That is crazy, but there's no good reason to every pass on mayor anyway. Likewise there is no good reason to pass on craftsman or prospector.
Yes, there are good reasons - by not taking colonists you might leave more empty colonist circles on your buildings, hence forcing the game to end earlier.
It is extremely rare that the benefit of ending the game that tiny bit sooner will outweigh the benefit of one more colonist. I guess if you had an early game building you wanted to deactivate in the late game, like the construction hut. Or maybe you have a large production building you can't fully utilize, and you want to keep the last space empty.
Even in those cases, if you have enough colonists to work your entire board, it is likely that other players do not. It's probably better to deny them the extra colonist. Remember the fortress. You definitely need to keep the colonist if you have the fortress. You definitely need to deny the colonist to whoever does have it if you do not.
Anyone who wants the game to end sooner is winning. A winning player is either winning primarily from buildings or VPs. You should force the game to end by builder or captain. Colonists is the way the game ends when everyone is slow and inefficient.
Based on this thread, the answer seems to be this: - You can pass on taking a colonist every time it gets around to you, though this would mean someone else will get it. - If everyone passes on taking colonists, the colonists are simply discarded from the ship. - Moving colonists is mandatory and cannot be skipped, regardless of whether you took colonists or not; consequently, there cannot be unemployment at the end of the mayor phase unless there are no empty circles.
Interestingly enough, if not for that rule about discarding the colonists if everyone passes, there is a possible scenario in which everyone would pass.
That is crazy, but there's no good reason to every pass on mayor anyway. Likewise there is no good reason to pass on craftsman or prospector.
Yes, there are good reasons - by not taking colonists you might leave more empty colonist circles on your buildings, hence forcing the game to end earlier.
It is extremely rare that the benefit of ending the game that tiny bit sooner will outweigh the benefit of one more colonist. I guess if you had an early game building you wanted to deactivate in the late game, like the construction hut. Or maybe you have a large production building you can't fully utilize, and you want to keep the last space empty.
Rare, but not impossible, which means it's still important to know what the rules are in this situation.
Even in those cases, if you have enough colonists to work your entire board, it is likely that other players do not. It's probably better to deny them the extra colonist. Remember the fortress. You definitely need to keep the colonist if you have the fortress. You definitely need to deny the colonist to whoever does have it if you do not.
That's simply not true. Even with the fortress, one colonist is typically not even worth one VP near the end of the game. Yes, there are extreme scenarios, but in a typical bad situation it might be two VPs worth - one VP from the fortress if the other player happens to be almost at the next multiple of three, and possibly one VP from getting an extra good - and that's assuming they even get the chance to get another shipment through.
By contrast, if someone gets an extra shipment worth, that could easily be worth more than 2VPs in score delta.
Anyone who wants the game to end sooner is winning. A winning player is either winning primarily from buildings or VPs. You should force the game to end by builder or captain. Colonists is the way the game ends when everyone is slow and inefficient.
Perhaps it's true that most of the time, with optimal play, the game will not end via colonists, but I don't think that's always true. Games with significant involvement of the hacienda, hospice and university can drain the colonists rather quickly. Also, I think that in a 3 player game colonist-draining endings might be more common, due to the relative amounts of colonists vs. VPs, and likely lesser prevalence of strong VP engines.
I don't know about this discarding colonist rule. It isn't written anywhere in the rule book. I do admit the existence of the rule saying everything that is non-captain is optional. However, the mayor rules use the word "may" a lot, but not when talking about everyone going around taking a colonist.
For each empty circle on the buildings on the player boards of all players (empty circles on plantations and quarries do not count!), the mayor takes one colonist from the colonist supply and places it on the colonist ship.
Oh, shit!
No player may choose to place colonists in San Juan if he has empty circles available on his player board. All empty circles must be filled, if possible.
Yes, it's rather unclear, and that's why I remain uncertain. The link I gave above is semi-official, but it is one way to resolve the issue.
