Craig Duncan
United States
Ithaca
New York
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I've been reading the rules to this game to determine whether I want to purchase it. I have a few questions.
Question 1:
Some cards pay victory points (VP) only at the end of the game; these are the cards with the hexagon icon in the bottom left corner of the illustration. Other cards pay VP upon activation; these are the cards with the hexagon icon in the middle of the stone tablet at the bottom of the card.
Functionally, what is the difference? That is, what does it matter whether you are paid VP during the game or when you run your city?
Here are the ideas I have come up with in answer to this question:
1) Cards that pay VP at the end of the game pay VP whether they are activated or not. This is a nice feature of this type of card, since it typically costs some kind of resource to activate a card. Thus one gets VP on the cheap, so to speak.
2) The Lord's card, the British Museum card, and Street Lights card give you VP when you run your city AND can be activated more than once. (Perhaps there are more cards like this, but for my knowledge of the cards, I am limited only to the images that gamers have posted here on BGG, and from these images, these are the only three cards I see that work like this.) Cards that pay VP only at the end of the game obviously can't repeat their VP granting function.
3) The hospital card lets you "double dip" with a card that typically grants VP only once during activation (because it must be flipped over after having been used during activation). If all cards paid VP only at the game's end the hospital card's double dip power would not be possible.
My questions:
Are there other functional differences I have overlooked, that is, game play differences #4, #5, etc. that stem from the "pay VP now" vs "pay VP later" difference of the cards?
And strategically, is difference #1 above the most significant difference in your opinion? (I'm guessing yes, but having never played the game I don't have much sense of this.)
Question 2:
Has anyone played this with 10-12 year old kids? Those are the ages of my kids and I'm trying to figure out if this game is too much for them or above their ability. I'm pretty sure the 12 year old would do OK, but I'm less sure about the 10 year old. We enjoy some BGG-style games, e.g. Carcassonne, Bohnanza, Code 777, Forbidden City, Winners' Circle, etc. But this would be a bit of leap up. (My kids love Monopoly and I don't; I'm thinking this might scratch the same itch, but in a way that I will enjoy too.)
Question 3:
Is this a game that only really becomes fun once you know the various card powers well, and once you know which card combinations work well, so that the first couple of games are really just learning games and aren't a whole lot of fun? Or is this a game where even newbies will typically enjoy the game from the start?
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Snooze Festival
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
We love our pups!! Misu, RIP 28 Nov 2010. Tikka, RIP 11 Aug 2011.
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cdunc123 wrote:
Question 1:
Some cards pay victory points (VP) only at the end of the game; these are the cards with the hexagon icon in the bottom left corner of the illustration. Other cards pay VP upon activation; these are the cards with the hexagon icon in the middle of the stone tablet at the bottom of the card.
Functionally, what is the difference? That is, what does it matter whether you are paid VP during the game or when you run your city?
Psychological only -- in-game VP are public, whereas cards get buried under other cards. If you had enough chits, you could award these (and Burrough VP) as you go. Heck, you could even make a score track and make it all public if you choose!
cdunc123 wrote:
Question 3:[/b]
Is this a game that only really becomes fun once you know the various card powers well, and once you know which card combinations work well, so that the first couple of games are really just learning games and aren't a whole lot of fun? Or is this a game where even newbies will typically enjoy the game from the start?
I, at least, had fun with it the first time I played (and with continued plays, too).
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PJ Killian
United States
Cambridge
Massachusetts
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Your idea #2 gets to the heart of it, I think: there are cards that a) do not flip and b) grant VP at the end of the game that c) also have in-game effects each time you run them so long as they are at the top of their particular stack. By not collecting the VP tokens for those cards until the end of the game, you alleviate the need to keep track of which cards you've already scored points for. It's possible to do it a different way, but who needs the agita? In my experience with the game, following the rules as written and resolving the end-game scoring in the order given in the rules makes the end-game VP calculations a snap.
I think that a bright 10-year-old who has some gaming experience could figure out the game -- once you've got over the quirky aspects of the rules, mechanically London is pretty straightforward. The primary question in my mind would be whether they found the theme too dry for their tastes. I can see a lot of 10 year olds not having their imagination captured by building a 17th century haberdasher's guild. You would know that better than I would.
I've only had limited experience with this game so far, but both of the games I've played were teaching games and I think that people were having fun, or at least willing to simulate fun for my benefit. You definitely don't develop a coherent strategy for this the first time out but there's fun to be had just learning it.
For what it's worth, London is one of my personal favorites (again, after a couple of go-rounds) because it's fairly easy to learn, plays quick, and offers multiple routes to victory, and I recommend it if you think you'll get it to the table regularly.
