I may be years behind the bleeding-edge, but I have been playing St Petersburg a lot recently online at Yucata or against the Westpark Gamer’s offline version.
I underestimated this game. It is true that the only path to victory is collecting aristocrats, but it has subtle strategic qualities that I only recognised after multiple plays.
The offline version has fiendish AI. In two-player games, I now beat it about 50% of the time, but I have played at least ten games. Definitely try it out.
St. Petersburg is great, but for me it’s definitely B-rank game: I’ve lost most interest to actually play it. Won’t suggest it myself, but will play if someone asks.
Well, actually, that makes it certainly non-great. Still, it’s good even if the aristocrats are important and the feedback loop is really vicious.
I remember your original St Petersburg reports quite clearly. I would say it’s a B+ at the moment – especially two-player.
My hope is that the expansion will hammer out the worst of the imbalances. Since Saint Petersburg is a big favourite of my game group, even with its current flaws, and move toward it being a better game would be welcome.
I could definitely live without the five-player option, though…
It’s horrible when your group love a game and you don’t. ;o) At least St Petersburg is better than Ivanhoe… I had to ban it in the end.
Well, I don’t hate SP
I just find the imbalances, especially the first round Mistress/Judge one, annoying. I actually quite like the system underneath the game. I just wish that it had gotten the extra round of playtesting it needed.
I hope the expansion deals with the problems.