Hidden Gems: A Board Game Podcast

68: Stefan Dorra - Part 3

• Cameron Lockey

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In this episode, your hosts Chris Alley, Jason Yanchuleff, and Bill Arney jump back into the delightful world of Dorra, exploring three more games by this esteemed designer.

FEATURED GAMES:
00:00:00 Intro & Banter
00:31:32 Amazona
01:00:17 Pergamon
01:36:21 Salamanca

MUSIC (courtesy of https://epidemicsound.com):
Amazona: “Jungle Awakening”, Rune Dale
Pergamon: “A King's Ransom”, Bonnie Grace
Salamanca: “Imber”, Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen

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Patreon: https://patreon.com/hiddengemspodcast
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Facebook: @hiddengemsboardgamepodcast
Twitter: @hiddengemsboard
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR8wU2vjV2RJ7C6iRuq2WcA
BGG Guild #: 3874
Discord: https://discord.gg/aXThh3N5Kj

Hidden Gems: A Board Game Podcast was produced and edited by Chris Alley, Cameron Lockey, and Jason Yanchuleff in Raleigh, NC.

Chris:

Hidden Gems, episode 68, Steph and Dora, part three. Welcome to Hidden Gems, a board game podcast where we review unusual, forgotten, and underappreciated board games. We're your hosts. My name is Chris.

Jason:

I'm Jason.

Bill:

And this is Bill.

Chris:

Thanks for listening to our show.

Jason:

Yeah. Welcome back, guys.

Chris:

How'd you like that original title?

Jason:

three. You worked

Bill:

Part 3. You worked a long time on that, didn't you?

Jason:

Part

Chris:

part three.

Jason:

either Stefandora Part Seven or Reiner Canizia Part 100 or The Spiel Episode Part 50.

Bill:

back and looked at what

Chris:

last Stefan Dora episode, and we called it part two. So I was like, well, The precedent has been set.

Jason:

we just be called Hidden Kinesias at this point?

Chris:

You know, this is an interesting segue. we'll give him a shout out real quick. So, Andrew. On discord, solid blade. he keeps stats on us about what we rate games

Jason:

Oh yeah.

Chris:

uh, what we rate the spiel games and all that he has gone above and beyond as the hidden gems historian, and now he has broken out our data, even more granular to where, how many times we've reviewed. Each designer, how many games from each year we have reviewed, which is just really interesting to look at.

Bill:

Oh, I, I went in today and, and, and sorted on the list of like the ones that I reviewed.'cause man, it was, it was so nice. I, yeah, it was a confession. I am updating my 100 list because it was so horrible.

Chris:

getting ready to ask

Bill:

I was, I did, I did Kind of a deep dive on kind of, kind of what we did, and it was to me. It was kind of interesting looking back on our ratings on things. And I just, I have to say, I, I have some levels of, for lack of a better word, I'll just say heartburn because there's so much variation in a level four and a level threes and stuff like that. That's like, you know, I would, I would maybe change some of my votes, but there's just, you can be such different games and still be at the same number, right? Totally true.

Jason:

I'm waiting for the first time that you list the same game.

Bill:

Twice

Jason:

your list because you reorganize it so often.

Bill:

list. It's gonna happen, but I can sort on names. Hopefully they will show up at the same time and I will catch it. But yeah, that could happen.

Chris:

it

Jason:

Well, I missed an episode. You did. Yeah, you guys did a good job.

Chris:

Yeah, I think I only

Jason:

You

Chris:

I need to

Bill:

honest.

Jason:

a good

Bill:

job, because I thought they totally screwed it up.

Chris:

we all messed

Jason:

have

Bill:

I was

Chris:

I have a feeling we might be hearing about this later from you.

Bill:

why not right now?

Chris:

right now?

Jason:

Nyet

Bill:

is, I mean, Nyet is an awesome game. And I think you guys just Nyet. Nyet. Nyet. Well, did you guys give it fours, both of you?

Chris:

Cameron gave it a 5, I gave it a 4.

Bill:

Yeah, you see, that's Chris's, that's the lack of Chris's taste. Don't invite Chris to

Chris:

taste. Tell them goodbye, Chris, to your party.

Jason:

only would have gotten worse if I'd been on

Chris:

the show. I did

Bill:

been on there.

Jason:

not enjoy that one, but to be fair, I only played it once. And, you know, you all already had played it and knew what you were

Chris:

knew it would get worse. Inopportune

Jason:

game worked.

Chris:

worked. Yeah, we used you as an example in our review. You should listen to our net review since you didn't get there. You would love it. We talked about how you pitched a fit when we pegged you with the minus two per trick when you were weighing the lead and you ended up coming in like third or fourth.

Jason:

Oh, right. Yeah.

Bill:

That was

Jason:

that probably had something to do with it.

Chris:

it. See,

Bill:

makes great gaming right there. That's, that's totally awesome. Well, Jason, tell us about more of your world travels.

Jason:

Yeah, so I missed the episode because we were actually in Iceland. this has been a long

Chris:

long I

Bill:

gotta

Jason:

mic already. Yeah, we were in Iceland. This has, been a long planned trip. Cause we actually, I planned to go like, Two years ago or no, I guess a year ago and then we rescheduled because we ended up unexpectedly buying a house and all that didn't feel like a good time to go. but yeah, it was our 15 year anniversary trip and, been looking forward to it and man, it delivered. for anybody out there who either lives in Iceland or has been there, uh, is just an incredible country. I would imagine it's like, I've never been to a Nordic country before. So like, Finland, Sweden, Norway. I'm sure, I'm sure are all very similar, but because it sits on the fault line, you have all the volcanoes and all the other stuff there. And for a place that's like

Bill:

or

Jason:

literally the size of Ohio, there's just so much stuff going on. But yeah, we were there for a week and a half, I guess, drove the whole way around, did the ring road. Which is very cool. So, it doesn't take very far to feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. Like, super, super remote. Bill, I know you've been there. So, we talked about this before you went to Reykjavik for a little bit.

Bill:

Yeah. It was interesting hearing your experience because you went the I'm going to do it myself way and drove and we did the bus tour where we had a guide and stuff like that. And it's interesting to get the feel of your experience versus ours. So

Jason:

yeah, yeah. Thank you.

Bill:

Yeah,

Jason:

we did a couple kind of crazy things. So one was, so we went snorkeling, in 35 degree water. So there's a spot where the tectonic plates are separating and it's filled up from the bottom by like glacial water. So it's like the clearest water in the world. and you have like a hundred meters of visibility or something, which is apparently really far for snorkeling. And so you're just kind of like floating over this rift. And 35 degrees, you're full, like we're in a full dry suit. Like, like covering over your head, like all this stuff. Your face is exposed, so your lips kind of go numb a little bit. But, like, for the most part, I wasn't really that uncomfortable. my wife, nearly died, because she didn't tell anybody that her neck strap was on too tight.

Chris:

Oh gosh!

Jason:

And we got to the very end, and she, Was telling me like why is it so hard to kick my legs? I don't understand and like she doesn't remember telling me that anymore

Chris:

This

Jason:

This is not great for an activity where you are like the whole point is to float face down in the water and be really still

Bill:

um But yeah,

Jason:

it was fine in the end So that was pretty crazy We drove up into the highlands a few times, which, like, once you get off the ring road, which is around the perimeter of the island, like, you get very remote very fast. And a lot of the roads, honestly, like, further inland are what they call F roads, so they're all, like, gravel or rocks, um, mud, and rivers. So, we drove up into a region called La Mona Lager, which is like this crazy, beautiful, like mountain landscape where all the mountains are all these different colors. There's like green and orange and pink and like all this stuff. So we hiked up there, but the drive out of there, I think we crossed 18 rivers on the way, on the way back out in a rental car.

Chris:

I was getting ready to, I was just getting ready to ask you, is that an agreement that is made with the rental car agency? Like you have to get a specific kind of car to do this, or do

Jason:

As just

Chris:

them or what?

Jason:

No, as long as you rent a, a four by four, then you're allowed on the F roads. Oh. If you don't rent something that has four wheel drive, then you are forbidden from the F roads. And we, we had like the smallest possible one.'cause anything larger than like the tiny little RAV4 type SUV. It was crazy expensive. So we got this tiny, tiny little thing, but man, it, it made it I was a little worried because it had rained a ton and the water levels were super high. We did a hike where we had to cross a river on foot. And it was like, the water level was like,

Chris:

million feet.

Jason:

feet higher than I had seen in pictures. And I was like, this is not, this is not great. But we made it. And uh, and then the, the rivers didn't actually end up being that bad when we were, when we were driving. we got snow, which was crazy. Did some snow driving. We saw the northern lights, which was which was cool And uh, yeah the spas the geothermal spas are just incredible. So I would go back just to go to those again

Chris:

Yeah. Love a good spa, man

Jason:

But yeah, all in all it was a good trip, good chance to get away with with the wife

Chris:

It

Bill:

It is kind of funny that you kind of brought the Northern Lights back with you. Because I don't know if you've seen the lights here in North

Chris:

Crazy, we got them here,

Bill:

Yeah,

Jason:

Yeah, I haven't I haven't managed to catch it here, but i've seen people taking pictures of them

Bill:

them. That's

Jason:

like I traveled halfway around the world to see these and then I

Chris:

ha ha, right in your back door.

Bill:

your

Jason:

it's okay.

Bill:

But

Jason:

So yeah, that's what I've been up to.

Chris:

That's awesome, man.

Jason:

What about you Chris?

Chris:

Oh, I'm next. We're skipping you, Bill.

Bill:

dang it. Okay.

Chris:

Alright, so I did some awesome traveling too. You ready for this?

Jason:

Mm-Hmm?

Chris:

So, I traveled up to Virginia.

Jason:

you went to Shenandoah. Shenandoah is amazing.

Chris:

I did. I actually went to Shenandoah twice. I went up this last weekend with two of my boys to do some pretty cool hikes up there. but,

Bill:

Two or

Chris:

three weeks before that, I went up by myself and I think I've talked about it on the podcast before that every year I plan a hiking trip by myself. Um, I've done Mount Mitchell, I did cold mountain a couple of years ago and I just like to get out on the trails by myself, no people, and just kind of get lost in my thoughts. It's just what I enjoy doing. So this year I actually ended up going to Virginia because I think we should mention this. because we're in the midst of Hurricane Helene. I had originally planned to go to Western North Carolina, where my family is from, and the hurricane came in

Bill:

and

Chris:

really just ravaged the Asheville area. Um, as I mentioned on this podcast before, yeah, I grew up just east of Asheville in a place called Fairview, just outside of Chimney Rock and Lake Lure. And you may know those places now because they've been in the national news because They're gone. Yeah. Uh, Chimney Rock, which I went to numerous times as a child is completely eliminated. It's really sad. I was talking to Bill about this. I saw this on the news a couple of times to Where I grew up in rural Western North Carolina, a lot of families live together in the same areas. Um, it's just a very common practice. And so, when I was growing up, and when my parents were growing up even, uh, I grew up in a family known as the Craigs. All lived together in the same area in Fairview, and we called it Craigtown, because that's where the Craigs lived, right? And, uh, Craigtown was in the news because several people died in a mudslide, um, in, uh, Fairview. a woman that my mom went to high school with, in her same class, passed away in, the devastation. So, it hit really close to home. So, I'm telling folks out there, If you're a praying person, pray for the people of Western North Carolina and Tennessee because it's as bad as you've heard and it's probably worse than you've heard. It's just really, really bad. definitely been on my knees in prayer many times for my hometown. so yeah, it, it's bad, but we don't want to be too sad here. I just wanted to mention that

Jason:

good to bring it up.

Chris:

it is, it is, we try not to get too heavy on the podcast, but You know, it was a really serious event. And so, like I said, if you're a praying person, say prayers for the people of North Carolina, Tennessee. but I was originally planning to go there and I didn't because of that. So I went up to Virginia and did some awesome hikes, but I'm actually going to talk about one thing that was not a hike that I think I talked to Bill about. Maybe, maybe I talked to you about it too, Jason, but when I was in Stanton, Virginia, I went to see a play at a place called the Blackfriar. Have y'all heard of this?

Jason:

I'm not

Bill:

Maybe they'll keep going.

Chris:

maybe I didn't talk to you about this. So, the Blackfriar Theater is a Shakespearean theater in Stanton, Virginia, where they do Shakespeare and then some other plays, but they mostly do Shakespeare. In the original plays, as written, it's Shakespeare. So, if you don't understand Shakespeare, which, who does?

Jason:

Yeah,

Chris:

You're getting like 20 percent of it, okay?

Jason:

right,

Chris:

But what's really cool about the Blackfriar is, you know, everybody's heard of the Globe. The Globe. And that was a really famous theater. But there was another one called the Black Friar, which they kind of modeled their design after. So the inside of the theater looks exactly what they thought the Black Friar looked like. And it is incredible inside this theater. It is just so cool. It has that kind of

Bill:

old

Chris:

European medieval look to it because they tried to match the appearance as much as possible to what they thought it would look like. And then just seeing Macbeth, which is what I saw on the stage was super cool. And I'll mention one more thing. So apparently during this time on the stage, they would have stools up on the stage and there's a name for them. I can't remember what they're called, but that is true to the period. And because I was by myself, I got the opportunity to upgrade my seat

Bill:

To

Chris:

sit in one of the stools on the stage as the production was occurring. And so the actors were literally like two or three feet from me. At times,

Bill:

Is that not awkward?

Chris:

it was a little bit because everybody in the gallery is looking where you're sitting, right? Cause the actors are literally at your feet.

Jason:

Are you like an extra?

Chris:

Well, so sometimes they will interact with you. they will talk to you. They'll say their lines in your direction. Sometimes they'll say a thing that might require a response from you. That never happened to me, but it did to some other people near me.

Bill:

And uh,

Chris:

Dude, it was just awesome. Highly recommend if you're ever in Virginia, go to the Blackfire in Stanton. It was great.

Jason:

does sound

Bill:

cool. That does sound cool.

Chris:

it was cool. It was really cool.

Bill:

Can

Chris:

I do one more?

Bill:

All right, sure.

