Has Anybody Urban Sprawled?

I picked up Urban Sprawl, which is one big heavy box full of stuff, for five or ten dollars a year or so back. Has anyone played? I haven't heard a damn thing about it one way or the other.

S.

I own it, but it has sat unpunched for two years. I really do want to play it though.

The game I think was hamstrung because of what it wasn't rather than what it was. Following up on Dominant Species (same designer) I think people didn't like the randomness and that it was tactical rather than strategic. Some people I think expected SimCity the game. Not being the game people expected they tried it once expressed disappointment and moved on. That's my theory on why it came out then went to discount racks, not being what people expected/wanted.

I have read the rules and it is a bit more complex and abstract than I was expecting which has been the reason why I haven't played it yet since I haven't had time to "prepare" for a game in a long while now. I expect a game that takes about twice as long as it should the first few plays until the rules smooth out. Once they do though I think the game will move quick and should be a lot of fun. I don't anticipate the game being great, but good and very quality is what I'm expecting.

By the way, I wish I really could speak from experience on the game rather than "I read the rules" expectations.

Sounds like we're in the same boat.

S.

I've played it a few times. Von's summary is right on the mark. In my experience, the luck of the draw can let your strategy die right on the vine, especially in the third phase, and tactics might not be enough to save you. But I do enjoy it.

I wanted to like this one but after several plays this one just paled in comparison to Dominant Species and took about the same time to play. Urban Sprawl is very tactical and one will not see a very significant percentage of the cards which makes following long term strategies sketchy at best. I still think game play rewards skilled play as the same person in my group won all 3-4 times I played. Guess the rest of us were just dense...

I played it but put me in the boat where I found the randomness to be too much.

Now you know I don't mind a bit of chaos. But when, in the course of a turn, random card draws can take a player from a significant lead to the very basement of the score track and then back to way out in front in the course of one turn. That's too much.

The thing is there is no way to mitigate for these overpowered events. So you spend two hours playing a game and have everything go to shit through one card you can't plan for. You may know it exists but as only half of each of three decks is likely to see the light of day during any single game you can't adjust your game play because of it.

Likewise somebody can be rocketed to first not because they played better but because of another card.

So in the end, I felt like "Why bother".

Played it once. Pretty terrible for most of the same reasons Repo mentioned.

Keep in mind that I really didn't dig Dominant Species, though that was largely due to the interminable worker placement.

S.

A long game made even longer by the fact that since everything changes dramatically on each turn, you can't plan ahead at all. And very little payoff for the time. Doesn't feel like you're doing anything except moving cardboard around. Really dull (and this coming from a dude who wasn't that awed by Dominant Species either.)

Speaking of DS, if you're a fan and have thought about picking up the card game, don't. It is terrible.

Might be my inner masochist, but I want to give it another try now to see how hosed you can get by the cards. IIRC, it's turn order that will hose you as much as anything.

What my biggest beef with the game isn't the random hosage, it's what Lego is saying about planning ahead. Game turns aren't phased like Dominant Species; you get your turn and then you're done. And since you won't know what you're dealing with until it's your turn, you get to do _all_ your thinking on your turn. It makes something like Steam feel like Snakes and Ladders, not because Urban Sprawl is crazy complicated, but because even the fast players amongst us get bogged down on their turns.

Again, I haven't played so this is a serious question and I'm looking to further conversation and discussion, but what makes this game different from other tactical games? Or more specifically: What makes it a bad tactical game?

My preference is tactics rather than strategic games since I tend to lack the willpower to stick to a plan and often jump on what I see as tactical advantages much to my dismay at times.

Lego and RobertB bring up a solid point that the IGO-UGO-UGO-UGO nature of the game causes it to drag. Waiting through three people's turns before the board is "set" to make your moves and decisions is a design that I'm growing out of favor with.

larryrice mentioned that after 3-4 plays the same person won all the games so that supports the premise that in-spite of randomness, it can be mitigated and overcome. That contrasts to Repo and Josh Look though who feel it can't. I'd like to hear more on this area personally...Is it so random that no matter what you're better off pissing in the wind and declaring whoever is wettest the winner? Or can experience play to your advantage though perhaps not guarantee a win?

