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When you win an SdJ (Spiel des Jahres), you get almost always get to add an expansion to your game. In the case of Elfengold, Alan Moon got to "re-make" the classic Elfenroads. |
last update: November 20, 2004 | |||
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Let's start with a bit of confusion... Elfengold (the expansion published by Amigo) shares it's name with another Alan Moon game, Elfengold (which was the first White Wind game). Try and keep up, won't you? Bruno Faidutti: I much prefer the game with Elfengold but, 1) We are always five or six, which makes the auction more interesting. There is a higher probability that any one chip will be useful for at least two players. Special chips can be very, very expensive. 2) We play very nastily, using chips to "block" opponents 3) We've changed the wizard rule. It costs ten (yes, 10) gold to teleport and three to pass through an obstacle. Tiis is much more balanced cost. Rules Questions
Variants Al Newman like the simplicity of Elfenland and thought that Elfengold made things a bit unwieldy. I prefer the simplicity of the drafting system in Elfenland to the bidding in Elfengold. In Elfenland, I think Alan (Moon) got the game "down" to an elegant presentation, unfortunately balanced on the negative side by too-close scores. However, the number chits (used for Gold) might present a solution. By having the various cities worth differing numbers of points for the *first* visitor to each (but you can only pick up one chit per turn), a scoring system might enable not-so-close finishes. Worth a try? Jonathan Degann and Derk Solko agreed on something (shock! horror!) and advanced a couple of good variant ideas: Derk : You definitely want to use the 'you can't draw special tiles' rules (logs and such). Just throw them in a pot when you do draw them and then auction them off with the rest of the tiles that round. Jonathan: Nice to see that others here are playing with this rule, which I also prefer. It appears nowhere in the official rules, but I agree that these powerful tiles should not be subject to the luck of the draw. Jonathan: I find the "gold" tile to be pretty wimpy - but if anything, I require it to be auctioned so that it doesn't handicap a player, and so that I don't have to explain it to newbies until it comes up. Whenever I play with newbies, I exclude all special tiles from the first game turn. If you draw one, just return it and redraw. Derk: And finally, if you decide to use the Wizard cards, you'll want to auction those off too. Just auction all those drawn in the last turn right after the tiles are auctioned. Jonathan: I was always afraid of those wizards - they always seemed to be ridiculously powerful, but an auction is always the great equalizer. Some Thoughts on Elfengold These are some random thoughts from a "conversation" between myself & Steve Kurzban on the game. - The game seems to "work" better with 4 players... while it functions for up to six players, a deliberate (read: slow) player or two can make this a VERY long experience. - Elfengold has GOBS more interaction than Elfenland... despite the fact that there are only 6 counters in the mix that can 'hose' another player (2 logs, 2 sea dragons, 2 exchange spells), it seems as if they come up nearly every round! Worse yet, you do NOT want to be moving along the same path as someone who has angered another player - my fate in round 2, as I was stuck in the Northern Mtns with a log blocking my path in one direction and the wrong cards to move south! - There is much more defense and lower scores than in Elenland. That's why the teleporting Elfenwizards become important - so you're not hopelessly out of it if someone hoses you and you don't otherwise have the cards to counter. - The end-game makes more sense in Elfengold. Maximizing cash as well as cities becomes a BIG issue. Between rounds 5 and 6 your attitude towards bidding changes dramatically from "gotta have it!" to "better build up gold for tie-breaking". Very interesting decisions in Elfengold. Bruno Faidutti said: 1) We are always five or six, which makes the auction more interesting. There is a higher probability that any one chip will be useful for at least two players. Special chips can be very, very expensive. 2) We play very nastily, using chips to "block" opponents 3) We've changed the wizard rule. It costs ten (yes, 10) gold to teleport, and three to pass through an obstacle. Tiis is a much more balanced cost. Derk Solko and Mike Green shared some ideas (with a random thought inserted from Aaron Fuegi). Mike: With Elfenland, it seems that your transportation chits are often your limiting factor with movement (esp. if you use the keep 4, draw 8 more rule). Sure, more cards are always nice since you can caravan around the board if you had more. But with a max of 5 chits and a max of 12 cards, the chits are you limiting factor. Often you have to get behind another player and follow some of the chits they layed. Derk: One of the things that I didn't really like about Elfenland was that you needed more than four players to really pull it off well. Because fewer than that, and the players are far enough away from each other that using another's route isn't an option. It's a good game, but this little thing always bothered me. Mike: With Elfengold, cards are much harder to come by (I like that). But chits are much more plentiful. You