The Tao of Gaming

My copy of Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage arrived yesterday ... here are some thoughts about Valley Games, really, since I haven't played the game.

I'm mildly annoyed about the large lag between when I was charged for this and when it shipped. The interest generated on $50 for a few months isn't important, but it does make me slightly nervous. I didn't pre-order their newest for other reasons, but the delay did cross my mind.

However, that delay is my only complaint.

The 'puzzle board' works well. It assembled easily, fits perfectly in the box. The art seems subdued, the game looks legible. The counters (combat units, generals, and control markers) are nice thick cardboard that punched easily. The rules had one or two odd paragraphs, but seem clear enough (I'm probably biased, since I've played Sword of Rome, which borrowed several features from this).

Even the insert impressed me. I normally throw these away and bag the pieces, but this one seems to organize the pieces well, and is intuitive. (I may still get rid of the insert, since it will get odd if I sleeve the cards), but that's just a preference. The physical design is phenomenal.

Now to find out if the game lives up to the hype. (I'd settle for living in the same neighborhood).

Update: Better eyes than mine have found several typos in the rules (and the board!), most trivial but some serious.

I finally (finally!) managed to play the published version of Race for the Galaxy. Hopefully those games will last me until I get my copy. Also played Modern Art, and two more games of Kutschfahrt. These were played with the full set of cards (and six players). The five or so "advanced" cards do help flesh out the game (as they let you trade professions, and also pass item cards around the table). Now that our group has a few games under our belt, this moves along fairly quickly and a range of reasonable inferences means that we don't have to spend nearly as long deducing teams. There are still other options to figure out, though. One team lost because one player thought the obvious move was to keep a victory item, and the other thought it was correct to trade it to the 3rd person (to verify the association). It's tough to get a convention, because your opponents can (if they know where the victory items are) raid you to grab them.

But in any case, I've upped my rating of this game to an eight, and recommend it. I could see burning out on this (I've only played five times), but it's quite enjoyable and fast. Despite the fact that it plays up to 10, six or eight may be the sweet spot.

And no, I haven't bailed arguing about Taxonomy. OK, I have, but it was to play games. I like the (now obvious) definition that a race is a game where the end condition is also the victory condition.