10th Oct 2024 - Puerto Rico / the old and the new
by Robin. Fri, 11 Oct (Updated at Fri, 11 Oct)Essen Spiel had just finished in time for this week, so all the old games had got worse since last week, on account of not being as new as the new ones from Essen. So I'm going to take this opportunity to tell you about a famous old game that you've recently forgotten ever existed, dazzled as you are by the Essen haul. We played the classic Puerto Rico in the upstairs room at the club, bathed in the shimmering glow from all the new games all around us.
Thematically, of course, this is one of the games that is sullied by the "C" word (colonialism). We were establishing plantations and factories to produce resources and getting points for shipping them off to Europe. So not one for escapism into a happy alternative life. But if you can set aside the theme and focus on the mechanics, it's a lot of fun; and the mechanics are so good that you surely can.
I feel like this game comes from a time (2002) before mechanics were as nuanced as what we see from new games. But it's basically about action drafting and follow-the-leader: so part of the knack is to position yourself to take advantage of actions drafted by those before you in turn order. Perhaps a good warm-up for the tournament game of Carnegie?
Certainly, given that the best tactic in so many games is "do something different to everyone else," this follow-the-leader mechanic is nice. In our game, I threw everything at shipping, and seemed to select the shipping action every time. I did well enough, but not nearly so well as David-M, sitting to my left, who also set himself up for shipping, but was able to use his own actions for other things as well, whilst shipping on my actions. It's not exactly like Carnegie, of course, but this was still a good lesson in the action-draft-and-follow format.
There was a tournament game of Carnegie going on downstairs (in the gloom away from the Essen aura). It now looks likely that a new league format will replace the tournament as we know it next year, so this round may be the last time we experience the sense of ceremony that accompanies these tournament games (apart from the final of course) - I for one will miss that a bit. But the new format has a lot going for it and will hopefully be far more inclusive and less regimented.
Also downstairs was another old(er) game, Churchill, which looked great. I've not seen it before, but it looked like one of these games with an intriguing mix of politics and war, with working together and also competing to win the game. As David-E pointed out, remniscent of Weimar - which I really loved. So will look to crowbar my way into one of the 3 slots on that one if it gets listed again.
I also think Carnegie is a great game, for the record, so the 3 new games from Essen had to be pretty special to be better than the 3 old games this week, for my money. And were they? To be honest, I didn't bring my sunglasses, so I've no idea. But no, they did look nice. I'm not sure Explorers Of Navoria will ever be my kind of game, but Pampero looked very good, and I'll definitely be trying to wangle my way into the next game of the Kraftwagen: Age Of Engineering.
So lots of good new stuff appearing at the club at the moment. There's already another tranche of Essen games on the board for this week, so if you feel like you haven't lived until you've played a game straight out of Essen, here's your chance. But keep an eye out for the old games too: there are some super games in there.