lowest value at the top and highest at the bottom. Thus the lower value cards appear earlier in the game.
    Place the deck on it's spot and deal 1 card face-up.
  • Building tiles: Shuffle the basic tiles and put out the allotted amount into the relevant track and discard any remaining basic tiles. Next; shuffle the advanced tiles into a stack.
  • Commodities: Put out the commodity tokens and use 1 each on their pertinent tracker to display their starting value.
• Price & production cards: Shuffle the cards into a face-down deck and deal 3 face-down to each player.
• Cash: Give each player $10 starting funds.
• First player: Determine the starting player. Following on from this each player claims starting commodities in turn order. The first player takes any 1 commodity of their choice, 2nd player taking any 2, etc, all the way up to the 5th player taking 5 in a 5-player game.

On to play
Players are trying to earn VPs in Raccoon Tycoon, this can be done by collecting sets of railroad cards, acquiring town cards to pair with railroad cards and gaining building tiles which are not only worth VPs but can provide avenues to scoring more VPs.
All of this requires money and commodities, players will need to manipulate the commodities market to maximise the profit gained from selling their own commodities while trying limit the profit of other players.

Racoon Tycoon follows a traditional turn order with the active player resolving their action before play moves on to the player on their left.

• Actions: During their turn, the active player may perform 1 of the 5 following actions.
  • Building tile: The active player may purchase one of the building tiles by paying its cost, which is then placed into their playing area.
    A new building tile is drawn to replace it.
    Note: This action is also used to upgrade a building tile by paying its upgrade cost on the other side and flipping the tile.
  • Price & Production card: The active player may play 1 of these cards from their hand.
    Production: This allows them to acquire exactly 3 commodities from the supply, the icons in the production half of the card indicate which commodities the player can choose from and how much of it they can take.
    Note: Players have a limit of 10 commodities that they can own.
    Price: The value of the indicated commodities rise on their relevant trackers by 1 step.
  • Railroad card auction: The active player may begin an auction on either of the 2 available railroad cards. Their opening bid must be at least equal to the value shown on the relevant card. Others players may then bid or pass on the auction. Once everyone bar 1 player has passed, they win the card. A new railroad is drawn to replace it on the track
    Note: If the active player did not win the card, they can perform another action, this may include another auction.
    Thus the active player's action is not squandered if they did not win the auction.
  • Sell a commodity: The active player may sell exactly 1 type of commodity, however, they can sell any amount of tokens of that type. They earn the listed value on that commodity's tracker per token sold.
    Price crash: Once the commodity has been sold, the value of that commodity drops a number of steps equal to the tokens sold!
  • Town: The active player may purchase a town card, each one has 2 listed costs and the player can choose which one to pay - either the specific commodity cost or a more costly mix of any commodities.
    A new town card is drawn to replace it.
• Next player: Once the current player has resolved their action, play moves to the person on their left.

Endgame
Play continues until one of the following 2 criteria is met.

• The last railroad card is auctioned.
• The last town card is bought.

If either instance, the current round is completed and the game goes to scoring.
VPs come from a variety of sources.

Sets of railroad cards.
Town cards paired with railroad cards.
Building tiles earn 1 VP each.
Bonuses from building cards may also provide additional VPS.

Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Even without the anthropomorphic artwork, Raccoon Tycoon would be something or a quirky game.
It packs quite a lot of mechanical systems into a single game albeit to a fairly simple level.
A little bit of stock market manipulation, a touch of set collecting, a dash of auctioning and a sprinkling of engine building. It could be a recipe for disaster but in the case of Raccoon Tycoon; the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
A large part of this I feel is due to the building tiles. Their unique bonuses both provide some asymmetrical gameplay elements and can also give players a bit of strategic direction.
Raccoon Tycoon is a bit of a balancing act between acquiring cash for railroad cards/building tiles and commodities for town cards. It's hard to work towards both at the same time. Adaptation is important here, as is planning ahead. Players could look to finding ways to raise commodity values to increase profit when selling them later

This brings me to commodity manipulation. There isn't too much interaction between players other than auctioning and commodity manipulation, 
Watching what opponents are doing can prove useful and is something of a higher level of play. I.e., if 2 players are accumulating the same commodity, there's a possibility that one of them will sell it, causing that market to crash. Beating a opponent to the punch so to speak, can cost them lots of cash!

Raccoon Tycoon is fairly rules light and I think seasoned gamers won't have any problems grasping all the systems at work here. For less experienced gamers, the curve will be steeper, I don't feel it's a gamebreaker but I imagine it could be off putting.

While there's enough gameplay to give players thoughtful and meaningful decisions to make and a fun experience, I also found the game to be a little unengaging and uncompelling, I never felt like I was building railroads or towns and despite the unique art style, it didn't feel like it stood out from the crowd.
here's nothing wrong with Raccoon Tycoon but it wouldn't be my first pick for a game, although I'd have no problem playing it if someone else wanted to.

3rd February 2022

Thursday night gaming at Simon's came to a conclusion with the 2nd and final game of the evening; Nidavellir.

