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shannon_aI must admit, that having now played through the first fourteen Alea games, I'm minorly befuddled by the decision to exchange Alea's small box line for these medium boxes. Looking over the series, there's not much that couldn't have fit into the small boxes. Sure, the purview extended a bit beyond the card-centric games of the past, but Witch's Brew is enough of a pure card game that it could have fit right into the previous line. Palazzo too, for that matter, even if it uses tiles instead.
So, I have to guess it was primarily an economic decision, as Alea can doubtless charge a bit more for a game in a medium box than a card game in a small box.
Moving on to Louis XIV. It's a unique majority-control game, played out over a collection of 12 connected tiles. Here's what I think makes it unique:
1.) It has a strong geographical basis. Though I love most majority-control games, starting way back with El Grande, too many of them have weak geographical basis; things adjacent to each other don't matter very much. Contrariwise, in Louis XIV, what's next to each other matters quite a bit.
2.) That's because of Louis XIV's second unique mechanism. When you place your markers, you get to place a set of three. You could just place those all on the tile corresponding to the card you play--but you can actually do more by laying them out across a path of adjacent tiles, either 3-0, 2-1, 1-2, or 1-1-1.
I think this really shows how close majority-control and auction are. Because you have the ability to string markers over several tiles, you're largely encouraged to "bid low" by keeping a minimal number of markers on several tiles, then only increasing those numbers as other people "bid you up".
3.) There are several different mechanisms to determine who won a tile: 1st only gets the reward; 1st gets the reward but everyone else can pay for it; and everyone gets it if they put sufficient markers (2-3) on the space. Because you're bidding in all of these sorts of auctions at the same time with the same markers, you have to constantly compromise and/or figure out how to get what you want.
To be honest, I wasn't totally enthused by the game the first time I played it. I found it a little dry and a lot slow, but I think the latter ended up being because of one or more players who were very APed for that first game. Every other game of Louis XIV that I've played has come in a lot faster than that first game.
Now, I consider it a very strong contender for a game to be brought out whenever a mid-weight, mid-length game is required. It's got a nice amount of strategy, a nice amount of tension, and is original enough that I don't every feel like I've played enough of its sort of game.
Because my appreciation of it has risen over time, I'm more surprised that other players are so-so on it. But I got a better understanding of why when I played the game again just before writing up this piece. Several of the players there said that it was too abstract, and I'll agree that there isn't a very good correlation between the theming of Louis XIV's court and the play of putting down markers on cardboard tiles. I get no feeling of the intrigues of the sun court.
Players also said that they didn't think its mechanics were original enough: it was just another of many mid-weight majority control games. Though I do find a lot of originality here, I understand their point, because the originality of Louis XIV is pretty subtle.
One of the things that I find the most amusing about Louis XIV is that it was the game that really locked in Rudiger Dorn as an interesting designer, for me, and that's because it made me understand one defining point of his designs. He likes to create grids and then take normally abstract mechanics and position them on the grid. He did it in Traders of Genoa (trade/negotiate), Goa (auction), and Louis XIV (majority control/auction). Maybe that's why I often think that Goa should have been an Alea game: it forms such a neat trilogy.
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)
S4: Edel, Stein & Reich B- (Plays: 1) [ Read my Basari Review ]
L8: Mammoth Hunters B+ (Plays: 5) [ Read my Review. ]
S5: San Juan A+ (Plays: 32) [ Read my Review; plus Glory to Rome review. ]
L9: Fifth Avenue C- (Plays: 3+)
M1: Louis XIV B+ (Plays: 7) [ Read my Review ]
So, I have to guess it was primarily an economic decision, as Alea can doubtless charge a bit more for a game in a medium box than a card game in a small box.
Moving on to Louis XIV. It's a unique majority-control game, played out over a collection of 12 connected tiles. Here's what I think makes it unique:
1.) It has a strong geographical basis. Though I love most majority-control games, starting way back with El Grande, too many of them have weak geographical basis; things adjacent to each other don't matter very much. Contrariwise, in Louis XIV, what's next to each other matters quite a bit.
2.) That's because of Louis XIV's second unique mechanism. When you place your markers, you get to place a set of three. You could just place those all on the tile corresponding to the card you play--but you can actually do more by laying them out across a path of adjacent tiles, either 3-0, 2-1, 1-2, or 1-1-1.
I think this really shows how close majority-control and auction are. Because you have the ability to string markers over several tiles, you're largely encouraged to "bid low" by keeping a minimal number of markers on several tiles, then only increasing those numbers as other people "bid you up".
3.) There are several different mechanisms to determine who won a tile: 1st only gets the reward; 1st gets the reward but everyone else can pay for it; and everyone gets it if they put sufficient markers (2-3) on the space. Because you're bidding in all of these sorts of auctions at the same time with the same markers, you have to constantly compromise and/or figure out how to get what you want.
To be honest, I wasn't totally enthused by the game the first time I played it. I found it a little dry and a lot slow, but I think the latter ended up being because of one or more players who were very APed for that first game. Every other game of Louis XIV that I've played has come in a lot faster than that first game.
Now, I consider it a very strong contender for a game to be brought out whenever a mid-weight, mid-length game is required. It's got a nice amount of strategy, a nice amount of tension, and is original enough that I don't every feel like I've played enough of its sort of game.
Because my appreciation of it has risen over time, I'm more surprised that other players are so-so on it. But I got a better understanding of why when I played the game again just before writing up this piece. Several of the players there said that it was too abstract, and I'll agree that there isn't a very good correlation between the theming of Louis XIV's court and the play of putting down markers on cardboard tiles. I get no feeling of the intrigues of the sun court.
Players also said that they didn't think its mechanics were original enough: it was just another of many mid-weight majority control games. Though I do find a lot of originality here, I understand their point, because the originality of Louis XIV is pretty subtle.
One of the things that I find the most amusing about Louis XIV is that it was the game that really locked in Rudiger Dorn as an interesting designer, for me, and that's because it made me understand one defining point of his designs. He likes to create grids and then take normally abstract mechanics and position them on the grid. He did it in Traders of Genoa (trade/negotiate), Goa (auction), and Louis XIV (majority control/auction). Maybe that's why I often think that Goa should have been an Alea game: it forms such a neat trilogy.
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)
S4: Edel, Stein & Reich B- (Plays: 1) [ Read my Basari Review ]
L8: Mammoth Hunters B+ (Plays: 5) [ Read my Review. ]
S5: San Juan A+ (Plays: 32) [ Read my Review; plus Glory to Rome review. ]
L9: Fifth Avenue C- (Plays: 3+)
M1: Louis XIV B+ (Plays: 7) [ Read my Review ]