Urban Sprawl : One big urban mess

Huge swings, lotsa randomness, definitely not Dominant Species

Its been some time (almost 8 months) since I last played this and in this session, I am reminded why I had to sell this game. From the designer of Dominant Species, I had really wanted to like this game as I liked Dominant Species quite a bit (the iOS version now is EXCELLENT as you can play a game vs 5 AI in very short time!) but unfortunately this session confirmed why this game has fell out of my collection.

A Purchase Decision - Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia

The game in question for this week’s entry is…

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia

Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia ( Euphoria from now on ) is the 2^nd game by designers Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone.

Their first collaboration was Viticulture which was recently released via Kickstarter.

Euphoria will be published by Stonemaier games ( which I assume is co-owned by Jamey and Alan ) and is currently up for funding on Kickstarter.

Bora Bora: 12 huts + 12 man/woman tiles!

OMG i DID IT! Can't believe it...

So after a few games of bora bora I was thinking its neigh impossible to score the 12 huts and 12 man/woman tiles so last night when I played it again I decided to give it a go. Boy was I surprised I managed to do it and win the game! 

Now I must admit its not easy and I had a little bit of luck. You essentially need to be able to obtain tiles that give you either more tiles or allowed you to place huts either on the board or in your last hut space. At the same time, you will need quite a lot of the green gods to help you maximize the number of man/woman tiles you are getting.

You probably can complete the objectives goal and even the jewelry goal. I doubt you can be on the temple track though. Now the chances to get screwed is pretty high but with careful planning and subtlety, you can get away with it.

It really impressed me how it is possible to try something totally different in Bora bora and even win! Makes me want to revisit some of my older games and see what other alternative strategies I can come up with.

So after tonight it confirms for me that bora bora is one of the best Stefan Feld games I have played. Highly recommended! 

Stuck'in 2nd Gear: The Mayan Calendar

I recently managed to get in my 3rd ( and possibly final ) play of Tzolk'in: The Mayan Calendar.
I first played this game in December last year, and after 2 plays of it i wasnt at all impressed.
I remember calling it "broken" on one of our podcast episodes. I think it was our very first one.
Do I still stand by my comments ? Well, lets find out !

Space Empires 4X: Where did all that time go ?

I can feel the epic-ness as we setup all those chits!

Space Empires 4X is a war game plain and simple from the fine folks of GMT games. It plays 1-4 and takes you from 1 homeworld with a handful of colony ships all the way to an empire spanning several colonies, all to help you to wage war on the homeworld of an opponent. Its epic and even has fog of war built in but certainly will take a LOT of time to play the normal game itself!

Il Vecchio: Round and round the middlemen go...

I wish the other side had a different board configuration..

I review this previously in my other blog so I won't go into too much details again. This is a light weight euro with a pasted on theme where players are trying to score points by strategically placing their workers, obtaining tiles with which they can then move some workers into various provinces around the map and the venice in the center of the map. These workers will provide scoring points as well as bonuses. When the game has ended, there will be a slew of other end game scoring bonuses and whoever has the most points will win the game.

Terra Mystica: Is this game AWESOME or what?

We liked it so much we played TWICE in 1 session!

If you can't tell by now, I really love this game. The first time I played it I was going "wow.. this is such a meaty game and I can feel my brain going overtime working out the various combinations and things I can do to be in the best position to score points and I can feel it melting out of my ears but WOW... I love this game!"