Google tells me that Nidavellir might mean the wane of the moon and is derived from Norse cosmology.

Protect the dwarf kingdom from the ravages of a dragon by taking on the role of a Elvaland councillor and collecting sets of cards... err... gathering the bravest army of dwarves possible by trawling pubs (I kid you not.).
Where's Sneezy when you need him eh? More like boozy!

What's in a game?

• Player board: There one of these unusually shaped boards for each player.
  At the top of each board is an circular indentation to slot in an 'Elvaland gem'.
  Down the left side are 3 large 'tavern' illustrations for the Laughing Goblin, Dancing Dragon and Shining Horse taverns which are also respectively marked with 1, 2 or 3 flagons and below them are 2 more circular indentations around an illustration of a money pouch
  Finally, each board has 2 columns of numbers that run down the right side, one in green and the other in purple. The green is labelled with a hunter's horn and the purple with a blacksmith's hammer.
• Tavern sign tiles: These 3 largish tiles each have illustrations identical to the tavern symbols found on player boards.
• Trade gem tiles: There are also 3 of these and they go with the tavern sign tiles.
• Elvaland gem tiles: Unsurprisingly these card tiles are styled after gems, they're also number 1-5 and there's a 'special' gem numbered 6.
  Gems are used to break ties during the game.
• Coins: The coins in Nidavellir are generously sized, circular card tokens and there are a lot of them too! They come in 2 types.
  Starter coins: These bronze coloured coins come in sets of 5 and are numbered on with a 0 and 2-5 (There's no 1!) and the 0 coin also has a special action called coin trade which is explained further below.
  There is 1 set of 5 per player.
  Upgraded coins: These coins are numbered 5-25, they are identically sized to the starter coins. Broadly speaking there are 2 each of the lower half of numbers and 1 each of the higher values.
• Cards: Nidavellir also features a lot of cards that come in a lot of types.
  Dwarf cards: These form the bulk of the game's cards and also the sets that players will collect. Firstly they are classified in 2 categories; Age 1 and Age 2.
  In the top-right corner, they will have a coloured rank symbol that may also a numeric bravery value (A.K.A VPs) and beneath that will be a icon that indicates the dwarf's class. There are 5 classes/colours: Blacksmith, Explorer, Hunter, Miner and Warrior.
  Hero Cards: These are basically less common and better versions of dwarf cards. They typically come with some benefit or bonus for the owning player.
  Royal offering cards: There are only a few of these cards which confer some sort benefit on the owning player, they are also categorised by Age 1 and Age 2.
  Distinction cards: There are 5 distinction cards which can be earned midgame and provide a boost or benefit to the owning player.
  Royal offering cards: There are Age 1 and Age 2 royal offering cards that can be used to upgrade coins - more on this below.
• Card holders: The game comes with 4 little plastic card holders that allow the hero and distinction cards to be displayed in a up right more visible position.
• Royal treasure: This is a fancy name for a cardboard rack that has slots to hold all the upgrade coins. To be fair, it does also serve the purpose of allowing players to see which coins have been taken.

The physical components in Nidavellir are all good. The tokens and tiles are all thick and chunky, I quite like the large sized coins, they feel a bit like poker chips.
The cards holders and especially the royal treasure are a nice touch too. However, since they can only be easily viewed from one side, it sort of forces the game to have a strange setup where the card holders and treasure rack are along one edge of the playing area instead of in the centre with all the players along the other edges. 

Nidavellir also makes good use of artwork, most of which appears on the cards, they contain well detailed, good quality illustrations of different dwarfish characters painted in a sort of monochromatic watercolour style along with a dash of a single colour. Usually I'd find this kind of art a bit dull, but here it works and gives the game a distinctive look.

Much of the iconography is clear but some of the hero cards have symbols which are quite small and may also need looking up occasionally.

How's it play?
​Setup

• Royal treasure: Put out the royal treasure rack, filling it with all the associated coins that go on it.
• Distinction & hero cards: Put out all the distinction cards on 1 card holder and the hero cards on the remaining 3 holders. spread out so that everyone can see the information on the left edge of the cards.
• Tavern Tiles: Put out the 3 tavern tiles in a vertical line with the goblin tile at the top, dragon tile below it and horse tile at the bottom, matching the order on the player boards.
  Then place a trade gem tile next to each tavern tile.
• Cards: Shuffle all the Age 1 cards into a face-down deck, do the same with the Age 2 cards.
• Players: Give each player a player board and 5 starting coins.
• Elvaland gems: Finally, take the Elvaland gems as determined by player count, shuffle them and deal 1 to each player face-down. Each should then reveal their gem and place it in the indentation at the top of the player board.

On to play
Nidavellir is an auctioning game that has players simultaneously perform series of 3 blind bids during each round. Once bids are revealed, actions are resolved in an order determined by the bids.

