7 Wonders Duel: Pantheon

Pantheon is an expansion for 7 Wonders Duel. Allen came across this at Cash Converters in Singapore, and it was a fantastic deal, SGD3.00! That's less than MYR10.00. As a game buyer I’m thrilled about these great deals. At the same time as an indie publisher it’s a little sad to see slightly older games get the stock clearance treatment. I guess to view it positively it is a good thing that a game gets sold and it gets played. 

Pantheon brings gods to 7 Wonders Duel. There are three gods for each of the five ancient civilisations, and every game up to six may come into play. Each civilisation has a different strength, and their gods have powers in that specialty. For example Egyptian gods help you with wonders of the world. 

In Age 1, players have opportunities to choose which gods to bring into the game and where to place them at the pantheon. Where a god is placed on the board determines how expensive it is to summon them. The nearer they are to you, the cheaper they will be to you, which also means they will be more expensive for your opponent. Each god can only be summoned once per game, and they give powerful one-time abilities. 

When you pick up a brown-backed token, you get to choose a god to introduce to the game.

Five stacks of gods, and one gate.

Mesopotamian gods (green) help with science.

The original game board gets extended, adding a pantheon above it where five gods and one gate can be placed. 

There are new wonders and technologies related to gods. You also get some game components which are for specific gods. Guilds are replaced by grand temples. This aspect has become simpler than the base game. Guilds used to offer various ways to score bonus points. Grand temples are associated with gods of specific civilisations. If you have collected tokens of the corresponding civilisations earlier in the game, their grand temples are free to build. Otherwise you can still build them using your resources. There are at most three grand temples in a game. The more you build, the more points each will be worth. 

Grand temples

The red pawn is Minerva's shield. It prevents one military attack. 

Nisaba's snake copies an opponent's science icon. Copyright laws were not yet invented.

Pantheon adds some gameplay elements and offers more options. When you summon a god, you don’t take a card from the card structure. This can be important when you want to avoid letting your opponent take a certain card. The god powers are potent. They can give you a critical advantage. If you play the base game a lot, this is a nice expansion to give you some new content. It is not just more of the same. It brings in new elements. 

Innovation: Figures in the Sand

The Game

I have been playing Innovation with younger daughter Chen Rui frequently. We both enjoy the game. Some time ago I had purchased the expansion Figures in the Sand, but it sat on the shelf for many years. Now finally it can see some use. Chen Rui and my default mode in playing Innovation is with this expansion now. 

The card backs in this expansion are green, so you can easily tell the cards apart. During game setup, the expansion cards are kept separate and stacked below the base game cards and rotated by 90 degrees. The expansion cards are only drawn under specific situations. Normally you only draw the base cards. When one stack of base cards is exhausted, that age is considered to have ended and you move on to draw base cards from the next age. You don't continue to draw expansion cards from the current age.

Cards in Figures in the Sand are all famous people and leaders from history. You can only have one active leader at any one time. Whenever you have two leaders as your top cards, you must remove one of them and place the removed leader in your score pile. Figures in the Sand is the second expansion for Innovation. It uses some mechanisms that were first introduced in the first expansion. For me to be able to play this expansion, I need to learn the rules to both the first and second expansion.

This is one of the leader cards. In the game leaders are called figures. The figures themselves do not have dogma abilities, which means you do not directly activate them or use them to perform any action. Instead they enhance other actions you take. In this photo above the light square with text inside is an echo, a mechanism first introduced in the first expansion. When you perform a dogma action on a splayed stack of cards, you get to execute every echo power from bottom to top before you perform the dogma action itself. 

This is called a decree. It is a new type of achievement introduced in Figures in the Sand. To issue a decree, you need to have three figures from three different ages in hand. You return them all along with all other hand cards to issue a decree. This is very expensive, but a decree is a very powerful. You not only get to perform this powerful action, you also get to claim the decree card, which is an achievement. That means you are one step closer to victory. A decree is vulnerable, as in you might lose it. If another player issues a decree of the same type, you will be forced to return your decree card to the centre of the table. After that, whoever issues the same decree again gets to claim the decree card. There are 5 types of decrees, one in each colour. Due to the introduction of decrees, The win condition is increased. When playing with this expansion, you need one additional achievement to win.