Jason:

Go for

Chris:

How much time have we used?

Jason:

Not enough.

Chris:

Okay, good. Perfect. All right. One fun, nerdy topic, because I know I'm always good for at least one of these every episode. So I've been trying to do as much as possible with my kids because they're growing up and I'm just running out of time with them. So I don't know if you all are aware of this or not, but anime. It's just really, really popular amongst like teenagers right now. Did you know this?

Jason:

I did not know that.

Chris:

It's just way more cool and socially acceptable than it used to be when I was in high school. So when I was younger I did watch a lot of anime like Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, stuff like that. But I haven't watched it for years and years and years. Well, my kids love it. So I decided I was going to start an anime with them. And I picked one called Tower of God, which you guys have probably not heard of. And the main reason for that is I tried to pick one that was a little bit more

Bill:

hidden

Chris:

Jim ish. mostly because those are the ones that aren't like eight or 900 episodes long. Like one piece is literally like 900 episodes. So I did Tower of God. So brief synopsis of Tower of God, um, just to kind of give you an idea about what it's about. The idea is, there's a character, his name is Bom, B A A M, Bom, and this, girl called Rachel finds him underneath this tower called the Tower of God, okay? It's not really clear why he's there or how she found him or whatever, but she kind of nurses him back to health. He develops this attachment with her, and then Rachel leaves him and tells him that she is going to ascend the Tower of God, okay?

Bill:

So

Chris:

Tower of God is this multi leveled structure. Okay. And the idea is, is that the legends say that if you ascend the tower, you're like, wishes are granted. Okay. Or you almost become like God

Bill:

a way, okay?

Chris:

So she leaves him, doesn't tell him why. And he's so obsessed with her because she kind of rescued him. He follows her into the tower of God.

Bill:

So

Chris:

interesting about the tower of God is It's a tower, but because it's magically infused with this stuff called Shinsu, every floor of the tower is like a continent. It's huge in its appearance. And there are like, people groups and different cultures and environments on different levels, but it's a physical tower. Okay? So the idea of it is, is that, There are people that live in the tower called regulars, and as you ascend the tower, every level that you go up kind of increases your social status, or your standard of living, so to speak. But in order to ascend, you have to pass these challenges. And they can kill you. You can die doing these things. So they're like physical challenges, combat challenges, intelligence, wit, strategic thinking, things like that. It's kind of like squid game. If you guys have seen that, but in an anime style. And so these people are trying to ascend to these higher levels and you can stop or you can keep going. Okay. So that's the general idea. I could go on more about it, but there's just a lot of like interesting. Characters, I guess you could say, and different motivations. There are these people called rankers. Rankers are people who've actually made it to the top and now they're like test facilitators on lower levels. And so you're just trying to figure out what are these people's motivation? What's going on in this tower? It's convoluted in an anime style, but I found it interesting.

Jason:

sounds a little Hunger Games

Chris:

It is. It's Hunger Games ish. It's Squid Game ish.

Bill:

So did your kids turn you on to this or did you turn your kids on to this because you led with your kids

Chris:

I turned them on to it. So it's funny, I started watching it with Knox, my third, and he loved it immediately. Bryce, my oldest, who's the snobbiest about anime, was like turning his nose up at it because he's like all, Hunter x Hunter and Attack on Titan. And he's like, what's this trash? And about halfway through the first season, he was sitting and watching it with us. So we, we roped them in the only caveat I'll say, and then I'll pass it over to Bill is if you've never watched anime before, this is probably not a good one to start on. Cause it's got a lot of the weird anime isms that most normal people would probably be like, What is going on? but.

Bill:

describe, like give an example.

Chris:

Like, really over the top dialogue, really overly dramatic dialogue, For some people, you might just roll your eyes and be like, this is ridiculous, you know, and if you watch anime, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Cause a lot of animes are kind of guilty of that, but this one is very much so. And a really convoluted plot. It's pretty common amongst all animes. I feel like, although I'm going to talk about another anime next episode and it's much more, It entry friendly.

Jason:

this a newer one?

Bill:

a

Chris:

is a newer one. It's got two seasons, so it's just 24 episodes.

Jason:

Where do you watch it?

Chris:

crunchy Roll, Crunchy Roll. So Crunchy Roll is a subscription service, where you can get access to these different animes. So do it through Amazon.

Bill:

Amazon. Have you seen Pacific Rim anime?

Chris:

Are you talking about like based off the movie? I have not.

Bill:

Okay. I mean, that's, that's kind of, that's the only one that I've watched, and I was super shocked. This, uh, this is a spoiler alert. Um, in like the first or second episode, it's, it's got a season to it. there's a little girl and a little boy, I mean they're teenagers I guess, that, uh, They've lost their parents who were mech drivers, and they've had to go off and fight some war, and they're with a bunch of kids who run off to this hidden valley so that they don't get killed by the monsters, right? she was like told not to explore around because it's dangerous, right? Because he's a guy, they're not gaijins, they're, uh, whatever the monsters are called, I forgot what they were. You know, they could show up

Chris:

Kaijus?

Bill:

in Kaijus, that's it. Kaijus.

Chris:

nerd cred just dropped.

Bill:

It started with the same sound.

Chris:

just groaned audibly.

Jason:

ha. Uh,

Bill:

yeah, I'm not a big anime person. This would probably be a good one to start with because it's not too bad. Other than, the girl goes in, finds a bay that has a mech in it. And she goes in and ends up, like, turning it on, and by turning it on, and, It acted as a beacon for the, uh, what's it, the kaijus?

Chris:

kaijus. Kaijus. Kaijus. The

Bill:

Yeah, kaijus to come. And so all, the kaijus come and kill every other person, all her friends and all her stuff that were in that valley, except for her brother. And so, I mean, He was like all into it. This is all your fault. This is all it. I mean, which is, I mean, to me, it's like traumatic as heck for like a little kid to watch that. I mean,

Chris:

she pilots it and

Bill:

well, yeah, I mean, I won't say what the rest of it is, but I mean, to me, it was, I don't know. It was, it was emotionally scarring. It was, you know, it was pretty crazy.

Chris:

Yeah, that sounds very anime ish. A lot of animes have a fixation on like, piloting mechs. there's a whole Gundam series and, Evangelion and stuff like that where they're just like really fascinated with these big robot monsters and

Bill:

I like Pacific Rim.

Chris:

That's cool. I'll check it out.

Bill:

Yeah.

Jason:

I still need to make it through Avatar, so.

Chris:

Oh my gosh

Jason:

I feel like I don't have any cred in the anime space until I do that,

Chris:

You need to watch that

Bill:

Um. All right Bill, talk about how great Niet is. Well, I was not on the last episode as well even though I played all the games, um, because I was at my beach trip with my family. That's right. and we were staying at a super awesome place. I have to talk about it just for a second. it was has had 20 rooms in it. it had, a room with a pool table, a foosball table, uh, yeah, air hockey had a whole room. That's like four times bigger than the room we're sitting in there. It was a putting green and then it had a, uh, like a I don't know, 16 foot by 10 foot driving range screen had the projector on it that had the hooked up, the PC and the sensors. It was super cool. Yeah, it was ab I've never seen anything like that, that wasn't in a, you know, a bar. Right, right, right. Anyway, that was super fun. and then like this, uh, Margaritaville daiquiri machine where you can make three Dai Daiquiri, a a, a Pina colada and a margarita all at the same time. That was. Just, it was awesome.

Chris:

don't think

Jason:

Well, if you had twenty people

Bill:

20 people staying there.

Chris:

people staying there. I guess. Exactly. It

Bill:

Exactly, it

Chris:

awesome. You know, that

Bill:

it was awesome. Yeah, that was my job all, you know, all weekend was to make a tray of, like, all of those and walk around. It was, it was super cool. Anyway, we did play a bunch of board games, did play a bunch of Niet, and it was, it was, it was popular. Played 5 person Niet, which was, which is a really cool way to do it, listen to the last episode for the rules, but, when you play 5 person, there's a x2

Chris:

2x card, yeah.

Bill:

yeah, 2x card, so that, whoever takes The bid can give that two X card to anybody at the table. He can take it or he can give it to his partner or her or whatever. And their tricks count times two. and so we had a couple of times where, the person thought, you know, we're going to play two on three. Oh, if you do it, you have to give it to the other team, I think. All right. Yeah. You have to give it to the other team.

Chris:

has to go to somebody.

Bill:

Yeah. Has to go to somebody. Yeah. Somebody on the other team, I guess, or in the three person team. I can't remember now, but anyway, there's just a lot of nuance and. how you play the game with, with four versus five. And I don't know, I love that board at the very beginning. I mean, it's, I think it could be a lifestyle game in the same way that teach you is that you could, you know, if you get a group of people who start learning how to play, learning how to, how to take the clues at the beginning, you know, that teach you crap, this could be way better.

Chris:

crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Um, well, I mean, let's hear it. What would you give it?

Bill:

I don't, I'm not sure if I would give it a a six, but it would, it would. It's the closest. I think I've

Jason:

I've ever been. I, I

Bill:

I, I don't know. I'll

Jason:

work on it.

Bill:

I, it is. It's

Jason:

came

Chris:

been to one. What qualifies as a six though? I don't know, I'll work on it. Yeah, it's gotta be a six. Right,

Bill:

There's crappy scores.

Chris:

I'll,

Bill:

Yeah. I would, I I'll say it. I'll give it a six. I'll

Chris:

give

Bill:

six. Yeah. It was, it's an awesome game. I mean, it's, um, but it is, it's, it's like so many of these things, you have to have enough inertia or people who know it to be able to play it. Right. You can't just play, you know. Two times or three times. I think you need to play it a couple of nights and just for, just kind of to figure out how to play it. So,

Jason:

if you

Bill:

can get that, that group of people who will do it, I think it would be an awesome game. Mm-Hmm.

Jason:

Mm hmm.

Bill:

But anyway, uh, I will talk a little bit about the other games we played. Uh, uh, I have a. nephew who likes racing games and I brought him Camel Up like a couple of beach trips back and he was like,

Jason:

was like,

Bill:

yes, but he was like, this isn't a racing game. This is a betting game. It's like, yeah, that's right. So he says, yeah, exactly. So for him, it's like, that's crap. But so I did, I ended up buying heat, the pedal to the metal and brought it. And so we finally got past, we got past the tutorial. You've only played the tutorial.

Chris:

true. That's true. I need to give it another

Bill:

You do you do with the other whether the powers it still may be meant to me because some of the things that happen with it is it's feels like it's easy to to have a runaway leader still. but we had fun playing it and especially with with all the upgrades and then the road conditions and stuff like that. It makes it play differently for

Chris:

Yeah,

Jason:

For sure.

Bill:

the other big one was, Kryptos was super popular, which I was very

Chris:

like the hit of the week, right?

Bill:

It was, we played it a lot, you know, it had ninja reviews. That's what I brought. So yeah, we, uh, it was a nice little filler before dinner kind of thing. So they couldn't get the nemesis to the table. I didn't bring it this time.

Chris:

feel like Cameron, on our last backstage on this Top 50, spoilers, uh, had Cryptos.

Bill:

Did he?

Chris:

I think. Cause I feel like I remember what I was talking about it. I know he really enjoyed it as well. I'm almost sure he did actually. Now that I think about it,

Bill:

Oh, that's awesome.

Chris:

in the forties, but yeah.

Bill:

that would, that wouldn't have won. I would have earmarked for Cameron delight.

Chris:

Solid game.

Bill:

It is absolutely. I don't really have that much more to just to say about that. I don't guess so. The B strip other than, Oh, I do have to say, talking about kids. We knew going into it that my daughter's boyfriend was going to propose to Katie, so she, he proposed to her at the beach while on a beach walk and we, as part of it, um,

Jason:

um,

Bill:

they were gone, decorated the house and kind of had an engagement party when they came back. And so that ended up being, being kind of a really cool. Yeah. Yeah, that was, it was very cool. So we had like a, kind of a newlywed game at the front where we had couples come up and kind of compete with, with, with a new couple and asking questions and stuff like that. And so, That's

Chris:

That's great. Now you've got a wedding to plan

Bill:

Now we got a wedding to plan for. We have a lot with We got a long runway, but yes. It was, hopefully they feel very well celebrated. So,

Chris:

awesome. We're

Jason:

Some solid banter on this episode. We're bantering

Chris:

it up.

Jason:

Yeah.

Bill:

Well, anything,

Jason:

Anything, do we have any, any more, I guess this is the third episode on Stefan Dora. We don't have any more background

Chris:

background. Yeah. Listen to our first episode.

Jason:

Let's just go straight to the cocktail then. That's right.

Bill:

is he the airplane spoons guy?

Chris:

Not an airplane. I can't remember what I said about him now, but yeah, go back to that episode. You'll learn all you want to know about him. He's great. Alright, so cocktail for tonight is a cocktail called Bologna's Bridegroom.

Bill:

Groom. You

Chris:

what that's a reference to?

Bill:

be?

Chris:

Well, Bologna, Bologna, I'm not quite sure how to pronounce

Bill:

it. Hmm.

Chris:

So it's actually a reference to Macbeth. As it turns out. at some point in the play Macbeth, Macbeth is referred to as Bologna's bridegroom, which she is the Roman goddess of war, and so that was almost as like a compliment to him

Bill:

um, that

Chris:

he's like the groom or the husband of the Roman goddess of war, basically. So you remember he is a pretty Experienced powerful fighter, and then he has a tragic downfall, spoilers, where he tries to take the throne

Jason:

I don't think you can spoil something that came out like hundreds of years ago.

Chris:

Well, you know, maybe people have never read Macbeth. I don't know. But at any rate, uh, this one is kind of a variation of an old fashioned, which we love around here. Um, and I had the stuff to make it. So that's why I picked it. So it's two ounces or two and a half ounces. I upped it a little bit of Scotch whiskey muddled. And this is the important part

Bill:

muddled

Chris:

a teaspoon of Brown sugar. So a lot of old fashioned is called for simple syrup. Okay. Sure up simple syrup, which is the easy way to do it, but I actually prefer to muddle my syrup if you know, I'm feeling like it and not feeling lazy. I feel like it's better. and a dash of Pisho bitters. And then you just stir with ice and garnish with an orange peel. Pretty straightforward.

