by TinTIm
After playing a few times and friends really liking the game, I had this idea to play two whole revolutions of the big wheel. That means a total of 53 rounds (2x26+1). Why? Because we noticed that rarely people ever build monuments, one at the most, and we also felt that the game was always in the last quarter when your strategy is just beginning to develop.A regular 4 player game usually lasts up to 3 hours so we were expecting 5-6 hour game for two revolutions of the big wheel. Having drinks and a good time so we were up to it. Here are some thoughts on this.
1. Perhaps it was a little too long. Everyone was very tired at the end. Although we will probably try for a longer game again, perhaps just 1,5 revolutions.
2. Advancing in temples was a very dominant strategy since now the gods favor temple goers 2x as many times (points and resources).
3. The skulls would be depleted in the first part of the game making skull-hoging a considerably worse strategy compared to temples (see above). A solution to this imbalance might be to increase the number of skulls twofold and allow for two skulls on each Chichen Itza space. (When no more skulls are available you could re-use skulls already placed on Chichen Itza and replace with a resource token)
4. Place a token on the beginning tooth of the wheel to mark the beginning of the second revolution.
5. Replace first age building after the first revolution. We found that in a game this long we would have built every single building available, and most of the monuments, if it were not for the discarding of first age buildings. (There were two that got discarded). Now I would recommend not discarding, rather let the first age buildings stay and gradually be replaced with second age buildings as needed. Because at the end when there were no buildings left to build the game got very imbalanced, cause people who had saved up resources had few options. I hope there will be an expansion for the game with more buildings.
6. Since ALL the buildings are very likely to be built, then I would consider replacing the monuments when built. So bringing in a new one whenever someone builds. This keeps the balance for those who try to win via building a lot.
7. Another way to correct the imbalance of double Temple bonuses: you could always have temple bonuses only after the wheel turns half a cycle, not every quarter cycle as in a regular game. But to not throw off feeding balances you would still have feeding days every quarter cycle. Just mark one of the exclamation-mark tooth with a resource, indicating that it is a resource round from the gods and the other exclamation-mark tooth would then be points round from the gods. I suppose that this way you would not have to double the number of skulls for balance. I would have played this way if I had realized beforehand the major imbalance caused by double temple rounds. So next time we try for a longer game I'll let you know how this plays out.
All in all it was a nice experience to play two revolutions. After returning to a regular game I was reminded of the HUGE difference. Because you more than double scoring and buildings built. So you get to 'do' much more on average,if that makes any sense. (You build, score and go through more resources even if divided by total number of rounds.)
How the game went: The highest scorer, obviously figured out the advantage of temples in the game, score around 260 points, he used 6 workers the whole time, hogging food and wood from jungle and scored big on wood tiles monument and monument that doubles end of age points for temples. The follower up scored some 180 points mostly through scoring points with building tech. And the two last scored just under 100 with mixed strategies.
General thoughts about the Tzolk'in game: I have had around 10 people trying the game with me and they all loved it. Even gamers that usually don't like complicated games. So my feeling is that this is not a complicated game for beginners and most people will like it. We probably will play it more than 20 times in the next few weeks.