Dominion Strategy Forum

Miscellaneous => Other Games => Topic started by: michaeljb on December 16, 2017, 07:09:05 pm

Title: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: michaeljb on December 16, 2017, 07:09:05 pm
Viticulture is one of my wife's and my favorite games (especially with its expansion, Tuscany). We've taught it to any of our friends willing to play with us, and today I got to teach it on a YouTube livestream with Heavy Cardboard! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuLw81V6AQg

Has anyone here played it?
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: Lekkit on December 22, 2017, 10:01:20 am
We bought the Essential Edition. The next day we bought Tuscany Essential Edition and some guest pack that I can't remember the name of. I think it's a great game. Especially with the extended board. Without it, I think it's a good game.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: GendoIkari on January 28, 2018, 03:16:18 am
I just learned / played this yesterday. I'm pretty sure we were playing with all the Tuscany stuff... I just now found out that Tuscany was designed to be a multiple-play legacy style thing... which probably means that using every possible expansion thing wasn't great for me first game.

But I still liked it. Reminded me of Fresco. It's some pretty basic worker placement overall; but with more things to think about in terms of how planning a turn goes.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: Lekkit on January 28, 2018, 05:11:33 am
Some of the original Tuscany stuff was put in the Essential Edition. Some of them in the Tuscany Esential Edition. Some were just cut, because they didn't add anything fun. It is possible that you "just" played Esential Edition.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: GendoIkari on January 28, 2018, 11:33:24 pm
Some of the original Tuscany stuff was put in the Essential Edition. Some of them in the Tuscany Esential Edition. Some were just cut, because they didn't add anything fun. It is possible that you "just" played Esential Edition.

I do know that what I was playing was the Essential Edition. It had the territory thing, the 4 separate seasons thing, and the special man and special woman worker you could get.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: Lekkit on January 29, 2018, 02:27:55 am
Some of the original Tuscany stuff was put in the Essential Edition. Some of them in the Tuscany Esential Edition. Some were just cut, because they didn't add anything fun. It is possible that you "just" played Esential Edition.

I do know that what I was playing was the Essential Edition. It had the territory thing, the 4 separate seasons thing, and the special man and special woman worker you could get.

That is from Tuscany.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: LastFootnote on January 29, 2018, 01:52:06 pm
I really dislike Worker Placement games, but uh Viticulture is one of the least bad ones. I hate how in many Worker Placement games, your plans are constantly being foiled by others taking all the actions you wanted. It's just non-stop frustration. Viticulture mostly still lets you take the actions, it just rewards you for being the first to take an action. So that's an improvement.

I don't think I played with this Tuscany expansion thing. Does it add more interesting stuff?

EDIT: A bit of trivia: I actually bought these metal coins meant for Viticulture (https://www.meeplesource.com/proddetail.php?prod=MetalLiraCoins) before I'd ever heard of the game. I got them to use as VP tokens for Empires playtesting, since I was sick of how similar in size and appearance the Prosperity 1-VP and 5-VP Victory tokens were. Then when Empires came out the 5-VP tokens were actually larger, so I switched to those.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: michaeljb on January 29, 2018, 02:53:56 pm
I really dislike Worker Placement games, but uh Viticulture is one of the least bad ones. I hate how in many Worker Placement games, your plans are constantly being foiled by others taking all the actions you wanted. It's just non-stop frustration.

Not a fan of Agricola, I take it? Non-stop pressure to feed your workers on top of standard WP frustration!  ;)

Quote
Viticulture mostly still lets you take the actions, it just rewards you for being the first to take an action. So that's an improvement.

I don't think I played with this Tuscany expansion thing. Does it add more interesting stuff?

EDIT: A bit of trivia: I actually bought these metal coins meant for Viticulture (https://www.meeplesource.com/proddetail.php?prod=MetalLiraCoins) before I'd ever heard of the game. I got them to use as VP tokens for Empires playtesting, since I was sick of how similar in size and appearance the Prosperity 1-VP and 5-VP Victory tokens were. Then when Empires came out the 5-VP tokens were actually larger, so I switched to those.

In the video in the OP, we played Viticulture EE + Tuscany EE. The original Tuscany had like 12 expansion modules. Viticulture EE is basically Viticulture plus the smallest Tuscany modules that are worth playing with.

Tuscany EE includes the biggest 3 Tuscany modules that are good.

