Friday Night Gaming: Mykerinos, Citadels
November 14, 2008
Mykerinos
A while ago, I mentioned to Merwin that I wanted to play this game. Naturally, the one time he did pull it out was one week when I wasn't there. Arg. I think he felt guilty after I gave him grief. Even though he didn't especially enjoy the first play, he didn't trade it away before I had a chance to play it. Tonight, with only four players, he pulled it out again. He later commented that this second game was more enjoyable and that he wouldn't be trading it.
Mykerinos has the typical gameplay of an area control game. You place cubes hoping to have the majority control or second place so that you can either score points directly or get the thing that will let you do the other thing that will score points later. The game certaintly has tension throughout, but when I realized half-way through the second round that I had been locked out of the museum and had no chance of winning, the game turned into an exercise of trying not to lose too badly. At this same time, I realized (or at least strongly suspected) that Brian would win (which he did). He mastered the technqiue of getting second (or even third) place in a number of areas with minimal resources.
There is a nasty (in a good way) mechanism that to increase the value of your goods, you have to sacrifice collecting a good. You could just sacrifice a good you don't care so much about to increase some other good, but since this means giving the good to someone else (and here, the third-place spot can get something) and since the goods have useful abilities, this is a losing technique. There is also a good which allows you to increase the value of some other good without making this sacrifice (though you do have to pay attention to timing and it does use a control cube). The goods are "patrons" and the value is really "place in the museum," but you get the idea.
In the end, I managed to score a whopping 25 points for my yellow goods. But since Brian and Merwin were getting 5-15 points each for multiple goods and other bonus points, they did the best. Robert was getting a lot of direct points for captured tiles, but it only left him just ahead of me; it didn't help that my last round quest for yellows prevented him from getting one (which would have given him a bonus).
Citadels
Merwin's copy included the Dark City expansion, though we only played with the roles from the base game. This was Brian's first game and damn it if he nearly won. Robert got off to a quick start with a number of low-cost cards. But before he could blitz his way to victory, he lost momentum due to poor cards and our active attempts to slow him down. I plugged away building the largest buildings I could afford at the time and built up a lead in overall value with only a few cards. Merwin seemed to struggle at first, but managed a respectable showing at the end.
There was a moment when Merwin managed to destroy two building in one turn: one of Robert's and one of mine. He had a property that allowed him to destroy any other, which was a (relatively) inexpensive way to take out an expensive property and had he directed it at me instead of Robert, the end might have been different. As it was, he only took out a 2-point building of mine with the Warlord, which wasn't such a detriment to me. On the other hand, Robert's building that Merwin did take out could have been worth a ton of points and Robert might have won instead.
In the last turn, with all of us within striking distance of getting 8 properties, I had to give Brian a lower-value roll which allowed him to go first in the round and get the "first to 8" bonus. But it guaranteed that I could build another 6-point purple property. I could have also risked trying to draw a cheap red property to get a "one of every color" bonus, but I figured I had just enough points to squeak by Brian for the win. Which I did. This is my first, and probably my last, win at Citadels.
Mykerinos
A while ago, I mentioned to Merwin that I wanted to play this game. Naturally, the one time he did pull it out was one week when I wasn't there. Arg. I think he felt guilty after I gave him grief. Even though he didn't especially enjoy the first play, he didn't trade it away before I had a chance to play it. Tonight, with only four players, he pulled it out again. He later commented that this second game was more enjoyable and that he wouldn't be trading it.
Mykerinos has the typical gameplay of an area control game. You place cubes hoping to have the majority control or second place so that you can either score points directly or get the thing that will let you do the other thing that will score points later. The game certaintly has tension throughout, but when I realized half-way through the second round that I had been locked out of the museum and had no chance of winning, the game turned into an exercise of trying not to lose too badly. At this same time, I realized (or at least strongly suspected) that Brian would win (which he did). He mastered the technqiue of getting second (or even third) place in a number of areas with minimal resources.
There is a nasty (in a good way) mechanism that to increase the value of your goods, you have to sacrifice collecting a good. You could just sacrifice a good you don't care so much about to increase some other good, but since this means giving the good to someone else (and here, the third-place spot can get something) and since the goods have useful abilities, this is a losing technique. There is also a good which allows you to increase the value of some other good without making this sacrifice (though you do have to pay attention to timing and it does use a control cube). The goods are "patrons" and the value is really "place in the museum," but you get the idea.
In the end, I managed to score a whopping 25 points for my yellow goods. But since Brian and Merwin were getting 5-15 points each for multiple goods and other bonus points, they did the best. Robert was getting a lot of direct points for captured tiles, but it only left him just ahead of me; it didn't help that my last round quest for yellows prevented him from getting one (which would have given him a bonus).
Citadels
Merwin's copy included the Dark City expansion, though we only played with the roles from the base game. This was Brian's first game and damn it if he nearly won. Robert got off to a quick start with a number of low-cost cards. But before he could blitz his way to victory, he lost momentum due to poor cards and our active attempts to slow him down. I plugged away building the largest buildings I could afford at the time and built up a lead in overall value with only a few cards. Merwin seemed to struggle at first, but managed a respectable showing at the end.
There was a moment when Merwin managed to destroy two building in one turn: one of Robert's and one of mine. He had a property that allowed him to destroy any other, which was a (relatively) inexpensive way to take out an expensive property and had he directed it at me instead of Robert, the end might have been different. As it was, he only took out a 2-point building of mine with the Warlord, which wasn't such a detriment to me. On the other hand, Robert's building that Merwin did take out could have been worth a ton of points and Robert might have won instead.
In the last turn, with all of us within striking distance of getting 8 properties, I had to give Brian a lower-value roll which allowed him to go first in the round and get the "first to 8" bonus. But it guaranteed that I could build another 6-point purple property. I could have also risked trying to draw a cheap red property to get a "one of every color" bonus, but I figured I had just enough points to squeak by Brian for the win. Which I did. This is my first, and probably my last, win at Citadels.
Labels: Other Games
posted by Patrick at 10:22 AM
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