Axis & Allies & Zombies

The Game

Plays: 4Px1.

Axis & Allies is an established brand. I consider the series more mainstream than niche. I have played many games in the series, starting with the 1984 Milton Bradley version. I have fond memories and there is certainly some nostalgia. I'm a fan. When Axis & Allies & Zombies was first announced, my first reaction was this might be jumping the shark. Zombies?! This version is not designed by Larry Harris but by another design team. When Axis & Allies 1914 came out in 2013, the series was already going a little off topic. The 1914 version is about World War I, and the combatants in WWI were not called Axis and Allies. Still, it is understandable that the Axis & Allies brand is leveraged upon. Games are to entertain and need not always be historically accurate. Even the original Axis & Allies is not exactly historically accurate. Well, at least not precisely so. Axis & Allies & Zombies is simply a variant of the well known global arena Axis & Allies game. Think historical fantasy. If you are comfortable with that, it will work fine.

Let's do a quick summary for those unfamiliar with the series. If you are a veteran, skip this paragraph. Axis & Allies is an entry level wargame about World War II. Up to 5 players control the major powers - USSR, Germany, UK, Japan and USA, and they fight it out on a world map. This is a team vs team fight, with the Axis being Germany and Japan, and the Allies being USSR, UK and USA. You fight for territories, which generate income. Money is spent on armies, navies and aircraft, which are needed for battle. You fight until you capture all your enemies' capitals, or until they surrender. You will roll many dice during battles. The game mechanisms are not particularly complex, but it does take some effort to digest, in particular to remember the unique abilities of the different unit types and their interactions. The game takes a long time to play. Expect to spend one full day at it.

The story in Axis & Allies & Zombies starts with an experiment being done by German scientists going awry. A zombie plague breaks out. Zombie infections pop up randomly all over the world, creating trouble for everyone. These random outbreaks are more annoying than debilitating. The bigger headache is whenever any infantry unit is killed, it becomes a zombie. Zombies are generally passive. They don't move about. They aren't organised. However, they do occasionally bite if you share the same territory. When there's a battle, gunfire triggers them, and they may bite both attacker and defender. The likelihood of attackers being bitten is higher, so in battle the presence of zombies is slightly beneficial to defenders. However cohabiting with zombies comes with risks.

The seemingly small rule addition of dead infantry becoming zombies changes the game dynamics significantly. In the Axis & Allies series, infantry is arguably the most important unit type. They are cheap. Their defensive ability is not exactly high but it's good value for money. They serve as cannon fodder, because the battle resolution system allows players to pick which of their own units to lose. Naturally you want to lose the cheap infantry. With the introduction of the zombie rule, suddenly the heavy use of infantry comes with significant risks. You will likely create many zombies, for better or for worse.

The victory conditions are changed too. Now your goal is to capture just one enemy capital, while still controlling all capitals of your side. This win condition is checked only at the end of a round, i.e. after all five major powers have taken their turns. There is an alternative ending - humans losing the world to zombies. If zombies control too many territories, the game ends, and the two sides compare the total economic value of their zombie-free territories. The side with a higher value wins the game. You don't win the war. Both sides lose the war to the zombies. It's just that you enjoy a less pitiful lifestyle compared to your enemies.

The Play

Jeff hosted an Axis & Allies & Zombies event, and eight signed up. We split into two tables of four. At my table were Allen, a couple, and I. The couple was new to the series, while Allen and I had experience. At first I thought it might be better to partner an experienced player with an inexperienced player. Allen suggested not to break up the couple, lest in-game battling lead to real-life quarreling. So Allen and I paired up as the Axis, playing Germany and Japan respectively. These two major powers were far apart and could not collaborate much. The boyfriend played UK and USA, because these two nations usually needed to collaborate closely to plan for D-Day. Also letting him play two nations meant he got to play more. The girlfriend played USSR, which was a less messy nation to play. Ladies tend to be less enthusiastic about war games, so we recommended that she play a less tiresome faction.

This was the full board in the early game. The Germans started the game only one territory away from Moscow, so on USSR's first turn it already needed to decide how to deal with that. The first instinct was of course the defensive one - to kick out the Germans from that territory immediately adjacent to Moscow. However it was also important to consider how much to commit to that battle, and how to position the troops after the battle. The European continent was already fully under German control. UK and USA needed to plan carefully how to break in. Pearl Harbour had not yet happened. On Japan's first turn it had to decide whether to do it. It would deal a heavy blow to USA, but it would also divert some of Japan's navy and air force to the Pacific Ocean front against USA, away from the Asian mainland. Japan had only this one chance in Round 1 to pull off a Pearl Harbour, because its turn came before USA. If it didn't attack in Round 1, USA would consolidate and better protect its navy.

