Keith S.
United States
Dallas/Fort Worth
Texas
-
I first came across At The Gates when my brother Skyped me to let me know of a Tanga daily deal that caught his eye: At The Gates Of Loyang for $17. Even including shipping, it was still less than half retail price. I was all over it.
At The Gates of Loyang is a farm-to-market simulation designed by Uwe Rosenberg, of Agricola fame. Players compete to best serve the needs of their customers by growing, trading for and buying/selling vegetables. By doing this, they earn Cash, which they can use to progress along the Path of Prosperity, the main status indicator in the game.
Opening up the box, you're greeted with the familiar new-game smell, four pre-punched T-shaped player boards, a few cards of punchable Cash coins, two wrapped decks of the various cards, the instruction pamphlet, and a BIG bag o' bits. There's a healthy supply of all the necessary veggiemeeples (6 types), plus four scoring markers and two Starting Player markers. The game also comes with enough Ziploc baggies to separate out all the bits when you pack it away again after the first play(s), but for economy's sake they don't come presorted. The cards are pretty good, similar to Z-Man's Agricola offerings, but I've seen better. All in all the production values were decent. Two gripes: first, I would have liked to see a game with so many bits come with some sort of organizer system. There isn't even a central board; all the veggiemeeples and the spare Cash are simply placed in piles in the center of your game table. Second, at the first glance I would have liked to see something more durable than cardboard money. In most games, money changes hands often and is held in player's sweaty hands to keep their bankrolls secret. However, it turns out that in this game money doesn't change hands between players very often, and having another player know your Cash reserves is very seldom useful; it's more a resource, traded most often with the Supply/bank like the veggies, so the cardboard money works, for now at least. I'm going to swing by my FLGS on the way home and see if they have suitable affordable replacements. Last time I was there they had some pretty nice metal coinage that should fit the bill.
Having punched the few components that needed it, I sat down with the instruction manual and read... then re-read... and one more time... and I just could not follow it. It's not the instruction manual's fault; the manual is laid out beautifully, including special notes and rules variations for different numbers of players printed inline with the main instructions, so you don't have to hunt for them. The problem was the overwhelming complexity of this game; it was simply beyond me to understand everything the rules were telling me without having the game in front of me. So, new buyers, take note; when learning to play, it's best to set the game up and either look through the components, or mime the play of the game for a round or two. The game does have a Solo mode that will familiarize you with most of the concepts, just be careful not to try to use the same rules to play with others; then it really WILL be multiplayer solitaire.
For the first play between my wife and I, we had the instructions open and were basically reading our way through the first two or three rounds before it started to click. During this time, my wife's expressions and comments alternated between "wait, what?" and "are we done yet?". The card-drafting in particular took some time for her to get used to; for me, that was one of the easier parts to get my head around once I saw it work a couple of times.
Once it did click, the game progressed quite a bit faster and started to become more enjoyable for both her and I. The slow pace of the game as we figured out what we were doing in the early stages was the main thing killing it for us. In hindsight, the early game is probably the most important; you have to make decisions about the initial crop you'll plant (and have at least one of for the entire game) and thus which regular customers you'll be stuck with for about half the game. We pretty much had to wing it here.
About halfway through, she realized she'd committed the faux-pas of planting Leeks onto a 6-plot farm, when only Wheat, Beets and Pumpkins are allowed on such a large farm. We thought the game would be null and void and we'd have to start over, but I took a look at my layout and realized I'd done exactly the same thing, so we called it a wash and continued playing.
By the end, we saw the importance of looking ahead and budgeting; the game pretty much requires you to think at least one full round ahead, and experienced players probably have a master plan for the entire game. This involves quite a bit of number crunching to figure out how to maximize your income each round, so you can progress the furthest along the Path that you can each round, while not leaving yourself broke and unable to meet your obligations in the next few rounds. You also have to practice good farm management; only your home field produces vegetables for the entire game, while the only farms on which you can (legally) plant Leeks won't even last you the four rounds that a regular customer will be expecting them. As the rounds progress you'll have to figure out what you must plant, and you must be able to come up with an extra vegetable of that type while not falling down on your commitments to regular customers.
It ended up a close game; I beat her by just one step on the Path of Prosperity, 16 to 15. Neither of us ended up having to take out a Loan, which given our inexperience I consider a pretty good job for a first play. By the end, she saw the appeal of the game and was enjoying it just a little bit. However, it was very clear that this is NOT a game for the casual crowd. This is a rules-heavy, very mathy game for serious boardgamers. It might scratch the Power Grid itch, for those so inclined, while having a better two-player experience than PG. We'll probably play it again sometime in the future, but this one definitely didn't crack her top 10.
-
J Cale
United States
Syracuse
New York
Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again.
-
I have played this game about three times with my girlfriend and each time we finish within one point of each other. This seems to be a fairly common outcome. Thanks for the review.
-
Trevor Schadt
United States
Pittsburgh
Pennsylvania
-
First of all, very nice review. A few pointers and suggestions for the future:
The three games in Uwe's "Harvest Trilogy" (Agricola, Le Havre, and Loyang) are all extremely math-heavy and "brain-burner" style of games. That being said, the strategies are deep and multifaceted, and (at least in my experience) you get a solid sense of satisfaction when you pull off a good combination of moves, and again when you finish the game.
(And in my experience, Loyang is really the lightest of the three of them. So if this is at or beyond you or your wife's tolerance for complexity in games, I might suggest staying away from the others.)
Regarding the rulebook: yes, it's complex, but as Uwe's games generally rely on multiple facets of the game being interdependent on each other, I'm not sure how much more straightforward it could have been written. His games are generally easier to learn when you have someone who already knows the game teaching you. (I realize this was not possible in this case, but future knowledge.)
