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shannon_aThis week, my friend Aaron, kind proprietor at Endgame secured a copy of one of the few Alea games never printed in the US, Die Seiben Weisen (The Seven Ways), and so I get to write about it right on time for this series.
I'll take a bit more time to explain it than usual, because it's likely you haven't played it. It's one of those games that falls right between the categories of "auction" and "card play". Basically, you have a deck of cards that has seven suits in it (plus a wild suit). Each turn each player takes a "role card" which says which suit of cards he's allowed to play that turn. Then the players partner up into two sides. Finally that is a series of card plays, with each player playing cards (from his suit) one at a time or passing. The group with the most points worth of played cards at the end wins (or you can autowin if you hit +24 over your opponents). The winning side splits a pair of victory point markers.
There's a bit more color. There are "magic spells", which allow you to do interesting things during the auction, and which are drawn by the losers. The roles also determine some ordering that varies from round to round, namely: who gets the higher VP marker in the split; who gets to choose a role first next round; and what next round is fought over. You also get some control over your hand because you draw cards when you pass, then give some of your cards to the next player (which was a remarkably early use of card drafting in Euro Games).
Generally as a auction/card-play game it's fair to good. I think the most interesting question is usually how much you can trust your "partner", because they may or may not be playing to win, since resources they don't spend can be saved for next round. The card drafting I mentioned above can also allow for some interesting signaling. At one point the last place player handed some great cards to the next-to-last-place player, which was a way of saying, "We both got kick ass cards, let's earn some victory points together, next turn."
With this being a card-play game, I also think that Die Sieben Weisen is a really nice match for Wyatt Earp, the first of the small-box games. However, unlike Wyatt Earp, it doesn't excel; in the former came it felt like there were lots of opportunity for clever play, while here it felt like there was some social awareness, and the constant decision of when to play to win and when to cut your losses.
Still, that'd make Die Sieben Weisen a decently good game if not for the fact that I think it largely fails in the end game. There are two major problems.
First, because you get to pretty freely choose your partner every time, the game really pushes toward a balanced score. You usually won't try and help the winning players and instead will side with the underdog when you feel strong. We had some discussion about whether closed victory points would help this (and whether the points were actually supposed to be open or closed, as our translation of the rules didn't say), and it came down to the same 'ole argument about semi-closed victory points that you hear surrounding Tigris & Euphrates and others. In any case, the way we played it with open victory points resulted in a score coming into the final scoring of 25-25-25-24, which was probably abnormally close, but it is what the game selects for.
Second, you can easily get into a position in the last couple of rounds where it's to your grave deficit to help your partner win, depending on relative positioning. You can likewise get into the position on the last round or two where there's nothing you can do to win, depending on who you're paired with. This is often a problem in games with rotating partners. Nyet! is a (somewhat more clever) card game which similarly can break apart at the finale.
Overall, I was really pleased to get to play this game as part of my series, but I won't shed any tears if it's my last play of it.
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)
L7: Puerto Rico. A+ (Plays: 11) [ Read my Review ]
S3: Die Sieben Weisen C (Plays: 1)
Next up is Edel, Stein & Reich, the other untranslated small box. I've actually had a copy of that for years, but the German words have always intimidated me, and so I've never played. I will soon, and I'm looking forward to it, as I like Basari.
I'll take a bit more time to explain it than usual, because it's likely you haven't played it. It's one of those games that falls right between the categories of "auction" and "card play". Basically, you have a deck of cards that has seven suits in it (plus a wild suit). Each turn each player takes a "role card" which says which suit of cards he's allowed to play that turn. Then the players partner up into two sides. Finally that is a series of card plays, with each player playing cards (from his suit) one at a time or passing. The group with the most points worth of played cards at the end wins (or you can autowin if you hit +24 over your opponents). The winning side splits a pair of victory point markers.
There's a bit more color. There are "magic spells", which allow you to do interesting things during the auction, and which are drawn by the losers. The roles also determine some ordering that varies from round to round, namely: who gets the higher VP marker in the split; who gets to choose a role first next round; and what next round is fought over. You also get some control over your hand because you draw cards when you pass, then give some of your cards to the next player (which was a remarkably early use of card drafting in Euro Games).
Generally as a auction/card-play game it's fair to good. I think the most interesting question is usually how much you can trust your "partner", because they may or may not be playing to win, since resources they don't spend can be saved for next round. The card drafting I mentioned above can also allow for some interesting signaling. At one point the last place player handed some great cards to the next-to-last-place player, which was a way of saying, "We both got kick ass cards, let's earn some victory points together, next turn."
With this being a card-play game, I also think that Die Sieben Weisen is a really nice match for Wyatt Earp, the first of the small-box games. However, unlike Wyatt Earp, it doesn't excel; in the former came it felt like there were lots of opportunity for clever play, while here it felt like there was some social awareness, and the constant decision of when to play to win and when to cut your losses.
Still, that'd make Die Sieben Weisen a decently good game if not for the fact that I think it largely fails in the end game. There are two major problems.
First, because you get to pretty freely choose your partner every time, the game really pushes toward a balanced score. You usually won't try and help the winning players and instead will side with the underdog when you feel strong. We had some discussion about whether closed victory points would help this (and whether the points were actually supposed to be open or closed, as our translation of the rules didn't say), and it came down to the same 'ole argument about semi-closed victory points that you hear surrounding Tigris & Euphrates and others. In any case, the way we played it with open victory points resulted in a score coming into the final scoring of 25-25-25-24, which was probably abnormally close, but it is what the game selects for.
Second, you can easily get into a position in the last couple of rounds where it's to your grave deficit to help your partner win, depending on relative positioning. You can likewise get into the position on the last round or two where there's nothing you can do to win, depending on who you're paired with. This is often a problem in games with rotating partners. Nyet! is a (somewhat more clever) card game which similarly can break apart at the finale.
Overall, I was really pleased to get to play this game as part of my series, but I won't shed any tears if it's my last play of it.
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)
L7: Puerto Rico. A+ (Plays: 11) [ Read my Review ]
S3: Die Sieben Weisen C (Plays: 1)
Next up is Edel, Stein & Reich, the other untranslated small box. I've actually had a copy of that for years, but the German words have always intimidated me, and so I've never played. I will soon, and I'm looking forward to it, as I like Basari.