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Craig Duncan
United States
Ithaca
New York
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CmdrOverbite wrote: The primary question in my mind would be whether they found the theme too dry for their tastes. I can see a lot of 10 year olds not having their imagination captured by building a 17th century haberdasher's guild. You would know that better than I would.
One thing that attracts me to this game is that it looks like there is a decent chance my family and I will be able to spend a half year living and working in London in 2012. My thought is that being in London would make the theme of the game more interesting than it would be otherwise. For example, we could play the Nelson's Column card in a Tuesday night game and then go see the real Nelson's Column on Wednesday, etc.!
Thanks for the feedback.
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Christopher Dearlove
United Kingdom
Chelmsford
Essex
SoRCon 5 2-4 Feb 2012 http://www.sorcon.co.uk
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snoozefest wrote: cdunc123 wrote:
Question 1:
Some cards pay victory points (VP) only at the end of the game; these are the cards with the hexagon icon in the bottom left corner of the illustration. Other cards pay VP upon activation; these are the cards with the hexagon icon in the middle of the stone tablet at the bottom of the card.
Functionally, what is the difference? That is, what does it matter whether you are paid VP during the game or when you run your city?
Psychological only
Not so. A cards can fail to be run (thus not scoring points if at the bottom of the card) or can be run more than once using a Hospital or Whitehall. And if there's a cost to run the card that's another difference. And also you can overbuild the points at construction card without having to run the city without losing the points.
The actual points awarded are the same, but the card difference is important.
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Christopher Dearlove
United Kingdom
Chelmsford
Essex
SoRCon 5 2-4 Feb 2012 http://www.sorcon.co.uk
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cdunc123 wrote: One thing that attracts me to this game is that it looks like there is a decent chance my family and I will be able to spend a half year living and working in London in 2012.
If it comes off, I'm sure you'll get plenty of suggestions how to continue your gaming over here.
And as you note, there are many things to see in London - even more than in the game, though it does hit many of the highlights, though not all even in its timescale. (Though some things in the game can be given a miss.)
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Snooze Festival
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
We love our pups!! Misu, RIP 28 Nov 2010. Tikka, RIP 11 Aug 2011.
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Dearlove wrote: snoozefest wrote: cdunc123 wrote:
Question 1:
Some cards pay victory points (VP) only at the end of the game; these are the cards with the hexagon icon in the bottom left corner of the illustration. Other cards pay VP upon activation; these are the cards with the hexagon icon in the middle of the stone tablet at the bottom of the card.
Functionally, what is the difference? That is, what does it matter whether you are paid VP during the game or when you run your city?
Psychological only Not so. A cards can fail to be run (thus not scoring points if at the bottom of the card) or can be run more than once using a Hospital or Whitehall. And if there's a cost to run the card that's another difference. And also you can overbuild the points at construction card without having to run the city without losing the points. The actual points awarded are the same, but the card difference is important.
I think we have different understandings of what the OP was asking. I thought he was asking "functionally, what is the difference between getting VP during the game, by running your city and getting the VP awards shown on the bottom edge, or at the end of the game, from cards with intrinsic value whose VP is shown in a hex in the illustration area?" Answer: none, except keeping the VP earned hidden (no visible chits). You've answered the question "what is the difference between cards that give you VP when run, and cards with intrinsic VP value?" I think you answered the actual question, although I'm not sure -- it seems like a pretty basic question that the OP answered himself.
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Craig Duncan
United States
Ithaca
New York
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snoozefest wrote:
I think we have different understandings of what the OP was asking. I thought he was asking "functionally, what is the difference between getting VP during the game, by running your city and getting the VP awards shown on the bottom edge, or at the end of the game, from cards with intrinsic value whose VP is shown in a hex in the illustration area?" Answer: none, except keeping the VP earned hidden (no visible chits). You've answered the question "what is the difference between cards that give you VP when run, and cards with intrinsic VP value?" I think you answered the actual question, although I'm not sure -- it seems like a pretty basic question that the OP answered himself.
I was mainly interested in non-psychological effects of the difference between VP-now and VP-at-end-of-game cards, that is, what changes to the substantive game play does this difference entail?
My interest arose as I was considering the game from the designer's point of view. In opting to have some cards pay VP only at the end of the game and some cards pay VP when run, the designer opted to have more cluttered cards than otherwise, since the VP-at-end rule requires another icon (namely, the hexagon in the bottom left of illustrations) in addition to the VP icon at the bottom (in the stone tablet).