• Populate Taverns: Those dwarves certainly need their liquid lunches.
  From the Age 1 deck draw cards and place them face-up next to each of the 3 taverns, keep adding cards until each tavern has a number of cards equal to the number of players.
• Blind bids: In each round all players must make 3 blind bids using 3 of their 5 coins.
  To do so, they must put a coin face-down on each of the 3 tavern spots on their player board, this will be their bid for the cards at the corresponding tavern tile. Thus a coin put on the goblin space is what the player is bidding to take a card from the goblin tavern tile.
  Each player's 2 remaining coins are placed in the indentations around the money pouch.
• Resolve bids: Once all bidding has concluded, all bids are simultaneously revealed.
  Then, starting with the Laughing Goblin tavern, the player who bid the most on that tavern takes the card of their choice, the 2nd highest bidder goes 2nd and so on until all players have taken a card, it means the turn order will change from bid to bid.
  The same is done with the Dancing Dragon and finally the Shining Horse.
  Ties: If 2 or more players bid the same amount, then Elvaland Gems are used to break the tie and the highest value goes first.
  After a tie occurs, the players who tied must swap gems.
  Trade coin: This is 1 of 2 ways to upgrade coins.
  It occurs when the 0 value coin is used in one of the bids, whoever played it must reveal the 2 coins they put in their money pouch.
  The value of the 2 coins is added together, then a coin equalling that value is taken from the royal treasure and replaces the highest valued coin that was placed in the money pouch which, if it's a starter coin, is discarded out of the game. If it was a upgrade coin, it's returned to the royal treasure.
  A player can only ever have 5 coins and unusually for an auctioning game, the players' bids are never discarded.
• Place card: When a player takes a dwarf or hero card, they must be placed into that player's area in a specific manner.
  All cards of the same class/colour must go into a single vertical column on the right side of the player board. Blacksmith and hunter cards should ideally be on the leftmost cards with their rank symbols lined up with the pertinent symbols on their player board.
  Since there are 5 classes/colours, players will end up with 5 columns of cards.
  Other cards: Cards that do not have a class should be put on the left of the player board.
  ​Rows: When a player puts down a card that creates a row of 5 cards - which is row of one of each class/colour, they immediately take a hero card and add it to their playing area. If that card completes 2nd row, then a 2nd hero card can be taken and so on.
  This ability is triggered any time a row is completed.
• Next round: Once all taken cards have been resolved, play progresses to the next round, more cards are drawn from the Age 1 deck and placed next to each tavern.
  Players then flip their coins face-down again and begin blind bidding again.
• Transforming coins: This is the 2nd method to upgrading a coin. Typically this'll be the result of a special ability or royal offering card and will increase the value of a single coin. So a '+4' would turn a '6' into a '10'. Again, a 10 coin taken from the royal treasure would replace the 6.
• Distinction cards: When the Age 1 cards have been depleted... it's the end of an age! The game then goes to allocating distinction cards.
  There are 5 distinction cards, one for each of the game's classes.
  For every class, all players compare the cards that they have each collected. The player with the majority of cards in that class collects its distinction card and whatever benefits it confers.
  This is done for all classes.
• Age 2: The game now continues as before, except dealing the Age 2 cards to the 3 taverns

Endgame
Play continues until the Age 2 cards are also depleted, then the game goes to scoring.
Each of the 5 classes has it's own way to score VPs, suffice to say; the more cards a player has in a class, the more that set scores.
Bonus VPs which can come from various sources should then also be added in.
Points are tallied, highest score wins.

Overall
Nidavellir does a good job of mixing set collecting with auctioning.
The set collecting element is  about a mixture of getting the cards you want and sometimes collecting a card just to deny it to another player. Sometimes you'll be completing to build sets and sometimes you'll want to take a card no one else does on the cheap. Pretty standard stuff for set collecting and what you'd expect.

The auction mechanics offer something a little different.
​I have to say I'm not the biggest fan of auctioning games, I don't dislike them and I've enjoyed some of them but they're not really my jam. I've often found bidding decisions could be a little stress inducing, which is probably why some people love them so much! Nidavellir cleverly bypasses some of this with it's auction system because players never lose their bids.
Instead of trying to out bid someone or bluff a bid up, players will be trying to gauge how others will bid.

This requires not only watching what cards others have been collecting and trying to anticipate what they will prioritise in each bid but also paying attention to how they've been upgrading their coins. 
If another player has a coin that's got a higher value, it will never be possible to simply outbid them and it might not be even worth going against them and could be a good time to play that 0 coin and get an upgrade instead. There may also be other times when players want to bid low such as when all the cards in a tavern are not valuable or if they're not valuable to other players.

This means that Nidavellir has 3 avenues of strategy that the player must take into account.
Not only do players have to keep an eye on which dwarf cards to try and acquire, they'll want to think about creating rows as well as columns to earn hero cards which cna prove very useful.
Players will also need use that 0 coin to upgrade coins - which is essentially a form of arms race that can't be ignored - unless a player thinks they can win by being last in every auction!

Nidavellir is a solid game and I can't find anything to fault about it. It isn't particularly complicated but there's definitely enough depth here to keep players engaged and generally give them meaningful decisions to make.
If you like auctioning or set collecting games, it's probably worth a look. If you like auctioning and set collecting games, Nidavellir is definitely worth a look.

