More Online Games I'm Playing

COVID-19 may have us all stuck at home - no game nights with friends, no gaming conventions, and no trips to our FLGS. That doesn't mean (despite the meme) that WE can't play - it just means we might need to play some online games.

I recently talked about the online games I'm playing. Here I am again to talk about some new games I've added to my catalog of choices since the last time. After all, variety is the spice of life.

Marco Polo is a game that I tried once (face-to-face) five years ago. I thought it was a clever game and wanted to see it some more, but never got another chance to play it. I recently got asked if I was interested in a game on yucata.de, so I reviewed the rules and am working through a couple games now. I like games where you roll dice and then use them (like Troyes) and this one is interesting, I just wanted to play it a few more times to grok the value of doing things. Right now, I'm just starting to understand the game past the mechanics. I'll have to get a few more games under my belt to see if I'm approaching things in ways that make sense.

My friend Nathan has been bored lately and looking for different games to try. He has been throwing me invites to pretty much everything he knows. This is one of the ones he sent - Attika. Attika is an older port of an older Euro game where players are drawing tiles and trying to build all their tiles. Each player has the exact same set of buildings and the goal is to build your tiles so that your starting point touches another players' starting point OR to build all your tiles. With two players, there is a fair bit of luck of the draw - builds can chain off each other, but you need to have the early part of the chain first. You also need resources to build, which comes from random card draws. All in all, a decent little game, but probably best with four players.

Madeira is one of those heavy thick euros. I played a burst of this in 2014 and then never got it to the table again because of the weight. When I first joined Boardgamearena.com (BGA) - I was excited to see it there - all I needed was to find some opponents and review the crazy rules. Ok, the rules are not crazy - in fact, each little bit of the game is pretty straightforward, there is just a fair bit of it and seeing how it interconnects and moves is what makes the game so heavy.

I found a decent video explanation that was under an hour (and was a little slow - it could have been 40 minutes). In fact, I watched only 30 min (fast forwarding through parts, so 30 min was more like 20). As the rules went on, I recalled enough of the game to jump in. We haven't progressed too far into the game, but I remember almost immediately what I like about the game - its deep, with a fair amount of moving parts, but it feels tactical. You pickup different scoring goals through the game and for the most part, choose which ones you'll score at score time. This lets you build up a little for the end game blitz of points, but also lets you tailor your play for rounds when you get bad rolls, or other players are after the same actions as you. The order the actions are done in (and whether they are even going to be available to you) is random each round and can be at the mercy of your dice, so being able to act tactically is important.

Once you've played this, it makes sense, but that first game might take you until halfway before you can grok what's happening. There are always those - "oh yeah! This is important because to do that you have to have this and to get this, I have to do this first!" things that you just don't get from rules.

Literally, Teotihuacan: City of Gods is a new game to me. Eric B from the Punchboard Media team posted a note that this game was the deal of the day on Gamenerdz.com a while back, so I jumped. I had seen this on the table a year ago at the AZ Game Fair, and and had been intrigued since. Then, when I went to look on BGG for a rules video, I found that a developer had recently finished the BETA Alpha version of the game on BGA! The developer was giving out invites to play/test before the game is released. I was super excited and sent a PM straight away. The rules by Rodney video is well done and gave me enough to get started.

Sort of - as we started playing, I know the rules and actions, but have no clue if what I'm doing is a waste. What should I be concentrating on? Did I do something stupid? I keep having to "waste a turn" getting cocoa - what the heck? I mean, I get it, the first game is a learning game when nobody knows the rules, but at least at the table, there is table talk and (usually) we talk about what worked for them and didn't and so on. Harder to do online. I feel like I started to make headway (when the game was almost over), but after my second play (where I made a small error at the end which cost me the game), the shine might be off this for me.

The game itself (at the table) is very pretty - really nice to look at. And busy - there is a lot to try and see. But after a couple of plays, I'm not sure any of us playing can see the value in trying to score certain ways. Certainly, we are not experts at this game with a combined two plays each, but none of us that played are inexperienced either. We all tried different things over the two games and decided that the paths to victory we limited despite all the ways to score points. I want to like this game, it just doesn't feel as robust as other similarly heavy games.

Again, this is still in testing on BGA, but should be out soon I'd think.

Out of nowhere I got asked if I wanted to learn and play another new game. Sure, why not? Hey look! It is a Kramer and Kielsing game. The rules didn't look too bad, so away we go. It has a kind of cool rotating market deal and it didn't take long to see this is a lightweight Euro (it feels like that particular category is harder to stick on games these days). This feels like a gateway game level euro - the rules seem very straightforward and the gameplay is right in line with other gateway games: very limited choice of actions each turn - do simple thing A or simple thing B. Even with the expansion setup, the game isn't too much more complex. Also, whatever my approach has been to the game so far appears to be reasonable. I won the first (basic) game and won (by a good amount) in the second game we played with the expansion. I like this one enough to want to play it some more.

Scythe was part of a recent HumbleBundle sale that I got in on. I got a load of games for essentially what it would have cost me to purchase Scythe alone. A bunch of us got together live to play (and learn/re-learn) the game. I had previously only played live once four years ago and hadn't played on the app yet either. I should have re-read the rules before playing as I showed quite poorly, but it was fun and I was glad to get a refresher.  Scythe is about $15 US (give or take - the price seems to vary a bit and you can get the software in bundles etc) and available on Mac or Windows platforms. I had heard that a version for tablets was coming, but that was quite a while ago and I've heard no news since.

Regardless, there seems to be quite a bit of online play for this still, so if you enjoy the game, you should check out this implementation (though I highly recommend you play against AI until you have the interface down - there is no undo to actions, which is probably my only real negative with the app). To be fair, I have this complaint with a number of online games as well.

Lords of Waterdeep is one of the best, straightforward worker placement games you can find (especially when you throw in the expansions). The app version is also excellent and plays cross-platform. Async games are a little slow - you place a worker, take the action and you're done. Really, that's true of a lot of games, but turns are so fast here that it feels a little like you aren't ever doing anything. That being said, the game is still great fun and good enough that an occasional play of it with a buddy or two is worth it.

There you have it, some more games I have re-learned and some more new games too! I'm trying to keep things interesting during the COVID quarantine. I hope you are all staying safe, for yourselves and everyone else out there! Play some games - at the table, or at your computer/tablet/phone. Make some new gaming friends and learn some new tricks! Until next time...

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