Tom, just an FYI, since you didn't mention it in your review, so you may not realize this, but looks like you played a deluxe version. The retail version does not have gold nuggets, just yellow wood cubes, amongst some other differences.
Tom, you might be interested in knowing that this game wasn’t originally developed by Final Frontier Games. It’s actually a reimplementation of one of JonnyPac’s older designs, a euro game called Hangtown. Either way, I love what was done with it and am glad you did too! Definitely on my top 10 of 2019 for sure. Between this, Sierra West, and A Fistful of Meeples, it looks like JonnyPac had quite a year.
Definitely want to try this one after seeing this. I live near Coloma between Folsom and Placerville, CA so the fact that this got such a good review really intrigues me! Thanks Tom!
Played this game last night. WOW! Loved it! and I'm so happy that I could find the Delux version to get it for myself! finding a game that scales well and up to 6 players, and that it delivers a great amount of strategy, tactical and crunchyness, is not easy. Well, this game does that!
Another game I was hesitant to pass up on Kickstarter and Maybe I should have bitten the bullet lol. Oh well I'll be spending enough soon on the new "west Kingdom" kickstarter lol
crawf168 it’s not actually backwards, just strangely arranged, ColomA with the center of the word raised to be even with the top of the lettering rather than the bottom
Yeah I think there's an "agree to disagree" here. :P The game so far is good, don't get me wrong, certainly I agree on most of the components. It's a great board, great art, decent even in retail version but I also don't like that minimap at all. But I was shocked when you said it scaled well - this doesn't scale well at all. The 2 player version and 3 players isn't fun to do. Solo I've yet to try, but that doesn't count as "scaling". But one thing I've noticed is that you solve one problem but unlock another with each extreme of player count. With 3 players, the outlaws become hard to take out and there's no tension for busting. But with 5-6 players, the outlaws are a complete joke as every single row gets filled up on the board and they get mullered, so it's literally a race to see who is first to put 5 dudes out for 1st place. But then the tension of busting is better, though if you have the mindset of "i'll use this action and maybe I'll get a bonus" , you will lose the game. You need those extra boom actions so it's more frustrating than fun when you get busted multiple times because frankly it's pretty hard to gauge where players will go each round. We've also noticed that to win you need to do rivers and bridges. The frontiers require too much messing around to get tents, move the wagon AND place them down. And only for 25 points max. In our games especially 6 player games the focus on bridges/rivers always wins. Doesn't matter what bridges as it's easy to max at least 3 out of 4 by just playing the game, but you're looking at 75 points plus for a full rack of bridges and you just can't top that. I like it overall, but it's fighting for a seal of approval, I cannot fathom the seal of excellence though! To each their own though which is a good thing :-)
The game was originally designed for 3-6 players. Rahdo helped bring the 2p Buster AI to life. But still, 3-6 is where it shines. In my experience, the 3-4p game is the best for individual mind-reading, whereas 4-6 is better for groupthink situations and open negotiations. I think it's fair to say the game scales well from 4-6 players compared to other euro style games for the reasons Tom mentioned. Sure, the 2p is a bot variant and the solo mode is a beast of its own. We can ding it a little for that. The Shootout mechanic you noted totally depends on the players, as it's inspired by the Tragedy of the Commons game theory problem. This dilemma scales independently of the exact number of Gunman spaces (thus no scaling alterations to the board for player count). And contrary to what you might have experienced in your sessions, players in 5-6 player games often get stomped by the bad guys since you have to *outnumber* them (not just tie them). This makes losing always possible, no matter the player count (there are 15 Shootout spaces and 15 Outlaws, giving the bad guys the final advantage). So in that case (15 vs 15), the real winner is the player who had no gunmen and took lots of expensive barrels, gaining extra actions hand over fist-inversely making everyone else's opportunity costs (meeples/actions) higher than the -2 meeple hit the divergent player took for defecting! It's like bidding people up high in an auction-a bit of an art. Then later, once the other players see how gravely the round ended, they often start playing chicken-making it even harder for the good guys to win subsequent Shootouts! See, there are path-dependent behavioral cycles that determine the outcomes, rather than simply: "the first to place five dudes wins". These trends often span full game arcs and are very player-meta driven. From the perspective of one who hosted countless playtests, I was delighted to see how various groups leveraged the systems differently. But that's anecdotal from a biased source. 🤠 Bridges are good. Big Buildings in Puerto Rico are good. Same in RftG. Winning scores in Coloma are usually around 125VP. So if you have a base of 75VP, that's a good start. There is still a 50VP gap to lock in victory. This can be done with buildings, hotels, bridges, tents, shootouts, milling your deck, and other point salady in-game VP. But I'm not gonna defend the math too much, it's solid enough and accounts for the floors and ceilings (Boom/Bust and overall expected ROI). My main issue with your comment is that you have your own channel and reviews where you can explain your negative experiences and views in detail there. You din't need to tell Tom he is wrong for enjoying the game himself, and that it should not meet his own standards for Approval-or Excellence, in this case. That's up to him. And I am very pleased that he gave it such high acclaim. It really meant a lot to me-a big milestone in my long and difficult journey as a "new" game designer. To be blunt, it seemed like you were trying to steal his thunder and rain on my parade. Kind of poor form, IMHO. But hey, it's RUclips-the Wild West of user comments. Who am I to talk! 😅 As you say, to each their own. Best, JP
I liked it a lot but my wife didn't care for it so it wouldn't get too much time on the table even with the solo variant. Traded it away for some great games that my wife really enjoys. (Everdell and Shakespeare).
