DOS RIOS
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| Often the 2 rivers combine... |
Dos Rios is a worker placement game where during your turn you are trying to place your people at the best places to capitalize on the upcoming harvest which may activate all tiles that are irrigated by the river or certain tiles only. Whenever harvest is activated and your people are on that particular tile(tiles), you will get $100. The objective of the game is to be the first to build all 5 buildings (you will need $3000) or 4 buildings that are all irrigated (including a Hacienda) which you will need $2500. This is a game where there is a LOT of pushing, shoving, positioning and sabotaging the other players. A game of high interaction and careful planning. The game is rather simple to teach and play, but can be highly tactical and surprisingly deep. Not bad.
QUEBEC
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| So many colors! |
I manage to bring out Quebec again. This game is very fun for me as there are so many avenues to win and you need to attract the other players to contribute to your building thus allowing for interaction during the game. I still have yet to grasp the scoring fully as I lost horribly in the game to the rest who are new players. This game could use good player aids though for players to refer as there are a lot of symbols and interesting concepts in the game. A good medium weight game that I recommend.
ELEMINIS
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| So I discard your poop, i mean earth.. |
I have heard of this game but never thought it will fit my group. A colleague of mine placed and order and we brought it out for 8 players during an office lunch session. Its a very light game where you just react to the card that you draw during your turn. Objective is to get 5 different types of elements in front of you (stars count as wild) and you win the game. There is a lot of screwage and its pretty hard to win unless people do not notice you or you happen to pick up the right card during your turn to win. This portion reminds me of Evil Baby Orphanage or Munchkin where there are a lot of things that others can do to stop you from winning but you just need 1 lucky draw/move to win. Party game and not really for me nor my usual groups.
AGRICOLA:ALL CREATURES BIG AND SMALL
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| Very low scoring game. I won with 11 points. |
Brought out this game again and this time around, it was a pretty low scoring game. I am not sure is it because we were guarding each other very effectively or we both had the same mindset but I won by 4 points only. This game is surprisingly hard to find in Singapore at affordable prices. If you have read my previous post, you will notice that at Essen, they will be releasing an expansion for this with new special buildings and other stuff. I will be looking forward to that as this is a good game with nice bits. Now if they gave a few more of those (4) cardboard tokens then we won't have a leaning tower of Sheepples.
ANDROID: NETRUNNER
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| See my super protected remote server? Did not work :( |
I was the corporation this time and I must say I have more fun playing the runner. This game requires a very good shuffle of the cards because if you don't happen to draw Ice during your first few rounds you are pretty much screwed as the runners can get their way with your servers. I do wish there was a rules translation to modern terms to allow for better understanding of the rules (i.e. Firewall instead of Ice, Hacking instead of Running) but after a few plays you get the hang of it and its smooth sailing. I was hoping that my very protected remote server can serve as my agenda scoring machine but I neglected my R&D which gave the Runner the final 2 points to win the game. This game lasted longer than usual due to the runner not having many icebreakers and me not having a lot of credits to do much. Still a very good game for me and I do look forward to the expansions that FFG has already announced.
SEASONS
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| Did not seem as fun anymore! Noooooo |
Seasons! My copy is still with my wife in NYC and I managed to get a play with a friend's copy. As mentioned on several other places, the components are really nice. Dice are large and chunky and the art work is really astounding and Hi-resolution. Only complaints are the score board could have been larger and the player card could have been larger as well. This is because to keep track of your score and summoning limit, you use the standard cubes which are a little too big for the numbers they are covering. You also need a surprisingly large amount of space to play due to the number of cards you can summon. In the early stage of the game I was leading as I was getting 3 points at the end of every round for having at least 4 energy and it seemed like a difficult case for my opponent to beat me. Halfway through and near the end, he managed to score 20+ points due to the cards which counts the number of magic items that you have in play. At the end, we had thought we were at a tie until i realised every card in your hand deducts 5 points. So through this, I won by 5 points. Its not a bad game but sometime during the game I found the game has lost its luster and glamour for me. I was really looking forward to my copying reaching here and playing it with my wife but now it seems to have reached a new MEH level. What has happened? I am not too sure..... :(
1955: THE WAR OF ESPIONAGE
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| Its a simpler reimagining of Twilight Struggle |
Last game of the night I brought out 1955. This game reminded my opponent a lot about Twilight Struggle in terms of the push and pull mechanism of the game. We were pretty tired at this point so did not really think a lot and put up a lot of struggle. I manage to win by getting my opponent's home country into my area. I do like the game (now that I know the correct rules) and I hope to get more plays in before I decide if it stays or if it goes.
ESSEN
Yay! Its coming its coming and I cannot wait to look at the online shop to see what goodies i can grab. Though it will take a slow boat to reach me (as in real ship-shipping), its still way cheaper than paying for the air freight from usa to Singapore. Its surprisingly that most online shops in USA do not offer ship-shipping. I bet they will make a lot of money if they do as most people outside of USA can order more freely without the expensive air freight prices!
SECRET SANTA
Yay the BGG's secret santa sign up is now on! I had a lot of fun last year and I will definitely be joining this year again :) I wonder if the podcasters have their own secret santa where they give each other gifts. Hmm.. interesting food for thought.
