Michael Draper
United States
South Carolina
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 Hey, all!
I have a quick question for Fresco players. Is it worth it to pick this game up if I have both Agricola and Cuba in my collection? The theme really catches my fancy and it looks like a great game, but I'm worried about too much of the same old same old.
Thanks in advance for any input and helping me either make the plunge into Renaissance painting greatness our gaming budget frugality!
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brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
Mourning the end of the Manning era.
Welcome baby brother Toby James, 03/24, 8 lb. 15 oz.
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mld0806 wrote: Hey, all! I have a quick question for Fresco players. Is it worth it to pick this game up if I have both Agricola and Cuba in my collection? The theme really catches my fancy and it looks like a great game, but I'm worried about too much of the same old same old. Thanks in advance for any input and helping me either make the plunge into Renaissance painting greatness our gaming budget frugality!
I can't comment on Cuba but I own a lot of worker placement games. They all have something unique to them. I feel Fresco is a worthy addition to the genre. It flows well, plays fast, and is easy to explain. For some reason, the logic just clicks better. Get up early, be more grumpy. Mix Yellow and Blue, get a bigger dab of Green. Add paint to make a physically section of the mural.
Plus it comes with some of the expansions which are in reality just "advanced rules" giving the game even more depth when needed.
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Richard Ham
Malta
Msida
One of our beagles (Taloula) is a bit of a camera hog
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Game is definitely it's own beast. The only reason not to own it is if you hate the theme or worker placement. Since you love both, I'd strongly recommend the game!
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I agreed with the other two people, fresco is worth... I have CUBA and it is completely different in my opinion. Fresco is much faster than Cuba. I don't have Agricola, in fact I don't like too much, so I can't give you my opinion about it!
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Joe Rogers
Canada
Ottawa
Ontario
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I bought Fresco about a year ago and enjoyed playing it. Since then I have purchased other worker-placement games (most recently "Troyes") and I haven't pulled out Fresco in awhile. Again, this is not to discourage you from purchasing it, because it's a lot of fun and beautifully made.
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Peter Brahan
United States
North Sutton
New Hampshire
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I don't own Cuba, but I do own Agricola and enjoy worker placement. After a lot of indecision, I asked for and was given Fresco for Christmas. My wife and I played it last night for the first time and love it.
Vs. Agricola, I think it is much simpler to learn (I explained the rules in under 10 minutes, one of my wife's unwritten rules) and the mechanics were very easy to understand, even with Leonardo (the two player, "smart" dummy player). I think another thing that we like about it vs. Agricola is that you can get a pretty good system going and not feel like you are trying to optimize a bunch of suboptimal situations, as exists in Agricola.
We like Agricola and will keep it, but Fresco is a nice new look on what I would call a pretty deep, but easy to learn game and think they coexisit nicely in our game cabinet.
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Michael Draper
United States
South Carolina
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amyandpeteb wrote: (I explained the rules in under 10 minutes, one of my wife's unwritten rules)
LOL! My wife has that as a written and notarized rule!
I thank y'all for your input, and I'm sure my FLGS owner will thank you as well because I'm gonna go pick this up after work today!
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Gláucio Reis
Brazil
Rio de Janeiro
RJ
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I really don't get why people insist in calling Fresco a worker placement game, when it's clearly not. The players' "workers" are only used for simultaneous action selection (that's the main mechanic of the game) and never even placed on the main board.
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brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
Mourning the end of the Manning era.
Welcome baby brother Toby James, 03/24, 8 lb. 15 oz.
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GSReis wrote: I really don't get why people insist in calling Fresco a worker placement game, when it's clearly not. The players' "workers" are only used for simultaneous action selection (that's the main mechanic of the game) and never even placed on the main board.
Because you place workers to select those actions. You also can do things that cause you to gain or lose a worker. You also place your master artist on a single spot that no one else can claim.
Sounds like worker placement to me. BGG agrees and classifies it as such as well. Nothing says you have to place workers on a main board for it to be worker placement.
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Chris Berger
United States
Volo
Illinois
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GSReis wrote: I really don't get why people insist in calling Fresco a worker placement game, when it's clearly not. The players' "workers" are only used for simultaneous action selection (that's the main mechanic of the game) and never even placed on the main board.
I semi-agree with you. But a lot of games are called worker placement that have vastly different mechanisms for how the workers are actually used. Agricola does it differently from Caylus. Le Havre has one single worker that doesn't move every turn (I'm pretty sure Le Havre is not a worker placement game, but I've heard it grouped with them before). Stone Age lets you place multiple workers at the same time, which most games don't. Alien Frontiers is kind of similar to Stone Age as far as the worker placement, but still has some weird wrinkles, including the ability to sometimes play in the same place that your opponent "blocked". Ninjato, which in some ways is practically the same game as Stone Age, uses a totally different action-selection mechanic which some people consider worker placement and some people don't... I think the list goes on and on.
I don't know if it's necessarily a problem. Most listed game mechanics are pretty broad. Auctions covers a lot of different auction styles, push your luck could almost describe any game with randomness if you go with the broadest application of the phrase, area control games achieve the area control in different ways...
I mean, yeah, I'd agree that Fresco is not a worker placement game. But I'm not sure it hurts to let it be called one... You do have workers, and you do place them. Even though it lacks most of the interactions that really make a worker placement game.
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Gláucio Reis
Brazil
Rio de Janeiro
RJ
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ColtsFan76 wrote: Because you place workers to select those actions.
