The Wheaton Effect Part Seven: "Takenoko"

It's been awhile since anyone in our gaming group answered the siren call of one Richard Wilhelm "Wil" Wheaton. That is, until this particular episode of Tabletop aired back November 14'th 2013:

Tasked by his wife to pick up a new board game, Jeremy wisely went with Takenoko after watching this episode of Tabletop. I say "wisely" because I was quite smitten with the game myself and secretly delighted that someone in our inner circle had pulled the trigger on it. 

I don't know what it is, but I'm a real sucker for anything related to feudal Japan. So much so that it makes me think that reincarnation is an actual thing. Why else would a dweeby white kid from Newfoundland harbor an affinity and interest in such things? Was I a panda-loathing Japanese gardener in a past life?

Notwithstanding the game's exotic setting, I was also highly impressed by its considerable aesthetic appeal and potential strategic depth. The game's official sales pitch on Asmodee's website seemed to re-enforce my initial impressions:

"The players take the role of courtesans of the Nippon emperor and take on the role of caring for his Giant Panda by growing a bamboo plantation.

"Their mission: to farm parcels of land, irrigate them, and grow green, yellow or pink bamboo. In turn, they see what the weather brings and perform two actions from among those offered to them: get a new plot of land or irrigation channel, grow bamboo, feed the panda or draw an objective card.

"The game ends when a player has completed 7 to 9 objectives (depending on the number of players). The player who gets the best score by adding the total value of their completed objective wins the game."

Wanna read the full edition of How To Feed And Care For Your Tapeworm-Infested Pet Panda (I.E. the game's rules)? Click on the link right here!  

***

After our session of Euphoria was over, Jeremy was kind enough to lead Chad, Dean, Jonathan and I though a game of Takenoko.  Here's how the match played out...

Setup was simple enough; we just threw down the central Pond Tile as well as the poor, exasperated Gardener and that deceptively-cute but clearly evil Panda. Just look into those cold, dead eyes! *Shiver*

"I'll swallow your soul."

Note to self: take up a collection for Dean to get him a new tablecloth. Jesus, that's thing's hideous.

Anyway, we began the game by taking several Plot Actions. Within a few turns we had a pretty decent little garden springing up with a surplus of Pink Bamboo, three segments of Green and a little sprig o' Yellow. Subsequently I placed and then irrigated a third Pink tile, which allowed me to play the first Objective Card of the game for four points.

By the time five more Plots were added to the board (three Yellow plus another one each in Pink and Green), we'd already begun to explore some of the game's other Actions. After wrestling with the idiosyncrasies of Gardener and Panda movement, Jonathan fulfilled a pair of three-point Panda-Objective Cards by cramming four Green Bamboo shoots down the fat fuck's voracious maw. To add some Yin to this Yang, he then decided to branch out into landscaping, earning a lucrative four-point payment for orchestrating two Green and two Pink Plots side-by-side.

Dean claimed a highly-prized six-point Objective Card by strategically placing a Watershed Improvement on a Pink tile and then growing some matching Bamboo. I managed to respond in kind, dropping another six-pointer for spotting two, three segment Pink Bamboo shoots. Just moments later, Chad sent that ravenous, monochromatic troglodyte over to our side of the table where he immediately began what I can only characterize as a vicious campaign of criminal Bamboo deforestation.

When it became blatantly obvious that Chad was trying to complete his first Objective Card by spoon-feeding Yellow Bamboo to the Panda, the rest of us decided to initiate a scorched earth policy against him. Time and time again, the Panda was cattle-prodded back over to his side of the board, where it helped itself to the "All-You-Can-Keep-Down" Yellow Bamboo buffet. The Panda gobbled it as fast as Chad could grow it, leading him to fear that he might end up getting skunked.

Not only did this provide endless amusement value for everyone else at the table, the four segments of Yellow Bamboo that the Panda scarfed on my watch ended up fulfilling two of my four-point Objective cards. WOOT!!!

Eventually the novelty of kicking Chad in the knutz while he was down began to wear off and we all moved on to different pursuits. As a result, Chad finally got on the board, using the Panda to score four points for his two-piece Yellow Bamboo snak pak. On a subsequent turn he placed a third abutting Green Plot, rewarding him with a similar amount of points in the process.  

Meanwhile, Jonathan diligently kept plugging away, gorging the Panda with some haute cuisine Bamboo: two in Yellow and two in Red for another nine-point windfall. He probably would have scored even more if the rest of us weren't playing "Panda Keep Away" with him. Thanks to our inadvertently prickish efforts, Jonathan had a really tough time luring that rotund, beady-eyed little cretin in a straight line back towards his Objective hexes.

Dean continued to storm back, earning a two-point reward for spotting three Green Plots in a row. Sticking with the ebony theme, he began the slow, arduous task of growing some matching stalks, eventually scoring four more points for an equal amount of Fertilized Bamboo which he safely barricaded behind a Panda-proof Enclosure. Even more critically: Yellow Bamboo was starting to flourish now that the heat was finally off of Chad. With perfect timing, Dean played a seven-point Objective Card just as three stalks of three-segment Yellow Bamboo came to fruition prior to reaching its apex. This would prove to be a real game-changer.
     
With Dean nipping at my heels, I decided to move away from the easy-to-complete but low-reward Panda Objectives and start working on Blue Plot cards. Unfortunately many of the random cards I drew offered pitifully low rewards. Even though I was able to complete a two-pointer for three Green Plots and three-points for a similar count of Irrigated Yellow tiles, I feared that this wouldn't be enough to ward off Dean's advances. And trust me, you want to ward of Dean's advances. He gets a little "gropey".    

Fortunately I had some reasonably-good fortune right at the buzzer, drawing a couple of higher-value Plot Cards which came pre-completed thanks to a our prodigious garden growth. This included a four-point Objective which required two Red and two Green Plots together. In playing my seventh Objective Card (requiring four neighboring Yellow and Red tiles for five points), I won the two-point bonus Emperor card and triggered the final round.

And that's when Dean's pact with Satan kicked in.

And, no, that's not the plot for an awesome episode of Supernatural. I'm actually referring to Dean's uncanny ability to draw exactly the right card and then roll precisely what he needed on the Weather Die. Unable to get to his objective in a straight line, Dean willed a Lightning result into existence, scaring the fertilizer out of the Panda and granting Dean permission to put the chubby bastard anywhere he wanted. I certainly had a few choice ideas as to where he could cram it. Like his urethra for instance. 

He moved that glassy-eyed, gluttonous freak to a space where he ate a third Bamboo color, giving him six point for this Panda-friendly bento box. He then used the Gardener to grow some Green Bamboo up to four segments on a Fertilized Plot, completing the three-point goal card he drew last turn in the process.

Un...fucking...believable...

