Almost every weekend, I wander into Good Games Ballarat with a number of board games in my possession: some new, some old. Well, when I say old, I mean old from when I started collecting boardgames (quite recently), not when they were originally published.
The modern rise of boardgames is indeed remarkably recent. The first major hit of the modern era was The Settlers of Catan (1995), with Carcassonne (2000) being the next incredibly family-friendly game that also appeals to gamers. Puerto Rico (2002) is another very popular game, whilst Agricola (2007) is relatively recent and one of my favourite games. Ticket to Ride (2004) shows the American game-designers getting in the act, and you can just look at Pat to see how successful that game has been.
Actually getting people to play some of my newer acquisitions has been a bit tricky of late as various other events have been disrupting us: Magic: the Gathering tournaments, D&D Game Days, as well as the more prosaic (if equally disruptive) illnesses and work!
In any case, I thought it’d be a good time to list a few of my newer boardgame purchases and describe a bit about them. Let’s see if we can’t play a few of them over the coming weeks!
Age of Industry – Martin Wallace is a very good game designer, and a little time ago he designed a game called Brass. Now, that game is perhaps my very favourite Martin Wallace game, so I was sceptical when he decided to revisit the game and make it capable of handling other places during the time of the Industrial Revolution. Age of Industry is the result.
With Age of Industry, you effectively get two games depending on the map you choose – Germany or southern New England. The objective of the game is to build as many industries as you can. Points are scored for industries built, railways that link towns (linking more industries together is worth more points) and money at game end. The two maps have significant differences that really affect the play of the game.
One of the factors that makes the game interesting is that the industries chain off each other. You build coal mines and iron smelters that you need to build the other industries and train tracks. The tracks need to link the factories to the ports, and the ports to the ship-builders. However, it’s not quite so simple as you can sometimes use resources played by other players – their ports, iron or coal. However, you don’t get the return on your industry until it has found a market: all its iron or coal sold, or it is properly connected with a port.
There’s a lot going on in the game, which takes about 2 hours for 3-5 players. It’s a relatively heavy game that I really need to play more of before I can properly relate how it stands in comparison to Brass.
Talisman: The Sacred Pool – not the Scared Pool, as I’ve seen more than one person mis-type it at, this small-box expansion to the FFG edition of Talisman: the Magical Quest Game adds 4 new characters, 72 new Adventure cards, 16 new spell cards, 24 Quest Reward cards, 12 Stable cards, 3 Alternate Ending cards and allows characters to become neutrally-aligned.
(In comparison, the original game comes with 104 Adventure cards and 24 Spell cards. Using all the expansions… there are now a *lot* of Adventure cards!)
I really don’t know that much about this new expansion yet. I suspect that to get a good look at it we’ll have to play a game of Basic Set + Sacred Pool with no other expansions added. Talisman is a light fantasy adventure game for 2-6 players, best with 4, and taking 90-120 minutes under normal circumstances. FFG have done a fairly good job with expanding it, with the possible exception of the Highlands expansion. Let’s see what fun things await in this new set!
Dominion: Prosperity – The latest expansion to Dominion tests the bounds of what can be done with ramp decks – allowing players to reach Platinum (5 gp) and Colonies (10 vps). I managed to play a couple of games of this with Rich last weekend, and it was really interesting – and we only saw half the cards in the set. Rich was quite disappointed that the King’s Court card didn’t turn up (Choose an action card in hand, play it 3 times).
Dominion is a deck-building game: you start with a basic pool of cards in your deck. Each turn you draw 5 cards then play them for various effects, and then buy more cards from a selection that differs each game. So, one game you might be buying the Militia (+2 gold for purchases, each other player discards down to 3 cards) and the next the Militia is not available but the Thief is (each other player reveals the top 2 cards of their deck: you may steal or destroy one of those cards).
