The Tao of Gaming

Glory to Rome is my enigma from last week. After a play (or less) of most games there, I had a decision, and an opinion. I'm now five plays into Glory, and I still can't decide if I like it.

Doug Orleans provided a pointer where the designer said that Glory to Rome was inspired by San Juan:

My complaint was that you had only one resource to develop — card drawing advantage — so that in two-player whoever got the lead via select buildings could press it and extend the lead.

I love San Juan, but that strikes me as true [if somewhat reductive. Card advantage is multi-dimensional in San Juan]. I've compared this to San Juan already, how does it stand on its own?

I'm going to play more, but right now Glory to Rome looks like an ambitious failure ( Update — Let's change that to "clunky success." ) Probably due to lack of development. Right now my set has errata for several cards in the rules; the cards have already been revised once or twice — and there's another revision of the rules & cards coming in a few months. For all I know the new version of the rules will address my every complaint, and I'm hoping it does — lack of development can be fixed.

A quick summary — in Glory to Rome each card has one of six colors, which determines its role (Patron, Laborer, Craftsman, Architect, Merchant, Legionary) and building material/VP value. Each card is also a building, with a specific ability you get once built. One each turn, the start player plays a role from hand and each player can follow (if they have the right card, or a wild, or three of a kind). Players who don't follow can 'think' (refill their hand, or pick up a wild if one is available). After taking the actions, all cards played as roles are put into the pool in the middle of the table. Roles let you start buildings, or add to them (buildings take 1-3 matching materials to complete, which usually takes several role selections), or move cards from the pool to your stockpile. Apart from buildings, you can also graft some building materials (moving them from stockpile to your vault via the Merchant), which provides direct VP, and a bonus 3VP for the player who steals the most of each building material.

Most of the mental complexity comes from keeping track of which roles move cards in which ways, although the summary card (your 'camp') does an admirable job of summarizing the rules. [Tom Vasel's review goes into more details]. (One significant difference I have with Tom ... I found the 45 minute time estimate accurate for first time players, I can't imagine a game taking much longer without significant slow play).

Now, the specific complaints:

The 'clientele' and Patron mechanism. If you play a Patron, then each player can take a card from the pool (discards) and place it in their clientele. Whenever that role is selected, you can draw cards and still use the role or (if you play a matching card in hand) use the role multiple times. The issue is that you are limited to having clients less than (or equal) to your influence. A few issues:

• Talk about card advantage (if you have a patron, you don't have to play a card, but get to draw cards and still take advantage). That's not a problem, by itself, but early on you are limited by cards in the pool (and two clients only, until your first building is complete). If most of the other players get Role X, and you don't, Role X will likely be called fairly often, to your detriment. And the last player (on an initial Patron opening) will have no choice. [This is an 'implicit collusion' aspect].
• You can only have a number of cards equal to your influence, which starts at two. The player who gets a first building will not only get that buildings advantage, but can often call Patron before anyone else will. Now that player will get a 3rd role where they get card advantage (or else double up on an important role). Rich get Richer.
• Several of the building roles specifically ramp up the Patron. Ludus Magna lets you treat all Merchants in your clientele as wild. Coliseum kills opponents' clients (BGG has a whole thread about this card). Another lets you treat all your cards as a craftsman as well as their own role. Any of these buildings can accelerate the leader quite quickly. [Our last game saw one player with the first building ... whenever anyone selected a role, he'd often get two actions to our one, or else just get a handful of cards and still get an action]. This let him complete buildings faster, which increased his clientele limit further.
• In fairness, everyone should rush to grab a quick building for the extra inluence (as this strategy guide recommends) but that just delays when the limit hits. So the 'rich get richer' becomes a mid-game issue ...

The 'influence' limit also applies to the vault (where you convert cards to VPs, but are limited to the 2+ the value of your completed buildings). Increasing building limit lets you add more cards to your vault, which directly helps VPs as well as helping grab the "most of a type" 3 VP chip.