Hangtown is one of the worst games ive ever palyed ... sure this is a step up but after 1 play i never have to play this again.... its the same win or lose based 100% luck of busting or not ..... its not as harsh as it was in hangtown but still stupid
Thank you, Tom! This review means a lot to me. 🤠
Looking forward to trying your game!
Tom, just an FYI, since you didn't mention it in your review, so you may not realize this, but looks like you played a deluxe version. The retail version does not have gold nuggets, just yellow wood cubes, amongst some other differences.
Tom, you might be interested in knowing that this game wasn’t originally developed by Final Frontier Games. It’s actually a reimplementation of one of JonnyPac’s older designs, a euro game called Hangtown. Either way, I love what was done with it and am glad you did too! Definitely on my top 10 of 2019 for sure. Between this, Sierra West, and A Fistful of Meeples, it looks like JonnyPac had quite a year.
Definitely want to try this one after seeing this. I live near Coloma between Folsom and Placerville, CA so the fact that this got such a good review really intrigues me! Thanks Tom!
Sacramentian here too!
I played Coloma last month with six players. Noone of us knew anything about the game and it turned out to be a winner for us all.
Played this game last night. WOW! Loved it! and I'm so happy that I could find the Delux version to get it for myself! finding a game that scales well and up to 6 players, and that it delivers a great amount of strategy, tactical and crunchyness, is not easy. Well, this game does that!
Didn't you play Sierra West? Another one of his designs. Love the card play, I need to table it more.
Another game I was hesitant to pass up on Kickstarter and Maybe I should have bitten the bullet lol. Oh well I'll be spending enough soon on the new "west Kingdom" kickstarter lol
For you or anyone, do you talk about where you're going... and bluff? I think I'd be a talker and try to psych out others for fun.
Yeah, that's allowed. You can play it that way or silently.
I see this game being better at higher player counts because of that XD.
Great review Tom, Coloma is now very high on my to-buy list.
Why is the text on the back of the cards backwards? I saw it in the component drop, and then again in the rules overview...very strange.
crawf168 it’s not actually backwards, just strangely arranged, ColomA with the center of the word raised to be even with the top of the lettering rather than the bottom
It's my new favorite game!
Sounds very similar to Tiny Epic Western. Am I wrong?
Yeah I think there's an "agree to disagree" here. :P The game so far is good, don't get me wrong, certainly I agree on most of the components. It's a great board, great art, decent even in retail version but I also don't like that minimap at all.
But I was shocked when you said it scaled well - this doesn't scale well at all. The 2 player version and 3 players isn't fun to do. Solo I've yet to try, but that doesn't count as "scaling". But one thing I've noticed is that you solve one problem but unlock another with each extreme of player count. With 3 players, the outlaws become hard to take out and there's no tension for busting. But with 5-6 players, the outlaws are a complete joke as every single row gets filled up on the board and they get mullered, so it's literally a race to see who is first to put 5 dudes out for 1st place. But then the tension of busting is better, though if you have the mindset of "i'll use this action and maybe I'll get a bonus" , you will lose the game. You need those extra boom actions so it's more frustrating than fun when you get busted multiple times because frankly it's pretty hard to gauge where players will go each round.
