Container

Now, I've never played Container. It just arrived today. But I already have a few things to say. First about the colors and artwork - I don't care for the colors of the ships and blocks. That said, I don't care that much either, as I plan to re-paint them in bright colors ala the box art. And, I pre-ordered this, so I also plan to paint my plastic containers when I get them. No, I'm not hand-painting them. A coat of spray paint (and for the plastic bits, an ink wash) will suffice.

Kevin Nesbitt posted a strategy article on the geek. One of the things he wrote struck me - "Despite Container being listed as a 3-5 player game, I want to let everyone know how strong the game is with 3 players. In fact, I think the game is strongest with 3, very good with 4, and quite difficult with 5. The reason is simple: more players means tougher price competition, which in turn means a more unforgiving economic system." Interesting - I look forward to giving this game a few plays. There are games that scale well (for instance Power Grid), and then there are games that simply play differently with various numbers of players (Samurai is very much like this). I'm hoping this falls into the latter like category. Samurai is interesting in that as you add more players, your focus has to change because there is simply more competition for resources. Some people don't care for this with anything but three players, but unlike a game like Hansa, which doesn't play well with two or four, I believe Samurai plays well with 2, 3, or 4. The approach to the game is simply different. It'll be interesting to see if Container is the same. It'll be too bad if this turns out to be 3-player "only" game ala San Marco, as 3-player games are (for me) tough to get to the table.