A Study in Worker Placement I: Belfort

Everybody loves worker placement. I like worker placement too. Can you have TOO MUCH worker placement? We will see.

I'm going to give me thoughts on a number of worker placement style games and lets just see how far this goes.

First up…Belfort!

Belfort takes everything you know and love about worker placement games and doubles it. And then it adds area control on top of THAT!

The ancient philosopher Plato teaches there are ideal versions of everything, and the real objects we interact with on a daily basis are just imperfect copies. Like shadows on the wall of a cave. So since this is the first review in what is hopefully a long and extensive worker placement series, let me describe some components of the ideal worker placement game before we delve into the Befort-shaped shadow.

The Ideal Worker Placement Game

1) You have a limited number of workers. Your workers are a resource you spend to do things.

2) You place the workers in houses, or spots on the ground or other sections and in return you get to take some kind of action or collect some kind of resources.

3) The first workers to get placed in the turn are the more important ones, because they block those squares for all the other workers trying to find spots later in the turn.

Now, this is a fairly generic description. What are some of the other features? Well, we don't know since we can only observe this perfect worker placement game by examining cruddy old Belfort. We might even LIKE Belfort. But compared to the immaculate version shining down from the 5th dimension, it is bantha fodder.

Setup

Belfort has a sweet 5-way pentagon pie of doom you slide together to get started. If I start to harp on Belfort too much, do remember I am incredibly fond of unusual board designs and this board is quite sweet. You also get another boring rectangular board. And a clipboard shaped board for distributing gnomes. And a bunch of player boards. It's a board-nanza!

Boarding Party

The pentagon board has 5 "guild" squares each ready to receive one of your willing workers. These are randomly selected from a pile, basically there's a guild each to collect extra resources of various kinds, plus some other special powers like drawing extra cards.

When you build a building, a wooden house goes on the board (because area control is how victory points are scored) and in front of you goes a building card yet another worker placement position. And unlike some games, you are the only person who can use your buildings.

Personally, I don't mind other people using my buildings, as long as I get a little something out of it. In Belfort, a lot of your buildings end up sitting empty while your elves and dwarves are cavorting elsewhere. Often, you aren't building for the ability, but instead for the position it fills on the pentagon.

Now, what about the regular rectangular board up top? It looks like guys are being placed up there too. How does that happen?

Well, here's one tricky part I manage to screw up every time I explain the game to anyone. The bottom part of the board you place workers on during the first placement phase, same time as on the pentagon board. There's a space there to recruit more workers. And a space to manipulate turn order. And a space you don't place anything on, that eventually forces you to PAY TAXES every turn. Someone call Grover Norquist!

But to place your guys in the top row of these very same board, you have to pass your turn.

If you have ever played Caylus, you pass your turn in much the same way. You stop placing dudes and let your opponents skip over you. Only instead of collecting some extra deniers, you get to dump the rest of your workers onto the resource spaces and collect wood, stone, metal and (shudder) gold.

Resources and Racial Politics

Now at this point, I should probably mention there are 2 different races of workers in this game (3 if you count gnomes, but I'm purposefully not), elves and dwarves. Elves can be placed on the wood, dwarves can be placed on the stone, one elf and one dwarf together can produce a metal and finally any elf or any dwarf can collect a gold. My mind wheels with possibilities on what could be lurking inside that tent.

This weird elf/dwarf dichotomy you get used to fairly quick. Although I don't know how necessary it really is. I can't imagine a designer was thinking "worker placement isn't complex enough. What can we do to make the use, acquisition and collection of workers more complicated." But this is exactly what happens. You need to make sure you have the correct amounts of each race available when you pass and go to the resource collection phase. One false step, and you are 1 stone short of an important building you were going to use next turn. The game makes things just a little crazier by making it possible to upgrade your elf/dwarves into SUPER elf/dwarves.

2 normal elves, 1 super elf.

The third race, gnomes, are not exactly workers. You get victory points for having "racial majorities" with the gnomes but in the game play they are more like building upgrades than anything else. Kinda creepy, but I'll go along with it and not think too much.