As a suggestion: if you can rope a third player into the game, I find the game plays considerably better with 3 than with 2. The 4-player version seems very much like "2 2-player games that change players every so often;" 3 really seems to be the sweet spot for this game.
Finally, the final scores, yes, most times the players in a game will be within 1 point of each other, if not tied (and the tie broken by Cash). The times that I've played, our group simply announces our scores as "X points and Y Cash," using that as a higher-granularity of overall progress than just "X points." A 2-point margin really means that one person had a significantly better game than the other.
-
Steve Duff
Canada
Ottawa
Ontario
-
Mathy? That's a term I never expected to read about Loyang. The only math is "I'll buy that veggie for $3", "I sell to this guy for $6" or "I'll move two steps on the path, 1+11 = $12". There's money, but it's rarely mathy, most of the action is just moving veggies around. Now "fiddly" and "hard to plan" is something I might expect.
Finishing within "one point" of each other isn't really that close of a game. That one step is something like $18+ or so usually, which is more like a game score of 170 to 150.
-
Andrew Foerster
United States
Charlotte
North Carolina
-
UnknownParkerBrother wrote: Mathy? That's a term I never expected to read about Loyang. The only math is "I'll buy that veggie for $3", "I sell to this guy for $6" or "I'll move two steps on the path, 1+11 = $12". There's money, but it's rarely mathy, most of the action is just moving veggies around. Now "fiddly" and "hard to plan" is something I might expect.
Finishing within "one point" of each other isn't really that close of a game. That one step is something like $18+ or so usually, which is more like a game score of 170 to 150.
Yes, given the way that the scoring works, one point is not a close game but (by design, I feel) it's made to *feel* close.
I can certainly see the mathiness. Not in buying and selling veggies (which is apparent), but in trying to crunch the numbers on how much money you have (or can get) and then how much you'll need to spend and then how many points you can afford. "Hmm ... I could get that turnip and start a turnip field, but that would only leave me with $7 for points, so I guess I'll go with a pumpkin instead and hope for some good markets".
I think this is the point that leads the reviewer to compare Loyang to Power Grid (the mathy plan exactly how much money you want to allocate to each phase part that has players crunching numbers), because, otherwise, this game is NOTHING like Power Grid and I don't see why it should ever "scratch the PG itch".
-
Derek Thompson
United States
Beech Grove
Indiana
-
andrewfoerster wrote: otherwise, this game is NOTHING like Power Grid and I don't see why it should ever "scratch the PG itch".
It's a lot of deep-in-the-tank arithmetic. I see where the OP is coming from. Maybe your PG itch is from a different kind of mosquito.
-
Andy Clark
United Kingdom
-
This seems in line with my wife and my experience with the game. For us it was the whole putting cards down, keeping one from your hand and one from the middle part that really didn't make sense until it was actually played. As you said the manual's clear, well laid out and has examples but something just doesn't click till you play the game.
Good fun though once you've worked out what to do and got into that habbit of thinking ahead and making that economic machine. Agree with the other posts here games do seem to end close on the final points scale - though in practice the actual difference is much greater in terms of what's been invested to get that one/two extra points.
-
Ed G.
United States
Fort Wayne
Indiana
-
Thanks for the review. Like the reviewer and a few of the others, my wife and I gave this one a shot and abandoned it after the confusion we felt made the experience no longer fun. But this review and replies has inspired me to give it another go. Maybe I'll try it first solitaire and then bring the Mrs in once I have a grasp.
-
Sheldon Morris
Canada
Elora
Ontario
-
For those wondering about playing this game with their spouse/SO, my wife quite enjoys this game as a 2-player game and has asked to play it on several occasions.
And also as others have pointed out, when learning this game from the rulebook (as opposed to from another person who knows how to play), the most confusing part by far was the card distribution phase! Once that was clarified, thank you BGG, it wasn't complex or confusing at all.
-
-
There's certainly some math, but I'd put Power Grid as much more intense on the math scale. The tedious arithmetic in Power Grid, where you have to add a series of double digit numbers and then compare that to previous totals, is at a much higher level than Loyang.
Power Grid is an auction game; Loyang basically isn't, except by weak analogy. They don't have much in common, except that some tolerance or enjoyment of basic math is necessary to like either one.
-
Colin Harris
United Kingdom
London
-
Great review.
I was hoping this was going to be the farming game I have, for some reason, longed for. Sounds interesting but I'd still like to be able to raise crops from grain/seed to final product. To be able lay failures on my opponents farm and to have to protect and nature my own, selling my goods when the time is right. Might check it out until my dreams are realized! 
-
Sheldon Morris
Canada
Elora
Ontario
-
8bit wrote: I was hoping this was going to be the farming game I have, for some reason, longed for. Sounds interesting but I'd still like to be able to raise crops from grain/seed to final product. To be able lay failures on my opponents farm and to have to protect and nature my own, selling my goods when the time is right. Might check it out until my dreams are realized!
Make it! The game and dream! You know what you want it to do so just create it yourself and make it happen!
-
Colin Harris
United Kingdom
London
-
Hugin wrote: 8bit wrote: I was hoping this was going to be the farming game I have, for some reason, longed for. Sounds interesting but I'd still like to be able to raise crops from grain/seed to final product. To be able lay failures on my opponents farm and to have to protect and nature my own, selling my goods when the time is right. Might check it out until my dreams are realized! Make it! The game and dream! You know what you want it to do so just create it yourself and make it happen!
 If only I had the intelligence to do so! 
-
|
|