I'm sure there's a rationale behind limiting vault and clientele to a player's influence, but it mainly constrains those who got off to a slow start. It feels like a compounding economy. Those are fine, but when you have limited control of role selection (and the 'patronage squeeze') a player can get behind the 8-ball.

The rules specifically give an option to have everyone just concede, which we basically did in the last game.

So many of the game issues stem from Patronage (and Clientele), and the card flow problems, that I'm wondering if axing the whole system (or at least removing the influence limit) might be better. [You'd have to modify all cards that deal with those parts, as well]. Without patronage, players would be much more likely to have similar (if not exactly equivalent) numbers of actions per round. And given my initial thought was "Too many notes," this fits as well.

The Legionary role lets you show a card from hand to make each neighboring opponent (and the pool) give you a card, which you place in your stockpile. The last player gets hit by two opponents, and can often wind up without a useful card to show (since either of those opponents may have one or more Legionary clients, as well. But last player doesn't have to do anything to set it up. Worse yet, a player not wanting (or unable) to play the Legionary from hand doesn't always benefit from thinking, because these cards will be taken away. During my first game, I asked "Can I just pass?" because there were no Wilds to take (which can only be used as roles, not as building materials, so can't be taken away). [One possible rules change is that all cards demanded are played and revealed simultaneously, but resolved in order. Then (at least) the last player can at least play the role and execute it].

Another issue — each building requires a foundation. (There are six foundation types, one of each color, the number of each foundations equals number of players). While some buildings let you mix and match foundation and building types, that means that players can get locked out of building because all their cards have run out of foundations. The foundation mechanism does trigger the game end (which I like). And you've got a nice 'chicken' mechanism going where you need to finish buildings (to get influence and special abilities) as well as start them (to get foundations), but once 3 or so foundations are gone, you can refill your hand and then find yourself unable to start anything new, simply because you've got the wrong materials. I've spent several turns "locked" in a game where three foundations were available. This can just as easily hit a trailing player as a leader (and leaders, because of expanding role selections, will often have additional actions to start their next building before a lock).

Finally, the abruptness of the endgame. The rules clearly end the game immediately on several conditions, instead of finishing the round. This allows from some trickery which I need to explore further, but it has also led to some weird situations. (Using a building that lets you take a number of build actions once upon completion, then starting or finishing a building to trigger the end of the game). I'm not sure this is a flaw, but it feels odd.

I do like the multiple ending conditions, which keep the game dynamic, even though I dislike how the foundations work (and running out of foundations is one end condition). I do like the "Forum" which provides an alternative victory condition (ignoring VPs) for the owner. That's a good idea I wish more games had. So far, Martin Wallace is the designer most noted for using this. Buildings have interesting abilities and aren't just the 'discount/rebate.' Some significantly impact timing issues, and drastically change game feel.

For all my complaints (and I do have plenty), I still find myself wanting to play again, and I want to see what the next version of development does to the cards. There are several good points reflected in the complaints above ... because of the ramp up effects, most of the buildings that require three materials are strong, as it should be. [Although I think the partition, which makes you immune to Legionarys, should cost two or more].

Judging this game against the designers intent (quoted above), I think it's successful. All the extra parts probably do provide a lot more paths to victory than San Juan, but I think that card flow still dominates.

I'm sure I'll be pulling this out for a while ... because its intriguing despite everything above. We'll see if my thoughts waver or solidify. I've got about three months.

Update (5/28/07): I've now played Glory to Rome 20 times (see post chain). So I changed 'ambitious failure' to 'clunky success' above. I should also clarify that I don't think the Patron role advantage is as big as I thought. The influence limit means that leaders will often wind up losing a step or two when they hit it, which is a good catch up mechanism. That being said, runaway wins still happen from time to time.

I don't track games I play with my kids; I've played tons of Walk the Dogs. Actually, I don't think I've ever played it with just adults. And that's fine. But it really works well.

