Vincent White
United States
Chestnut Hill
Massachusetts
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I love my coffee in the morning and so I was looking for a quick playing game that is easy to set up, has lots of strategy and high level of player interaction.
Terra Nova is a game a friend introduced to me (thank you the Abstractionist) that has everything I was looking for above. I was then fortunate to win this game in a benefit auction here on the GEEK.
After playing a few games of this I admired the amount of deep thought and tough decisions that can go into every move, yet the rules are very simple. (here is a picture for reference)
Set up:
2 player: 13 meeples each randomly taking turns placing them on the board.
3 player: 10 meeples each randomly taking turns placing them on the board.
4 player: 8 meeples each randomly taking turns placing them on the board.
Once placed, the game begins with simple rules.
1. You get 3 actions and you have to take all three if you can.
2. The first action has to be to move a meeple, movement can be in any direction of a side of a hex and can go as far as you want until, you hit the last hex on the board, hit a wall tile, or another meeple.
3. You can choose after you move your meeple to place a wall tile, or move another meeple, or the same meeple again in a different direction.
4. A meeple cannot end up on the hex it started on.
So the game gives you these possibilities on a single turn:
Move the meeple
Then, any combination of wall building and meeple moving. Each takes an action. for example each number below represents a full turn.
#1: Move 1 meeple 3x
#2: Move 1 meeple 2x and build a wall(you have to build next to a meeple you moved)
#3: Move 1 meeple 1x and build 2 walls.
#4: Move 2 meeples 1x each and build one wall(next to one of the meeples you moved)
#5: Move 3 meeples
The purpose of moving the meeples and building walls are to section off areas of the board to earn points. If you look at the board you will notice varied terrain types. Points are scored if you wall of 3 or less of those terrain types and your meeple or meeples represent the majority in the walled off area.
You get 3 points per open hex if the area you walled off and have the majority of meeples in contains 1 type of terrain.
You get 2 points per open hex if the area you walled off and have the majority of meeples in contains 2 types of terrain.
You get 1 point per open hex for if the area you walled off and have the majority of meeples in contains 3 types of terrain.
Once an area is walled off you immediately check which player has the majority of meeples in that area, count the points and move the score marker of the player who got points. Then remove the meeples from the game in the walled off area.
If players tie you divide the points by 2 and share them. (in a 2 player game you can just have no one get points in a tie)
Walled off areas containing 4 or more types of terrain are not eligible for points and thus still open to be walled off further.
The game ends when all the terrain types are walled off, or at the start of a players turn they cannot move a meeple.
Highest points win.
Simple, yes, but the game is very cutthroat. You can section someones area into small sections so they score fewer points. You can trap a group of their meeples in a small are so they get few points per meeple. You can even trap one of the opponents meeples on one hex (it gives them 3 points for the hex, but they have less meeple power on the board)
It is a game of constant planning and moving to get the most points per meeple you can possibly get. You have to be conscious of the opponent moving meeples into an area you are working on and beating you on the majority. You have to make sure your not in a position to get walled in for few points. You also have to be aware of the end game situation of your opponent running out of meeples before you will end the game.
Overall, I find it a great game that I am happy is in my collection. It is an abstract with a pasted on theme, but that doesn't bother me at all. A perfect game to take to a coffee shop and have a game or two while enjoying a beverage.
Positives:
1. Quick to set up
2. Simple rules
3. Strategic depth
4. Easy to figure out scoring
5. Quality wood components, nice colorful board.
6. Small box size, wont take up much room in car or office.
Negatives:
1. Best with only 2 players(3 or more loses strategic depth and has a feeling of lack of control.)
2. The company saved money by including only enough meeples in red or yellow for a 2 player game. While this is not a deal breaker, it is disappointing for those that want to play green or blue in a two player game. They also only included enough meeples in the color blue for three and green for 4 players. Very efficient from the companies point of view, but it results in the lack of color choice for players.
3. The game can be too long if you play against those that suffer AP, fortunately I can get through a game in 30 minutes with my fiancee.
4. You have to make sure the person your playing against doesn't group their meeples in a corner to end the game quickly by walling off all their meeples and ending the game.(This is possible, but immature and easily fixed with a house rule of making players spread meeples out throughout the board during initial set up.
My rating 8 out of 10. For comparison sake; I enjoy this game better than Through the Desert because set up is easier and I like the scoring system better. It really makes for a perfect coffee house game for a strategic challenge for 2 people. If you game with 2 I would say get it, definitely not for 3 or more(too chaotic)
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George Leach
United Kingdom
Salford
Greater Manchester
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It's a shame you have to house rule out grouping pieces to wall them all off. Surely if someone is aiming for this it is quite obvious and there is a strategy to counter it?!