That white thing is a zombie. This is the German and Soviet front. This is a place you can expect many infantry units and thus zombies. The game we played was more a learning game than a serious competition. Axis & Allies & Zombies is not a complex game by wargame standards, but to players new to the genre it is daunting and it requires some effort to digest. I tried to help the new players by reminding them of their options, and alerting them in case they made any obviously bad moves. Sometimes this meant exposing my own agenda and the possible countermeasures, but I think it was right to treat this as a learning game and to be open about all this. We should not just bash the new players and let them learn from the pain.

My hometown Sabah (on Borneo Island) was infected. That lone British infantry unit now had to worry about getting bitten whenever it went into the bushes to take a poop.

In Round 1, the UK orchestrated a massive attack to capture Thailand (and the Malayan Peninsula) from Japan. UK's turn came before Japan's, so Japan could not do anything to prevent this.

After the Australian army went off to fight in Thailand, a zombie popped up in Alice Springs. Trouble. Australia has a factory pre-printed. This is one of the differences between Axis & Allies & Zombies and the standard Axis & Allies. In AAZ you don't get to build new factories. That's why they are pre-printed on the board as opposed to being represented by game pieces. Also there is a special type of factory which only produces infantry. Both China and India have such infantry-only factories (called recruitment centres).

The skull marker indicates that a territory is zombie controlled. A territory becomes zombie controlled if there are only zombies and no units from the Axis or the Allies. If the territory has a factory, it is controlled by the zombies only if the number of zombies exceeds the territory's economic value. Zombies have no leaders and don't proactively invade neighbouring territories. So even if there are many of them right next to you, you don't really need to worry about them coming after you. However in general they are still annoying and they disrupt your plans. Battles in zombie infested territories are slightly more unpredictable. Zombies which randomly emerge in safe territories far behind the frontlines can be a pain in the neck. Sometimes they capture your safe territories and deny you income, and thus force you to divert energy to recapture the territories.

Our USSR player (girlfriend) played aggressively. Our session was at Black Horse Cafe, and they closed at 1am. We didn't have a lot of time, and knew we likely wouldn't be able to finish. So we just went all out and didn't really plan very far ahead. Just whack and see what happens. USSR pushed back strongly against Germany, but it was a costly counterattack. Under normal circumstances this likely wouldn't be sustainable.

My Japanese forces recaptured Thailand and destroyed the British fleet protecting it. Infantry units killed in combat became zombies and now they were becoming a real problem. Chinese armies (in this game represented by American pieces) had all been destroyed now, and had become zombies too. Although there were no more Chinese defenders, China still had a factory which could produce new infantry units. Also those hordes of zombies made sure Japan conquering China was going to be painful. One of my Japanese bombers was forced to land on the Chinese coast, and was now colocated with four zombies. This was a dangerous situation.

UK had a factory in India which could produce infantry units. It sent a fighter and a tank from the Middle East to protect India. My Japanese forces in Thailand was no serious threat to India yet. In fact I had to worry about UK attacking Thailand again. Further north, I started to make headway into Chinese and Soviet territory. I had decided not to attack Pearl Harbour. I committed the Imperial Japanese Navy to support the land grab on the Asian mainland.

The Soviet offensive went all the way to the gates of Berlin. However the attrition was severe, and things didn't look good now for the Soviets. Germany had built up a formidable army of tanks and infantries and was poised to counterpush.

In the end, we only managed to play up to the middle of Round 3. The cafe was closing and we had to pack up. Japan was now pushing towards Moscow, but it was not a major threat yet. The frontline between India and Thailand was a hot spot now. The Imperial Japanese Navy still hung around Japan supporting the transfer of fresh troops to the Asian continent.

The Thoughts

Axis & Allies & Zombies is still very much Axis & Allies. The designers did not try to dumb down the game to cater for the masses, just because the zombie theme was a wide-appeal one and would help to attract new players. If you are hoping to convert some friends to the Axis & Allies series and you don't think the standard Axis & Allies would work, then Axis & Allies & Zombies would not work either. This is not a gateway game. It's more a variant meant for people who already like the series, or for people who can accept this kind of complexity in games and this genre.