As I see it, there's a few possibilities. First of all, taking colonists may be mandatory, voluntary for all colonists (i.e. all-or-nothing), or voluntary on a one-by-one basis. Secondly, placing colonists may either be wholly voluntary, wholly mandatory, or tied to taking colonists - i.e. you move colonists if and only if you took colonists.
Of course, if taking colonists is voluntary, there is the possibility that no one will want to take colonists; based on the rules as written, this would result in an infinite loop, and hence further resolution is necessary. I guess making it mandatory is the simplest resolution overall, though it directly contradicts the rule saying that everything but captain is optional.
Also, there is another issue raised in the above link. It suggests that during the craftsman phase you can also opt out on individual production buildings, rather than simply producing all-or-nothing. This, I think, would happen even more rarely than opting out of mayoring, but it's still a possibility. Frankly, though, considering that as far as I can see there's no support in the proper rules for this, I think it's best to ignore it.
Oh, shit!
Yeah, this is why I bothered to list all the things I found out I was doing wrong; I figured that there could easily be people who were doing similar things that they hadn't realised were wrong, and possibly vice versa - which was indeed the case w.r.t. the hacienda tile coming before the face-up tile.
Shadow Hunters does not have the best rules clarity after a couple games. I imagine it's a translation issue. Two issues we had:
Some cards use the word "player" other cards use the word "character". The one that frustrated someone was where you roll dice and declare a "character" to target. The thought this player had was that a "character" to target would be something like "werewolf" in which case you would find out the identity of someone by chance (and reveal it to the entire board). I was inclined that it was just like the player targeting things and you just picked a color or person.
The second was basically just when can a person reveal. I'm inclined to say:
Before any player's turn. Before any player moves. Before any player declares an attack. Before any player rolls the dice for an attack. After the results of the damage from an attack.
My ruling was that once the dice are rolled you can't decide to reveal because the dice ended up doing x damage. You're stuck with the consequences at that point (and can reveal immediately after assuming you're not dead from the damage), and you have the opportunity to reveal after you were "targeted", but you can't "no, wait, since that attack was lucky and managed to kill me I want to full heal before it."
That said BGG has a pretty limited FAQ and even though this latter question came up it seems to have been considered an inadequate response. I could also see it always going to the "reaction", which would be that you could wait for the damage, then decide you need to heal before the damage... but that will probably disappoint someone.
Similarly, if someone says they're going to shoot you, you can reveal that you're their ally... but once they've said they're attacking you they can't suddenly back out with that new information.
I got my game stuff printed out and sleeved yesterday so I was able to take it to local game night and found 3 victims to playtest my creation for the first time. In spite of it being very late and me doing a piss poor job explaining it, they agreed it's a very good foundation but has it's flaws, which we discussed at some length for over an hour after the play was over.
I got excellent feedback, already changed one mechanic and am now pondering potential new ones based on the feedback I might get from the next few sessions.
Overall, I'm very happy with it being a first attempt and cannot wait to show it to more people.
I am debating on whether or not to go back to step one with my game and build something new with the story, or majorly tweak some of the mechanics. Not having a decent pool of play testers over here kind of sucks too.
Finding playtesters is a a BITCH. SoCal is very fortunate to have a lot of people willing to play prototypes as long as you play theirs. Others just to have fun and give feedback.
It's still not easy but I suspect I'll have a better go of it than most other places in the US.
Finding playtesters is a a BITCH. SoCal is very fortunate to have a lot of people willing to play prototypes as long as you play theirs. Others just to have fun and give feedback.
It's still not easy but I suspect I'll have a better go of it than most other places in the US.
Ro just got her copy of Kickstarter game Ground Floor (with bonus content and extra game Skyline). We played it on Sunday, and it is actually really fun!
It is basically an industrial themed worker placement game. You hire employees, place your time markers (we just referred to them as the workers), and build your own building for additional game bonuses. We are definitely bringing to to PAX East, and plan to play a couple more games of it beforehand.
I was invited to have dinner and play the Game of Thrones board game with a friend last week.
