My musings on Isle of Skye over in the
Top 10 - Poll #4 thread got me thinking about tile-laying games. It's easy to lump all tile-laying games into the same category, but one thing that I've been thinking about lately is the method of tile acquisition, how that differs from one game to another, and how that impacts the overall game. I thought I would flush out some thoughts here.
Our beloved
Carcassonne is the standard when it comes to tile-laying games. It makes me smile to watch video reviews of new tile-laying games and always have Carcassonne be referenced, almost as though it is an unwritten rule of talking about tile-laying games that you need to mention Carcassonne. For all the great things about Carcassonne, the draw-and-place mechanism is tile-laying at its most basic. This puts off some people (though not me) because of the luck involved. Other tile-laying games, like
Cacao and
Lanterns, and many others I'm sure, follow this draw-and-place mechanic, although Lanterns has a three-tile hand.
Recently, tile-laying games have sought to offer new ways to acquire tiles as a way of offering a fresh take on tile-laying. Here are a few examples of tile acquisition that I know, and my thoughts on them:
Isle of Skye - the bidding mechanic. Each player draws three tiles, displays them face up, and secretly chooses one to eliminate and secretly places a value on the other two, which can be purchased at that price by other players or, if not, are to be purchased by you for that price. Some people really like this, and it's definitely a deep mechanic that requires a good deal of thought, although I think it's a bit clunky.
Kingdomino - tile drafting with a value placed on each tile by way of a number on the back (ranking the tiles objectively), whereby taking a higher numbered ('better') tile in one round means you will draft later in the next round. Simple, clean, elegant, brilliant.
Citrus - tiles are purchased by taking an entire row or column from a market (the dynamics of which keep changing based on previous selections), where you pay for each tile you take. I really like this because there's a lot to think about regarding which row/column suits you best based on the number of tiles it contains and the type of tiles it contains, considering how much money you have and how many workers you have in the field.
Vikings - This is a tile-laying game that's quite different from the standard ones because there are only four different types of tiles in the game. But the way of acquiring your tiles and associated viking is really neat - a wheel that turns throughout the round, changing the cost of the tiles as it turns. It forces you to reassess the board every turn and I think it's very clever.
Palmyra - I haven't played this yet (my copy is in the post en route to postman Chooselife), but there's a very intriguing-looking mechanic whereby one of your two followers (the legionnaire) generates land (in the form of tiles) by the moves he makes. So the number of tiles you acquire and have at your disposal are generated by your previous turns. You essentially 'spend' tiles to earn more tiles (hopefully earning more than you spend!). This sounds really fascinating and not something I've come across in other tile-laying games.
Karuba / Limes - number calling. Both of these are multi-player solitaire type of games where each player has to place the same tile/card on their personal playerboard, so the point at the end is to see how different players went about their task under exactly the same conditions. I love Limes as a solo game (i.e. using draw-and-place and ignoring number calling altogether) but I don't love the number calling mechanic, to be honest.
The Little Prince - partially hidden tile draft (two players only). One player draws three tiles, looks at them, places two face up and one face down. The other player chooses either one of the two they can see or gambles with the one they can't see, leaving the first player to take whichever of the two remaining tiles they prefer. This works really well because the pre-draft decision of which tile to keep face down is itself an important decision before the draft has even started, so there's an extra layer there (even though it's a simple game). It's funny that I've been playing this with junglegirl for a couple of years now and I've only recently come to appreciate how great this simple mechanic is.
I'm sure there are plenty of other tile acquisition mechanics - feel free to add those that you know about.
So, what's the point of all this? Well, I wanted to look at a few different ways to acquire tiles in tile-laying games and see if that, in itself, is a way to categorise different games within the tile-laying category and to see how we, as Carcassonne fans, view tile acquisition. So, some questions to consider are:
Is the draw-and-place mechanic one of the reasons we like Carcassonne, and are we therefore drawn to other tile-laying games with the same mechanic? Do we like the luck aspect of draw-and-place and the feeling of joy or disappointment when you get or don't get the tile you need?
Or is the tile-laying aspect itself what we like about Carcassonne, with the way you acquire your tiles not seen as that important?
One of the main expansions for Carcassonne (Bridges, Castles and Bazaars) introduced a new way of acquiring tiles and it seems most fans don't like it (me included). Is this just because it's not a good mechanic or is it because it destroys the sanctity of draw-and-place that is so much a part of the game?
Sorry for the long post. If you made it this far, I look forward to seeing what you think!