On Sunday afternoon I headed over to Just Awesome games for their monthly Sunday "Daytime Dominion," played a couple games of Dominion, and got to try out a new shiny.
When I got to the store, there were a couple games of Dominion going on, so I jumped in on an Intrigue-only game that Jim, his son Bertrand, and a kid named Taylor (whose dad was in the store but not in this game) were playing.
It started off a little weird as Jim informed me that they "did not allow the big money strategy" because "they didn't know how to beat it." This struck me as a strange way to attack it, but as big money isn't necessarily all that dominant in an environment with all-Intrigue cards, it didn't really bother me. I was able to effectively combo together the Torturer (+3 cards, opponents must discard 2 or take a Curse) and the Shanty Town (+2 Actions, draw 2 cards if you have no more action cards in hand) to run through big piles of my deck, messing up other people's draws and decks in the process. The other players started to catch on, but I managed to just edge out Taylor, 31 to 30, with Bertrand (11) and Jim (8) buying lots of nearly useless coppersmiths to clog up their deck.
Jim and Bertrand left after the first game and Taylor and I joined Troy and Brendan for a game with a random set of cards from the base game plus both expansions. We ended up with the Outpost (take a second turn with just 3 cards) and the Haven (+1 Card/+1 Action, choose a card from your hand to send to the FUTURE...ok to your next turn). I was able to combine these plus some good fortune to win by 10. Taylor once again came in second - pretty good for a ~10 year old.
The last couple times I'd been in Just Awesome, I'd seen folks playing Fresco, but I hadn't had the chance to try it myself yet. The store was pretty quiet, so Erik and Shane offered to teach it to me.
In Fresco, players take the role of competing painters who are trying to attain the most prestige for their part in painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Very high minded, and it lets them show nearly naked folks on their board without it seeming prurient.
During the game, players need to decide how early to wake up every turn: wake up early and you get first shot at new paints in the market, but they will be expensive and your apprentices will be ticked off at having to get up so early (really). Wake up later and the paints will be cheaper ("everything must go!"), and if they are sufficiently impressed by the ease of their existence, one of the apprentices will bring along his stoner roomate Zack to help out.
Apprentices can help you go to the market, paint the ceiling, mix paint, paint family portraits to raise money, or take the day off andget hammered go to the theater (for more delicious delicious happiness).
I can't tell if I like this game or not yet. I feel like in a couple more plays either I'll start to see how everything interacts and I'll be able to see what is happening and execute an actual strategy or I'll still have no idea what is going on and the game will just feel like moving things around at random.
The problem is (or at least may be) that so much of what is going on in the game is hidden-but-trackable. You can see what paints players are getting at the market, and what colors they are mixing them into, but since they are keeping all of their paints behind a screen after obtaining them, it's pretty hard, if not nigh impossible, to try to figure out what victory point tiles (which each have a different combination of paint colors) people are going for. You usually can find something to do with your paints even if someone takes "your" tile, so it's possible I'm overselling this problem, but for the first game I really felt buried in my own set of actions. Definitely one I'll try again though.
Dominion
When I got to the store, there were a couple games of Dominion going on, so I jumped in on an Intrigue-only game that Jim, his son Bertrand, and a kid named Taylor (whose dad was in the store but not in this game) were playing. It started off a little weird as Jim informed me that they "did not allow the big money strategy" because "they didn't know how to beat it." This struck me as a strange way to attack it, but as big money isn't necessarily all that dominant in an environment with all-Intrigue cards, it didn't really bother me. I was able to effectively combo together the Torturer (+3 cards, opponents must discard 2 or take a Curse) and the Shanty Town (+2 Actions, draw 2 cards if you have no more action cards in hand) to run through big piles of my deck, messing up other people's draws and decks in the process. The other players started to catch on, but I managed to just edge out Taylor, 31 to 30, with Bertrand (11) and Jim (8) buying lots of nearly useless coppersmiths to clog up their deck.
Jim and Bertrand left after the first game and Taylor and I joined Troy and Brendan for a game with a random set of cards from the base game plus both expansions. We ended up with the Outpost (take a second turn with just 3 cards) and the Haven (+1 Card/+1 Action, choose a card from your hand to send to the FUTURE...ok to your next turn). I was able to combine these plus some good fortune to win by 10. Taylor once again came in second - pretty good for a ~10 year old.
Fresco
The last couple times I'd been in Just Awesome, I'd seen folks playing Fresco, but I hadn't had the chance to try it myself yet. The store was pretty quiet, so Erik and Shane offered to teach it to me.In Fresco, players take the role of competing painters who are trying to attain the most prestige for their part in painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Very high minded, and it lets them show nearly naked folks on their board without it seeming prurient.
During the game, players need to decide how early to wake up every turn: wake up early and you get first shot at new paints in the market, but they will be expensive and your apprentices will be ticked off at having to get up so early (really). Wake up later and the paints will be cheaper ("everything must go!"), and if they are sufficiently impressed by the ease of their existence, one of the apprentices will bring along his stoner roomate Zack to help out.
Apprentices can help you go to the market, paint the ceiling, mix paint, paint family portraits to raise money, or take the day off and
I can't tell if I like this game or not yet. I feel like in a couple more plays either I'll start to see how everything interacts and I'll be able to see what is happening and execute an actual strategy or I'll still have no idea what is going on and the game will just feel like moving things around at random.
The problem is (or at least may be) that so much of what is going on in the game is hidden-but-trackable. You can see what paints players are getting at the market, and what colors they are mixing them into, but since they are keeping all of their paints behind a screen after obtaining them, it's pretty hard, if not nigh impossible, to try to figure out what victory point tiles (which each have a different combination of paint colors) people are going for. You usually can find something to do with your paints even if someone takes "your" tile, so it's possible I'm overselling this problem, but for the first game I really felt buried in my own set of actions. Definitely one I'll try again though.
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People complaining about the Big Money strategy because they "don't know how to beat it" aren't worth playing. These are the same scrubs that complain that all throws in Street Fighter are cheap.
ReplyDeleteScrubs. Mop the floor with 'em.
Hah. Well they were new players, so I didn't want to scare them. I did what I hope was some fairly subtle eye-rolling and then...mopped the floor with them.
ReplyDelete