Whilst dinner was being prepared I was asked if I could help set up the game. I said sure and proceeded to ask a lot of questions about the set up. "Haven't you played before?" I was asked, "Oh shit, sorry, I thought you had..."
I hadn't so he must have been thinking of someone else.
We had dinner and the rules were briefly explained. "The game lasts 10 rounds, unless someone takes 7 castles before then, then it just ends. But that's only ever happened once. And that was on round 10."
Anyone better with game mechanics and the like have anything to say about it?
Based on the rules they've posted online, it seems to be really heavy on the randomness. The theme is interesting, but the game mechanics are all roll-and-move, seemingly without any way to really influence your rolling luck. There's a wide disparity between the spaces to land on that you need and spaces that utterly crush you, and the end of each turn sees a "volatile market" card drawn which is intended to shake up the game, but I didn't see any example of what these cards actually are, so who knows.
Not trying to shit in your cereal on this one, but I'm highly skeptical when board game designers launch a first-time Kickstarter, so he needed to show something really interested when I popped open those rules. Instead it kinda feels like Monopoly meets The Game of Life.
The theme is interesting, but the game mechanics are all roll-and-move, seemingly without any way to really influence your rolling luck. There's a wide disparity between the spaces to land on that you need and spaces that utterly crush you, and the end of each turn sees a "volatile market" card drawn which is intended to shake up the game, but I didn't see any example of what these cards actually are, so who knows.
Not trying to shit in your cereal on this one, but I'm highly skeptical when board game designers launch a first-time Kickstarter, so he needed to show something really interested when I popped open those rules. Instead it kinda feels like Monopoly meets The Game of Life.
Fair enough. No shitting in my cereal, don't worry about that - I just said it was interesting, I didn't say why. I thought rather the same thing, but I didn't want to state an opinion that might taint other people's assessments, since I'm not sure enough with my knowledge and skill regarding the assessment of board games to immediately follow my own conclusion.
I'm certainly not backing it - as you might have noted, I'm not a big player of board games.
Not trying to shit in your cereal on this one, but I'm highly skeptical when board game designers launch a first-time Kickstarter, so he needed to show something really interested when I popped open those rules. Instead it kinda feels like Monopoly meets The Game of Life.
This is approximately my feels. I didn't get further than opening the rules myself. Once I saw it was just a word doc and I had to go somewhere else soon I just sort of wrote it off.
It also reminded me of my non-gamer friends invention of "Riskopoly."
I played Puerto Rico for the first time in maybe 3 years last night. Had a blast!
We had a couple of first timers at the table, both to my left, and two other experienced players both to my right.
I went for buildings. I made a couple of mistakes picking a poor time to use the trader in the mid game as well as building things in a sub-optimal order.
Newbie number two lucked into a textbook goods delivery play by taking advantage of newbie one's mistakes. It surprised me how well he played!
It was really tense at the end as I could tell it was close. In the last round the player to my right was governor and chose Builder because he knew I wanted it. But I could build what I wanted (and end the game) anyway so I could then choose Captain to deny all the points for the final round from the shippers who all had nothing to ship.
I won by 2 points. Newbie number two just behind me.
Played Puerto Rico again with roommates. I was third player, and did an early corn-captain thing to get some victory points. I also picked an until-then-unused role to get MAD MONIES, and bought a Warf in the early mid-game. The score was 65 - 45 - 42 (3rd player, 1st, 2nd). This game is a lot more interesting (and fun) when played correctly.
Also, I showed my roommates the "Play to win the game" clip, and they wholeheartedly agreed. We're going to have a game of Eclipse again soon. It's so great to have boardgaming roommates finally.
P.S. Warf + Harbour. Dear god, the VPs were just flowing in. The other players actually got kind of scared of Captaining towards the late game, because it was basically just handing me more VPs. Still haven't tried a Factory strategy, though I think that'd be interesting.
Lots of gaming these next few weeks. Was planning on hitting IndieCade East next sat but just got invited to a house for all-day gaming. Next weekend is local NJ hotel con, then soon after I'm having my Game of Thrones game night and then PAX East.