The Ecstasy(and Agony) of Gold

Resource Collection is further complicated because the workers on the pentagon and the workers in the resource pits are taken back at different parts of the turn. The resource pits are collected, new workers are recruited, turn over is established then the players have to PAY TAXES. Only after the taxes are paid do we then move to the action phase, where workers placed on "planks" from buildings or the pentagon are removed one at a time to take actions, like getting even more resources. Or MOST importantly…gold you wish you could have paid your taxes with.

A World of Micro Turns

I enjoy Belfort mostly, despite how I've perhaps come off so far. But there is one facet that is always ready to drive me up the wall and then back down again.

You never stop taking turns, and each turn is only about 10 seconds long. Not "turns" in the official game definition of course (there are only 7 of those) but turns by which I mean when someone says "your turn."

You take a turn when you initially place a worker. You take a turn when you take your workers back. It feels like about 10 turns per real turn, and that multiplies with each person you are playing with. And as I've discussed previously, I have a problem taking my turn.

And each turn (or action, I supose), by itself is so completely inconsequential. Could we not lump some of these into a single pile rather than me getting yelled at for not taking my turn, then 10 seconds later yelling at someone else to take their turn? Could we perhaps lump the placement of workers and the actions they take together? But Belfort doesn't do this, for whatever reason.

This "Micro Turn Dilemma" is one of the reasons I decided to tackle the worker placement genre head on.  I 'm taking an analytical eye to every one of them and we will see if there are other more streamlined or elegant ways of moving those workers around.

For more updates, you know where to look. I've got work to do.

Rex: First Impressions

So here we sit with Rex: Last Days of An Empire. An almost mythical game, reborn back in 2012 from the ashes of Avalon Hill's original Dune board game from 1979.

I have taken it apart, assembled all the pieces and played a single turn. The single turn took an hour, because I was constantly checking the rules and explaining the game.

Assembly took 2 hours because of the lively discussions focused on how the battle wheels and Dreadnaught Fleet should go together.

Play was lively, I enjoyed it, but will definitely need more of it to get the full picture.

So these are rough observations.

Flavor

An incredible theme. Dune was one of the first "ecological" science fiction novels. It created an entirely alien culture of distant future humans, inventing an astounding level of detail that nevertheless manages to be very cohesive.

Yet Rex is certainly not Dune. There is not a character from Dune, a creature or even a word that exists within Rex. The aliens are lifted from Christian T Peterson's Twilight Imperium universe and bear absolutely no relation.

So it comes as something of a shock that I felt connected to Dune even as a I played this game which had nothing to do with it. If you've read Dune, you will see it in this game too. From the suicide-squad-style tactics used in the battles, to the traitor mechanics, to the betrayal win conditions.

The spice Melange, in particular, cannot be under-appreciated.

"Influence" is what you harvest in this game. But as to why it randomly "blows" up from the ground, and why your agents slowly hoover it up a piece at a time doesn't make a huge amount of sense unless you consider the original source.

If you haven't read Dune, the plotting, poker-hand bluffing and inevitable backstabbing might feel torn right from the pages (or TV screen) of Game of Thrones. With the added awesomeness of being in space.

The Play

The movement of the pieces feels like an older game. There is no deck building or worker placement to be found. And honestly, I enjoyed it. You get to move your pieces and pass the turn…instead of the fractured micro-turn splinters a lot of games are serving up nowadays.

And there is absolutely no dice rolling. Movement is standardized and easily anticipated. Combat is a simple affair, once the multiple layers of bluffing and strategy cards are played. Winning or losing is like revealing a poker hand…you know who is going to win, unless they've been feeding a line all along, and only now reveal their true power.

Finally winning (although I never got to this point) is an incredible array of victory conditions depending on faction. There is a faction of magical turtles who must guess which faction will win and on what turn. If they are correct, they are actually the faction that wins. I can only imagine these turtles were once the Bene Gesserit,

Which brings us to…

The Factions

In Ryan Sturm's "How to Play Podcast" on Rex, he mentions how playing the different factions feels almost like playing different games.