Bill:

was really good.

Jason:

Yeah, it's tasty.

Chris:

it is

Bill:

I do have a, quick thing of like a Bill fun fact. I love musicals. And since our last meeting, I went to see Something Rotten. Have you seen it? Do you know what it's about?

Chris:

about? It's a comedy

Bill:

a, it's a comedy musical, but it's about, Neil and Neville Bottom, who are playwrights in the time of Shakespeare. So it's set in Shakespearean times. And they like, hate, or at least one of them hates Shakespeare, because they can't write a play that beats Shakespeare, because Shakespeare has all these great plays. So the whole, the whole show is about them trying to figure out how to get a play. play that is good as good or better than Shakespeare and it's a it's a it's a very fun musical I will play for you some of the songs from the soundtrack next time

Chris:

Nice. Yeah, did you see the d pack or?

Bill:

no it was um the rose garden and and nc and nc studio um what is that

Jason:

Is

Chris:

Is that an

Bill:

it's it's a little theater no

Chris:

It's not outside?

Bill:

no there is one there and outside one at the rose garden that's right next I guess it's Raleigh little theater

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bill:

They did a fantastic job. All of them were just killer singers and whatever. So they did an excellent execution of the play.

Chris:

Nice.

Jason:

Cool. Well,

Chris:

I think that wraps it up. I will just mention very quickly, on our backstage, we're continuing on down our top 100 games of all time bills ever changing and morphing list. Who knows what might show up on there? We've been doing this for two months and the game. Bill played last night might just pop on there suddenly and mysteriously knock something else off that we'll never know about, but who

Bill:

that's true

Chris:

So I believe, tonight we're doing 85 through 81 if I'm remembering correctly, but. We're continuing down our top 100. So, to get access to that again, that's our backstage podcast. It's a Patrion exclusive podcast. So if you, back us on Patreon for as little as 2 a month, you get access to that exclusive content. Get to hear us talk about some of our favorite games and make fun of each other for like in certain games and having all kinds of hot, crazy. What's the word I'm looking for?

Bill:

I don't know, shenanigans?

Chris:

I was gonna say hot topics, but that's not the word I'm trying to think of hot takes. That's it hot takes on board games

Jason:

trying, I'm

Bill:

describe it.

Chris:

trying, I'm trying to, well up some enthusiasm amongst the base. Maybe you listener are on the fence about becoming a Patrion backer. Can I convince you how awesome our top 100 is? Hot takes.

Jason:

takes.

Bill:

is. If it takes blood, sweat, and tears to make one, I put it in. That's right.

Chris:

right. Hidden gems after dark. All right, well,

Jason:

that.

Chris:

that's enough banter. Let's get on the reviews. Yeah.

Jason:

Awesome. Let's do it.

Chris:

is the beginning of the 19th century and researchers are exploring the unmapped Amazon rainforest. They hope to discover new and exotic species of orchids, fish, butterflies, parrots, and iguanas.

Jason:

and

Chris:

Now you will join this adventure as one of those explorers.

Jason:

point. That's

Chris:

done. Exclamation point that's the abridged version of the flavor text. We take some creative liberties with the flavor text here on Hidden Gems if it's particularly sucky, which that one was.

Bill:

was. Alright,

Chris:

Amazons.

Bill:

Published

Chris:

2005. It's a good year. It's Dominion, I think. Published by Cosmos and Mayfair Games. At the time of this recording, it's BGG ranking is 4, 718.

Bill:

718.

Chris:

Obviously, the designer of this game is Stefan Dora. It's a solo design. Alright, brief rule summary for Amazonas. in Amazon, as the players act as researchers who are traveling to different villages throughout the Amazon rainforest in an attempt to study different types of flora and fauna via the building of huts. or research stations.

Jason:

The

Chris:

board in Amazonas shows a portion of the Amazon rainforest with numerous villages interspersed throughout the region. These villages are connected by a web of different paths and I would emphasize the word web there. There are numerous different paths and connections between all these different villages. It's spaghetti. It really is. there's a lot of connections here. with some of these paths traveling through the jungle and others traveling across water. Each village on the game board has anywhere from one to three spaces associated with it that can accept player huts, and each village is associated with a specific type of research tile.

Bill:

That

Chris:

important for income and end game scoring, which I'll talk about in a minute. Each player starts the game with 12 huts and their player color and a set of seven income cards. And I would note that these seven income cards are essentially identical between all of the players with the exception of some tiny little tiebreaker numbers, which I'm not going to go into detail here. In addition to their starting materials, each player will also receive a secret objective card that they will need to be working towards over the course of the game. More on that at the very end of the summary. The game is played over 18 rounds, and each round a single event card will be flipped face up and in play for the duration of that round. So some examples of that might be the Jaguar card might come out, and what that means is that players cannot travel along forest paths for this round because the Jaguar is looming about. Or the crocodile is out, so now you can't travel

Bill:

across the water

Chris:

there might be a wildfire card, which everybody's income is halved for this round. So, there's a mixture of good and bad events that will randomly come out over the course of the game each round, and you don't know the orders are going to come out. They kind of add a tactical element to the game. So after the event card is revealed for the round, each player will choose an income card from their hand and place it face down on the table. So let me go into a little bit more detail on the income card. So they have really two pieces of information on them. They have a number, and then they have a picture of a type of research tile on it. So we'll take the iguanas, for example. The iguana card has a three printed on it. So what that means is, is if you choose that card to play, you will get an income of three. Plus however many Iguana research tiles you've collected up to that point. So if I had two Iguana tiles and I played that card, I would get five silver coins of income for that round.

Bill:

Okay, I

Chris:

would also mention one more special type of income card, the native. This is a six value card. It's the highest valued card that a player owns and the reason why it's important is if you play it, it will allow you to ignore a negative event. for the round. But like I said, you only have one of these. Once everyone has selected a card, they are then all simultaneously revealed. So you don't know what your other opponents are choosing to play until everyone has picked a card.

Jason:

The

Chris:

will then take their income based on the played card. But even more importantly, The turn order for the round is ordered from highest income collected to lowest income. So that's another thing that may influence your decision is the higher card you play or the higher income you earn, the earlier you will go in turn order. Once the turn order is set, the first player will use their earned money to place huts out onto the board. So I didn't mention this, but every player will start the game with one hut out on the board. And then from that hut every. New hut must be able to be traced back to an existing hut that was placed at some point earlier in the game.

Bill:

I mentioned

Chris:

that each village can accept anywhere from one to three huts. And I would point out, and this is really important to understand, is that the cost, to place a hut in a village increases as more and more people place there. So if you're the first person to place, it'll be cheapest for you. If a village will accept three huts and two are already there, that third placement is going to be much more expensive for you. Okay. And that will definitely factor into your decision making in this game. and then lastly, and very importantly, when you build a hut, In a village, you get a research tile that coordinates with that village. so one village might be the purple orchid village. One of many, if you build there, you get a purple orchid research tile. And remember that's important for your income, but also for point scoring.

Bill:

You

Chris:

to say something to Jason. Oh, it looks like you're going Maybe you're just scratching your nose on the, uh, pop

Bill:

pop

Chris:

Perfect. Thank you.

Bill:

Perfect, He's gonna blame that on me later.

Chris:

The game will end once the 18th event card is resolved. So at the end of the 18th round at this point, the players will be awarded victory points for three things, research tiles, but only if you have at least three research tiles of that type. So if I had four fish research tiles, I would get four points. If I only had two. Fish research tiles. Those tiles would give me nothing. Okay. Second, there's a diversification bonus. So if you're the first person to get all five of the different types of research tiles, you'll get a five point chip. Then the next person do, we'll get four points. Next person gets three points, so on and so on. And then finally the secret objective at the start of the game, you're given a card that has four locations on it. At the end of the game for every one of these places that you were unable to reach by building a hut in that village, you will lose three points off of your score, which is a killer. Okay. Yeah. Can't be doing that. All right. And that's generally how you play Amazonas. You remember it now, Bill?

Bill:

do. Thank you. It's like, it's the first time I've heard

Chris:

you ready to talk about it? All right. So in the, If I didn't make it clear from the rules, I want to reemphasize it here. This is one of those games where money is like mega tight. Okay.

Jason:

It's

Chris:

to come by and place in villages is really expensive or place in Hudson villages is really expensive. And the later you are to the game in a certain village, the more and more expensive it gets, and you really don't have a lot of leeway. to be paying a lot extra in different places, right? So money management and efficiency and trying to get where you need to get is really important about this game. And that's closely tied to the card play, right? Because what card you play for the round

Bill:

determines

Chris:

how much money you get for the round, but it also determines your turn order, right?

Bill:

Right.

Chris:

So how do you guys feel about that dynamic of managing this tight economy versus trying to figure out what cards to play and how that factored into your decision making?

Jason:

I enjoyed this part of the game. I think it's definitely a little brain, Bernie.

Bill:

although

Jason:

It feels like it's mainly about how do I just generally increase my income potential quickly, I don't know that I felt super strained in terms of like, oh man, do I play The four or do I play the five? It felt like it's it's more about Your tempo almost like when do I when do I grab a lot of money? You To be able to get something out on the board that I need to get something that I need to get fast, right? I need to get there before Bill does, right?

Bill:

So that would determine whether you play a high card or a low card, right?

Jason:

Well, sure, but, um,

Chris:

a one if you need to get something out fast, right?

Bill:

Yeah,

Jason:

but it's kind of like, you're going to have to play that one at some point.

Chris:

Well, sure and

Jason:

so I

Chris:

don't pay it at one of those times. I guess like we're already arguing Yeah,

Jason:

I'll save that for, for cons, but, um, I, I did really actually enjoy this part. I think there is, there's sequencing involved, right? Because every time you place a village, you're getting another, you're getting another bump in your income potential. But if you've already spent that card it's not a waste, but

Chris:

You're not being efficient.

Jason:

not going to get the benefit of that until we've looped all the way through the deck and come back around to the other side. yeah. It was a fun puzzle to try to figure out. One that I screwed up horribly the first time we played. But once I had kind of played it once and kind of got the hang of it and figured out what the heck I was supposed to be doing, it made a lot more sense. Yeah,

Chris:

Yeah. Bill, I want you to go next, but he mentioned something I wanna mention real quick is that you go through your deck two and a half times, that's something that may not have been clear from my rules explanation, but you'll play all your cards once, once you've gone through, you pick the cards up. You'll play through them all once again, and then you'll play through three or four of those cards one more time. So, that's what Jason was referring to. It was a good point to make. Alright, go ahead,

Bill:

Yeah, well, I mean that that Question kind of wraps up the whole strategy of the game, right? Because when you are starting and you're looking at your strategic objectives card, you're not only thinking about the money you need to get, but you also have a direction you need to go because you need to start heading towards those cities because, uh, you can get cut off or that direction that you need to go can get really expensive if somebody else cuts in front of you. So there's a whole, you know, the first turn probably is the longest turn. Maybe as you assess on the board of, okay, where do I think everybody else is going to go? Uh, and then, uh, You also are thinking about, do I want to, start my set collection at the very beginning and then identify, you know, things three or four, you know, certain animal types to go after, or do I want to diversify and get all five of them and get that five five point chip? And so some each one of those, you know, lends itself to a pathway and then that lends itself to how much or how high do I want to play my number to make sure that I get the thing that I want to do or and or the money that I need to play to get at least the first two or three steps. Because often if you get down a road you're kind of making it unattractive for somebody else to follow you. So, uh, or you're, you're cutting off somebody else from, from immediately going somewhere else that you want to go. Especially early game. I mean I thought it was pretty clever, clever design from the game point perspective. Yeah, money is insanely tight in this game. You're constantly trying to figure out. How can I be as efficient as possible

Chris:

So that I can spend as little money as possible. Being the first person to place in a village is really huge in this game. And

Jason:

in the ones that have spots that only require, what is it, two gold nuggets?

Chris:

Two gold medals. Two gold coins. Yeah. So I'll, I should also mention here quickly too, that the currency is broken up into every three silver coins equals a gold coin.

Bill:

Yeah,

Jason:

you'll play a card. It's like oh I get six six coins. That's amazing. And then you're like, oh wait, that's two

Chris:

two gold coins, which is the cheapest spot in a village, right? So most spots are three, four, some are even up to five gold coins, which is mega expensive. There are only a few spots that are that way, but you don't want to have to be placed in there.

Jason:

I had to do that Bill ken, thanks

Chris:

Yeah. But if somebody beats you to the punch, right. You, it can hurt you. Right. So I found myself and I hesitate to compare it to this because I'm not saying this game is. Through the desert

Bill:

Not

Chris:

it's as good as through the desert, okay But I'm just making a point that through the desert kind of has that feel of like Okay This part of the board over here. It's kind of safe, right? I need to go this way But I'm the only one over here. I can kind of wait on that, right? Maybe I should go over here and try to start going this way and grab these villages why they're cheap

Bill:

Mm hmm

Chris:

Even if I don't necessarily have to be going that way. Right. But I might be trying to get like my third Iguana or something like that. And I'll hold off on these, right? To your peril sometimes, right? Because you might get strapped on cash and how the events come out. And since somebody might swoop down there and jump in there before you, but I did feel like I was very much trying to figure out what's the most efficient play for me right now. Right. What's safe. What can I let sit? Right. What do I think I can leave? What can I grab now and come back to later? And the choice of card you play very much factors into that. There are some times where I'm like, I'm pointed in a direction. Jason's pointed in a direction. Bill's pointed in a direction. Nobody's gone there yet, and I know I need to go there. I need to play a high card because I want to be the first to get there and pay the cheap cost, right? So I felt like that decision making was kind of at play in this game, at least for me. I enjoyed that part of

Bill:

it. Absolutely. There are, I mean, one other thing I'll mention is there are some cities that have like four or five roads that go into it, and others only have three. And so there are some hubs that are, are kind of key

Chris:

get locked out.

Bill:

strategically, because you, you, you either need them so that you pass through them easily or, yeah, or you can make it expensive for somebody else. Yeah.

