RogerBW's Blog

Thirsty Meeples May 2023 06 July 2023

Back to the boardgame café.

First up, The Taverns of Tiefenthal, one I've been curious about for a while. It's basically a combination of dice worker drafting and placement with deckbuilding. My impression (not helped by the shop copy being very disorganised, though we left it in a better state than we found) was that there were an awful lot of moving parts in service of a fairly straightforward core.

People who are serious about their eurogames claim that this isn't even worth playing until you've set up all the expansion modules. Eh, perhaps; even in the base game, the rulebook's illustration of components doesn't make it easy to work out what's what, so at least for a first learning game that basic setup is where I'd recommend starting. This was a very head-down game for me, with the only real player interaction being the dice drafting (and very occasionally taking a customer someone else wanted).

Also, it may just be that I was expecting more of an engine-builder, but I find it odd that money and beer and dice are completely separate resources. You place a die on a customer or the till to serve them and get money; you spend that money on hiring more staff and upgrading your tavern. You place a die on the cellar to get beer; you spend that beer on bribing customers to come in. Is it unreasonable for me instead to want a game in which you spend money to get beer, and you spend beer to serve customers and get money?

I'd play again, but I don't feel enthused to seek it out.

On to the nominally pub-themed Monster Inn, but this is one I'd really have preferred as an abstract (not to mention with a better rulebook). Each round you're bidding on cards equal to the number of players; you're trying to build up a row of monsters who are either unopposed by adventurers or tough enough to beat them.

I quite enjoy the resource bidding (once a bid has been placed in gold or gems, you follow in the same resource, or you can change to the other resource at extra expense) but this really didn't engage me; it felt very random. I did like the art, though, by frequent boardgame illustrator Dennis Lohausen.

Finally, Dice Miner, which I last played on a hot weekend two years ago. My reaction then (with the Kickstarter bonus plastic mountain) was that it was enjoyable once, but probablt didn't have legs. This time, with a ragged shop-copy cardboard mountain… much the same, really. I did have a good time, but if I owned a copy, would I get it out often enough to justify the space it would take up? Probably not.

Ooh, though people on eBay are selling just the dice, and I bet I could 3d-print a combination mountain/storage box to save space…

(You could use the score pad, and there were some unused sheets left, but I really like Score It on Android.)

[Buy The Taverns of Tiefenthal at Amazon] [Buy Monster Inn at Amazon] and help support the blog. ["As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases."]

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