inconsequential ruminations

A minimalist blog, with a pretentious title, about strategy games.

St Petersburg

with 6 comments

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.

Written by Iain

December 20th, 2007 at 4:17 pm

Posted in boardgames

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6 Responses to 'St Petersburg'

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  1. 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.

    Mikko Saari

    20 Dec 07 at 18:54

  2. 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.

    Mikko Saari

    20 Dec 07 at 18:54

  3. I remember your original St Petersburg reports quite clearly. I would say it’s a B+ at the moment – especially two-player.

    Iain

    20 Dec 07 at 21:01

  4. 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…

    Linnaeus

    24 Dec 07 at 02:34

  5. 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.

    Iain

    24 Dec 07 at 08:19

  6. 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.

    Linnaeus

    24 Dec 07 at 21:03

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