Back to Germany circa 1950, as Martin accepted an invite to join me this evening for a Wir Sind Das Volk! Rematch.
I offered to play West for the first time; this may have given Martin the impression that I had been reading up on strategies. Our experience has been that it is very hard to win as West, but various posts on BGG seem to show the opposite.
In any case, I had one aim and one only - to build up living standards in West Berlin to unfeasibly high levels, and let the sound of clinking champagne glasses and high-living drift over the border and make the socialists furious with jealousy.
Unfortunately, while I was doing that I forgot to make things difficult for Martin in other ways, and he built up a decent economy and started to raise his living standards. Which made my plans redundant. I was able to seed a Western Currency crisis in the last two decades, but by then the damage was done. Martin's socialist ideology had so gripped the nation that it looked like he would win as we unravelled the final decade. I'd spotted this, and my one chance to stop it happening was to force him into insolvency. However, his economy, though decimated by the 70s, wasn't quite on the point of collapse, and so his Socialists triumphed. Even if they hadn't he'd have won by surviving all four decades.
Another good game, though I admit to not having a firm grasp of the full workings of either side. I'm still enjoying it, though every game seems to have a point where I get a stay of execution because Martin makes a wrong move, spots it too late and curses his own idiocy; which is not quite as satisfying as me being actively clever. I liked playing West though, and would like to do so again next time.
(I'll have to add a picture tomorrow as I can't seem to upload to blogger from my iPad).
A full four decades game took about two hours, so it had only just gone 9pm when we finished; Martin couldn't quite be persuaded that it was early enough to play Commmands & Colours, so we got out old friend Aton instead.
Two really interesting games, quite unusual - Martin won the first on the insta-win by filling temple one; the second super close, Martin winning by a point after the second scoring round. He scoffed at my attempt to intimidate him with my greens, but I was closer than he realised. Only a shit hand with no fours stopped me making it a very real possibility, which would have made things even more interesting.
Finally we played Khmer - a much closer game than before, starting with a completely symmetrical hand, which Martin won for a 2-0 lead. He won the second hand too, but I won the third, bringing the score to 4-2. In the fourth hand, I correctly deduced that I couldn't win and folded, leaving Martin a single point from victory.
He then folded on the fifth hand, and the scores were 5-3. Interestingly this was the first game in which either of us had folded, and we both called it correctly. By now my brain was melting, and in the sixth game I made a silly error, giving Martin two points for a 7-3 final score.
Great games all, and nice to know that games were being played elsewhere in the GNN-o-sphere at the same time. We are all made of meeples.
Showing posts with label Wir Sind Das Volk!. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wir Sind Das Volk!. Show all posts
Monday, 15 December 2014
Wednesday, 10 December 2014
How the West was (finally) won
Sam and I both being unable to travel, we spread the love tonight, with a table of five (I think) at Sam's, and Martin joining me for another crack at Wir Sind Das Volk!
This was to be our third game, as we met last Thursday at Roll for the Soul, and didn't blog it. Then, both Martin's West and my East collapsed at the end of the second decade - a circumstance which means East wins. I can't say that one felt like a worthy victory, as I was fairly bladdered by the end. But a win it was. 2-0 to me.
Tonight we were both better prepared; not only was I not drunk I'd even read the rules and the excellent design notes!
We began a cagey game of tit-for-tat, and ended the first decade in half an hour, with both sides having built up very little economy or living standards. As we played out the consequences, Martin started to get nervous: he'd unwisely built up living standards in a single province and ignored the West Berliners. This they found unconscionable, and soon all of West Germany was a cauldron of mass protest. Meaning I won again. 3-0 to the East.
We'd barely played for half an hour, so we reset the map and went again. This time we played to the end of the third decade, and it was a very different game again. From the mid sixties on, West Germany flourished, whilst the East was a barren wasteland of under-developed economy, propped up by pomp and prestige with a fair amount of help from the Stasi. This combined with a good deal of Socialist doctrine kept the people quiet, if not exactly happy. In retrospect, had I not raised the living standards at all I might have been better off; as it was, the East collapsed into insolvency a the close of the third decade, with absolutely no economy and no Western Currency to bolster it.
The fact that I'd neglected to sign the Warsaw Pact or build the wall may not have helped - I've never built the wall, but this was the first game in which I didn't build any factories in Poland or Russia to help boost my economy, and I think that may have been an issue.
Needless to say Martin was delighted to finally win, and has suggested we switch sides soon; it's probably sensible, though I'm only gradually getting to grips with the Eastern strategy, I'm not at all sure I'm ready for that challenge. It's a very absorbing, very unique game though; great to get some repeat plays in - four in two weeks!