We've also noticed that to win you need to do rivers and bridges. The frontiers require too much messing around to get tents, move the wagon AND place them down. And only for 25 points max. In our games especially 6 player games the focus on bridges/rivers always wins. Doesn't matter what bridges as it's easy to max at least 3 out of 4 by just playing the game, but you're looking at 75 points plus for a full rack of bridges and you just can't top that.
I like it overall, but it's fighting for a seal of approval, I cannot fathom the seal of excellence though! To each their own though which is a good thing :-)
The game was originally designed for 3-6 players. Rahdo helped bring the 2p Buster AI to life. But still, 3-6 is where it shines. In my experience, the 3-4p game is the best for individual mind-reading, whereas 4-6 is better for groupthink situations and open negotiations. I think it's fair to say the game scales well from 4-6 players compared to other euro style games for the reasons Tom mentioned. Sure, the 2p is a bot variant and the solo mode is a beast of its own. We can ding it a little for that.
The Shootout mechanic you noted totally depends on the players, as it's inspired by the Tragedy of the Commons game theory problem. This dilemma scales independently of the exact number of Gunman spaces (thus no scaling alterations to the board for player count). And contrary to what you might have experienced in your sessions, players in 5-6 player games often get stomped by the bad guys since you have to *outnumber* them (not just tie them). This makes losing always possible, no matter the player count (there are 15 Shootout spaces and 15 Outlaws, giving the bad guys the final advantage). So in that case (15 vs 15), the real winner is the player who had no gunmen and took lots of expensive barrels, gaining extra actions hand over fist-inversely making everyone else's opportunity costs (meeples/actions) higher than the -2 meeple hit the divergent player took for defecting! It's like bidding people up high in an auction-a bit of an art. Then later, once the other players see how gravely the round ended, they often start playing chicken-making it even harder for the good guys to win subsequent Shootouts! See, there are path-dependent behavioral cycles that determine the outcomes, rather than simply: "the first to place five dudes wins". These trends often span full game arcs and are very player-meta driven. From the perspective of one who hosted countless playtests, I was delighted to see how various groups leveraged the systems differently. But that's anecdotal from a biased source. 🤠
Bridges are good. Big Buildings in Puerto Rico are good. Same in RftG. Winning scores in Coloma are usually around 125VP. So if you have a base of 75VP, that's a good start. There is still a 50VP gap to lock in victory. This can be done with buildings, hotels, bridges, tents, shootouts, milling your deck, and other point salady in-game VP. But I'm not gonna defend the math too much, it's solid enough and accounts for the floors and ceilings (Boom/Bust and overall expected ROI). My main issue with your comment is that you have your own channel and reviews where you can explain your negative experiences and views in detail there. You din't need to tell Tom he is wrong for enjoying the game himself, and that it should not meet his own standards for Approval-or Excellence, in this case. That's up to him. And I am very pleased that he gave it such high acclaim. It really meant a lot to me-a big milestone in my long and difficult journey as a "new" game designer. To be blunt, it seemed like you were trying to steal his thunder and rain on my parade. Kind of poor form, IMHO. But hey, it's RUclips-the Wild West of user comments. Who am I to talk! 😅 As you say, to each their own.
Best,
JP
It's a shame that this version of game is Deluxe with those gold pieces and not as good looking as retail version..
I liked it a lot but my wife didn't care for it so it wouldn't get too much time on the table even with the solo variant. Traded it away for some great games that my wife really enjoys. (Everdell and Shakespeare).
Also a lot going on with your tie Tom.
Yeehahhhh Tom, I enjoyed that one
Is a review of Coloma called a colomoscopy?
Coloma is great at 4+ players. at 3 or less the competition for spots are loose and makes the meat of the game less interesting
Suryo S I sometimes use the buster at three players :)
I was out the moment i saw the board.
Convoluted...
Disagree on this one. Rules are convoluted. Symbology often unclear. Do not care about busting mechanic.
Hangtown is one of the worst games ive ever palyed ... sure this is a step up but after 1 play i never have to play this again.... its the same win or lose based 100% luck of busting or not ..... its not as harsh as it was in hangtown but still stupid