You will see the familiar dilemmas in Axis & Allies & Zombies. The Axis often opts for the Kill USSR First strategy, while the Allies usually try to squeeze Germany from both directions. USA needs to decide how to allocate its resources - Pacific theatre or European theatre or both. Zombies throw a wrench in your plans, and I find that a welcome challenge. I see the game as historical fantasy and I don't mind the silliness of the story. It translates to an interesting predicament, and I find that enjoyable.

Some subtle optimisations were made to the board design. I find that some territories are designed such that they are more easily reachable. Many territories are in range of many combat units. This means fewer turns needed for just moving troops. There is a higher sense of danger and threat. It feels you are going to start fighting sooner. I like this urgency. I think the tedium is slightly reduced.

Now I am hoping to schedule another session, and to be able to complete a full game.

Hurlyburly

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

Hurlyburly is a children's game. Or a drinking game. That sounds rather extreme, but I'm sure it works in both situations. It is a dexterity game about building towers and using catapults to destroy them. Your goal is to build a tower of a certain height, and have it last one full round undamaged. Whoever achieves this first wins the game. In this photo, on the left you can see a single-storey tower. This is your starting tower, which, admittedly, is not much of a tower at all yet. On the right you can see the catapult loaded with a rock (the wooden cube).

Every turn, you get to pick one action out of a number of options. You may build your tower. There are two ways to go about this. The steady approach is building one storey using two wall pieces (cards folded into an L-shape) and one floor / roof piece (card placed horizontally). The second storey in the photo above is built using the steady approach.

The other approach - the fast approach - is building two stories each using one wall piece and one floor piece. The 3rd and 4th stories in the photo above are built using the fast approach.

If you choose to build, you may build defenses instead of the tower itself. When building defenses, you add three pieces in any combination of walls and floors. Defenses are built around your tower and must not touch the tower itself. They protect but do not support your tower.

Another action type you may select is to collect rocks. They are the ammunition for your catapult. When you perform the collect rock action, you take one rock per storey of your tower. The higher your tower, the more efficient this action becomes.

The most fun action is, of course, attacking! This photo above shows how it is done. When you choose to attack, you may spend as many of your rocks as you like, and you may attack as many of your opponents as many times as you like. You are only limited by the number of rocks you hold. For each opponent you successfully attack, i.e. you knock down at least one floor card, you steal one wall piece and one floor piece from him to build one floor at your own tower. If you manage to hit three opponents, you will build three storeys at one go! This is "no pain, no gain" - others' pain becoming your gain.

If you are out of rocks, you may still pick the attack action. You get one free rock (a pity rock), so you can still launch one attack.

The catapult card is thin and cannot launch the rock very far. One of the actions you can perform is to upgrade your catapult. You do this by adding a thin card to your catapult like in the photo above. This gives your catapult a bit more power.

The flag does not have special meaning. Knocking it down is not considered a successful attack, but there is a consolation - you take your rock back and can use it again for another attack.

With 4 players, your goal is to reach 4 stories. Once your tower reaches the 4th floor, and it lasts one full round without getting knocked down, you win.

The Play

The most joyful aspect of Hurlyburly is demolishing your opponent's towers with one well-aimed shot. You can get so much fun from this that someone eventually winning the game feels anticlimactic. Hurlyburly feels like a game of skill. After all you are the one taking aim and unleashing the rock at your opponent's tower. However, I am not exactly sure how much control you really have. The catapult may not be a very precise instrument in the first place. I may be overthinking this. It's a kid's game (or a drunk buddies game) for goodness' sake. It doesn't really matter whether the catapult is a pRecIsE iNstrUmenT.

One thing you can control is timing. I find this very important. When your opponents have many rocks in stock, you should not try to build too fast. It would attract attention and you would become public enemy number one. Instead bide your time and wait for when your opponents are low on ammo. If your tower reaches the required height at such a time, it is much more likely to survive one full round. This is very much the competitive and calculative veteran boardgamer in me talking. Kids may not think this way, and would still have a blast playing the game. When playing with like-minded old farts, the game becomes a game of chicken. Let's see who dares to sprint ahead. Whoever does so will be beaten back by the rest. The next guy who tries it will be targeted by everyone too. There may be some ebb and flow as people patiently collect rocks and build their towers, and then the towers get smashed. The number of walls and floors are limited so when they run out, you are forced to attack others and steal their walls and floors. Eventually there will be a time when everyone is low on rocks, and whoever seizes the right timing will build, and with some luck last the full round, and win.

