This is my first playing of Culqualber since the recent ecz’s tournament directors pack has been published. While Paul and me have playtested together many scenarios, Culqualber is new for him.
The pack contains 16 scenarios all featuring an original bidding system to assign sides and decide the VCs all at once.
How the bid mechanism works in general is easily said:
basically who bids higher takes the Attacking side and must achieve the level of victory he bid for. The higher is the bid, the harder is for the attacker. You can bid low to have an easy task, but you risk that your opponent bids a little higher than you taking the attacker at a convenient level of VCs. Hence the smart player should bid high enough to avoid the other takes the attaker and still benefits of an easy objective. Who plays for the first time the scenario after a simple preliminary study should be able to figure how the scenario could go, and then decide a plausible bid. In any case an offer around the middle of the fork provided is usually a safe choice for most players and a solid and balanced game is likely to happen. But everything is subjective, so what appears balanced for one, could be easy or impossibile for others. Thus players are encouraged to find a bid that fits their expectations and attidudes. This system introduces a new challange because players must figure in advance how the game could develop even before they decide the sides.
The action represented took place in Italian East Africa (Ethiopia) in late 1941. A group of Elite Italians (Carabinieri) with the support of a local warband trained and armed, tries to resist the overwhelming British force (the 26th East African Brigade). The battle is fought on a rocky hill called "Cliff of the Crags". The siege last for weeks until the final attack.
In this scenario the bid range is 2-7. This number indicates how many (secret) objectives the British must achieve. Paul bids 5 beating me (3). Thus he takes the British and must achieve 5 objectives he secretly picks before the game begins from this list:
Probably Paul feels that British have many ways to attack, and the defense is not that easy. I probably think the opposite and this is reflected by our different bids: 5 vs 3. The nice thing is that after a playing or two any player will find his "perfect"- although subjective- bid adjusting his tactical plans and getting always theoretically balanced games.
So, after my setup, Paul secretly decides his 5 objectives and are we ready to start. Only the actual develop of game will say if 5 objectives are a good compromise or if it’s too difficult. By the way also which objectives the attacker chooses counts. For sure after this playing both of us will have a better comprension of the scenario and could bid differently next time (to be honest I think that a couple of turns could be enough to modify opinions about the right bid most times).
The pack contains 16 scenarios all featuring an original bidding system to assign sides and decide the VCs all at once.
How the bid mechanism works in general is easily said:
basically who bids higher takes the Attacking side and must achieve the level of victory he bid for. The higher is the bid, the harder is for the attacker. You can bid low to have an easy task, but you risk that your opponent bids a little higher than you taking the attacker at a convenient level of VCs. Hence the smart player should bid high enough to avoid the other takes the attaker and still benefits of an easy objective. Who plays for the first time the scenario after a simple preliminary study should be able to figure how the scenario could go, and then decide a plausible bid. In any case an offer around the middle of the fork provided is usually a safe choice for most players and a solid and balanced game is likely to happen. But everything is subjective, so what appears balanced for one, could be easy or impossibile for others. Thus players are encouraged to find a bid that fits their expectations and attidudes. This system introduces a new challange because players must figure in advance how the game could develop even before they decide the sides.
The action represented took place in Italian East Africa (Ethiopia) in late 1941. A group of Elite Italians (Carabinieri) with the support of a local warband trained and armed, tries to resist the overwhelming British force (the 26th East African Brigade). The battle is fought on a rocky hill called "Cliff of the Crags". The siege last for weeks until the final attack.
In this scenario the bid range is 2-7. This number indicates how many (secret) objectives the British must achieve. Paul bids 5 beating me (3). Thus he takes the British and must achieve 5 objectives he secretly picks before the game begins from this list:
Probably Paul feels that British have many ways to attack, and the defense is not that easy. I probably think the opposite and this is reflected by our different bids: 5 vs 3. The nice thing is that after a playing or two any player will find his "perfect"- although subjective- bid adjusting his tactical plans and getting always theoretically balanced games.
So, after my setup, Paul secretly decides his 5 objectives and are we ready to start. Only the actual develop of game will say if 5 objectives are a good compromise or if it’s too difficult. By the way also which objectives the attacker chooses counts. For sure after this playing both of us will have a better comprension of the scenario and could bid differently next time (to be honest I think that a couple of turns could be enough to modify opinions about the right bid most times).
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