Martin Wallace - Discuss

It was the new year and Paul and I fancied something, well, new. I only have a guilty two so therefore it was to be either road building settlement link up game La Strada or brain aching card based civilisation game Innovation. La Strada was selected on the basis that I printed out the accepted two player variant and that Innovation looks to be a game you take on after a week of mental training with Stephen Hawking.

The fact that this Wallace game had remained unplayed for so long was due to the Geeks universal damning of the two player game. However, help was at hand in the form of the "Danger Style" variation which exciting title lent nothing more than it being the authors username.

The rules are fairly straight forward, you are linking cities, town, villages and hamlets via a pile of roads at your disposal and depositing merchants in them and hoping to have more of them than your opponent at the end of the game. Links to settlements must be completed on your turn, the cost of which are limited by a allocated points system. Plains, forests and hills are worth 2, 3 and 4 points respectively and you receive 6 points to use each turn. Points can be carried over to a maximum of 10.

On the road to nowhere

Right from the start it was obvious why more players created a better game. The board was very open and, as we didn't know how it was going to play out, we had stuck to our own sides. The centre held a little area of contention but other than that we were able to roam away picking off settlements with ease. It felt a little like Trans Europa had merged with Hey Thats my Fish! The scoring mechanism which is supposed create tension failed because we had all but few of the cities etc to ourselves.

Paul and I were left musing as to whether Wallace can or has made a good game for 2 players.....Tinners Trail is his stand out game, but does it work as a 2?

La Strada plays quick and has potential. I shall reserve judgement until I've played a 3 or 4 player game

Chris - 26
Paul - 19

We then played the 2012 favourite Lords of Waterdeep, where again, I got the lieutenant quest again in the first two cards and fell way behind obtaining it. It did pay off in the end as it gave me just enough to catch Paul and win by a few points.

Chris - 182
Paul - 175