It really is an exceptional game, one that a number of my friends really enjoy; Prosperity is a return to form after the disappointing Alchemy expansion, and comes with some really nice bits: player mats and metal tokens that are used with certain cards. At present I’ve got all of my Dominion cards and pieces stored in two 800-card boxes; another expansion will see me acquiring another box to keep everything in!
Medium-weight, 2-4 players, generally about 20-30 minutes per game, although some take longer.
Betrayal at House on the Hill – The reprint of the horror-themed game from Avalon Hill/Wizards of the Coast. This one sees a number of new haunts, including hidden traitors, and generally rebalancing everywhere. We played a couple of games of this recently and the traitor managed to kill all the heroes both times – we hope for a better result next game!
Of the games I’ve discussed, this is probably the most light-weight: quite random, but with a certain level of rules knowledge required. Well, not that much, but the traitor and the heroes will need to read the special rules for the scenario quite carefully. The basic idea of the game is that the players are investigating a haunted house. As they investigate, they place tiles to show the rooms in the house and draw cards that depict various items, omens or events. At some point in the game, the Haunt begins, a player is (usually) revealed as a traitor and the rest of the players need to stop them…
The one problem with this new edition are the house tiles, which have shown that they’re terribly prone to warping. I need to put something very heavy on my set. The game’s balance is erratic, but the enjoyment comes from the horrible things that can happen to people, so it doesn’t worry me too much. 3-6 players, 30-60 minutes.
Founding Fathers – This game has mixed reviews on boardgamegeek.com; it is a game about the writing of the American Constitution, with the players taking on the roles of the delegates trying to get their own views into the Constitution. At 3-5 players and 90 minutes, it seems a medium-weight game that could well be enjoyable, although it’s currently unclear how abstract it is – I guess we’ll have to play it.
The most interesting thing about the game is the team who created it. Jason Matthews is known for co-designing one of the best games of all time, Twilight Struggle. He’s followed up that sterling effort with games co-designed with a different partner, Christian Leonhard: 1960: the Making of a President, and Campaign Manager. The first of these games, covering the 1960 election between Nixon and JFK is entertaining but flawed compared to TS, but Campaign Manager, a relatively quick and light card game about the recent Obama-McCain election, is very good indeed and very enjoyable to play. (He’s also got a new game from GMT Games on their preorder list: 1989, which returns to his TS system with a game about a key year in the Cold War).
So, after a run of 2-player games we have this 3-5 player game. Can it be any good? Well, with any luck we’ll soon find out!
I’ve got a few other new games to talk about (such as Dominant Species), but I’ve written enough for one post.
I look forward to hearing more about Talisman: The Sacred Pool. I have the first two “small” expansions and for the most part enjoyed them, so more info on them is very much appreciated.
I remain a little bit peeved that “Revised 4th Edition” wasn’t just an error tidy but an actual rule-changing affair but I’ve got to admit that having multiple Talisman expansions in print makes it a price worth paying to me. 🙂
George Q
I got the Update Pack, so (thankfully) the upgrade didn’t cost me that much. I’ll let you know how Scared Pool goes – with any luck I’ll get a game this weekend. 🙂
Cheers,
Merric
See, I got the Update Pack too, so it’s not really about the cost. (And to be fair, the plastic figurse woudl make the kit worh it rules change or not!)
I just object a bit on principle, really. FFG did something similar with the “errata” for Dark Heresy which is, frankly, not errata in the classic sense but a change to some basic systems.
If alternate rules get introduced in expansions, fair enough: as long as, ala the eternally repeated “swift actions” of 3.5, they always give me a chance to learn them for the first time. But FFG inherited games other peoplew rote, clearly didn’t like stuf about the rules and tried to patch mid-way with “errata” and “revisions” when I [ersonally would rather they’d just supported the game I bought and eventually done their own new edition.
Still, I’ve enjoyed the two small expansions and I look forward to hearing if the Special Puddle works out OK. 🙂
George Q
George Q
I had enough trouble with endlessly replicating Throne Rooms in a Dominion game last weekend – the concept of the Kings Court means I fear we’ll end with fractal gaming!