We did a 4-player game. At the start of the game, the starting player gets one rock, and the subsequent players get 2, 3 and 4 respectively. Everyone starts with a single-storey tower. Whenever a tower is completely demolished, you get to rebuild a single-storey tower for free. Think of it as having insurance.

We hadn't followed the rules properly. Afterwards I looked up the rules and found that all towers should be about 50cm apart. Also when you shoot, your catapult should be further away from the opponent tower than your own tower.

It may look easy, but damaging an opponent's tower is not exactly easy to do. Sometimes you miss to the left or right. Sometimes you shoot too near or too far. Even if you land a blow, it may not topple any wall or floor. Once during our game the rock landed neatly on one of the upper floors, looking more like a DHL parcel delivery than a flaming boulder from hell. Yet sometimes just one lucky shot can completely destroy a full-height tower.

The Thoughts

Hurlyburly is a simple and straightforward game. You get the exhilaration of smashing your opponents' towers, and the anxiety of becoming the victim yourself. You may think it's just child's play, but when your painstakingly built tower gets pulverised, you will want revenge on the jerk who did it to you, and you won't care if you are being childish. That's what the game is about. That's why hurling wooden cubes at cardboard towers can be so engrossing.

Kickstarter: Doublehead Kids

Joerg Trojan and his children designed a children version of a popular card game in Germany, Doppelkopf. The project is on Kickstarter now - Doublehead Kids. I think it's great bonding to design a game with one's children.

I recently started designing a game of my own. I am thinking of recruiting * cough * (conscripting) younger daughter Chen Rui to do art work for me. She's good at drawing. Elder daughter Shee Yun is good at writing, but my current game idea doesn't involve much writing. I hope I can see this game design project through to completion. I have been listening to the Think Like A Game Designer podcasts by Justin Gary (designer of Ascension), and there are many interesting insights.

Chinese Chess

13 Nov 2019. Elder daughter Shee Yun told me that she has been playing (international) chess at school. The exams are over, the holidays are coming, the syllabus has been covered and there are no more classes. So the students have much freedom to do what they want. I asked her whether she knows how to play Chinese Chess, she said no. I have this Chinese Chess set at home which is my father's retirement gift. It is a beautiful set made of pewter. I took out this set to teach Shee Yun to play.

One problem with the board is the river is too wide. It should be only one square wide, not two. This is a little confusing. The manufacturer sacrificed usability for the sake of aesthetics.

The pieces are heavy, which is nice. However you can't use them like how you use regular Chinese Chess pieces. Typically the pieces are made of wood. When you capture an opponent piece, you first stack your attacking piece on the victim. You press your index finger on your piece, then draw the opponent piece out using your thumb and middle finger. When the opponent piece is pulled out, your own piece will snap onto the game board. The pewter pieces have a soft felt bottom and not a smooth one. So you can't do the customary thing with them.

The game board is made of wood, and it is quite heavy. The board can be folded in half to become a rectangular box. The whole thing is so heavy that you can probably kill someone with it.

I'm no good at Chinese Chess. I rarely play. I know the rules and some simple tactics, but I don't really know what the general strategies are or how to assess the board at a strategic level.

I attacked aggressively, forcing Shee Yun into a defensive mode. She applied the concepts she learned in Chess to Chinese Chess, and they mostly work.

I let her take back moves when she made mistakes, but I didn't go easy on her. Sometimes I helped her analyse the board situation, reminding her of threats and risks. One thing she found difficult to remember was how the knight / horse could be blocked by a piece immediately next to it. How the cannon works when attacking was also something new to her. In Chinese Chess, the cannon moves like the rook in Chess, but when attacking it must jump over one other piece.

Checkmate. My chariot (which is the rook-equivalent, top right) was poised to capture her king. I played aggressively since the early game, but Shee Yun grabbed the initiative and counter-attacked, checking my king a few times. I had to play carefully to avoid getting trapped. I did not actually plan ahead for this particular winning move. I only noticed it while analysing the board for my next move. When I saw it, I took it and ended the game.

boardgaming in photos: Ticket To Ride, Exit, Star Realms

18 Sep 2019. I taught my colleagues Ticket to Ride, and they all liked it. Ticket to Ride is a very consistent hit with new players. Edwin (red) misunderstood one rule, and that set him back severely. In Ticket to Ride, to claim a grey route, you may use any colour, just that for one route you must use just one colour. Edwin did follow this. What he misunderstood was that for other subsequent grey routes, he also had to use the same colour he chose for the first ever grey route he claimed during the game. This made things horribly difficult for him, and he had to take jokers (locomotives) frequently. The rest of us only realised this when he had already taken and played many jokers. By then it was too late to undo. He had already fallen far behind. Maybe it was my fault for not explaining the rule clearly enough.