31st August 2021

We're at The Sovereigns in Woking with the Woking Gaming Club for some Tuesday evening gaming.

The first game of the night was Raids.
Raids is a game about Vikings going around doing what they do, which is raiding and pillaging.
What? You say, that's a cliché and Vikings were also explorers, traders, craftsmen and so on, well this game is called Raids, so raiding and pillaging it is; and all for glory!

• Game board: This board shows a number of landmasses surrounding a central sea area.
  Following the coastline is a dotted line that represents the voyages the Viking adventurers (The Players.) will undertake.
  Also along the coastline are a number of rectangular 'encounter' spaces and 3 square 'village' spaces.
  Finally, there's the start/finish harbour space.
• Voyage tiles: These rectangular tiles represent the various events and challenges the players will encounter during their voyages. On their backs they are numbered 1-4 for the 4 voyages that occur during the game.
  There are various different types of tile.
  Improvement tiles: This type of tile includes, Axes which grant a bonus when fighting monsters and Sails and Hammers, which respectively allow you to recruit more ​Vikings and earn Glory (Victory.) points for Vikings at the game end.
  Glory tiles: These come in 2 types. Pennants allow a player to straight up score Glory points and Goods tiles score Glory points if traded.
  Rune tiles: This is a set collection tile that scores at the game end.
  Port tiles: These can be used to sell Goods tiles. They come in single or double size!
  Event tiles: These tiles allow players Visit (Collect a Viking meeple.) or Pillage (Gain money.).
  Monster tiles: These tiles are a menace to all voyaging Vikings, defeating them earns Glory.
• Harbour tiles: These square tiles each have an objective and are used in conjunction with the Harbour space, players can earn money by completing these objectives.
  Usually these objectives are about collecting the most of something.
• Coins: These metal coins come in a denomination of 1, 3 & 6.

The components for Raids are all universally good, the board and tiles are nice and sturdy, the wooden longship and Viking meeples are great components and the metal coins are an nice touch.
Artwork on the game board is nice and colourful and the longship board are also good,  the art on the voyage tiles is a little drab, a little more colour would make them pop but it's only a very minor quibble.
There isn't too much iconography in the game and mostly it's very clear what it means.
All-in-all, excellent, top notch production values for Raids.

How's it play?
​Setup

• Sort the voyage tiles into 4 stacks according to their number and shuffle them into 4 face-down decks.
  Deal the '1' tiles face-up on to the rectangular spaces on the game board.
  ​Populate the village squares with the relevant number of Viking meeples.
• Put the starting harbour tile on to the harbour space on the board, shuffle the remaining harbour tiles and one face-up next to the remaining stacks of voyage tiles, dealing 3 in total.
• Give each player a longship board.
• Determine a starting order. then distribute Viking meeples to each player according to their position in the turn order.

On to play.
​Raids is played over 4 voyages which each involve journeying around the game board. During these voyages, the players will stop at the randomly placed voyage tiles and deal with those encounters.

• Active player: The active player is whoever is in last place on the current journey and they carry out the following actions.
  Collect: The active player collects the voyage tile for the location they are currently stopped at. Obviously this doesn't count for the first movement since all Longships start in the harbour. More on collecting tiles below.
  Discard: The active player must discard all voyage tiles between themselves and the next player. However, tiles displaying an orange arrow are never removed this way.
  This is clearly to stop a player in last place hopping from encounter to encounter when in last place.
  Movement: The active player must travel onwards, they can travel forward as far as they like and stop at any tile with only one stipulation; they cannot stop at a tile or space with an orange arrow, they can only move past orange arrows, although this may trigger an action. More on this below.
• Combat: If the active player's Longship stops at the same location as another player's, then battle ensues.
  Combat in Raids is essentially an auctioning mechanic.
  Whoever initiated combat must discard 1 Viking meeple.
  The other player may retaliate by discarding 2 Viking meeples.
  Now the initial player may retaliate by discarding 3 Viking meeples.
  This continues until one player chooses to or must flee, in which case they don not discard any Viking meeples and move forward to another encounter of their choice.
  If a player has no Viking meeples, they cannot initiate combat and cannot stop at the same encounter as another player's Longship.
• Collecting tiles: This is never done at the end of a player's movement, but before it on their following turn. It's an important distinction because it allows other players a chance to oust a player before they encounter the tile.
  After collecting a tile, it may go on to the player's Longship board or by the side of it.
  Improvement tiles: These are placed on to one of the spaces on the Longship board.
  Glory tiles: Are also placed on the game board.
  Rune tiles: When Rune tiles are collected, they are put to the side of the Longship board.
  Port tiles: These are also put to the side of the Longship board, furthermore, when collecting a Port tile, the active player may remove 1 or 2 Goods tile from their board and place it next to the Port tile. This means the Goods tile(s) will score at the game end. Additionally, collecting a Port tile gains the active player a Viking meeple.
• Passing tiles: Some voyage tiles and certain spaces on the game board are marked with an orange arrow, players cannot stop at these spaces. Instead they must stop before or after them. Unlike the tiles mentioned above, these tiles are resolved as the active player crosses it.
  Monster tiles: When encountering a monster tile, the active may sacrifice a poor hapless Viking meeple to sail past it or fight the monster. Fighting a monster requires sacrificing the requisite number of poor hapless Vikings to defeat it! However, this means the player can take the Monster tile, place it next to their Longship board and score it at the game end.
  If a player has no Vikings when they pass a Monster tile, then they simply move past it.
  Visit tile: The 1st player to pass a Visit tile acquires 2 Viking meeples, the 2nd player to pass it collects 1. Visit tiles are never collected.
  Pillage tile: The 1st player to pass a Pillage tile acquires 3 money, the 2nd player to pass it collects 1. Pillage tiles are never collected.
• Village spaces: When passing a Village space on the board, each player collects a single Viking meeple.​
• End of voyage: When a player completes a tour of the board and returns to the harbour space, they place their Longship token into the space for their finishing position and the starting order for the next voyage.
  ​Once all players have returned, cash is given out to the player who best meets the objective, then lesser amounts to the 2nd and 3rd best to meet the objective.
• New voyage: Any remaining tiles are removed.
  ​Tiles from the next voyage are placed on the gameboard, Populate the village spaces with more Viking meeples and begin the next voyage.

