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The Year of Wallace (I)
May. 1st, 2008 05:47 pmI've now 5 or so years into my play of Eurogames, and I've slowly come to better appreciate the longer, more intricate games. Now last year, when I was really realizing how much I enjoyed Knizia, I set myself a goal: a Knizia game a week. This year I'm doing something similar. I'm trying to play as many of Martin Wallace's games as I can.
This is the first of what will be a few posts on the subject, mainly because I want to remember how I felt about the games so that I can write a BGN post about them all at the end of the year.
Liberte. An old game that I got to play for the first time this year, and I loved it. A really terrific look at majority control that's a serious brainburner, but worth the effort. Also has alternative victory conditions, as Wallace seems to enjoy. It's a damned shame that the colors got messed up, as it makes the game much less playable. I hear Valley Games is reprinting it, but that's not actually a very reliable marker of whether we'll ever see the game again or not.
Mordred. One of just two Wallace games which has gotten multiple (2) plays. Herein you build various structures to hold England against Mordred. It fits the Wallace standard in that it has wacky alternative victory conditions that leave you constantly wondering which way the game is going to go and that it has a heavy economic basis.
It hasn't thrilled yet, but it's so short (at 30-45 minutes) that it doesn't particularly offend me either. I think the economic system is a bit heavy for the length and weight of the game. It doesn't hurt my brain, it just feels like an odd combination.
Of course this was (re)released at a very high price as some type of charity benefit, so it's not out there that much.
Pampas Railroads. It's hard to be excited about yet another Wallace railroad game when he's done so many of them. This one has already mostly fled my head. It had stock, it had earnings, it had drawing lines and trying to work together with other players to your own benefit. Maybe it would have been more memorable if it weren't marred by the typically atrocious components from Winsome Games.
Perikles. A wacky pseudo-wargame that reminds me of one part Princes of the Renaissance and one part Liberte. On the one hand you have a changing ownership of various areas that are being fought over and on the other you have pseudo-partial control of those interests. It doesn't have alternative victory conditions like Liberte and Mordred does, but it does have sudden-endgame conditions, which I managed to use to secure a 1-point win in my last game. (After winning Athens, I then let it go down in defeat while using Athens forces to siege other cities, confident that my earnings in the first round would carry me to victory. They did, barely.)
Rails of Europe. I'm not sure that it counts as a Wallace game, as he had nothing to do with the supplement, but it's a new map for his Age of Steam-derived Railroad Tycoon game. It was also, IMO, the best iteration of the system, simpler than Age of Steam and tighter and faster than Railroad Tycoon. My Other Wallace game with multiple (2) plays.
I haven't yet played most of the games that I actually have on my shelf yet this year. Brass and Princes of the Renaissance should be exciting additions. La Strada is entirely innocuous, while I'm not sure I'm going to be willing to donate the time to Runebound. I also just got Toledo in the mail today. Meanwhile, Eric V. has promised to bring around Tyros and Empires of the Middle Ages next week. So, all told that's another seven possibilities.
Looking at the listings, Tinner's Trail, Tempus, Byzantium, Struggle of Empires (or its Eagle Games alternative, which I actually have too), and Way Out West should all get played too. I'm less sure about his pre-1999 stuff and his stuff from other publishers.
This is the first of what will be a few posts on the subject, mainly because I want to remember how I felt about the games so that I can write a BGN post about them all at the end of the year.
Liberte. An old game that I got to play for the first time this year, and I loved it. A really terrific look at majority control that's a serious brainburner, but worth the effort. Also has alternative victory conditions, as Wallace seems to enjoy. It's a damned shame that the colors got messed up, as it makes the game much less playable. I hear Valley Games is reprinting it, but that's not actually a very reliable marker of whether we'll ever see the game again or not.
Mordred. One of just two Wallace games which has gotten multiple (2) plays. Herein you build various structures to hold England against Mordred. It fits the Wallace standard in that it has wacky alternative victory conditions that leave you constantly wondering which way the game is going to go and that it has a heavy economic basis.
It hasn't thrilled yet, but it's so short (at 30-45 minutes) that it doesn't particularly offend me either. I think the economic system is a bit heavy for the length and weight of the game. It doesn't hurt my brain, it just feels like an odd combination.
Of course this was (re)released at a very high price as some type of charity benefit, so it's not out there that much.
Pampas Railroads. It's hard to be excited about yet another Wallace railroad game when he's done so many of them. This one has already mostly fled my head. It had stock, it had earnings, it had drawing lines and trying to work together with other players to your own benefit. Maybe it would have been more memorable if it weren't marred by the typically atrocious components from Winsome Games.
Perikles. A wacky pseudo-wargame that reminds me of one part Princes of the Renaissance and one part Liberte. On the one hand you have a changing ownership of various areas that are being fought over and on the other you have pseudo-partial control of those interests. It doesn't have alternative victory conditions like Liberte and Mordred does, but it does have sudden-endgame conditions, which I managed to use to secure a 1-point win in my last game. (After winning Athens, I then let it go down in defeat while using Athens forces to siege other cities, confident that my earnings in the first round would carry me to victory. They did, barely.)
Rails of Europe. I'm not sure that it counts as a Wallace game, as he had nothing to do with the supplement, but it's a new map for his Age of Steam-derived Railroad Tycoon game. It was also, IMO, the best iteration of the system, simpler than Age of Steam and tighter and faster than Railroad Tycoon. My Other Wallace game with multiple (2) plays.
I haven't yet played most of the games that I actually have on my shelf yet this year. Brass and Princes of the Renaissance should be exciting additions. La Strada is entirely innocuous, while I'm not sure I'm going to be willing to donate the time to Runebound. I also just got Toledo in the mail today. Meanwhile, Eric V. has promised to bring around Tyros and Empires of the Middle Ages next week. So, all told that's another seven possibilities.
Looking at the listings, Tinner's Trail, Tempus, Byzantium, Struggle of Empires (or its Eagle Games alternative, which I actually have too), and Way Out West should all get played too. I'm less sure about his pre-1999 stuff and his stuff from other publishers.