Jason:

for somebody else. Yeah, this is

Chris:

Yeah. This is an, this is an interesting

Bill:

thing,

Chris:

I think in that the scoring, it's not one point per chip, which wouldn't be nearly as interesting. The chips are only worth something unless you have three of them, with the exception of at least having one of everything for the diversification. Right. but I did like that decision of, and we saw this in the very last game of this we played, which I thought was really interesting. Jason, I think you did this a couple of times where you just grabbed a couple of chips, I think just because they were cheap. I'm not even sure if you needed them, but you're like, well, I'm here. They're cheap. Maybe I could start working towards a set here, right? So there's definitely a balance of I know i'm going for this type of token. I'm targeting it versus Well, i'm over here

Bill:

it's

Chris:

of cheap. I'm just going to pick it up because I can

Jason:

I think that's what I meant earlier To towards the just get as many villages as you can out on the board, right? Hey, there is definitely that like that takes skill and efficiency to do that But I feel like the faster you get villages out on the board The better off you are, right? Cause you're, cause every village you get out, you're building your money engine. Like you're, it's one extra coin that you're gonna get

Chris:

Even if it doesn't

Jason:

going

Chris:

it's a coin. Right.

Bill:

Right.

Jason:

And potentially multiple coins if you, if those like special card, event cards come out that also trigger off of whatever type that was. So I think I was playing a game of like, Well, I'm going to get as many villages out as I can, as quickly as I can, and that will build my engine up and then make it easier for me to do the things that I want to do. And I mean, you can't just build randomly. Like, you have to be going in a direction because you don't have time to do everything. And stuff gets prohibitively expensive, but

Chris:

because you don't have time to do everything. And stuff gets prohibitively expensive. It might lock you out of something on your card, right?

Bill:

Absolutely, because that happened to me the first game we played.

Chris:

Right, which is a killer.

Jason:

Yeah, losing 3 points in this game is huge when a score is like

Chris:

12,

Bill:

12th.

Jason:

Yeah. And

Bill:

it is funny when they talk about it being a spaghetti of roads. It is really easy for you to just not See that somebody else can get really close to your city or right on your city and just on a move

Chris:

Totally miss it. Yeah, there was one where I was like, oh, that spot is safe. Yes. I'm going to wait on that. And then next turn, Jason just swooped right over there and land. And I was like, what? And I just didn't see that he had a path through the river that went way from the other side of the board. Right. It's easy to miss it.

Bill:

It is Is there anything you guys didn't like?

Chris:

Yeah. I think this has been hit at a couple times already, but we should just go ahead and fully go here. Just. To make sure it's clear to the listeners, as Jason mentioned, this game is mega low scoring, like super low scoring. Okay. Like a winning score, 12, 13, 14. Right. And a lot of scores are nine, 10 to 12 usually. So

Jason:

so

Chris:

that does add some tension, I think. You disagree, Bill? You

Bill:

No, I'm just trying to remember. Maybe

Chris:

at the most. Yeah. This isn't like a 30 points per game game, okay? Yeah. They're low scores and they're pretty clustered. Because there's just not a lot of scoring parameters, right? Yeah,

Jason:

Yeah, I think the last game we played, it was like 14 or something

Chris:

They're gonna be really tight because there's just, there's not a lot, there's no like, quote unquote, big move in this game where you score a bunch of points. It's very incremental. Yeah.

Jason:

I was gonna argue the opposite. I was gonna say, I mean, not big points. But I was gonna say that like, I think that that set collection, like the one of everything thing is like massively powerful in this game. Like

Chris:

points. Oh, oh yeah. But if I'm the second to do it, I get four. So you got one more point

Jason:

problem. Yeah.

Chris:

But you're right. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Just hold that

Jason:

come back to

Chris:

you're, you're correct. So. What was I saying?

Jason:

Sorry, I threw you off.

Chris:

I'm trying to remember. No, it's fine. Yeah, so there's, there's not a lot of scoring parameters.

Bill:

They're

Chris:

low scoring. Yeah, that segues into what I was going to say. Okay. So generally, I felt like we were all pretty much scoring the same amount of points for research tokens.

Jason:

If

Chris:

don't hit every spot on your secret objective, you're out.

Bill:

right? You're

Chris:

You're done. So it really came down to the players that hit all of their secret objectives. You generally got same amount for research tokens. And every time we played

Jason:

who got all one of each first, right?

Chris:

So it came down to who got the diversification bonuses earlier. And when I say that,

Bill:

What I

Chris:

mean is whoever gets it first is going to do better than whoever got it last. Cause whoever gets it last gets two points. Whoever gets it first gets five. So it gets five, four, three, two. If you get it second. You still have a chance. Third, maybe, you still have a chance. If you are last to get it, you're probably done there, too.

Bill:

Right?

Chris:

So, I feel like this game just needs, like, one or two more scoring things. You know what I mean? Just a couple more.

Jason:

Just to give you a

Bill:

couple more things to think about.

Jason:

It's like everybody has to do the exact same thing and it's just who does it one turn faster than the other person.

Chris:

other person.

Jason:

it's still a fun puzzle to be solved.

Bill:

Yeah.

Jason:

But it's like, yeah, okay.

Bill:

But it, it is funny, because that's on my notes here too. If that's true, then when you look at the map, there are Certainly places that is better and easier to accomplish that than other places. The diversification, yes, because there are some certain paths where you get a lot of that diversification on cheaper cities, that are like two coin cities versus three coin cities.

Jason:

Yeah, that was going to be another one of my points is that, I mean, the map is static, there's no variation. To what's on the map, right? It is the same map every time, the costs of the cities are the same every time. So, I would, to Bill's point, I would wonder that if you played this a lot, would you start to hone in on, these are the places to start. Right. These, I mean, your, your, your objective card matters,

Chris:

what changes the game from game to game.

Bill:

Right.

Chris:

Because you're gonna get in each other's way in different ways depending upon what cards are drawn by the players, right?

Jason:

Sure. Yeah. But I think that there are, like the first time we played, I started way over on the edge of the map because I thought I was being clever and I was going to start in one of my, one of my cities that I needed. And I was like, ah, I got one already. And then I struggled the entire rest of the game because I couldn't get to where I needed to get to because I started way off in the corner somewhere. So I feel like you would start to center in, hone in on like certain, some of those like hub cities that you were talking about, Bill, where, you know,

Chris:

don't really know where, you know. I'm

Jason:

I'm not saying I know that for sure, I'm just, I'm, I'm suspicious of that. Sure.

Bill:

Well, but, I mean, I think there is, but I don't think that makes it a bad, a worse game for that. Cause, I mean, pick a hub city, or pick something you can, I mean, I don't, I don't know. To me it's, that, that part's

Jason:

you can, I mean, I don't, I don't know. To me, it's, uh, that part's Yeah, that's fair. I

Bill:

Are we ready for final thoughts? I

Jason:

Yeah, who

Bill:

Who wants to go? Bill.

Chris:

Alright. Well

Bill:

all this said, well, that negative dumping you guys did. I really enjoyed my plays of this. Uh, the last game, like you said, uh, we've, we've just talked about for a long time, was decided by one point and went to the person who got the five animal types. And maybe the other, I think the other game before that went to the person who got the five animal types. So that certainly is a, a problem. And it does seem like that may be crucial to win, but, I don't know. There may be enough variability there that, Other strategies can't overcome it. I also think this game probably suffers from optimal hut paths because, that will just manifest as kind of a meta that this is how you play, over long periods of game. But, uh, With all that said, I did like the decision spaces. I did like the fact that, okay, how do I get, you know, something on a three coin boundary so I have my gold coin that I can spend something, this ride, how do I spend my cards to, to, to make that lineup next time? How do I race to the spot so I don't get closed out or, you know, block Chris so that it is going to create an irritation for him.'cause I know he is needed to come over to this, to this continent. Some, sometimes. So I mean, I, I loved all of that part of it. But, you know, Chris, I didn't really think about it, but I do, I do think having some other scoring mechanism would just bring this game up to the next level. I waffled really hard between a 3 but, we were talking about, somebody was talking about cleaning up games, and it's like, You know, somebody has a strategy that when I first have a game, I just rank all the pieces into the box, and I don't try to put them away any, you know, kind of clean or put them in a bag or anything, because I just don't think I'm going to play it again. If I play it two more times, then I'll start putting it in a baggie or something like that. So for a bunch of games that you don't necessarily think you're going to play, I mean, I think this is like worth having and worth playing. And it's, it's a fun game to, to, you know, go through two or three times, and, or put it on your shelf for a year or two and then pull it back out again. And you'll probably forget those strategies.

Chris:

I'm

Bill:

So I'm going to go with a four. I liked it.

Chris:

four. Man,

Bill:

Man,

Jason:

Bill, you like nailed my thoughts almost perfectly on that one.

Chris:

Yeah, I

Jason:

I think I would echo what you said. I think some of those same concerns sit in the back of my head of like, man, if this was a game I was going to play all the time, would some of this stuff start to become samey, but let's face it, we're hidden gems podcasts people, and we never play

Chris:

the same game. That's right. The woes

Jason:

one episode. So,

Chris:

a reviewer. So,

Jason:

you know, I'm never going to play this game again, probably. That said, like, I enjoyed our plays of it. I think there's something about these, like, network building games where it's efficiency and network building that, really kind of appeals to me, generally speaking. yeah. I enjoyed it once I got over, like, how badly I screwed up the first time we played it. So, I think I fall in the same category. I was waffling between a 3 but the more I've, thought about it and the, the, the Niche that it fits. I think, I think it's worthy of at least a four. It's worth a play,

Chris:

4. Nice.

Jason:

two.

Chris:

2. Okay. Yeah, so for me, I echo y'all's thoughts. like Jason just said, I think maybe it's just all of our personalities and you too, Bill. These network efficiency route building games are just fun. I just really love games where you're trying to figure out what's I have multiple options. Which way do I need to go? That's the safest and most efficient for me in this moment. I love games like that. The thing that was killing this game for me is we always were having fun, or at least I was during the game. It sounds like we all were placing out the huts, being efficient. It's fun. And then when we get to the final scoring, it always just felt a little like, uh,

Bill:

Like,

Chris:

there's needs to be something more here. You know what I mean? It was just always a little bit deflating.

Bill:

So

Chris:

too was struggling between a three and a four, but I actually have some good news. I'm springing this on y'all. BGG is an incredible resource. It really is. So BGG as we'll talk about later actually was very helpful in another review we're going to talk about tonight. And so I

Jason:

dived deep

Chris:

into the BGG forums on Amazonas and I found a post from Stefan Dora himself

Jason:

Oh, wow.

Chris:

way back like 12 years ago. From when he was talking about how he plays the game and how he originally designed it to be played.

Bill:

Huh.

Chris:

And there is another scoring parameter that is not included in the Mayfair game. Because Mayfair, Dora said Mayfair wanted the game to be more family friendly.

Jason:

Oh god. Oh interesting

Bill:

right? Translate

Chris:

easier, right? Or like less harsh, right? So the addition is You If you have the most tiles of a certain type, you get two points. If you tie for the most, you get one point, regardless of how many you have, you could have one or two if you, and that's the most, you get two points for that.

Bill:

Oh, wow.

Chris:

So that kind of is at odds with the diversification strategy, right?

Jason:

Yeah.

Chris:

And so you can see how that I think, balance things out to where, like really going heavy towards a couple of things. would really help you if you got two points for each of

Jason:

Yeah, because that's the problem, right? The the whole get to three and score these tiles thing makes it Not very beneficial to go beyond three, right? You want to get to three in as many as you can to lock in those three points But going to four is a lot of effort for one point Where I could just focus on a different category get to three and get three points

Chris:

But if I have three and you have four of them, you get two more

Jason:

me a reason to go for more of something Yeah And try to lock you out of them, right? Because there are only so many of each city, right? I don't know how many there are of each but

Chris:

Yeah. Yeah.

Bill:

So

Chris:

because of that, and because I agree with you, I enjoyed it while we were playing it, and with that knowledge and knowing that that exists, I would recommend Tu ball just to play that way. If you seek to get this one out. I'm also gonna give this game a four. I think it's good.

Jason:

Cool

Bill:

all on the table. Yeah.

Chris:

How hard is it to find this one?

Bill:

So

Chris:

new code is Holiday Gems 24. I think Billy just used this the other day. He

Bill:

I got decryptos. You bought

Chris:

decrypto.

Jason:

a big clearance sale going on lately too. I think it might have ended today or something.

Chris:

Yes, they are having a big clearance right now. It'll be over by the

Bill:

will also say that your code worked in addition to the sales because usually you can't do it. So at the end of my order, it applied it to the whole thing. So it was pretty cool.

Chris:

Thanks, Noble Knight. So again, Holiday Jim's 24 and then there are also 29 copies on BGG. So, I mean, for as old as it is, it's pretty, findable. You shouldn't have any problem.

Bill:

to go. Awesome. Oh, well

Jason:

Well, those are our thoughts on Amazonas. Ba In 1878, the Royal Museum of Berlin commissioned excavations in Pergamon, an ancient Greek city found in present day Turkey. The city experienced its heyday around 200 B. C., when it was the foremost port in the ancient Roman province of Asia. As archaeologists, your goal is to get as much research funding as possible in order to finance excavations in Pergamon. You will unearth pieces of antique vases, jugs, bracelets, and golden masks. Digging deeper costs more, but rewards you with older and more valuable relics. By piecing together matching artifacts, you'll build collections to exhibit at the Pergamon Museum. The player who exhibits the most valuable collections will gain the most recognition by the museum's visitors and win the game.

Chris:

my best camera

Jason:

my best Cameron right there.

Bill:

Awesome.

Chris:

Yes. Well done. That was

Jason:

match him, but

Chris:

quite match Cool Alright, Pergamon. Yes.

Jason:

This is the second edition, which is an important detail that we'll circle back

Chris:

Yes, it is.

Jason:

Um, Published in 2011 by Eagle Griffin Games. Designed, of course, by Stephan Dora. And currently ranked on BGG 1783. not that high up there. Can I interrupt

Chris:

Can I interrupt you real quick? You

Jason:

You can. I'll allow it.