That copper coin at the bottom left represents points. Now you get points not only from cards in your score pile but also from visible copper coins in your play area. If you have multiple copper coins, only one of them counts based on the value shown. Other copper coins are worth only 1 point. 

The fuzzy circle is an inspire power. Inspiring is a new game mechanism which is roughly an enhanced version of the draw action. When you perform an inspire action you must first pick one specific stack in your play area. You will be performing a draw action based on the top card of this stack only, not based on the highest top card in your whole play area. However if there are visible inspire powers in this stack, you get to execute them all before you perform this draw action. 

I have played several games using this expansion, but up to now I still have not used the inspire power even once. I wonder whether it is because I have been playing only two player games, so the game ends earlier and we do not have much opportunity to splay many cards or reveal many inspire powers.  

The Play

The figures introduced come with lots of interesting and strong powers. Figures are drawn only under two situations. Firstly, when an opponent claims a normal achievement, i.e. based on score. This makes claiming a figure a catch-up mechanism. Your opponent is making progress, you get a figure. Secondly, when you perform a dogma action and your opponents who are stronger than you get to piggyback on your action, you also draw a figure. This is also a catch-up mechanism, because your stronger opponent is taking advantage of you. This second situation creates incentive to intentionally take dogma actions even when it can benefit your opponent. Sometimes you want to do this for the sake of drawing a figure. Sometimes a dogma power may not be very useful for your opponent, or it might even hurt your opponent. You can intentionally force them to use your dogma power and at the same time let you draw a figure. Sometimes the weak can bully the strong.

The decrees are terrible! When I read some of these powers, I imagine the victim losing it and flipping the table. That bad. It is not easy to issue a decree. You don't get to draw figures all that often, and you need figures from three different ages. However there are some figures which make it easier to issue decrees.

Some of the figures in the expansion affect things I have never seen before. For example some figures temporarily increase your number of icons based on specific conditions. This translates to your civilisation being more powerful as long as this particular leader is still around. Some figures add cards to the achievement area. Normally there is one copy each of cards numbered 1 to 9 in the achievement area. If cards are added, it means more opportunities for everyone to claim achievements. There is an additional challenge if you try to claim a numbered achievement which you already have. For example to clean the number 2 achievement you need to have 10 points. If you want to claim your second number 2 achievement you need 20 points. If there is a third one, you'd need 30 points before you can claim it. Some figures grant you a virtual achievement which does not require adding any card to the pool of available achievements if you fulfil a specific condition. So you can see how figures can really shake things up and give you surprises.

When I play with this expansion, I feel that 80% of the time I am still playing the base game, in terms of the cards I actually play with. You don't draw figures all that often. However they can have a big impact. The game play experience changes significantly even though only a handful of figures ever appear each game. I like this change. I don't mind that Innovation is still mostly Innovation.

When I was back in my hometown Kota Kinabalu, Chen Rui and I played using my mother's mahjong table. The size of the table was just nice. If we had three players it would not be enough.

This was one interesting situation we had. I only had one icon type - castles. I had many castles and nothing else.

Younger daughter Chen Rui

In this particular game we managed to draw an Age 10 card. This is very rare. We do 2-player games and normally our games end at Age 6 or 7. Sometimes we reach Age 8, but it is very rare to get to Age 9 or 10. This particular card helped me win, because at the time I had more achievements than Chen Rui. 

Both these figures help in issuing decrees. If you have one of them as an active leader you only need two other figures (of any age) to issue a decree. 

The unusual thing about this particular game was we skipped most of the Age 2 and 3 cards. We had access to Age 4 cards, and after playing them as top cards, we continued drawing cards from there on. 

When mum and the aunties needed to use the mahjong table, Chen Rui and I played using the coffee table. Thankfully the size was just right. 

The Thoughts

I don't quite remember whether I have played the first expansion of Innovation - Echoes of the Past. I probably did. I quite enjoyed Figures in the Sand. It has many interesting and fun cards. There are quite a few new rules, so this is meant for experienced players. I still remember Innovation the base game was hard to learn for a new player. Don't start your Innovation journey with any expansion. For experienced players, it might take a few games to get comfortable with all the new rules. Once they become second nature, the gameplay is smooth. 

