Madeira Preview - Part 3

The pirate dice

In part 1 we showed you how to get the cool dice to make all the nice actions with we showed you in part 2. This time we show you more dice!

There is an area in the game called the City Watch. At the beginning of each round, when we roll the turquoise guild dice we showed you so far, we also roll three black dice. We call them the pirate dice. They represent the bad guys in the jail, where all the bad boys belong in. The players also have workers in the City watch that are on duty and watch the dice to not do any criminal activity.

Half of the sides are black like a pirate soul the other half is black like the cellar of the watch tower they rot in.

Fortunate enough for the criminals these pirate dice are always open for a deal. You let them free and they return the favor by helping you getting your actions done. You also leave the city watch as you are no noble man, if you are making deals with criminals.

These pirate dice are there to give you additional actions. But everyone has access to them as long as they have workers in the city watch.

The watch tower

The watch tower. Everyone here keeps the people of Madeira safe.

There are still some differences to the regular guild dice. First of all they only give you character actions. They return the favor but only to some extend. Second they only go to characters where no other pirate dice is. Two criminals in one spot cause too much trouble, no one can control. And third, they are one of the dice at a character. So in a 4-player game there is only place for 4 guild dice or 3 guild dice and 1 pirate die.

So if your opponent took a pirate die for your favorite action, you have to take a regular guild die if you want the same action right now, or you need to choose another action if you still want that pirate die, before they are gone. Oh we love choices you have to make.

But what happens with the building action? When you want to perform it, you need to pay for it. The character worked for the greater good of the island, but without some taxes the land would go bankrupt. Everyone who does not pay, because he cannot or does not want to, gets pirate chips. These tokens represent the criminality the players cause requesting something, and then not paying for it. With a pirate die on a building you can receive a lot more pirates, since these gallows birds are causing extra trouble.

Pirates are piling up

Of course in a 4-player game you might say that one player does not get a pirate die. That is true. But there are several reasons to not be sad about this. At the end of each round, the player who has the most workers in the city watch may also send one home to get 4 prestige points, as honor for not making deals with the pirates. That’s not shabby.

But what are the pirate chips for?

The short answer: They give you minus points, but only at the end of the game. The player with the most pirates loses 16 prestige points. To put that in perspective, the crown’s requests earn you a maximum of 15 to 20 prestige points per request. The player with the second most pirates still loses 8 points and so on. The only way to not lose points is to have no pirates at all.

But fear not. You might not always prevent getting pirates, but you can still get rid of them later. You might call it community service. Send a worker to the city watch and you may discard three of them. And this way, the circle about the pirates closes where it started. So getting pirates is not always bad, as you can get rid of them and at the same time prepare your position to use a pirate die next turn. Let’s call that a win-win situation.

As always if you already like what you see and read, spread the word and feel free to go here and give us a thumps up:http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/152350/item/2709290#it...

Be seeing you,
Matthias from What's Your Game?

Madeira Preview - Part 2

Last time we learned about the dice we got from the guild board. Now comes the part where the players need to make the decisions what to do with them.

Each die we took lets us perform two actions each round. Yep, that is right: 1 die, 2 actions! Giving us more bang for the buck.

The 3 regions I mentioned last time are home not only to several fields offering goods that can be harvested, but also to 5 buildings. Each building offers an action. But there is more. There are 4 Characters. They travel over the Island offering their services and as these are Nobles, they don’t work in a tent or on the open fields. They are hosted in the buildings. Working together with the local authority.
In game terms it means that each round we have four character tiles (offering an action) we randomly put on the buildings (offering a different action).

So, we have two kinds of actions each guild die nets us: The character action and the building action. And we have a random combination of these actions each round – every game.

Let’s look at this in detail.

- In phase B we place a die on a character and perform his action immediately. We do this one die each in turn order and we can choose the same action again, when it is our turn again and if the character still has space, allowing us to concentrate on certain actions if needed for our strategy, or we can choose a different character showing each of them our love.

One of the 4 Characters: The Commander

- In phase C we look at each building one at a time. If we used the character placed on that building, we can now perform that building action. But only once, even if we used the character in it several times in this round.
Each Building gives you a regular action and a bigger action depending on how many workers you have. And where do these workers need to be? No surprise, but on the fields of the Region of the Building. If you help working doing the most standard job, you get more out of it. Sounds fair.

One of the Buildings: the “Moinho”

The Steward is hosted there for this round. Performing the Building action gives you 2 Bread if you have at least 1 worker in the region or 5 Bread if you have at least 3 workers.

So you have to decide which combination helps you the most and what gives you the most advantages.
And to decide not only means deciding which action to perform, but also to do it at the right time. Each character can only offer their service a limited times before they called it a day. In a four-player game that is four times. As soon as the fourth die is on a character that action is gone for this round and that character closes it’s door. Come back next round if you want his service, wherever he will then be.

