Wallace-a-thon: Way Out West
Jul. 10th, 2008 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shannon_aAaron was kind enough to bring in Way Out West today, so I got to play a Martin Wallace game that I really wasn't expecting to get to play this year.
It's one of his earlier works, and it was OK, but I generally wasn't as impressed as I am with some of his newer stuff. The game's got some nice economic modeling, with your trying to take advantage of what other players are doing, there's even a pretty clever setup for this: you build buildings that only accrue VPs based on what other people have built.
However, it's also random. Very, very random. Even for a Martin Wallace game.
I actually might not have minded the randomness as much if it weren't really drawn out. There are gunfights that just go on and on with dice being rolled again and again until someone is wiped out (or flees). I much prefer the system in Byzantium, where you only do one round of combat, and then determine a winner based on remaining troops afterward. There's still some chance for upset, but not as much, and it doesn't take nearly as much time.
And I have to ask, how can you have a western game with 6 different building types where none of the buildings are a saloon or a cathouse? OK, maybe I can understand the lack of a cathouse if you're trying to make a family-friendly game, but ... no saloon!?
In any case, it was great to try this out, not just a new Wallace for the year, but a totally new to me game.
It's one of his earlier works, and it was OK, but I generally wasn't as impressed as I am with some of his newer stuff. The game's got some nice economic modeling, with your trying to take advantage of what other players are doing, there's even a pretty clever setup for this: you build buildings that only accrue VPs based on what other people have built.
However, it's also random. Very, very random. Even for a Martin Wallace game.
I actually might not have minded the randomness as much if it weren't really drawn out. There are gunfights that just go on and on with dice being rolled again and again until someone is wiped out (or flees). I much prefer the system in Byzantium, where you only do one round of combat, and then determine a winner based on remaining troops afterward. There's still some chance for upset, but not as much, and it doesn't take nearly as much time.
And I have to ask, how can you have a western game with 6 different building types where none of the buildings are a saloon or a cathouse? OK, maybe I can understand the lack of a cathouse if you're trying to make a family-friendly game, but ... no saloon!?
In any case, it was great to try this out, not just a new Wallace for the year, but a totally new to me game.