【Board Game Miscellaneous】Control the dice points and master the skill of gambler- Crystal Palace
2020-04-22

Dice, both in German and American board games, have a very high sense of existence, and it is also a small thing that all board game players love and hate. It provides the endless fun of randomness for the majority of players, but randomness is also a big disruptor of the game experience, and some bizarre dice can make people autistic on the spot.

I believe that many players want to make the artifact in the monopoly-lead dice resident in the world of table games. And this dream finally became a reality in the world of "Crystal Palace".

"Crystal Palace" is a building with steel as the skeleton and glass as the main building material, which was born at the same time as the first World Expo. It is one of the 19th century British architectural wonders. This venue, which was originally used to provide exhibits, became the most successful exhibit at this World Expo, but unfortunately it was burned in a fire in 1936.

In the board game "Crystal Palace", players will travel back to see the true face of the Crystal Palace in 1851. And played an inventor from a country at the first World Expo in London, trying to attract the attention of famous and influential people with all kinds of strange inventions, and eventually caused a sensation.

It is a common dice placement game where players place dice and then perform actions based on points. However, the player can decide the state of the dice at the beginning of each round. Of course, the bigger the point, the better, but it also means more cost. The core point of the game is to arrange points at the most reasonable price, so that the dice can get the best results in the eight action positions on the layout, compete for the best resources, patents and inventors, and finally win.

The publisher of this game is Feuerland Spiele, which is very familiar to fans, and the popular German masterpieces "Gaia Project", "Mysterious Land", "Odin's Feast" and so on come from this home. Although "Crystal Palace" is inferior to its predecessors in terms of complexity, it is completely unsparing in terms of game quality.

The game will have a total of five rounds, representing spring and autumn of 1849, spring and autumn of 1850, and winter of 1851, respectively. Each round is divided into seven stages, which are deciding dice points, placing dice, clearing dice, paying character card salary and clearing character ability, making inventions, obtaining income, and preparing for a new round. The process is concise and clear, but there are also many details.

The first stage in deciding the dice points is the brightest part of the game. The player starts with four dice, and each round needs to secretly determine their points. But correspondingly, players must also pay a little money for each point, and the player who paid the most money can also get the throne of the starting player.

Money is a widely used and difficult resource in the game, so although you can decide the dice points yourself, but in order to save money, in fact players ca n’t do whatever they want. This design also tests the player ’s choice and resource allocation ability.

Of course, since the dice points are at least 1, so this stage must also cost money. In order to avoid the embarrassing situation that players have no money due to operational errors, the game also provides players with a loan function very carefully-you can always get money at the cost of points. Although it is a loss, the player's gaming experience will not decline significantly due to lack of economy.

The second / third stage of the game is actually the traditional work release. Here, players need to place the dice in a unified manner, and then settle them in order, so they are split into two stages.

There are a total of eight areas in the game, and each area has different effects. Dice points do not affect the effect of the action, but the placement will limit the player's lower limit, and there will be some gains and losses in the placement (such as gaining / losing money), so the larger the dice point, the more Ok.

During execution, the player needs to move the dice from the upper work position to the lower execution position. The order of execution has nothing to do with the order and position of the players, and is sorted according to the size of the dice points. The execution position is similar to the work placement, and it has the effect of increasing or decreasing benefits. Therefore, it is also a common method to use a large number of dice to preempt the advantageous position.

The main scoring methods in the game are hiring inventors and converting the patents at hand into physical prototypes. These two things also correspond to two kinds of cards in the game, both of which need to be obtained through action, and will provide players with points according to different years.


The main difference between them is the payment node of the fee. Inventors need to pay when they get it, and pay for each round; patents only need to pay when they want to convert it into a prototype. Obtaining an inventor is the fifth settlement action per round. At this time, some actions to obtain resources have not yet been settled, so extra attention is needed in the allocation of resources. When the player obtains the invention and the corresponding inventor at the same time, there will be additional bonus points.

Many cards that require more resources will receive considerable points when they are completed in two large rounds in 1849. Since all the resources of the players in the game can be purchased with money, and the money can be obtained through loans, so in the early stage, the cards are forcibly completed through loans, and sometimes they can also earn points. This also provides some additional fun for the game.

 

Actions in other locations allow players to obtain resources and additional income through various means. It is worth mentioning here that the main means for players to get money-income track. The money that players can get each round is linked to the income track. The higher the position on the income track, the more money they can get. However, because the benefits of adjusting the income track are not immediate, and there are not many additional ways to obtain money, it is very difficult for players to allocate money in the game, and it is very fun to operate (as a result, they are still forced to loan That's it later).

The fourth to seventh stages of the game focus on settlement: in the fourth stage, the player will perform the special effects of the inventor and pay the inventor ’s salary; in the fifth stage, the player can convert the patent on hand into a prototype; the sixth stage It is to obtain various income; the seventh stage is to refresh the materials on each sector.

The game will end in the fifth round, after the end of the spring of 1851. In addition to the panel scores, the goals on the player's board, black market boards, advertising tracks, and loans will also be settled.


The core concept of the game-controlling the dice by yourself, is undoubtedly fun and successful. Although the dice points will not affect the effect of the action, it will affect the order of action settlement. The size of the player's dice points does not directly determine the amount of resources, but it will cause intense psychological games between players.

Unfortunately, the specific action settings in the game are not very characteristic. Although there are eight different actions, the main scoring method is still two cards, and most actions are based on them.

But in general, this is a German game with a moderate strategy worth trying. The core mechanism is very eye-catching and has a guiding effect on similar games. It is very suitable for becoming the first dice game for novice players to enter the pit.







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