My gut feel is you should not play Innovation with more than one expansion. Now I have not tried this yet, so this is just my guess. With more than one expansion, my guess is it might be too much work and too many things to think about all at the same time. The latest version of Innovation is called Innovation Ultimate, and it is being released now. I have preordered a copy. It has all the previous expansions plus one all new expansion. I'm going to try two expansions at the same time to see if it works well. My copy of Innovation is the first edition. By now the base game is up to the fourth edition, and it has been tweaked. I'm pretty happy even with the first edition, and I don't feel it needs to be tweaked. Well, maybe I'm not expert enough at it yet to see issues that others see. I'm actually a little worried whether I would dislike the tweaked latest edition because I'm too used to the first edition. 

Chen Rui is going overseas to study in September. We won't be able to do impromptu Innovation games like we do now. I found out that the game is free to play on BoardGameArena.com though. So maybe I can still arrange to play with her on BGA. 

Carcassonne Maps: Great Britain

The Game

Carcassonne Maps is a series of Carcassonne expansions. Carcassonne is a boardgame with no board, and Carcassonne Maps turns it back to a game with a board. You will need not only the base game but also at least one more expansion with tiles. Every Carcassonne Maps expansion requires a certain number of tiles, and those in the base game are not enough. There are some common rules across the Carcassonne Maps series, and each map has some unique rules too. Although you use tiles from other Carcassonne expansions, you won't use the rules associated with them. 

Let's first talk about the common rules across the different maps. Each map has several starting positions. You place the standard starting tile on one of these positions, and draw random tiles for the others. When placing tiles, they must expand out from these starting positions, similar to standard Carcassonne. You don't place tiles anywhere you like. Squares have been drawn on the map, and you can only place tiles in these squares. The concept of a border is introduced - borders as in the edges of the playable areas. When you place a tile on a border space, any feature touching the border is considered closed off. For example you still have an open-ended castle, but the only remaining open end is on the border. In this case the castle is considered complete and you score it. The same goes for roads and monasteries. The borders on the maps help players complete features. 

Those face-down round tokens have point values. They come in three colours, and they are worth 1 or 2 points. Not all the maps use these tokens, but quite many do. They are used in different ways on different maps. Generally when you place a tile on a space with a round token, you claim that token and score the points on it. As you collect tokens, you will be able to use them in some other way. 

The Isle of Man is the unique mechanism on the Great Britain map. At the end of your turn, you may place a meeple here to take an additional turn. Your meeples here are temporarily unavailable to you. They are freed when you have three round tokens of different colours or three round tokens of the same point value. When either of these happen, you must turn in the combination and retrieve all your meeples. You know the colour distribution of the round tokens up front - blue in the north, purple in the south, and orange in the west. So you can somewhat plan to collect the right colours at the right time. 

The maps have towns, and they are an optional variant. If you use the town variant, you lose 2 points for covering a town, but you get to take an extra turn. Also when completing a road, every town next to the road gives you 2 points. 

The Play

Most of the elements in Carcassonne have not changed. The biggest difference to me is the impact of the borders. Completing features becomes a bit easier. However since the maps do come with some features, these introduce a new challenge. When you lay tiles, your tiles must match these features. Overall I find Carcassonne Maps slightly more challenging. The features on the map include major cities which appear as partial castles. They tend to be lucrative and they entice players to expand towards and claim them. 

Our London did not grow to become a large castle, only a chubby camel. 

The point tokens and Isle of Man are simple variants. It's nice to have some alternative ways of playing, but these are not something radically different from the original. I find the existence of the map itself is the main attraction which introduces a new play experience. 

In our game, despite using the recommended number of tiles, by the time we were done, about 20% of the spaces was still not yet filled. 

The Thoughts

Well, this is an expansion, so it is for people who already like Carcassonne. If that's you, then the maps will offer a fun and new experience. It's different enough to be interesting. Before playing I had imagined gameplay to be more restrictive, since the play area is fixed. Now that I have played it, I find that you often still have many options on your turn. The concept of the borders gives you a new tool to complete features. The features on the map also give some context and create objectives you strive for. 

