Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Hacienda

Aidan recently left a copy of Hacienda at my place and I re-read the rules as a refresher. Earlier today I was browsing the open games list on Yucata and noticed there was an implementation of it on there. Sweet! I figured I could play a game and decide if it was worth playing the physical version the next time people were over. And so I could know how to score points so I could win! Mwahaha!

It turns out the implementation on Yucata is very flawed. It doesn't tell you what actions your opponent took on their turns so you have a very difficult time figuring out what they're trying to do. The game has an area control theme going on so knowing what kinds of cards your opponents are picking up is really important. Originally I thought this would only really be a problem if a game dragged out since I could try to remember the game state at the end of my last turn and see if I could figure out the differences.

Problem: You get 3 actions per turn and there are two different draw decks working ala Ticket To Ride. Draw a face up card and flip a new one to replace it. Which you can then take with your next action. So it's entirely possible for there to be public information you simply can't obtain. It's very frustrating. I'm not sure I'd like the game very much with proper rules but as implemented on Yucata it's pretty terrible.

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