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Thursday night I continued my run of Martin Wallace games by playing La Strada.
I usually classify this as one of his "lesser" games, because it's just a little 30-minute thing, but it's actually quite a good game. Though it's (of course) considerably shallower than his long games, it's pretty interesting for its time period.
You're building roads to connect up various towns, and at the end of the game, you get points for how many towns you connected. Here's the main things I like:
1.) The road building system is essentially an action point system in disguise. You can build 1.5-3 roads a turn, depending on whether you build across plains, forests, or hills. You can also save up some of your action points from round to round.
2.) The board is quite tight, and I think the evolving road system is both beautiful and a source of tension.
3.) The scoring is quite innovative: the more people who got to a town, the less valuable it is for everyone.
The biggest problem I have with the game is that the first player seems to be really helped and the last player really hurt. In our Thursday game, the points decreased from the 1st player to the 4th, and I know that's now the first time that happened. I think really good initial (blocking) placement by the 2nd-4th players could hurt the first player, but players shouldn't have to know to do that sort of thing. Absent that there should be lesser action points available for the first players or something, and it's a sad thing the game doesn't have it.
Nonetheless I can't get too upset if a 30-minute game is unbalanced.
Next Up: I'm now more than halfway through the year and it's instructive to note what I haven't played yet. Of my own games, Princes of the Renaissance, Conquest of the Empire, and Runebound remain unloved. Of those I'd prefer Struggle of Empires over CotE and I'm not sure about Runebound but Princes will definitely get played. Eric has Tempus and Empires of the Ancient World, two other games I haven't played yet this year. It looks like After the Flood may appear this year too. That should get me through all his most notable Warfrog games.
I usually classify this as one of his "lesser" games, because it's just a little 30-minute thing, but it's actually quite a good game. Though it's (of course) considerably shallower than his long games, it's pretty interesting for its time period.
You're building roads to connect up various towns, and at the end of the game, you get points for how many towns you connected. Here's the main things I like:
1.) The road building system is essentially an action point system in disguise. You can build 1.5-3 roads a turn, depending on whether you build across plains, forests, or hills. You can also save up some of your action points from round to round.
2.) The board is quite tight, and I think the evolving road system is both beautiful and a source of tension.
3.) The scoring is quite innovative: the more people who got to a town, the less valuable it is for everyone.
The biggest problem I have with the game is that the first player seems to be really helped and the last player really hurt. In our Thursday game, the points decreased from the 1st player to the 4th, and I know that's now the first time that happened. I think really good initial (blocking) placement by the 2nd-4th players could hurt the first player, but players shouldn't have to know to do that sort of thing. Absent that there should be lesser action points available for the first players or something, and it's a sad thing the game doesn't have it.
Nonetheless I can't get too upset if a 30-minute game is unbalanced.
Next Up: I'm now more than halfway through the year and it's instructive to note what I haven't played yet. Of my own games, Princes of the Renaissance, Conquest of the Empire, and Runebound remain unloved. Of those I'd prefer Struggle of Empires over CotE and I'm not sure about Runebound but Princes will definitely get played. Eric has Tempus and Empires of the Ancient World, two other games I haven't played yet this year. It looks like After the Flood may appear this year too. That should get me through all his most notable Warfrog games.