Ticket to Ride: Nederland

The Game

Before I wrote this blog post, I counted. I currently own 9 copies of games and expansions in the Ticket to Ride series. I had not planned to buy Nederland. Allen came across it being on sale at a deep discount. He asked whether I wanted to get a copy, and I couldn't resist. Nederland is an expansion, and you can only play it if you have the base game or Ticket to Ride Europe.  

One unique element of Nederland is how it entices (or pressures) players to claim routes early. There is a toll mechanism in the game. Everyone starts with some money. Whenever you build tracks, you must pay a toll. Most connections between two cities have two routes. If you are first to claim one of them, you pay the toll to the bank. If later another player claims the other route, they must pay the toll fee to you. This means if you are early, you get a rebate. Managing your cash and getting these rebates are important because at game end, you compare how much money you have left, and you score points based on ranking. Everyone gets points except for the last player. The player with the most leftover cash gets 55 points! 

The point values of the tickets in the game are higher than the typical Ticket to Ride game. Normally the point value of a ticket is simply the shortest distance between the two cities. On the Netherlands map this is not the case. Ticket values can go up to 34 points! So far I only know the Japan map also diverges from this convention. 

The Play

It was only when I sat down to play that I realised it is easy to get blocked off on the Netherlands map. We did a four-player game. If it were a 5-player game, the blocking would be worse. So claiming routes early is important not only because you hope to get the rebate, it can be crucial to ensure you don't get cut off. In our game, Shee Yun was completely cut off from a city she needed to go to and she lost points for one of her tickets. 

There are loan cards in the game (top right in this photo above). When you want to claim a route but you can't afford to pay the toll, you must take a loan card. Loans cannot be repaid in this game. Each costs you 5 points at game end. Also you are disqualified from the bonus for leftover cash.

When you decide to draw new tickets, you draw five and you must keep at least one. If you have built a decent network, it is worthwhile making a gamble on drawing new tickets. Since you get to draw five, chances are you'll get something that works for you. It is not risk-free, but the potential reward is tempting. Tickets are high valued. This aspect of having the urge to draw more tickets reminds me of the Switzerland map. It's wonderful when you get lucky and draw a ticket which you have already completed. 

These were my tickets at the end of the game, all completed. 

In our particular game, most of us chose routes nearer to the sea. It might be because most of the main cities were nearer to the sea. The half of the board nearer to the sea was pretty packed. The inland half not so much. We didn't have anyone taking loans. It was partly because many of us claimed the second route of a pair of routes, which meant money changed hands among players instead of going to the bank. However I suspect loans are not too common anyway. Still something you have to watch out for, but if you are careful enough it should not happen easily. 

The Thoughts

Ticket to Ride: Nederland is exciting! There is a heightened sense of urgency to claim routes early because you want those rebates and there is that fear of getting blocked off. Drawing tickets is also exciting. That lucky draw feeling is strong here. If you like the Ticket to Ride series, this is worth a try. The numbers in the game are big, and I'm not sure whether I am being tricked by this to think of the game as being more thrilling than it actually is. I get this feeling that I am making big bets. The stakes are high. Thus the adrenalin rush. When comparing leftover cash, the point difference between first and last place is 55 points. That is huge compared to the 10-point longest route bonus in basic Ticket to Ride. The tickets also have high point values, more than other variants. The points from the routes still remain the same as other games, so this aspect becomes less important. Go draw tickets! That's where the excitement lies! 

Food Chain Magnate expansion

Plays: 4Px1.

Food Chain Magnate is a more recent title from Splotter Games and one of their bestsellers. When I heard that they were coming out with an expansion set, I preordered with no hesitation. I had had a bad history with Splotter Games (in a good way). For a few consecutive new releases I had procrastinated on whether to buy (since they were a niche game maker and their games were pricey). Each time I decided to wait and see, I ended up buying at a higher price eventually after trying the game. Now their games are by default a blind purchase for me.

The Food Chain Magnate expansion is a set of 16 modules. You can add just one module at a time, or you can play with a few at the same time. It's probably not a good idea to throw everything in though. The box is of the same size as the base game, and it is heavy. It is pricey, but I find it well worth the money.

I got Jeff, Allen and Kareem to try this out with me. We played using the new milestones module and the coffee module. These were recommended by the rulebook as good places to start.

The box cover uses the same retro style as the base game, which I like.