This is not what defines the mechanic. In Fresco, your selection never blocks an action for other players. I wonder if people would still call it worker placement if, instead of "meeples", there were cubes and the rules simply referred to them as markers.
Quote: You also can do things that cause you to gain or lose a worker.
Irrelevant.
Quote: You also place your master artist on a single spot that no one else can claim.
It's simply a turn order selection mechanic. And even if it were worker placement, being a very small element in the game, I don't think it would be enough to call Fresco a worker placement game.
Quote: Sounds like worker placement to me. BGG agrees and classifies it as such as well.
BGG also lists "variable phase order" for this game, and I don't see how it fits (I can only imagine they were thinking of the extra cathedral action in the last turn, but this is ridiculous). BGG also thinks Small World is an area control game, although pieces of different players are never allowed to be in the same area.
Quote: Nothing says you have to place workers on a main board for it to be worker placement.
I think that denying actions to other players when you select them is pretty much the basis of worker placement, and that's usually achieved by having the possible actions on a common, shared board.
Now this is the start of the current definition of "worker placement" given by BGG itself:
"This mechanic requires players to draft individual actions from a set that is available to all players. Drafting is done one-at-a-time and in turn order. Once drafted, an action can no longer be taken until a subsequent turn or until the action space is no longer occupied by a worker."
Please explain to me how Fresco fits into it.
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brian
United States
Cedar Lake
Indiana
Mourning the end of the Manning era.
Welcome baby brother Toby James, 03/24, 8 lb. 15 oz.
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GSReis wrote: Please explain to me how Fresco fits into it.
Well your mind is obviously made up so what's the point really?
But placing your master Artist is more than a turn order mechanism. It dictates your mood, the price you pay, and how much you can gather. This alone is enough to classify it as a worker placement.
It is done one at a time and in a preliminary turn order determined by scoring. So even based on your narrow interpretation, it works. And all it needs is a portion of the game to be qualified as such.
Your placed workers do transfer a drafting mechanism that can block other players. Your selection of paint affects others. Your selection or tile affects others. This is determined by how you have placed your workers. With the expansions, you can have further impact. That it is done simultaneously and in secret is just Fresco's twist on the mechanism.
And by the way, SW IS an area control. Again by your precious definitions: The Area Control mechanic typically awards control of an area to the player that has the majority of units or influence in that area. As such, it can be viewed as a sub-category of Auction/Bidding in that players can up their "bids" for specific areas through the placement of units or meeples.
In essence you are "bidding" higher than the player who was their first. You have established a majority by placing more (or using an ability that grants you the win). So again, by your definition or common sense, an area control.
But really, what does it matter? Play the game to have fun.
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Gláucio Reis
Brazil
Rio de Janeiro
RJ
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ColtsFan76 wrote: But placing your master Artist is more than a turn order mechanism. It dictates your mood, the price you pay, and how much you can gather.
All of which are consequences of turn order and may be interpreted as a price to pay for going earlier or compensation for going later.
Quote: This alone is enough to classify it as a worker placement.
We will have to agree to disagree, then.
Quote: Your placed workers do transfer a drafting mechanism that can block other players. Your selection of paint affects others. Your selection or tile affects others.
This is true for any game with limited resources.
Quote: This is determined by how you have placed your workers.
You select those two actions nearly every turn. Getting certain paints and tiles is much more dependent on turn order than on how you "place your workers" (the player who comes earlier in turn order chooses first).
Quote: With the expansions, you can have further impact.
I haven't played with expansions and we are not discussing them, but I suspect they don't add a worker placement mechanic.
Quote: That it is done simultaneously and in secret is just Fresco's twist on the mechanism.
No, it's called "simultaneous action selection" and is a different mechanic.
Quote: And by the way, SW IS an area control. Again by your precious definitions: The Area Control mechanic typically awards control of an area to the player that has the majority of units or influence in that area.
First, they are not my definitions, precious or otherwise. They are BGG's definitions. Second, you are actually restating my point. I fail to see how anyone can relate this definition of area control with the mechanics of Small World.
Quote: In essence you are "bidding" higher than the player who was their first. You have established a majority by placing more (or using an ability that grants you the win). So again, by your definition or common sense, an area control.
Common sense?! Seriously?! Frankly, you are just twisting and stretching definitions to suit your argument. I realize there is no point in aguing with you, and this is my last post in this thread.
Quote: But really, what does it matter?
Language does matter to me.
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Max Jamelli
United States
Chambersburg
Pennsylvania
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mld0806 wrote: Hey, all! I have a quick question for Fresco players. Is it worth it to pick this game up if I have both Agricola and Cuba in my collection? The theme really catches my fancy and it looks like a great game, but I'm worried about too much of the same old same old. Thanks in advance for any input and helping me either make the plunge into Renaissance painting greatness our gaming budget frugality!
To answer your question as I have all 3 games -- yes, Fresco stands alone quite well. I just taught my wife tonight (she is also a Cuba and Gric fan) and she really enjoyed it. I'm not sure I liked it as a 2P game, but I've played with 4 and it's very good.
I hope you enjoy it!
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David Boeren
United States
Marietta
Georgia
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Not going to get into the argument of what kind of game you should CALL it, because it doesn't matter and I don't care
In my opinion Fresco is a fun game and has a useful niche for being very friendly as a gateway type game.
1. It's easy to explain and to play
2. It's got an attractive theme and intuitive mechanics
3. It's not too nasty and won't turn off people who don't like that
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