Friday Night Gaming: Die Säulen von Venedig, Notre Dame
May 8, 2009
We missed Robert this week.
Die Säulen von Venedig
Many games are maligned for having a kingmaking situation, when one player (who has no chance to win, himself) can make a decisive move that determines who wins the game. In general, this is a sucky situation for everyone involved. On the other hand (and you see this most often in two-player games), you want to create a situation wherein your opponent is forced into a play that gives you the win. Die Säulen von Venedig, about the building of Venice on top of wetlands, has both of these features.
Player actions are dictated by cards. Everyone has a hand of five cards; there is a clever scheme by which cards are added or removed from the deck based on the number of players. Everyone plays a card face-down and reveals them at the same time. Then, in clockwise order from the starting player (which almost always moves one seat the left each turn), players perform the action dictated by the card they played.
The three basic actions are:
There are other ways to earn points, such as playing one of the 3 special action cards that give you points if someone plays another specific card. I am a terrible at second-guessing what my opponents will do, so I mostly avoided this tactic. Another option is to play the Gondolier card; as the gondolier (and you lose the position when someone else plays the card later), you earn points each time someone builds next to the Grand Canal.
And there are a few cards which copy another player's action, choose a card from another and use it, or lets you build without giving anyone else any points. The starting player of each round also has the option to draw a random card from another player and return it or replace it with one from their hand. This and the fact that played cards rotate one seat left helps prevent card-hoarding and insures an interesting mix of actions. If you have no build cards, you can be sure that eventually they will make their way around to you as other players play them. But what to do when you don't have what you want is part of the strategy. Overall, I was reminded of Notre Dame (and a little bit of Citadels), which is why I requested it later.
The game ends immediately when someone reaches 80 points (never happened to us) or when the last pillar is placed. There is no "finish the turn" rule as in most games, so it is important to grab points when you can. It also means the leader can help bring the game to an end by placing pillars, but the timing has to be right else someone else might build and gain the lead before the pillars are drawn (once you choose your action, there is no backing out).
The first game we played featured four players: Merwin, Ian, Brian, and myself. Ian showed the power of the gondolier when he built a bunch of small tiles along the canal. But since he was forced to pass it to me, I became the gondolier soon thereafter. I then had to pass it to Brian, but as the starting player, I lucked out and drew it from his hand. I then held onto the card for the rest of the game. This was the primary factor in my victory.
For the second game, this time with Zach joining us, everyone was keenly aware of the gondolier, and sank pillars far away from the Grand Canal, limiting the gondolier's importance. As with the first game, Ian and I seemed to do the best. He is a master of tagging pillars such that players are forced to build on them, and I tried to follow his example. In this game, I purposely delayed building until the latter half of the game and timed it relative to the starting player such that I wouldn't get locked out of building in the best spots. It seemed to work because I won that game too.
Notre Dame
This was Zach's first game and since he was sitting to Merwin's right, we told him repeatedly never to pass him the Bank or Notre Dame cards. In every previous game, Merwin won and each time it was with the same strategy: get coins from the Bank and give them to Notre Dame for prestige points. Plus, the extra money allowed him to buy the favors of the various character cards.
Despite the handicap, Merwin nearly won. This time, he focused on the location (I forget what it's called) that generates prestige points directly. In the final rounds, he was cranking out 5, 6, or 7 victory points at a time. But he suffered from not having influence cubes in the Hospital and was hit by the plague multiple times. At -2 points per hit, this was just enough to give the edge to Ian (sitting to Merwin's right) and his Carriage-based strategy.
For my own part, I finished dead last. In two of the three rounds, I was dealt both the Bank and Notre Dame at the same time, preventing me from adopting Merwin's winning strategy. I don't think I ever managed to get 3 cubes into a single location, except when I used my Trusted Friend (essentially, a wild card). Brian, to my right, had his own struggles and finished just ahead of me.
I still enjoy the game, but I can't tell if my horrible performance (except for the very first game) was due to bad luck or me just not getting it. I think I say this a lot, but it just seemed that I couldn't gain any momentum. In this case, I couldn't build the engine that would allow me to generate points in any meaningful amount.
We missed Robert this week.