Edwin, Xiaozhu, Benz. My copy is the first edition, and the cards are small. Benz complained that they were too small. I told him they changed the cards to the standard size only from the second edition onwards.

27 Sep 2019. The cards in the first edition were small for a reason. In this game you will often need to hold many cards in your hand. Smaller cards make this easier. I guess many players preferred bigger cards, so soon enough the publisher relented.

Later we taught Carol and Ruby to play, and they too liked the game. Carol was the nasty one, proactively making moves to block others. In this photo you can see her (red) intentionally blocking Ruby's (yellow) network. Ruby had to take a roundabout path to link up her network. She had to pretend to be unfazed, when she was probably screaming inside.

The full 5-player game is exciting, because you can get blocked easily, even when nobody is doing it on purpose. The board is more crowded.

4 Oct 2019. I taught my friends the Asia map, specifically the team game side of it. We did the full 6-player game, with three teams of two. I partnered Xiaozhu, Benz partnered Ruby, and Edwin partnered Carol. One challenge in the team game is you are not allowed to discuss your hand cards with your partner. So you don't know exactly which cities he is trying to get to. There is a special action which allows you to place tickets from your hand onto a team card rack, so that your partner can see these tickets. This costs one turn.

Another challenge in the team game is you and your partner do not share the same pool of trains. You each have your own pool, and if you run out of trains, you don't get to use your partner's trains. You will be stuck being unable to play any more trains onto the board. You can still draw cards, and help your partner that way. Whenever you draw cards, you must place one on the team card rack (so your opponent can use it), and put the other into your hand.

Cards on the team card rack are shared and accessible to both team members.

17 Oct 2019. There are four factions in Star Realms. Within the same turn if you are able to play two or more cards of the same faction, you often get to trigger additional faction abilities. In this screenshot, I had a hand of seven. Normal hand size is five, and it was due to an event card that I had two more cards. However, three were non-faction cards, and the remaining four were from all four different factions. What kind of lousy luck is this?! I couldn't trigger any faction ability. I guess I can only blame myself for poor card purchase choices.

27 Oct 2019. Exit: The Sunken Treasure is one of the easier Exit games, at difficulty level 2 (out of 5). Maybe it is because my family and I have played quite a few of these, so we have a general feel of how the riddles work. The more we play, the easier they become.

This time the story is about exploring a shipwreck, then getting trapped inside, and thus trying to escape. The timer element is explained as oxygen running out.

This time we used the app. The app doesn't actually do much. We used it mainly as a timer. The app read out the scenario, which was nice. It built the atmosphere. As we played, there were background sound effects as the clock ticked. When we completed the game and stopped the clock, the app helped calculate our score. The app comes with a tutorial, but we didn't need that since we had played quite a few Exit games.

We completed the game in less than an hour, and we did not use any clue, so we scored the full 10 points.

If you are an Exit veteran you can probably skip this one. If you are new, or you plan to buy a gift for a non-gamer or casual gamer, this is a good choice.

Gugong

Plays: 4Px1.

The Game

Gugong (which means "the former palace") is a heavy Eurogame from Andreas Steding (Hansa Teutonica, Firenze).

The very first thing I noticed was how pretty these player pieces are. Each ship has a recess which fits exactly three workers. Note that this is not a worker placement game. The workers are just a type of resource. Human Resource.

The board is made up of seven sections. Every section has a spot for one card. The seven sections let you do various things, and ultimately they all help you score points. On your turn you must play a card onto one section, then claim the existing card there to become your hand card in the next round. Normally you have a hand size of four, which means you only get to play four cards per round. The hand size can be augmented. When the card you play is higher than the card you claim, you get to execute the action related to the board section. Otherwise, you need to pay 2 workers to execute the action. If you can't afford it or choose not to spend your workers, you are effectively just swapping cards. This core mechanism of swapping cards is meant to represent bribing officials. On the surface, you are courteously exchanging gifts, but when you give something valuable while the official gives you a token gift in return, everybody knows what's going on.

This is the player board. You don't actually do a lot here. It is mostly a reference card. The top half shows what you do in a round, and the bottom half shows how to score points at game end. The green oval at the bottom is jade. If you have one piece of jade, that's 1 victory point. Two pieces, 3VP, and so on. The more you collect, the more valuable each piece is, until the 6th piece onwards, which is worth 2VP each.