Endgame
Play continues until all players have completed the 4th voyage, then scores are calculated. Players can earn Glory points from a number of sources.
Pennant tiles on a player's Longship earns straight up Glory points.
Hammer tiles on a Longship earn points per Viking also on the Longship.
Goods tiles that have been traded earn Glory Points.
Sets of Rune tiles collected earn points accordingly.
Monsters defeated earn points.
Finally, cash accumulated during the game earn Glory points on a 1-to-1 basis.
All points are tallied, Highest score wins.

Overall
Travelling around the map, players will faced with a central choice on deciding how far to move their Longship? Should a player move slowly to encounter more tiles or rush ahead to a tile they really want? This is of course contextual and players will have to identify what they need and prioritise accordingly.
They'll also have to keep an eye out for the behaviour of other players and want to gauge their motivations. The rule where players can only collect tiles at the start of their turn slots into this nicely, possibly allowing other players to fight for the tile and keeping the situation tense. A worker placement game that allows workers to drive off other workers!

I also like how the Longship board works, merging aesthetics and mechanics. It's a great visual representation of what players are carrying and crew limitations.

The game is in essence a mid-to-light worker placement game with a touch of auctioning and resource management mechanics.
Raids fits its Viking theme reasonably well as players sail around, trading and plundering while battling mythic beasts and each other.

Having said that, I found the game a little unengaging, maybe a little too abstract. I could sail pretty much anywhere I wanted with generally minimal risk, it never felt like epic adventuring. Combat was fairly rare, mostly players didn't complete too much for the same resources but it felt bland, a quick glance at other player's Viking meeples will tell you if you can be beat them or not and at what cost. 

I'm also a little uncertain of how much replayability Raids has. Even though it has random placement for the encounter tiles, because they're not really interdependent on each other, it felt like it didn't matter the order in which you might encounter them, especially since I could sail as far as I wanted.

I don't think Raids is a bad game, if someone wanted to play it, I'd have no problem joining in (But not too often!), but it's not a game I'd pick.

20th July 2021

I'm in Woking at the Sovereigns with the Woking Gaming Club.

The second and final game of the evening was For Sale; time for some property flipping and stressful auctioning action.

What's in a game?
For Sale is a card game and comes with 2 types of cards.

• Property cards: There are 30 property cards, unsurprisingly numbered from 1-30.
• Currency cards: There are also 30 currency cards, these sort of represent the money in the game's property market and are worth from $2,000 to $15,000, increasing in increments of $1,000 with 2 of each, along with 2 cards worth $0.
• Coins: Standard card tokens that represent $1,000 or $2,000

It's no surprise that quality of the the cards and coin tokens are pretty standard and as you'd expect them.
Artwork on the property cards is pretty good, colourfully depicting 30 different properties ranging from a lowly cardboard box for the 1 card to an orbiting space station for the 30 card. The currency cards all identically depict cheques of various values
​There's not much else to say here.

How's it play?
Setup

• ​Shuffle the property cards into a face-down deck, depending on the number of players, some cards will need to be blindly discarded.
• Shuffle the currency deck into a face-down deck, as with property cards, an identical number of currency will need to be blindly discarded.
• Dole out coins to each player, the exact amount will also depend on the number of players.

On to play
For Sale is played over 2 phases, in the 1st, players use their money to buy properties and in the 2nd, they use these to get currency cards, essentially flipping the properties for profit.
Phase 1: Buying properties.

