Tag Archives: alea

The Alea Analysis, Part One: Ra (#1), Chinatown (#2), Taj Mahal (#3)

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Over the course of 2009, I deliberately played through all 22 games then published by Alea, from Reiner Knizia’s Ra to the brand-new Alea Iacta Est. As I played each game, I wrote an analysis of it at my livejournal. If you wish, you can still read the original 22 Alea posts there.

Rather than keep all that material locked up on a non-gaming site, I’ve decided to bring it over here, where I’ll be revising and regularizing the content to make it into a more coherent series. So, here is the first of several articles on Alea, based on my thoughts from a couple of years back. I’ll be publishing more every 2 or 4 weeks, so as not to dominate the blog with this material. Continue reading →

Alea Treasures #2: Witch’s Brew

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A long time ago, in a blog far, far away, I started a series of game design articles discussing alea’s Treasure Chest. I kicked things off by looking at Louis XIV and San Juan and planned to cover all of the expansions in time.

But, I’ve found it hard to get the expansions to the table. Old alea games can be a bit of a hard-sell all on their own (mainly because they’re old; shockingly, not even Puerto Rico is seen much locally, nowadays), but introducing new complexities to players who may not know the game can be even more difficult.

Fortunately, this last Thursday I had a specific request for Witch’s Brew with the Treasur eChest expansions. Not everyone knew the game (or knew it well), but everyone went gamely along. So here’s what I thought:
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Alea Treasures #1: Louis XIV & San Juan

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Several months ago — like many of us I suspect — I picked up alea’s Treasure Chest. I love alea and have all the games represented in the Chest, so purchasing it was a no-brainer. Since then — like many of us I suspect — I’ve had a hard time getting any of those newly supplemented games to the table. They’re just not in my normal rotation.

Over the last few months I’ve finally played two of the Treasure Chest expansions, and so I’ve decided to write about them here: saying what the expansions are, how they change their games, and what they say about game design.

Louis XIV

The expansion to Louis XIV comes in two parts: a favorite figure and four favorite action tablets.

The Figure. The favorite figure has a pretty minor effect. It’s always placed opposite Louis XIV. The top player on that space gets two of his influence markers from the general supply, everyone else gets one. These can go into their personal supply or onto the favorite actions tablet (see below).

Effect. Minor. It’s a slight consideration when you’re placing your influence markers.

Game Design. I suspect that it helps to keep the Louis XIV space from always being a position of maximal conflict. Instead some players lagging in influence markers might reasonably decide to compete over the favorite, who is of course exactly opposite Louey.
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