After Dean's eleventh-hour dramatics, Chad had his final turn. In a last-gasp, "Hail Mariko"-style play, he drew and then completed a five-point Objective which required a four-segment Yellow Bamboo tower on a Watershed Improvement Plot.

With the game at an end, the only thing left to do was add up all the points and declare the final victor!

***

FINAL SCORES

Chad...12 Points

Jonathan...19 Points

Me...34 Points

Dean...35 Points

You're reading that right, folks: because Dean was able to draw an easy-to-complete Objective and then roll exactly what he needed on the Weather Die, I lost by a single frakkin' point. Going back to the whole re-incarnation thing, I'm starting to believe that I was a Japanese Gardener who also in the habit of cheating people out of their hard-earned koku in rigged games of Go and Shogi. Lord knows I'm paying for it in this life.

Man, talk about frustrating!

***

REVIEW

PROS

• Along with hips, the only other thing which is indisputable in its truthiness are pictures. Hopefully the photos in this entry convey just how beautiful the game really is. We've got practical and whimsically-illustrated Individual Boards. The Bamboo bitz, Weather Die and Action Chips are all made out of real wood. The Objective Cards are durable and charming. The Improvement tokens and Plot Tiles are colorful and sturdy. And finally you also get two highly-detailed figures. The stressed-out look on the Gardener's face is priceless. It's as if he's constantly thinking: "If that walking esophagus eats another furshlugginer piece of bamboo the Emperor's gonna throw me a seppuku party!"
• Between the Weather Die, five different possible Actions and points which can come from Plot, Gardener and Panda Cards it all adds up to a respectable number of options. Indeed, there's a surprising amount of strategy for a game that includes a little plastic Panda.
• Just as it is in real life, Irrigation is key to successful gardening. So I'm told.       
• If you're lagging behind in the game, Keep Calm and Panda On. As Dean clearly illustrated, it's definitely possible to come back after an early deficit if you plan things right and catch a few lucky breaks. 
• The game isn't particularly complicated and should be relatively easy to teach to folks who are experienced with light Euros. Bonus points as well for the colorful and amusing rulebook.

CONS

• Between the fickle Weather Die and crap-shoot late game Objective Card draws, there's a lot of luck involved in this game. 
• A few fiddly things RE: Gardener/Panda Movement, Plot placement, Objective fulfillment, Bamboo Growth and Irrigation result in more rulebook references then expected.

*** 

There's a very, very good chance that I'll add Takenoko to my collection at some point in time, not because its so awesome or revolutionary but because I just love the theme and the game's curb appeal. If Asmodee has a spare copy of the ginormo-edition sittin' around collectin' dust, I'd be more then happy to play Emperor of Japan to your Emperor of China, ifyouknowwhutImsayin'! *nudge, nudge*  *wink, wink*

Takenoko scores four pips out of six with a tilt up toward the tallest bamboo stalk in the Emperor's garden!

***

Looking to make panda foie gras?  Click on the box cover below to order a copy of Takenoko and help this blog's garden grow! 

Sweet Relief: "Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia"

As a freelance writer, it's always a constant struggle to find work. One of the earliest gigs I encountered was a possible assignment writing movie reviews.

As soon as I saw this I jumped at the opportunity: 'Perfect!' I though to myself. 'I already host an entertainment-related blog where I do reviews, so this works out well!'

But then I took a closer look at the fine print. My potential employer actually had the cojones to set the following stipulation:

"Positive reviews only, please."

When I read this I just sat there and blinked for awhile. Sorry, but if the last movie I saw was Resident Evil there's no way in God's green earth I'm gonna give that piece of shit a good review. I'd rather starve to death.

So what does this preamble have to do with Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia? Welp, for the sake of full disclosure, Stonemaier Games sent me a free copy to review.

Well, in my mind, this sets me up for the same sort of Ethical Dilemma you face in the game itself. What if it sucks, bites and/or blows? I'll be forced to pan it and then I'll look like an asshole.

Mercifully, designers Jamey Stegmaier and Alan Stone have spared me from this awkward conundrum. Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia moves quickly, provides plenty of gregarious in-game choices and practically begs to be played again as soon as that tenth Authority Star drops.

Now, I don't often get a chance to play a game several times before I review it but this was a pleasant exception. I first gave it a whirl during the Christmas holidays with my considerably better half. Although I goofed up a few rules and the game seemed to suffer from "follow the leader" syndrome a little bit, we could both tell that there was considerable promise here.

I wanted to have another bash at Euphoria while it was still reasonably fresh in my mind but this time with more players. As such, I tabled the game again this past Wednesday for the usual gang of idiots.

When I first cracked open the shipping box I was immediately impressed. For a Kickstarter project, Euphoria looked pretty friggin' slick. Even though the colorful, Art Deco-inspired artwork seemed a tad incongruous I was really intrigued by the game's bleak premise:

"In Euphoria, you lead a team of workers (dice) and recruits (cards) to claim ownership of the dystopian world. You will generate commodities, dig tunnels to infiltrate opposing areas, construct markets, collect artifacts, strengthen allegiances, and fulfill secret agendas.

"Euphoria is a worker-placement game where dice are your workers. The number on each die represents a worker’s knowledge–that is, their level of awareness that they’re in a dystopia. Worker knowledge enables various bonuses and impacts player interaction. If the collective knowledge of all of your workers gets too high, one of them might desert you.

"You also have 2 elite recruit cards at your disposal. One has pledged allegiance to you, but the other needs some convincing. You can reveal and use the reticent recruit by reaching certain milestones in the game…or by letting other players unwittingly reach those milestones for you.

"Your path to victory is paved with the sweat of your workers, the strength of your allegiances, and the tunnels you dig to infiltrate other areas of the world, but the destination is a land grab in the form of area control. You accomplish this by constructing markets that impose harsh restrictions of personal freedoms upon other players, changing the face of the game and opening new paths to victory. You can also focus on gathering artifacts from the old world, objects of leisure that are extremely rare in this utilitarian society. The dystopian elite covet these artifacts—especially matching pairs—and are willing to give you tracts of land in exchange for them.

"Three distinct societies, each of them waiting for you to rewrite history. What are you willing to sacrifice to build a better dystopia?"

Looking to gobble the red pill of reality and reveal all that Matrix-y goodness underneath? To see just how deep the rabbit hole goes, click on the game's full rules right here.

***

After a several-week hiatus we were all pretty anxious to get back into our regular routine of Wednesday night gaming. While Andrew, Kris, Matt and Mike busied themselves with another diversion, I led four of my compatriots though the motions of building a better dystopia®.

PLAYER COLORS

Chad...Red

Me...Blue

Dean...Black

Jeremy...Purple

Jonathan...Green

After I did my best to impart some wisdom regarding Recruit selection, Chad began the game with an active Wastelander named Nick the Understudy. This gave him the option to increase Morale whenever he was forced to gain Knowledge, which allowed him to hold onto more Artifact Cards.

