We began with the six of us (me, Alex and Chris, Joe, Sam and Adam) playing The Resistance. Since Chris had come down the M4 in driving rain after a long day at work, we decided something with simple rules would suit him best. However, this didn't stop Joe from first describing the rules to a similar but different game first. He sheepishly had to ask him to forget all that, because the rules to The Resistance aren't the same.
But once we'd got started, it all became clear. After the first round, in which Alex and Chris were the successful spies, they had a better idea of the bluff, double-bluff and counter-double-bluff that goes on during this game.
So we started a second game, and this time Sam and I were the spies. I thought I blew it when I referred to the spies as “us”, but no one was listening to me. Sam retained his air of bemusement well enough to deflect any suspicion and we were victorious in our triumph. I enjoy The Resistance, and found it quite difficult to be a spy and not ruin everything (which I almost did).
After this, Alex and Chris decided to become observers, and had the dubious pleasure of us working our way through the rules to a brand new game, Village. After about half an hour, they made their excuses and left. This turned out to be the best move anyone made all evening. We ploughed on, and begun the complicated game of worker placement. It's not unlike Caylus, if you can imagine that game being played with pieces that suddenly drop dead after a while.
The longer your players stay on the board, the more powerful they become, but each meeple has an expiration date and before long will die, and need to be replaced. It's a delicate balancing act of trying to keep them alive as long as they're useful, and letting nature take its course.
There are many ways to score. The council house, the church, travelling, money and market tiles. Sam, Adam and Joe crowded into the church, and went travelling too. I didn't score at all during the game, but I launched myself up the score track with all the tiles I'd bought from the market. In fact, I was one mistake away from being first, since I could've bought a tile before Adam did, and thus make him lose four points while giving me an extra four. Just call me Kingmaker.
Adam 56
Joe 54
Sam 52
Andrew 51
Remarkably close. Either this game is cleverly balanced or we were all equally bad at it.
On the leaderboard, Adam puts more pressure on the leader.
| Points | ||||||
| Steve | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 9 |
| Adam | 1 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 9 |
| Anja | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 10 |
| Sam | 3 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 13 |
| Joe | 2 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 14 |
| Andrew | 4 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 18 |
| Hannah | 1 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 21 |
| Jon | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 23 |
The Resistance was great, and Chris and Alex took to it like seasoned gamers, despite being thrown in at the deep end as spies. Sam's performance in the second game was unnervingly good - I had a niggling suspicion at the back of my mind which I shan't ignore next time . . .
ReplyDeleteThe Village was a serious headfuck I found - not only are you trying to co-ordinate what resources you need against available actions, and then using those resources on further actions, you're trying to do this while orchestrating the life cycle of your meeples, to ensure they die at the right moment. Despite being one of the first to die, I subsequently missed out on the chronicle, and spent the last three turns having to avoid any time penalty actions so as to keep my guy in the council chamber alive.
As we all realised well in to the game, the plague cubes can be very useful in speeding the demise of your meeples, though they do tend to be the last to get taken. A very intriguing game, and a clever design - it felt as though it didn't end quite when we would have liked, and hung around for another turn and a half/two turns, though I expect it would be a lot shorter next time.
The close scores could be indicative of a slightly too balanced system, i.e. no matter what you will always be within a few points of each other (a la Castles of Burgundy) though I felt we were all struggling to optimise points, so it may not be an issue.
I have to be in the right mood for that sort of heavy game - Brass once or twice a year, Caylus the same maybe. Nice though. And despite Adams reservations , I'd like to play four player again I think. Thanks all, and a special thank you to guests Alex and Chris - they can come back any time (assuming we haven't scared them off forever).
Being a spy was easy for me - an air of perplexed bewilderment is my natural state in this game, if not most games, and I wasn't exactly faking it as a spy. Not giving yourself away is key, so it was much easier to listen and take advice rather than expound theories.
ReplyDeleteI'm with Joe in that I think Village will shorten dramatically with subsequent plays, and I'd be keen to play again soon. Halfway through the game I was pretty underwhelmed, but like many games a subsequent sleep and reflection helps one appreciate it.
On a slightly tangential note, I advise everyone to avoid having your teeth filled with a hangover.
I'll bear that in mind Sam (the dental hangover thing).
ReplyDeleteInteresting that our different strategies in Village all paid off - mine was mostly based on paying for prestige in the council chamber, which racked up plenty of in game points, offsetting my lack of showing in the chronicle. And I only killed off 3 people, which perhaps contributed to the game running fairly long.
Like you Sam I woke up this morning keen to give it another go - I even have an idea of how I might approach the next game . . . so you can all watch as I crash and burn!
I'd like to play again sooner rather than later, now we're up to speed.
ReplyDeleteI'd like to publicly apologise for falsely accusing Adam of fingering himself during the Resistance. Both his hands were visible at the time.
ReplyDeleteUm. I'm not sure what to say.
ReplyDeleteVillage could be good if it did speed up a bit, but I wasn't very taken with the cube-taking mechanic, it felt a bit forced and as we proved several times was very easy to forget...
It did seem very balanced, it would be interesting to try playing it really badly and see if you score well. I'll try that next time.
Thinking about it, Village isn't really worker placement.
ReplyDeleteIn Caylus you use workers to spend actions getting cubes, and also use workers to spend actions converting those cubes.
In Village, you get a finite number of cubes each round, six each. You get these as a bi-product of taking actions, some actions allow/require the use of a person, and some also . . . well maybe it is a worker placement.