At it's heart, like Ticket to Ride, it's a "Push Your Luck" game. There's a long, snaky line of dogs. You draw cards that let you take 1-3 dogs from the front or back and add it to your own chain. At the end of the game, you score each 'clump' of dogs in your chain equal to the square. (A Scotty by itself is one point, four poodles in a row are sixteen points). If you get five in a row, you win instantly.

But the dogcatcher will take your away your longest (exposed) chain of dogs. So when you take that third poodle, do you place that pug on the other side (to leave room for another poodle) or do you protect it?

And taking fewer dogs is often better, because there are 'bone cards' which are awarded to the player with the fewest dogs, and just score at the end (3 points each).

Walk the Dogs didn't set the gaming world on fire, but there are thousands of kids games out there that are just terrible. Then there are those that teach kids valuable lessons, and bore adults to tears. Too few of them are actually enjoyable (and playable, if at different levels) by both parties. I don't know if Walk the Dogs gained or lost because of SimplyFun's "Tupperware" style of game selling, but I imagine it hurt the game's visibility.

I don't play this with adults because I can play it as often as I'd like at home, but it's a fine game. If you need titles to play with the kids (or nieces and nephews), this will accommodate a wide range of ages, and 2-5 players. [As a game, it's better with less. As an activity, it doesn't really matter].

Things I’ve been thinking about, in no particular order: Hour of Glory looked interesting. Of course, it would be even cooler if I spent hundreds of dollars (and hours) making a nice set.

Although I gamble, I worry about the poker craze. Gambling is a zero-sum (or worse) activity. Wouldn’t we all be better off if all those smart guys (like Computer Science PhD Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson) were generating value – new products, tools, ideas? Even just teaching others? Instead they earn more money playing a game. [This is the old chestnut, “Anyone less religious than you is a pagan, anyone more religious, a fanatic” applied to gambling]. I realize that gambling is probably just rebounding from a historic low (with it only being legal in Vegas) and that it’s a constant of life. And that ESPN has way too many channels and they’re desperate for something better than curling. Still, I wish prediction markets were legal. At least they provide (or reveal) information in the process. I’ve heard the siren call of professional gambling, from time to time. For me, at least, she just whispers in my ear.

Now that I think about it, why did I lump Glory to Rome with San Juan? You don’t buy buildings with cards … ok, you do, but the cards aren’t necessarily from your hand. I think the role selection made me say it. [I had three unsatisfying games of G2R tonight. I've got to get the full errata before playing again].

I bought a copy of Civ. Now I have to read the rules. The punishment fits the crime. (Is this another Don Greenwood special?)

On an admin note, I’m pulling down my sitemeter since they’ve started obnoxiously tracking what ya’ll are doing. If anyone wants to know which game (and, ahem, other) sites you visit, they have to pay me!

As I stated earlier, I think CMC will hook lots of people who thought Caylus was too long and appeal to Caylus fans looking for a change. The rules are simple enough that those who played the basic game can be taught the differences in five minutes.

But after four games I worry. It may just be my problem, but here it is: Every player who built a building on the first turn got stomped. Horribly. The player who just went to the peddler (or quarry), dropped out, won the favor in the castle, earned the gold, and then was ready to build in the castle on turn two ran away with it.

Now, these were all three player games, and in 3 of them the quarry wasn't part of the (random) setup, which may make a big deal. This could matter. I've had some chatter with Karis from Ystari, and he says they've looked at it and it's not a general problem. And you would think that (especially in 3-4 players) taking the building and then earning 4 free cubes (or whatever) would balance the four points.

But every game I've seen the person who builds the least (early on) often becomes a 'cubes bully.' Even if he passes late, he gets the favor for one or two builds, as nobody else is willing to waste cubes fighting him (which benefits the 3rd/4th player).

It's a small sample set (and every game had new players), but something I'll pay attention to when the game appears. Still probably going to buy it, though.

