Thank you Jon I really appreciate your playthroughs. Just a question: in 55:14 hasn't the Green player already spent all their army power? They had 4 at the start, they spent 1 on the first city, garissoned 1 there, spent the other 3 to conquer the 2nd one and garissoned a 2nd solider there too. But you continued as it was a chain conquer, instead of multiple conquers. So the question is, do player restart counting their force at each battle (which potentially may result in conquering many cities given they have the non garissoned soldiers and each conquer removes a single soldier, or do they USE power when they conquer a city, meaning they reduce a number of power required from a total power they have? I hope the question was clear :)
Page 13 of the rulebook is pretty clear. "Your Army Strength must meet or exceed the total costs of all targeted settlements." If in the playthrough, if there had been another "1" city after the 2nd, he could NOT have conquered it because the total was already 4/4. That's true even if there was an ungarrison soldiers left at that point that could have been used to garrison a 3rd city. Do you NOT recount your strength after every settlement... you calculate your strength once, target a group of settlement that totals =< than your strength, then you conquer and garrison all those settlements in one fell swoop.
I've never played the game, but I can't help but feel the resource system is really clunky. The problem is that you technically aren't supposed to write down your resources until you "store" them, but that means you have to keep in mind all of the unspent resources you have during your turn - from dice, from various bonuses, from producing buildings. Seems like this is fraught with the possibility of error, either forgetting to write down a resource at the end of your turn or storing a resource you already spent. I know this wants to be a roll and write, but all this is solved if you have chits for the resources. Have an area on your player board that separates "stored" resources from "active" resources. Which isn't rocket science, it's how just about every resource management Euro works. When you add in the messiness of markers trying to write neat letters in small boxes with fat marker tips, and I just don't get it. Probably adds $1 to the price of the game for a couple of sheets of cardboard chits. Polyominoes would be more fun for the buildings, but the markers work okay for that (though again, putting the meeples on the building you've just drawn would seem likely to cause smearing). I can see that that allows the game to be less expensive and more flexible. The game looks good, and the designer's games are always full of neat ideas and decisions, but I just don't get the component choices.
Yeah, I love that they tried to make a meaty roll and write in a compact form factor....it just didn't seem that this design lent itself to that idea all that well. It's odd.
Really Jon? 4 games in one week? You madman :D All of them fun and interesting to watch, make sure you dont overexert yourself ;)
Ha, I have TWO coming out tomorrow so there's lots to watch :)
I wish one day they will make a version called Rome & Roll: The Board Game.
Thank you Jon I really appreciate your playthroughs. Just a question: in 55:14 hasn't the Green player already spent all their army power? They had 4 at the start, they spent 1 on the first city, garissoned 1 there, spent the other 3 to conquer the 2nd one and garissoned a 2nd solider there too. But you continued as it was a chain conquer, instead of multiple conquers. So the question is, do player restart counting their force at each battle (which potentially may result in conquering many cities given they have the non garissoned soldiers and each conquer removes a single soldier, or do they USE power when they conquer a city, meaning they reduce a number of power required from a total power they have? I hope the question was clear :)
I think your question is clear, unfortunately I have no recollection about how this game plays in order to accurately answer it, sorry!
Page 13 of the rulebook is pretty clear. "Your Army Strength must meet or exceed the total costs of all targeted settlements." If in the playthrough, if there had been another "1" city after the 2nd, he could NOT have conquered it because the total was already 4/4. That's true even if there was an ungarrison soldiers left at that point that could have been used to garrison a 3rd city. Do you NOT recount your strength after every settlement... you calculate your strength once, target a group of settlement that totals =< than your strength, then you conquer and garrison all those settlements in one fell swoop.
I've never played the game, but I can't help but feel the resource system is really clunky. The problem is that you technically aren't supposed to write down your resources until you "store" them, but that means you have to keep in mind all of the unspent resources you have during your turn - from dice, from various bonuses, from producing buildings. Seems like this is fraught with the possibility of error, either forgetting to write down a resource at the end of your turn or storing a resource you already spent.
I know this wants to be a roll and write, but all this is solved if you have chits for the resources. Have an area on your player board that separates "stored" resources from "active" resources. Which isn't rocket science, it's how just about every resource management Euro works. When you add in the messiness of markers trying to write neat letters in small boxes with fat marker tips, and I just don't get it. Probably adds $1 to the price of the game for a couple of sheets of cardboard chits.
Polyominoes would be more fun for the buildings, but the markers work okay for that (though again, putting the meeples on the building you've just drawn would seem likely to cause smearing). I can see that that allows the game to be less expensive and more flexible.
The game looks good, and the designer's games are always full of neat ideas and decisions, but I just don't get the component choices.
Yeah, I love that they tried to make a meaty roll and write in a compact form factor....it just didn't seem that this design lent itself to that idea all that well. It's odd.
I would have loved dry erase polganimos for the buildings so you can write what it is in your color.