I really love this series, it seems to combine my favourite themes. Jason brings in the games that would otherwise be less included and I still get Tom's take on them! Keep it up and a huge thanks!
Excellent game and probably my favorite from 2015. I agree with Jason regarding the Diamond track vs. the Book track. While there are fewer steps to move on the diamond track, the book track can be equally rewarding, especially if others are snatching up all of the diamond merchant cards. Thanks for the review!
It's a good game that could've been great. Adding many little mechanics makes the core of the game vague and each mechanic weak (also, makes the rules unnecessarily convoluted). Too bad each mechanic is interesting and could've shined if used properly in other games. They should've removed diamond, bookkeeping, coins and made the action card mechanic and stock market mechanic stronger, in my opinion. Also, if a game is intended to be played repeatedly, it shouldn't be that long.
I'm going to agree more with Jason on this one rather than tom in the diamond/book keeping aspect since it opens up avenues for all players to attempt a winning strategy. If they weren't there it would mostly be just an area control game but a well thought out book track can steal you the game even if you are losing in stock shares.
I like heavier euro games, but I don't like when financial games are obfuscated by a bunch of mechanisms. Imperial is my favorite case of a euro game not interfering with its financial theme.
Dont know if this is still relevant to you but I just played a 2 player game and I had a blast. I will say that in a 2 player game the expansion mechanism will be a little more important since you have just your actions to try and counter-act them but you can try to piggyback the most prominent company and try to grab their shares for since the other player already did the work and expanded for you.
