Lisboa
So we've gotten through the big event list of game, and the next week I played just a single game because it is an epic one, taking the entire session to be taught and play. And that game was Lisboa. The complexity of this one is much harder than any of the previous games I've covered on here before. But we will get to that shortly, first though, what is this game about?
The city of Lisboa (Lisbon) suffered significant destruction in the wake of an earthquake in 1755, tsunami and 3 days of fires. You are working to aid the reconstruction efforts being directed by the Marquis in an effort to gain influence with the king by getting the city working again.
If you want to jump over to see some videos on the setup and how to play, I found "Just Play"'s video to be quite useful. And when you take 9 minutes just going over the setup, it's fairly thorough too, which I'll not be as thorough with, focussing more on how I found the game.
Being shown around the board and having the rules and how to play explained
With all the things going on, the turns are actually pretty simple (kind of). You play a card from your hand, do the things that it lets you do, and replace the card with one from the board. Where it gets difficult is balancing all the things that you are trying to do in the limited turns of the game. You need to gain influence with the architects, marquis and king, clear rubble from the streets and build buildings in them, restore iconic buildings to score those streets all while trying to generate enough income to complete these things, and making sure you can get the right cards into your hand for the future turns.
My personal play board, not sure how far through the game this was
This is a long game, as I mentioned. I think we took almost 3 hours actually playing the game (4 players, 3 first timers, 1 coming in with no prior learning such as watching a how to play vivdeo). There was nearly an hour of teaching and we only just finished inside of the 4 hours that the gaming group runs for. We were all forewarned of this though, and once you've learned the game, it reduces the time a fair bit with the estimated time being "60-120 mins".
This might actually be the end game board, with only part of the city rebuilt on the right though it might not be
In our game, we pretty much ignored the church until late in the game, and even then only my self and one other bothered to get tiles from it. This could be because there was too much else to think about, or that the tiles that were out weren't really useful with the other things we were doing.
Personally I found that it was a game that will take 2 or 3 plays of to actually learn the options well enough to know if something is a 'good' move or not, and if something better will come up later. I did really like the theme, but I found that there was so much going on that it was a bit of a slog at times and the game could have done with some streamlining to reduce the places where analysis paralysis strikes. As you can see in the video linked above, just in the first 9 minutes while going over the setup there are a whole range of locations that need your attention, or to be kept track of to time moves well. No point selling when the market is low, but you want to trade goods while their values are still high (they drop with each sale). You want to build a building, but you have to factor in it's cost based on the rubble you have to move through and it might be better to wait until someone else removes some of it, but they might take the exact spot you want. and then there's the influence track and the cabinet workers and...
I think you get the point. There is so much going on I just found it thoroughly overwhelming. And I'd watched 3 of 4 videos prior to going into playing it, so had spent a good 3 or 4 hours of attention on learning it before actually learning it. And I'm a seasoned board gamer, albeit with some memory and concentration issues.
The game itself was good, but thanks to it's complexity, it missed out on being great for me.
I'd also suggest thanks to it's length and complexity, it's probably also at the very least 12+ (box recommendation) but probably more like 15+, 14 if they're good with focussing and being able to concentrate for 2+ hours.
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Hahah learning 4 hours before actual learning even started. Seems you've done your homework. But still, despite 2 of you have watched some tutorials before, 3 beginners is quite a lot for one game :D I totally love such difficult and complicated games. But I'm more of a visual guy, not really sure if I understood the description correctly. Let's just hope I'll cross path with Liboa once and will learn it my "hands on" way :D
It looks very entertaining the game, as for people over 15 years even think that an adult would enjoy much more to spend long hours playing it. has a serious political intention, economy and planning so I like it, apart from that I find it interesting to make a board game based on a fact of real life and not a hypothetical or fictitious as they are fantasy which I like but this has certainly captivated my imagination.
I will see if in my country they commercialize it, but before I will see more videos to see more dynamics and different types of game.
Thank you for sharing this curious game.
Greetings
Thanks for the comment. yes, it is great to see an actual event depicted in a board game, as that doesn't happen very often. It's also nice that it's an event many don't know about, so there is a chance to learn something there too.
As for my comment on over 15 year olds, I was meaning adults would enjoy it, but that children under 15 would probably struggle with the game, either mechanically, concentration, or concept (or multiples of those). And possibly other reasons they'd struggle with the game and probably not enjoy it
Such a good way to spend quality time with family and friends. I have never heard of this game but I know about the earthquake and I learned how devastating it was for Lisbon with the tsunami coming afterwards. So I can imagine it takes a lot of time to build a city in the game as the earthquake was destructive and there was not much left of Lisbon.. I will look around and see if we can purchase this game as we like to spend time together playing games with my family.
Thank you for the inspiration!