Chris:

This, this game was recommended by one of our guild members, Andrew Gores.

Jason:

Thank you, Andrew. Yeah,

Bill:

thank you,

Chris:

for the recommendation on our, uh, hidden Jims list on the board game. Gee Guild. Feel free to contribute to it, please. We, we pull from it.

Jason:

Yeah. Cool. Alright. As was so eloquently read in the flavor text. in Pergamon, players are museum curators, I think, or archaeologists trying to install the greatest museum pieces to attract the largest crowds to the museum. Each player starts a game with a player pawn, two coins for buying those awesome artifacts, and three museum exhibit markers. That's it. The game is played over twelve rounds, each of which has four phases. So I'm just going to go through the phases. In the first phase, new artifact tiles are loaded into the purchasing area. So that all players can see what's available for that round. And that each round has a different number of tiles that come out seven, six, five, and then five from that point on each artifact tile has a broken right side of an artifact on the left side of it. And a broken left side of an artifact on the right side of it.

Bill:

Got that?

Jason:

Yeah. Got that straight. So basically if you. Chain these tiles together from left to right. You are connecting the left halves and the right halves together to form, hopefully, complete artifacts.

Bill:

Like dominoes.

Jason:

Yeah. And it's important to note that there are four different types of artifacts. There's masks, bracelets, vases, and something else, jugs, right? So you have to match the right left half with the right, right half. Each of those tiles also on the right. On the right hand side has a number between 1 and 5, and on the left hand side has a random two digit number. So when you combine the two halves of an artifact together you get three numbers together which forms a date, BC, anywhere between like 100 BC and like 599 BC, right? Yes. This is important because the age of your artifacts matters for scoring and for all kinds of stuff. So, the new tiles that come out are placed into one of five rows based on their 1 through 5 number, so the number on the right hand side of the tile. 1 is going to the top row, 5 is going to the bottom row, everything else going in between on its corresponding numbered row. So that's phase one. In phase two Players will do a very interesting bidding phase for both income and turn order. So across the top of the board is a track. Each space on that track has two things on it. There's a number of coins that you hope, and I emphasize hope,

Chris:

that

Jason:

to acquire as your income or your funding for that round. These numbers increase from zero to up to six as you move further away from the start of the track. And then also on each space is a list of the artifact rows that you are able to choose from if you place your pawn in that space. So some spaces you may only be able to choose from the first row, while other spaces may allow you to choose from all five of the rows.

Bill:

So

Jason:

bidding, two funding cards will also be laid out face down. But the back of those cards shows you a range of coins that will be available for funding when they are flipped over. So these cards are either 1 to 4 or 5 to 8 coins each. So depending on what gets flipped out, for example, if one of each of those cards was flipped out, a 1 through 5 through 8, then the range of possible funding for that round would be 6 to 12, right? So you know it's going to be at least 6, could be up to 12, you don't really know.

Bill:

Players

Jason:

in reverse turn order from the previous round will choose a space on the track. And then once that's, done, obviously you can't choose the same space as somebody else. Once that's done, cards are flipped over, revealing the actual amount of funding that's available, and then the coins get paid out. To bidders in order from the beginning of the track to the end of the track based on how much you Chose to take right? So if only six coins come out And bill placed on a two space and I placed on a four space and chris went behind us. He gets nothing

Chris:

right

Bill:

However,

Jason:

And what this is what makes this? Really interesting Whoever comes whoever is the last on the track Gets everything that's left Yeah So if the people earlier in turn order, or earlier on the track, play it safe and bid only a little bit, they will get what they bid, but the person who's at the last space will get everything else, regardless of what they bid. If the cards

Chris:

out, right? Yeah, if they flip high

Jason:

could get screwed,

Chris:

or they could get screwed. Yeah, but you could get a huge payday

Jason:

get a huge payday. So, that's the second phase. In the third phase, then players may purchase artifacts from the, set of rows where they've been laid out in phase one. these purchases are resolved in bid order, so this is another thing that you're thinking about when you're bidding. Whoever is closer to the beginning of the track gets to choose what they're going to buy first.

Chris:

huge, yep. It's a big

Bill:

deal.

Jason:

Players may only purchase from rows that are available to them based on their bid space. So remember your each bid space tells you which rows you can choose from,

Bill:

And you're buying the whole row. You're not pulling individuals out here. When you buy the row,

Jason:

you can buy the whole row. You don't have to. Yeah. Uh, but you,

Chris:

But everything in the row is the same, costs the same

Jason:

right? Yeah. You can buy any of the rows for the cost of the number of the row. So the one hundreds. That row costs one, the 500s, that row will cost five, and you can, you take everything that's in the row.

Chris:

It's a flat cost regardless of the number of tiles in the row.

Jason:

Right. You guys are making me think I'm doing a bad

Chris:

No, no. I am

Jason:

of interjection going on. I don't know how I feel about it.

Chris:

parts of your description that I feel like need to be emphasized for relevance, importance.

Jason:

for relevance. You

Bill:

You should feel flattered. I was listening to you. I wasn't listening to Chris. Yeah, I could just sleep and take

Chris:

Yeah, usually.

Jason:

wasn't listening to Chris. of tiles matched together as long as all the artifact halves match. The value of an exhibit is the sum of all of the 1 through 5 numbers on the completed artifacts.

Bill:

and

Jason:

every time a player exhibits, they gain one victory point immediately. but then they will mark their chain of tiles with one of their three exhibit markers. and place a corresponding marker into the museum, which is another space on the board. This museum has spaces numbered 1 through 24, so based on that total value of your exhibit, you place your marker on the number that corresponds to it. Every space on the track has a point value between 1

Chris:

Mhm.

Jason:

With obviously the higher numbers being worth more.

Chris:

Uh,

Bill:

when

Jason:

place an exhibit, every exhibit below you on the track gets bumped down a space, right?

Chris:

Nobody wants to see that trash

Jason:

they're not as popular anymore. And if an exhibit falls off the end of the track, all those tiles just get wiped. They get removed from the game.

Bill:

the game.

Jason:

that is basically how a round plays out. There are four scoring rounds, on the track of 12. When a scoring round occurs, every exhibit that's in the museum will score points based on the space that it's at. there are a couple, special tiles that give extra victory points. I'm not going to go into the details of that, but players will score for those. And then in each of the scoring phases, one of the four types of artifacts will win. Give bonus points to the player who has exhibited the oldest artifact of that type.

Chris:

Yeah.

Jason:

then, importantly, at the end of a scoring phase, all of the artifacts slide down the track some number of spaces. So they all just kind of lose their, lose their luster, uh, after a scoring round. On

Chris:

out of the museum.

Jason:

way out of the game. Nice. You think I gave you that one to do? I was

Chris:

you that one to

Jason:

I'm not doing

Chris:

I was like, I'm not doing the rules to this one. I'm going to give it to

Jason:

this

Chris:

I

Jason:

I'm gonna give it to Jason. Uh, I was almost kind of gushing over it while I was explaining the rules. The, this bidding mechanism of choosing your income and your turn order and your available purchase spaces is really kind of the core of this game. So what were y'all's thoughts on that? Did you enjoy it as much as I did? Let's talk.

Chris:

Oh, Bill's going to let me go first. Oh, Jason, I'm gushing to, uh, dude, I'm telling you this turn order bidding track mechanism, honestly, I'm hyperbolic is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while in a game. It really is. It's not complicated. It's just a cool idea because it takes this idea of bidding in turn order and then introduces something to it that I typically don't love a lot, at least not in long games. It's usually more like in a party game and that's push your luck. There's absolutely push your luck introduced here and you need to know that.

Bill:

you

Chris:

to understand that what you're bidding on, you don't know exactly how. You know where you're going to land in turn order, but you don't know how much money you're going to get. And that really matters in this game, because the economy is pretty tight in this game also. Okay? Much like the one we mentioned last time. But I just felt like it lended itself to some really hard, great choices of Am I going to go farther to the right? Like really far to the right? And try to make sure that I'm first? But every spot you creep to the right, You're potentially Giving your opponents more and more money. And I think the most interesting spot on the whole board is the rightmost spot.

Bill:

Mm hmm.

Chris:

for example, let's say that two cards come out, and let's say that we know the range of money is anywhere from 6 to 12 coins. The very rightmost spot gives you no money. And you might be asking yourself, well why would you go there? Well, it's because I know I will be first this round and there may be a lot of tiles that I know I, I have to have them.

Jason:

And that space gives you access to all five

Chris:

Correct. You get whatever you need, you just get no money. That's

Bill:

That's the far left one, by the way.

Jason:

the

Chris:

the far right one all the way to the right

Jason:

the track goes back

Chris:

Yeah. It runs kind of in reverse direction.

Bill:

I'm looking at it upside down.

Chris:

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. The right most spot. But

Jason:

did realize we were, like, Bill was having a hard time figuring out how to match all the tiles together. He was looking at it, and we were like, oh yeah, you have been looking at the board upside down the entire time. So we finally flipped it around the other way.

Chris:

But what's so great about that spot is if I go there at minimum, I know that I'm letting Jason and Bill in a three player game. I think it's important to note. Divide at least six coins between themselves and maybe up to 12. Right? So if Jason goes on the four spot, I'm on the zero spot. And let's say Bill goes in the back spot and 11 coins come out. Bill just got seven coins, which is huge, right? But I allow that opportunity to him because I felt so strongly about going first. So there's just this constant tension of How far right do I want to go? Do I take less money or? And again, I usually don't love this in games or do I just be like, you know what? Screw it I'm going to go in the back. I'm going to try to hit it big this round, right? I think i'm due to get a payout and just see if it shakes out for I just found that to be Really fun, honestly

Bill:

So it is, it is great in a three player game. Yes. It was interesting playing in a four player game because very different very different.'cause it is so tight. Like let's say you do have something that's like between four and 12 and you're thinking, gosh, I really gotta have some coins here. I'm running short. I'm gonna put it on four because That's feeling pretty conservative. Well, if the other three people take the three coins to the left of you Or maybe a four spot to It's important to note

Jason:

to the right.

Bill:

are multiple

Chris:

Yeah.

Bill:

the closest one, you can feel like you're playing very conservatively, but if the other three people play in front of you, you could still end up with zero coins. So it's, it's, it is a fascinating, uh, I don't know, mental puzzle to think about what is everybody else going to do at the table when you're placing, especially when you're the first one. Well, actually, there's a challenge in every one of the positions, but I found it kind of interesting. It's like, okay, where am I going to plant the stake where everybody else has to make their choices around on either side of it?

Chris:

you make a good point of there's that decision to, of where can I go here to ensure I at least get something? There's the, I'm getting nothing but going earlier. There's the, I'm risking it to hit it big, and then there's the like. I just need to get like two or three. Where do I go here? Right?

Jason:

And what makes it even more interesting on top of that is The rows that are available to you right because the track doesn't just go well the first space you get access to One through five the next space you get access to one one through four. It kind of jumps around. It's staggered It goes like the first space is all five then the next space is only row one and then the next one is like rows one through three and then the next one is Like just rows one and two so it it jumps around which means that Especially for the higher rows. If you're looking for something in rows four or five, there are limited spaces that you can go that give you access to that. And so if somebody jumps on the conservative space that gives you one through five, and you really want one through five, you may have to place much further to the left on the track than you're comfortable doing.

Chris:

which is

Jason:

And so it's like, well, if I really want that, like either I need to jump to the zero space. To make sure that I get this thing first, or maybe that person just went on that space to just block me from, from being able to go there. Maybe I can go on the one to the right, but then I'm risking maybe not getting any money if, like, it comes, so there's just so, so much tension to this decision.

Bill:

Because there's, times where, Just how it works out that some rows out there don't get purchased. So you could have a, a row out there that has four artifacts on it. That's huge. I mean, picking up four for Absolutely. Yeah. Like for$2 or$3 Yep. Can, can just be, be absolutely huge. So it's, it's a, it's a great decision making point of is it worth foregoing the money to make sure I get that row. Yep. Totally.

Jason:

Alright, well, we've gushed over the turn order bidding piece for a little bit. Let's talk about the rest of it. So, the exhibiting and the purchasing of artifacts and assembling these rows and stuff. what did you all think about that part?

Chris:

Yeah, I think that's a good place to go next and I think that's really closely linked to, again, it's kind of a theme tonight, but the tightness of the economy and the money. Money can be hard to come by, especially if you come out on the short end of the stick of some of these like turnover bidding things. But you know, you need money to get the artifacts. That's the most important thing, but money is used for other things too. And this is another thing I thought was just really clever in the design is this idea of storage. You can store tiles.

Jason:

used for the two things that I left out of the rules explanation, but we can talk about

Chris:

We'll talk about it right now. So, Ideally, you would like to have a really large set of tiles because the larger it is, the more artifacts you have in

Jason:

more resilient. It is it won't fall out of the museum

Chris:

it'll have a higher value quote unquote, which will cause it to be deeper in the museum, which means it sticks around longer. And that's important because the farther you go back or the more prestigious your exhibit is, the more points it's worth every time we score. And it stays in longer, right? Because everything is moving towards the exit. It's on its way out.

Jason:

So

Chris:

storage is a nice way of holding tiles back until you acquire more tiles to put together a really big exhibit. But that costs money to do that. Then, yeah, yeah. A coin for every three, which doesn't sound like a lot, but you need that money to buy more tiles. And then in addition, you can polish. Up to three coins to buff up your artifacts and make them look more appealing, which also increases their point value, which causes them to again, be deeper in the museum, to be worth more and to stick around longer. But again, you need that money to bid, right? Or to, you need that money to when you place on the track to acquire the artifacts, because the deeper, Older artifacts are more expensive and you want those because they have benefits that we'll get into later. I'm sure maybe when we talk about cons a little bit, but they're important. Right? So I just liked how the money wasn't just about acquiring tiles, you had other things to think about as well, right?