We then played a couple of games of Khmer. Martin won the first but I at least took a round off him. I won the second, after thinking very hard before each play. A very clever little game; so simple and elegant. And gorgeous to boot.
Now to find out what was happening chez Sam . . . JB
This was to be our third game, as we met last Thursday at Roll for the Soul, and didn't blog it. Then, both Martin's West and my East collapsed at the end of the second decade - a circumstance which means East wins. I can't say that one felt like a worthy victory, as I was fairly bladdered by the end. But a win it was. 2-0 to me.
Tonight we were both better prepared; not only was I not drunk I'd even read the rules and the excellent design notes!
We began a cagey game of tit-for-tat, and ended the first decade in half an hour, with both sides having built up very little economy or living standards. As we played out the consequences, Martin started to get nervous: he'd unwisely built up living standards in a single province and ignored the West Berliners. This they found unconscionable, and soon all of West Germany was a cauldron of mass protest. Meaning I won again. 3-0 to the East.
 |
| Final game state - you can't see the West Berlin uprising from this angle... |
We'd barely played for half an hour, so we reset the map and went again. This time we played to the end of the third decade, and it was a very different game again. From the mid sixties on, West Germany flourished, whilst the East was a barren wasteland of under-developed economy, propped up by pomp and prestige with a fair amount of help from the Stasi. This combined with a good deal of Socialist doctrine kept the people quiet, if not exactly happy. In retrospect, had I not raised the living standards at all I might have been better off; as it was, the East collapsed into insolvency a the close of the third decade, with absolutely no economy and no Western Currency to bolster it.
The fact that I'd neglected to sign the Warsaw Pact or build the wall may not have helped - I've never built the wall, but this was the first game in which I didn't build any factories in Poland or Russia to help boost my economy, and I think that may have been an issue.
Needless to say Martin was delighted to finally win, and has suggested we switch sides soon; it's probably sensible, though I'm only gradually getting to grips with the Eastern strategy, I'm not at all sure I'm ready for that challenge. It's a very absorbing, very unique game though; great to get some repeat plays in - four in two weeks!
We then played a couple of games of Khmer. Martin won the first but I at least took a round off him. I won the second, after thinking very hard before each play. A very clever little game; so simple and elegant. And gorgeous to boot.
Now to find out what was happening chez Sam . . . JB
Wednesday, 26 November 2014
Sivél Disobedience
Tuesday - and after a long absence I was finally able to attend (host, even). The call went out; and was roundly ignored. Sam, Andrew and Ian were putting on an evening of Evil Genius animated films in Southville, and a few other GNN-ers were attending the screening. Others were ill, and others still were left off the email list altogether.
So Martin and I (Joe) got to play games to the tune of "Just the Two of Us". Martin had been itching to get Wir Sind Das Folk! to the table since a friend brought it back from Essen for him, and I was cautiously happy to oblige (having failed to round up the four players needed to break out the most un-GNN-esque Sons of Anarchy - for which I have high hopes).
WSDV is a political game exploring the relationship between East and West Germany from the fifties through to the eighties. If East Germany can survive all four decades with communism intact they win, otherwise the West prevails. Either side can win sooner by forcing levels of unrest into outright revolution.
It comes in a delightfully small box, and has well thought out graphic design - the same designer Richard Sivél (hence the post title) was responsible for Maria, an equally elegant and even prettier game about the Austrian war of the accession.
Andrew, Adam and I played Maria a couple of times a few years ago, but it proved just a little too complex for our feeble minds, and was reluctantly traded away.
Complexity is certainly evident in WSDV - my heart sank a little when, after 25 minutes of rules explanation, Martin said "This is where things get complicated...". But after something like 40 mins we were ready to play, Martin as West Germany - me as the East.
The game is asymmetric to a degree, and bears similarities to Twilight Struggle, though you are not fighting over territories so much as fomenting unrest in each other's provinces by making life unbearable for each other by comparison.
In basic terms, you build up factories and infrastructure in your regions, which allow you to raise the standard of living and thereby quell unrest. If one of you raises living standards above that of your opponent, unrest will begin to foment.
However, you have to balance the standard of living within your own country, otherwise you'll sow the seeds of disquiet at home.
Each of the four decades is a round in which decade-specific cards are available for both sides to play. At the end of the decade, a checklist of states is compared, including East German flight, Western currency, prestige, living standards etc. The consequences of these trickle down to the map, degrading infrastructure, fomenting unrest and generally messing with your shit. If at the end of this either player has four mass-protest tokens on the board they lose, otherwise you push on into the next decade, broken but un-bowed.
