Ys is ostensibly set in Brittany, but any sense of location was quickly lost after the instruction mentioned something about dragons, and the city was split into the not-so-historical names of neighbourhoods 1, 2, 3 and 4.
The game is about worker placement, using your team of eleven advisors of varying values to take control of areas on the board. Half of your advisors have their values hidden, so there's an element of bluffing involved.
It's a little bit Agricola and a little bit Biblios, as part of the game involves you manipulating the market values of the four different goods. For most of the game we were constantly reviewing the rules. I played quite an obvious tactic, of trying to get as many points as soon as possible. I ignored the market, and also the black cubes, which act as bonus points at the end of the game if you have a lot.
Perhaps this was to be my downfall, as I saw my commanding lead whittled away by all three players as Adam made good use of his "Character cards" (or super powers) in the last round, and Quentin's and Sam's hoards of black gems pushed me into last.
Adam 89
Sam 76
Quentin 71
Andrew 67
"Room for one more?" asked Sam. I'm paraphrasing, of course, otherwise he would've sounded like a good old-fashioned bus conductor trying to cram one more commuter onto the London Omnibus. But he did suggest we end with Biblios, the game of baffling card-collecting that has us all in its thrall.
It was Quentin's first go, but Biblios is a game that is a great leveller in terms of experience: having played lots of times before is no guarantee that you know what's going on. As it was, he came in last, but only by a slender tie-break decision. Adam beat Sam by a similar decision, only in the other direction, of course.
Adam 4
Sam 4
Andrew 3
Quentin 3
A double win from Adam sent him home in raptures, and sent him back to the top of the table. Quentin makes his first appearance at the bottom of the form table and, apparently, with no chance to improve his standing next week as he can't make it.
If there is a next week, that is. See you on Friday for the weekend game-a-thon!
| Points | ||||||
| Adam | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| Sam | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 9 |
| Joe | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 10 |
| Anja | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 13 |
| Andrew | 3 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 13 |
| Hannah | 4 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 14 |
| Steve | 3 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 17 |
| Dan | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 21 |
| Quentin | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 22 |
Well played Adam, good fun and especially nice to have Quentin back in the fold.
ReplyDeleteI think I like Ys now that I understand it. I did a triple noncomprehension last night - first, thinking I'd focus on the market before realising that was a surefire way to end up with bugger all gems. Then I didn't twig the scoring in the city quarters, and finally - despite reading the rules and watching Adam counting up gems - I summoned a non-existent scoring system in my head where having loads of the best gems get you more points. Which they don't - it's not about the amount of gems you have per se, but who you have more (or less) than.
As for the game itself, it felt a little long, but that was a first play. I liked it - love the bluffing aspect in fact.
What can one say about the mystery of Biblios? I suppose the only thing left to add is that if you have 13 blue you shouldn't really be bidding for any more blue cards. D'oh!
I'm blaming the Stella.
But what was the blog title that Sam said? It's slipped my mind too.
ReplyDeleteI feel bad about being rules nazi with Quentin in the last round and not letting one of his advisors be worth 5 points. In my defense: at the time I had no idea what the scores were and I wanted to win...
No that was fair enough. If Quent had placed his advisor booster it would have influenced our subsequent turns, so it couldn't really be done retrospectively.
ReplyDeleteI can't remember the blog title either, but it was definitely the most hilarious thing anyone has ever said.
ReplyDeleteSorry to have missed out. Ys is also the title of Joanna Newsom's second album, and must surely be a useful word for cryptic crossworders out there.
ReplyDeleteI think my copy is compromised by mold marks on some of the pieces, making them easy to 'read'. I like a bit of bluffing though, as evidenced by Sam and my recent forays into Lord of the Rings Confrontation. Confrodotation. No. I will bring it to Septcon . . .