Now that I've played three times, some thoughts. I'm not going to bother with a full review, because you can just read the one by Moses.

I disagree with Larry here and there ... much of the design ideas seem ripped straight from the Civ computer game. Still, if someone dissed me by saying I "wrote like The Bard" I wouldn't issue a fatwa. But many of the mechanics have a direct component (unhappiness, 'entertainers', ideas, population, resources, food, leaders, wonders, technologies). Through the Ages is novel, yet familiar.

The Showmanager-esque card drafting works, but also leads to the easily noticed flaw — it shouldn't be played with four. It's a fixed fun game. With three, you have your turn (fun!), the player after you (analyze your general problems ... "I need better production"), and the player before you ("I can get X, Y and Z to do my production"). Excepting the odd aggression or colony auction, you sit around when others play. And you can't really start to plan your turn (beyond generalities) until you see what cards the player before you has grabbed (and left behind) for your turn. So the 4th player adds 1.5 dead hours.

Through the Ages is about scarcity, but each player will be scarce in different areas — food, ore, happiness, military strength, or something else.

I thoroughly enjoyed my last game, when we played with 3 (and did the full game in 3.5 hours).

The game's other lurking flaw — You play for 3 (or 5) hours. and win or lose on a simple card draw. If you are weak in military and Gandhi shows up early, great! Late? Not so much. (Chris alluded to this in his comment to my earlier post). At heart, Through the Ages is not strategic, but tactical and reactive. You plan in generalities, but spend half (or more) your time just grabbing 'the good stuff.' (The stuff you've been neglecting earlier ... which leads you to neglect something now, which makes other things 'good').

Decisions about how to grab, management issues, and the like all play a part, but my suspicion is that after 10 games, I'd pitch this out like Age of Renaissance — games where the card deal determines a lot should be short, not long. And then there's the issue of piling on the leader (tough if the leader has a strong military, but that's often not the case ... and in any event, you can take some indirect shots).

But I'd probably enjoy the trip to 10 plays.

One other note: awkward graphical design. In particular, you read right (without crossing a line) to find the corruption or food loss during production. You read right, but cross a line, to read off happiness required. This alone took me three hours to really grasp. And moving the tiny pieces around is annoying. [I'm told someone went to kinkos, magnified the player mats, and used bigger glass beads. Good idea, albeit expensive].

If I can snag a copy at retail (or trade), I will. The mechanisms (once you grasp them) do convey the core of Civ (the computer game), and with the large number of cards there's plenty of combinations to try out. It's an enjoyable experience ... but I like economic games, experience games, and long games. I'm a little surprised it's gotten such acclaim from people who don't normally like those categories.

An odd article in BoardgameNews complains about the Gathering coverage:

What is disappointing and what I will bring contention to is the quality of writing on Boardgame News leading up to this event.... most of the recent columnist articles on BGN have been “The Gathering” this… “The Gathering” that. I’m all for that but there hasn’t really been any enlightening news there either.

Discounting the game summaries I see in other articles, I guess he was referring to a batch of "Busy, can't write at the moment" articles leading up to the Gathering. I have to wonder: If you don't like what your columnists write, why not kill their articles and not pay? I mean, you alienate readers with 'inside baseball' according to your article. Crack that whip! Insightful stuff by the deadline or else!

In more substantive news, Fortress Ameritrash compares Wrasslin to Pillars of the Earth, and declares Wrasslin the winner. I agree. Wrasslin is more fun. (Of course, I don't particularly care for Pillars). I rate both a '6', but I've pulled Wrasslin out in the last year.

The reason I mention that is the common belief that the Gathering is some uber-Euro affair. The host is a Descent fiend, and I saw a large number of these games set up and played. [I have some tackle boxes for miniature games, but nothing on the hard core Descent players]. I watched someone set up an adventure for something like 60-90 minutes ... then go look for players. Every day sees an 18xx game, or a large wargame. [The ones I wasn't it ... Empire of the Sun, Friedrich (admittedly a hybrid), Silent War. There may have been some SPI-ish Rommel game played. And lets not forget at least three games of Titan, not Ameritrash (no plastic) but inarguably a predecessor.