I'm pretty happy with the gaming routine I've fallen into. Since really diving back into tabletop about 5 years ago, I've fallen in with a great Wed night group and have met two older guys with large houses who have great all-day gaming events (one 4 times per year and one 2 times per year). Add in the cons and random gatherings, and I never feel a drought.
In other news. Check this shit out. Game is called Via Appia. An upcoming euro from Queen Games about running a stone yard. Stones are different sized discs, and there is a mechanic where they get pushed off a ledge. This reminds me of those boardwalk arcade games where you drop quarters and they get pushed off the ledge.
I am taking tomorrow off from work to go into the city for Toy Fair. Gonna try to talk w/ Queen Games and get more details. From a comment on BGG: "As far as I understood, the player pays for certain stones (small white, medium grey or large natural) and places them in front of the pushing device. He then pushes it forward, causing stones at the other side of the stone yard to fall off(see the white one at the top ...?). The ones fallen down he can exchange into cobblestones of the same colour (and size). "
You know, not guaranteed. They're a relatively new publisher (to board games at least), but people have been raving about the Spartacus game they made, so they've proven they can avoid the basic blunders of board game production and make a competent game. If you're expecting euro-style game design you might be disappointed, but at least it won't suck in a "this is like Candyland w/ a Firefly theme" kinda way. It's gonna be a real gamer's game, just depends on if it'll be your style.
Comments
Even in those cases, if you have enough colonists to work your entire board, it is likely that other players do not. It's probably better to deny them the extra colonist. Remember the fortress. You definitely need to keep the colonist if you have the fortress. You definitely need to deny the colonist to whoever does have it if you do not.
Anyone who wants the game to end sooner is winning. A winning player is either winning primarily from buildings or VPs. You should force the game to end by builder or captain. Colonists is the way the game ends when everyone is slow and inefficient.
By contrast, if someone gets an extra shipment worth, that could easily be worth more than 2VPs in score delta. Perhaps it's true that most of the time, with optimal play, the game will not end via colonists, but I don't think that's always true. Games with significant involvement of the hacienda, hospice and university can drain the colonists rather quickly. Also, I think that in a 3 player game colonist-draining endings might be more common, due to the relative amounts of colonists vs. VPs, and likely lesser prevalence of strong VP engines.
As I see it, there's a few possibilities. First of all, taking colonists may be mandatory, voluntary for all colonists (i.e. all-or-nothing), or voluntary on a one-by-one basis. Secondly, placing colonists may either be wholly voluntary, wholly mandatory, or tied to taking colonists - i.e. you move colonists if and only if you took colonists.
Of course, if taking colonists is voluntary, there is the possibility that no one will want to take colonists; based on the rules as written, this would result in an infinite loop, and hence further resolution is necessary. I guess making it mandatory is the simplest resolution overall, though it directly contradicts the rule saying that everything but captain is optional.
Also, there is another issue raised in the above link. It suggests that during the craftsman phase you can also opt out on individual production buildings, rather than simply producing all-or-nothing. This, I think, would happen even more rarely than opting out of mayoring, but it's still a possibility. Frankly, though, considering that as far as I can see there's no support in the proper rules for this, I think it's best to ignore it. Yeah, this is why I bothered to list all the things I found out I was doing wrong; I figured that there could easily be people who were doing similar things that they hadn't realised were wrong, and possibly vice versa - which was indeed the case w.r.t. the hacienda tile coming before the face-up tile.
Some cards use the word "player" other cards use the word "character". The one that frustrated someone was where you roll dice and declare a "character" to target. The thought this player had was that a "character" to target would be something like "werewolf" in which case you would find out the identity of someone by chance (and reveal it to the entire board). I was inclined that it was just like the player targeting things and you just picked a color or person.
The second was basically just when can a person reveal. I'm inclined to say:
Before any player's turn.
Before any player moves.
Before any player declares an attack.
Before any player rolls the dice for an attack.
After the results of the damage from an attack.
