…and had lots of fun! I’m assured it’s a great game and definitely one of the best games released this year. It’s definitely on my DSP vote list. Everybody liked it, it was easy to teach and fun to play. It’s the perfect little filler game. King Lui got a bit less enthusiastic reception —…
…just five cities and the first rice and spice companies are started up. Companies merge, new cities appear, old ones grow, new companies start up, until all three eras have passed and one player emerges victorious. Mergers are what makes the game interesting. Anybody (with enough R&D) can choose to merge any two companies, which…
…would be a good place to start and built my empire in that corner of the map. Everybody else seemed to start on the southwestern side, which indeed has more cities. That left me quite alone, which of course suited me. However, I took too many shares in the beginning, which made my financial situation…
…multiply the games played with the grade. However, that favours short games. So, add the time spent playing the games! So if you count the minutes spent playing the games and then multiply with the grade (normalized, that is grade-5 to make it 0-centered), you get the happiness product. It’s Joe Huber’s idea, from Spielfrieks…
…action saw some use — black cards were a desired commodity. Erkka almost won the game, thanks to his massive skyscraper lots — with up to five skyscrapers placed on one area. However, it was the Central Park that spelled his downfall. He didn’t have any skyscrapers there, we drew three different business icons and…
…hold most amulets, while winning “tricks” is of course easiest with bigger cards. Unlike in most trick-taking games, winner of the “trick” doesn’t collect all the cards, just his or her own card, which makes collecting the small numbers even harder. Resolving the battle Here’s why I keep quoting the word trick: the leading player…
…game is… clever. Players are people in a setting – say, submarine, space station, zoo, embassy, school, hospital, something like that – except for one, who is spy. Spy doesn’t know the setting. She tries to find out what the setting is, while other players must out the spy. The game is played by asking…
…bland, but not this one. The publisher decided to make it a large hardcover to avoid making it hundreds of pages long (the manuscript was bit on the long side). Now it’s packed full of text and 240 pages. Also, it’s pretty expensive, so it has to be hardcover to justify the price (of course…
…very simple. I spent about five minutes meddling with the parameters and tested for few rounds to create an AI player that kind of matches my playing style. It proved quite effective: when it finally worked the way I wanted, it kicked my butt. I’ve yet to beat it. Of course, this leads to an…
…oversize cards which have a 5 by 7 grid: the track is five spaces wide and at least six cards long. There are simple wooden tokens for space ships and smaller movement cards. The components are simple and functional. What do you do in the game? The goal is to get across the goal line…