Musings On... Santiago (#17)
Jason Little: With about 8-10 plays of Santiago, I still look forward to getting this to the table more often. I haven't experienced another game with this sort of bidding and bribery to get what you want in such a tightly designed and quick-playing experience. There are several subtle decisions lurking beneath the simple surface -- when to pass/bid low to be the one to accept bribes, when to use your only guaranteed stream, whether to piggyback on another field or strike out on your own.However, how do you evaluate a game that plays/feels so incredibly different with a different number of players? I adore Santiago with 5, it's still fairly robust with 4, but it seems almost too "friendly" and a different game altogether (in terms of decisions, interaction and gameplay experience) with only 3 players. Can you assign a single composite score for such a game, or do you really need to rate the game based on number of players?
For example, with 5 players, I rate this 9.5/10 -- close to perfection for that number of players, the niche it fills and the amount of time it takes. With 4 players, it dips slightly to about 8.5/10 and with 3 players drops even further to about 6.5 or 7/10...
Morgan Dontanville: I'm a big fan of nasty Euros. At first I thought that I just played mean, but after playing more and more stale introspective solitaire games, I realized that mean games force interaction between players.
There are certainly a number of Euros that aren't mean that induce activity between players, but they seemed to be far outweighed by games that only have an auction system to bind them. Now don't get me wrong, I like a good auction game, but I appreciate a game more if in addition to how much you bid on something your interface with the game feeds back into foiling other players' plans. Manipulations, and allegiances, bluff and dares. Santiago offers all of these things to me.
I can't help but liken Santiago to El Grande in some senses, you auction off the ability to control certain areas with specific numbers, in order to gain majority in different regions. The difference is that this has a stock-like quality that Acquire offers, in that when you expand a crop you also increase the value of all who've invested in it, yet it Kramer-fies things even more than Acquire as all the information is present in the tile (Kramer puts everything on one card usually). If El Grande's regions differed in value based on how many people were there, it would be a close comparison.
Anyway, by leaving this information available, you allow for people to react, make deals, persuade others to create new lines of actions, force actions against each other, and claw at each other over a few meager Escudos. If you are a downtrodden subsistence farmer,
every Escudo counts.
I'm a fan of city building games and games with a sense of movement. While there isn't any significant movement to the game, the way that the water bearer moves the water channel around creates broad strokes on the board. Like Big City, in that it is best to build where the subway goes, Santiago follows the water. The difference of course is that it is essential to be on the water, which gives a great power to the water bearer.
My favorite element in the game is the propositioning of the water bearer. Work in teams to get what you want, try to make sure that the water bearer gets his piece either with watering his crops or cold hard Escudos. Sometimes, though, there is that brilliant moment when you offer a bunk route for a couple measly Escudos that helps no one and the Water Bearer will take it and screws the lot of us. Genius. What makes this really work is that there is a threshold where a crop can dry and oust the ownership - yes, the tile remains there to potentially be watered to give others the multiplier. There are many
decisions to be made because of this factor.
Overall, this is a brilliant game and will always have a place in my collection. Even if I would have to pare it down significantly (but, I don't want to think about that).
Shannon Appelcline: Overall, I'd agree that this game is quite well designed, and that it's quite interactive, and that it has a neat building feel. (The canals are great.)
However, I also found it overly analytical. If you want to play well, every placement should be accompanied by calculations. (I have 12 points before I place that, and 20 after I place it, while conversely Joe has 6 points which jumps to 10, but it connects in Fred, who goes from 1 to 10 ... Or I could place it this other place, which gives me 4 to 8, Joe 2 to 4 ...) That much calculation frequently spoils my fun in a game.
So, though I can admire it, and though I can see someone who's willing to count through Power Grid, Go West, or Goldbrau might like it too, it doesn't hit my table very much. I've currently got it rated at 6/10.
Jason Little: Shannon brings up an excellent point about the game's mathematical structure. As much as I love the beginning and mid-game experience, the last turn or two can sometimes feel more like an equation than a game.
In fact, in at least two games I've played, the player assigning the water on the last turn had become a de facto kingmaker merely by having to choose a location for the water supply -- choosing Bribe A would give the game to Player Y, while Bribe B would give the game to Player Z... An awkward position for someone to find himself in.