Chad wasn't the first player to activate a new Worker, but whenever it happened he had a nasty habit of rolling high and exceeding his Knowledge checks. It certainly didn't help that his Knowledge Chart standing always seemed to be over three. More then once his smartest peon had a sudden epiphany, stripped naked, started screaming "WOOP-WOOP-WOOP!" and then dashed off into the woods. In fact, he only had one active Worker remaining at the end of the game.

By the time Chad set his plebes to the task of procuring Artifact Cards, every available Territory Space in Icarus had already been snapped up by his rivals. Instead he used those cards to fuel several Worker excursions to the Ark of Fractured Memories, placing two of his Authority Tokens in Wastelander Territory.

About around the same time, the Aquifer's Allegiance Progress was nudged up into the third tier, giving Chad the authority to activate his secret Recruit Josiah the Hacker. By placing a Worker on either the Generator, the Farm or the Cloud Mine, Chad could use this dude to earn a Morale kickback while saddling others with explosive levels of Knowledge if they also had serfs in that same space.

Taking note of all the value that Dean, Jeremy and I were wringing out of building construction, Chad also invested in the the Cafeteria of Nameless Meat ("Nummie!") and the notably-grim "Disassemble-A-Teddy-Bear Shop". He was also the first player to confront his Ethical Dilemma Card, opting to rail against the dystopia. This allowed him to introduce Icarite Recruit Lee the Gossip for an eleventh-hour Authority Token play.

Having already played a two-player match-up, I decided to tackle the game with a three-pronged assault:

1. Get a new Recruit as soon as possible. 
2. Acquire Artifacts in order to drop Authority Tokens in highly-contested Territories before space runs out.
3. Invest in as many new Market tiles as possible.

I started the game with Gary the Euphorian Electrician. This turned out to be a solid choice since I had plenty of opportunities to place matching Workers on the Generator and score bonus Energy. Within a few short turns the Progress Token broke into the the first tier on the Generator Allegiance Track, meaning that I could now collect three Energy per placement. As great as this was I wish I'd opted for the Morale increase a few times since I probably would have avoided a game-altering setback later on.

Armed with my quick surplus of Energy I quickly activated a new Worker die. Even though I struggled later on with chronic Knowledge creep I'm proud to say that I didn't lose a single worker all game! The first time I played Euphoria I fell prey to the instinctual habit of taking back all of my dice back from the board, even the ones that were working away on Market Tile constructions sites. This time I was a lot more strategic about my retrieval actions.

Given my hastily-acquired stockpile of Commodities and Resources, I set about acquiring as many Artifact Cards as possible. This allowed me to place the first Authority Star of the game in Icarite Territory. Those precious relics from a bygone era continued to pile up, especially when the Generator Progress Token cracked that second tier, giving me Gold and an Artifact Card every time I sent a worker down into the Euphorian Tunnel. Not long after I dropped another Star in the same Territory.

After an early spurt of Icarus-based activities I activated my second Recruit: Kaden the Infiltrator. In retrospect, this elitist snot wasn't a particularly wise selection since only the Euphorian Tunnel Exclusive Action Space was revealed during the game and it wasn't particularly useful to me. Still, he ended up carrying an Authority Token for me when the Icarite Progress Token hit the top tier of the Allegiance Track.

Just as I was about to place a second Star in Icarus, Jeremy and I both realized that our Morale wasn't high enough to support the number of Artifact Cards that we currently had in hand, which prompted a small flurry of discards. Thwarted my this critical oversight, I decided to side with my dystopia via my Ethical Dilemma Card, earning a super-cheap consolation prize Star as a result.

I then started to parley my ample resources into construction. By the end of the game, I had my finger in every single Market-based pie: the two aforementioned sites as well as the Apothecary of Productive Dreams and the Theater of Revelatory Propaganda. This left me with just one measly Authority Star left to place. I then joined Dean and Jeremy on our fourth Market collaboration, knowing that I'd be able to drop  my tenth and final Token there within a few turns.

  
Thanks to his starting Recruit, Maggie the Outlaw, Dean spent his first few turns wringing bonus Water and Stone out of the Aquifer. He then set about producing new Workers as quickly as possible. This approach paid off rather nicely for him since he kept his Knowledge tamped down to a manageable level and was also very selective about how many dice he retrieved from the board at a time. By the end of the game he was the only player who was rocking all four Workers.  

Dean then started to spend a lot of his hard-earned resources on the pre-constructed floating Markets of Icarus. This led to a hefty collection of Artifacts, which he then used to patronize the Wind Saloon. As one might expect, Dean quickly tagged the corresponding Territory with two Authority Tokens. Another benefit of this was the early introduction of his second Recruit, Amanda the Broker, who gave him an immediate Star placement as well as more Worker flexibility whenever his dice got Bumped.

Dean then put on his hard hat, rolled up his sleeves and joined Jeremy and I in a spate of Market construction. This also served him well in the long run, since, by the end of the game, he'd helped to build the Theater, the Apothecary, and the Teddy Bear Rip-A-Partery Barn. In fact, the only structure he didn't have a hand in building was the Cafeteria, mainly because Chad "Yoinked!" the last spot away from him right at the last second. The commissary's revealed penalty ("lose an extra Morale whenever you retrieved Workers for free") seemed to irritate him to no ends and he immediately set about earning another regional Star in order to nullify its effects.

For his first game, Jeremy turned in a bravura performance. His starting Recruit, Jefferson the Shock Artist ("Oh my God, where is he putting that banana?!?"), turned out to be a stellar starting selection. By paying Energy instead of Bliss or Food to retrieve his dice, Jeremy had the ability to prop up his Worker Morale whilst keeping them all blissfully ignorant. This was the perfect arrangement since it also allowed him to keep a mittful of Artifact Cards and not risk losing his nosier Workers.

Like Dean and I, Jeremy invested early and heavily in Artifact Cards, which gave him an opportunity to dump two Stars in Icarus whist driving up the Icarite Allegiance Track. Although he also got penalized for harboring one too many Artifact Cards, he managed to rebound by drawing two of a kind at least once, giving him a quicker and more efficient trade. As a result, he gained the initiative on me and sealed up the final Icarite Territory spot. Not long after he snagged some valuable Euphorian real estate by visiting the Incinerator of Historical Accuracy.

As it turned out, Jeremy was also harboring a green Recruit Card. So, when we collectively knocked the bell off of the Icarite Allegiance Track, Jeremy was quick to roll out Maxime the Ambassador who came complete with a shiny purple Star pre-pinned to his puffed-out chest. Although Maxime got him in Morale trouble a few times, Jeremy couldn't resist Bumping many of his rival's Workers off the board in order to drive up their Knowledge and snag some free Artifact Cards. Of all the Icarite Recruits revealed during the game, I'd wager that Maxime was probably the best.

