Boardgame Session; May 2021

The start of May was dominated by a prolonged session of ‘Roll for the Galaxy’. We had not played this for at least a year and had forgotten how good a game it is. It has a nice blend of thoughtful strategy mixed with a fair degree of luck with all the dice rolls. The game is also fast, taking roughly 30 minutes, so re-matches happen immediately.

 

Next, I received a delayed Christmas present of ‘Castles of Tuscany’, the Stefan Feld sequel to the classic ‘Castles of Burgundy’ (one of our all-time favourites). The obvious question is how similar are the two games? They are both are (1) tile laying (2) moving tiles from a common area into a holding area before placing on the individual player boards (3) scoring points for completed zones of identical tiles, with effectively more points for early completion (4) gaining a tile specific bonus when laying a tile (5) lack of any meaningful theme. There are some significant differences (1) no dice, instead using cards to place tiles (2) reduced options compared to Burgundy (3) faster set-up and playing time (roughly half to a third compared to Burgundy). So, is the game sufficiently different to be considered a unique game? I would say, ‘Yes’, just! But I feel it is not as good as Burgundy, and I think Tuscany has a major flaw in its design i.e. no catch-up mechanism. If at the end of the first round, a player trails by more than 1 or 2 points, then the chances of final victory are minimal. This is because first round points are effectively worth triple, when compared to those earned in the third and final round. Also, the green track is not re-set between rounds, so not only do you trail on the red (final) victory track, but you start the next round already trailing the early leader on the green track. I have yet to see a way that a player can set themselves up for a rapid, late game come-back. I am considering trying a house rule to remedy the situation: trailing players receive a bonus card for each point that they trail by at the end of each round. This would provide a small boost for the trailing players, but should not be an overwhelming bonus.

The month was finished when Val and Chris called round for a social gaming afternoon. We started with ‘Mariposas’ (the 4p game is no different to the 2p game), then ‘The King is Dead’ (a small game that packs a punch when it comes to strategy), and finally ‘Citadels’ (a classic game that is always fun, even with the ‘got you’ element). It was really great to get back playing again!