The small square in the middle is a coffee stand. Everyone has three. The brown piece above the coffee stand is coffee. That's the shape of a coffee cup.

The game board is randomly set up. In our game, the setup was a little unbalanced. We had a concentration of houses in the lower right. Allen (blue), Kareem (pink) and I (green) started our first restaurants in this area. Jeff (purple) started his near the top, away from us. There were only two houses in this part of town.

These are the new milestones. If you use the new milestones module, you will replace all milestones in the base game with a new set. The criteria for claiming them are different, and the benefits too. Some of them have a red marker on them indicating that they must be claimed by Round 2. They become unavailable from Round 3 onwards. To go for such milestones, you must perform some very specific actions in Rounds 1 and 2. There are three broad directions and you will only have enough actions to pursue one of them. At the start of the game you are already forced to make a difficult decision.

Milestones are an important aspect of Food Chain Magnate because they confer special abilities. You will be at a disadvantage if you have significantly fewer milestones than others. To claim a milestone you must be first, or be among the first, to meet a certain criteria. Once a milestone is claimed, it becomes unavailable next round onwards.

This reference chart lists all the new milestones. Some are in use only when a specific expansion module is in play.

These are the new employee types if you use the coffee expansion - barista trainee, barista and lead barista.

The early game milestone I went for was being first to use a recruiting girl. This gave me an Executive Vice President, who worked for free. He could supervise up to 10 employees, which was a big deal. For a long time I would not have to worry about not having enough employee slots to get people to do work. Having surplus employee slots would also mean an advantage in picking turn order. The more empty slots you have, the earlier you get to pick the turn order you want. My EVP gave me 10 empty slots.

The two red soda pieces on the billboard tile means this billboard will advertise soda for two rounds. Billboards only impact houses directly touching them, so this one will only impact one house. Allen's (blue) restaurant is just across the street. If he produces soda, this family will likely visit his restaurant.

This was Jeff's (purple) company. He went for a long-term strategy of deep investments, forward planning, capability building and eventually making a killing when his team was ready to roll. His early game milestone allowed him to keep employees even when he couldn't afford to pay them. He was going the startup route! His people were all super motivated, and he trained them intensively. They dreamed big, had a common goal, and were willing to work for free. For a long time in the early game he made no profit, but that did not dampen his Amazon-like determination. Jeff Au going for the Jeff Bezos strategy!

Many families demanded pizza (orange triangle) now, because of a special radio advertisement placed by Kareem. This was the effect of a milestone he claimed.

This house on the left demanded two pizzas and one soda. The family would only visit a restaurant which could serve them two pizzas and one soda. Otherwise they would rather stay home. I (green) had built a coffee stand next to Allen's (blue) restaurant. Kareem, Allen and I started our restaurants nearby, so competition was fierce. They managed to do discounts, and also adjusted their distance calculation lower. I lost out on these, and it became very difficult for me to compete. People who lived nearer to my restaurant were willing to travel further to their restaurants because their food was cheaper, and by some magic (i.e. milestone power) the distance felt nearer. So I decided to go into the coffee business. It was do or die.

This is how the coffee business works. Whenever a family visits a restaurant, if they pass by any coffee stand, they will stop to buy coffee. If they pass by multiple stands, they will stop to buy coffee every time. Yes, people are crazy for coffee. If there are multiple equi-distance paths to the restaurant, they will select the path with the most coffee stands. The base price of coffee is the same as other foods and drinks - $10. I built my coffee stand near both Allen's and Kareem's restaurants, because I expected most customers would be visiting one of them.

Later I built a coffee stand near Jeff's (purple) restaurant too. He was creating demand for burgers and selling burgers now.

The location of my first coffee stand (north side of the road) was suboptimal, so I built a second coffee stand at that corner. The first location was poor because if families from houses 5, 12 and 13 visited Kareem's (pink) restaurant, they wouldn't pass by my coffee stand. My second coffee stand addressed this problem. Afterwards we realised a rule mistake - you are not allowed to build a second coffee stand on the same map tile. Oops. My bad.

My company continued to grow. I decided I had to go into drinks, because I was falling behind on foods. I was first to use a cart operator, and this milestone gave me double the number of drinks when I collected them.

