Goa for Two, and Two for Goa

Scrabblette is quickly becoming an experienced gamer as we explore my game collection trying to find out what sorts of games she likes. Last night I re-read the rules to Goa and we sat down and played it.

Goa is one of those games that hasn't had a really good turn yet - the only time I played it was against the kid and he thrashed me. I had somewhat miserable memories of it after that and didn't rush to get it to the table again.

My first impression is that it's really quite complicated. I wonder if the game couldn't be simplified in these ways:

• remove the auction. I suggest something like Vinci where there's a series of tiles and you can have the first one for free, the second for 2 ducats, the third for 4, etc. The auction feels like an unnecessary complication in this game, and it seems to add to the play time significantly.
• forget about ships. The cool aspect of the game is the spices, the ships are just there to make moving the spices harder.
• simplify the scoring mechanism. On the development track you get 1 VP for each spice used to upgrade, so why not have a VP track around the outside of the board that is updated as you score? The game has a lot of public VPs that can be calculated, but why force the players to do that?

OK, so with those suggestions the game would be significantly different, and appeal to a different audience. As it stands, Goa feels to me to be underdeveloped - Knizia would have taken a few more mechanisms out before he released it.

Nevertheless, it's a decent game. It kept me thinking quite a lot, but not full-time, hence my feeling that the game is too long. Tikal keeps me thinking all the time. Cosmic Encounter keeps me thinking none of the time. There's a high positive correlation between the amount of time I spend thinking and my rating of the game.

So Scrabblette started with the flag and placed it in such a way that no plantations were auctioned in the first round. I won 4 colonists and she won some extra actions. That suggested to me that I should found the cost 8 colony. Scrabblette had no source of spices and had to try to found the cost 6 colony, but failed on her first attempt. I advanced on the taxation track and Scrabblette advanced on the expedition card track, setting the foundations of our strategies.

I was in the stronger position as my colony could produce any spice, whereas Scrabblette was limited to red/black. That seemed to be a minor advantage which I needed to exploit. I advanced in all development columns just because I could. I increased taxation as well, and usually had more money than Scrabblette, allowing me to control the flag. When I did lose the flag I really missed the extra action (particularly in the round where I forgot to tax before the auction), so I got it back again whenever I could.

When it came to the final scoring I was showing 21 points in development, 10 in colonies and 1 in plantations, compared to Scrabblette's 15, 6 and 1. However Scrabblette had 3 points in expedition cards and 3 points for the most money, making the scores 32 to 28. A victory, but not the convincing victory I was expecting. I learnt to watch out for her when we played Taj, and she continues to show that she's a worthy opponent. What will she be like when she's experienced and knows the rules??

I should compare this victory to the way the kid defeated me. When I played the kid in May 2005 (so he was nearly 9 years old then), he got 22 points on the development tracks, 10 points for colonies, 1 for expeditions, 3 for most money and 3 for the mission... 39 points to my 29. That was a truly crushing victory. I think in that game we started with plantations so there were more spices in the game early, the economies were kick-started, and I refused to use the taxation track and he used his money to win all the auctions. I think I get the game now. I want a rematch.

Designers That Are Not As Good As Kris Burm

There are a few designers that get me excited - Bruno Faidutti, Friedemann Friese, Doris & Frank, Mike Fitzgerald, and of course Kris Burm. Reiner Knizia does not - I've played too many of his crappy card games to not be wary. Klaus Teuber doesn't either - although Settlers is a masterpiece he seems reluctant to try something really new. Wolfgang Kramer doesn't either - although he's made some masterpieces such as Tikal and Gulo Gulo, he's made some dross like Australia and 6 Nimmt! as well. However there are a number of designers that I just can't get emotional about either way, and it's those that I'd like to discuss today.

Rudiger Dorn (Goa, Jambo, Louis XIV, Traders of Genoa) - I own 3 of Dorn's games, and have played Louis XIV as well. Strangely, Goa and Traders of Genoa are games that I've only ever played with the kid, and been unable to motivate or organise myself to play with anyone else. My favourite of his designs so far is Jambo, and it's by far the simplest as well. Maybe I find his games a bit too complex?

Martin Wallace (Railroad Tycoon, Age of Steam, Runebound) - due to his tendency to design long train games, and my loathing for them, it's a wonder that I'm including Martin Wallace in this list at all. However it's an enigma to me that he also designed Runebound, probably my favourite high-Ameritrash game. I should keep an eye on his releases in case he comes up with another gem. (Note that Francis Tresham is not on this list at all.)

Dirk Henn (Alhambra, Metro, Timbuktu) - I used to own Alhambra, but it has the distinction of being the first game I ever traded away. I just thought it was boring. Timbuktu looked very exciting but three and half hours later I'd played more of it than I ever wanted to. However Metro is quite a neat little game although it's in the class of "CyberKev owns it so I can play his copy enough to satisfy me". It's possible that one day there'll be a Henn design that I really really love.

