|
Kevin Wenzel
United States
Bloomington
IN
-
This is the text only part of a mixed media review. Please go to http://www.2d6.org/2012/02/disc-world-amorpork/ for the full review with all the embellishments.
Disc World Ankh-Morpork
In a distant world, and far from what you know to be true. There is a dusty littered-filled city full of inconspicuous characters roaming dimly lit streets, and each seemingly planning their secret lives as if no one is mindful of their actions. This is the City of Ankh-Morpork, people live, and function in their hazy scattered dreams seemingly marching to the drum beat of an invisible master. Staring down from above like an overlord to these ancient streets you influence the habitant’s lives. You may try to control their movements but other invisibles will deny your will in and the battle begins for these twelve divergent districts.
The Board
As your eyes follow every little ally and flowing river, your mind would want to quickly race to the thought that this is just another area control game. You would be wrong into thinking this but as you ponder other possibilities, your thoughts are interrupted by someone asking “Is this like Risk” Uttered quietly from the person sitting across the table. This game seems foolishly easy to win at first glance. Too often the game ends before you realize you’ve lost, but still your play and are caught in a dance of every changing complexities. Controlling a district only offers a small reward. Control many districts may make winning easier, but often not necessary to finalize a win of a game.
The Twelve districts: The number of each district is simply there for the random events, and the dollar amount is the price you have to pay if you have a card that allows you to build. Building isn’t easy because you have to have a minion in the district, and there has to be no trouble.
The Shades: Allows you to place trouble makers
Dolly Sisters: Allows you to place an extra minion for $3
The Scours: Once per a turn you can discard a card for $2.
Dimwell: Allows you to place an extra minion for $3
Nap Hill: You $1 from the bank.
Longwell: You $1 from the bank.
The Hippo: You $2 from the bank.
Dragon’s Landing: You $2 from the bank.
Isle of the Gods: You can pay $2 to remove a trouble marker
Small Gods: when you are affected by a random event pay $3 to negate (This is a late game benefit since only one two events happen in the early game.)
Seven Sleepers: Makes the most money at $3 a turn.
Unreal Estate: Allows you to draw an additional card then discard one card.
Two luck driven elements of the game:
Cards:
The cards you draw can determine how well you play sometimes, and you may find yourself waiting for a specific command while your progress looms in the balance. You can keep playing cards, but drawing cards sometimes doesn’t get what you need like a build command to put a house on the board of the district you have been trying to own. Of course specific cards are never too far away, and so this is only a small inconvenience. Smart game play allows you to befuddle your opponents while you wait to achieve what you want to happen.
Cards have symbols on them to dictate actions. There is handy player-aid to guide you for the first few games, and then they become second nature. The trick is that there are only five cards per hand and you must play one card a turn (but like cards in deck building games there are some that allow you to play more than one a round). Cards are played once, and then go into a discard pile. In some rare cases they can become untombed and played again. The only rule of thumb is that you must do the actions from left to right and you may or may not choose to do every action of the card (the only action you must perform is the random event). Some cards have text that gives it specific special abilities that may break rules and some cards are simply useless like the “salted nuts”.
Events:
The other is the Event deck which is totally random. The events only happen when a card dictates such. There are 12 different random events. They all spell disaster in one way or another for different elements and players of the game. You can bring down a fiery dragon to destroy one district on the board being determined by the roll of a 12-sided die. Trolls and Demons can also inhabit the city, or there could be many mysterious murders. My favorite of course is when I was playing with my hometown group in La Crosse, Wisconsin (Shout out! Holler!) I was playing with my friend Bill Johnson and I played the “Bloody Stupid Johnson card”. It was amusing to watch his face to think that I had just made up such a card, until I got to show him the actual text!
Good:
The hidden agendas adds a level of suspense to the game, and the fact that you still have to be considerate of total points too in case the game is called early. This is a fine point that has to be clearly explained to new players. Three personalities (Lord Selachii, Lord Rust, Lord de Word) are area control and the number changes with the number of players. Chrysoprase is a money oriented agenda, Dragon King of Arms is a trouble placement agenda, Lord Vetinari is getting minions in so many districts, and Commander Vimes goal is to have the cards run out so he becomes the master of meddling causing the game to run it’s course.
I love the duel stacked cards; a regular Martian Wallace concept of making you play out a set early set of cards, and then a late game set cards (The only problem is if people make mistakes, and then forget the stacks duel nature and shove the cards into the wrong area while you cringe and remind them the deck is divided into two colors green and orange). There is no clear path to any one action; in order to build you must remove trouble. When you move a piece in you cause trouble. You can only take out another player’s minion if there is trouble in the district. Of course the cards with text can break any of these rules, and then the game continues.
Bad:
It really doesn’t play as well as a two person game. I have played many times as a two person game and it is fun, but really there isn’t enough card interaction to stop many of the goals to win. One goal in my opinion is practically unattainable in a two person game and should be removed with the other suggested cards (Personality card Chrysoprase, and The Hubert and Cosmo Lavish from the draw pile) is “Commander Vimes” because I feel it would be practically impossible to go through the entire deck with just two players. More people means more cards, more cards means more possibilities. In every way this game is meant to be played at full capacity and is at its finest, a four person game.
Conclusion:
A Four person game is when this game is in its prime. It has been a universal hit with almost everyone I have played with and tends to surprise more than often. At first not knowing the books I had hoped for some flavor text to give a small introduction to this land filled with rich characters, but watched Martian explain in a Spiel interview his dislike of flavor text due to it’s enjoyment as a one time event by nature.
