Ticket to Ride Review

Continuing with my recent theme of Days of Wonder games, its time to review Ticket to Ride.

In Ticket to Ride, each player is attempting to build the most well rounded network of railroads by connecting various cities together. On any given turn a player can draw train cards for use in building railroads later, they can build a connection from one city to another if they have the appropriate number of matching train cards, or they can draw new "Destination cards" which will give them two cities that they can score points for connecting.

Ticket to Ride has several pro's and con's. The first pro is that the game is incredibly easy to learn. In fact, the instructions are 2 pages front and back (with a lot of pictures). This game could easily be taught to any level of board gamer, and would even be ideal to play with younger children (Days of Wonder recommends age 8+).  This is nice, because the number of board games that actually include strategy but are able to play with younger children is somewhat limited.

Another pro is that Ticket to Ride is fairly fast paced and engaging. Each turn goes pretty quickly, and so there are not the long pauses in between turns where players can get disengaged.  This is another thing that makes Ticket to Ride work well with all ages from 8 through adults with limited attention spans.

However, the ease of learning Ticket to Ride has unfortunately come with a con - the strategy is somewhat limited. Since the number of available actions is so small, the overall strategies in the game are not very numerous, so it can quickly feel like you are playing the game the same way every time.  The basic strategies primarily lie in when to build railroads and when to wait, and occasionally in when to draw new destination cards.

Overall, I give Ticket to Ride a 7.0/10. It was very enjoyable when I first learned to play it, but I felt that the replayability was a bit low. (I realize that many people will disagree with both the rating and the replayability, and they should feel free to comment - please, just be tactful when leaving comments.) This is a game that I would recommend playing two or three times, and if you still enjoy it purchasing the game at that point if possible, instead of purchasing it up front.  If you are looking for a high quality child friendly game, Ticket to Ride should be near the top of your list.

Shadows Over Camelot Review

Speaking of cooperative games (we were, weren't we?), its time to review Shadows Over Camelot.

Shadows Over Camelot is primarily a cooperative game in which the players are working together to get enough "white swords" before too many "black swords" are earned. Both of the types of swords are collected from quests - successful completion of quests will earn white swords, whereas failure in a quest will increase the number of black swords. With that said, on a typical player's turn, they must choose which evil action occurs (this is how the game plays against you), and then they make a "Heroic action". The evil actions, as I'm sure you guessed, work towards you failing different quests, and thus enhance the chances of you getting black swords, whereas the Heroic actions are ways in which your knight is able to work quests towards successful completion. Some of the Heroic actions that can be taken include moving to a quest, playing cards towards a quest, playing special cards, healing, and (if playing with a potential traitor) accusing another knight of being a traitor.

Shadows Over Camelot is an incredibly well balanced game. There are several different quests that are all going on at the same time, and it is up to you as the knights of the round table to make sure that you don't ignore any of them for too long, or else you will fail them and start getting negative victory points (black swords) very quickly. Also, some of the quests are harder than others, but many of the quests that are more challenging are also more rewarding - you may discover Lancelot's armor or the Holy Grail.

Another good thing that Shadows Over Camelot introduces is the potential of their being a traitor (this is an optional way to play). Whereas in Pandemic you know that nobody will betray you and in Battlestar Galactica it's just a matter of time, in Shadows Over Camelot you have to deal with the possibility. And if you start accusing people wrongly of being a traitor you will 1) turn your white swords into black swords and 2) probably have people start accusing you (thus causing another sword to flip over).

Another factor of Shadows Over Camelot that adds to its replayability is the different knights involved. Each of the knights has a special power (similar to a role in Pandemic), which allows them to help your team in a unique way - whether that might be by moving to a quest for free, drawing cards, giving cards to other players, or something else. This element of the game allows you to play differently many times through, and especially if playing with the potential of a traitor, it is interesting to see how a traitor tries to use his special power in negative or useless ways without getting caught.  (As a note, if you do ever play the game out, there is an expansion - Merlin's Company - that allows you to get some more plays out of your game.)

One final interesting aspect of the game is that your knights can die. If you fail enough quests, your knight's life will eventually expire, thus causing you to be eliminated from the game. In fact, one of the ways that the traitor can win is by letting all of his fellow knights be killed off.

Overall, I give Shadows Over Camelot a 9.0/10. The more I think about this game, the more I think that it is on the same level as Pandemic when it comes to cooperative games, and so I felt it was only fitting to give them the same score. However, whereas Pandemic is for 2-4 players, Shadows works very well with a larger group, and can be played with 3-7 (and works best with lots of players when using the traitor).

In addition to Shadows Over Camelot, you might also check out Cargo Noir, Castle Panic, and Mystery Express.

Tigris and Euphrates Review

Now for a review that will be somewhat difficult to verbalize - the review of Tigris & Euphrates.

Tigris & Euphrates plays unlike any other game that I have ever played (well, other than Euphrates and Tigris Card Game), which says quite a bit as I normally own at least 75 games at any given time. On a given player's turn, they get two actions and with these actions they can either place a tile, position a leader, draw new tiles or play a catastrophe.  Most of these actions will be taken positioning leaders and placing tiles.

