Russian Railways — бездушный

I’ve been hearing Russian Railways described as a game I’d like. After ducking it a few times just to show everyone whose boss I finally played it last night. And the describers are partially right, this is a game that was in my wheelhouse about 4-7 years ago, when worker placement games ruled the earth like Tyrannosaurus Rex terrorizing bigger dinosaurs despite their bizarre tendency to constantly soak their hands in a small soap dish (to keep them supple).

But these days are not those of legend. Oh, we all remember the heady days the gnashing of teeth after you placed a worker was a new sound, but now we hear but the gentle smacking of gums. So now a worker placement game has to leap through hoops to prove itself by topping the legends of the genre.

And Russian Railways does no such thing. It is not a bad design, but the exact same action went first each round (Strike). Some actions are just superior to others (pet peeve). Granting people their own personal action in a worker placement game seems frought with danger, from a design perspective. Throwing a Feldian soup on top of the game may or may not be a good choice, but I don’t care for it. And frankly, the idea that the start is balanced by gifting the last player four extra victory points (winning score, ~350) demands scoffing.

(After I played it I tried another game of Impulse, which still seems like a broken down electric car in 1050 AD. Sure, it just sits there, but its mere existence commands attention. I may break down and get a copy. Both games suffer from Analysis Paralysis; but Impulse is faster, more streamlined, and full of chutzpah. Even if it borrows heavily from his other designs).

But back to Russian Railways — A dry game, with a workmanlike design that seems several years old, coupled with lots of ways to gain points.  And, as my one word review indicates, soulless. Indifferent.

Follow up to last week

My second game of Impulse and I’m beginning to sour.

One player, as his start world, builds “Move [1] Transport” and then explores “Sabotage a fleet with [3] bombs” as his next world. Then he sits on the center with a cruiser and sabotages anyone near him. Yes, I should have seen the “move back home with 2 transports, then resabotage my 2 cruiser fleet” but that basically ended the game.

Impulse feels like all opening and endgame. A build up, then one player unleashes a monster turn and wins (which isn’t so bad) or almost wins, as everyone tries to find a stop next turn (which is agonizing).

Basically, we’re playing Fool’s Mates and Scholars Mates, but I’m not getting the feeling I want to play the game enough to get good.

On the other hand, I am starting to like Sail to India, and I may trade for/pick up a copy.

Also played — Hansa (fine) and Piña Pirates (ugh).

Poor Impulse Control

I tried Impulse, the new game by Carl “Glory to Rome’ Chudyk.

It’s clever. It’s got a some G2R “Cards do different things in different places.” It’s got a stone-dead-brilliant idea.

Each turn You play a card to the impulse track. Then a player does the cards on the track, in order (and discards the oldest card, if there are more than four). This does a few things, you want to put down an action that you can use, but that others can’t use well either because they are not set up, or because the prerequisite will age off the board. (It also nicely means that the first player only gets one action, the second gets two, etc, so it’s a balancing mechanism). And combat also relies on matching cards (color + #) with the cards in the impulse, so you can set up a turn where you are great for combat, but next time it comes to you, your hand is useless for fighting. Great.

But you can also chuck actions to your ‘technologies’ (you get to use one tech a turn), or ‘minerals’ (which, like G2R’s clients, let you boost some actions) or ‘plan’ (where you can spend all the plan cards in one turn). And if you move your transports you get the action of where you land. So a I had a turn or two where I had six actions. 9 isn’t hard (with a plan). So, you build up, you build up, and then someone does this “move/action/4 impulse actions/blow up my plan for X more actions and that scores me 12 points, I win.” (2o points is game).

Now, it’s too early to tell if that’s a problem or not. Race, G2R, and Impulse are all games where you spend your first few times just trying to grok the rules, then you stare at your position, and at some point you look around and go “Oh, yeah, they have a plan too.” Impulse may be genius.

Or it may not be.  There are something like 8 action types and we never had a research card used for an action, and barely any plan, execute or trades. You do start with ~5 cards, and when you explore a system you pick up that card, add it to your hand, and then put the card of your choice down. (Actions on the map can be used any time you move a ship onto them). So the (small) board means each game is different. Was our game typical? I had a hand with 4 builds at the starts. Seems unlikely.

Rating — Who knows? I’ll play it a few more times. But I think that there’s a brilliant, play-it-a-hundred-times game using these mechanisms. I just don’t get the feeling this is it.