Another great testament to the game is that many of the players who came away from the game wanted to go back and reread the books, or read them for the first time. All the art work on the cards captures the tremendous love and attention that Mr. Wallace gleamed from the books.
Game winning possibilities tend to happen fast and sneak up on you so be very wary. When I was out to exact revenge I found myself losing before I could even cause the trouble I was planning. I suggest that this game is certainly worth a try , and you should go and cause trouble at your local game store by picking up a copy.
~ Kevin Wenzel
-
Andy Andersen
United States
Newark
Delaware
-
Thanks for the review. We're ready to play as a 2P (hope you're wrong
 )
-
Kevin Wenzel
United States
Bloomington
IN
-
Orangemoose wrote: Thanks for the review. We're ready to play as a 2P (hope you're wrong )
It is still kind of fun but let me know how it went!
-
Magister Ludi
United States
Arkansas City
Kansas
-
It is surprisingly easy to win as Vimes in two player games. Many have even suggested that the character should not be available in two player matches as they view him as broken. As Vimes you can just play to keep the other winning options from coming up. Unless your opponent can set up an idealized situation where they are adding multiples of whatever there goal is to the board every turn for several turns running it can usually be controlled. At least that is my finding.
-
Kevin Wenzel
United States
Bloomington
IN
-
Well I played 5 games with two player and four times we never even got to the orange cards. How can you stop any of the other goals with limited access to cards?
-
Tigh the guy with only one eye
Canada
Ontario
-
I think what is being implied is that in a two player game you get to "play" that much more often compared to one in three turns or one in four in a three or four player game.
So as Vimes you have more opportunity to mess with the other person's strategy and just run through the deck.
The only thing more players does is use up those initial 5 cards per person from the draw deck.
I'd think in a four player game it would be HARDER for Vimes to win, as you are less able to instigate a churn through the deck as well as get those cards which help you do this.
I think the sweet spot in this game is three players. You play often enough to have an impact as well as have the ability to gang up with one other against someone else who's about to win.
-
Kevin Wenzel
United States
Bloomington
IN
-
I understand, but since the agenda's are hidden there is no clear path to stop, and depending on card draw there might not be enough cards to do what you want to accomplish.
Imagine your Opponents job is to place minions on the board? How does one counteract that with only 5 assassinates in the first 44 green cards (Now imagine not actually drawing half of them). Through the Dolly sister's or Dimwell into the picture where they can place an additional minion on the board a turn. It all depends on the draw. Plus that means you have twice as long to get through the deck as a four person game. This has just been my experience that a two person games ends just as you hit the orange cards. I guess if you know what your stopping then it might a little bit easier to win with "Commander Vimes".
Don't get me wrong I love this game.
-
-
FrankConner wrote: I understand, but since the agenda's are hidden there is no clear path to stop, and depending on card draw there might not be enough cards to do what you want to accomplish.
Imagine your Opponents job is to place minions on the board? How does one counteract that with only 5 assassinates in the first 44 green cards (Now imagine not actually drawing half of them). Through the Dolly sister's or Dimwell into the picture where they can place an additional minion on the board a turn. It all depends on the draw. Plus that means you have twice as long to get through the deck as a four person game. This has just been my experience that a two person games ends just as you hit the orange cards. I guess if you know what your stopping then it might a little bit easier to win with "Commander Vimes".
Don't get me wrong I love this game.
I agree with this. We've played 2-player games with a good guess to who the leader was, but without the correct cards in hand to stop them. If they draw the cards you want and enough of their own goal cards, then you are screwed.
-
-
To the 2-player part of the review: My wife beats me in this game, no matter what her character card is. She has also won by controlling Vimes, so it is not impossible to win a 2p game with Vimes. (And despite loosing all the time, I still enjoy our sessions
 )
On the other hand, we see that in a 2p game the Dragon King is the character that is the most difficult to stop from winning, especially, if he is able to build up his house in the Shades or in the Isle of Gods. It is pretty difficult to stop him, because the trouble markers just keep coming and coming, and you have few options to remove them. Of course, yesterday evening, I managed to lose with the Dragon King too, but that is another story
-
-
DeathInc wrote: I think what is being implied is that in a two player game you get to "play" that much more often compared to one in three turns or one in four in a three or four player game.
So as Vimes you have more opportunity to mess with the other person's strategy and just run through the deck.
The only thing more players does is use up those initial 5 cards per person from the draw deck.
I'd think in a four player game it would be HARDER for Vimes to win, as you are less able to instigate a churn through the deck as well as get those cards which help you do this.
I think the sweet spot in this game is three players. You play often enough to have an impact as well as have the ability to gang up with one other against someone else who's about to win.
Vimes ability to win seems to be completely based on how the other players react to one another, if all they do is pursue their own victory conditions it makes it harder for Vimes because he has to trim back 3 other players, but when the other players also help cut back other people so they don't lose, Vimes almost always wins. In our games we've seen a switch from players attacking others to only concentrating on themselves, unless the player directly to their left has achieved their perceived victory condition and they are the last person able to stop them.
-
Kevin Wenzel
United States
Bloomington
IN
-
So far the two times I got to play Vimes in a four person game I won both times. He can simple look like he is going for area control to keep people guessing and just cause enough trouble to cause the win.
-
United States
Toledo
Ohio
I'm a happy-go-lucky scamp.
-
FrankConner wrote: Subject: Many hidden Masters !
Yet many grey lords go sadly to the masterless men.
-
|
|
|
