Saint Petersburg
First play of this new game is quite promising.
Plus, its odd similarity to an older game.
Rich and Kim and I played a game of Boggle first,
since Matt was running late. Every time I play this, I think I might do better.
I've been doing well at Scrabble, and I'm getting older so I know more words.
But no, dead last again. I enjoy the game much more than I used to, but I still
found myself saying afterwards, "I coulda played Ricochet Robot!". They're both
good brain-benders, but at least I'm at least a little better at that
one.
Anyway, the main game for tonight
was Saint Petersburg, from Hans im Glück and an unspecified (or at least
obfuscated) designer. This is a classic impress-your-neighbors game; you're
trying to make a lot of money so that you can build Universities, Libraries, and
Statues, or at the very least own a few senators, so people know who you are
when you pass them on the street. In St. Petersburg, there are three classes of
things you can buy - production building that make money, city building that
provide status (and the occasional odd bit of income or special power), and
aristocrats that provide a mix. Additionally, there is a fourth category that
provides only upgrades to the previous three, so you can turn your Shepherd into
a Textile Manufacturer, your Writer into an Aristocrat, or your Market Place
into a Customs House.
The general idea
is that each round some of these cards from one category are put on offer, and
each player in turn can buy one at the printed price or pass. Once everyone
passes, the current category scores (money and/or victory points) and some more
cards from the next category are made available. After all four categories are
run through, any cards left over are discounted for the next round (and any
cards from the previous round are discarded), and a new round
starts.
It's only one play, but I quite
liked it. It's simple, your options are constrained enough that it should play
quickly. The game is not so much about which particular card to buy at any given
point, but when to switch priorities from acquiring income to acquiring victory
points, and when to buy a particularly attractive building that may not match
your exact plans at this point. I'm not sure whether St. Petersburg really
qualifies as a strategy game or not, or if it's still just a classic German
short-term-optimization game; it probably falls somewhere in between. Still,
it's got plenty of interesting choices and is a nice, simple, fast
game.
The odd thing about this game is
the designer it reminded me of - I thought it could be a Tom Lehmann game. I am
hard-pressed to explain why. It is vaguely reminiscent in flavor to an Outpost
with the core good stuff extracted and the rest discarded; but Outpost is not
one of Mr. Lehmann's games (although it was published by TimJim, who shared
facilities with his Prism label, if I'm not
mistaken).
At any rate, the bottom line
is that I was impressed with St. Petersburg, and hope to play again. It's one of
those games that would have been good for an immediate second play, if we had
had the time.
Posted: Wednesday - June 09, 2004 at 11:27 AM