I generally try to guesstimate things as I go, rather than take an actual tally during the game, but I do game with several folks who whip out pencil and paper for games like Power Grid to calculate everything to the Nth degree. Tile and water placement moves in Santiago certainly can be "solved" in that regard.
Tom Vasel: But isn't such use of paper and pencil against the spirit of the game? I know that I would hesitate to play a game against people who would resort to such tactics. In the games I've played, people have often pointed out the value of a specific field, because
they want that person to be hurt, but I've never had anyone calculate out a player's entire score. It's actually more fun for us, only having a nebulous idea. This way, a play that affects the outcome of the entire game might occur, but no one knows about it while it's
actually happening.
Morgan Dontanville: I prefer not to play games with mentats. My feeling is that games are a social experience and for the most part I play games as an excuse to just sit around with people that I like. If you aren't going to relax and enjoy the company of your fellow players and instead number crunch, then it no longer becomes a shared experience for me.
In Santiago, there will be a few turns where you have to take a break and just look at your position for about 1 minute (at most), but the fun of the game revolves around the way the game forces players into temporary alliances. Paper and Pencil folk obviously take things a bit too seriously for what the game is intended for.
Do they write down the cards they see in Cloud 9?
Mike Siggins: I have played games with gamers who could, at any time, tell you everyone's points in a hidden point game. I played with one guy who carried a pretty good estimate of all scores in 18xx. If this makes them 'mentats', fine (and I like the term!), but paper and pencil is superfluous or these human cash registers. I don't play with them anymore, and I don't really enjoy playing with the similar breed, card counters.
And that is what sets me slightly against Santiago. It is pretty heavy on the number crunching, and I am no great fan of negotiation games. I'll play them, but I know people in my regular group come out of them feeling less like they have had a fair crack of the whip. Santiago doesn't suffer too much from that, but it can very definitely be played as a 'nasty', as Morgan correctly says.
Otherwise, it is a game I was quietly impressed by. It is clever, original and quite unassuming, but only when you think about what it is doing in such a short space of time do you realize that this is good quality design work.
Where it falls for me is in having any real desire to play it again, common with many German games over the years. I think it will hit the table this coming weekend, and I will happily play along, but I won't be buying it, and won't mind if I don't play it again. We have seen the trader's wares, and they look the same the second time around (Jason's different player numbers notwithstanding). Why would I play this when I have 50, or 100, better games to play?
I rate this game a strong 6 or weak 7.
Ian Mackey: Santiago is one of the few games that I have played that I classify as a "meaty short game". There are only a few that immediately come to mind: Ra, Samurai, Web of Power, Torres and perhaps El Grande if you could cut off 20 minutes or so. Hopefully these meaty short games take no longer than 60 minutes, 75 tops and allow multiple strategies and tense interaction the whole way through.
Played with the mentats or others prone to analysis paralysis, Santiago can drag to the point where the slowness starts to ebb away at the tension. Given the large selection of games which clock in at 2 hours plus (even some card games, I have had the pleasure of a 3 hours session at David & Goliath), I enjoy these meaty short games for the pleasure of playing within a given set of mechanics and then moving on to the next game.
Another perhaps derivative joy from these games is the low start-up time. Even if noone has played the game recently, a quick 3 minute perusal of the rules is enough to refresh your mind of the rules, and the game downtime is kept to a minimum.
I must agree with Jason in that you must have 4 or 5 to play, auction mechanics never seem to work for me with less than a full compliment of players.
This game does have a very clean set of elegant mechanics. I rate it an 8.
Jason Little: Tom brings up an interesting question about using paper and pencil during a game -- whether or not that's against the spirit of the game. I think that harkens back to the social contract, the unwritten "code" that a group of gamers adheres to during the game. It's slightly OT regarding Santiago specifically, but is germane to games in general.
It's hard to say whether or not that's against the spirit, as it depends so much on the circumstances. If you're playing with supernumerate savants who can instantly calculate everything at a glance (several of whom I game with), is that more or less fair than someone without that faculty (such as myself) using pen and paper to achieve the same
results?