Unlike Dean, Jeremy managed to eke out a piece of the action in every single completed Market. This alone earned him the right to place four Authority Tokens on the board. Towards the end of the game he got a tad sloppy in tamping down his Worker's collective Knowledge, which resulted in a few of his more willful peeps going AWOL. Nevertheless, he managed to re-acquire a total of three dice before the final whistle blew.

And then there's poor Jonathan. He started out promising enough with a Recruit that seemed to scream       "synchonicity": Jonathan the Gambler. Although this guy's power was sort of interesting it was also kinda crap-shooty. Here's exactly what his game text says:

"When you draw an Artifact Card you may draw three instead and gain one Knowledge. If you do, reveal those cards. Keep only matching cards from that draw and discard the rest. You may use this ability once per turn."  

While plumbing the depths of the Euphorian Tunnel, Jonathan had several opportunities to use this power. Unfortunately, every time he tried to use The Gambler's special ability it completely fizzled. In fact, I think it only worked once after five or more attempts and only right at the end of the game.

Which begs the question, if you patronize a spot where you can draw two Artifact Cards, say, at the Breeze Bar for instance, could the Gambler's ability be used to draw six cards in total? I assume this is legal but I'm not a hundred percent sure. Let's face it, folks, there's just enough different items in the Artifact Deck to make drawing two of a kind from three cards pretty improbable.

In addition: two other aspects of this power make it pretty harsh. Namely:

1. You're forced to gain Knowledge.
2. If nothing matches then you don't get to keep anything.      

By inflating his Knowledge almost immediately, Jonathan became the first player to have a worker tell him to "cram it with walnuts". Compounding his woes in the HR department, Jeremy got into the habit of bumping Jonathan's dice with Maxime the Ambassador. Every time this happened, Jonathan's Knowledge level went up and his Workers began to commiserate. More then anyone else, Jonathan suffered a brutal amount of dice-related turnover.

Mercifully, when the Progress token crossed into the third level of the Euphorian Allegiance Track, Jonathan was able to table (?) the marginally-less-useless Esme the Fireman. Notwithstanding the fact that she looks a tad young to be fighting backdrafts, Esme gave Jonathan a fighting chance to increase his Morale or decrease his Knowledge whenever his played a Star and had an Artifact to discard. Unfortunately this just didn't happen often enough, but at least Esme took on a Star for him when we reached the apex of the Euphorian Allegiance Track moments later.  

Between his single-minded gambling addiction and his staffing woes, Jonathan quickly fell to the back of the pack. This continued to snowball because he couldn't keep enough building materials on hand to assist the rest of us in Market construction. As you might expect, all of the negative modifiers that came from this completely hobbled his end game as well.

Above and beyond placing Stars on his two Recruits and in Euphorian Territory via the Incinerator of Historical Accuracy, Jonathan ended the game with only two Worker Dice and a hefty backlog of unplaced Authority Tokens.

Even though I only had one Star left to place, I started to get a sinking feeling. Between my Morale oversight and Jeremy's smart Recruit selections and penchant for drawing matching Artifact Cards, I knew that I was in trouble. Indeed, all Jeremy had to do on his next turn was "Serve The Oppressor" on his Ethical Dilemma Card, drop his tenth and final Authority Token and claim the win!

***

REVIEW

PROS

• The game's production values are exemplary. The sheer number of die-cut wooden Commodities and Resources is just phenomenal. Just take one look at those Miner Meeples and you know they weren't easy to produce! Also the cards, the board, the chits, the Market Tiles, Multiplier Markers and the customized six-sided dice are all of the highest quality.  
• I liked the game a lot more with five players. When one person claims one of the two Territory Spaces in a two-player game, the impulse is to drop everything you're doing and concentrate on snapping up the last remaining space. Even though there's still only one space per player, having five open slots just feels a lot less restrictive.    
• The strategy here is ridiculously deep. I had no clue what I was doing in my first game, but after applying what I learned from Game One I actually acquitted myself rather well. In fact, if I maintained my Morale, held onto those Artifacts and captured that last Icarite Territory Space, I think I had a pretty good shot at winning.  
• As per my example, anyone foolish enough to ignore the Morale and Knowledge charts will be doomed to failure. I love how these tracks contribute to the game's theme, subtly reenforcing all of those "Strength Through Joy" / "Joy Through Labor" World War II-era propaganda posters. 
• Resources, Commodities, Artifact Cards, Knowledge, Morale and Authority Tokens can be lost or gained from so many different sources (Worker Activation Tanks, Commodity Areas, the Allegiance Tracks, Tunnels, Construction Sites, Artifact Markets and regular Markets) that the game practically begs for strategic experimentation. 
• Placing just one Worker at a time keeps the game moving at a lively clip. By the time your turn comes back around, you've had more then enough time to ponder your next die placement. Ergo, the game barely suffers from analysis paralysis.    
• Not only do the Ethical Dilemma Cards contribute to the theme, they also provide a very interesting decision point in the game. If you want to switch gears early, you can "Fight the Establishment" and table a new Recruit. If you want to do a Mortal Kombat-style finishing move, just "Contribute to the Dystopia" to drop your tenth and final Star for the win! 
• You really need to select Recruits that will dove-tail with your strategy, otherwise they'll end up doing absolutely nothing for you while your opponent's more insightful picks continue to pay dividends. By specializing in a certain faction you can really create some synergy between your chosen Recruit and the Allegiance Track in order to maximize production and reel in even more lucrative rewards. Next time I'll try the Advanced "Recruit Draft" rules which grant players more flexibility and control over their available minions. 
• The cumulative effect of stacking Workers in the Commodity Areas is nothing short of brilliant. As a side note: you may want to avoid leaving your Workers in these spaces during a Retrieve action otherwise you may inadvertently end up giving your opponents a free lunch!      
• I love how the pace of the game continues to pick up and then races to a climax.  
• Rolling dice to determine your Worker's level of awareness is also a pretty cool mechanic. Some people seem to think that the Knowledge Chart *slash* 16 point cut-off is bit too harsh but I don't agree. Remember: you don't have to take all of your dice back and Workers left pounding away at an  under-construction Market are still serving you well.

