Quarriors, Part 2 (Spells)

So it gets a fair number of plays...

The green Growth dice are generally always the most useful. If the Portals are gone, the Growth ones is gone soon after. The weakest one lets you buy a second die - sadly, the game doesn't reward a lot of low-cost dice...you end up with a lot of dice, and you can't get a reliable spin. The favorite? The "Dark Ritual" (Growth Charm) lets you save the die for a turn where you can buy something big.

Death Charms come in second. Killing off other people's summoned dice comes second only to summoning monsters that are able to kill off other people's dice. In 2-player, the Death Incantation is pretty sweet - 5 for kill a level 2 or any level if you get the best version. But I like the Death Cantrip the best - it's hard to pull off a Stampede effectively, but it can take out all players' creatures.

The Victory and Shaping ones have nice dice - minor portal effects. As long as the dice are cheap - awesome...otherwise, they're tough be useful. The Shaping Cantrip is easily my favorite - bringing a just-killed creature back to your Ready Area is pretty broken in 2-player...dropping to pretty good in 3-player, and weaker in 4-player.

The Life and Corruption dice are my least favorite. Defense is pretty difficult to have be effective (plus, you're needing to knock out others' monsters). And finally, Corruption dice are pretty limp. Corruption Cantrip is probably okay if there is a lot of corrupted quiddity to give away. Otherwise, it just becomes extra space in your bag.

Overall, half of the spells could be tossed. They don't have enough "oomph!" when compared to VP-gaining monsters. Some of them make for some interesting combinations, but it's not easy to have enough time to buy the right dice (or even have the right dice to combine in the game). Adding a mechanic of "whenever you buy a spell, you may get rid of a basic quiddity", might make it more approachable.

Tough loves.

Why I don't like Caylus

There's a Thursday night game night, where we frequently hit 5 players. This means Le Havre, Caylus, Puerto Rico, Imperial...but normally Le Havre. I picked up Imperial, just because I loved the elegance of Antike, but Imperial doesn't have the same elegance for me.

Caylus I have, but it's not going to get dusted off, anytime soon. My last several experiences were pretty much identical (and miserable).

Caylus has a primary flaw - most of the game is placing workers - gaining special powers for a turn, gathering resources, building buildings, and making bricks for the king's castle. There's a gap after you place workers, and before you start resolving them...and this is where it gets to be a bully contest. Provost time!

Up to this point, there's no table talk. It only happens at the gap. Suddenly, you're trying to make deals with others players to sabotage another player or multiple players. It's tough to hit multiple players, as a tug of war rarely results in a big delta (change of position). So what typically happens, one person gets screwed.

This is why I associate it as the bully step. 2 or more people gang up to thwart one person. It's not a quick hit though, the bullies need to talk about how much they're going to spend amongst themselves, bullying their victim...and making sure that the victim can't fight back. (And the victim gets the extra pain as the bullies rationalize their behavior. Even the discussion becomes part of the act.)

Typically it's not the first place person, as the first place person doesn't need to take the outlier risks that can get burned. The anti-blue shell, the one that can only hit people not in first place. Normally, an interactive step might require 2nd and 3rd to combine forces, just to slow or stop 1st...not here.

That's my disappointment post with Caylus. Bullying and poor risk design. The rest of the game, great.