My ruling was that once the dice are rolled you can't decide to reveal because the dice ended up doing x damage. You're stuck with the consequences at that point (and can reveal immediately after assuming you're not dead from the damage), and you have the opportunity to reveal after you were "targeted", but you can't "no, wait, since that attack was lucky and managed to kill me I want to full heal before it."
That said BGG has a pretty limited FAQ and even though this latter question came up it seems to have been considered an inadequate response. I could also see it always going to the "reaction", which would be that you could wait for the damage, then decide you need to heal before the damage... but that will probably disappoint someone.
Similarly, if someone says they're going to shoot you, you can reveal that you're their ally... but once they've said they're attacking you they can't suddenly back out with that new information.
I got excellent feedback, already changed one mechanic and am now pondering potential new ones based on the feedback I might get from the next few sessions.
Overall, I'm very happy with it being a first attempt and cannot wait to show it to more people.
It's still not easy but I suspect I'll have a better go of it than most other places in the US.
It is basically an industrial themed worker placement game. You hire employees, place your time markers (we just referred to them as the workers), and build your own building for additional game bonuses. We are definitely bringing to to PAX East, and plan to play a couple more games of it beforehand.
Anyone better with game mechanics and the like have anything to say about it?
Whilst dinner was being prepared I was asked if I could help set up the game. I said sure and proceeded to ask a lot of questions about the set up. "Haven't you played before?" I was asked, "Oh shit, sorry, I thought you had..."
I hadn't so he must have been thinking of someone else.
We had dinner and the rules were briefly explained. "The game lasts 10 rounds, unless someone takes 7 castles before then, then it just ends. But that's only ever happened once. And that was on round 10."
There were four of us and I drew house Baratheon.
I won on round 5.
I don't think I'll be invited back.
Not trying to shit in your cereal on this one, but I'm highly skeptical when board game designers launch a first-time Kickstarter, so he needed to show something really interested when I popped open those rules. Instead it kinda feels like Monopoly meets The Game of Life.
I'm certainly not backing it - as you might have noted, I'm not a big player of board games.
It also reminded me of my non-gamer friends invention of "Riskopoly."
We had a couple of first timers at the table, both to my left, and two other experienced players both to my right.
I went for buildings. I made a couple of mistakes picking a poor time to use the trader in the mid game as well as building things in a sub-optimal order.
Newbie number two lucked into a textbook goods delivery play by taking advantage of newbie one's mistakes. It surprised me how well he played!
It was really tense at the end as I could tell it was close. In the last round the player to my right was governor and chose Builder because he knew I wanted it. But I could build what I wanted (and end the game) anyway so I could then choose Captain to deny all the points for the final round from the shippers who all had nothing to ship.
I won by 2 points. Newbie number two just behind me.
Also, I showed my roommates the "Play to win the game" clip, and they wholeheartedly agreed. We're going to have a game of Eclipse again soon. It's so great to have boardgaming roommates finally.
P.S. Warf + Harbour. Dear god, the VPs were just flowing in. The other players actually got kind of scared of Captaining towards the late game, because it was basically just handing me more VPs. Still haven't tried a Factory strategy, though I think that'd be interesting.
I'm pretty happy with the gaming routine I've fallen into. Since really diving back into tabletop about 5 years ago, I've fallen in with a great Wed night group and have met two older guys with large houses who have great all-day gaming events (one 4 times per year and one 2 times per year). Add in the cons and random gatherings, and I never feel a drought.
In other news. Check this shit out. Game is called Via Appia. An upcoming euro from Queen Games about running a stone yard. Stones are different sized discs, and there is a mechanic where they get pushed off a ledge. This reminds me of those boardwalk arcade games where you drop quarters and they get pushed off the ledge.
I am taking tomorrow off from work to go into the city for Toy Fair. Gonna try to talk w/ Queen Games and get more details. From a comment on BGG: "As far as I understood, the player pays for certain stones (small white, medium grey or large natural) and places them in front of the pushing device. He then pushes it forward, causing stones at the other side of the stone yard to fall off(see the white one at the top ...?). The ones fallen down he can exchange into cobblestones of the same colour (and size). "