But it gave me the chance to try one of these two-player games that I’ve read about but never been able to play. I wanted to try A Few Acres Of Snow, so Joe talked me through the rules. It’s basically a card-management game along the lines of Dominion or Thunderstone but with far more options available and a map of the north east of America from a weird angle. I was the British and Joe was the French in our set up and we set about rewriting history at around 8.20pm.
I started in a feisty mood, settling in Halifax, which changed hands several times during the game. As did Pemaquid: Both very desirable locations. Less desirable, but still fought over was Kennebec. A wide open space which helps you do nothing. Nevertheless, raiding/settling there did get rid of unwanted cards. I looked up Kennebec on Wikipedia and it’s just a river.
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| No victory points here. Move along, folks... |
Joe expanded his empire south towards Detroit which scored points, but cluttered his hand with a lot of unwanted location cards. I kept trying to lay siege whenever I could, and by the end I had amassed a tidy pile of Joe’s cubes. I think my favourite bit was the option to keep cards in reserve, which you could then pay to use in an emergency (ie, battle). Those cards at first act as a deterrent to any warfare, but if you keep an eye on your opponent’s money then you can attack when he can’t afford to use them so they’re no longer a threat – in fact they’re as good as out of the game. Until he can get more money.
Finally, Joe ended the game by using the last of his settlement cubes and the points were totted up.
Joe 56
Andrew 49
An enjoyable game once it gets going, and isn’t so heavy that the two hours seem like a slog. I had a lot of fun and a lovely mince pie.
Yes it's a lot of fun. You need settlements and towns on the board to give you VPs, but each location adds a new card to your hand, usually one with very little of use. Unlike Dominion, you only discard the cards you use, so you have to find other ways of getting rid of the blockage, or pay to discard them.
ReplyDeleteAs the French, I was able to make good use of my trader to keep solvent, and both of us quickly saw the usefulness of Home Support, a card that allows you to take three extra cards into your hand as a free action.
Raids are fun — trying to judge whether your opponent can block the raid is one thing — but even if they can, they lose the card they use to block, so they're down a card for the next go.
There's a lot of theme in it too; getting a bunch of Infantry cards in your hand just as you need them really feels like the soldiers you ordered turning up in the nick of time; and the siege mechanics are really interesting. A siege can drag on, each of you staving off defeat by adding a military card every time you might lose it; but that gradually whittles down your useful cards, which feels very right.
There are, of course, a few rules that it's easy to forget; like you, Chris, we kept forgetting to add location cards once we'd settled; and it's easy to overlook the fact that location cards for places you've lost in battle stay in your hand, but are useless, ie you can't use the resources on them.
My main strategy was to try and capture Pemaquid, from which to launch an assault on Boston for an instant win. But every time I harried Andrew out, I was unable to settle, so he casually strolled back in and opened the shutters on the saloon bar.
Does it come with a mince pie?
ReplyDeleteI'd like to try this game. I would approach warily, as card management games - Dominion, Race For The Galaxy, even London - don't sustain their welcome for me personally. But this sounds intriguing. And it's been a while since I played anything as combative as this.
Technically it's deck-building, which is like Dominion but not like London and RftG, in that you're adding to your deck and cycling it, rather than playing cards into a tableau.
ReplyDeleteAnd it's a big step up from Dominion; you're adding cards to your hand to improve your strength and abilities, with the catch that it may be a while before those cards become available, and then maybe longer before they're in your hand in a useful combination.
But unlike Dominion, you can control the cards to a certain extent by reserving important ones, and also you're not constantly adding cards — there's lots you can do which doesn't pad out your deck.
The constant dealing cards up to five keeps the excitement going, you never know what opportunities the next hand you deal yourself will bring.
I think you'll like it Sam.