Sceptre of Zavandor
Playing with the Isleworth Gamers continues to help me catch up with games I should have played years ago.
We started with Chicago Express, which was well received, although I lost badly and I’m still not sure why.
We then got in a game of Perudo. This is such a classic. I don’t understand why I haven’t played it for years. I could barely remember the rules at first, but it came back to me like riding a bicycle.
The evening’s main course was Sceptre of Zavandor. There were five of us and we played for three hours, which felt at least an hour too long. By 11:15 my head was spinning. One good thing about the game is that it starts quite slowly with simple decisions, but by the end you are having to calculate big numbers and at that time of night I wasn’t up to it.
Anyway the bottom line is that Sceptre of Zavandor was interesting, but I have played too many of these Games for Accountants recently and this one lacks the drama of Age of Steam or the brevity of Chicago Express. I wouldn’t mind trying Phoenicia, as it supposed to be similar and shorter, but the ratings are mediocre, although that may be due to poorly written rules.
June 1st, 2010 at 00:41
Phoenicia is far better than either of its antecedents, Scepter of Zavendor and Outpost (both of which I personally found to be both way too long and thoroughly mediocre). Phoenicia got a bad rap for its rulebook early on, but I’m really not sure why this is. While it’s not a great rulebook, I’ve read a lot of bad rules in my time, and Phonecia’s rules are definitely neither bad nor poorly written. They are brief, though, with not a lot of examples or explanatory prose.
Anyway, Phoenicia isn’t a game that’s going to make the regular rotation for me, but I always enjoy it when I play it. For that sort of game, the sort of Outpost/Zavendor/Through the Ages genre, it’s the one I really enjoy.
June 1st, 2010 at 05:31
Yes, Zavandor was fine, but way, way, way too long. Phoenicia does the job much better.
June 1st, 2010 at 18:50
I quite like Phoenicia, too.
It does not outstay its welcome and is a nice development game in a reasonable timeframe.
Funnily enough, I played Perudo at the weekend, too, and wondered why I always leave it so long between plays.
June 1st, 2010 at 18:52
OK thanks for that feedback. I see someone at the club has a copy of Phoenicia. I’ll ask him to bring it along.
We need a faster to type term for the “Outpost/Zavendor/Through the Ages genre” – but definitely not a TLA.
June 1st, 2010 at 18:56
nothing wrong with a good TLA
we use them all the time BSK
June 1st, 2010 at 20:21
It’s the “quite like” thing that worries me about Phoenicia. Brian Bankler seems to be the only one who passionately enjoys it.
It was your tweet that put TLAs in my head!
June 1st, 2010 at 21:17
yes, it’s difficult to get passionate about Phoenicia.
not a BFFL
June 3rd, 2010 at 00:43
I haven’t reviewed it yet, but all of these are too fragile for my taste, dependent on being played in a particular way and with “known quantity” opponents.
June 3rd, 2010 at 09:09
Rick: I’m very interested in hearing your thoughts why. I missed that fragility, but I have only played TTA and SoZ once.
June 3rd, 2010 at 18:13
Sorry, I was unclear. I meant the Outpost/Zavandor/Phoenicia family of games. To catch up to a leader, others need to bid them up—a dangerous activity—but not bid up one another. All of this is quite difficult to manage perfectly.
June 3rd, 2010 at 18:39
Got it. Yes, that sort of collusion isn’t easy. Certainly in our game the finishing positions were set in the first 45 minutes.
June 3rd, 2010 at 19:24
I find it very surprising in SoZ that finishing positions were decided within the first 45 minutes. The nature of the set up favours some of the roles to start better than others and this would mean those roles always win which is certainly not the case as they seem pretty balanced all in all. This assymetric nature is what makes the game replayable.
June 4th, 2010 at 09:39
In my single game, the positions did change temporarily in the run up to the finish as players saved for sentinels, but the final positions were the same as at the 45 minute mark. The second and third player positions may have switched, but I can’t remember.
I doubt that it’s a flaw in the game, but I take Rick’s point that it will be tough to catch a leader.
June 4th, 2010 at 14:03
If you get off to a poor start then it is hard to catch the leader. In the same way as a poor start in AoS makes it difficult to catch the leader. I don’t mind this because it rewards good play. Out of interest, which character won. I’m guessing it was the Elf as this is often the leader at this point and is perhaps the easiest character to play.
Outpost definitely has a runaway leader problem. Phoenecia is far too short to really develop any sort of strategy. SoZ sorts the runaway leader problem out and allows startegies to be developed over a period of time and is by far the most rewarding of the three.
fyi JKLM has an on-line / pbem implementation of Phoenecia on it’s interactive site. http://ellought.demon.co.uk/jklm/index.php
June 4th, 2010 at 22:24
Good point about rewarding skilled play, but Age of Steam is way better than Sceptre of Zavandor? I think it was the Faerie, but I barely noticed – the theme was utterly throwaway.
Interesting that you think that Phoenicia is too short. I don’t often see that criticism levelled at a game.
I’ll check out the JKLM site – thanks.
Incidentally, I really enjoyed your Gods Playground session. It’s way overtime for you to have a blog. You shouldn’t keep the reports to yourself.