The Big Fat Tomato Game Review

Let's start this review off by being clear about something - it's the game that is big and fat in The Big Fat Tomato Game, not the tomatoes. I think...

Either way, in the Big Fat Tomato Game, each player is a tomato farmer attempting to harvest (and stockpile) the most tomatoes.  Unfortunately, your opponents are sneaky jerks and might send things at you like Dang Varmints!  Each turn is fairly straightforward - you draw back up to five cards and then you can play a green card (these help you).  If, after playing a green card there are still bad things in front of you, then their negative effects go into play.  Next, you roll dice and add that many tomatoes to your harvest (in the cool plastic basket), and you can play one red (evil) card on one of your opponents (such as the jerk that played his hateful card on you).  Finally, you can discard unwanted cards (like the 4th copy of a card that you're tired of looking at).  Also, at any time during your turn, you can attempt to "Stockpile" the tomatoes in your harvest.  In order to do this, you have to guess that you have at least 20 tomatoes in your harvest - if you're correct, then you get to put them all in your stockpile (random pile of tomatoes in front of you - they are the only tomatoes worth points at the end).  But, if you're wrong, then you lose all of the tomatoes in your harvest!  Play continues until the Market Stand card is drawn - at which point the tomato farmer with the largest bounty in his stockpile is the winner!  (And gets to throw tomatoes at his opponents.  Wait - I think you're supposed to do that at comedians.  Or was it writers.  Since I'm currently writing, I'm going to hope it's comedians.)

My harvest never looked like this.

The first pro for the Big Fat Tomato Game (which is definitely not the name - I'm going to get tired of typing that really quickly) is the fuzzy tomatoes.  Keep in mind, this is a kids game.  And kids like neat fuzzy things in their games.  And so do adults.  (Adults also like cool looking sculpted plastic pieces in the shape of elves, but this game went with the fuzzy stuff.)  It gives the game both a neat "feel" (awesome pun) and gives it a unique tactile experience that you don't often find in board games.

The next thing that I like about the tomato game is that it is a light-weight "take that" game.  Honestly, it reminds me a lot of a less frustrating version of Mille Bornes.  My wife loves Mille Bornes, but I inevitably run out of gas in the first third of a race and never manage to find a gas station.  In the tomato game, however, there is nothing that outright prevents you from gaining tomatoes.  Some cards reduce your harvest by a die roll, others only allow you to roll a single die, and some even take tomatoes out of your stockpile.  However, none of these cards are devastating enough that you really grow irate if someone plays one of them against you.  Plus, there are enough different cards to get rid of each negative that none of them will really cripple a player.

The third pro that I will mention for the tomato game is that it is incredibly accessible.  It could be played with kids as well as adults and, though adults may not want to play it all the time, I think that it can be enjoyed by either age group.  It's just a nice, lightweight, game with good natured attacking.  (If you're curious about "good natured" attacking, it's the kind of attacking that doesn't cause the player to want to attack you in real life after the game is over.)  In the games that I've played, the game was fun, but was light enough that we were able to enjoy the company of the other people playing - with the game adding to that fun without demanding all of our focus.

That's right - zombie tomatoes!

I really only have one true "con" for the Big Fat Tomato Game.  I dislike the stockpiling rule.  I don't understand why you have to guess that you have more than 20 tomatoes in your harvest.  Specifically, I play with gamers, so this is often not going to be a "guess", but at least one of the people at the table will be tracking how many tomatoes he (and everyone else) has in his harvest.  I am ok with the fact that you can't harvest immediately, but I don't know the point of not allowing the players to count the tomatoes in their harvest to see if they have at least 20 tomatoes prior to attempting to stockpile.

The other thing that I will mention is something that you need to be aware of, but isn't a true con.  This is a card game.  And so, you will do better if you draw better cards.  This is true of most card games, and remains true in the tomato game.  If you draw the awesome card that lets you cancel an attack and send it back at the attacking player, you will do better than if you draw four copies of a less useful card.  If this bothers you, then you probably don't play terribly many card games.  However, I didn't feel that this game was so luck driven that it bothered me.