Bill:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, and and to me, we're, we're talking about the strategy versus tactics of all this. There there's the strategy of, really how long do you hold onto it. It is that balance of is it, is it worth. playing the storage. And to me, that's the biggest difference between or exhibited between a three player and a four player game. Because in a four player game, you just absolutely couldn't, you could not keep anything because money was that tight in a four player game. In a three player game, it gave you enough flexibility. That I think you could make that choice of, you know what, I'm going to store this once it rises. Because the other thing it does for you is, sometimes the tiles that come out don't match up. Because this is kind of a puzzle game, and so it's just kind of a matter of luck sometimes. But you And this is, I'm totally

Jason:

I can't ever match anything.

Bill:

well, and they also weren't, I didn't have

Chris:

have that.

Bill:

yeah, I mean, if you have a big pool there to work with, when another set comes out, you are much more likely to have something that completes a really long line kind of thing. So holding them around. So to me, and this is kind of in my final thoughts that I feel like I would play more games of this because now I feel like I have the ability to think about Do I want to have the one that goes all the way up into the gold section, right? There's a there's a there's a center aisle

Jason:

The premier

Chris:

artifacts.

Bill:

that none of us ever got to because we all pulled the trigger too fast because we didn't want to pay the storage But maybe it's a good strategy to say, you know I'm gonna hold it on and I'm gonna pay storage two or three turns in a row Or something to try to get something on on the on the aisle

Chris:

good to be high up in the museum because if you didn't get this from the rules, if you're low down, every time somebody adds one above you, it knocks you, it knocks you towards the exit again. Right. But if you're real deep in the museum, you're kind of like

Bill:

safe

Chris:

in there. Right.

Bill:

Not only that, it's a bunch of points, right? It is. Because you get, you know, once you turn the corner, it's eight or ten points, but you forego scoring maybe once or twice, right? So that could be huge. Totally.

Jason:

that could be huge. I'll always say one more thing about it.

Chris:

it. We haven't talked about theme.

Jason:

We don't have Cameron here.

Chris:

But I thought the theme in this

Jason:

was pretty cool.

Chris:

thought it was

Jason:

thought it was pretty spot on. Somewhere in there. Greek? I don't know.

Chris:

know what it is.

Jason:

But uh, yeah, yeah, I thought the, I thought the theme was interesting too. It kind of drew me in a little bit. Totally agree. There was something about putting your

Bill:

collection together

Jason:

and then putting that little circular token in

Bill:

museum. You felt like you

Jason:

were exhibiting

Bill:

Right. And it's really neat. You know, and then the polishing, it's

Jason:

kind of like a cool little

Chris:

Touch,

Bill:

touch. Right. And even the point tokens have the little patrons as customers that come in, they'd see those part of your thing. So it was all nice touches that

Jason:

that you're selling to the museum.

Bill:

Exactly. It was very cool.

Jason:

All right.

Bill:

go on, con man.

Jason:

I will say that the thing that stood out to me, and I know Chris, you're going to mention one thing. Um, so I'm going to, I'm going to skip that for now, but, uh, I think the thing that stood out to me was it, And you kind of mentioned it, Bill, a little bit, is that the puzzling nature of piecing together these artifacts, there is, I think, a degree of luck here. Like Chris, you mentioned in Amazonas, the, the, uh, the luck of the draw of the event cards and when an event card comes out and it might not benefit you as much as it benefits somebody else based on kind of what you prioritized at a different time, I think a little bit of that holds true here as well. In that Just because of the cadence of the game. There are going to be rounds when you're flush, and there are going to be rounds when you're not. And that's just the nature of the game, because the money is so tight. Like, you spent money on good tiles that were worthwhile to purchase, so you are lower in income potential than Bill, who hasn't been able to buy anything that, Has matched up correctly for the past couple rounds. So he just has a lot of money and he's poised to make a big purchase, right? So if it just so happens that in that round, a really advantageous set of tiles gets randomly drawn out of the bag and flipped onto the board, then it's like an autoplay for bill almost. I mean, it's maybe not an autoplay cause you're forgoing money and giving potentially giving a lot of people, other money, a lot of other people, a lot of money.

Bill:

yeah

Jason:

But in a sense, it's like an autoplay to just go in that first space, guarantee that you get those tiles because you can afford it. And like, you're going to get an advantage by getting those tiles and then you move forward, right? So it's just an example. But I feel like that, that dynamic plays out in big and small ways throughout this game, where it's like, Oh, well, yeah, I just wasn't positioned in this particular round to be able to grab that thing. And this really advantageous thing came out. And that really benefited that person, right? In the long run, does that spoil it for me? I don't know. We'll have to wait until the final

Chris:

to wait

Jason:

but it is present, for sure.

Chris:

present, for sure. Yeah, do you want to go Bill? Yeah, so, and that what you were just alluding to, we'll just go ahead and go there, because what I'm about to say goes hand in hand with what you were just saying, and that this game and the way that it scores does tend to heavily emphasize old, heavily, heavily emphasize old artifacts, right? at each scoring, if you have the oldest of a certain type, you can get bonus points, and then at the end of the game, whoever has the three oldest, will get extra points. So the game

Jason:

is

Chris:

emphasizing getting really old stuff, but in my opinion, it's kind of over emphasizing it, because having an old artifact is a benefit in and of itself. Because it allows you to be deeper into the museum. And then on top of that, it's adding all these other things that benefit it. And so going to what you were saying, Jason, if it just so happens that a road comes out where you have a lot of really old tiles in it, that is a golden opportunity for whoever that falls for. And so that can feel a little bit deflating. And so we'll just go ahead and say that in the first edition rules. The way that the tiles come out, all of the five tiles, the oldest tiles will all get added to the five row. All the

Jason:

That's the second edition rules.

Chris:

or second edition. I'm sorry. Yes. All in the second edition rules, all the threes going to three row, all the twos going to two row. And so you can have around where a bunch of fives come out and somebody is just there to swoop them up. And that can feel kind of not great.

Bill:

Yeah So

Chris:

the first edition rules. In my opinion, this is my opinion, fix that or at, at minimum improve it greatly. And that if you're drawing five tiles out instead of all the fives going in the five row and the threes going to the three row, you just order them newest to oldest and you put one in each row regardless of the age. So for example, if I drew out two twos and three threes, I put 1, 2 value in the 1 row, 1, 2 value in the 2 row, and then the 3, 3's I would put 1 each in the 3, 4, and the 5 row. The reason I'm going in that deal, amount of granularity, because you're probably like, what? Is if you play this game, go back and listen to what I just said,

Bill:

and

Chris:

it like this, okay? And you can also find this in the BGG forums. It is infinitely Superior to the second edition rules. Like way better. Okay. What do you think, bill? Don't disagree with me.

Bill:

No, I absolutely agree. Cause I mean, well, of course, Chris won the first game because he was the one picking up the fives.

Chris:

I was like a bandit.

Bill:

It was.

Chris:

but it didn't feel good either. Lemme tell you.

Bill:

But it was interesting on the, Do you hold back your money? But you're right. Even if you held back your money, it would be just who happened to be first that round. Who got to be the one who who got their bid first. So, yeah. There's definitely a downside to it. I do feel like

Chris:

the first

Bill:

time we played it, playing a four player as well with those rules, it was a painful game to play. It was, it was just absolutely hard to get through. I feel a little more excited about this going to three players just because I feel like there's so much more wiggle room to do things, to think about different ways to play. With that new rule that you're talking about, where they, the tiles come out differently, and the fact that you can have some money to work with, that you can actually make the decision to say, I don't have to put it out this round, and it be viable.

Chris:

Yep.

Bill:

I do have one more thing about this. So, uh, Um, you kind of half alluded to it that some of these artifacts have bonuses on it that you get a victory point basically with it every time you score

Chris:

Some special

Bill:

artifacts that if you put it in there. one thing that bothered me about it is. They're, they're, it's like beige on beige. And so like whenever I got one, I didn't even know I got it. And then like Chris, Chris ended up beating us like by 10 points, but he ended up picking up these all the time. And I don't know how many you picked up, Grayson, or how much you.

Jason:

don't think I ever had one in any of the games we played. Right. Chris had them every

Bill:

Exactly. So, Chris, That sounds like

Chris:

is going

Bill:

That's Chris's normal cheating. But, it's one of the things that I would have liked, especially given that it was so important, because Chris, you know, beat us by a bunch, and I think a lot of it had to do with those points, because once you, if you have two or three of them, and you get, you know, They get, they score you a point every time you point and you have four points.

Chris:

do

Jason:

of the story is don't play games with

Chris:

Yeah, right.

Bill:

I just, the part of it was,

Chris:

not fun.

Bill:

that's right. Well, part of it was I'm farther away from it's beige on bays. I don't see it. Now. Yes, you're right. I need to start focusing on it and keep my eyes on.

Chris:

card right now?

Bill:

Yes. I'm playing part of it. Just if it's that important for a game like this, it should be just a little bit brighter. Right? Or something. Because I just couldn't pick it

Chris:

should be a sparkly vase

Bill:

It should have a little flashing light on the bottom of it.

Chris:

Pick me i'm important

Bill:

important. Exactly. Don't let Chris have it.

Jason:

Alright, final thoughts time.

Chris:

So

Jason:

This game is one that I had varying thoughts on throughout the time that we played it, right? Because we played it at four, or whatever. And I think Bill even mentioned this. It was kind of miserable. We played it at four with the second edition rules and it was super tight.

Bill:

In

Chris:

bad

Jason:

Multiple times, people were like getting out of the auction round with no money. and maybe that was just a skill thing in terms of us first play, not, you know, fully picking up on it yet, but it is really tight at four, and the way the tiles were coming out, it's just felt really rigid and not fun at all. Then we played it. A couple of times at three players, at least once with the new rules and once with the older rules. And it kind of really opened up when we played it at that player count. the turn order bidding mechanism is phenomenal. Like I really love that part of the game. so I'm going to give this two ratings at four players. I think this is just a three. I don't, I don't really want to play this game again at four at three players. I was between a five and a four on us, to be honest, mainly because of that bidding mechanism is, is awesome. I think some of the other like rigidity problems, like the, you know, just the kind of the luck of the draw on the tiles and some of the other stuff that, funky scoring with the, with the way the museum works and rich gets richer kind of stuff, some of that bothers me a little bit. But I was still between a five and a four on this. I think I settled in Final score I think is a four for me at three players so If you're if you're paying attention, that's uh, a three at four players and a four at three players but I could see this one potentially being more than a four with more plays and a couple tweaks here and there that bidding mechanism is just that good I don't know if it's enough to carry it to a five to me. but I would definitely play this game again. I enjoyed it.

Bill:

Nice.

Chris:

game again. I enjoyed it. I really enjoyed it, but I agree with both Bill and Jason. It is not fun at four players. And I, I'm really, I'm glad we all just kind of came to this conclusion. We didn't talk about this ahead of time because I had specifically wrote this as well in my notes. We all just kind of felt it. I think that term or mechanism doesn't work as well at four. And the reason there are multiple reasons, but the biggest for me is, is I, I feel like it. There needs to be that risk of the person on the end of really hitting it big, right? To make it worth it to go there or it affects the other people, right? As I mentioned earlier,

Jason:

The

Chris:

you place to the right to try to get the row you want, in a three player game you are really opening the door for your opponents to get a big influx of cash. And that needs to be there. In a four player game, you might. Maybe if you get lucky, get four coins in a round in our three player games, sometimes people are getting seven and eight and I feel like that being an available to you makes the game just way, way better. Okay. So play it at three. Okay. Do not play it in any other count. And then even at three with the second edition setup rules, I was at a three for this game.

Bill:

Hmm

Chris:

Because I just didn't like how lucky it was with the tiles coming out and people getting a lot of fives. The first edition setup rules for how the tiles come out each round

Bill:

completely fixed

Chris:

that for me. This game went from a 3 to a 5 just with that one change. And it's a small change, but it made a world of difference for this game. This game went from frustrating to incredible. With just that change. And so I think this game is awesome. Three players, first edition tile rules. It's a five. Fantastic. Loved it. Well, that helped a little bit.

Jason:

glow over there, wouldn't

Bill:

yeah. So, of the games that we played, I'd probably be most interested in playing this one again. Again, at three. Like, I totally agree with a four. Because this game, to me, is like a two at four. Just because it is just It's just painful to get through because the, the, the row costs don't change in this. And it's the same amount of money distributed amongst four. And so if you're going to buy a five, he's like, you might never be able to do that depending on turn order, just how things things work out. and I do like the fact that with three and having more money, it just gives you opportunity for flexibility in your strategy that you just didn't have in any other way. So. It's kind of funny, and I have the same sensation about this, the spectrum of fours, that there's, there's such a wide spectrum of four, cause this is such a better four, cause I'm going to give it a four as well. That I think, Amazonas. As a four, just because, uh, I would play Amazons again. I think I would have fun, but I'd be kind of excited about playing this one. Yeah.'cause I think I have thoughts about how to play it kind of thing, uh, or things I want to try. So anyway, I think, uh, if you have a chance to pick this up, you you should.

Chris:

And can we pick this up? Good news. There are copies available. A noble night Bill. I'm shocked, Chris.

Bill:

I'm shocked.

Chris:

Hurry and get'em folks before Bill snatches it up.

Bill:

So

Chris:

discount code is holiday gems 24. And then there are also 25 copies on the BGG marketplace. Again, I will emphasize that these are the second edition copies, mostly a Pergamon, which is fine. You can totally get that. That's the one we played with. Just play with the first edition. Rules when you place the artifact tiles out. Just want to make sure that's clear.

Jason:

make sure

Bill:

And don't play with four. No,

Jason:

Salamon,

Bill:

A delightful diversion steeped in the most exquisite artistry of strategy, patience, and fortitude. Imagine, if you will, an elegant tableau with the noble players in rich velvet and brocade gathered around a fine mahogany table. Upon it lies a game board of intricate design. Its squares and symbols echoing the ancient lands of Iberia where scholars once debated under golden sun and moonlit skies.

Jason:

The

Bill:

of Salamanca, so simple in their explanation, yet labyrinthine in their execution, require a mind sharpened by wit, and a hand steady with purpose. Each player, like a grand maestro, seeks to outmaneuver their rivals, weaving webs of intrigue through the placing of tokens that shimmer like the mosaics. This is from

Jason:

Is this from Chad GPT?

Chris:

This is

Bill:

is from ChadGBT. Okay, there is no flavor test for Salamanca.

