Has Anybody Urban Sprawled?

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.