Merric Blackman
Australia
Waubra
Victoria
Ramping up my reviewing.
Happily playing games for many, many years.
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For my birthday, many years ago, a good friend of mine gave me a book on chaos theory entitled, Does God Play Dice? Well, you could also call it Does God Play Niagara?, because I've found few "simple" games to be so unpredictable.
There is no luck in Niagara. Each player chooses their moves each turn from the available options. In fact, there's even less luck than Puerto Rico, where available plantations have an influence on the shape of the game. However, as you choose your paddle cards in Niagara without knowing what your opponents are choosing... ah, there comes the unpredictability of the game, and the fun!
This game was played with the Spirits of Niagara expansion, which I really, really recommend. If you thought Niagara was a too-simple game, Spirits adds a number of features that really increase the interest level, and the tactical decisions you have to make in the game.
Rich and Mat consider the board after turn 2
The basic idea of Niagara is that you control two canoes that you use to pick up gems that are on the bank of the river. You win the game when you recover 4 gems of one colour; 1 gem of each of the five colours, or seven gems in total.
Moving the canoes is interesting. Including the expansion, you have 10 "Paddle" cards, each which displays a number indicating how many movement points your canoes get. A canoe must use all of its points moving in one direction - no changing in the middle of the move. It's a bad idea to move off the waterfall.
It costs 2 movement points to load a gem, and you have to deliver them back to the shore.
There's two kickers to all of this:
First of all, you only get to use each paddle card once. If you use the "7" card, you can't use it again - well, not until all the cards have been used.
Second, the river moves. After everyone has moved, the river moves along a number of spaces equal to the lowest paddle card... and it may sweep you over the waterfall, which is a Really Bad Thing(tm).
The Niagara River after turn 4 - Will anyone go over the falls?
Some of us had played Niagara before, but it's not a hard game to learn. Of course, there are a few things that you need to know, like not to use your high paddle cards when going down the river. Due to the river movement, it's harder to get back!
Yeah, that's a mistake that Mike made. He spent a lot of time being swept back along the river, but he was lucky enough to not be swept off the river. No, that was something that Josh suffered.
With six players, there are canoes everywhere! Apart from depleting the gem supplies quickly, it also opens up the possibility of stealing from other players. Yes, if you have an empty canoe and manage to land on another canoe when moving upriver, you can "liberate" their gems...
The game moves towards its end.
I thought I was doing really well, quickly getting three gems, avoiding the waterfall and the whirlpool, and stealing extra gems from Mike. When I had my canoes back on the shore, I increased the river speed, and had a lot of fun watching canoes being swept even quicker towards the falls.
Then I got too tricky: I moved only 1 space when at the fork on the river. This allowed me to steal a couple of gems. Unfortunately, someone then decided to move the river speed up to +2, which would be enough to take me over the falls.
However, I was saved! Another player had chosen to play the weather card, and the river moved back to +1. I'd just end on the edge of the falls, and I could move back next turn!
Unfortunately, a third player had *also* chosen to change the river speed. I couldn't resist the third change, and my double canoe - bearing Mike's gems - disappeared over the falls. Argh!
I managed to come back, and acquire more gems, though. We eventually made our way through all the paddle cards, and so with the first of the new batch, I was able to return to shore with 3 more gems, to take my total up to 6... including four different colours.
Unfortunately, Rich had managed to get four purple gems. That was the victory to him!
Rich, Victorious
We were all quite surprised by this - everyone had been watching me. Mat had spent a lot of the game with Hurried Elk helping his canoe not vanish over the falls, and we'd had one Bathing Beaver reset the river speed.
There's a lot going on in a fairly quick game - about 45 minutes in all. I'm very fond of Niagara, and I'm sure it'll be pulled out again in the future.
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Ramping up my reviewing.
