Play session report from the latest London QT3 board-gaming club! This one with @Ginger_Yellow and a couple of legacy QT3rs, and not @Wendelius! If you might like to join us in Canada Water, London in future, ping me :-)
Played with five players thanks to the Community expansion which enables the 5th player and a popularity track and community cards. It is a mid-weight ish worker placement and engine building game.
A few nice touches . . .
Opportunities to interact with other players are few but those that exist are kinda friendly. Group projects allow multiple players to join and the more that join the more benefits everyone enjoys.
Wonderful theming. You can pursue an efficient engine or ‘role play’ for a lifestyle. I ended up recreating my real-life healthy living lifestyle via a “Healthy Eating” project and “Cycling” project that gave me extra health and via acquiring Garden and Gym “items” (in real life, I have a garden gym). As a result I lived longer than other players but achieved only moderate long-term happiness. Heck, did this game just try to teach me something?
Another player got a massively demanding job (level 3 of levels 1-3) very early on. This completely swallowing all his free time (worker actions) but he then managed to retire early with a nice pension. He did not win either.
Our first game winner spent most or all of his life without a job, instead focusing on projects and a partner. If you keep your upkeep costs low, by avoiding items with ongoing costs, this approach appears viable. Marvelous
Quick playing & low downtime. Even for a first play with lots of learning there was little downtime between actions. It is usually possible to plan your action whilst others are taking theirs.
. . . which after 5 plays feels like the best long-playing hidden traitor game and I cannot think of any other game which features as much player interaction and as much highly energised debate and trading. Spartacus, Battlestar Galactica and The Resistance are the closest peers but in New Angeles every dang thing seems to get debated.
Loving the feature that everyone has their own win condition, which is one of beating one specific opponent, beating any two, or for the ‘hidden traitor’ Federalist player hitting 25 credits and ruining the city in order to trigger a Federal take over.
Looking for clues for what each player has is a great challenge. In our last play the guy that needed to beat me at one point offered me an asset - which is a valuable ongoing resource - to contribute just 1 credit towards a group project. This seemed odd to me and others and kinda gave away that I was his opponent and by getting me to contribute 1 credit rather than himself he was widening the gap between us to make his win condition more certain.
In my last 3 plays though I have managed to pull off Federalist wins. Pretty remarkable for me to end up with this role 3 games in a row. Not sure whether the Federalist has a better victory chance or whether I am simply awesome. My opponents probably have opinions on this.
