The moment I saw it I was entranced by Terraliptar's photo of this game on BGG. When Gord eventually decided to make some more copies, I got him to send me one. I didn't realise it wasn't going to be exactly like Terraliptar's customised copy, so Scrabblette and I fixed it up by painting the domes and putting it in a proper box. So now, my copy is just like the one in the photo.
Scrabblette and I played a couple of times, but it's one amongst many many games I own that are underplayed. Consequently, when I headed out with the kid on Sunday afternoon, to a location where there would potentially be gamers, I took it along. The planned worked out excellently - Darryl the gamer had come along and offered to sit in one of the comfy chairs and play games with me (notice stern scowl from kid who knows everything).
I hadn't played for a year or more, so we muddled through the first game with Darryl knowing much more about the rules than I did. Eventually I spotted a winning fork and won the game. For beginners, a fork is when you have the option of two good moves and your opponent can't prevent both.Darryl then suggested we use the God Powers, which had never really interested me. I drew Hermes - "you may move two steps each turn", and Darryl drew "if you place a dome you can play a turn with your opponent's piece". Darryl had the good sense to set up a lot of places where he could place domes, so when I moved two spaces and set up a threat, he'd play a dome, move me somewhere stupid, and destroy the threat. I managed to win that game by setting up a threat that took two steps to get to, and blocking Darryl's access to the place where he could build a dome.
We played again with different God Powers. I had the power of pushing my opponent's pieces one space if I started next to them, and Darryl had Aphrodite - if I started my turn next to his piece I had to end my turn next to his piece. So I could push him around, I just couldn't get away from him! I figured that was a pretty useful power.
In Santorini one is always trying to get away from the opponent and set up a winning move before the opponent comes stomping in his muddy boots and puts a dome on your plan. On a 5x5 board, getting away is quite a challenge - often I would use a threat to coerce one of the opponent's men to go somewhere awkward. Pushing was another option! Sadly in the third game Darryl set up a winning fork that I didn't see coming, and beat me.
That was all the gaming for the day. When a storm suddenly hit the park we ran for the car as fast as we could and still got saturated. Anyway, Santorini is a great game, and it's a crying shame that someone like Gigamic hasn't produced it yet.