CONS

• We all thought that the board's graphic design was a bit too busy. Even at the end of the game, people were still struggling to remember where to place Workers in order to score certain resources. Sorry, but I like my dystopias the way I like my women: dark and gritty. I wanted more 1984 and less 1930's Flash Gordon serial. Yes, I know the whole point of the game is to conceal the dark heart beating just underneath that motley facade, but if I'm gonna stare at a game board for several hours I want my dystopia to look like Brazil, not Buck freakin' Rogers. It's my understanding that some copies of the game come with a flip side to the board which is more monochromatic, but mine only has the "riot of color" side. I'd bitch about this but then I remember the old adage: "never look a gift board game in the...um, board."  Yeah, whatever.   
• While I was playing it didn't seem as if the "follow the leader" tendencies inherent in my first two player game carried over to this one but the session report I just wrote up would seem to indicate otherwise. In many ways, Dean, Jeremy and I ended up doing a lot of the same things. Frankly, if everyone takes a similar path and the winner is determined by a single oversight or whoever gets the luckier Artifact Card draws then this could be problematic. I'll try to pay close attention to this in future games and adjust my rating accordingly if need be. 
• The game can be a bear to teach to new players and there are a few vagaries in the rulebook, particularly where it relates to exactly where you can place Authority Tokens. As if in response to this deficit, the wonderful denizens of Board Game Geek have stepped up and provided plenty of awesome printable resources, like this one for example.     

We had a lot of fun with Euphoria. Trashy table talk was rampant and people were practically chomping at the bit to whip their next Worker back into the salt mines. Like a good movie, the game started off slow but then built up to frantic crescendo. Over the course of an hour-and-a-half we were faced with plenty of interesting and agonizing decisions that made for a compulsively playable and engaging experience.

I give Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia five pips outta six, with a sniper-scope tilt up towards those Icarite zeppelins.

***

Wanna sneak preview of Canada if Stephen Harper gets another term? Click on the following image to buy a copy of Euphoria: Build a Better Dystopia and help this blog fight the good fight!

"Hey, I'm Not Dead Yet...Oh, Wait, NOW I'm Dead!" - "Eldritch Horror"

A few months ago I played Arkham Horror for the second time. I wanted to give it another bash because our first game had been nothing but a protracted exercise in frustration. It took forever to get from one place to another, there were tons of fiddly rules to remember and it seemed unrepentantly difficult to do anything. Honestly, it felt like the gaming equivalent of slogging through mud up to your hips.

Still wanting to give the game a fair shake we decided to tackle it again just a few months ago.
Learning my lesson from the previous go-'round I spent the first hour or so loading good ol' Monterey Jack up to the gills with every permutation of weapon I could possibly get my weathered mitts on. When I finally procured every possible item required to close a Gate and seal it, I fought my way to the Witch's House and then boldly plunged into the Dreamlands.

I then spent two long, boring, protracted turns meandering through the Other Worlds waiting for my character to get systemically fucked over. Honestly, it felt like it took FOREVER. Bereft of any control over what was happening to me, my precious Clue Tokens (which I needed to seal the Gate) were slowly and inexorably robbed from me. All I could do was sit there as my dream of closing one measly Gate was ripped away from me in slow-motion.

Two turns later I was vomited back out onto the porch of the Witch's House. To add insult to injury, a Ghost had since migrated onto that same location. As soon as he saw me he tamped out his cigarette, pulled a bed sheet over his head and then proceeded to stomp a mud-hole in my ass. And because that spectral prick had a Physical Immunity, all of my weapons were about as useless as a DVD re-winder. Long story slightly less long: ol' Monty was quickly reduced to a gibbering, drooling mass of crazy and then immediately interred at Arkham Asylum where I got to waste yet another turn playing checkers with The Riddler.

I couldn't remember a time in which I was more bored, frustrated and pissed-off while playing a board game. To make the best of it, since we didn't actually finish the game, I couldn't vent my rage in the form of a review! Just like how I won't review a bad movie unless I've watched the whole stinkin' mess, I won't review a crap game until I've seen it through to the bitter end.

Yes, I know that the Cthulhu / Lovecraft Mythos is irredeemably bleak and it's not a matter of will your Investigator go nuts and / or die horribly but when and how. I really don't mind a challenge when it comes to co-op games, I just wonder why Arkham Horror has to be such a cunty bore about it.

Anyhoo, last week when Jeremy suggested that we try the new, globe-trotting flavor of Lovecraftian insanity and death called Eldritch Horror, I silently started to cackle.

"Time to break out the knives," I gloated, rubbing my hands together like a crazed cultist.

But then something unexpected happened. Something so unpredictable, so amazing, it made the ending of H.P.'s short story "Under the Pyramids" look like an episode of Dads.

I actually really, really liked it.

So what makes this latest iteration of Lovecraftian terror different from its predecessor? Clues to this multi-planar mystery can be found within the husk of the following slick trailer courtesy of those promotional geniuses at Fantasy Flight:

If you're willing to risk madness to augur the nefarious plans of the omnipotent Ancient Ones, feel free to crack open the Necronomicon-like rule book right here.

***

INVESTIGATOR SELECTION

Me...Silas Marsh

Dean...Charlie Kane

Jeremy...Jim Culver 

Matt...Trish Scarborough

ANCIENT ONE

Yog-Sothoth

Reasonably well-armed with my starting Fish Net and a few other accoutrements, I decided to tackle the Monster that was stinking up the Sydney Opera House. Not on my watch, slimy! Unfortunately, said beastie turned out to be a Shoggoth and, as such, the game began pretty much the same way as my two previous plays of Arkham Horror: I.E. I got my ass handed to me. Thusly humbled, I used my special ability to flee the cursed continent by ship, looking to put as much distance between me and my tentacled assailant.

To combat our first Mystery Card, "The Beyond", we needed to spend Clue Tokens gleaned from completed Research Encounters. After crossing the South Pacific, I prepared to take on some more Filthy McNasties in Buenos Aires.

As Charles Foster...er, Charlie Kane, Dean had all the economic clout he needed in order to pick up valuable resources in both San Francisco and Arkham. This included a Personal Assistant and a Trinket card which gave a +1 bonus to all Ability Tests. He even managed to snag a much-needed Observation Improvement Token for himself.

During various misadventures, Jeremy's Jim Culver procured two handy weapons: a Spirit Dagger and a Bull Whip. He also hooked up with some Hired Muscle and came across a Shriveling Spell, which I assume replicates the effect of dipping your foe in an unheated swimming pool. I guess even Unspeakable Horrors are paranoid about the size of their junk. Regardless of these intimidating assets, Culver got Delayed in Arkham, resulting in a frustrating loss of time.

After a few tough scrapes that inflicted two point of Health damage, Matt went into Debt in order to Acquire a .45 Automatic and the Arcane Scholar Ally. Both proved indispensable in a few key Encounters and led to a very handy Improvement in Influence. However, just like Jeremy, Matt also got mired in a series of unfortunate Delays.

After Silas managed to fumigate all of Buenos Aires, Chuck and Jim tagged-teamed the mounting evil forces in Arkham. Meanwhile, Trish discovered something even more disturbing then a rotund Greek tourist dressed in an invisible Speedo at a Sandals resort down in the Caribbean.

