A series of catastrophes will befall our culture that we can only try and negate with the weapons to hand - medicine, food, builders, and the odd firework. To cheer everyone up, I suppose.
The rules explained to debutant Adam, we were away. And from the off I was reminded that The Year of the Dragon is one of those games where you can never do all the things you want to; the game strategy is about making the right choice that will not just protect your people (the way I played it the first time) but will move you along the scoring track at the same time.
Having seen Joe take 'privileges' early on in his victorious campaign of a couple of weeks back, I did the same. I also focussed on the thing that would move me along the score track - Knowledge - and the thing that would allow me to pick up that knowledge - Money. But despite moving into the lead around April my game-plan was about to implode: I had naively used my wild cards early on and come Autumn my choices on people management were severely limited - a fact I completely forgot during one particularly catastrophic round were I intended to pick up some medicine only to find the doctor wasn't in.
While I was firefighting a losing battle, Joe's firemen had extinguished all threats and were hosing each other down for fun. Joe had managed to build lots of buildings (Hannah and I had two, Adam three) and had a stack of money and rice in front of him. Sure, he threw the odd person out into the elements as a sacrifice, but it was for the greater good. Come the tail end of the year he sailed past me into the lead and during the final scoring - when your people are scored - he obliterated the competition. I sunk back into fourth, having ended the game with a solitary empty house, prompting Joe to actually apologise to me as he added on point after point. You know you've played a terrible game when people are sympathetic.
Hannah was third, and Adam, who had expanded his houses a little and diversified better than I did, claimed a very respectable second. I was frustrated by my experience but it's hard to say whether it was the game's now-solve-this mechanics or my bad management of them. I'd be willing to play it again, but that might be motivated by revenge rather than enthusiasm.
Joe 96
Adam 76
Hannah 70
Sam 61
It had just gone ten when we finished, so we decided on a short (three rounds) game of Poison. And despite Hannah's vagueness with the rules she swiftly got herself into pole position after round one, and didn't relinquish it, finishing the game with an impressive six points as Adam and Joe tied for third and I claimed second:
Hannah 6
Sam 8
Adam/Joe 21
Which means as far as the leaderboard is concerned Hannah and Joe did best with 1st and 3rd placings, Adam trod water and I took a mouthful of chlorine.
The leaderboard... | Played | Points | Ratio | |
| Adam | 19 | 95 | 5 |
| Sam | 22 | 89.5 | 4.07 |
| Joe | 17 | 69.5 | 4.09 |
| Andrew | 20 | 62 | 3.1 |
| Hannah | 10 | 44.5 | 4.45 |
| Quentin | 6 | 28 | 4.67 |
| Jonny | 7 | 28 | 4 |
| Steve | 7 | 24.5 | 3.5 |
| Paul | 2 | 6.5 | 3.25 |
| Chris | 2 | 5.5 | 2.75 |
| Sally | 1 | 3.5 | 3.5 |
| Matilda | 1 | 1.5 | 1.5 |
Andrew here. As we enter the final few weeks of this season, Joe has squeezed past Sam in terms of points ratio, and also moved up into third. However, despite Sam's bleak performance, all is not lost. He still has half a chance in coming first both in the regular leaderboard and in the Olympic-style one (seven golds to Adam's ten).
Yes, it was certainly a tough year we had before us in YotD. Though for me personally, my game seemed less fraught than the last we played, where a couple of the events, notably famine, really did me in.
ReplyDeleteI'm not convinced we played entirely correctly, as I'm pretty sure Sam shouldn't have ended up unable to take a person in the penultimate round.
But that card thing ALWAYS catches me out — you know exactly which person you need, and then look at your cards and, oh, he's gone. Along with both your wilds. Bum. Gonna check that 'anomaly' on the geek now.
It seems we were playing it correctly . . .
ReplyDeletehttp://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/7422818#7422818
I'd like to think I'd know what I was doing next time but I was more on top of it in my opening game. The many-things-to-remember aspect seems to be my downfall...
ReplyDeleteI think it's important to choose your battles. Fireworks being the obvious case, but if you decide, for instance, to take money for the first few goes, well then you probably have a money man you can afford to let go later — so don't worry about being short of rice, just dump the money guy.
ReplyDeleteThe other important thing, as Sam said, is paying attention to your cards. Not just the ones that are pertinent to your strategy, also those that aren't. Because you might not want those left in your hand towards the end of the game. So use them to get ahead on the influence track. Listen to me, like I know what I'm doing . . . I have no idea why or how I managed to win last night.