Elements like these add a lot to the interaction and tension between the players. If the first two players are going for that one action I was toying with, I might need to perform it now, before it is gone and I would have to wait another round. Sometimes you want to make sure to have access a building action, so you need to adapt your strategy, or you can lure players into actions they wanted to do later.

But that’s not all, folks!
You may have noticed that I was talking about five buildings but only four characters.

Let’s go back to the characters. When we look at them you might notice that icon at the bottom right side. Each character has it.

This is the icon for harvesting sugar, wine, wheat and wood.
Stuff you get from the fields of the island.

This is the icon for harvesting sugar, wine, wheat and wood. Stuff you get from the fields of the island.

Each of the four characters lets you harvest, instead of doing the regular action. To harvest means getting the shown good or wood from each field you have a worker on - guess where? - in the same region as the character is.

But there is a fifth character. You see, announcing four characters and listing five of them is the way we work at What's your Game?! Always giving more to the players.

The fifth character is the Harvester. Each round one building is not visited by any of the Characters. You might call it empty, but there is still the Harvester in front of that building and putting a die there lets you use him and harvest in that Region.
And as you had no chance to do something else, you get a bonus as you can harvest one of the fields a second time giving you one more good.

The Harvester at the “Alfândega”

Join me next time when I explain why pirates are cooler then ninjas.  And if you still like what you see and read, spread the word and feel free to go here and give us a thumps up:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/152350/item/2709290#it....


Be seeing you,
Matthias from What's Your Game?

Preview Series - Part 1

Welcome to the first Preview of Madeira. This strategic game had a long development phase, but I'm sure you all agree to rather to not rush a release and instead give the game the time it needs to be ready. I hope you will like the result we present you, as we from What's Your Game? and the Authors Nuno Bizarro Sentieiro and Paulo Soledade think it is awesome and well worth the wait. ☺

Many have heard some small hints about this game and many are curious what it is all about. So the number one request from each player who has it on their watch list is: "Need to read the rules!" I will not present the full rules today, as we are still tweaking them so that the rulebook will be easy to read and the game easy to learn. But we want to break the "wait and see" approach many of you have, so I show you some elements already today to give you more info.

I start today with the main element of the game: The Dice.

Dice

Madeira is a civilization game and it is an economic game, but from its heart it's a worker placement game. Although the game contains worker meeples for each player, the true workers from a mechanic “point of view” are the dice and their placement is the core of the game. Each die is only numbered 1 to 3, and every number is present twice on a six-sided. This reduction of the possible results reduces the variety to a level that the dice result is still important but not game breaking. We like to challenge your mind, not your nerves .

But all dice are of the same color, so how do I know which are mine? We have a small drafting of them. At the start of each of the five rounds in the game, the dice are rolled in groups of three and placed on the Guild Board. In turn order, each player then chooses one group of them as their dice for this round.

(The Guild Board at the beginning of Round 1)

There are several considerations involved in choosing a group of dice.

The first are of course the dice value. You will use your dice to perform the actions and having high-numbered dice is always helpful. The two islands of Madeira are divided into three regions. A die showing a 1 can only be used in Region 1 in theory, unless you pay some bread in order to increase its value. Bread can be considered as the entrance fee you have to pay to perform actions in the other regions of the island. If you have a die showing a 3 you have the freedom to just use it anywhere and save some bread. Btw: We call these dice the Guild Dice.

A bread tile

The second reason is renewing guild favors. The guild board is called this way, as the four rows represents the four guilds in the game. You will get guild favors during the game, which in theory can only be used once each. Choosing one group of dice and with it the guild that offers them, lets you renew your entire guild Favors of that one guild. Giving you an extra advantage.

One of the Guild Favors in the Game.
          She provides more Bread.

The third reason for picking a row is the Crown’s Requests. Each Guild offers you different Requests, made by the crown of Portugal. By choosing your group of dice, you will also choose one Request in the same row. Fulfilling the Requests is the principal way to earn Victory Points, so part of the strategy is getting the right tiles.

One of the Crown's Request.
What it might do?

And last but not least choosing the group of dice also influences the order of the players during the second phase of the game, where we use the dice to perform actions. Taking a group of dice from the first row makes sure that you will be the first to perform the action.

Combining these four elements (Dice, renewing Favors, Crown's Request, and turn Order) is an exciting start into each round.

I hope you like what you have seen so far. Next time I will go into details of the actions you can perform with the dice. And if you already like what you see and read, spread the word and feel free to go here and give us a thumps up on the Spiel 2013 Preview.

Be seeing you,
Matthias from What's Your Game?