• From the property deck, draw a number of cards equal to the number of players and place them face-up in the playing area.
• Players now bid on these properties in an open auction, although players should keep the number of coins they possess secret from other players.
  The starting player begins with an opening bid of their choice.
  Players that follow must put in a higher bid or pass.
  When a player passes, half of the money they bid (Rounded down.) is returned to them and they acquire the lowest valued card from the currently available selection.
  This bidding and passing continues until only one player remains, who pays their full bid for the last card - which will naturally be the highest valued property.
  Now deal another set of cards and start the bidding again.
  ​This continues until all the property cards have been acquired.

That's it for phase 1.
Phase 2: Flipping those properties.

• From the currency deck, deal a number of cards equal to the number of players and place them face-up into the playing area. I guess these cards sort of represent the buyer's demand for properties and the money they're willing to shell out on them.
  Players now bid in order to sell their properties to these buyers, however, this takes the form of a blind auction. Each player now chooses a property from those they acquired in phase 1 and plays it face-down.
  All properties are simultaneously revealed. The highest valued property will acquire the highest valued currency card for its player, i.e. the nicest property attracts the richest buyer. The 2nd highest valued property acquires the 2nd highest valued currency card and so on until all the currency cards have been acquired.
  Deal another set of cards and continue blind-bidding on them until all currency cards have been acquired.

That's both phases done.

Endgame
​Players tally the values of all the currency cards they acquired and any coins that were unspent from phase 1.
Highest score wins.

Overall
​For Sale is a simple game to play, it features two types of auctioning that're easy to understand, however there are a couple of curveballs that that affect the game's dynamic.
Firstly in phase 1; which is an open auction, there's the rule that states when a player passes, they only get half their bid back and the lowest valued card. It means the classic play of trying to run up someone else's bid is a risky proposition, you may well end up running yourself up for a very low value card as well. Even the act of initially bidding may cost a player more than they want to spend, it's something player's need to think about.
All the property cards drawn have to be acquired by players and it may not seem like it, but sometimes a lower valued card can end up generating more profit. Why? Because the value of a card does not necessarily dictate its worth.

This brings me to phase 2; the blind auction. This is where player's sell their properties to get profit, however the profits that players can potentially generate will contextually change from round to round and depends on the currency cards drawn. No matter how much you paid for a property card, when you use it, it will only generate income according to the currently drawn currency cards.
This is where players have to start watching what other players will do and know when to push high or low valued property.

If a $15,000 currency card had been drawn and you know another player has the 30 point property card, you know they're going to play it - it guarantees them the $15,000 card, so is it a good time for you to use a high value card? On the other hand, the 2nd highest might be worth it, or it might be not.
Conversely; in some circumstances, the lowest value cards can have great worth, if all the currency cards drawn are high value, it can be a good time to play lower value cards, remember it's all about profit not value.
A 30 point property card that costs $8,000 and nets a $15,000 currency card, generates a profit of $7,000.
If 1 point property that cost 0 because somebody passed and took it for free is used to get a $8,000 property, then that's $8,000 profit!
This example is extreme and doesn't realistically occur too often, but the principal is sound; if demand is high (Multiple high value currency cards are drawn.), then it's time to push your lowest value properties for maximum profit; capitalism at its finest!
Conversely, if there are fewer high value currency cards out there, playing a high value property at the right time will outbid other players and score the maximum profit.

All this makes For Sale a very situational, essentially contextually-driven game about managing the game's inherent unpredictability and adapting when it's called for. It becomes about not only knowing when to play which cards, but also watching what properties other players have and trying to predict their strategies, which can profoundly effect yours.

I have love/hate relationship with auction games, the unpredictably always worries me and For Sale is more unpredictable than most in my opinion.
Even so, it's an enjoyable game and definitely worth a try, if you're a fan of auction games, you should really try it.

21st December 2019

It's the last Saturday night before Christmas and we're at Matakishi's for some board games. 

This is a game about accumulating stocks in railway companies, running railway companies and paying out dividends.
Yep, this is 'Irish Gauge' and not 1830.

Irish Gauge is a game that simultaneously is the same as and also completely different to 1830.
That is, it shares the same themes as 1830, but is a quite different game.

​What's in a game?
​Irish Gauge components.

• Board: The board is a map that depicts a chunk of Ireland and is covered in hexes (All respectable railway games have hex covered maps.). The map shows cities and towns, as well as difficult terrain. Finally the map shows a 3x8 grid for dividends and info for calculating dividend payouts and managing shares and share order.
• Cubes: 30 Coloured wooden, 10 cubes in each of 3 colours (Little wooden cubes are always welcome in a eurogame.). Cubes serve 2 functions. Firstly they are used to show what goods a city produces and secondly, they are used to dictate the market demand when a player calls for a dividend.
• Bag: The cubes go into the bag.
• Shares: There are 5 companies in Irish Gauge and each company has 2-4 shares. Each share has a 'initial value'. Shares are placed into 5 company stacks, with the lowest value share on the top and the highest on the bottom.
• Train meeples: There are 19 train meeples for each company. 

That's more or less all the components. They are all made to a good standard. There is minimal artwork in the game, but it has a clean and functional look.

How's it play?
​We begin with setup, which is pretty simple.