Typical Rex faction card.

Each faction has a mountain of special rules. Each starts in a different location, with different currency levels and troop levels as well. I am reminded of Axis and Allies, or any other game based on a real conflict. The sides could not be more uneven, and explaining the exceptions to inexperienced gamers would be a nightmare. Especially if someone refuses to read their faction card.

Do the factions feel like Dune? Of course. It's pretty easy to guess when faction were originally House Harkonnen. And the others stand out pretty well too. But again, referring instead to Game of Thrones it would be just as easy to see them as House Lannister, House Stark, House Greyjoy and so on.

Combat

No one understands combat until you go through it once. I explained it multiple times, but no one "got it" until the first actual battle happened. Let me say it now: in Rex, all soldiers are suicide-bombers. The only soldiers you don't lose are the ones you choose not to commit to the battle in the first place. And if you lose, the ones you held back die too. Battles are horrible, unless you have a trick up your sleeve. And usually your opponent has a trick or too as well.

In the above battle, the mewling Federation of Sol uses a cowardly atmospheric ionizer to cancel out my glorious biological weapon. He didn't really need to, though, because he also happened to have a TRAITOR card matching my deployed leader. Playing the traitor card removes all strategy cards from the battle, destroys my leader, and murders all of my troops being led by said leader at the time. A true Dune-style betrayal.

Finally the Dreanaught Fleet

The Dreadnaught Fleet, under nominal control of the Federation of Sol, conducts bombing upon the board as it leisurely travels in a slow orbit. Anything its path crosses is immediately destroyed.

The Fleet is represented by a intricately crafted miniature.

I'll keep it short: this little guy will break the moment your kid grabs it off the table. The moment someone bumps it with their elbow. The moment you put it in the box and close the lid. But it will be easy enough to use anything, since the Dreadnaught simply moves around the board independent of any of the factions.

More thoughts are certainly to come. But first I will have to play it all the way through. Hopefully with six players. Is it possible? Can I do it? If I can't you probably won't hear about it. But if I do…you know where to read it.

Until next time…

New Twitter Bar and a little bit about Rex: Last Days of an Empire

In keeping with my dedicated up-to-the-minute updates, I have added a Twitter section for you to see when I post things there.

Biggest board game news lately is some sweet Rex action. A game I have wanted to play for some time and then it was right there in my lap.

I will have a "first impressions" style review put together in short order.

My VERY FIRST "first impressions" I am ready to share. The Sol Dreadnaught Fleet, which moves around the board bombing the heck out of things, is a rather impressive miniature.

After a lengthy assembly, I can say with certainty it will never leave my house. It doesn't fit back into the box very well, and the plastic platform feels incredibly fragile. Imagine a base half the thickness of an Eldar Jetbike's base and how easy it would be to snap such a base in half.

Luckily, the Dreadnaught Fleet can be represented by just about anything. So I'll just steal another token of some sort from a different game.

Among the Stars with Stronghold Games

I normally don't write about "current" games if I can help it. I cannot stress it enough: the anticipation for new game releases is the first cobblestone laid in a great freeway of gamer suffering.

Because we all want all the games, don't we?

Among the Stars isn't really a new game, but its about to become one. Supposedly you could have owned a copy of Among the Stars since 2012. It came out 2 years after 7 Wonders, and attempted to take the basic mechanics of a 7 Wonders card draft and adapt it to a new game in a science fiction universe.

This image was taken by Artipia. From what I understand, the game 

doesn't actually float in interstellar space like that. Wait, or maybe it does!

I love 7 Wonders, it's one of those amazing games you can play with as few as 2 or as many as 7 and have the same quick, enjoyable experience. From the description on Board Game Geek, Among the Stars sounds just as smart and easy-going. But it adds a couple of things.

1) I like space. I'm a big fan of science fiction, space and space exploration. When I hear about anything space station or colonization related, I get excited. Imagine the tableau of 7 Wonders, only instead of technological and cultural advancements the cards you were putting into play were modules to a grand Babylon 5-style space outpost. Dedicated to peace, understanding, and maximizing your end game victory point totals.

