(Boardgame)
Joel, Allen, Tom and
myself tried out the boardgame Azteca on Sunday night. I'd gotten it for
Christmas more than a year ago and had been wanting to play it, but just
never got around to it. We got a late start at 8 pm, unfortunately, as my
brother's birthday dinner ran long. Naturally, we could not finish it in
time, despite the supposed 2 hour, 30 minute playing time.
Here are some of our comments on the game:
Joel Sams: "Hi. The jury is still out on the board game Azteca. After Mike explained the rules, bleeping over a lot of the place names and gods' names (but, hey, my Aztec is rusty, too!), we played two turns and came up with a mixed review. It has a nice board of the Aztec lake that becomes Mexico City. Also it has nasty natives, boats on the lake, and earthquakes (fun for everyone).
I am against the slave trade and human sacrifices aspects, (never could figure it out), but like the combination political intrigue, armed combat. There are about eight phases a turn, and some phases have more than one round, so we question the average playing time two hours 30 minutes, maybe the beer slowed us down here. So far, I think we will have to try again, with more beer."
Tom Graves: "More beer and less chit drawing, just go around four times starting with the guy with the card, T-dude."
Mike Demana: "Hmm...good idea. One less 'fiddly bit.' Any
other ideas on how to streamline this game? Off the top of my head, here
are some:
· We could take out the Interception thing, where you can stop the march ofan army if it goes by a hex adjacent to one of your armies.
· We could make the Slave Auction a simple random draw. Another fiddly bit gone. Hmm...that way Joel could finally get some slaves!"
Tom Graves: "Random draw on the action is good, but you still have to have the money to pay for the slaves.I think the intercept is probably one that could be lost, also, but keep the ability to intercept an army marching on your capital city only.