Overall, I would give The Big Fat Tomato Game an 8.5/10 as a kid's game.  It was really enjoyable, and I think that (assuming your kids can read), this is a good choice to play with your whole family.

If you are looking for great games for kids, you might also check out Hey, That's My Fish!, Scallywags, and Rory's Story Cubes.

I would like to thank Gamewright for providing me with a review copy of The Big Fat Tomato Game.

Empires: Builder Expansion Review

Today's review is of an expansion for a game with a different name - Empires: Builder Expansion. This is the expansion for Age of Empires III, and I'm going to assume that you're familiar with the base game. If not, I recommend checking out my Age of Empires III review. (In case you're curious why the names don't match, Age of Empires III was renamed to be Empires at some point. I'm not entirely sure why. And, officially, it was known as Glenn Drover's Age of Empires III and is now known as Glenn Drover's Empires.)

The Builder Expansion adds five main things: builder specialists, pieces for a sixth player, new buildings (including "Spoils of War" buildings), National Advantages, and the ability to buy Victory Points. So, let's dig in...

First are the new builder specialists. These specialists can help you in two ways: they can be used to buy a capital building for $5 less than normal, or they can be sent to the new world to increase the value of the location where they are present (add 4 Victory Points for 1st place and 2 Victory Points for second place). I really like these new builders, and I think that they add an interesting element to the game without being overpowered. They give you flexibility with your strategies, as they can be helpful when focusing on money and buildings, but can be just as useful if you're only worried about the new world. However, they are quite perilous in the new world, as a few well placed soldiers can completely de-rail your strategy if you appear to have too much of an advantage in the new world. The one thing that I dislike about the builders is that you aren't able to collect them in the same way as other specialists. For any other specialist, there is a location where you can place a worker and then the next round you will gain that specialist. With the builder, you have to place your worker in the "Buy a Specialist for $5" space; the builder is free in this space, but he can be blocked by another player wanting a second copy of one of the other specialists. I would have preferred if the builder was given his own place on the board (possibly as a piece the size of a capital building that you set next to the specialist track to create a place for him.)

The new builders

The next thing that the Builder expansion adds are the pieces for a sixth player. And, well, it's about time. I have never understood why the base game only came with pieces for 5 players. The board was very obviously setup for six players - there was a sixth spot on the turn order track, on the initiative track, and 11 places on the colonist dock (which is how many you need in six players). Why did it take so long to release this? Either way, I am happy that my copy can now be played with six players. Aside from being able to play the game with more friends now, it's also interesting how much more stressful a sixth player causes decisions to be. In a full six player game, when deciding between two different places for your colonist, you can almost guarantee that whichever place you want to go will not be available by the time everyone else has taken their turn, and so you have to pick the one that you really want.

The third addition are new buildings, and specifically, new "Spoils of War" buildings. Spoils of War buildings are collected in the capital building track, but do not cost any money. They give you one time bonuses like two extra trade goods, a merchant ship, $5, or specialists for the next turn. I think that the Spoils of War buildings add an interesting new element to the game. Generally, in the base game, you can tell which building someone might be taking. And, if they are on the capital building track, you assume that they are going to buy something. However, with the new Spoils of War buildings, you don't know if they're going to buy something, or simply collect a Spoils of War. And, this can completely throw off your plans if you are in one of the later positions on the capital building track. After all - you might have placed there assuming that you would be able to collect a Spoils of War, but the players in front of you decide that they want it. Then, you are left without being able to collect anything, unless you actually had the money for a building. I thought this was interesting. Some of the other buildings also added a neat new twist - such as the Mayflower, which allows you to use your merchant ships to transport colonists to the new world.  Overall, I was happy with the new buildings.

Asymmetric starting positions!