It would be hard to duplicate the Gathering's import, simply because the host is one of the most famous designers alive; and a fair number of attendees are 'names' in their own right. But there's no reason you can't host your own gaming weekend or week. And please post details. It's a fun read.

After my initial two games of Notre Dame, I played three more times. I don't know if there was a clear consensus at the Gathering, but I didn't hear any complaints about Alea's latest offering. The (basic) theme has players earning points and helping build Notre Dame, while trying to avoid catching the plague, brought in by rats. [The theme isn't particularly strong].

Each player has a district, and randomly places their four message tiles in designated intersections. Your carriage starts in the district center, and you have four available people (cubes), and a special friend (pawn). Each district touches the cathedral of Notre Dame at two corners. [The physical design is amazing. There is a triangular Notre Dame for three players, a square for 2 or 4, and a pentagon for five. Each district is an oddly shaped thing, you just match the side length with Notre Dame, so the board looks great with any number].

Each player has nine cards. Seven of them correspond to a district in his region, and let you place a cube from your supply on that district and activate it. Districts let you:

• Get more cubes (equal to the number already in the district)
• Get gold (ditto)
• Get VP (ditto)
• Move your carriage (a number of spaces equal to the number of cubes) and collect the message. Messages are worth 1-4 VPs, and may have a special ability.
• Kill a rat, and earn bonus VP for every two cubes in the district whenever you earn VP. [This is the Park].
• Kill a rat, and reduce the effects of the plague each turn. [The Hospital].
• Get a cube from the supply, or VP, or kill a rat. However, multiple cubes don't help here, unless you get four. [The hotel].

The 8th card lets you place your "special friend" on the board. He acts like a cube, but that card lets you pick the district. If/when you play it later, you must move your friend to another district. [If you run out of cubes from your supply, you must remove use a cube from the board.]

The final card lets you build in Notre Dame, which costs some money, but earns VP (more money, more VPs).

Each turn (out of nine), three residents of Paris will be turned up. They can be hired to help you out, and also let you know how bad the plague will be (each resident shows 0-3 rats). Then you (randomly) draw three of your nine cards. Players take one, then pass the remainder to the left. Of the two cards you receive, you keep one and pass the final one. So each player ends up with three cards (from three different players).

Players go around the table taking actions twice, and discard (unseen) the final card. Then each player has the option of hiring one (of the three) friends and getting the associated benefit. Finally, each player ups their plague track by the number of rats shown (-1 for each cube in the hospital). Any player who goes above 9 points on the plague track must kill a cube in the most crowded region and lose two VPs, then resets to nine.

After three rounds, Notre Dame scores a number of points (divided up equally by all cubes there). Those cubes are removed, but the cubes in each district stay. After three rounds, you count up points (no special end of game scoring).

Notre Dame plays quickly (experienced groups should be able to finish in an hour), and provides good decisions. You want to avoid the plague, but I've seen players suffer horribly (three turns or so) and tie. Notre Dame's points are nice, but not overwhelming. You can earn just as much (or more) focusing on messages, or the VP space, or getting a few cubes in the park. [The general consensus is that the Hotel is too weak, and I like the variant that earns a second action at three cubes, instead of four]. I've seen players grab lots of cubes, and others just move their cubes around.

In short, there are lots of ways to win.

But there may not be lots of ways each time. Notre Dame is a drafting game. If the player to your right is intent on delivering messages, don't expect many carriage cards. Since you only play two out of three cards, you can sometimes take a slightly inferior card (for you) to deny it to your left hand opponent. This means that the oft heard cry "I lost because X was sitting the the new player's left" can be levelled (fairly) here. So be it.

