Cleopatra, Take II

I played a second game of Cleopatra last night. Brody, who'd also been in on Wednesday's EndGame game joined me, as did Mike A., Mike B., and Christopher.

Sadly, neither Brody nor I had as much fun as we did the first game. On whole, I think Cleopatra's an OK game, but sadly it doesn't pop up above average. I think a more casual group will enjoy it more than a serious group, but the mindset needed is different enough that I can't really assess it.

Here's a few additional points that I pulled out of my second game:

1. DRAW V. PLAY. In my previous entry I said that the constant choice of take resources or use resources was a strong one, but I didn't think it was emphasized enough in the game, because the choice was too often too simple. I still think that's the case, but in this second game, perhaps because of my improved understanding of the game, perhaps because of the fact that we had 5 players instead of 4, I more often felt like I might want to build with fewer cards to grab an opportunity before it disappeared. So there's a slight bit of tough decision there.

2. LAG. For some reason this second game really lagged in a way that the first game didn't. I think that some of it was having 5 players instead of 4, which meant more downtime. I think part of it was that my Thursday group is more likely to take any game we play really seriously, thus underlining the fact that I think more casual groups will enjoy this game more.

3. THE GAME PLAYS YOU. I hate it when people use this phrase, but I really think it's correct here. I constantly felt like I was building what I could based on what cards I'd drawn, not drawing cards in order to build something. A few times I assessed piles of cards that I *didn't* want based on what they showed, but there was just too much chaos to make this sort of decision in positive manner. THe fact that half the cards were upside down, which I think is neat in its own way, also prevented you from making an informed decision.

4. MOSAIC BUILDING SORT OF ANNOYING. The biggest spatial/physical aspect of the game is building the Mosaics. YOu have a grid you're building them on, and you're trading off getting points versus blocking off areas where nothing else can be built, and thus creating sanctuaries. This time around we had more people building 2 or 3 mosaics on the same turn, and it ended up kind of frustrating. Moving those mosaics around (and around and around) to try and figure out how to possibly set up a sanctuary seems more like work and less like fun.

Despite negativism, I still think it's a fun game to play. I just can't rate it above average (3 out of 5) gameplay for people looking for any sort of strategy. And, this is one of those games where I expect the best enjoyment comes not from playing a game where you have less real choices and more randomness, but rather where you have to turn off the strategy center of your brain because it just gets in the way and imposes more order and thought than the game really supports ... and I can't do that and thus can't assess whether a totally casual player might like it more.

The Age of Plenty Ends

I've lived in an Age of Plenty at gonegaming since March. That was when I put together my 4-part series on Carcassonne [1][2][3][4]. Partway through the publication of that, I also finished up my 2-part series on Essen 2005 games [1][2] . Putting those together, I've been about a month ahead on my Gone Gaming articles for months.

Alas, that's come to an end. Both of those series are done, and I've just got two completed articles queued up: a 2-part series on Italian game design. Now, I actually need to start thinking again, and figure out what I'm going to be writing a couple of weeks from now.

I'm not obsessive about getting things done ahead of time, mind you, but a weekly schedule is very tough for writing thoughtful articles, so you need to capture enthusiasm and interest whenever you can. The only way to survive is to constantly be thinking I-want-to-write-that when something occurs to you, not my-deadline-is-coming-up-so-what-should-I-knock-out (at least for me).

So my brain is open once more, and ready for business.

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I actually just finished up final revisions and additions to those Italian articles this evening. It's one of the things I wanted to work on writing-wise this weekend. Next up is a penultimate draft of the Bruno Faidutti article, including his quotes, and all polished into a publishable form. Which then gets sent to Bruno for any comments.

After that a complete outline of the elf book is my only other TODO for April, though I may wait until next weekend on that.

Actually, I have one other thing I want to do, which is to start my two-part GG series on Nurnberg 2006. It'll be months before I publish it, but I want to get my thoughts on the two I've played (Ticket to Ride Marklin and Cleopatra and the Society of Architects) down while they're still fresh.

(I finished a second draft of LC #2 earlier this week, and sent it off to readers, and am hoping to final draft it this Wednesday.)