Since more cluttered cards is a negative, other things equal, the designer must have seen some advantage that outweighed this negative -- something that made game play more interesting, enough to justify the extra clutter. Psychological effects are a possibility -- they do make for some interesting effects -- but if I were a designer I personally wouldn't count them as sufficient to justify a more cluttered card scheme. So I began to wonder what interesting effects on game play the choice to have VP-now and VP-later cards has.
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Snooze Festival
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
We love our pups!! Misu, RIP 28 Nov 2010. Tikka, RIP 11 Aug 2011.
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Gotcha!
Well, to me the simple decision of VP-now or VP-later makes no difference, other than the psychological one. Because of that, during playtesting I'd suggested that all VP be awarded immediately. But Martin said that (1) he liked having a bit of mystery with the hidden VP, and (2) production is simpler/cheaper if you make fewer VP chits. Of course, you could just have a score track and remove chits altogether. I think I suggested that as well, but I don't remember the reason why that was not used; probably to minimize the gang-up-on-the-leader problem seen in games like El Grande, Vinci, etc. Although his other games (e.g., Age of Steam, Struggle of Empires) do have a score track, there's still some end-game accounting to be done.
Another possible reason would be a thematic one: some things may be beneficial to a city builder just for having built them -- e.g., monuments -- regardless of whether or not they have some function that must be activated to create prestige/VP. This seems a not unreasonable choice considering how Wallace's games often have thematic elements at the expense of simplicity/elegance.
And from a game design perspective, I think your option 1 is not quite right -- those cards that are worth any significant VP are generally pretty expensive to build. But the interaction with other cards that allow the double-dipping, and the need to take a run-city action and manage your stacks (to keep the VP-generating cards uncovered) clearly differentiate the VP-cards from the others.
Anyway, functionally there is a clearly a difference between VP-now-by-activating cardsand VP-end-of-game-by-building cards; but there is no non-psychological difference whether you award the VP now, or VP only at end-of-game. If there was a way to spend VP (variant, anyone? spend VP to give someone poverty, or destroy their building, etc.) it would be an issue.
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Craig Duncan
United States
Ithaca
New York
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Snoozefest
Thanks -- that is exactly the kind of info I was seeking. Very helpful.
One more question, if I may: I'm actually now leaning against getting this game, based on its play length. Although it's listed at 90 minutes, from what I can gather from comments, a play time of 2 hours is quite common. My family's game stamina tends to max out at around 90 minutes, so the officially listed time was already pushing it. If games of London frequently hit two hours I don't think the game would get played often in my family.
So my question: in your experience with four player games, is a two hour time length common?
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Snooze Festival
United States
Hillsborough
North Carolina
We love our pups!! Misu, RIP 28 Nov 2010. Tikka, RIP 11 Aug 2011.
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You're welcome!
I think I've played it 5 times with 4. The game has always taken 110-120 minutes, but _every_ game has been full of newbies (at least 3 out of 4!). I'd expect it to be faster once everyone knows the rules, but I can't say for sure.
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Rob White
United States
Richmond
Virginia
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No slower with 4 veteran players than with 3 since you're still working through the same size deck. 90 minutes is certainly realistic if no new players. And if you want to speed up play time, then keep drawing from the deck instead of from the card display. Many of your turns will be fast (when buying land or running your city). Playing cards onto your city takes a bit longer as some people hem and haw and take moves back until they got it just right.
Rob
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Wim van Gruisen
Netherlands
Maastricht
Unspecified
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cdunc123 wrote: So my question: in your experience with four player games, is a two hour time length common?
An important part of game length is where players draw their cards. There are two sources of cards that you can draw; either you draw them from the deck or from the card display (a.k.a. discards). Since the game ends when the deck is empty, frequently drawing cards from the display lengthens the game.
When playing with newbies, make sure to explain this. Also explain that, because of the A, B and C cards, the further down the deck you go, the better cards you get. So there is an incentive in drawing from the deck.
Certainly when you play with four players, almost all A-cards are already out of the deck (there are 25 A-cards and each player starts with 6 cards from the top of the deck). That means that at the start, most discards to the card display will be A-cards, while the more powerful B-cards are in the deck. So at the start drawing from the deck will give you better cards than drawing from the card display.
Reasons to draw from the display:
- If there is a card that you really, really want
- To be certain that you can play a card of a certain colour. Most of the cards in the game are brown, so if you want to play a blue or pink card, you'll want to make sure that you have another blue or pink card in your hand. If such a card is in the display, you can pick it and be sure that you can play your card. Drawing from the deck leaves it to chance.
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