It seems to me that most games that are tactical that don't involve dudes or ships shooting/combating each other (in other words abstracted death) gets a negative rap...And I find that curious.

EDIT: Also a follow up question, again I've just read the rules so I know a little bit about the game...But what part is the "game"? Is the game the building and placement of your buildings? Or is the game more the manipulation of the outside numbers to make the properties you already have more valuable?

VonTush wrote:
Lego and RobertB bring up a solid point that the IGO-UGO-UGO-UGO nature of the game causes it to drag. Waiting through three people's turns before the board is "set" to make your moves and decisions is a design that I'm growing out of favor with.

You could make the same argument for El Grande, but nobody does. Is it that Urban Sprawl has bigger changes to the board each turn?

I don't mind the wait on other people's turns as much as most so that's likely not an issue for me. And I like Tactical play as well. If those are the knocks on this one I may be ok, but I'm concerned there's bigger issues with the play that will make it less palatable, especially with my euro-preferring game group.

More like El Grande or more like Lords of Waterdeep?

S.

VonTush wrote:

Is it so random that no matter what you're better off pissing in the wind and declaring whoever is wettest the winner? Or can experience play to your advantage though perhaps not guarantee a win?

I don't think it's a total luckfest. I was in a game where the winner had a plan, executed it, and ran off with it. Luck and competitor hatred reeled him back some, but he got the win. I wouldn't tell him, "You just got lucky."


VonTush also wrote:

Also a follow up question, again I've just read the rules so I know a little bit about the game...But what part is the "game"? Is the game the building and placement of your buildings? Or is the game more the manipulation of the outside numbers to make the properties you already have more valuable?

Yes to both. You need good number placement to maximize making money and scoring points. The outside numbers are important when they drop, but they usually don't move much once placed. How you deal with this in all the categories (Residential, Commercial, Civic, and Industrial) is how you make those markers work for you in the game, because there's a lot of "Score most valuable" cards that'll come out.

Where people get pissed off at the game is that you can tie yourself into a strategy (heavy Industrial, Commercial, whatever), and the cards just don't turn up at the latter parts of the game. You never get that 4-square Industrial block, and you get hosed.


Sagrilarus wrote:

You could make the same argument for El Grande, but nobody does. Is it that Urban Sprawl has bigger changes to the board each turn?

The building layout changes as the buildings are built, but what causes the headaches are the available Building Permits and buildings that change from turn to turn. If you're lucky, one of the other players hasn't grabbed the ones you wanted by the time you can get it. But usually, by the time it gets to you, what's available has nothing that was available at the end of your turn. This could be different for 2 players; I've played only 3 and 4 player.


Sagrilarus also wrote:

More like El Grande or more like Lords of Waterdeep?

More El Grande-ish, except that in El Grande, as the cards go away, you're looking at fewer and fewer choices. Imagine if they refilled the cards in El Grande after every player, plus randomly scored a province every other turn or so.

Let me clarify what I meant above by "you can't plan ahead at all". I didn't mean you can't pursue a general strategy. I'm sure you can, once you have a good feel for the game and what the possible options are. I've only played once, didn't find anything urging me to play again, and haven't played since. (I would if folks wanted to, but not many others in the group were wowed by it either.)

What I meant was that you can usually only start figuring out what actions to do on your turn when it's your turn, because a lot of stuff changes before then. So each player, even quick ones, get slowed down to having to do all their thinking on their turn. It's already kind of a long game, and this makes it even longer.

Length qua length is not really an issue for me, but it is in a case where I don't feel like there's a payoff. The play wasn't overly interesting, I certainly didn't get any kind of sim city type feeling out of it, and nothing that occurred during the game was particularly memorable. I got the same results from it I'd get from playing a cloth-on-a-boat or impress-the-master-builder game, just for twice the time spent.