First play of the card game version of one of our favourites, Peloponnes. Unsurprisingly it has lots in common with the board game but with some interesting twists: resources aren't stockpiled, production is only used to construct buildings (with any excess going to luxury goods - the only track still remaining in the game); the cards double-up as money and resources.
One claim of the game is that not all the disasters will occur - but they did for us, one in the 2nd turn - and the card-disabling effects of these disasters was devastating. At the end of the game David and Andy had more cards disabled than still available, with significant impact on their final population. BGG Forum suggests starting each disaster counter one step earlier so that four of the same disaster cards have to appear to make it happen, rather than just three. We will try this next time.
It also felt to us that the civilization tiles didn't feel very balanced with one seemingly providing a strong advantage and another making it very difficult to develop, but no-one has mentioned this on the forum, so we won't tweak this on the basis of just one game.
All in all, not as good as Peloponnes but certainly an interesting and playable alternative, with the advantage of portability.
Final scores: Stuart 21 Prestige/14 Population, James 10/8, Andy 9/5 and David 10/4.
One claim of the game is that not all the disasters will occur - but they did for us, one in the 2nd turn - and the card-disabling effects of these disasters was devastating. At the end of the game David and Andy had more cards disabled than still available, with significant impact on their final population. BGG Forum suggests starting each disaster counter one step earlier so that four of the same disaster cards have to appear to make it happen, rather than just three. We will try this next time.
It also felt to us that the civilization tiles didn't feel very balanced with one seemingly providing a strong advantage and another making it very difficult to develop, but no-one has mentioned this on the forum, so we won't tweak this on the basis of just one game.
All in all, not as good as Peloponnes but certainly an interesting and playable alternative, with the advantage of portability.
Final scores: Stuart 21 Prestige/14 Population, James 10/8, Andy 9/5 and David 10/4.
