Games Session
|
|
| Date: |
11th June 2004 |
| Game Played: |
Saint Petersburg |
|
|
| Players |
Result |
Win |
Ratings |
| Mark K |
94 |
P |
8 |
| Nige |
91 |
|
8 |
| Garry |
62 |
|
7 |
| Mark G |
60 |
|
7 |
Saint
Petersburg is a new game from Hans Im Gluck / Rio Grande about the
development of the city in the 18th Century. Players use their scarce
supply of rubles to acquire worker, building and aristocrat cards, which
earn the player either an income of rubles, victory points or a
combination of both. Each round of the game has four phases and at the end
of each phase (except the fourth) there is a scoring of income and/or
victory points. At the beginning of each phase, eight cards are made
available for purchase. Any cards left over from the previous phase are
supplemented to bring the total back up to eight by the card type
associated with the particular phase (workers in phase 1; buildings in 2;
aristocrats in 3 and upgrades in 4). Players can choose to buy a card and
place it on the table, reserve a card and take it into their hand, pay for
a reserved card and place it on the table, or pass. If all players pass in
succession, the phase ends and scoring occurs. After the fourth phase, no
scoring takes place but, instead, any cards that have been available for
two rounds are taken from play and any remaining cards become discounted
by one ruble in the following round. Once all the cards of one type have
been exhausted, the game ends once that round finishes. There is then a
final scoring of VPs for aristocrats and money in hand, with any reserved
cards still in a player's hand generating minus 5 points each. The player
with the most VPs is the winner.
Money is very tight in this game and
timing is pretty important. You need to be generating enough income from
your worker cards to keep you in the bidding for the later phases, but
then you miss out on buying buildings and aristocrats early, which can
generate victory points every round. The upgrade cards are good but
deplete your supply of rubles for buying cards early in the next round. A
fine balance is needed. In our game, I stayed concentrating on income
generation for too long and fell quickly behind on VPs. Mark K and Nige
both got the balance right and got plenty of points in the final scoring
of aristocrats. Mark K just did enough to take the win from Nige. We all
thought this was a very good game, although my only doubt was how well it
would stand up to repeated plays. We'll have to see whether it still feels
as good after another few games.
