The Gaming thread - anything but video games

[JNLister]

Not strictly a new game, but I played Viticulture with the Tuscany expansion for the first time. For those who know the game, it adds:

* You can take actions in all four seasons rather than Spring and Winter just being admin steps.
* There's no fixed order for deciding turn order/bonuses for the next year. Instead, whenever you pass in Winter you get to choose your slot for next year. Also, the only way to get the guaranteed first place slot is to have picked the guaranteed last place slot the year before.
* There's a new type of card which is additional structures, each which give you a particular bonus. As normal, you need to pay to build them and building them is an action.
* There's a mini-game where, as an action, you can place a star in a region of a map. When you place in a region you get a specific bonus (you can also move an already placed star between regions but don't get a bonus). If you have the most stars in a region at the end of the game, you get points.

It's definitely a good expansion if everyone has played the base game a lot as it makes it a bit more strategic and gives you more options. It does take you a bit further towards the "you can win the game without spending much time actually making and selling wine" route, which is OK if you are into wider gameplay but is less thematic. It's definitely not for first time players as it would just be too many options and takes away the normal helpful advice that if you are uncertain what to do, it's a decent starting strategy to just follow through the winemaking process logically (get vines and orders, plant vines, harvest grapes, make wine, age wine, fulfill order).

[ReturnOfTheMack]

Last weekend I played the Discworld RPG. Very simple and lots of fun, I highly recommend it.