Alan Moon (Ticket to Ride, Diamant, Elfenland, Happy Dog, Pony Express, Union Pacific) - I've previously blogged about Alan Moon and his train games. The poor gentleman suffers from choosing a genre I don't like very much, as demonstrated by my very high opinion of Diamant and Elfenland. Sadly Happy Dog was an unfortunate Kniziaesque crappy card game. (Crappy card game is almost a genre by itself, isn't it? I might write more on that one day.) Maybe one day Mr Moon will design something that really hits the spot for me. Maybe San Marco is it?

Sid Sackson (Acquire, Bazaar, Can't Stop, I'm The Boss) - OK, so the man is a legend, but so is Boy George and opinions vary on him as well. I find Acquire to be mostly a bookkeeping exercise, which is not really what I want in a game, and Can't Stop gets a bit dull after a while - I find Diamant to be a much more interesting example of that genre. However I like Bazaar a lot, and I'm The Boss is a very clever and fun game. I look forward to trying out more of his designs.

Stefan Dorra (Amazonas, For Sale, Hex Hex, Pick Picknic) - I like Amazonas a lot - nobody on BGG rates it higher than I do. It feels a lot like Elfenland or Ticket to Ride with a theme that I enjoy. For Sale and Hex Hex are a bit worn out for me, but I still like Pick Picknic. My nephew thinks I gave it to him for Christmas 2005, but if so why does he only play it when I'm around? A Dorra design is always worth investigating.

The designers I've discussed above have some good designs - enough to keep me interested - but not enough to get me really excited about a new release. Maybe they have great games that I haven't tried yet? If so, please let me know and I'll hunt down a copy.

Do You Like Games You Don't Understand?

I played Caylus for the first time today, and I was kind of meh. It's an interesting game, but there are too many things to think about and I'm not sure I'd ever do a good job with it. I like the building track, and if Caylus was simply an economic game trying to build the right sets of buildings so that my economy functions more efficiently than yours, I think I'd like that. I find that adding the castle and the royal favours makes Caylus so complicated I'll probably never do a good job with it. I can't grok the long-term consequences of my actions.

I think Princes of Florence is somewhat similar - there are just too many things going on. I'm all at sea when I play that, and consequently I don't enoy it so much. I suspect Goa and Louis XIV are a bit like that as well. Maybe just a bit too complicated. I like games that I can get my head around, even if it's only just, such as Tikal, Tigris and Euphrates, and Elfenland. They're the limit of complexity that I'm comfortable with and consequently a challenge to play. Easier games like San Juan, GIPF and Hare and Tortoise that I understand really well become old favourites that I can play to relax.

What I want to know is, do people often like games which confuse them? Are all the people who rate Caylus highly super-mega-smart? I have a Ph.D. and a genius IQ, but it confuses me. Are Caylus fans the absolute intellectual elite of the planet? If not, what's so good about a game that's confusingly hard? Do people like playing a game where they feel lost? Is there some different sort of intelligence that they have and I don't? I need feedback here, because it just doesn't make sense to me.

Send the Children to Transylvania!

I had a nice surprise waiting for me when I got home yesterday afternoon - my order from unhalfbricking.com had arrived. Woohoo, Hameln and Die Dolmengotter! I had no time to read the rules before leaving for CyberKev's place to play, but I did manage to print the rules to Die Dolmengotter from the publisher's site. We didn't get to play it, but we did play Hameln using the time-honoured but a bit boring technique of reading the rules at the table as we set up the game. Wow, this game has a lot of bits! And it's pretty! And it's complex! It reminds me somewhat of Power Grid (3 phases) and somewhat of Goa (many ways to score VPs) and not much of Shear Panic. There's a whole lot more game than I was expecting.

It's very cute - you have houses with men and women in them. The men produce goods such as meat and the women have babies. The babies can get married and move into houses, and the meat can be sold. There are rats everywhere. When enough rats take over the board, the Pied Piper comes along and may take unmarried babies to Transylvania with him (which costs you VPs). What a good idea that is! But it also means that it's a valid strategy to father children upon other players so they have babies to worry about. Also when the girl children get married they can choose a house and the boy player has to pay. This group had played Funny Friends together, so forcing each other to get married and have children was familiar territory for us and we had some fun.

We did play several rules wrong, but one of the Lamont brothers has a good article on BGG about rules that people get wrong. The one we figured out was that when you activate males or females you can do so in multiple houses. This would have made the game move a whole lot faster and there would have been more money to splash around on the optional actions. We agreed that would improve the game, and might give it another run tonight at Critical Mass.

I had read some disparaging comments about Hameln, and that and the steep price ($A100) almost convinced me not to buy it, but I wanted those mice. Now that I've played the game, I'm glad I got it. Where is my kid, anyway?