2) The space station modules are interconnected. They are scored depending on the surrounding modules, and indeed the makeup of the rest of your space station. Geography is a new wrinkle I am eager to explore.

So since about 2012, I've had Among the Stars on the backburner of my mind, always gently simmering away. Birthdays came around. Christmas-times came around. And I discovered something.

Among the Stars was a really tough game to find. You couldn't even find it on Amazon. What other product can you think of that is unavailable on Amazon?

Part of the problem was Artipia. A small, growing game publisher from Greece with poor international connections. They have continued publishing the game mostly thanks to Kickstarter. Some companies use Kickstarter to start their initial project, make it into the big time, then use the left-over profits to start the ball rolling on their next project.

Artipia has used Kickstarter for every project. They used Kickstarter for Among the Stars, the expansion, even a pack of promo cards. They are using Kickstarter to fund a reprint of Among the Stars right now.

I'm not super excited about Kickstarter. I really don't want to "invest" my money in an elaborate pre-ordering process with the end result of getting my game 6-8 months down the line.

But there's a big change coming. U.S. publisher Stronghold Games has decided to handle the reprint, and to me this suggests Among the Stars might be showing up in an actual distribution network. Perhaps an online store somewhere here in the U.S.A.

Because no matter how good a game is, I'm probably not going to get it shipped from Greece. There are too many titles out there just as good, just as interesting. And I only have so much space on my shelf.

Before the announcement, the excitement for Among the Stars had come and gone. I substituted.

Race for the Galaxy is an excellent choice. The interplay of cards, and the card vs. card evaluations seem pretty similar. And it just keeps getting better the more you play it.

But now with Stronghold picking up Among the Stars, I'm curious all over again.

If you want to know more about gameplay, check out the convenient Radho Runs Through It video.

Prophetic Flamespeaker: Playing vs. Casting

Wizards really can't win with the new mythic rare slot. People get outraged when the slot gets assigned these big sloppy monsters destined to never be played competitively. People get outraged when the slot receives a playable low-cost card everyone wants to own.

Prophetic Flamespeaker is one of those cards, at least to me, that looks unabashed and uncritically good. If he didn't have double strike, there would probably be a lot of talk right now about ways to give him double strike. And he would probably be pretty awesome even then. But he already has it.

There is seriously no work to be done. Everything you need comes right in the box, including the special cord you usually always need to buy because your computer lost the last format war.

But besides being good, he brings up the playing vs. casting issue.

Does it frustrate anyone else these two terms do not mean the same thing?

A while back when Theros block came out, left and right folks were trying to cast land using Daxos of Meletis. But you can't cast land. You can only play land.

It used to be, you played everything. I was a player of things. If I drew a card, sooner or later I would play it. That's just how I rolled.

But now, most of the time you are casting it. And no matter what anyone else tells you, you can cast a land. Because they aren't spells. Magic would probably be a lot simpler if they were. Because blue would just counter your land, you would die quicker, and we could all go home early.

This Flamespeaker guy even plays land. He plays it right on the table. Costs less than Countryside Crusher, and does more. I'm never going to own 1, let alone a set.

I'm noticing Daxos isn't really selling for a lot, so maybe I'm totally wrong. Although he has to PAY for things too, and doesn't have double strike. I've been wrong before. All I know is I'm old, I almost never play Magic anymore and this card looks amazing.

What would I do? I would make a shaman deck. Because it already has double strike!

TV Wars' Flawed but Awesome Programming Battles

The world is full of terrible games. Usually terrible all the way through. Seldom do you think "I don't like what's happening here, or here, but this part in the middle has made me a fan for life."

Last night, boardgamegeek user calandale put up a video of the infamous Avalon Hill game TV Wars.

The heart of TV Wars, the part I fell in love with, has exactly 3 spaces on the board to land on. It is the Ratings War.

Everybody gears up for an eventual Ratings War.

1) Programming is deployed in secret, so no one knows what they will be facing

2) Each half-hour slot is judged in turn, comparing the programming each station has scheduled for that slot.

