In order to promote discussion on Lemmy, I’m doing micro-reviews for my favorite boardgames by genre. Please join in, provide your reviews, flame me for my terrible taste or to suggest a category for tomorrow!
Today’s game is Lisboa
TL;DR
Score: 8/10
Positives:
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Very nice artwork and iconography
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Player boards are very high quality
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The theme fits nicely into the game
Negatives:
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Game is too heavy for my personal taste
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Sometimes it feels like complexity was added for complexity’s sake
The review
I’m not the biggest fan of Heavy weight boardgames and I haven’t been explosed to that many of them. Take this one with a huge grain of salt.
In 1755 there was a HUGE earthquake in Lisbon that caused a wave of tsunami and fires that lasted more than 3 days. It completely destroyed Lisbon. This game is about the reconstruction of Lisbon after these tragic events. Being a portuguese that lives in the outskirts of Lisbon I imediately backed the game. Ironically, the warehouse where Lisboa copies were store burned down.
Unlike previous reviews, I’m not going to give a rules overview, because it’s just too much. If you’re at all interested in the game, I feel it’s mandatory that you watch Paul’s How to play video. You and everyone you’re playing with. Yes, its mandatory.
Image credit to Rafaël Theunis on bgg, source here
You might be fooled into believing this game is simple because the premise seems simple. You play a card in your board, replacing an existing card if necessary, do the associated action and draw a card. So simple. Wrong!!!
I had a really hard time grocking this game. Doing an action is “simple” but formulating a strategy that maximizes points is, in my personal opinion, very intimidating. You can remove rubble from the city, open a shop, sell goods, trade with the nobles, mess with the treasure value, influence the clergy, gain influence, buy ships, recruit state oficials, sponsor an event, open public buildings… There’s so much stuff to do!
Say you want to open a shop. You probably want a place it in a spot with not much rubble, because spaces with rubble cost more money. When you place a shop you remove rubble cubles, which have different colors. You get bonus from clearing a full set. Each spot also has a one time-bonus. If there are public buildings in the same row or column of your store, and match your store’s colors you get wigs (victory points). Then, you remove a wooden house from your player board which may unlock a new special ability.
Just from the simple action of building a shop you can see there’s a lot of decisions involved. You don’t just open a shop, you need to prepare the way to building a shop. The shop’s spot is critically important. Clear the rubble, maybe get some public buildings before, match the color, choose the right one-time bonus that you actually need, unlock the special ability that you actually need. You can see how each action has this BIG ripple effect. Everything interacts with a lot of moving parts. It can be overwhelming. It WILL be overwhelming.
I do appreciate how everything neatly works together. Aside from the cleric portion of the game, I think everything makes a lot of mechanical sense. The rulebook makes a good job on not only explaining the rule/mechanic but also it’s historical context and the reason it exists. I think this game is fantastic, I will go as far as saying that this game is an absolute masterpiece. For those that really enjoy very complex, very intricate, very tight and decision heavy euro games… This one is probably going to be high on your list.
For my personal tastes I find it overwhelming. We all had to watch Paul’s video before each play, everytime. While I really enjoyed the experience of playing it, I never actually did great and I always end up exausted. Both from playing and from answering questions all the time.
Context Information
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Number of plays: 4
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Suggested player count: 3 players, with 4 you have a lot of downtime
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Average playtime: 2.5 hours
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Win-rate: 0%
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Mandatory Paul’s rules video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8oObfAR8SY
Honorable mentions
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Vinhos: Deluxe Edition - Only played it once but I found it to be much, much more approachable. At least I found it easier to formulate a plan.
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Terra Mystica - A bit too dry for my taste but I enjoy the purple resource management. Never tried Gaia’s project
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Barrage - I only played it 2 times (don’t own it) but I think this game has a lot of potential. The flowing water part is quite interesting.
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Anachrony - I don’t usually enjoy time travel, I don’t think a boardgame can capture that feeling but this game is still fun.
I’ve enjoyed both On Mars and Weather Machine more than Lisboa although the latter is always lauded as Lacerda’s masterpiece. I really dig the complexity of his designs although it makes the games harder to explain to players who prefer lighter fare.
Oh wow, 4.5+ complexity, thats crazy. There is an argument to be made at what point it should just be a video game.
The most complex games i like to play are maybe 3.5-3.8 something along those lines
I find that it gets really difficult to teach a game that’s more complex. Watching videos ahead of time helps mitigate that, but my group always has moments where we need to role-play as lawyers in a courtroom to dispute the rules.
There are definitely some games that feel like they should be a video game because of all the fiddly accounting you have to do, e.g. Gloomhaven. But Lisboa is not heavy for that reason, it’s because the decisions are really tough because everything has ramifications in other parts of the game, making it hard to weigh up your options.
Fair point! Maybe I should open up about more complex games :)
My favorite heavier game is definitely terraforming mars. The gameplay loop is so satisfying and everyone always loves playing with the cubes.
Terraforming Mars I see as a mid range game, it’s my favourite by far. So many ways to victory, no single way wins every game BIG PLUS.
We only have base game, but have added 250 Fan made cards and the TFM Promo, Turmoil KS Promo(with Turmoil specific cards removed) and BB Promo card sets added. This alone added a hefty number of Corporations and Project cards to keep us busy playing for a long time.
Speaking of time, we have had a game that went for 5 1/2 hrs, BUT our group is ok with that. We actually like the ‘struggle’ of having to get production happening(no Preludes), as it fits thematically with just landing on the planet and getting geared up for makin bacon.
We(my wife and I) are currently assessing purchasing a Vital Lacerda game, we’ve not played any of his YET, but are keen to do so. Lisboa, Weather Machine, Vinhos and Kanban are on our hitlist of suspects. Wishing Invention was available right now as it really looks good.
Wow, you’ve got to be in the minority to actually prefer not using Prelude. :) I definitely prefer playing with Prelude, but I also like to throw in another expansion to mix it up. I really like Colonies, but I know lots of other people hate the imbalances in that expansion.
