Keythedral and Lost Cities
I have been meaning to write about Keythedral for some time. I bought a copy of the original limited edition last year and, having read the rules, was optimistic that this would provide, at the very least, a good two-player Settlers-type experience.
We played three games and I enjoyed them all immensely. Mary was less impressed. The set-up phase and siting of cottages seems absolutely key to the thing. It seems that, if this goes wrong, there is very little that the disadvantaged player can really do about it. Perhaps it's more acute in the two-player game than in a multi-player environment, I don't know.
We found that I was always able to generate at least one or two resources more than Mary, every turn. Mary was frustrated by the relatively limited range of actions she could take to thwart me. Once the three fences had been deployed (and I had dismantled two of them), there was little else to do. She decided to acquire law cards, and these slowed me a little, particularly where she was able to change the cost of seats, but even this was limited in effect. What she would have liked to have done was to relocate a cottage, or a field (!), but this is expensive and requires more fencing than is available.
I found the games very enjoyable, but accept that this was in part due to having plenty of resources. We'll try it again, possibly as a multi-player game.
Lost Cities. A very quick two-hander with Lucy, in which I was rather reckless. I played two blue handshakes on the basis of the 7 card in may hand and Lucy proceeded to lay out 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The cards flowed beatifully for her throughout. She won by 77 points to -12 points. And that's in a single hand! Probably some kind of a record.
We played three games and I enjoyed them all immensely. Mary was less impressed. The set-up phase and siting of cottages seems absolutely key to the thing. It seems that, if this goes wrong, there is very little that the disadvantaged player can really do about it. Perhaps it's more acute in the two-player game than in a multi-player environment, I don't know.
We found that I was always able to generate at least one or two resources more than Mary, every turn. Mary was frustrated by the relatively limited range of actions she could take to thwart me. Once the three fences had been deployed (and I had dismantled two of them), there was little else to do. She decided to acquire law cards, and these slowed me a little, particularly where she was able to change the cost of seats, but even this was limited in effect. What she would have liked to have done was to relocate a cottage, or a field (!), but this is expensive and requires more fencing than is available.
I found the games very enjoyable, but accept that this was in part due to having plenty of resources. We'll try it again, possibly as a multi-player game.
Lost Cities. A very quick two-hander with Lucy, in which I was rather reckless. I played two blue handshakes on the basis of the 7 card in may hand and Lucy proceeded to lay out 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. The cards flowed beatifully for her throughout. She won by 77 points to -12 points. And that's in a single hand! Probably some kind of a record.
posted by Tim Synge at 12:15 pm
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