Nick Axmaker
United States
Ohio
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First of all, I'll start by pointing out that this was my wife's second game of Rivals of Catan and my third. So we're definitely not that experienced with the game, though we're large fans of Settlers of Catan. My brother in law bought this game originally to play with his brother, but for whatever reason it never really ever saw the table that much. He's even only played it twice in the four months or so that he's owned it.
Anyway... on to the game! We started out with the normal setup for Era of Gold, without knowing what any of the new cards were going to look like ( I have this policy of only looking at the cards as we're going along, it's more a fun of discovery at that point). Since you get to choose your starting hand, I picked an abbey, a wise woman (for a chosen production roll), and the toll bridge for some extra cash on plentiful harvests. She didn't know what to pick, so she just grabbed some random things for the most part.
My first turn I was able to build the toll bridge and the abbey, increasing my hand size to four early, which I was sure was going to be a huge help. I also used the wise woman for an extra brick so that I could prep for a road and an early expansion to settlement for the extra resources. I was starting out really well and was sure that I was going to be able to keep the lead easily.
My wife's first turn was putting out a 4 strength unit with 1 skill point. I wasn't super worried about it, since I figured that my resource generation and larger hand size would compensate and I'd be able to take the strength advantage back quickly. She also dropped a trade ship, tying us for the most commerce points.
My next turn wasn't that useful, mainly just getting a few more resources and dropping the road... hoping for the right roll to get me a settlement on Turn 3. Her second turn was the turning point for the entire game. She rolled an event die, which was the real problem, because the first event that she pulled was the event which gave the strength advantage person the ability to choose three buildings of their opponent to trash one of them. I chose the toll bridge, thinking that keeping the abbey was more important than the little bit of extra gold that I would get.
Turns out, it was exactly the wrong decision... as it gave her the trade advantage. I figured it'd be easy to catch up with that as well, since I still planned on a settlement next for more resources. However, I was far far from knowing the truth.
I didn't get my settlement on the next turn, as I wasn't able to roll the brick that I needed to lay it down. Not wanting to waste more resources, I decided to end my turn without doing anything, still wanting to get that settlement up. My wife then rolled trade advantage die and began whittling away at my resources. With her trade advantage, she just began to siphon all my resources over to her side getting her more and more items.
At one point in the game, she was able to also drop the marketplace, which gives her an extra resource if I have more regions with the number rolled that turn, which happened a lot. Between trade advantage and that, she was making/stealing more resources than I could even come close to.
So, the game ended about ten turns later... the score? 5-12... very one-sided. Once turn 3 had passed, there was no way for me to catch up and I just kept getting farther and farther behind. It makes me wonder if the game is a bit unbalanced as far as the push and pull of the lead. I don't feel that once someone gets in the lead very far, it's likely for the other person to overtake them. At least, that's my experience so far with the game.
It was fun though! My wife came away from the game feeling bad that she'd picked on me so much, but it's just a game and the competition is fun to play around with. Good game and another win for her to put on her belt!
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Kevin J
Canada
Toronto
Ontario
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I think you are playing one rule incorrectly: You take the trade or strength advantage if you have more commerce/strength points than your opponent AND you have at least three commerce/strength points. By the sounds of it, your wife took the trade advantage with only one trade ship.
I have heard it said and believe that the Era of Gold, more than the other sets, tends to end in a very lop-sided win. Some of the event cards action cards in the EoG deck are pretty brutal and make it hard for a player to catch up.
Edit: Meant action cards, not event cards. Particularly, the action that lets you steal two resources from your opponent.
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Nick Axmaker
United States
Ohio
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Interesting... you know, we've totally been playing that rule wrong. And it makes so much more sense with you saying that! Thank you so much! I'll have to correct that and see what happens and hopefully play a different theme deck this time as well. Thanks for the comments!
The trade advantage wouldn't have been hers for a lot longer and it would have made a world of difference.
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Reiner Dr. Düren
Germany
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Since gold is more important than progress in the Era of Gold, it would have been better when you would have discarded the abbey instead of the toll bridge.
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