Die Säulen von Venedig
Many games are maligned for having a kingmaking situation, when one player (who has no chance to win, himself) can make a decisive move that determines who wins the game. In general, this is a sucky situation for everyone involved. On the other hand (and you see this most often in two-player games), you want to create a situation wherein your opponent is forced into a play that gives you the win. Die Säulen von Venedig, about the building of Venice on top of wetlands, has both of these features.
Player actions are dictated by cards. Everyone has a hand of five cards; there is a clever scheme by which cards are added or removed from the deck based on the number of players. Everyone plays a card face-down and reveals them at the same time. Then, in clockwise order from the starting player (which almost always moves one seat the left each turn), players perform the action dictated by the card they played.
The three basic actions are:
- Pick city district tiles that you can build later.
- Place pillars onto which city tiles can be built. This also lets you tag some pillars as yours.
- Build city tiles that you had chosen earlier on pillars that you or others placed earlier.
There are other ways to earn points, such as playing one of the 3 special action cards that give you points if someone plays another specific card. I am a terrible at second-guessing what my opponents will do, so I mostly avoided this tactic. Another option is to play the Gondolier card; as the gondolier (and you lose the position when someone else plays the card later), you earn points each time someone builds next to the Grand Canal.
And there are a few cards which copy another player's action, choose a card from another and use it, or lets you build without giving anyone else any points. The starting player of each round also has the option to draw a random card from another player and return it or replace it with one from their hand. This and the fact that played cards rotate one seat left helps prevent card-hoarding and insures an interesting mix of actions. If you have no build cards, you can be sure that eventually they will make their way around to you as other players play them. But what to do when you don't have what you want is part of the strategy. Overall, I was reminded of Notre Dame (and a little bit of Citadels), which is why I requested it later.
The game ends immediately when someone reaches 80 points (never happened to us) or when the last pillar is placed. There is no "finish the turn" rule as in most games, so it is important to grab points when you can. It also means the leader can help bring the game to an end by placing pillars, but the timing has to be right else someone else might build and gain the lead before the pillars are drawn (once you choose your action, there is no backing out).
The first game we played featured four players: Merwin, Ian, Brian, and myself. Ian showed the power of the gondolier when he built a bunch of small tiles along the canal. But since he was forced to pass it to me, I became the gondolier soon thereafter. I then had to pass it to Brian, but as the starting player, I lucked out and drew it from his hand. I then held onto the card for the rest of the game. This was the primary factor in my victory.
For the second game, this time with Zach joining us, everyone was keenly aware of the gondolier, and sank pillars far away from the Grand Canal, limiting the gondolier's importance. As with the first game, Ian and I seemed to do the best. He is a master of tagging pillars such that players are forced to build on them, and I tried to follow his example. In this game, I purposely delayed building until the latter half of the game and timed it relative to the starting player such that I wouldn't get locked out of building in the best spots. It seemed to work because I won that game too.
Notre Dame
This was Zach's first game and since he was sitting to Merwin's right, we told him repeatedly never to pass him the Bank or Notre Dame cards. In every previous game, Merwin won and each time it was with the same strategy: get coins from the Bank and give them to Notre Dame for prestige points. Plus, the extra money allowed him to buy the favors of the various character cards.
Despite the handicap, Merwin nearly won. This time, he focused on the location (I forget what it's called) that generates prestige points directly. In the final rounds, he was cranking out 5, 6, or 7 victory points at a time. But he suffered from not having influence cubes in the Hospital and was hit by the plague multiple times. At -2 points per hit, this was just enough to give the edge to Ian (sitting to Merwin's right) and his Carriage-based strategy.
For my own part, I finished dead last. In two of the three rounds, I was dealt both the Bank and Notre Dame at the same time, preventing me from adopting Merwin's winning strategy. I don't think I ever managed to get 3 cubes into a single location, except when I used my Trusted Friend (essentially, a wild card). Brian, to my right, had his own struggles and finished just ahead of me.
I still enjoy the game, but I can't tell if my horrible performance (except for the very first game) was due to bad luck or me just not getting it. I think I say this a lot, but it just seemed that I couldn't gain any momentum. In this case, I couldn't build the engine that would allow me to generate points in any meaningful amount.
Labels: Other Games
posted by Patrick at 9:27 AM
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