Introducing any sort of limiter (such as a timer) or aid (such as pen and paper) impacts the gameplay experience. Depending on the group, it may help level the playing field or prove a distraction.
So as wishy-washy as it sounds, I don't think there's a hard and fast rule for this... It all depends.
Larry Levy: To me, Santiago is one of the better examples of a game where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. The mechanics are interesting, but not supremely innovative (irrigation is just about the only new thing). And yet, the different aspects of the game jell very well together. Its best feature is that for a game with such angst and nastiness, it has a very high fun factor. Most of my games of this have been very enjoyable.
I find it quite interesting that the auction mechanic, which is virtually identical with the one in New England, works so much better here. I believe the reason is that there are usually dramatic differences in the tile choices. Adding the decision to be the overseer helps the process as well.
The game is about valuation and judging groupthink. Both are important when deciding how to bid, as well as how to bribe. Being a cheapskate briber can be disastrous, but being overly generous is problematic too, since vertrags are points. So judging the minimum that a particular overseer will require to plunge the dagger into an opponent's back is a delicate, but valuable skill.
I think that properly deciding when to be the overseer is an underrated ability. Sometimes, you take it because it looks like it will be profitable; other times, you sense a hugely expensive auction coming on, and you'd just as soon avoid it; and sometimes, you can use it to set yourself up in the turn order for a critical auction. It's a very nice mechanic.
I certainly haven't found the game to be overly analytical; in fact, I think good number crunching ability has little to do with successful play. Sure, on the last turn, you can (and should) be calculating the additional VPs each tile will provide you, but that's hardly time consuming. Prior to that, heavy calculations are inappropriate, as there are so many other variables which can change the future game situation. Certainly you should be taking things like potential for expansion and likelihood for irrigation into account, but it's hard to assign values to those things. I'll take good judgement over a pad and pencil any day.
I agree with Mike that this is a quietly well designed game. It isn't flashy, but everything pulls in the same direction. All the more frustrating for us amateur game designers, to see a game where things work so well together, but be unable to really say why.
I rate the game 7.5. It's a little shy of an 8, since the design can be a bit fragile. I played one game where folks were playing in a very defensive fashion. The design didn't break, showing it to be robust, but the experience was less enjoyable than the usual wide open affair. I also had one game with newbies which fell flat. People were struggling with the valuation of things. Not only did this make me realize that this is perhaps an advanced gaming skill, but it showed that if the players aren't evaluating things in a predictable way, the game becomes much more chaotic and arbitrary. But I still rate the game highly, and it made my list of Top 5 games in 2003.
Mike Siggins: Good points there, Larry. The one that stuck home was the one about the fun factor surviving the potential nastiness. In one of the games we played, there was enough standoffishness for the negotiation to be at the entertaining level.
Shannon Appelcline: I don't use pencil and paper, but I also don't understand how to "relax" when playing this sort of game.
Instead, I see there as being only two possibilities. Either I play badly and just make arbitrary placements based on what "looks good" or I play well, and calculate out a move before I make it, assessing my points before and after the move, and make sure that it generally makes sense to me.
And I won't play games badly if I see another possibility.
Alfred Wallace: I've never found the calculations in Santiago to be particularly oppressive. Early in the game, the situation is sufficiently fluid/nebulous that exact calculation is impractical (if not impossible); by the late game, I don't actually think the calculations are that difficult--it helps if you don't calculate everything, but instead have a good sense of the relative position everyone has. Then it's just some multiplication.
Or maybe I'm just not taking it seriously enough; I forget what my winning percentage is--which suggests it's not so high.
Ted Cheatham: I have played Santiago only twice and enjoyed the second play much better than the first. The only concern I had after only two plays was that I thought the game may be less than ideal with less than 5 players. Someone with more experience may want to address this issue.
Morgan Dontanville: I would agree that the game is best with the maximum number of players (although, I think four works well). My feeling is that I own over 350 games, if only three players show-up, I'm not lacking for choices. I have more than a couple good three players games.
For me the real element to consider when examining Santiago is that it works as a bridge between intro games and deeper Euros. Once someone grogs this game, then the rest of the Euros out there become accessible.
All I know is that I can play this with my girlfriend's parents. Even on their first play they were exploring different strategies and had us on the ropes.