• Lay out the board and place the 5 stacks of share cards in their allotted places.
• Put 4 cubes of each colour (12 in total.) in the bag and blindly draw out 8 and place them on each of the cities. When this is done add the remaining cubes to the bag.
• Each of the 5 starting companies has a starting city, place 1 train meeple on its respective starting city.
• Give each player 20 currency.

And we're ready to go.

Initial auction
Before normal play commences, there is a 'initial auction' This is where players get to bid on and auction one share from each of the 5 companies.

• Determine a starting player. This player opens bidding on the first share up for auction. They must bid at least the initial value shown on the card or pass. The player can choose to pass.
• Play proceeds to the left. Following players must bid a higher value or pass (Or chooses to pass.). Any player who passes is out of the bidding on that card.
• Bidding continues until all players bar one have passed. That player wins the auction.
• Whoever wins the auction opens bidding on the next card up for auction.
• If every player passes on a share, then the starting player gets the share for free!
• Auctioning continues until all shares have been auctioned.

Now normal play can start. The first player is determined by whoever bought a certain share.
In their turn, the active player can perform 1 of 4 actions, these are: Place track, place a special interest, auction a share and call for a dividend.
Place track:
This is probably the most common action in the game

• The active player can only build a railway line for a company that they have at least 1 share in.
• The active player will have 3 points with which to build a railway line for one company.
• The railway line must connect either to the company's starting city, or some other part of the railway line.
• It costs 1 point to build in a empty hex or empty town/city.
• It costs 1.5 points to build in a hex or town/city that already has another railway line going through it.
• It costs 2 points to build in an empty difficult terrain hex. Only 1 railway line can go through a difficult terrain hex.

Place a special interest:

• This allows the active player to turn a town into a city.
• The active player looks in the bag and take out a cube if their choice.
• The active player places the cube in a town of their choice - provided that town is connected to the railway line of a company in which they have at least 1 share.

Auction a share:

• The active player chooses any share to auction and must bid at least the minimum value on the share.
• Play proceeds to the left. Following players must bid a higher value or pass (Or chooses to pass.). Any player who passes is out of the bidding on that card.
• Bidding continues until all players bar one have passed. That player wins the auction.

Call for a dividend:

• When the active player calls for a dividend, the blindly draw 3 cubes from the bag. The 3 cubes go into the 3x8 grid (Along the 3 axis obviously.) These 3 cubes will indicate which cities on the board a playing out.
• If one of each colour is drawn, then all cities pay out. If only 1 or 2 colours are then only those colours pay out. Doubles (Or triples!) count for nothing.
• Then in share order, calculate how much money each company makes. Each city connected to a company's railway line generates 4, each town generates 2. This is the dividend the company pays out.
• The dividend is paid out to the shareholders. If there is only one shareholder, they get all the money. Otherwise it is divided up according to the number of shares owned by players and paid out per share.

Endgame
The game ends when there are no more cubes in the bag, either because of a dividend being called or placing a cube as a special interest on the board.

All players tot up their cash plus the initial value of the shares they own. Highest cash wins.

Overall
Irish Gauge is a railway building game with stocks and shares and companies.
It's actually quite a common theme in board games. But Irish Gauge plays nothing like any of these other games.

It seems like the basic strategy is that players need to build railways, to issue dividends, to buy shares.
Simple, right? Not necessarily.
Whilst players may want to maximise their railway network before calling dividends, to get as much money as possible to have more funds when bidding on shares during an auction.

Waiting a long time to buy shares is a risky move.

Why? There limited opportunities to call for dividends because when the game starts, there will only be 22 cubes in the bag and each dividend uses 3 cubes. So there's maximum of 8 times a dividend can be called - and the last dividend will be with 1 cube! This is of course, provided nobody uses cubes to upgrade towns.

So shares bought later in the game will benefit less because there will be less dividend pay outs. This isn't so bad if you get a shares at the initial value, but that's unlikely to occur. So paying an extra 20 to get a share that only pays out 5 twice is actually a loss of 10!
This means players will want to get shares as quick as possible, but at the same time, it's prudent to wait and see if other players have low funds as this is a great time to trigger an auction, since they may have to pass, giving the active player a share at the initial value.

It's like some sort of horrible balancing act.

There's more as well. If a player thinks they benefit from a dividend more than anyone else, then they might ignore buying shares or improving their network and may just call dividend after dividend and 'run out' the game. However there's a random element to dividends, so they may scupper themselves.

After playing the game a couple of times: It seems to me that how a player places their railway lines is a bit of a 'no-brainer'. But on reflection I don't think this is as much of an issue as I first thought. Perhaps when to call for dividends may seem more vital for the game than anything else - provided the right cubes are pulled from the bag of course.

There's a lot to think about here, which is good.

Finally, Irish Gauge plays as fast as a roadrunner with it's backside on fire.
If you're used to slow and meaty railway games, Irish Gauge may feel quite fresh with it's relatively short play time.

I'm not certain if Irish Gauge will stand up to extended play. But it's worth giving it a couple of plays at least.

16th November 2019

​Saturday night gaming at 'Matakishi's' continues.