It was Martin's second game, my first, and there was scant room in my brain for strategising. I just planned to cling on. Martin missed an early opportunity to do some serious damage to me (and I wouldn't let him take his go again), and I managed to struggle through the decades relatively unscathed. I denied his West German's the invention of colour tv, which send to annoy the hell out of them, but as the third decade drew to a close, Martin announced that he now realised what he should have been doing.
He belatedly tried to put this plan in to action during the final round, and nearly did it, but just didm;t quite have the head of steam needed to topple the East, and I won the day.
It was a very interesting game - far more opaque than Twilight Struggle but with a few more plays I'm sure the rules would crystallise and it would become the pure battle of wits we all want from a game. We both thought that the extensive use of icons somewhat diluted the historic resonance of the events, but it made it very clear what one stood to gain or lose from the use of a particular card.
Martin noted that I had done none of my special actions, sending in the Russian tanks or building the wall for example - I had effectively ignored the trappings of communism and won by treating the East Germans to a fairly capitalist existence (whilst denying the West their colour TV). That seemed possibly a little odd - there seemed to be little imperative for the East to operate within their ideology. But we may have played something wrong, or I may just be missing the finer points of the asymmetry. I'm going to read up on the rules now, ready for the next bout.
We just had time for a quick game of Aton, in which the whisky got the better of me and I let Martin dominate the second scoring round for a neat on-the-nose 40 point win.
So Martin and I (Joe) got to play games to the tune of "Just the Two of Us". Martin had been itching to get Wir Sind Das Folk! to the table since a friend brought it back from Essen for him, and I was cautiously happy to oblige (having failed to round up the four players needed to break out the most un-GNN-esque Sons of Anarchy - for which I have high hopes).
WSDV is a political game exploring the relationship between East and West Germany from the fifties through to the eighties. If East Germany can survive all four decades with communism intact they win, otherwise the West prevails. Either side can win sooner by forcing levels of unrest into outright revolution.
It comes in a delightfully small box, and has well thought out graphic design - the same designer Richard Sivél (hence the post title) was responsible for Maria, an equally elegant and even prettier game about the Austrian war of the accession.
Andrew, Adam and I played Maria a couple of times a few years ago, but it proved just a little too complex for our feeble minds, and was reluctantly traded away.
Complexity is certainly evident in WSDV - my heart sank a little when, after 25 minutes of rules explanation, Martin said "This is where things get complicated...". But after something like 40 mins we were ready to play, Martin as West Germany - me as the East.
The game is asymmetric to a degree, and bears similarities to Twilight Struggle, though you are not fighting over territories so much as fomenting unrest in each other's provinces by making life unbearable for each other by comparison.
In basic terms, you build up factories and infrastructure in your regions, which allow you to raise the standard of living and thereby quell unrest. If one of you raises living standards above that of your opponent, unrest will begin to foment.
However, you have to balance the standard of living within your own country, otherwise you'll sow the seeds of disquiet at home.
Each of the four decades is a round in which decade-specific cards are available for both sides to play. At the end of the decade, a checklist of states is compared, including East German flight, Western currency, prestige, living standards etc. The consequences of these trickle down to the map, degrading infrastructure, fomenting unrest and generally messing with your shit. If at the end of this either player has four mass-protest tokens on the board they lose, otherwise you push on into the next decade, broken but un-bowed.
 |
| the '70s in full swing |
It was Martin's second game, my first, and there was scant room in my brain for strategising. I just planned to cling on. Martin missed an early opportunity to do some serious damage to me (and I wouldn't let him take his go again), and I managed to struggle through the decades relatively unscathed. I denied his West German's the invention of colour tv, which send to annoy the hell out of them, but as the third decade drew to a close, Martin announced that he now realised what he should have been doing.
 |
| some West German mass-protest up close |
He belatedly tried to put this plan in to action during the final round, and nearly did it, but just didm;t quite have the head of steam needed to topple the East, and I won the day.
It was a very interesting game - far more opaque than Twilight Struggle but with a few more plays I'm sure the rules would crystallise and it would become the pure battle of wits we all want from a game. We both thought that the extensive use of icons somewhat diluted the historic resonance of the events, but it made it very clear what one stood to gain or lose from the use of a particular card.
Martin noted that I had done none of my special actions, sending in the Russian tanks or building the wall for example - I had effectively ignored the trappings of communism and won by treating the East Germans to a fairly capitalist existence (whilst denying the West their colour TV). That seemed possibly a little odd - there seemed to be little imperative for the East to operate within their ideology. But we may have played something wrong, or I may just be missing the finer points of the asymmetry. I'm going to read up on the rules now, ready for the next bout.
We just had time for a quick game of Aton, in which the whisky got the better of me and I let Martin dominate the second scoring round for a neat on-the-nose 40 point win.
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