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Monthly Archives: July 2012

Pheonicia – getting the rules right

11 Wednesday Jul 2012

Posted by boardgameuk in Boardgames

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

board game, boardgames, error, race for the galaxy, rules, tom lehmann

Pheonicia is a boardgame where the rules aren’t as clear as they could be. There are many boardgames that suffer a similar failing, so it isn’t a unique failing, but could be one reason why its on the danger (of being disposed of) list at Beyond Monopoly games club. It is a good game, but as I only play it every few months, when I can get people interested in trying it out, I tend to skim through the rules to recap whilst I explain them. I did this again, when I played on Saturday, but the next day I decided to see if anyone had done a player aid to help quick refresh set-up when I discovered something, a rule I’d missed. I saw a posting on the BGG forum about converting cards to coins, which confused me until I read further and then went and got the rules – I had been omitting using the ability to swap coins to card and vice versa.


In stage 1c, you can exchange one card for coins, before applying treasury limits. This would only be useful if you had improved storage to store them. This is only useful because of what you can do in step 2c, namely turn four discs into a card. This is the rule I’d missed! Its a gamble to try and turn a 4 card into a 5 or 6, but it does mean you are not able to use the income to buy tools or train workers. However it is also useful for those not cashing in a card in 1c when a player without improved storage gets income to take them above 3. Normally people will train workers or buy farming tools just to avoid losing them on treasury limits (in 2d), but now this shouldn’t be needed.

Moral of the story – read rules if you haven’t played a boardgame in a while (even if its afterwards, lol, as hopefully it’ll lodge in your brain until next play – which should be at the next BM! York.

All Too Quiet

09 Monday Jul 2012

Posted by boardgameuk in Boardgames

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Tags

boardgame, ticket to ride, train

This blog has been very quiet, apologies, but it sort of fell off the radar as I was in a new relationship. Still, it’s still here so I can always post again.

I’ve been introducing Michelle to boardgames, although a regular Scrabble player, she hadn’t heard of any of the games I play. The game that has been a big success in Ticket To Ride and we play several games in an evening. I had owned the standard game and 1910 expansion, but none of the others. As we’d played a lot of games on the US map, I decided to buy the India-Switzerland map collection in May – specifically for the 2-player Switzerland map.

The Switzerland map gives some changes to the rules, especially changing how locomotive cards are used. Rather than they simply being a wild-card as in the standard game, they now are only used for tunnel routes. To compensate for this change you now can pick up a locomotive just like any other card (i.e. one of two choices when picked from the face up cards). This change has caused me a frustrated latter game in many plays because you have no wild cards for non-tunnel routes meaning that you can spend a lot of time collecting cards to get the right colour. That said, its just a matter of changing game-play. The number of tickets held is crucial in determining the winner, more so than the standard map where completing longer intercity links can compensate very well for going for less tickets.

Definitely a collection worth buying – even though I haven’t played the India side yet, so lots more play left in the game.

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