The second game of the evening was 'High Society'.

Some people are just obsessed with reputation, luxury, wealth and prestige and will pay anything to elevate it. Well almost anything.
These are the trials and tribulations 'endured' by the aspiring wealthy and privileged, where image is everything.
​
What's in a game?
High Society has broadly speaking 2 types of card.

• Bidding decks: There are 5 of these, one for each player. Each deck consists of 11 cards, with values from 1,000 Francs to 25,000 Francs.
• Status cards: There 16 of these oversized cards. 10 luxury cards that score points(Valued from 1-10.), 3 prestige cards that double a player's final score and finally 3 disgrace cards that lower the player's score in different ways

The version that we played is themed to the 'roaring 20's' in Paris and has gorgeous Art Nouveau illustrations on the status cards.

How's it play?
First give each player a 11 card bidding deck. Then shuffle the status cards to form a deck and determine a starting player.

• Play begins by drawing a card from the status deck and placing it face-up in the centre of the playing area.
• What happens next depends on which type of status card is drawn. If a luxury or prestige card is drawn, then normal bidding begins with the starting player.
• Bidding works in a more or less familiar method: The starting player makes an opening bid by playing one or more cards from their card face-up. Play will then progress to the left, players that follow must raise the bid by playing a card (Or cards.) face-up of a higher value. When it comes to a player increasing their bid, they can only add​ to their bid, they cannot take back a card they already played (They cannot make change). Alternatively, a player may choose to pass, in this case any bidding cards they played are returned to their hand and they are out of the bidding. Play continues until all but one player has passed. The winning player discards all the cards they used in the bidding and collects the status card. Whoever wins the bidding is the starting player for the next status card.
• If a scandal card is drawn, the bidding is slightly different. Members of high society want to avoid scandal. So now players are bidding to avoid taking the card. Bidding works as normal, but the first player to pass collects the scandal card and also collects any bidding cards they played. All other players must discard all cards they used when bidding to avoid the scandal card.

And that's it for the rules.

Endgame
4 cards in the status are coloured green, they are the 3 prestige cards and one of the scandal cards.
When the 4th green card is drawn, the game ends immediately - there is no bidding on the 4th green.
Next is the game's sting in the tail. The player who has the least amount of money in their hand is eliminated from the endgame!
The remaining players total the value of their luxury cards and modify them by any prestige/scandal cards they have. Highest score wins.

Overall
There's a few clever little things to think about here.

Because a player can only add to their bid, players will be faced with tricky choices. If you really want a card a card, do you bid low hoping other players won't try and out bid you? Or do you start with a high bid hoping to discourage others and use less cards. For example: Using a 4 and 6 is worse than using a 10, even though they have the same value, in the first case you're using up 2 cards instead of 1 - and you can't bid if you don't have cards.
Also; there's nothing more infuriating then when you want to push up a bid by 1 or 2 and you've got nothing less than a 5 in your hand.

The endgame mechanic adds an extra level of unpredictability to the game. A game can last anywhere from 3 to 15 rounds. Players will know when there's a chance that the game will end because they'll see that 3 green cards have been played, but they won't know exactly when the end is coming. All of this can affect how you bid.

Finally, there's the player elimination in the endgame. The sting in the tail that constantly niggles and lingers in the back of every player's mind when they're playing.
It doesn't matter how well a player has done in the bidding if they're eliminated for having the least money. It is painful.

All in all, High Society is a quick to learn game that is quite fast to play and makes an excellent filler game. It's mechanics push players into making meaningful and tricky decisions. Other than constant stress, what's not to like?

How's it play?
As always we begin with set up.

• A bidding deck is given to each player.
• The location deck is created by randomly using 3 location cards. A number of assistant cards will be added in as 2 small stacks between the 3 location cards. all of these are kept in a deck face-down on the game board.
• Finally the victim deck is created and shuffled. Then a number of cards are turned face up.

Then play can begin.
Campy Creatures uses blind bidding. The highest bid gets to go first and pick the victim card of their choice.

• Players keep all of their individual deck in their hand at all times.
• Players can choose any one of their monsters to play. The card is played face down. Once all players have put a card down, all cards are revealed and then resolved.
• Generally, the card with the highest number goes first. However, there are special abilities that can change things. Some special abilities a triggered when cards are revealed, some when a victim is captured.
• Thus the highest score gets 1st pick, 2nd highest score gets 2nd pick and so on until the lowest score has to take the last card.
• A new turn begins and new cards from the victim deck are dealt.
• Any cards used for bidding remain face-up on the table, they cannot be used again in this round.
• When the victim deck is depleted, the round is over. The 1st location card is revealed and will have a specific symbol on it. The player who has acquired cards with the most of the matching symbol will acquire the location card (And whatever bonus it entails.).
• The round is scored, all victims (Except assistants.) are returned to form a new victim deck, the extra assistants from location deck is added to the victim deck.
• The next round begins.

Endgame​
Campy Creatures is played over a total of 3 rounds. After the final round, final scores are tallied, highest score wins.