Alea Analysis #8: Royal Turf (Small Box #2)

[shannon_a]

Alea immediately followed up on their small box series with Royal Turf--though I'll have to admit to being befuddled as to why it was ever put in a small box, given that it's got a board and figures and everything. It's an interesting contrast to Wyatt Earp, because where the first was definitely a card game, the second is definitely a dice game. It's like a one-two of randomness in gaming.

Notably, this game was another pseudo-reprint in the Alea series, since it had appeared previously in a somewhat different form as Royal Turf Racing, which had been published in 1995.

In Royal Turf you're betting on horses, then racing them. Each horse has a set of four stats, which correspond to faces on a die. When you're ready to race, you throw a die, then move a horse of your choice. Depending on the face and the corresponding stat, you might get to move a horse a lot or a little. All seven horses have to be moved before you can move any of them again. At the end of the race, first, second, and third place score, and last place penalizes. Pretty simple.

I like it quite a bid for a few different reasons. First, it's fun. Knizia has correctly sussed out how to make the die roll exciting, because you're often looking for special symbols that can move a horse much more than he'd get to on average. On the other hand, it's relatively strategic too. You can manage your strategy at the start, by choosing a set of horses to bet on in such a way that you can always do something useful, no matter which die is rolled. (And, that's not the only betting strategy. You might go contrarian as well, for example.) Then, during play, you can be tactically clever, trying to keep your horse ahead and others behind based on specific rolls.

One of the things that impresses me about the game is that Knizia does encourage players to be nasty to each other, something that you don't see a lot in German games. That's because of the penalty for the last-place horse. Often slowing a horse down is about self-interest: you're just trying to be sure to not come in last. But, along the way, you're hurting one of your opponents too.

The betting in Royal Turf can also be quite interesting, if you use the hidden betting variant. I think it doubles the fun of the game, because it's great pretending the whole time that you like a horse that you didn't actually bet on, and watching all of the other players trying to stop it from winning (while your real horses glide in).

Generally, I think Royal Turf is another of Alea's stars, albeit a very light one. I just wish Winner's Circle (which is the copy of the game I have, as the Alea edition is long out of print) didn't have such bad coloration on the horses. There's two that I always have to watch out for, lest I get confused.

L1: Ra. A+. (Plays: 15) [ Read my Review ]
L2: Chinatown. B-. (Plays: 1)
L3: Taj Mahal. A+. (Plays: 7)
L4: Princes of Florence. A. (Plays: 4+) [ Read my Review ]
L5: Adel Verpflichtet. B. (Plays: 2) [ Read my Review ]
L6: Traders of Genoa. A+. (Plays: 3+) [ Read my Review ]
S1: Wyatt Earp. B+ (Plays: 2)
S2: Royal Turf. A- (Plays: 6)

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

A very minor nitpick (in case you plan to publish this elsewhere or something): the original version was called Turf Horse Racing.