Then Trish and Jim traveled to foggy old London Town where they attempted to quell a nasty Monster-fueled Riot by enforcing an Agency Quarantine. This four-damage carpet bomb cleared out both sides of the Thames in one fell-swoop!

Completing our first Mission Card proved challenging at best. The first issue we ran into was that there were no Clue Tokens on the board. By the time those little green bastards finally started popping up, all of the Research-based locations were choked with deadly threats. Slowly but surely we managed to chip away at them, earn our fourth Clue Token and then move on to our next Mission.

"Arcane Understanding" proved to be no less daunting. For this Mystery, we had to discard a Spell after using it to pass a Lore Test and then claim an Eldritch Token for the card. Once again we had to do this four times in order to succeed.

Although these requirements were pretty circumstantial ("Okay, we need to sacrifice an albino gerbil during the third night of the summer Solstice, but only while wearing our ceremonial sombreros and only if AMC is currently airing a marathon of Breaking Bad"), Trish was well-suited to tackle this mission. After all, she had the Spell-generating Necronomicon in her possession and the ability to deliver the required sorcery thanks to her Arcane Scholar, Abby...er, Ally.

At that point in time Matt had to dash so we ran Trish collectively for the next little while. It's a damned good sight that he did make himself scarce, because he'd somehow managed to pick up an incredibly nasty Dark Pact Card which came to fruition not long after he left. 

And what was on the flip-side of this evil piece of cardboard? Why a fun little Deal called "One of the Thousand", which Devoured one of the other Investigators! Wow, ain't life grand, kids?

Since Matt had already hit the bricks, we decided to roll randomly to see who was going to get deep-throated (and not in a good way). And yep, you guessed it, Silas "Take Somebody Else, I'm Stringy!" Marsh turned out to be the Human McNugget!

Yee-fuckin'-HAW! In spite my shock, there was no time to sit around an mourn Pirate Fabio. The Doom Track was almost at its apex and we had to act fast in order to postpone the inevitable!

Since the clock hadn't quite struck "Yer Fucked" yet, I had an opportunity to grab a new character and get right back in on the action. With an inordinate amount of Cultists on the board, I decided to assume the role of N.S.A.*-whistleblower Diana Stanley:

Unfortunately, with Yog-Sothoth on the verge of meandering out into our plane of existence at any moment, I didn't have any time to ramp her up. Subsequently, after eliminating all of the dark sect opposition in Tokyo I plunged hood-first into the open Gate.

Yeah, that worked out about as well as you might imagine.

Meanwhile, as one of the other players that didn't suffer an arbitrary and unavoidable death, Jeremy had collected no less then nine different resources. Originally he wanted to help me close the Gate in Japan but he got all tied up India, presumably because he was hauling around the equivalent of three steamer trunks filled with crap.

As Charles Kane, Dean accumulated his own modest haul, including a Silver Key, a Revolver and his very own Spell-casting tome the "Cultes des Goules". Unfortunately, after getting elder-abused during a sea-bound Encounter while en route to South Africa, a Dark Pact was hung about his neck like an (un)dead albatross. At this stage in the game, I'm sure ol' Chuck was wondering why he didn't follow the example of his CEO buddies and become a source of pure evil instead of fighting against it.

Meanwhile, Dean's wife Claudia assumed the role of Trish. After a quick tutorial, she continued Matt's sound strategy of using her Arcane Scholar to get a new Spell from the Necronimicon which she then used to complete Lore Tests which she then...*whew!*...used to earn an Eldritch Token. After two quick successes, it looked as if we might, just might, complete our second Mystery Card before Yog-Sothoth reared his ugly puss.

But then things really started to fall apart. After we blew the bell off'a the top of the ol' Doom Track, Yog-Sothoth began to stretch and yawn...

A few turns later, Charles Kane had a massive coronary in South Africa, presumably after watching his first Die Antwoord video. Since this occurred after Yog-Sothoth finished his second cup of morning joe, Dean wasn't allowed to take a replacement character and was effectively out of the game for good.

My ill-prepared delve into the Pachinko Hell Gate promptly went sour, stripping me of several key Items and leaving me with a crippling Back Injury to boot. Then, in what seemed like a never-ending, coal-black running joke, this brutal Condition caused me to lose every single one of my remaining items whenever a Reckoning Phase came around. Good times. 

Needless to say, the final results were inevitable. With the Doom Track now dialed up to "11", every new occurrence added a Gate Token to Yog's card instead. After three of these unearthly portals under his fell sway, the very fabric of our reality began to fray. Thusly empowered, the Greater Old One forced its way into our realm, extinguishing all life as we know it and covering the earth in a pall of unending darkness.

Merry Christmas, everyone!!!

***

And with that, our sad, pathetic efforts to stem the inevitable tide of encroaching cosmic evil were dashed and our gnat like-existences were snuffed out like candle flames in a tornado. In other words, it was a lot like my first two plays of Arkham Horror.  

But my lingering reaction to Eldritch Horror was quite different. Here, then, is my...

REVIEW

PROS

• Like all Fantasy Flight products, the game looks absolutely gorgeous. The abstracted, moody-looking board is clear and practical. The Encounter, Mythos, Mystery, Artifact, Asset, Condition and Spell Cards are all beautifully illustrated and made of high-quality cardboard. The same goes for the tome-like Investigator Sheets. Finally, the myriad of different tokens are durable, evocative and easily-discernible. Nothing but the top marks for the production side of things.
• Jeremy did a fantastic job interpreting the rule book. Although we may have made a teensy little mistake which probably resulted in a bunch of extra Monsters hitting the board prematurely, the game as a whole clipped along rather smoothly. 
• This one isn't nearly as fiddly as its creaky parent. Eldritch Horror really benefits from eight years worth of game evolution and innovation. Whereas Arkham Horror is a bit convoluted, I retained enough of Eldritch Horror after one play (two weeks ago!) that I could probably give new players a pretty decent overview.
• That's not to say that Eldritch Horror isn't a deep, thematic experience, quite the opposite in fact. Although it's not as "RPG campaign in a box" as Arkham is, it does provide a very unique globe-trottin' experience. This is helped along by several unique Encounter Decks which feature flavorful, setting-specific Cards. Sea travel, City exploration and jaunts into the Other World are all similarly realized. This alone is enough to blow the needle right off the ol' Theme-O-Meter.  
• Like its predecessor, co-operation and team-work is essential to success, which probably accounts for our poor showing. I think we spent just a little bit too much time playing out our own little solo adventures around the board. Teaming up for Combat Encounters makes a lot of sense because lone Investigators will have a pretty rough time taking down Monsters solo. And trust me, if you get your ass kicked by one of these slimy bastards it usually means that you're gonna hafta burn a few turns getting back up to speed again. 
• I'm not sure if it was just a spate of bad luck, but man, those Mystery Cards were tough as hell. If you think that designers Corey Konieczka, Richard Launius and Nikki Valens have gone soft on us in the past eight years, think again. This one might not be as long or as complicated as Arkham, but it still generates a feeling of impending doom, which is the bread n' butter for every Lovecraft game. 
• Even though the character I'd been building up was randomly squashed though no fault of my own, I didn't flip the table. Why? Because, unlike Arkham Horror, it didn't happen in a painful, dragged-out, boring fashion. It was just *BOOM* , yer dead! How 'bout that, bitch? With certain disaster looming I just grabbed another character and jumped right back into the fray.