Chris:

some

Bill:

But this goes on. I thought it was pretty good.

Chris:

thought it was

Bill:

son. Well done. Okay, well thank you.

Chris:

done. Bill's obsession with ChadGPT.

Bill:

Well, only when we don't have anything, Ericris. Here, let's see. You want me to read what I have? I'll read what I have.

Chris:

It was great. I don't

Bill:

The player with the double and the player with the most doubloons at the end of the game wins in order to reach the aim. Yeah, that's the, that's their

Chris:

lame. That was much better, Bill. That was a good job. Alright. Bet you didn't see this one coming, folks. But a lot of y'all never even heard of this game. Salamanca. Ugh. Ugh. Published in 2006 by Zach Verlag, at the time of this recording its BGG ranking is 9, 438.

Jason:

and thirty eight. Designer,

Chris:

Stefan Dora,

Bill:

Now we're in the true BGG range.

Chris:

we're there. Alright, brief rule summary for Salamanca. Salamanca is a game of territory building via the laying of tiles with the players competing to become the wealthiest landowners in Spain. The game board in Salamanca consists of a nine by nine square grid where the players will be placing landscape and building tiles. The building tiles come in three types. So you've got yellow farms, blue castles and red vineyards or red wineries, I guess, or monasteries. Likewise, the landscape tiles also come in three colors, but while there is just one type of red landscape tile, so the vineyards, there are two different types of blue landscape, the forests and lakes, and two different types of yellow landscape, which would be like fields and farms. So before we get into the rules, I'm just going to go ahead and explain how scoring works. Okay, I think that's critical to understanding before we get into the nuts and bolts of the rules. And scoring's pretty simple. There's only one thing that really scores points in this game, and that's the development of a region, which consists of a building and neighboring like landscape tiles. So a very simple example would be having a winery bordered by red landscape tiles. So let's say we had a winery surrounded by two red landscape tiles, sharing edges. The winery is worth four coins. Each adjacent landscape tile is worth another coin. So if I sold that building, I would get six coins or six points. Your money is points in this game. Another example. If I had a yellow farm surrounded by a three tile blob of farmland and a two tile blob of pasture land, I would get three coins for the farms, two coins for the pastures, and then two coins for the farm because that's how much farms are worth. So a total of seven coins. Okay? Alright. So knowing that, let's talk about how you play. Each round of Salamanca progresses through five phases. In the first phase of the game, the tile display gets new tiles. These are the tiles available to acquire, to place out on the board, to build your terrains, your, your kingdoms, your building with its surrounding landscapes. In the second phase, cards are played. Now I'll dwell here for a second because this is important and interesting. This phase is important because your played card will determine your position in the turn order, but your choice in card may also give you access to some special abilities on your turn. So the deck is numbered 1 through 10, but let's just use for example a 4 player game, it goes 1 through 8. The higher valued cards just have a number on them. Okay, but as you move towards the lower valued cards you get access to special abilities on the card So for example, the six value card can give you the ability to Take a card out of somebody's hand and exchange it with a card in your hand The four value card, which is the ruins will let you put a value plague token or a ruin token on an opponent's building rendering it worthless for scoring until they play a ruin card to move that token off of their tile and onto somebody else's tile. There are three more of these plague tokens. There's rats, locusts, and the poison bottle. So for example, the rat token, if you place it in a landscape area, let's say you place it in a forest neighboring somebody's castle, it halves the value of all those forest tiles. So you're basically putting markers on player's territories to make their territories less valuable, which makes them worth less points when they are to sell

Bill:

them. Okay?

Jason:

So,

Chris:

way that the card play happens is the start player will choose a card and play it face up to the table, not face down. Um, Then the next player in turn order will choose a card from their hand and play it face up to the table, but it cannot match a previously played card. So I didn't mention this, but there are two of each card in the deck. So there are two eights, two sevens, two sixes. So if somebody played a seven, you cannot then play a seven. And it's important to note in the setup that in a four player game, there'll be 16 cards. Those cards are shuffled and then dealt out to the player. So my starting hand might be seven. Both of the fours and then a one, for example. Okay? Once all the cards are played, the players will then take actions from highest card played first down to lowest card played. on your turn, as your action, you can do one of three things. You can choose to take tiles from the display, add them to the board, expanding regions or blocking off regions and territories. You Um, if you place any buildings on the board, you can occupy those with tokens, marking your ownership, and then you can sell buildings to get money and free up markers to acquire or to claim other buildings. Alternatively, you can place something called a conda token onto a building of an opponent. so listen up shared incentive lovers, those will get people interested. The way this works is, is that if you place your conda token on a building with somebody else, you're now for all intents and purposes kind of working together with that person. Because when they sell, they will get the total value of the building plus the landscapes. But you will also score points equal to the value of the landscape. So you're kind of incentivized to help that person grow their territory because it's helping you too. It's helping them, but it's helping you get ahead of the other players at the table. Okay? So that's the way that works. And then lastly, instead of doing those two things, you can choose to execute the special action that your card allows you to do. So for example, placing a plague token on a territory. It is important to note, That if you play the lowest card during the turn, you get to perform two of the previously described actions and you will play your card first in the next round. So, for example, if I play the two, the rat card, and it's the lowest card, I could the rat token and then still place tiles

Bill:

Or I could

Chris:

place the conda somewhere and place tiles or Place the rat token you can do two actions instead of just one in phase four This is important

Jason:

everybody's

Chris:

after everybody's taking their actions the cards played this round by each of the players Pass to the player on their left So the card you just played will now go into the hands of one of your opponents. And then finally, in phase five, players will earn coins if any of their owned areas have a total value of seven or more, minus any plague effects on the area. If they do, the owner gets two coins at the end of the round. Any conda tokens there will get one coin. Play will continue on in this way until all 65 terrain tiles have been played. At this point, the players will total their coins and the richest player wins the game. That's generally how you play Salamanca.

Bill:

Good job, Chris.

Chris:

sir. Thanks, man.

Jason:

You

Chris:

know, it wasn't an easy one. I

Jason:

I'll come back from playing teach you now.

Chris:

It was way harder than Pergamon.

Jason:

Oh, yeah. Uh huh.

Bill:

Alright.

Chris:

if you didn't fall asleep during my rules explanation and you were actually listening to me, or maybe you skipped ahead, which I wouldn't blame you, because rules are kind of boring. But anyways, if you did skip ahead, Or if you didn't skip ahead, you may have noticed that when I was describing the car play, it kind of sounded like El Grande, and that's because it is like El Grande. So similarly in El Grande, if you play a higher card, you get to go earlier, but if you play lower cards, it gives you access to in that game cubes. But in this game, it gives you access to placing plagues and doing neat things in your turn. Okay, so there's some interesting things going on here in the card play in Solomon and how you can. Affect your opponents in the board state? What'd you guys think about the CarPlay here in Salamanca?

Bill:

I thought it was very clever. it's a real puzzle thinking about. Well, I mean, the easy, the easy answer is, play high if there's something on the, on the tableau board that you want, like, especially early in the game, there's a city up there. You need a city to build anything and you want to start with that. However, you also know that that's going to your neighbor the next time. So if you play like an eight, which is the highest card, your neighbor's going to have that the next time. So do you want to, you know, kind of hoard your eight? And is there something better going to come out later? It's certainly in mid game that that becomes a real strategy of like, what do you keep and what, what do you send on to your, to your neighbor? So I thought it was a, very cool, very clever mechanism and, a great part of, I don't know, creating angst on how do I, kind of finesse my way through getting what I want on each of my turns.

Jason:

Yeah, totally. think I'm going to play spoiler a little bit here. maybe this is just me being a simpleton when it comes to playing this game, or maybe I just wasn't invested enough in it to like, think that deeply about it. I didn't feel as much tension as I've wanted to feel with the card play in this game. there definitely is the, you know, try to get the eights, try to get the sevens, make sure you have what you need in order to grab what you want on the board. I don't know, maybe it's tied into some of the other mechanisms of the game, but it wasn't as tense as I expected it to be based on what was, what was available. Like the puzzle in Amazonas with the card play and the numbers felt almost. Like more of a challenge because because you're playing it for that efficiency in this. It's really just, well, make sure I have some high numbers so I can grab something good if it comes out on the board. And then these lower numbered cards with their abilities, maybe I throw a token out there if there's an opportune spot to drop it. Right. But the spaces to drop them are fairly obvious.

Bill:

It

Jason:

felt like, in most of our games, like there's one person who obviously has a location that can be blocked by this thing. So if I happen to have the ability to do it because I get the double action for going last, I'll drop it there.

Bill:

But

Chris:

have to go last.

Jason:

have to go last, yeah. Where it became most tricky, I think, is when people start dropping things on you. And then you need to be able to get it off in order to sell your stuff, right? That becomes a little Interesting and it's like, okay Well, I need to make sure that I have one of these because if I start building up this area over here Somebody's gonna drop the locust token on me or whatever And I should make sure I have one of those in my hand so I can get rid of it when I need to

Bill:

need to. But,

Jason:

don't know

Chris:

I'm

Jason:

saying it's a bad mechanism It just didn't feel quite as tense as I've expected it to be I think So, take that for what you will, I guess.

Chris:

guess. Okay.

Jason:

Certainly not as tense as I think El Grande can be.

Bill:

can be.

Jason:

I see the comparison for sure, but I think I probably

Bill:

made a

Chris:

it's not mistake from

Jason:

a mistake from the perspective that they are similar in nature. They definitely are, I think. I think it's a good call out. I don't know if I felt the same degree of tension there, But that's just personal

Chris:

just personal opinion. I felt like there was some cleverness, in the card play here, in that, you know, if you, you have a hand of four or five, depending on player account, where you can hold cards back in your hand. I did that several times in the game, actually, where like, if there was a ruin token on Ken's vineyard, for example, and I'm holding both ruin cards in my hand, that's not ever leaving there.

Bill:

Right

Chris:

Until I play a ruin card, right? And so I can hold those on there and just torture him with that, right? Like if I set myself up, unless he plays the card

Bill:

It allows

Chris:

him to pull a card out of my hand, if he knows I'm holding one of those two cards, right? But that's a hard decision because that card is a high card. It's a six.

Bill:

Mm hmm

Chris:

So the likelihood of that being the lowest card played while not impossible is low. So am I going to use my entire turn? To pull a card out of your hand so that I can get this thing off of me. Well, maybe

Bill:

If it's

Chris:

a huge problem for me, right? Maybe I won't right and so I think Decisions like that, especially at the four player game. It's interesting how i'm pretty when we're talking about how you need to play it at three I'm, just going to go ahead and say now. I think this game needs to be played at four hundred percent For several reasons, but one of the reasons is what we're just discussing in that at four players You Well, let me back up. At three players, playing the three will probably be the lowest card. Not necessarily, but you have a better chance. Whereas at four players, that not nearly is guaranteed. And when you play those low cards, you want to be lowest because you want to be able to do what's on it and get another action. Nothing sucks more than playing a three and then somebody coming after you and playing a one, right? And then you're like, the whole reason I played that three to get this thing off of me. And I can still do that, but now I can't. Take tiles now. I can't move my con token. Right. And so I feel like the four player count made the card play more interesting. Right. Absolutely. I enjoyed what was going on there anyway, but I feel like it was even better at four mm-Hmm.

Bill:

Yeah. I feel like what's going on in the rest of the game, Jason, I resonate with what you're saying with that, not necessarily the card play, but, but just, I don't know, some of the other mechanisms within the game, uh,

Jason:

Well, let's talk about it. What do you,

Chris:

it. What

Bill:

But,

Chris:

what,

Jason:

think we've covered the card play. Yeah. what else is going on here?

Bill:

well, I'm, I'm gonna try to stay in the, in the things that I liked. Oh. I, I will say, the final part of the, the card thing is there's a five card that's, it's special power is that, um, Yeah.

Chris:

This card's fun.

Bill:

Yes. let's see. We'll describe the rules on it if it's the,

Chris:

it's the lowest card played, it's a five, but if it's the lowest card played, you become first.

Bill:

right? Right.

Chris:

So if somebody plays eight, seven, six, and you play the five, you're first, even though you played the lowest card.

Jason:

which interestingly is less advantageous at four, it is less likely that it's ever gonna be useful. It still happened. Yeah.

Bill:

Yeah, so true. And it is kind of a finesse card. Like if Chris plays eight and I play five, then Jason has to decide, um, is he going to let Chris go first or is he going to let me go first? And then he's gonna, kind of decide whether he's going to be second or not. it ends up being kind of a tricky move. And you can put somebody else in a bind. Kind of thing when you play that card. And so I absolutely enjoyed that one as well.

Jason:

I

Chris:

think we have to, for our listeners,'cause they love this kind of thing. And I think it's an interesting part of the game to talk about. We have to at least briefly talk about this condo token.

Jason:

So

Chris:

kind of a bigger, rounder little token that you can place

Jason:

with your, the fat guy,

Chris:

little fat guy who can sit. on a building that one of your opponents owns. And now you are synergistically linked together. There's some shared incentive there of, we're working together to increase our points against the other people at the table who aren't with us, so to speak. What did you guys feel about that mechanism?

Bill:

I think it worked well at, uh,

Jason:

Uh, for

Bill:

four players, it really was not, it didn't work well at three players at all kind of thing. But, um,

Chris:

Well, it

Bill:

well, it was just, I mean, I think we can mention it now. Yeah. Yeah. It was just easy, easy, I think, and almost accidental to end up with a two against one sort of situation just because of how the game flowed. Um, uh, and it's just hard to break out of it because. I don't know. It's just the mechanics of the game. It just doesn't make sense for the two people who are, are sharing their incentive to, to change that.

Jason:

Mm hmm.

Bill:

And it's hard for the third person, even with the, plagues and stuff like that to, to really keep it on them when you have two people that can remove it. Yeah. Kind of thing.

Jason:

Yeah, I thought it was good. I don't think it's the best shared incentive thing that I've played with, but It definitely evens the playing field a little bit, and at the same time, it like, spreads the, the colors a little bit, by which I mean, like, it makes the reds even more valuable, because jumping on a red tile means I am guaranteed four more points than even the person who leeches on to me, versus yellow, It's like somebody can leech onto me and get almost the same amount of points that I'm getting. the gap is different, right? that was, that was an

Chris:

How do you mean?

