Keeping this classic alive has been an honor for me. The challenge is to bring back the former players while appealing to new players at the same time. This year, I tried adding a third heat on Thursday evening, but there were too many other conflicts at that time. The seven-hour game length was a deterrent to some as well. For next year, assuming we make it as a tournament again, I have a radical idea. Before I get to that, though, let’s look at what happened this year.
We had two games for the first Heat, a six-player game and a five-player game. Former champion Ewan McNay dominated the six-player game as Venice, winning with a score of 2400 points over second place Barcelona (Shiv Chopra) at 1645 points. Likely helping both players, Genoa left the game at the six-hour mark, leaving the Genoese territories to defend in place. That was only a turn before the end, but of course the last turn can be critical.
In the five-player game, another former champion, Harald Henning, finished first as Barcelona with 1920 points over Dennis Nicholson’s Venice with 1681 points. It should be noted that Venice did well in both the heat games despite being supposedly a weaker nation (according to statistics quoted to me by another champion, Tedd Mullally). Barcelona doing well in both was less of a surprise.
In both Heat 1 games, there was a single bid of 2 (both of whom chose Barcelona), and two bids of 1 (Paris then London in the six-player game, and London then Paris in the five-player game). Of note, Venice was left to someone who bid 0 in both cases, as was Genoa.
The second Heat involved two five-player games. In the first game, four players bid 1 and the other bid 0. In the other, the lone bid of 3 selected Venice, and the single bid of 1 chose Barcelona. Venice won both games (Phil Watkins and Mark Smith, respectively). Looks like this was the year for Venice!
Of interest, the first three positions in game 1 were only separated by a little over 100 points. Phil Watkins had 2255 over London’s Evan Davis with 2148. The other game was also close, with Mark Smith at 1942 and Tedd Mullally (Paris) at 1821.
The third and final Heat consisted of a single six-player game. Last year’s champion, Tedd Mullally, dominated the game with a score of 2781 as Genoa. GM Jay Spencer took second as Venice (again!) with 2252 points.
All Heats games ended with the cards running out, but Ewan and Tedd also bought all advances on their final turns (games 1 and 5).
Two of the winners were absent for the final, and one alternate appeared, so we played a five-player game. Since I was in it, I did not take copious notes until I hit the chaos square on the misery track and suddenly found myself with a bit more time on my hands. The game was quite exciting and quite miserable – let’s look at some of the details.
Final
Opening bids:
- 2 - Jay Spencer – Paris
- 2 - Mark Smith - Venice
- 1 - Shiv Chopra (with a Wool card) – London
- 0 - Tedd Mullally – Genoa
- 0 - Harald Henning - Barcelona (much to his surprise, bidding last)
For the first couple of turns, the leaders stayed in hiding. That does help to balance the game, as players are able to accumulate a bit more cash before the leaders come out. It also helps those who play the leaders and are able to earn some money from the other players. As has been said before, those who have leaders in their hands tend to do well in the game, assuming they know how and when to use them.
On turn four, two things happened that may have influenced the direction of the game. Barcelona was starting to take an early lead, and Paris did not want to hold on to Civil War. Barcelona predicted that the Civil War being played on him would take him out of the game. Paris predicted that he would still manage to win the game. They were both potentially right until the very end, when the outcome would be determined by a roll of the dice, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
The second event that happened was the Holy Indulgence purchase instead of Seaworthy Vessels. After some discussion at the table, Paris decided (perhaps incorrectly) to go the Holy Indulgence path instead of the Seaworthy Vessels path. The problem with going first is that you don’t know what others will do, and if everyone else had chosen Holy Indulgence, it would have meant disaster for Paris. In any case, Paris never quite seemed to get going after passing up on Seaworthy Vessels in turn 4.
London managed to take quite a few small territories and then make a deal with the then-leader Genoa to play metal in exchange for Ivory. They both netted nearly $100 from that deal, and it was almost a two-person race at that point. Barcelona managed to stay in it with a couple of other good card plays, including leaders and a well-timed papal decree (preventing Genoa from buying out) to delay the game for another round. Venice also played alchemist’s gold on Genoa in each of two successive turns in an attempt to stop him from ending the game.
Then the spice payout came, and Barcelona turned the tables with over $300, plus $90 from Interest and Profit. Now it looked like Barcelona was going to run away with the game. But card play in turn 8 was about as exciting as it gets.
First, London played revolutionary uprising to chaos Paris out of the game. Paris had just drawn two cloth cards and was ready to get back into the game, but those cards went unplayed, along with two silk cards. That effectively ended Venice’s chances, although he didn’t know it at the time.
Next, Venice looked at his cards carefully, deep in thought. He began to laugh, and the others soon realized what was on his mind. Barcelona was three steps away from chaos at that point. It was the only hope to avoid him buying out with significant cash left over to win the game. Venice played war on Barcelona. He rolled a 3, and everyone awaiting Barcelona’s roll: a 3! They each gained a misery, and the war continued after Venice’s card play. On the next roll, Venice rolled a 4. Barcelona rolled a 3 - losing the war and gaining enough misery to chaos out of the game. Much has been said about the randomness of the War card, even having some recommend removing it from play. I have to say that this is the most interesting use of the card I have seen. The randomness is still not a feature that I love, but what an exciting way to change the game at the last minute!
Since Genoa was not able to buy out, and there were a few cards left in the deck, the game continued two more turns instead of ending immediately as would have happened if Barcelona had stayed in the game. At that point, there was not much for anyone to do to affect the outcome. Venice’s payouts were discarded, as mentioned previously, not to mention the double misery effect of the war.
Final results:
- Genoa 2413
- London 2032
- Venice 1497
- Barcelona chaos (719 cash)
- Paris chaos (115 cash)
The game would have finished in about 5 hours without the war. Extending it still did not push it past the 6 hour mark. That brings us to a discussion about game length.
When I started as GM, I followed Eric Monte’s plan for the most part. Games were scheduled for six hours, but one usually had to be adjudicated each Heat. This year, to prevent that from happening, I extended the Heat length to seven hours. All games fit within that time window (although one was very close), but some players commented to me that they were just not able to commit that amount of time to a game that should take five or six hours.
I agree. Here’s my plan for next year: Using one of the options from the rulebook, I plan to run the Heats with the intermediate game, where the game ends once the epoch 2 deck is exhausted. With no epoch 3 cards coming into play, the endgame will be quite different, but it will serve as a good refresher for some and introduction for others to the mechanics of play. The benefit is that the heats can be limited to 4 hours, making them more approachable. The Final will still be the entire game to completion. Since finalists will be Heat winners with at least some recent experience, the hope is that the Final will finish in under 6 hours, as it did this year.
Thanks to everyone who played this year. Maybe we can generate enough interest to avoid the annual trial vote, but I do need your votes for at least one more year. See everyone next July!
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