Another two player game of Yspahan. David has a very high scoring first round and James outscored him in the subsequent two rounds but not quite enough to close the gap. Final scores David 104 and James 95.
Showing posts with label Yspahan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yspahan. Show all posts
Thursday, 27 April 2017
Wednesday, 30 November 2016
Yspahan - November 30
Stu, Andy, James and David decided to give Yspahan another go. Well actually David decided and ignored Andy's protests.
It plays very differently as a four player game. Going third or fourth in a phase can be pretty brutal as there's often slim pickings available. This means there can be a lot riding on getting the dice you need on your turn. Going for cards can be a particularly evil manoeuvre - as you can do that using any set of action dice - a great way of preventing someone else getting something they want.
We ran into a number of edge cases this time. What happens when a player runs out of tokens - we said you couldn't build any more (meaning you have to manage your token supply). Can you play both "don't pay camels" and "don't pay money" cards to get a building for free - we said no. In both cases a later reading of the rules clarification page online showed we'd made the opposite call to the designers.
Knowing how well the camel train had worked last time, David went back in, but to his surprise no-one else bothered leaving him stranded. Well Andy dipped his toe in and then decided to leave it alone. Stu collected as many cards as possible and when for precision souk takeover where as James repeated his tactic of the previous week and took over most of the shops on the board. For some reason we let him get away with this and he had a convincing victory.
James 77
Stu 63
David 58
Andy 56
It plays very differently as a four player game. Going third or fourth in a phase can be pretty brutal as there's often slim pickings available. This means there can be a lot riding on getting the dice you need on your turn. Going for cards can be a particularly evil manoeuvre - as you can do that using any set of action dice - a great way of preventing someone else getting something they want.
We ran into a number of edge cases this time. What happens when a player runs out of tokens - we said you couldn't build any more (meaning you have to manage your token supply). Can you play both "don't pay camels" and "don't pay money" cards to get a building for free - we said no. In both cases a later reading of the rules clarification page online showed we'd made the opposite call to the designers.
Knowing how well the camel train had worked last time, David went back in, but to his surprise no-one else bothered leaving him stranded. Well Andy dipped his toe in and then decided to leave it alone. Stu collected as many cards as possible and when for precision souk takeover where as James repeated his tactic of the previous week and took over most of the shops on the board. For some reason we let him get away with this and he had a convincing victory.
James 77
Stu 63
David 58
Andy 56
Wednesday, 23 November 2016
Yspahan - November 23
Just James and David for games this week, so we decided to try James' birthday present to David - Yspahan. The theme is set around controlling different areas of a market and delivering goods to a camel train, but it uses some interesting game mechanics. Each turn the dice determine which actions are available and how powerful they are. This can lead to some great balance decisions - I need camels, but this turn there's only one available so do I take the one, or do something else and come back for camels on another turn. Also actions are used up when taken by a player to it is possible to be blocked from the activity you need the most.
As it was our first game, we felt a bit unsure of what we were trying to do to start with, but we gradually settled into opposing strategies. James concentrated on taking over the market, making the most of a building that gave him 2 extra points per souk. David went for the camel train, building up significant bonus points. However in the end, James was able to secure victory.
James 115
David 99
We really enjoyed this game. Unusually it has very different rules for the two player game, so we'll have to try with more players and see how it is.
As it was our first game, we felt a bit unsure of what we were trying to do to start with, but we gradually settled into opposing strategies. James concentrated on taking over the market, making the most of a building that gave him 2 extra points per souk. David went for the camel train, building up significant bonus points. However in the end, James was able to secure victory.
James 115
David 99
We really enjoyed this game. Unusually it has very different rules for the two player game, so we'll have to try with more players and see how it is.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)