If not for what you suggest is a game flaw I would have thught about buying this. Is there only one board? No randomisation?
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Vincent White
United States
Chestnut Hill
Massachusetts
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The randomization comes during set up. Each player alternates turns placing their meeples anywhere on the board. Because you can place anywhere someone can clump their pieces in a corner.
1. This is easy to see happening as you place your pieces. However the points go to whoever has more meeples in an enclosed area. So if someone gets a few pieces down in a spot and you have been placing your meeples strategically around the board, then it may be too late to stop.
2. Furthermore, the game ends when your opponent cant move any pieces at the start of his turn. So...if he or she walls of all of his or her pieces and scores the points, it will be a small score(39 points max), but by that time you will still have less or no points.
3. The good news is that because it is easy to recognize, you can get your piece placed up next to one of theirs so they can't complete the wall. However, if they can't move because you have them trapped, then it is game over.
So you can do a couple of things to prevent this from happening.
1. You can just house rule that everyone must place their pieces randomly across the whole board without clumping them in one area(which I stated above)
2. You can play a rule variant that is called "the law of diminishing returns". For each meeple in an area that is walled off that has more than 3 meeples in it; then subtract 5 points for each meeple over 3 that they have in that area.
For example if they walled in all 13 of their meeples in an area that would give them 13 three point spaces that would usually give them 39 points. However with this rule in effect they would have to subtract 30 points for having 10 too many meeples in an area. Thus giving them 9 points(which is easy to beat if you see them attempting such a move) The rule penalizes more meeples because your area is not as profitable as it would be with less "cooks in the kitchen".
In summary, do not avoid this game because of the problem I listed. Just avoid playing with people that want to suck the fun out of a good time and you will enjoy this game without making any house rules.
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Tim
United States
Vandling
Pennsylvania
"He's no good to me dead."
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Nice review. I have never played this game, so tell me if I'm way off here, but it sounds similar to Fjords. There are some obvious differences, of course (randomly made tile board vs. premade board, Fjords has two distinct phases - board building and land claiming - which Terra Nova does not due to the premade board, plus Terra Nova has the whole meeple moving element), but I get a very similar feel having read the review.
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Vincent White
United States
Chestnut Hill
Massachusetts
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I have never played Fjords, but upon reading the reviews of it, I would say these two games offer two very disticnt gaming experiences. It is so fun sliding a meeple across the board to block someone's meeple into a space worth only 3 points.....ok, well maybe fun for one of us.
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Peaceful Gamin'
Canada
Vancouver
BC
Looking for a playtester/editor/translator for your cool new game? Contact us, we're free (but we ask to be mentioned in the acknowledgements, and a copy of the game would be a nice gesture, but not necessary).
Looking for a playtester/editor/translator for your cool new game? Contact us, we're free (but we ask to be mentioned in the acknowledgements, and a copy of the game would be a nice gesture, but not necessary).
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I like that you rate this game higher than TTD. Definitely a good one then.
On the color choice, well, we play with whatever color is there. May I suggest, you get away from provided meeple pieces, and find sth. in your backyard (I know, this sounds pathetic, but we play many of our games with pieces such as this:
As to item three - can it also take too long with 2 players?
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Peaceful Gamin'
Canada
Vancouver
BC
Looking for a playtester/editor/translator for your cool new game? Contact us, we're free (but we ask to be mentioned in the acknowledgements, and a copy of the game would be a nice gesture, but not necessary).
Looking for a playtester/editor/translator for your cool new game? Contact us, we're free (but we ask to be mentioned in the acknowledgements, and a copy of the game would be a nice gesture, but not necessary).
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Also, try this variant to prevent your pioneer-clumping:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/filepage/19326/terra-nova-varia...
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Quinn Swanger
United States
Holly Springs
North Carolina
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It seems like the easiest and simplest method for countering the "clumping" strategy/situation mentioned in your Negative #4 is to ...
Instead of:
1) Distributing the pioneers randomly as you suggest (which could be cumbersome and/or controversial by itself), or
2) Having an additional layer of "diminishing returns" math built on top of the scoring, again as you suggest, or
3) Requiring at least a one space distance between pioneers of the same color (as was suggested in another thread, but which probably would not prevent a player from attempting something similar),
Why not just require each player to place at least one of their pioneers in each of the 8 terrain types? That's it! It would look pseudo-random but would allow players to have control over where they actually place their pieces initially. I'm so confident of this fix that I think I'm gonna start playing with this as a house rule and actually write it into my printed rule book.
The game Clans does something similar in the setup phase when each color is represented evenly in each region -- 5 different colored player huts for the 5 territories in each region consisting of the 4 terrain types (one terrain type is duplicated in each region).
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