- Extended Board: instead of 2 seasons with 6 actions each, there are now 4 seasons with 4 actions each; some actions are moved around, and a few new interesting actions are added. The Wake-up chart also changes for the better.
- Structure deck: a deck of orange structure cards that can add permanent improvements to your winery.
- Special Workers: a deck of special worker cards defines a bunch of different unique powers for a worker--for example, the Builder: when you build a structure using this worker, pay $2 less; each game, choose 2 of these cards, and everyone uses their special male and female meeples, each corresponding to one of the special worker cards

After using the Tuscany EE modules (especially the extended board and special workers), I would never go back, except to teach players who are inexperienced/casual gamers. The teach I did in the video was intended to go from zero to full Viticulture+Tuscany EE, and I think people who play a lot of games should be able to pick it up alright.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: LastFootnote on January 29, 2018, 03:02:36 pm
I really dislike Worker Placement games, but uh Viticulture is one of the least bad ones. I hate how in many Worker Placement games, your plans are constantly being foiled by others taking all the actions you wanted. It's just non-stop frustration.

Not a fan of Agricola, I take it? Non-stop pressure to feed your workers on top of standard WP frustration!  ;)

I have never played Agricola. I find Stone Age insufferable. Lords of Waterdeep is nice in that the available actions change from game to game in the form of new buildings. And also with the expansions, Lords of Waterdeep has enough locations to be slightly less frustrating. It's still often incredibly slow, though, as your first 2 or 3 choices get taken by the players before you. Gotta love a genre of game where planning ahead before your turn is often futile!

I'm trying to remember which other Worker Placement games I've played. I try to avoid them, as a rule.

EDIT: I've played Tzolk'in a couple of times. I hate it. The Voyages of Marco Polo was OK I guess? Dungeon Lords is also pretty lame, but at least I like the theme better.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: michaeljb on January 29, 2018, 03:31:52 pm
Agricola is one of my favorites, and I’ve only played Tzolk’in a few times, but my wife and I liked it enough that we’re planning on buying it. Based on what you first said about worker placement, I’m not surprised to hear you hate it  ;D I haven’t played any of the others you mentioned.

I guess if we ever find ourselves gaming together IRL, we ought to stick to Dominion  :)
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: pacovf on January 29, 2018, 06:52:29 pm
I really dislike Worker Placement games, but uh Viticulture is one of the least bad ones. I hate how in many Worker Placement games, your plans are constantly being foiled by others taking all the actions you wanted. It's just non-stop frustration.

Not a fan of Agricola, I take it? Non-stop pressure to feed your workers on top of standard WP frustration!  ;)

I have never played Agricola. I find Stone Age insufferable. Lords of Waterdeep is nice in that the available actions change from game to game in the form of new buildings. And also with the expansions, Lords of Waterdeep has enough locations to be slightly less frustrating. It's still often incredibly slow, though, as your first 2 or 3 choices get taken by the players before you. Gotta love a genre of game where planning ahead before your turn is often futile!

I'm trying to remember which other Worker Placement games I've played. I try to avoid them, as a rule.

EDIT: I've played Tzolk'in a couple of times. I hate it. The Voyages of Marco Polo was OK I guess? Dungeon Lords is also pretty lame, but at least I like the theme better.

Caylus?

I find that WP games force you to evaluate not only how much an action is worth for you, but also for other players, which is fun. And yes, you have to accept that, past the first few placements, you usually can't plan what you are going to get, so you should avoid putting yourself in a position where you absolutely need to get more than one, maybe two, specific actions. The last actions are just about trying to maximize what's available to you.

The flipside is that you have to play a WP game a few times before having a reasonable sense of how much everything is worth. You usually get trounced in the first games, but I am fine with that.
Title: Re: Viticulture (and Tuscany)
Post by: scott_pilgrim on January 29, 2018, 07:59:42 pm
I think if it's well-done, a worker placement game actually rewards, not punishes, planning ahead. It's just longer term planning than what you're describing. You want to think several rounds ahead to make sure you never put yourself in a position where you will desperately need several actions at the same time. If your complaint is just that you have to wait until your turn before actually doing anything, then I guess that's valid, but I think that's almost necessary for any non-simultaneous game with a lot of player interaction.

It occurred to me recently that traditional worker placement is actually just a specific type of drafting mechanic, where you have a limited number of actions (your number of workers) that you can draft each round, and usually the actions you're drafting are the same from one round to the next. Games like Ticket to Ride, 7 Wonders, and Elysium all have that same denial aspect to them, just implemented in different ways. Do you generally dislike drafting games for the same reason?

I'm not trying to criticize your tastes, just curious because I've never had a problem with worker placement as a mechanic and never really thought about the things you're complaining about before.