The addition that I may have been the most excited about was the addition of National Advantages. Essentially, these are a way of providing an asymmetric starting position, which I am a huge fan of. Each Nationality has two powers, and the player using that Nationality gets to select one of the roles for the game. Most of the powers mirror Age I buildings - things like +1 Captain, Soldier, Missionary, or Merchant per turn. However, there are a few that are more creative - like +1 coin from every other player per turn. The powers are nice, as they make it less critical to have the first choice of Capital Buildings in the first age.  Unfortunately, when using them, the powers really dictate your starting strategy, even if that wasn't a strategy that you normally would want to implement. Plus, if you combine powers with a sixth player, the game can get very, very crowded (with powers and six players, you are potentially adding 12 extra workers to be placed every turn, and only opening up 3 more places for these workers). We tried this - and the Discovery box was essentially always full. I like both of the new additions, but will probably not use both of them at the same time again. Also, I wish that the powers had been a bit more creative, instead of mirroring existing buildings - but I'm not really sure what those other powers would look like.

The last major change that the Builders expansion added was the ability to buy Victory Points. At the end of Age I, you can buy them for $1 per VP, at the end of Age 2 they are $3 per VP, and at the end of Age III, they are $10 per VP. This really adds a completely different viable strategy to the game. Now, suddenly, you can focus on getting as much money as possible and turning it into Victory Points. I watched as one of my opponents sent two merchants to the new world almost every turn in Age I (his Nationality gave him one per turn, and he often got the merchant specialist position) - collecting $10 per turn. At the end of Age I, he traded in all of his money and collected 40 Victory Points. That's an amazing Age I score! Of course, he was doing this at the cost of having capital buildings to help him in the following Ages. Overall, he did not quite win (he came in second), but he proved that this strategy has a great potential for victory!

The one other thing that I will mention (as a con) about this expansion is that the rules aren't especially clear, so you'll want to have the FAQ handy. As an example, the rules don't even tell you how to gain a builder specialist, and the entire expansion is named after him!  Another one I was annoyed by was that one of the National Advantages has been completely changed from what is printed on the card.  Here's a link to the FAQ on BoardGameGeek. You're welcome.

Overall, I give Empires: Builder Expansion an 8.5/10. I think that it is a solid expansion that adds some freshness to one of my favorite games. Though I might not play with every additional element in every game, I will probably continue mixing and matching different elements of the game as I continue playing it.

If you like worker placement games like Glenn Drover's Empires, you might also check out Caylus, Kingdom of Solomon, and Pillars of the Earth.

I would like to thank Eagle/Gryphon Games for providing me with a review copy of Empires: Builder Expansion.

Morrigan Review

One of current Kickstarter games that I was asked to review is Morrigan.

In Morrigan, the object of the game is to score 15 points (to prove yourself worthy of saving the princess), and then fight a final adversary (mega-evil wizard who has kidnapped the princess; I like to call him Bowser, though his actual name is Maletar).  There are three different ways of earning victory points - defeating enemies, owning territories, and overcoming trials.  Each turn is fairly straightforward - draw two cards, do a bunch of actions (or none if you don't want to), reinforce territories and undefeated adversaries, and then discard down to five cards.  When playing actions, there are a few things you can do.  You can play a territory - in which case, you suddenly become the owner of it and have more victory points (but you will want to reinforce it so that other people don't take it).  You can play a trial - at which point everyone goes around and bids a single card (face down) or passes.  All reveal at the same time, and whoever has the highest action card gets credit for overcoming the trial.  You can also play adversary cards.  When playing an adversary, each player has the opportunity to reinforce the adversary by one card (it can be an action card or a "bluff", which is anything else).  Finally, you have the opportunity to fight for a territory that another player has, or to fight an adversary that has not yet been defeated.  When fighting, you show all of the action cards you want to spend, reveal all of the cards reinforcing your target, and if you played a higher total number than the target's defense value, you win.  Once someone has 15 victory points at the start of their turn, they fight Bowser.  The turn is slightly different, as they draw two cards plus one for each other player in the game.  Then, they play all of their action cards, and each opponent has the opportunity to reinforce Bowser by one card (he has a starting defense of five).  If you defeat Bowser, you win!  Otherwise, you lose some victory points and the game keeps going.

