[MyLittleSandbox] Played it - Starship Merchants
Starship Merchants is new game that I was only vaguely aware of until I was invited to play at WABA on Saturday. As you could probably guess from the title, it's a game of interstellar commerce and economic management.
Co-designer Tom Lehmann created Race for the Galaxy, a favourite of mine - and I'm a sucker for a space theme, so this was always going to be a game I'd enjoy. Merchants is inspired however by an earlier game, 2038 Tycoons of the Asteroid Belt. This in turn is a variant of the 18xx genre of railroad/stock market games, synonymous (in my mind at least) with hard-core, unforgiving of mistakes, Serious Gaming . Had I been tricked into playing 1829 with spaceships ?
Not really.
Merchants is primarily a game of fleet management decisions; do you purchase outright or lease, choose larger capacity or more manoeuvrability, which upgrade is best etc. The most important decisions revolve around new ship purchases. As newer ships become available, older ships become redundant and must be decommissioned. This can mean - as happened in our game - that you can purchase a starship only to see it become redundant before it can complete a cargo run.
I enjoyed the game - at two hours I felt it went a little long, but that was largely due to it being the first time any of us had played - and we had to stop several times to query the rules.The publisher has produced a set of rule clarifications, which I think should have been included in the rulebook - as it stands there are several areas where the text is unclear.
Merchants is not a light game, but it's not the hard-core brain burner I feared. The layout and design is good and make it relatively easy to keep track of the progress of other players. There's not a great deal of player interaction - it's difficult to interfere with the plans of others or to bring a leader back to the pack. This does mean that a player can fall out of contention and be unable to see a way to catch up, which can be dispiriting.
Our game finished with a win to Tim*, with Jason, myself and Rowland a little way back. Having learned a few lessons in my first play I'm keen for a rematch.
(* protest lodged with match committee due to in game irregularities)
reviewed by the Gaming Gang
http://mylittlesandbox.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/played-it-starship-merchants.html
Co-designer Tom Lehmann created Race for the Galaxy, a favourite of mine - and I'm a sucker for a space theme, so this was always going to be a game I'd enjoy. Merchants is inspired however by an earlier game, 2038 Tycoons of the Asteroid Belt. This in turn is a variant of the 18xx genre of railroad/stock market games, synonymous (in my mind at least) with hard-core, unforgiving of mistakes, Serious Gaming . Had I been tricked into playing 1829 with spaceships ?
Not really.
Merchants is primarily a game of fleet management decisions; do you purchase outright or lease, choose larger capacity or more manoeuvrability, which upgrade is best etc. The most important decisions revolve around new ship purchases. As newer ships become available, older ships become redundant and must be decommissioned. This can mean - as happened in our game - that you can purchase a starship only to see it become redundant before it can complete a cargo run.
I enjoyed the game - at two hours I felt it went a little long, but that was largely due to it being the first time any of us had played - and we had to stop several times to query the rules.The publisher has produced a set of rule clarifications, which I think should have been included in the rulebook - as it stands there are several areas where the text is unclear.
Merchants is not a light game, but it's not the hard-core brain burner I feared. The layout and design is good and make it relatively easy to keep track of the progress of other players. There's not a great deal of player interaction - it's difficult to interfere with the plans of others or to bring a leader back to the pack. This does mean that a player can fall out of contention and be unable to see a way to catch up, which can be dispiriting.
Our game finished with a win to Tim*, with Jason, myself and Rowland a little way back. Having learned a few lessons in my first play I'm keen for a rematch.
(* protest lodged with match committee due to in game irregularities)
reviewed by the Gaming Gang
http://mylittlesandbox.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/played-it-starship-merchants.html