These recesses are for keeping workers which are sacrificed when claiming sailing rewards. There is a limit to such rewards. E.g. there is only one space for the double-worker reward, so you only get to claim this reward once per game.

Travel tokens collected when you perform the travel action are to be placed here along the top edge of your player board. Whenever you use the power of a token, you flip it over (none are flipped yet in this photo). You may cash in tokens (used or unused) for rewards. Two tokens for one worker, four tokens for 2VP, or six tokens for one piece of jade.

These are the player cards. Some have an icon at the bottom, which means you get to perform an extra action, provided that the card you play is higher than the card you claim (or you are willing to pay 2 workers).

This section is the emperor's court. Every player has one official here who needs to advance from the gate all the way to the court to meet the emperor. If your official fails to get in the door of the court before the game ends, you automatically lose. You score points if he makes it. You get more points for being earlier than others.

This is the travel section. Every player has a rider who moves about collecting travel tokens. Travel tokens give various benefits.

This is the grand canal or sailing section. You place ships, man them, and move them. The harbours give various rewards. You may claim the reward at a harbour if your ship is fully manned. One of the workers will be sacrificed. Retired, if you will.

This is the intrigue section. Everyone has a pawn which can be advanced. Sometimes you'll get to cash-in its level for some reward. Naturally, the higher the level, the better the reward.

On the right you have the Great Wall section. You send workers here to help repair and extend the Great Wall. Whenever one stretch is fully repaired, the biggest contributing player gets rewarded and all his workers are dismissed. The reward includes gaining 3VP, advancing the official towards the emperor's court, and cashing in the intrigue level. Workers belonging to other players have to stay and continue toiling.

In the foreground is the decree section. The decree tiles are randomly set up at the start of each game, and this gives Gugong variability. Decrees are special abilities you may claim by spending workers and also committing workers permanently, like these ones already on the board. Decrees also have point values.

At the start of every round you roll three dice. These are not the normal 1 to 6 dice. They have a customised distribution and they are not identical. At the end of the round, if you hold cards with these values, you gain extra workers. Using this photo as an example, if you hold a 5 at the end of the round, you'll get two extra workers, because there are two dice showing 5. These dice make some numbered cards more attractive.

This is a double-worker piece. Every player has one, but it is not in play at the start of the game. It is a sailing reward you can claim. You use it like it is one worker, but it has the strength of two. This is useful for subsequent sailing and for building the Great Wall. Siamese twins are cool.

The game is played over four rounds. If your hand size remains constant at four, you'll only get to play 16 cards for the whole game. This is an efficiency game - you need to maximise your card plays and make every action count.

The Play

Every round you need to strategise how to best make use of your cards. It is challenging when you have a hand of low cards. However you are the one making the choices, so you can't blame anyone else. You decide where to play and which cards to pick up for the next round. Starting cards are preset to ensure fairness. It is not always possible to play your cards such that they are higher than the cards you claim. You need to be prepared to forgo actions or to pay workers. This core mechanism presents a puzzle and a challenge, forcing you to prioritise. You don't always get to do what you want to do. Sometimes you want to wait and hope the board situation changes in your favour. As other players take turns, they will change the cards on the board.

Of the types of actions you can do, some need a certain level of commitment in order for the effort to be worthwhile. E.g. if you are going to collect jade, the first few don't score a lot. You need to collect more for a better Return On Investment. Some actions are still worthwhile even if you don't do them a lot, e.g. sailing gives a few specific rewards, and you may only need one or two of them to support your strategy. No need to go all out.

Overall I find the game to be tactical in nature (as opposed to strategic). Just do what's best given the current board situation. Only a few action types need some persistence. For these you need to remind yourself not to neglect them.

I (white) was quite the lackey to the emperor. My official was first to rush to court to greet His Majesty.

That silver coin is the next start player marker. It is placed in the intrigue section. Every round whoever is first to perform the intrigue action gets to claim this marker.

The Thoughts

Gugong is a multiple-ways-to-score-points game. Player interaction comes in small ways which are not particularly damaging individually. They are not directly confrontational. E.g. if you buy something earlier, you force others to buy at a higher price. Or you occupy a harbour which someone else was hoping to get to. I feel the theme is rather thin. The game mechanisms are just that - game mechanisms which support and form a coherent and challenging game. I can't quite associate them with actual history.