My favorite element of Morrigan is definitely trying to balance how to spend your action cards.  This becomes especially important when playing with five players.  Since you only get to draw two cards per turn (and they might not even be action cards), you simply don't have enough cards to participate in everything.  (I cannot emphasize that enough - you can't play on everything.  You will quickly run out of cards.  This aspect of the game also leads to parts of the game where everyone is playing a lot of cards followed by turns where people are often just drawing and passing.)  So, you have to decide when you should use your cards in order to help yourself, and when you should use them to slow down other players.  It's also a good idea to make sure that you keep at least one useful action card in your hand to bid, in case someone plays a valuable trial card.  But, if your action card is less than a five, you have to decide if you're willing to play the action card and risk losing it without gaining any points - which is the absolute worst use of an action card (but gaining a trial for a single action card is the best use of one, if you can win it).

Adversary worth 4 victory points

The next element of Morrigan that I liked is that you determine if you're going to reinforce an adversary in order.  This element adds in a little meta-game of trying to force other people to do the reinforcement for you.  If a Dragon is played (adversary that is worth five), then everyone will definitely want to reinforce it - after all, you don't want the person who played it to be able to take it easily.  However, you also don't want to use your cards to reinforce it - you want to use them for things that help you.  So, as the first player, you can try to pass and hope that it forces the other players to reinforce it; but this could also backfire, because they might not have any action cards.  Or, they might choose not to reinforce it because they're annoyed that you didn't help them.  Either way, the fact that you reinforce in order definitely adds an interesting element of player interaction.

Now, there are a couple of aspects of Morrigan that I'm still undecided on.  First is how territories work.  Territories are the only victory points in the game that can change players (if one player attacks the territory and takes it from another player).  Because of this, players tend to be very reluctant to play territories - especially late in the game.  If you play a territory early in the game, then it might be left alone long enough to reinforce it several times (you can only play one reinforcement card per territory per turn).  However, if you play a territory worth three when people are close to 15 victory points, there's a good chance that it's going to be attacked.  But, then the attacker also won't be able to reinforce it with more than one card after they have taken it.  I think it's neat that each type of victory point card is taken differently, and the game is definitely designed for territories to be taken back and forth, but I'm not sure how much I like them, simply because many people will be reluctant to play them.  I think that your game experience will be quite different depending on how people play these cards.  (Specifically, if a player places a five point territory in play in one of the first couple of turns, I'd imagine that people will fight over it much more than if nobody plays territories for the first half of the game.)

The next aspect of Morrigan that I'm undecided on is related to a strategy that we developed in the last game that I played.  Here's the premise of it - one point action cards are essentially worthless.  However, you are legally allowed to attack with any number of action points.  And so, we would often attack an opponent's territory or an adversary with a one action point card - purposely losing to see what cards were used as reinforcement.  Then, we would attack again with the needed amount of action points (or choose not to attack if we couldn't win).  This prevents you from having to overspend you action points, at the cost of a fairly useless card.  Whereas I think that this is a sound strategy, I think that it ruins most of the bluffing in the game.  You can still attempt to bluff on a trial (though that is very risky to start with), but now it's not especially helpful to bluff on an adversary or territory.  After all, if something is reinforced multiple times, the attacker will want to see what all the values are anyway; and so, they would have spent their one action point card to reveal them either way.

Special cards are also very good.

My main con for Morrigan (which is prevalent in many card games) is that the luck of the draw plays a very significant factor in the game.  Some cards are simply better than others.  A five point action card is far better than a one point action card.  In every situation.  A five point trial card is worth more than a one point trial card.  So, drawing these better cards gives you much more power over the game.  Being the person to draw a five point trial gives you the control over when that trial gets played - such as when you have a five point action card ready (or, even better, the special card that allows you to double the action card you play for a trial).  But, really, the more high action cards you draw in the game, the better your chances of winning.  Yes, you can still play very poorly and lose, but the winner should be the person that draws better action cards.

Overall, I give Morrigan a 7.0/10.  The game works well, and I think that it "deserves to be made."  (A term I only use in reference to Kickstarter games that haven't been published yet, though, to be fair, this one has already been published in France.)  However, there's nothing in the game that really invokes strong feelings in me one way or another.  I definitely do not hate this game, but I also don't love it.  I would play it more if people asked me to, but it probably won't be one of the first ones that I grab off my shelf to play.

