by Tony Boydell
It's the end of the Easter holidays; this weekend will see the collation of school uniforms, the eating-up of the last dregs of 'holiday cereal' and a return to earlier goings-to-bed. Well, for young Arthur at least: oh, to be ten again! As I was gathering a few bits-and-bobs for the Ross-on-Wye club - we would be an irritating five thanks to Byll - Arthur asked if he might come along too; how could I refuse his doe-eyed plea? His wobbling lip? And the chance to boost the numbers to six and make it two tables of three?!
Without really thinking, we trundled over to Ross to a De La Soul soundtrack (3ft High & Rising is just glorious) and then sat in the car park for 20 mins on account of being waaaaaaaaaaay to early. As soon as it was reasonable, we decamped to The Plough's back room and awaited the others. A Barfly's shout of "What you got in there - a dead body?" announced the arrival of the Batesons with their enormous kitbag; Jobbers followed shortly afterward with his dribbled table.
I am, of course, ever so keen that Arthur gets in to boardgaming - preferrably as much as I am at some point. However, the journey is fraught with peril and he is still wont to get distracted; most often this is him following a single goal to it's fruition at the expense of the other rich possibilities/action efficiency eg. building the whiskey barrel in Agricola or a specific building in Nusfjord (see below, he built the Castle for 11 points). This skews the play a bit and, with a seasoned group of gamers, I worry that the appearance of a 10 year old might cause a few tummies to sink? There was definitely none of that tonight, however, as Jobbers and Arthur and I spent the evening fishing and building 'palaces' while the others merrily Keyflower-ed and Lancaster-ed:
Jobbers builds for victory in round 7: gold coins fountaining in to his Personal Supply.
Recently acquired from Geek of the Week Stu Burnham, my 'foreign' copy of The Palaces of Carrara had an English summary sheet included but, for the richer details, I turned to this:
Boffo would argue that this is far better quality than my usual explanations and it was certainly enough to get the three of us going in the 'basic mode'.
In summary: pay for resources (blocks) from a section of a wheel that rotates and restocks making blocks progressively cheaper. Cash those blocks in for buildings BUT what colour of blocks you pay determines which of the cities you can place the building in on your player board. Score building types or cities for VPs and/or money until the end game is reach and then do some final scoring.
Arthur found the intricacies of getting the right blocks at the right time a bit testing and, combined with the mentally-spacial scoring element, it proved too much. He pronounced that he never wanted to play it again but soldiered on to the bitter end*: Jobbers lapping him and almost lapping me! This is a smart and intriguing game that will really shine, I think, when we play in it's 'Expansion' (normal) mode.
Jobbers was now free to join the others - not long for their Lancastrian noodlings - as it was 10PM and Arthur was noticably-flagging. As we trundled in to Newent, there was an almighty scraping sound signally a sudden flat tyre and the prospect of a Saturday spent scouring the County for an open garage: the cloud behind Friday's gaming silver lining.
*which is more than his old Pa has done in the past!