Games Session
|
|
| Date: |
16th July 2004 |
| Game Played: |
Fifth Avenue |
|
|
| Players |
Result |
Win |
Ratings |
| Garry |
51 |
P |
7 |
| Mark K |
42 |
|
7 |
| Nige |
42 |
|
6 |
This week, we
tried the new Alea/Rio Grande big box release, Fifth Avenue, by Wilko Manz
whose only other game I know is the Kosmos release from several years ago,
Giganten. The idea of the game is to build skyscrapers in prestigious
locations near to as many businesses possible. When scoring takes place,
skyscrapers that are not next to any businesses score just 1 VP whereas,
if they are next to four businesses, they score 8VPs. A player's turn
consists of three actions. The first action is a free choice of either:
drawing 3 skyscrapers for building later in the game; placing a business;
taking a black card to help in the building auctions, combined with moving
the building commissioner; or scoring a district where a commissioner is
currently situated. Dependent on your choice of first action you then get
to draw 2 coloured or black cards for the auctions and finally you have to
move a commissioner. The commissioners move across the board and once they
have completed their journey, they initiate a series of auctions for the
right to build skyscrapers at the locations they have visited. The players
bid using the cards they have managed to collect and, depending on the
value of cards the winner of the bid has used in the auction, he gets to
place up to 3 skyscrapers at the location being auctioned off (or he
places a block on further building at that location). The game ends when
either a set number of businesses have been placed on the board or when a
second location has had a building block placed on it. There is then a
final scoring of all locations on the board and whoever has the most VPs
is the winner.
In our game, we were all very defensive in our movement of
the commissioners, so much so that there was never an opportunity for
anyone to score a district. Collecting cards in preparation for the
auctions is critical and watching what colours other people are picking up
gives an idea of where they may want to bid at auction. We all made
mistakes that we soon recognised were bad plays and one thing the others
didn't spot early on was the need to have skyscrapers available to build
when the auctions began. I capitalised on one situation where Nige had no
skyscrapers and Mark only one to trigger an auction round where I got to
place in three separate locations. Although none of us had an idea of how
the final scoring would go, my presence in Central Park gave me enough
points to surge ahead and win. We all thought this game had several nice
ideas but it did go on a bit too long. We agreed that a second game would
see us all play very differently based on our experience in the first
game. Pretty good though.