If you're looking for card games to play, you might also check out Bang!, Famiglia, and Revolver.

I would like to thank Editions Dagda for providing me with a review copy of Morrigan.  And, as a reminder, you can check out their project on Kickstarter here.

1989: Dawn of Freedom Review

One of my all time favorite games is Twilight Struggle.  Because of this, the fine people of GMT Games suggested that I try out 1989: Dawn of Freedom, since it's by the same designers and is somewhat of a "part 2" to Twilight Struggle.

In 1989, each player is struggling to take (or maintain) power in Eastern Europe.  To do this, players alternate playing cards that can either be used for "Ops", for the event showing on the card, or to advance on Tiananmen Square.  If using a card for "Ops", the player may add influence to any countries where they currently have influence or are adjacent to countries that have influence.  Alternatively, when using a card for Ops, a player may choose to make "support checks" by adding the value of the card, a few modifiers, and a die roll, to see if their opponent's influence is removed (and possibly their own influence is added).  Whenever a card is played for Ops, if an opponent's event is on the card, then that event will still occur.  If you want to avoid this, you can play a card in Tiananmen Square (once per round), to try to get one of a variety of bonuses - and to prevent your opponent's event from occurring.  One special type of event card is a scoring event.  When a scoring event is played, a Power Struggle immediately ensues, where both players get cards based on their position in the scoring country, and they play a small mini-game with them.  Whoever wins gets bonuses, which can include taking or keeping power in the country.  Finally, the players score points based on each player's position in the country; and if the Communist player still has power, then they get a bonus based on the number of times the country has scored.  Play continues like this until one player has 20 points (in a tug-of-war scoring, where only one player can have points at a time), or until 10 rounds have been played - signifying the end of the year.  If all of the rounds have been played, one final scoring takes place, and the highest score wins.

If you're familiar with Twilight Struggle, and you just want to know what is different, here's a quick list before I get into the pros and cons:

• There is no Defcon track
• There is no Headline phase
• Realignment rolls and coups have been combined into "support checks"
• Power Struggles occur during scoring rounds (I'll write more about these later)
• The Space Race has been replaced by Tiananmen Square
• No single scoring card has an automatic win condition (though one triggers an early game end)
• Each city has a "type" (worker, farmer, elite, etc)

All of the events are based on history

Now, let's start digging into the pros and cons.  The first major pro was that I found 1989 to be incredibly engaging.  I enjoyed each of my games from start to finish, and I was even thinking about the games I played afterwards - and found myself really looking forward to the next time that I would be able to try it out.  Now, I play games a lot (though I'd like to play even more), and I often find myself looking forward to game night - but normally I am thinking to myself "ok, what game do I need to play so that I can review it."  With this one, I was thinking specifically about wanting to get together with someone to play 1989 - forget all of that "what should I play" nonsense, I wanted to play this.

The next pro is fairly standard with all of the games that these designers make - I really appreciate the historical richness of the game.  I like that each of the events are based on things that actually happened, and that, if I was willing to learn it, I could easily learn some history simply by playing a game that I enjoy!

Another couple of pros that I will mention briefly are that I love the tug of war nature of the game, and I like that you have to make hard decisions (and sacrifices) during the game.  Each game will be different based on who you play with, and what you draw.  If I play with someone that is very interested in taking over Hungary, the entire first half of our game might be focusing on Hungary - because it's important to counter what your opponent is doing.  One example of this is that I drew an event (as the Communist player) that gave the Democratic player an influence in every city in Czechoslovakia where I did not have control.  I spent the entire round building control in Czechoslovakia to mitigate this effect.  My opponent naturally thought that I had a Czechoslovakia scoring card, and so he was countering my moves there.  That's the great tug of war.  Then, at some point, I knew that I had to give up and play the card - or throw it in Tiananmen Square.  I chose to play this one and throw a different card away, so that I would get the 4 Ops points, even though it made me sacrifice a bit by giving my opponent some influence in Czechoslovakia.