can hold 2 chits from the previous round, each player gets 2 more for a total of 4. Then you can buy more during the auction. That's a lot of chits available !!! You have some many chits compared to cards that the auction is at time pointless. Derk: I agree with the basis of the decision, but I'm not sure I agree with the results. First of all, we noticed quite early that drawing the 'special' tiles (gold, switch, x2, log, sea monster) were a little too powerful to leave to chance. So anytime someone draws one of these, it gets placed in the pile for the next auction (thereby reducing the number of other tiles drawn, but keeping the total number the same). This helps even out the luck of the draw, decreases the slots for transportation tiles, and increases the need for money (to snag those logs). Plus just having the appropriate tiles isn't that difficult. And I think that's intentional. Because getting the cards is alot of this game. But without the drain on your gold (see below) there's not enough incentive to take gold over the much needed cards. Mike: I tried buying up chits just to deprive others of having them, but since everyone had 4 chits prior to the auction, must players were only looking for a specific chit. Derk: I gotta agree with that. I'd say that perhaps your fellow players are a little too lax on each other. I was talking to someone about this a week ago, and he mentioned that one of the things that he could recommend is spending more for each tile. It seems like a bad thing when you first think about it, but as you say, the cards are the limiting factor in this game. So it's all about conserving your cards and paying a premium price for the right tile at the right time is much more important than saving your money for a rainy day. Aaron: I just wanted to make one quick comment. I think your logic is a bit wrong. It is true you can hold 2 chits from the prior round but then you didn't play them that round obviously and thus effectively you had two less chits that round. Saving chits doesn't gain you chits - it just transfers the use from one turn to another. The important factor is how many New chits you get per turn (or total chits per game divided by number of turns). This is 2 plus an auction for 2 per player = 4 for the average player. Mike: I thought that with there only being 4 chits for the dragon and magic wind that when these came up, there would be some heated bidding. Nope, usually the bidding started between 2 players and one would usually let go of it fairly easily. Derk: This game (and many other auction games) is very subject to 'group think.' I'd say that if everyone agrees to not spend alot of money, then everything's cheap. I'd say there are two solutions: First, I'd use the special tile auction rules that I outlined above. Second, we also use the wizard cards in our game. I really like the wizard cards for this game, it adds a very interesting aspect to the travelling. But they're very powerful and can be extremely unbalancing if one person draws a bunch of them. So when someone draws one, we set them aside much like the gold cards are set aside. Then after the next group of tiles are auctioned, we auction off the wizard cards one by one. Wizards are very powerful, and the auctions get real interesting, real quick. Plus if you add these rules, there's much more need for money, and the card/gold decision is that much harder. Derk: In the last game I played, there was one guy that won the auctions for wizard cards in turns 4 and 5. He paid mid-teens for the first one, and about twenty-five for the second one. The rest of us were sorta conserving our money for the final push (money being the tiebreaker after number of cities), so we thought he'd be out of the game. However, in the fifth turn he used his latest wizard card to finish the twenty-city tour early and with it, the victory (so no need for a tiebreaker). And finally, some thoughts just from Aaron on strategy and the optimal way to play. TORTOISE scheme - slow and steady - 3 cities per turn - or around 12 gold per turn if he takes gold. HARE scheme - move every other turn getting 6 cities and take cards the turns you don't move (of course) - or around 24 gold. He therefore in theory can get almost twice as much gold and still get the same number of cards. Note, because of the token issue and all, I will not sit if I have perfect cards to move but will certainly not spend extra cards to move around just to have moved. Peter Sarrett asked: Um, doesn't the hare scheme have you taking gold half as often, so over the course of the game you're getting the same amount of gold as the tortoise? Aaron answered:
Aaron sums it all up for us: I much prefer the game with Elfengold although I think a few modifications might help which I know some people do play with.
Items 1 and 2 would reduce the randomness in the game - something I would like but if you don't, of course don't do them. 1+3 I would like but don't feel are vital - without #2, I think a player who draws no Wizard cards has almost 0 chance relative to a player who draws 2 Wizard cards. In the one game I played with Wizards, players were basically ordered by # of Wizard cards they drew in the game with the player who drew 2 winning (although honestly he didn't need the 2nd one I believe) and the player who drew none in last. Departures Boardgame Geek entry for Elfengold | ||
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