Pax Hispanica (Sierra Madre Games)

[Jankiel]

Tutaj ocena i opis od mojego znajomego, który jest fanem Paxów. Chyba się nie obrazi za udostępnienie.

Impressions after 2, 3 & 5 players plays. Don't play it with 5 players due to overwhelming downtime. We played almost 3 hours and ended up in 1/3 of shorter game (sic!). There were many deals negotiations and questions about the rules but not so many to prolonge this game that much.

I've spent countless hours to learn and understand this half historic essay half rulebook and prepare proper player aids. All for nothing. The overwhelming number of easily missed microrules combined with strong luck dependency makes this game nothing but frustrating. The "Legality Table" and the differences in functions between various types of ships: Plunder, Smuggler, Conquistador, Privateer is a masterpiece of overdesign imho. I've read it God knows how many times and still I'm not sure whether I understand all nuances properly. Some of wordings have been amended in living rules, so understanding should be easier now.

So, my time investment simply turned out not worth the final outcome. Unlike other Paxes this game is very looong and slow. It's not Pax Reneissance or Pax Porfiriana where everything goes fast and you are able to dig yourself out of swamp in one turn. Here prepare for slow progress, be very patient and have lots of luck. In Pax Renaissance gaining the tools for pursuing your goal is easy, fast and pleasant so you can focus on goals themselves. Here the gaining these tools is so slow, clumsy and frustrating that it exhausts most of you power and joy to reach the goal. The most original element of the game - the cross - is its weakest one at the same time.

E.g.: Here's frustrating situation and "kind of decision I don't like in the games" I've faced yesterday: I'm in the middle of southern leg (Royalty) of Philosophy Board and I have on hand only 1 card -> Royalty Card "Assiento" (PHR053F) with Nudge icon pushing me further southward. I want to play its Sway Peerage action but it requires me to be the westmost (Least Righteous). So I have 2 options:
a) Play this card now for other actions but not for the Peerage one because you can't now (read: lose valuable card to do something you don't want just not to lose entire turn of not playing card at all and doing nothing)
b) Save this card on hand and do nothing, wait until next turn to use Debauchery to move back to Callow space in the middle of the cross and then if you luckily drew proper Haven cards you can push yourself to the west to be able to play your Royal card for its Peerage.
In our 5 players game going for option b) would have taken around 20 mins with no guarantee to succeed because in the meantime there were so many random things that might have happened (someone else would have gotten westmost). So I played a) and did something I didn't really want to do but at least I didn't lose my turn. Pretty clumsy and frustrating. And it is all the time like that. You need and want a card from market to get closer to the goal, but you are not in proper space on the cross. So first you need to figure out how to get to that space. Once you finally get it (if you are lucky enough and it’s still there), once you play it it will most of the time throw you in the direction you don’t want to go and the story repeats. So instead of working out how to reach the victory objective you most of the time compute how to navigate in the cross.

Philosophy board is a brilliant concept but unfortunately it doesn't work properly. In the first round you must desperately jump to any of its 4 legs by playing your Haven cards to be able to get any Market card for free in next turn. If unluckily you didn't draw proper Haven cards in setup or you managed to reach any Professional track space but the players after you pulled you back to Callow space by Sword fight you're in the big trouble. In next round all those who are on their Professional tracks will get for free Market card(s) and still will be able to overbid you in your only desperate auction. So you'll end up with no cards while the others will have 2. If they use these 2 cards to remove disks/bibles from their Sway/Reach tracks, in subsequent turns they will be even stronger and stronger than you. This sounds like a snowball.

Players' special skills seem to be unbalanced:
1) Spanish (purple) gets so huge handicap in the setup that our colleague didn't play yesterday anything spectacular, looked pretty bored, and after 1/3 of play after 3 hours was still dominating on board and winning Token Victory.
2) Blue's skill +1 Strength for Bibles and immunity for kidnapping, as very contextual and dependent on map situation seems to be much weaker than Orange's +3 Haven cards beyond the hand limit or Red's immunity to Letters of Marque and Mutiny working all the time.
After what I've seen yesterday, I think the best option is to skip these special skills as well as play Spanish without a player.

Last but not least. Per advice of core tester we replaced basic 14 Haven cards with Promo2 Haven cards. They add so huge uncontrollable mess to the game that don't ever dare to use it. Yesterday's case: I'm sailing 3 ships all full of chests under Plunder flagship. My rival stops me in Tortuga with one ship, so I'm sure of my victory. But no. My rival (Orange that can store 3 more Haven cards on hand beyond the limit, which imho is OP) plays 3 Haven cards with one-shot abilities:
1) Woodes Rogers Pirate Hunter (PH2P133F): SEA BATTLE: Your foe suffers Mutiny before the sea battle resolution. This immediately removes my 2 ships due to Mutiny rules.
2) Paulsgrave Williams Prize Ship (PH2P142F): SEA BATTLE: None of your Ships sink in the battle (Avast!): This gives his only 1 ship immortality
3) ... sorry I don't remember. That was too much random and unjustifiable mess so I switched off my further interest in the game. In consequence my rival has taken over from me my only chest left and delivered it successfully to Europe collecting money.

If this is to be piracy adventure game please remove half of the rules and simplify the rest as I know other much better games in this genre that will always kick it out from the table.