Placing tiles is usually fairly straightforward - if you place a tile in a "kingdom" where you have the corresponding leader, then you get a point, if not, then whoever does have that leader gets a point. However, if you place a tile that will combine two "kingdoms", then the game takes a drastic change. This is called "external combat", and for each set of duplicate colored leaders in the new united kingdom, the duplicated leaders will fight to see which one stays. (Example: if there are now 2 red leaders in the combined kingdom, they will fight to see which one is the red leader of the combined kingdom). The leader that is banished is banished along with all of the tiles of his color in his original kingdom, and the player that won that battle will get a corresponding number of like-colored victory points. This happens until "external combat" is resolved by either there being no more sets of 2 of the same leaders in the combined kingdom or by the kingdom splitting back into multiple kingdoms.

Positioning leaders can also be somewhat tricky, as this can cause "internal combat" if you play a leader of the same color as a leader already present in the kingdom on which you have just placed. Essentially you are attempting to usurp their power, and so you fight using only red tiles to determine who wins. The winner gets to stay and gains a red victory point, and the loser's leader is removed.

Tigris & Euphrates has a lot of awesome features. The first one is the balance involved in the game. Throughout the game, you will collect victory points in 4 different colors, but your final score is the total of the color in which you have the least victory points - if you get 500 black and only 1 blue, then your total score is 1, and all of your extra black victory points do no good.  This is a refreshing change from most games where you can build a strategy around only one facet of the game.

Another neat aspect of Tigris is simply how the strategy works. It plays so differently than any other game that I have ever played that it challenges me to think in new ways to attempt to determine the best move. Whereas, yes, it is a tile placement game in the same sense as something like Carcassonne, the strategy is much more intricate because of the placement of leaders. It is at least as important when and where you place your leaders as it is which tiles you play each turn.

Another feature that I like is how the combat works, and how important it is in the game. The combat is somewhat straightforward - whoever has the most tiles counting for them between what's in play and what they play from their hand wins, but even with that the combat is a big key in the game because joining two kingdoms at just the right time can quickly score a large number of points to add to a color that you have not scored on well.

Tigris & Euphrate's biggest downside is the learning curve. Because it is so different than most other games, it will take a little bit longer to understand how everything works in the game. This is not a big deal for people that often play board games (probably the people that follow this blog), but when they are trying to teach their friends a new game, this may cause some frustration.

Overall, I give Tigris & Euphrates a 9.0/10. It is a fun game that I think will leave you wanting to play it more.

Mystery Express Review

The next Days of Wonder game that I will review is Mystery Express.

Mystery Express is a Clue-like whodunit. On any given turn, a player will use different options to be able to reveal cards so that they can attempt to determine what the hidden cards are.  There are some interesting twists to this game, however. First, there are two copies of each card, so a player needs to be able to see both copies of the card in the same turn in order to eliminate it from being a possibility. Secondly, not all of the cards are in play at the beginning of the game - some of them come into play later. Third, you do not get to play until someone knows all of the answers to the mystery - you play until the train reaches the final station (a set number of turns), and then whoever has discovered the most answers is the winner.

One of the neat features about Mystery Express is the way that you see cards on your turn. You have several different actions - one is to have everyone pass a card, one is to make the other players reveal a card (letting all the players see them), another is to make players show their cards just to you. This mechanic works incredibly well, and each player must carefully determine which actions to take and in what order to maximize the cards that they see each turn (and to work with the cards that previous players allowed them to see).

The next thing that works well in Mystery Express is how well the components work. The notepad that is included in the game is setup for each player to be able to easily remember which cards they have seen each turn, and the sheer design of this shows that the game has been thoroughly play-tested.

Another nice thing about Mystery Express is that the game allows for more complicated strategies as it is played more often, thus adding to replayability. Specifically, during each round the players put all of their used cards in a discard pile, so it is easy to remember which ones you have seen in that round and which ones have not. The first few times you play, you will probably leave the cards there until the end of the round. However, one of the actions allows you to put someone's discard pile back into their hand - and now all the players have to remember if they've seen that player's cards in that round or not so that they don't accidentally mark the card twice and thus eliminate it prematurely.

There are a few minimal negative aspects of Mystery Express. The main one that comes to mind is how the "what time" aspect of the game works. You only see the time cards 3 times in the game, and when you get to see them, without writing anything down until the end, you must remember what you have seen. This mechanic works pretty well, but I think it detracts from the strategy of the game - it is just a memory test. However, this time feature does work well, and some people will like it, so I don't really count off on the rating for it.

Overall, Mystery Express gets a 9.0/10. This game is definitely worth playing, and I think is the best whodunit game that I have played.  I think that Days of Wonder has made a very engaging game here.

If Mystery Express sounds interesting, you might also want to check out Cargo Noir, Mystery of the Abbey, and Mice and Mystics.