Jason:

mean? So, cause the red, the red buildings are worth four. Right. The yellow buildings are worth two. Right. Right. So if you and I are both sharing a yellow building, then I'm only getting two more points than you are. Sure. Right. We're, we're both scoring against everyone else at the table. But I'm only getting up on you by two. Versus if I'm on a red building, we're both scoring more than everybody else, but I'm up on you by four.

Chris:

Are you talking about, when you say I'm up on you, you're talking about the person who owns the building?

Jason:

Yeah.

Chris:

I don't know why that matters to the person who has the condo token though. They

Jason:

It doesn't. I'm saying it matters to the person who is getting leeched from, right? So if I have red buildings, getting leeched from is less of a problem for me. Okay. Like in, because in you're

Chris:

points though.

Jason:

You're not losing points.

Chris:

You want somebody to conda on your

Jason:

building. Well, maybe

Chris:

Not maybe, absolutely. Why wouldn't you? Because they're adding to your landscapes, right?

Jason:

Uh, yeah, but they're, they're adding in a way that is not giving you an advantage. Right.

Chris:

Why? That's not true. What?

Jason:

It's giving you an advantage against other players at the table. But if, if the person who's leeching onto you is in second place, right. Or is like in contention, then it's really just a, it's a, the only way that you have to gain an advantage over that person is to have the more valuable building,

Chris:

I feel like that if on somebody else's turn, they're adding tiles to your territory of their own volition, regardless of where they place them and they're making your territory more valuable, that's a good thing. Why would you not want that anytime somebody jumped on with me? I was like sweet. Let's go

Jason:

Because they're gaining those points too.

Chris:

four player game if they're gaining them and i'm gaining them at the same rate That's great because we're just getting farther ahead of the other two people, right? Like it doesn't matter me that you and I are gaining at the same rate as long as we're getting ahead of Ken and Bill Which is all that matters,

Jason:

right? So,

Chris:

If that makes sense, I'm not trying to be contrarian I'm trying to make for good listening I think I disagree with you is what I'm

Jason:

you good listening. I disagree with you, is what I'm saying.

Chris:

you can't separate yourself

Bill:

Yeah. You can't

Jason:

them. If you remove the guy in second place, you're not able to

Bill:

that person. If you're, if you're the guy in second place, you're not able to catch the guy in first place if he's able to just drop that on

Jason:

he's able to just drop that you. Somebody's in the lead, I can leech onto them, right? Or if I'm in contention with somebody, I can just leech from them, and now their lead is not really a lead anymore, because I'm getting almost as many points as

Chris:

Yeah. Great. Yeah. I mean, you jumped on there and nobody else did. Right.

Jason:

Yeah.

Chris:

Like to me, I think that's one of the decision points in this game is like any game. On your turn you're trying to figure out what scores me the most points now. Is it taking this pile of tiles? and start Doing another one of my own things on the board or maybe I just jump on with Jason because he's already got three tiles In that territory, that's at least three points

Jason:

I will say, the rule that you discovered at the very end, that we never played with, because you forgot about it, which is fine, is that you can spend your turn to move your guy from one space to another. We were playing it originally where if you, once you put your card in, Conda token down is locked in that location until the person who actually owns that spot sells their territory. And so like in the first game, I paired up with Ken and he like refused to sell his location cause he was trying to like make it huge. And he like didn't sell it until the very end. And so I basically didn't get to play with that token the whole game. Right. And I think we were all sort of playing that way. So I don't think they really moved around a whole lot at all that game, but in later games, when we were moving them around a lot. do think there is an additional decision point there of like, well, maybe I'm on, I'm leeching off of this person now, but maybe I should spend my turn to jump over and leech off this person instead.

Chris:

if they have a lot of plagues on them

Jason:

Or because they're the person who like I am closest in score to, and it would benefit me the most to like leech off of them and not from this person. Right. yeah, I thought that would be an interesting addition to it.

Chris:

That I'd

Jason:

That I'd like to play with at some point.

Chris:

point. I mean, I don't necessarily disagree

Bill:

mean,

Chris:

it,

Bill:

it's, I don't necessarily disagree with it, but I do also agree with you, Chris, that it's kind of a strategy of the game, right? You just, you need to find that third or fourth person that you put on that the leader's not on so that you catch up and you guys are partnering together. But, yeah, it's the nature of the game. Yeah,

Jason:

I mean, there were several

Bill:

times on my turn

Jason:

I

Bill:

was

Chris:

wanting to go first just so I could jump on to somebody's building, right? Like, yeah, I was like, that looks like a good point scoring opportunity for me. Regardless of whether that person's in last or first or whatever, I was just like, there's an opportunity to score points.

Jason:

points, right? Right.

Chris:

And what's nice about that synergistic relationship is because we're working together, You know, if somebody puts a negative token on you, I can kick it off for you, right? Because I don't want it on you. You're my opponent.

Jason:

but

Chris:

scoring points together right now, right? So I'm gonna add tiles. You add tiles, let's make this area big and let's score on it. I

Jason:

that person is more incentivized to get the token off because they only score for the land, whereas. Even if there's a token on me, I still score for my building. Correct. Right. Unless it's the building ruin token, I suppose. But

Chris:

Yeah, and that leads into one more thing I wanted to mention for pros before we transition to the console. I know we're getting a little long, but I feel like I have to mention this because I think it was

Bill:

interesting.

Chris:

that end of round scoring, where if your territory

Bill:

is

Chris:

least worth seven or more, The owner scores two points and the conda person, the leecher will score a point, right?

Bill:

so

Chris:

in a way It does incentivize you to build these larger areas Especially as a group because you want that recurring scoring but the trade off of that is the larger you get the more of a target you become Right for these plagues, right? And so to me, I thought that was a good thing of like balancing. Okay When do we just be like, you know, I'm spending too much time and energy and actions kicking these plagues off me. Let's just sell this and get points versus when do we sit at like size seven or eight and let's see if we can score two more points off of this, this round. Maybe we score it again. Right. I think in our plays, actually we were probably selling too early. I would like to play it more and try to utilize that scoring a little more, but I did like that element of the game. Do we have any other, we've talked about cons kind of throughout, I feel like, especially player count, things like that. Was there anything y'all wanted to mention before we get into final thoughts?

Jason:

Nah, kick us off.

Chris:

Yeah, just go for it. All right? Sure.

Jason:

Okay.

Chris:

I'm just gonna list off some games here. Nefertiti Hellis Co. Kesel Co. Magna Grisha, coat of nine. These are the kind of games. Jason's got his eyebrow up. He's like, what are you doing,

Bill:

Really?

Chris:

These are the kind of games, it's my hot take where I feel like we're doing. A positive service for the game community, and that, you know, we always joke that we just play bad games. That's actually not true. I feel like we've played a lot of really good games on the podcast. And I really like it when we find a game that not a lot of people know about, and we're like,

Jason:

This

Bill:

game

Chris:

is a hidden gem. It's worth playing, it's worth knowing about. I don't know where y'all are at. I'm starting to figure out where I think you might be and I think I'm by myself on this one. But I think this is one of those games.

Bill:

Am

Chris:

saying that I think this game is going to set the world on fire? No. Am I saying that I think this game is El Grande? No. Am I saying that I think this game is way better than being in the 9000s on BGG and worthy of being played? Absolutely, I'm saying that. I think this game is really, really interesting, and I really enjoyed this game. Every time I played it, even at 3, although I would not recommend it at that count. You just have to know that this game is the definition of a dry, dusty Euro.

Jason:

Oh, it's ugly.

Chris:

It's ugly, it's dry as sawdust, and when we just said that, There are about 15 people in our guild that just put it in their Noble Knight cart, immediately. Ha ha ha ha! And I know who you are, and you should. You should. You need to play this. If you can get over the dry theme, and the old aesthetic, and you don't mind that, this game is worth exploring. I think there are really interesting things going on here. I think it's clever, I'm not gonna hash it all out again, I'm just gonna say I really enjoyed it. And at four players, I'm giving this game a five. I think Salamanca is an excellent game. And I enjoyed it quite a bit. It surprised the heck out of me. I was not expecting to like it as much as I did. Follow that,

Jason:

Bill. Oh,

Bill:

Oh, wow. Okay. Well, I am a little shocked on that. I don't know. I have a

Chris:

A little

Bill:

less good taste in my mouth, apparently, than Chris has. I mean, I sort of enjoyed playing them. It did feel dry to me. I didn't feel like I had a lot of great decision spaces in there. You know, I do appreciate the fact that you were looking far enough ahead to say, you know what, I'm going to take the first step. choice on this round and or at least try for it because I see I can put my My token and I can share this round because I was really mostly looking at the tableau. It's like do I have a city? you know that I can put out there or or do I have a land that can add to

Jason:

to,

Bill:

To one of my existing cities that are out there. so I, I could have been missing some strategies easily, but I just didn't have that much fun playing. That might've been because I never felt like I was in it. and I just didn't feel like. In my turns, I don't know.

Jason:

Chris would say that's a skill problem.

Bill:

It is a skill problem. Could be a skill problem. I did like, I did like the, I did like a lot the card mechanism. I liked the, do I give up this card that's important to me in my hand to my, you know, neighbor and Chris was sitting to my left. So it was, it was horrible

Chris:

Even better.

Bill:

right. Give Chris my eight when I was, when I was picking stuff.

Chris:

much, Bill. Exactly.

Bill:

And so I love that part of the game, but it wasn't enough necessarily to To save it for me. So i'm gonna give this game a three Okay

Jason:

enough necessarily to save it for me. So I'm going to give this game a 3. It's just dry.

Bill:

yes

Jason:

Like even the, Oh, if I play my eight, it's going to go to the next person in turn order. I better think about that. I was just like, eh,

Chris:

like, eh.

Jason:

it's fine. I'm going to play the eight when I want to play the eight to get the thing that I want. And you know, that's what, that's the rules. It just goes to the next person. Right. But as long as I play it and at a time that benefits me, then that's what I should do. It's fairly straightforward. I'm not saying there's not more depth to it there. There definitely is. And there are ways that you can think deeply and strategically about this game. They just didn't stick with me in the way that they did with other people. Did I not enjoy my plays? No, I enjoyed playing the game. Do I want to continue to play this game though? I don't think so. And so, just in the vast array of other types of games that we have around us, It's just not one that I would envision coming back to. I think if the things that Chris has described as appealing to him are the things that, drive you and that stick out to you, like, you should definitely try this game. it is not worthy of being in the 9000s. I

Chris:

will say.

Jason:

agree with you on that point. That's crazy, right? Yeah, there's no reason for it to be that high.

Chris:

Ridiculous.

Jason:

Because games up in that range are like on the verge of like this might be actually be a terrible game or have something broken with it. There's nothing wrong with this game. I think it's a good game from that perspective. It just didn't grab me in a way that I would want to continue to explore it or dive deeper with it. So for that, I gave it a three, but it's

Bill:

This

Jason:

just, it's what it is,

Chris:

okay All right, listen joe Ethan, John, RJ, Ghidorah, Carson. You know who you are. Pick this game up, play it, get on the discord, chime in. I want to hear people's thoughts. This game is dry as sawdust. There's no doubt about that. A hundred percent. I think most people probably wouldn't be crazy about this game. just didn't bother me for some reason,

Jason:

I'm glad that you like it.

Chris:

yeah,

Jason:

So

Chris:

I think there's some really clever stuff going on here. I really do. I thought it was really, really fun. anyway, if you want to give it a try, I actually misspoke. There are no coffees on Noble Knight. Unfortunately, that's sad. but you can get it on BGG Marketplace. just nine copies, unfortunately, but they're pretty reasonable. If you're intrigued and you like the style of game, I think it's worth trying. There you go.

Jason:

All right.

Bill:

And those are our thoughts on Salamangka. You

Chris:

tasteless hacks!

Jason:

All right. Well, thank you for joining us for this episode of Hidden Gems. If you like what we're doing here, please remember it is a really big help to us if you'd leave a rating or review on your podcast platform of choice and or follow us on our various social media platforms. Those simple things can make a big difference for the show's exposure so that more folks like you can enjoy exploring games with us. Check out the BGG guild. If you want to interact with us or share a game that you feel is a hidden gem. And if you're so inclined, please consider supporting the show over at patrion. com slash hidden gems podcast, where you can access and listen to all of our backstage after dark extra content

Bill:

Until

Jason:

time. I'm your host, Jason.

Chris:

This is Chris.

Bill:

and this is Bill.

Jason:

Thanks for listening.

Chris:

This episode of Hidden Gems number 68 was recorded in Raleigh, North Carolina on October 15, 2024. Finally, it's autumn once again and it's time for ghosts, ghouls, tricks, treats, and really bad Halloween skits from the Hidden Gems team. Join us for another horrific tale. Terrifying Halloween trivia, Jason. And discussion of three spooky themed games. Will these games leave us shrieking in terror or screaming for joy? Tune in to find out. I wrote that.

Bill:

gonna say That wasn't chat gpt

Chris:

Man, dude, that's poetry right there. Holy cow. Hidden Gems is produced and edited by Chris Alley, Cameron Lockie, and Jason Yonshaleff. I write my own jokes. Our board game geek guild is monitored and managed by honorary Hidden Gems team member, Ghidorah. Our discord channel is monitored managed by honorary hidden gems team member snooze fest Our show's logo was illustrated by designer and artless art list designer and artist caitlin nieto Check out her work on instagram at it's caitlin nieto

Jason:

We

Chris:

love to hear from you feel free to join the discussion on our many social media accounts You can find us on facebook at hidden gems board game podcast Instagram at hidden gems podcast and x at hidden gems board Disagree with one of our reviews have something you want to say about one of the games we discussed today You You can also make your voice heard on our Board Game Geek Guild at BoardGameGeek. com, Guild number 3874. Once again, for joining us on Hidden Gems, and until next time fellow gem seekers, enjoy your games, and enjoy your search.

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Chris Alley

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