Space, Meeples, and Cows?

Welcome to my second official blog post! This week I’m discussing a couple of medium-weight euro games and a classic gateway game. So without further ado, let’s jump into the recent highlights.

Let’s start with Beyond the Sun, a space-themed medium weight euro game where each turn you take an action on an evolving research track. As you research higher level technologies, you get some control over which technologies come out, which determines which new action spaces you have access to. There is also a separate area-control space board where you move fleets around and colonize planets.

By far the most compelling aspect of this game is the main research track. I always enjoy games where the players get to build out the action spaces (hint: there’s another game that does this later in this post). The way that technologies come out means that each game will result in a slightly different set of action spaces, leading to the feeling that each game is unique and increasing replayability.

With all of the different technologies, it’s a shame that the asymmetric factions don’t feel more unique. There are eight starting factions that come in the base game, four that are symmetrical and four that are asymmetric. However, I really wish that the base game had either included more asymmetric factions or replaced the four symmetric ones with four more asymmetric ones. The game could have included all asymmetric ones with varying degrees of complexity, similar to games like Dune Imperium where all the starting characters are unique. Also, the included asymmetric factions don’t feel that different from one another. Unlike Lost Ruins of Arnak with the Expedition Leaders expansion where I’m always itching to try a new leader, I don’t get that same feeling with the factions in Beyond the Sun. I understand the expansion added some additional factions, but it would have been nice if more had been included in the core game.

One downside to technology track is that you do have to be slightly careful to not lock yourself out of certain actions by focusing heavily on one area. For example, the most recent game I played, I focused heavily on scientific technologies and ore production, but that meant that ­­I hard time generating enough population to actually be able to research more technologies. Also, if you start out slow early, it can be difficult to catch up because players that are able to automate or colonize early have an easier time increasing their production. Finally, I also get the feeling that colonization can be a little overpowered compared to researching technologies. Colonization can not only give you a lot of victory points, but it also allows you to increase your production very quickly. Additionally, unlike the population dice that stay on the board when you research, the ships you use to colonize return to your player board, so it’s easier to get them back out. 

Overall, I enjoyed Beyond the Sun during my initial plays because of the research track, but after the uniqueness of the technologies started to wear off, the game has started to slip for me in my rankings. The game will likely stay in the collection for the foreseeable future because it’s unique to many of my other games, but I’m not sure how often I’ll be itching to pull this one out to play. 

Transitioning to one of the OG tile-laying gateway games – Carcassonne, which has more expansions than games in my entire collection. I recently played just the base game with the River and Abbot mini expansions, and each turn the active player draws a tile, chooses where to place it (abiding by the placement rules), and has the option to place a meeple on it to score points after the area is complete.

There’s a reason why this game, which was originally published in 2000 has stood the test of time. It’s a nice light game that plays fairly quickly and has almost zero setup and teach. The most challenging part is remembering how each of the different areas score, and it would have been nice to see a player aid to help in this regard, but even then it’s not too difficult to remember or teach. Finally, since all players are playing tiles to a shared map, it’s interesting to see the map come together over the course of the game, and it can sometimes result in some wacky landscapes.

The only real downside for me is that there is a fair amount of luck with regards to which tile you draw and there’s not very much strategic depth. Overall, it’s a bit light for my taste to want to come back to often, but it’s a solid and classic option as a gateway game or a filler. If I’m looking to play a tile laying game, I would almost always lean towards something like Isle of Sky, which is still light, but has more interesting decisions.

The last game I want to discuss this week is Great Western Trail: Argentina, the second game in the Great Western Trail trilogy. Argentina borrows many of the same mechanisms from the first game, such as the rondel board where players are moving their meeple between action spaces before delivering the cows in their hand at the end of the rondel.

I’ll preface that the original Great Western Trail (GWT) is one of my all-time favorite games. I love the deckbuilding aspect, building up action spaces on the rondel, and the slight element of push-your-luck. I could write countless pages about all the things I love about the original game, but in this post, I’ll mainly be discussing the changes in Argentina. I also have not played the second edition of Great Western Trail or its expansion Rails to The North, so this is only comparing Argentina to the first edition.

First off, after a few plays, there appears to be more replayability/paths to victory in Argentina compared to GWT 1^st edition. In the 1^st edition, the strategy mostly boils down to pursuing one of the three worker types (cowboys, craftsmen, and engineers) and trying to max it out as much as possible. The addition of grain, farmers, ships, and city maps adds more elements to consider in Argentina. For example, if the player solely focuses on cowboys, they’ll likely run into challenges having enough grain ship to the higher-level ships and to take advantage of the many points on the city maps. I also really like the production value in Argentina compared to first edition, such as the dual-layer boards, which have seemly become the standard in the industry lately. Also, GWT 1^st edition did not come with a solo mode, so I enjoy having the option to play Argentina solo and overall, the mode is well done. My only small complaint with the solo mode is that I had to check the rules fairly frequently for icons and order of conditions. It would have been nice if there was some sort of player aid for the solo mode, so that I didn’t have to check the rules as often.

While I enjoy the production value in Argentina, I found that some of the artwork/iconography can be a little confusing. I wish there was more contrast between a few of the colors, for example, the orange vs yellow farmers, and the brown vs silver vs black symbols on the ships and map boards. Additionally, while there appears to be more viable paths to victory, some are a bit harder to pull off, and I’ve always found cowboys to be the most straightforward strategy. However, I’m excited to try a strategy where I focus heavily on farmers, grain, and the city maps, but my guess is that it will be more difficult to max out in the same way as a cowboy strategy. Finally, while I enjoy the push-your-luck, there is an element of luck with the cows you draw from your deck, but this doesn’t bother me much in this game because there is almost always a way to mitigate that luck. There is also new exchange tokens in Argentina that allow you to draw two cards and discard two cards, which helps mitigate the card luck.

While I still want to own both editions, the 1^st edition feels like comfort food, and I would opt for the 1^st edition when teaching new players. However, I imagine I will tend to play Argentina more often than the original due to the additional mechanisms in Argentina. I have not yet played Great Western Trail: New Zealand, but I’m hoping to get It played at some point this year since I’ve heard good things, and I’m eager to find out how that one stacks up against the other two.

With that, I’ll wrap up this week’s gaming highlights! I’d love to hear your thoughts on any of the games I’ve mentioned, future content, or format in the comments section below. Happy gaming!