3) The worst performing show is immediately canceled. They don't even get to play the rest of the show. If your hour long show scores the lowest in the first half hour, you must throw it away and force your viewers to listen to dead air for half an hour. This is awesome.

4) Canceled shows often cause cascades of destruction you didn't anticipate. Getting an unexpected bonus or negative modifier could lead to a result completely contrary to what you anticipated. Terrible shows are frequently saved by being short. If they are competing against dead air because another show got canceled, the audience thinks they are pretty good in comparison.

5) The winner of the Ratings War feels like the winner of the game. And then you have to wait for someone to land on the space again.

The podcast Flip the Table recently reviewed the old roll-and-move McDonalds game from the 70's. (YES, indeed!) and I'm receiving the same sort of vibes for this game. The majority, 80% maybe, is a boring un-inspired game. You land on the spot, you do what the spot says.

But suddenly, if you land on the "Let's Go to McDonalds" space, the world undergoes a metamorphosis. Suddenly its time to play the Real Game. The one everyone's been waiting for. Time to take the orders, time to flip the burgers. It's show time.

Back to TV Wars, I am having a tough time coming up with a modern game with similar mechanics. The judging obviously rocks. I wish there were more games with judge-offs. I get a little feel for it at the end of Galaxy Trucker when everyone quickly checks to see who has the Prettiest Ship. And there is also a similarity in Pret-a-Porter at the time the stars are awarded.

But nothing to compare to the line-by-line judging of TV Wars. With the chance for so much to incredibly change from the moment you lay your lineup out until the end. A "TV Wars" version of Pret-a-Porter would have you deploy your collections in secret. And judges would rip poorly-conceived designs off your models and set them on fire before you were done showing your collection.

Many hours were once spent playing a roll-and-move game. It might have even contributed to my first failed attempt at college.

I didn't do it because of the news bulletin space. The awards shows or the sponsorship deals. Not even for "Steal a Star". I played it for the Ratings War. TV doesn't even work that way anymore. But I would love to see a similar mechanic rise again in a modern game.

Catan: Sub-optimal Play and a Session Report

One of the ways sub-optimal decisions show up is through the interference of real world events, relationships or scenarios.

A while back, I played a fantastic game of Settlers of Catan with my wife and mother-in-law. You can probably figure out where this story is going just with those two variables.

I would consider both of these people highly intelligent. And very strategic-minded opponents.

The first suboptimal decision I made was this: first turn of Settlers of Catan I decided to adopt a highly aggressive strategy of territorial expansion. I "felt" like roads were the way to go and blocking out a good area to build my civilization would enable me to get the settlements and cities in place faster than my competition.

This is the kind of decision you make when you have recently been playing against a lot of computer opponents. Computer AIs typically don't react to what you are doing except in a very abstract, calculating way.

What happens in real life is usually much different.

I had blocked off one of my wife's roads. She had wasted a wood and clay to build a road she could not continue because of my own encroaching road. It felt so good I did it again a couple turns later after she tried to expand another road.

So my territory was expanding. 

But my public perception, the one in the minds of both of my opponents, was rapidly degenerating. Underneath the surface, I was becoming Public Enemy #1.

I was punished in the way that the leader is often punished in multiplayer games. I, who had been trying to do the blocking, was instead blocked. 1 civilization has no hope against 2 other civilizations working mostly in unison. My trading opportunities were eliminated.

But I was just doing what you are supposed to do to win, wasn't I?

No, I wasn't. Because I didn't win. My wife won. She was able to gain positive support by being the underdog, and then used her own resources to their optimal effect.

I could have sat there and complained about everyone acting outside of their own best interests. But my wife was certainly trying her best. And my mother-in-law was reacting against the biggest threat she saw at the table…the guy who was apparently going for the throat. A game player all her life, she saw the warning signs I didn't realize I was putting out.

About a year ago, I derided the lack of player interaction in most Eurogames. But this scenario is exactly why people avoid conflict so fervently. You can't just built a machine of winning and let it go to work. You have to feel out your opponents and also see how they you.