Some cards are very powerful

Now to talk about Power Struggles.  If you like Twilight Struggle, then you will basically like or hate 1989 depending on your feelings about Power Struggles.  When a Power Struggle ensues, each player gets 6 cards if they have at least one city in the scoring country.  Then, for each additional city, they will get 2 more cards.  The cards come in 6 types - Petition, Strike, Rally, March, Leader, and Wild.  (Though the Leaders really act as Wilds, and the "Wild" are more like events.)  If you have a Leader, and you have the corresponding type in the scoring country (ie, you have an Elite Leader, and you control an Elite space in the country), then they can be used as any of the first four types.  Whoever played the scoring card starts with initiative and plays a card.  Their opponent then must play a card of the same type.  If they are able to do this, then they roll a die, and if they roll at least the number in the corner of the player with initiative's card, then they get to take initiative.  Otherwise, initiative stays the same.  Cards are played back and forth like this until one player cannot play a card.  That player loses the Power Struggle.  Finally, both the winner and loser roll a die.  The loser is rolling to see how much influence they have to remove from the scoring country.  The winner is rolling to see how many victory points they earn (and if they are the Democratic player, to see if they take power in the country).

I haven't decided my feelings about Power Struggles.  Conceptually, I really like them.  I think that they are a neat additional element of the game.  I don't think that they are especially strategic - or, more specifically, I think that the strategy is fairly basic in them. But I enjoy them.  Theoretically.  However, when you draw 10 cards, and 5 of them are leaders that you can't play, you really feel like the game just punched you in the face.  Or, if you draw 12 cards and don't have any of a certain suit - and then your opponent leads with that suit - you become disenfranchised with this mechanic.  So, as I said, I still haven't really decided my feelings on this element of the game - but it is the single biggest change from Twilight Struggle.

Here's a hint: Ruse is in Bulgaria

Now to get to the cons.  I'll start off with a very minor con.  As it turns out, I don't know my Eastern European geography especially well.  So, when a card tells me that something happens in "Ruse," it will take me a while to figure out where that is (the first time - I do learn where it is on the gameboard eventually... though I still can't find it on a normal map).  This con goes away as you keep playing the game, but it will probably be something that you will encounter in your first game or two.

My bigger con is that the game seems to be a bit more luck influenced than it initially seems.  More specifically, bad luck can be more detrimental than I would like.  One example of this is in the Power Struggles that I mentioned earlier.  Bad luck in a Power Struggle can be a major swing in points.  For example, let's assume that I am the Democrat player and we are having a Power Struggle in Poland.  It's the second time that Poland is scoring, I didn't do well the first time, but I have since gained a small advantage (2 more countries than my opponent).  I have the advantage, so I "should" win the Power Struggle.  We score Poland, and I get a horrible draw in the Power Struggle and lose.  I will possibly lose influence (making it harder to win the next struggle), my opponent may get some victory points (if he rolls well), but then I will also lose 6 points for letting the Communist player have power in Poland after it has scored a second time.  Six points is a huge point swing based on bad luck.  And, that's just one example - there is also a decent amount of luck about when the scoring cards are drawn, as well as who draws them.  There is also luck in die rolling for Power Struggle results, support checks, and Tiananmen Square results.  I'm not suggesting that the game is luck based, but what I am saying is that when you have bad luck at a critical juncture of the game, it will be incredibly frustrating.

Overall, I give 1989 an 8.5/10.  I really, really enjoy this game, but I have also been so frustrated by bad luck (I didn't win a single Power Struggle in my first two games, regardless of how many cards I or my opponent received, and often rolled a 6 afterwards, forcing me to remove quite a bit of influence) that I just can't give it a 9.0 or higher.  With that said, it is one of the only games in recent memory that I think about between gaming sessions, and that I really have the urge to want to play (instead of wanting to play games in general).

If 1989: Dawn of Freedom intrigues you, you should also check out (of course) 1960: The Making of the President, and Test of Fire: Bull Run 1861.

I would like to thank GMT Games for providing me with a review copy of 1989: Dawn of Freedom.