CONS

• Let's face it, given the bleak odds for success and a virtual guarantee that your precious Investigator will eventually go batshit nuts and/or get crushed like a gnat, this game isn't for everyone. If I'd never played Arkham Horror before, I'd be tempted to rate Eldritch Horror "4" outta "6" but since it does just about everything better in comparison, it really shines for me.

***

Not only is this game easier to get into and quicker to play, it's nowhere nearly as frustrating as it's bigger, older, hairier sibling. If you're looking for co-operative feelings of oppressive dread, Indiana Jones-style global adventure and moments of stark terror and despair, then Eldritch Horror is surely looming on your horizon. 

***

Prefer to suicide by bleeding-out slowly then incremental mercury poisoning? Click on the pic below to begin your adventure and give this poor, frightened, squishy l'il blog a modicum of hope...

*N.S.A.: Non-Shoggoth Agent

(Sneak) Peak Oil: "Wildcatters"

Sure, I love boardgames but I love writing and editing even more. Because of my addiction to these pursuits, I don't have nearly as much time for gaming as I would like.

This is in stark contrast to someone like Kris who we added to our gaming group a few months back. For him, gaming isn't just a hobby, it's a pursuit that bleeds into every aspect of his life. In addition to amassing a collection of well over four-hundred titles and working his ass off to establish a game-related business venture, Kris also finds the time to attend many high-profile gaming conventions all over North America.

Needless to say, having Kris in our gaming circle yields a lot of pretty awesome dividends for the rest of us. For example, he just got back from Board Game Geek Con, an insane, five-day orgy of card-floppery and dice-hucking. Since the event now attracts about twenty-three hundred attendees, it's also a major industry hot-spot for designers and publishers who are looking to flog their latest wares.

As you can well imagine, Kris picked up a metric shit-ton of Hotness while he was down there and one of the titles he was particularly keen to table right away was Wildcatters.    

And, no, the game isn't about horny, middle-aged, classically-attired women who troll around in bars looking to hook up with younger men. Those are cougars, dumbass.

The game's title actually refers to prospectors who drill exploratory wells in places not known to contain oil, far away from civilized areas where only wildcats dwell. If they find evidence of oil, they snap up the land at a steal and then sell it for an obscene profit to developers.

Okay, so that explains the title of the game, but what about the game itself? A reservoir of info can be tapped just by watching this great l'il walkthrough vid straight from RASS Games:

Looking for the full gusher of rules? You can tap into the black gold that is knowledge by a-clickin' on the link right here.

***

The night of November 27'th was pretty hairy weather-wise. Torrential rains and high winds knocked out the power at our typical gaming arena, I.E. Dean's place. That's when Kris stepped in and suggested that we test drive his new acquisition at The Board Room Game Cafe, which turned out to be a great idea.

NOTE: due to time constraints we decided to play a five-round match. The standard game of Wildcatters is actually seven rounds, eight if you've got three players.

COLORS

Chad...Red

Me...Blue

Dean...Yellow

Kris...Green

During our initial pre-game set up, Chad placed two Drilling Rigs in North America and one in South America. He decided to augment this strategy with a couple of rail lines, one in Canada and one in Mexico and then finished off with a Refinery in Peru and an Oil Tanker off the coast of Newfoundland.

Intent on digging a big, ugly hole in Alberta, I set up an Oil Refinery on the East Coast of Canada. Unfortunately, Chad and Dean snatched up the Area Cards that would have let me bring this nefarious goal to fruition. As a result, I had to be content with building two Drilling Rigs in Brazil and one in Russia. I decided to round this out with a Train line in South America and the Middle East and then christened an Oil Tanker which I decided to tie up adjacent to Chad's Refinery.

By dropping down a Refinery, a Drilling Rig and a Train, Dean managed to concentrate several of his resources in Mother Russia. The rest of his distribution, featuring a rail line in British Columbia, an oil derrick in Asia and a Tanker bobbin' off the coast of Japan, was less scattershot and more the product of necessity.

Along with Chad, Kris did a pretty decent job consolidating his starting resources in one region. By the end of the set-up phase he'd stocked Asia and the Middle East with a Refinery, a Tanker, a Train and a Drilling Rig. This allowed him to branch out into South America, where he placed a rail line and an oil derrick. He then elbowed into Dean's turf, erecting a Drilling Rig just outside of Moscow.  

Soooo, here's how the board looked just prior to kick-off:

Eschewing any development in Asia, Chad concentrated on the Western hemisphere. He transformed his two Drilling Rigs in central Canada into Pumpjacks and then started diverting all that ebony juice into Refineries owned by Kris and myself. This quickly made him the number one oil supplier in North America.

But it was down in South America where he really excelled, building a rail line in Brazil which linked up to Kris's facility on Mexico. After cobbling together three more derricks, he got them a-pumpin' which kept his own facility fully stocked with crude. By the end of the game, he'd collected such an obscene amount of shares (primarily in my company and Kris's company) that netting Wildcatter chips was like shooting fish in barrel!

Scattered as I was, I did my best to compete. After building a rail line in central Canada I managed to transform two of my Rigs there into Pumpjacks and then divert the resulting tsunami of petroleum to my Refinery out East. Despite of my best efforts, Chad managed to eke out a last-minute transaction out there and snatch the North American oil baron title away from me!

I had my revenge down in South America, though, doubling down on derricks and then converting three quarters of them into noddin' donkeys. Building a second Refinery in Brazil gave me the freedom to thumb my nose at Chad's competing operation out West and, in turn, I became the Pablo Escobar of South American oil. I also dabbled a little bit in Russia, converting one Rig into a pumping unit and then patronizing Dean's rail line and Refinery. Although this turned out to be barely worth my effort, it did let me recoup a few Shares in my own operation.

Even though Dean managed to hoist up no less then five, count 'em, five new Drilling Rigs in Russia, he only transformed two of 'em into Big Texans because of a curious dearth of matching Area Cards. Assisted by another Train route and a second Refinery out East, Dean barely managed to crawl away with the tile of Russia's primary oil czar. He also had just enough time to convert his lone derrick in Alberta into a "thirsty bird" (as the kids say), use his rail line to transport the resulting crude to Kris's Mexican plant and then ship two barrels out to North America.

