Friday Night Gaming: Maharaja, Razzia!
October 2, 2009
Maharaja: Palace Building in India
There is something annoying about a game which requires planning three turns ahead yet still has considerable player-interference chaos. Merwin had trouble wrapping his head around it and thus “hated it.” I was in the same boat, but deluded myself into thinking I was doing better than I was. Robert did a good job staying low and ending very strong. Brian and Ian were the front-runners and in the final round, we knew Ian would win but couldn’t stop him.
Razzia!
Short Version:
We aborted the first game because I missed a rule. Merwin declared he hated the game and proceeded to win.
Longer Version:
When Merwin says, “I'll also have the English instructions for Razzia! printed up” he does not mean that he will have read the English instructions. Or have printed them up. So, the burden of explaining the rules fell upon me again, and I missed a one-line rule that is critical to the proper functioning of the game. When a Razzia (Cop) card is turned over, it triggers an auction. When the 7th shows up, the round ends. I thought the round ended when everyone had used their bidding cheques. Oops.
Auction games are tough, especially when you aren’t sure what things are worth. In Razzia!, bidding is done via cheques valued 1 to 16. What comes up is based on the random draw from deck; there will be 0 to 7 items to bid plus the cheque from the previous auction. You get points for collecting the right sets and lose points if you have the fewest or none of certain cards. Some items carry over from round-to-round while others are discarded. You can only win at most 3 auctions and cheques won in an auction are what you use to bid in the next round. There is a lot to consider, many different dynamics in play, and a press-your-luck element to boot.
Merwin won despite never feeling he knew what he was doing. It might have helped that Brian and Ian were seen as the frontrunners. For my own part, I lost horribly.
Maharaja: Palace Building in India
There is something annoying about a game which requires planning three turns ahead yet still has considerable player-interference chaos. Merwin had trouble wrapping his head around it and thus “hated it.” I was in the same boat, but deluded myself into thinking I was doing better than I was. Robert did a good job staying low and ending very strong. Brian and Ian were the front-runners and in the final round, we knew Ian would win but couldn’t stop him.
Razzia!
Short Version:
We aborted the first game because I missed a rule. Merwin declared he hated the game and proceeded to win.
Longer Version:
When Merwin says, “I'll also have the English instructions for Razzia! printed up” he does not mean that he will have read the English instructions. Or have printed them up. So, the burden of explaining the rules fell upon me again, and I missed a one-line rule that is critical to the proper functioning of the game. When a Razzia (Cop) card is turned over, it triggers an auction. When the 7th shows up, the round ends. I thought the round ended when everyone had used their bidding cheques. Oops.
Auction games are tough, especially when you aren’t sure what things are worth. In Razzia!, bidding is done via cheques valued 1 to 16. What comes up is based on the random draw from deck; there will be 0 to 7 items to bid plus the cheque from the previous auction. You get points for collecting the right sets and lose points if you have the fewest or none of certain cards. Some items carry over from round-to-round while others are discarded. You can only win at most 3 auctions and cheques won in an auction are what you use to bid in the next round. There is a lot to consider, many different dynamics in play, and a press-your-luck element to boot.
Merwin won despite never feeling he knew what he was doing. It might have helped that Brian and Ian were seen as the frontrunners. For my own part, I lost horribly.
Labels: Other Games
posted by Patrick at 8:50 PM
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