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1. Infrastructure. 2. ... 3. Profit!
Jul. 6th, 2009 11:33 amSaturday's traditional games-on-campus mob included both a run of Notre Dame and a game of Stone Age. I enjoyed Stone Age (even if I failed to pick a winning strategy, and for that matter failed to divine what a winning strategy would be), but I definitely picked up that it had the same "bootstrap first, then get victory points" nature that Notre Dame does.
I find playing Notre Dame very straightforward, largely because it has three mega-rounds that correspond loosely to the three phases of the game. In the first round you need to either get all the blocks or all the gold, and ideally you can use the "move three blocks" specialist action to then transfer that to either the park or the hospital. Then in the second round you need to not die of the rat apocalypse, level up the park, and start getting VPs, and in the third round do whatever you need to do short-term to get the most VPs. In the first round you can get away with not sending someone to Notre Dame, but in the third you absolutely must to get your park bonus points if nothing else. There is a very clear distinction to me in between when you need to be in start-up mode and when you need to be in final-sprint mode.
Stone Age at least had the same nature. When do you transition between getting more workers and farms, and trying to mine your way to expensive buildings? Part of my problem, I think, was that my maniacal focus on picking up the green cards meant that I'd skip infrastructure in favor of VPs in the early part of the game. (And another was that the same maniacal focus meant that I'd spend an entire round to get three wood to get a green card, but that wasn't worth as many points as trying to spend the same resources to build a building.) Settlers doesn't really have that nature, because the things that get you VPs are the same things that get you more ability to do stuff. Puerto Rico to some extent does (do I grow new plantations, get people, or ship/sell stuff more VPs/money?) but you can also build up infrastructure on other peoples' turns, and with buildings providing both special powers and VPs there's some overlap in the "builder" action.
I find playing Notre Dame very straightforward, largely because it has three mega-rounds that correspond loosely to the three phases of the game. In the first round you need to either get all the blocks or all the gold, and ideally you can use the "move three blocks" specialist action to then transfer that to either the park or the hospital. Then in the second round you need to not die of the rat apocalypse, level up the park, and start getting VPs, and in the third round do whatever you need to do short-term to get the most VPs. In the first round you can get away with not sending someone to Notre Dame, but in the third you absolutely must to get your park bonus points if nothing else. There is a very clear distinction to me in between when you need to be in start-up mode and when you need to be in final-sprint mode.
Stone Age at least had the same nature. When do you transition between getting more workers and farms, and trying to mine your way to expensive buildings? Part of my problem, I think, was that my maniacal focus on picking up the green cards meant that I'd skip infrastructure in favor of VPs in the early part of the game. (And another was that the same maniacal focus meant that I'd spend an entire round to get three wood to get a green card, but that wasn't worth as many points as trying to spend the same resources to build a building.) Settlers doesn't really have that nature, because the things that get you VPs are the same things that get you more ability to do stuff. Puerto Rico to some extent does (do I grow new plantations, get people, or ship/sell stuff more VPs/money?) but you can also build up infrastructure on other peoples' turns, and with buildings providing both special powers and VPs there's some overlap in the "builder" action.