Dwindling opportunities in Russia forced him to branch out in Asia, where he added a rail route and two more derricks, one of which he managed to convert into a Pumpjack. He also snuck one barrel from the resulting well into Kris's processing plant to the southwest, which precipitated the payout of another modest windfall of Shares. In fact, poor Dean found himself hemorrhaging more Shares then anyone else at the table. Indeed, the rest of us just didn't feel compelled to patronize Dean's relatively idle rail line in B.C. or the barnacle-encrusted Tanker that was still tied to the dock out East.

Towards the end of the game, Dean did succeed in getting one barrel sent off to the continent of Asia, but the rest of his reserve ended up stranded on the board. He tried to compensate by dropping a third Refinery in Africa, which gave him a few Hail Mary-style Victory Points right at the buzzer!  

Instead of concentrating solely on supplying the Continents with oil like Chad and I, Kris made a concerted effort to maintain a reasonable balance of Shares while snagging as many Wildcatter Chips as possible. Seeing that things were already getting super-nasty in South America, Kris just walked away, letting his Train and Refinery operations in Mexico generate Shares for him. Like a bunch of rubes, the rest of us seemed perfectly content to oblige this.

Avoiding a lot of direct competition, Kris poured most of his efforts into shoring up Asia. This involved the purchase of four more Oil Rigs, two of which he converted into productive Pumpjacks. At first he seemed content use my Train route for transportation, but pretty soon his own railroads were criss-crossing Asia and the Middle East. He even laid down an exploratory line out across the Sahara in a speculative effort to exploit Dean's new Refinery. Fortunately, the game came to an end just before that could happen.  

Right at the eleventh hour Kris attempted to muscle his way into Russia by converting his one and only derrick there into a rocking horse and then shipping the resulting Texas Tea to Dean's Gulag Refinery out in Siberia via Yellow Train. Unfortunately, like my own efforts up north, this seemed to cost him more Shares then he earned.   

After reaching the fifth round, all that was left to do was tally up those final scores!

WILD CARD CHIPS

Chad...3

Kris...3

Me...0

Dean...0

SHARES 

GREEN

Chad...27

Dean...21

Me...9

Kris...9

RED

Me...11

Chad...10

Dean...3

Kris...0

ORANGE

Kris...19

Chad...6

Me...6

Dean...0

BLUE

Chad...21

Me...10

Dean...5

Kris...1

MONEY

Kris...9

Chad...6

Dean...2

Me...1

CONTINENTS 

NORTH AMERICA

Chad...10

Me...5

Dean...3

RUSSIA

Dean...10

Chad...5

SOUTH AMERICA

Me...11

Chad...5

ASIA

Kris...10

Dean...5

FINAL SCORES:

CHAD...72

KRIS...49

ME...37

DEAN...36

CHAD WINS!!!

POST-GAME ANALYSIS

Here are a few take-away strategies that I'd like to test out in my next game:

1. I don't know if it was a deliberate strategy or just fortuitous happenstance, but Chad managed to create an awesome infrastructure right from the start. This, in turn, gave him a massive surplus of Shares. 
2. Not only are the Shares worth a lot in terms of end-game value, they also allow you to bid effectively for Wildcatter chips. These, in turn, are worth even more points.  
3. It makes sense to avoid production knife-fights with several rivals in highly-contested areas. If you just want to get your beak wet in these regions, concentrate on snatching up all of the useful infrastructure like Trains, Tankers and Refineries. When your opponents are forced to use these things, you'll end up making out like a bandito.  
4. Try to be strategic about how much oil you send to each continent. For example, instead of flooding South America with an overkill of oil I should have turned that excess into Shares or tried to snipe a second (or even first) place finish in a less-contested arena.
5. Although the game does a great job preventing players from operating in a vacuum, don't be afraid to strike up new developments in those relatively-quiet parts of the map. I'm sure that if we'd played for another two rounds, the virginal-looking United States would have been the key to victory.

REVIEW

PROS

• The game looks absolutely beautiful.  The board and components are colorful yet understated. The money looks great, even if some higher denominations should have been included. Although the layout is a tad confusing at first, the individual reference boards really help keep players on point during their turns. The vibrant wooden oil barrels are great and the thick cardboard tokens representing Refineries, Pumpjacks and Tankers are clear and charming. Oh, and how can you not love those cute l'il free-standing Oil Rigs?  Side note: although the wooden Trains we used in our game were a BGG Con exclusive, the Train tokens that come with the game are perfectly suitable.
• I love how the map's elegant design perfectly replicates the idea that Oil is a finite resource. As with our own history, when the seemingly boundless resources in the United States, Russia and the Middle East start to dry up, a certain desperation sets in, forcing players to compete over far-flung areas to exploit. Honestly, a better title would have been Peak Oil: The Game.  Fair warning: don't click on that last link unless you wanna lose what remains of your Holiday cheer, pronto.  
• It was actually a lot of fun setting up the infrastructure: using derricks to stake your claim, extracting the Oil with Pumpjacks, shipping barrels by Train or Tanker and then making that all-important decision to either muscle out the competition and become the dominant supplier or try to mount a hostile takeover of your rival's companies via Shares. Honestly, the game itself is a terrific sim of the industry.
• Even though the MARK I rule book clearly screams TRANSLATION it's still reasonably clear and concise. Occasionally Kris was forced to rummage through the book in order to seek clarification but otherwise, things were fairly intuitive. I think a second edition rulebook and a Headless Hollow style tip sheet would really make this puppy fly by.  
• Any time I feel compelled to write a post-game analysis or find myself lingering over alternate strategies, I know that I'm playing a winner. I'd definitely like to have another bash at this one, if only to apply what I learned from Game One.  

CONS

• As I've already insinuated, the name Wildcatters is actually a bit of a misnomer. The game has less to do with prospecting and speculation and a lot more to do with simulating the development of the petroleum industry and the ravages that result.  

***

Despite the fact that I think fossil fuels are killing the planet and oil companies are more blatantly evil then the Umbrella Corporation, designers Rolf Sagel and André Spil have come up with mechanics that 

serve the game's theme very, very well. Even though I personally wasn't crazy about the subject matter, the design is so clever and the gameplay is so quick and light that I could easily be persuaded to try it again.

Looking beyond the slightly-fuzzy rule book and the bait-and-switch title, Wildcatters is still an awesome and borderline-educational little game. As such I'm gonna give this one five pips outta six with black blowout skyward.

***

Looking for an excuse to say "pumpjack" over and over again? Well, yer up the stump right now, son, since there's probably only about nine-hundred of these babies in existence right now.

Watch this space for further developments!