I have many four and five player games, and Santiago rises to the top among them.
Larry Levy: Thanks for mentioning number of players, Ted, I'd forgotten to include that in my comments.
Santiago is decent with four, but you should really only play with five. The reason is that there's so much more contention for good positions with that number. With four players, it's possible for everyone to be serviced by the same canal link, so there's less jockeying for position and both the auction and the bribing are less interesting. With five, there's much more competition, which this game needs in order to work. If someone was dying to play Santiago, I'd give in and do a 4-player; I'd also play with four if the group wanted a "nicer", less contentious game. But left to my own devices, I'd never play this game with anything but five players.
This doesn't lessen the game in my eyes at all. As Morgan said, there's rarely a problem finding games to play. In particular, there's a HUGE number of games that play best with four, so much so that it's hard for our group to get them all to the table (New England, as it turns out, is one of them). So why give up playing one of those games for a game that isn't at its best with four? It's important to note this for a potential buyer who wants to accommodate different numbers of players, or who rarely plays with five. But for me, it isn't an issue.
As for ratings, I always base my ratings on optimal conditions: the best number of players, playing with my favorite expansion and/or variants, with competent opponents. I'm fortunate that most of my sessions take place under these conditions!
Tom Vasel: If I was with two other players who desperately wanted to play Santiago, I guess I would do so. But I will only bring it out if I have five players, because it is with five that the game simply shines. Five players makes the auctions better, the bribing better, and splits the fields up in more interesting ways.
So I agree with Larry; if I have five players, then Santiago is high on the list. If I have less than four, I won't recommend it; I have plenty of other games that require four - why not play them?
I rate Santiago an 8 out of 10.
Morgan Dontanville: Tom, I think if someone in a group of three asked if they could try out Santiago, I would turn them down. I love the game and would like to play it often, but I also know the power of first impressions. Because I want Santiago on the table, I will only bring it out with people under the most ideal conditions. That way they have enjoyed it to the fullest and welcome it back again.
I feel that there is a dramatic paradigm shift in public perceptions of games. It used to be that you go into a store, look at the back of the box, see how many players the game requires and decide whether you want to buy it or not. I find that now with the overwhelming excess of information on games that a customer only has to do a simple search online to get pictures of the game in play and more importantly garner a number of differing opinions.
My feeling is that game companies should be acutely aware of the ideal number of players for their games. Just because it plays with three doesn't mean that it works well. I feel that something like Boomtown is the perfect example of this. When you put the range on the box it gives the impression that the publisher thinks this game works well at any of these numbers. Goldseiber's example should be followed, many of their games state how many can play then add a recommendation for the ideal number of players.
For me, Santiago is downright brilliant with five. I think it would be a shame for people not to try the game because they read that it was stale from a reviewer that played it with only three players.
Rating 9.5/10
Larry Levy: A very good game and a real surprise, coming from two first- time designers. Definitely one of the better games of 2003. I rate it 7.5 out of 10.
Rick Young: I think Morgan's point is a very good one regarding the "ideal" number of players for a game as being an important piece of information. I can't speak for Santiago since I've not played enough to comment sensibly, but many multi-player games have some numbers which work and some which don't. It may be more than a publisher can be expected to do to indicate this on the box (and I suspect many wouldn't even if they knew), but game reviews should try to focus on that aspect somewhat more than they do now.
I read one review of "The Napoleonic Wars" that took the trouble to state that it plays better with four than five because of the Prussian first year restrictions. At least with that knowledge you know that with five players, the person who draws Prussia isn't going to be doing anything much for the first quarter of the game. With four, Prussia is just another proxy and everything is fine. Other reviews omitted this detail.
I particularly like to hear whether a multi-player game works with three players as that is the hardest number to match to a game in my experience.
Alfred Wallace:
Final report: 8/10.
Great game with five, good game with 4, I forget if I've played with three, but I'd hate to try.
I think there's a fair bit of calculation, but most of it can be internalized and made intuitive, or at least simpler, with some practice.
Good stuff.
~FIN
And that's it for this time, folks! Hope you enjoyed it!
Musings On...
Edited by Tom and Laura Vasel
October 11, 2005
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