By now I had trained one of my employees to become a lead barista. He produced 5 coffee per round.

The lead barista is one handsome hipster.

At this point we had completed the first half of the game by exhausting the bank. At the start of a game, the bank starts with $50 per player. Every player must also secretly decide how much more to add to the bank for the second half of the game. He chooses between $100, $200 and $300. The total amount to be added will determine how long the game will last. How much you decide to add affects how you play. You need to observe how others play too to guess how much they have decided to add. The amount to be added affects one more thing - the CEOs' capabilities. In our game, Allen and Kareem added $100, because they were going for a run and gun approach. Jeff and I added $300. In Jeff's case it was because his strategy was a long-term one. In my case, it was simply because I wanted to see how a long game looked like. Previously I tended to opt for a short game. Based on how we voted, the CEOs' capabilities were adjusted to the high side - the $300 side - and they now could manage 4 direct reports instead of the initial 3. In the photo above, there is a card tucked below the CEO card indicating this.

Some new houses had been added to the board. The new houses all belonged to rich families. They were 3x2 in size and they had gardens. At the top left, the #10 house had an extension. The garden being added meant the family living here had been upgraded to a rich family. The difference between rich families and regular families is rich families may demand up to 5 goods, while regular families will demand at most 3 goods. Rich people are sometimes harder to please, but they are willing to pay when their needs are fulfilled.

There were more and more advertisements now (greyish blue tiles), creating more and more demand (pieces on houses). We had many rich families at the top right, near Jeff's (purple) restaurant. Kareem (pink) had built one restaurant in the area to compete with Jeff.

I was first to use a brand director. This was a milestone I managed to win in the mid game. Brand directors are the highest skilled employees in the marketing career path. You need them if you want to do radio advertisements.

My EVP allowed me to have many employees working at the same time. I employed many trainers to help me quickly upskill my teams. I trained one employee to become a Luxuries Manager, so that I could sell my stuff at double the price. I wanted to go the opposite direction from Allen and Kareem. They were going for cheap and convenient. I knew I could not compete, so I had to find a different way. I wanted to target customers they could not serve, and compete on quality instead of quantity.

Both these families wanted pizza and three different types of drinks.

My drinks department was strong because I had deliberately focused on it. I collected many drinks every round. Foods and drinks not consumed are discarded at the end of every round. I discarded many foods and drinks because of this. It was difficult for me to compete with Kareem and Allen's low prices and convenience.

This was a pivotal moment for me. At the bottom I had launched an airplane advertising campaign which promoted beers. Two beers, in fact. This created the demand for beers along the plane's path, affecting a swath containing many houses. Most importantly, I made the rich families at the top right demand more beers than my competitors could supply. As a result they couldn't sell to these rich folks, while I could. I made a killing because my prices were high. I had a monopoly this round. Even in the subsequent round when my competitors managed to supply the right combination of foods and drinks, there was so much demand in the market that there were still leftover customers I could serve, and profit handsomely from.

I still had my coffee business, and that helped a lot. In the early game, no one wanted to also go into coffee because (a) it would distract them from their strategies at the time, and (b) I was fumbling and was not exactly a threat. This turned out greatly helping me because the coffee monopoly kept me afloat for a long time. Later in the game, the others didn't want to go into coffee because it was a little too late and the effort didn't seem worthwhile.

This special version plane ad is available only with an expansion module. It allows advertising two products at once. In our game I specifically chose to advertise beer twice, because that was what I produced a lot of and others not so much.

The game board itself doesn't take up much space. It is the cards and the org charts (built with cards) which take up a lot of space.

These were the milestones I managed to claim.

This was a special, permanent radio advertisement I placed. I had this power due to my milestone. I advertised lemonade because it was something I could produce consistently and in high quantities.

My luxury strategy worked out well for me and won me the game. By boosting demand in general, with some emphasis on drinks, I managed to create customers for my restaurants. There was so much demand in the market, I could win a niche. The overall high demand also helped my coffee business, especially since I had a monopoly.

The Thoughts

The expansion modules present many different ways to play, new strategies to pursue, with new thinking required. Buying that one box feels like buying a dozen boxes of Food Chain Magnate variants. If you like Food Chain Magnate and have not bought the expansion, go buy it.