Medici should be out soon. Will have AI players and hotseat support to. I believe 3 to 6 players (not sure about this 100%). Here is description from bgg Developer mentioned (July 17th) this should be submitted soon to app store so I'm guessing early August. Also I'm guessing late August Ra (best auction game ever) will be coming out.
No, Power Grid isn't just an auction game. Great game, but there are many other elements. The auction is just to get power plants. There are many other great games, such as Princes of Florence, that also use auctions but don't have the auction as the only mechanic. Ra and Medici, on the other hand, are nothing but a series of auctions. Ra places first for me as well for best auction game with Traumfabrik, also by Reiner Knizia, being a close second.
This looks great. I can't wait to add it to my Knizia folder. Any idea whether it will be Ipad only? Or perhaps universal?
ok I mispoke...hehe. Well yes I love Power Grid too have Italy/France expansion and it's a huge favorite especially when got six people. I love Imperial too. But I've played Ra since 2005 and it gets ton of gameplay. But when I can get people up for a 2 to 3 hour game of Power Grid we have a blast. Also Hollywood Blockbuster I spent like a whole day cutting out and pasting Disney movies on back of those cards and also real movie versions due to licensing issues. I believe it's coming out iPad and then they'll work on iphone version and networking. Here is original post so you can figure it out. So I believe it'll be universal but I'm totally guessing though.
No, a large part of the strategy in Ra is deciding when to draw a tile and when not to. There's also the use of the Gods, although that is a lesser point.
I've always just found Power Grid over rated. Everyone in my regular game group thought so too, and I ended up actually selling my copy. Imperial on the other hand is just an awesome game, and one of my favorites. Would love to see someone scoop the rights and put it out on the iPad. That would be an insta-buy for me.
But even using god tiles is within the context of an auction - use the god tile rather than wait for an auction. And, when you use that god tile you are changing the value of starting an auction for other players and whether or not they want to bid on it. And deciding whether or not to draw a tile is also deciding whether or not to start an auction. My point is that everything in the game revolves around the auctions. That isn't true in Power Grid. The auction is just one part of a game turn. Now, we could start arguing little details about Ra such as the fact that drawing a tile isn't actually an auction. Neither is counting the score, etc. If we get down to that level though, nothing could be considered an auction game. But I still maintain that the game is basically an auction game. Power Grid, Princes of Florence, etc. are games that happen to have auctions as one part of the game rather than as the entire driving mechanism of the game. That is what I see as the distinction. Otherwise there are a huge number of auction games out there. And oh yeah, any game with dice in the game would suddenly become dice games. And if it uses cards then it is a card game, so maybe Power Grid is actually a card game since the power plants are cards?
No matter how you dress it up, Power Grid is an auction game. A very clever one, but still an auction game. Anyway, back on topic: quality board games are always welcome on the iPad, will keep an eye out for this one.
Who's doing this? Are they devs that have been involved in any other known projects in the AppStore? While not ever a true indication of anything, I always feel a little safer snagging an app if I know the devs pedigree. I mean, sure, I already know the game being ported over to the iPad is from the amazing Dr. K, but if it is being done by developers that so far have only made a Card Matching game and maybe a Justin Bieber Fan app, I'd be a little nervous in grabbing it first day.
I believe it's done by Codito the devs of Yardmaster and iXylophone They scored the rights to make a lot of RK games so hopefully they take lots of care with their games as one terrible port might mean they lose out on sales for their next titles
Hmmm. Actually Yardmaster looks kind of fun, I'll at least give the lite version a spin. Just going by nothing more than the two previous products there I'd deem them more than competent but nothing super amazing (perhaps the screenshots weren't doing Yardmaster justice as I know of a number of games that still frames just don't capture the game's essence that well).