I hope you can find a copy and that your family enjoy the game
This is awesome. Seems like the game might be a little too complex and time consuming for me but I love that you're reviewing board games! I have been gaming with my family since I was a child. Card games, board games, dice games you name it. It's so cool to see this kind of stuff on Steemit. Reading through it really brings back some good memories I've had with my family playing all sorts of games. They're so much fun when you've got everyone in mood to play! I literally have a closet at my parents house that is FILLED TO THE BRIM with board games.
Thanks for sharing! I'm going to check out some of your other reviews. I never knew there were so many to choose from! Cheers!
Thanks very much. I also gamed with my family from a young age. Card and Dice games, with classic board games as well. I enjoyed discovering all the new modern games and introducing them back to my family that had found board games to be stale and just for kids. When my dad passed away, he and mum had played around 500 games of ticket to ride, which is probably the best used gift I ever gave them. When mum died, I inherited a large selection of the closet of games, including the ticket to ride collection. I had around 25 games before selling most of them so I could move interstate, so it's nice to slowly be rebuilding the collection (even if it isn't how I wanted to). Almost all the games I cover are not mine, but ones that other players bring along to the group I attend
So you're in a group that gets together and does games? That sounds like so much fun to me. I haven't heard of most of the games you've reviewed which intrigues me so much as to what I've been missing out on hahaha I'm very interested now in Ticket to Ride. A few of the MANY games I played with my family are Hearts and Spades, Rummikub, Chess, Cad (also known as 31), Canasta, Monopoly, Risk, Stratego, Yahtzee, Nertz, I could go on and on hahaha I think it's a great thing for families and friends to do together.
I'll be following you! Can't wait to see what else you're reviewing. Cheers!
I know that list quite well. Very much like my growing up years games cupboard. These days it's very much the newer modern games, with past winners or nominees for the spiel de jahres (game of the year, Germany) featuring heavily, as well os many other euro-style games, where the luck from dice is either mitigated or absent (though luck can certainly come in from a variety of other locations)
Yeah, when I moved to Sydney I joined a meetup group for gaming, and have been going now for almost 2 full years. There's actually quite a few of them on meetup and I think I was lucky to pick the one that I did as there's always a good range of games and plenty of players (so much so we have to book in to attend or risk missing out)
Wow! I just love that SO many people are into games the way I was when I was growing up. Board game and card games. Honestly it was more of my Mom who loved to play games. I learned to know that love very well but it was her influence that got me there. And she's still that way to this day!
I've never used meetup before. I believe I've heard of it though. Are you basically just able to search people out with the same interests? It's impressive that you have so many people essentially lining up to play board games and card games.
I've never been to Sydney before but I'd love to visit. It's on my list of places I want to go. And I'm so close right now! I'm currently in New Zealand! But I head back home to the states tomorrow.
I've got your review of "Race for the Galaxy" bookmarked as I want to give it a read. The name caught my eye because I'm a bit of a nerd LOL I've also been known to play other fantasy games like Magic the Gathering (although MtG is more of a card collectors kind of game).
It's great having 40-50 people every week playing games in the one room. sometimes more.
I played MtG for many years, and taught a few people that have gone on to play at the national championships, though I was never into the competitive play. I also found the desire to collect far too tempting for me, and got out before it cost me too much. Still cost a few thousand over the years (at best guess anyway).
It was probably the worst for me when I was in college. I'd go on Ebay and buy an entire box of cards. There are websites where you can buy individual cards and I'd do that hahaha I played a lot with my friends, both in childhood and in college, but also never played competitively.
40-50 people, that's just crazy. Sounds like a lot of fun though!
Well I look forward to your next game review and will let you know if I get a chance to play any the games that pop up on your feed. Cheers!
More stuff to keep track of than Shadows Over Camelot? Sounds like it's one that will have to wait for older kids then as we find that one hard enough to keep on top of at the best of times XD
yes. more things to track than Shadows. And not coop, so you each have to track what you think is important too. Definitiely one for when the kids are older
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Very complicated game that I would never be able to catch on!
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I struggle without external references to help me with getting a handle on the complexity
I love the story that comes with the game, it seems like a mini adventure but I guess it being tough and quite overwhelming might turn a few people off, well, except for people with a long attention span.
Aside from the time, I think its a pretty nice game and besides, if the game is engaging enough, one might not notice as time passes by...
Absolutely. An engaging game (like Orleans, which I'll be writing about in the future sometime) you don't notice that 2 hours have passed. If the game can do that, then I think it's quite good. I wouldn't say that Lisboa managed as well, but you weren't really noticing the passing of time. You just knew it had been a long time.
Well, i think it still is a cool game. I guess the beauty of a game is its ability to get one totally immerses in its world...😊
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