Like any game with cards, Notre Dame has luck. If you draw your three best cards at once, you only get one. The order that friends show up is important, but tightly constrained. Six friends show up in pairs, and get reshuffled after every three turns. The other nine show up in order, but show up in specific "Eras" (A/B/C). Again, you may hit a turn where all three of the friends are 'good for you' (and you can only buy one), while someone following a different strategy may get their favorite friends on three sequential turns.

But I find the luck to be fairly small, at least at the level of newer players. No doubt if everyone played at a high level the luck would dominate. But skill matters (particularly for drafting). I don't think Notre Dame rises to the level of the Alea greats, but I gladly shouldered the burden of five plays last week. Deep enough to fill sixty minutes pleasantly.

Since The Wife likes Notre Dame quite a bit, I'll almost certainly buy this when Rio Grande's version hits the shelves (and I would have taken a German version off the prize table, were there any left when it got to me). The cards have no text, but you do need to know the rules and what the 15 friends do. The icons work nicely, after your first two games or so.

Recommend.

So, here's the final count (no number means a single play).

• Race for the Galaxy (10) — I'll be getting this, which will hopefully be out in early July.
• Notre Dame (5) — I like it, Jacqui likes it. Probably doesn't play well in mixed company, and has subtle luck.
• Caylus Magna Carta (4) — An almost certain purchase, but some issues (I'll probably post them later)
• Factory Fun (3) — Good, spatial game. May purchase.
• Through the Ages (3) — After two [four-player] games, I liked it, but felt better about my decision to pass on purchasing last month. After a three-player game, I was less sanguine. May purchase, if I get the chance.
• Yspahan (3) — There were ~10 copies on the prize table, and they went fast. I was hoping to snag one. Now I'll probably break down and buy it.
• Celebrities (2)
• Glory to Rome (2) — May be too complicated. Art not to my taste. But a good game might be hidden in there. I'll need a few more plays to find out, but I got a copy (off the prize table).
• Poker (2)
• Wikinger (2) — After an R-rated game (Heavy Violence, Extreme Losing), I tried it again a few days later. Not a purchase, but I'd like to try the advanced game, which may change that decision.
• 7 Ages
• Category 5
• Fairy Tale
• Hossa!
• Ideology: The War of Ideas -- Ugh.
• Igel Ärgern
• Pax Romana — Long and Chaotic? That makes it an experience game. There are parts to like, a few pet peeves to hate, and I wouldn't mind spending another day or two on this one.
• Phoenicia
• Puerto Rico
• Scepter of Zavandor
• Struggle for Rome — I thought Stone Age was OK. I thought this was OK. So if you really like Stone Age, try this.
• Titan
• To Court the King
• Venedig — OK, not exciting. I'd play this again, and can now try it on BSW. Perhaps it's deeper than I give it credit for.

I bought a copy of Civilization (which I disliked the last time I played it, but I routinely play longer games now, so I figured I'd give it another chance) and San Marco (which I've only played once, and figured I'd give another chance).

Anyway, deeper thoughts about individual titles over the next few days.

Update: I finally went and answered questions in the comments. And I linked all the games to their respective geekpage.

Dead Sunday morning (as always) and an hour before my shuttle, so in no particular order:

• Tried another game of Glory to Rome, and picked it off the prize table. Have to play this a few more times ...
• Played Wikinger twice (basic rules only) ... that's probably worth a few more plays, with the advanced rules.
• You know, Descent still had a large following here. People who normally cap their Euro-games at 2 hours don't mind playing that for 8 hours. And I saw some amazing tackle-boxes to hold & sort the components.
• It turns out that I'm the blurb for the 2nd edition American Megafauna. Who knew? [I didn't, and that's been out 6 years.] I wonder if I'm on the box for 3rd edition.
• I finally played Hossa (informally). I expect I'll be asked to return my curmudgeon reviewing credentials shortly.
• I have some concerns with Caylus Magna Carta (four plays), but I need to think about it.

More in a day or two.