Micropul - Bragging Rights!

Nice pics!
Maybe I'll borrow my work's digital camera and take some of my own (but only if I get a respectable score of course). My set isn't quite as nice as hpox' though, my tiles are flat and chipboardy.

- Seth

An amazing score! This is the best yet with the current scoring method. Groups are very important, much more than in 2 player games.

Congrats! I'm going to have to play some more and try to break 90 with the new scoring.

- Seth

Well, I played quite a few games of 2-player Micropul tonight with a friend who hadn't played before. She picked it up pretty quickly (Diana is a pretty smart cookie- she read the Hobbit at age 4)

Scores were generally around 40 to something. Diana blew Marc (the other guy who's played 2p with me) out 40 to 13. I beat Diana once 40 to 26 or so. There was a tie 27-27, and a couple close games like 36-31 and maybe 29-25 or something like that. I think she won twice, we tied the once, and I won the rest (probably about 4 games)

It was pretty fun as well, and Diana liked the game. She's not even what I would refer to as a "gamer".

- Seth

I played a couple games of Solitaire tonight, having played it a few times with 2players lately (introduced it to several friends).

My first game was, I guess you could say, average (maybe a high average). The number in parenthises indicates scoring for big micropul worth 5pts instead of just 1, which I think is good for the Solitaire version:
Solitaire
Supply: 24
Hand: 1
Groups: 15, 16, 17
Total: 73 (85)

I haven't done this is a while, so I'm a little rusty. I also don't optimize every move like I probably could, I don't start trying that until the end of the game.

The second game was much better:
Solitaire
Supply: 30
Hand: 0
Groups: 21, 29, 1
Total: 81 (97)

Still haven't broken the 100 point barrier, or at least not that I can remember. I maintain that it must be possible to break 100 with the 5pt scoring, but maybe not with the 1pt scoring.

- Seth

I thought this score would be better, but it was about the same as last night I guess...

Supply: 40(!)
Hand: 0
Groups: 20(24), 13, 7(11)
Total: 80 (88)

As for strategy in this game, I think part of it is figuring out wheather to draw more tiles. This is why I really think in Solitaire the big Micropul should be worth 5 points...

You see, at some point you will have to make the decision to finish off the game with what you have in your hand, or to draw more tiles.

You can build up to that as you decide where to place each tile- making sure to get double use out of Fissions and so on- but no matter what, at some point you will be able to finish the game with what's in your hand. The question is: Should you?

With the 5pt rule it may be a good idea to draw some more, fishing for the big 'pul. Also, you'll want to make sure you can close your groups of course, so there might be another reason to draw more tiles even if you can finish off the game with what you've already got.

Last night's game I was almost forced to finish the game before closing my last group, because I wasn't too careful about what I was leaving myself. My score was about the same as the previous game, but I only had 2 big 'pul instead of 3. But I had 5 more tiles in my supply. Perhaps I should have drawn a few more looking for that big Micropul.

It's sort of a gamble to do so, but if the big 'pul is worth 5 points than it might entice people to take that gamble. You lose 2 points from drawing the tile, but you gain 5 for getting it in a group. Similarly, you could be digging for the 4-pul tiles which add more to your score in a group than in your supply.

I think ideally you'll want to drwa a new tile every time youplay a tile, at least for a while, rather than play more than 1 tile in a row. Then you'll re-evaluate all your options. It gets tricky when your hand is full of 'corners', but that's part of what makes the game fun!

- Seth

[edit] I tried to post this before, but it the site stopped responding... [/edit]

Interesting. I guess I'm in the minority thinking that Micropul is not confusing at all. There are like 2 rules.

Has anyone else from this forum played this game? Were you in any way confused by the rules?

For those wondering what I'm talking about, here's a summary. It's a verbose summary so as not to confuse anyone ;):

Players start with 6 tiles in hand, a start tile on the board, and the rest in face down community stacks.

On your turn you do 1 of 3 things-
1. Draw a tile from YOUR supply to your hand - max hand size = 6
2. Play a tile to the board - at least 1 big dot (Micropul) must match (white to white or black to black), and no white Micropul can touch black Micropul.
3. Claim a group - place a stone of your color (of which you have 3) on an interconnected group of Micropul of the same color. You can't claim a group that's already been claimed.

Some of those things trigger other things:
1. No triggers, you just draw the tile.
2. There are other symbols on the tiles, other than big white dots and big black dots. After following the placement rules, if one of these symbols is placed next to a Micropul (any color) then it 'activates'
2a. Fissions (little dots): For each fission you activate, take a face down tile from the community stack and put it in your face down supply. Note, there are some Double Fissions, in which case you get 2 tiles.
2b. Catalyst (plus sign): If you activate any Catalysts, you take an additional turn. These don't stack, you could activate 3 Catalysts at a time and you only get 1 extra turn.
3. There is no trigger for claiming a group, but at the end of the game you score points for closed groups (see below for open vs closed groups).

SCORING:
When the last tile is taken from the community stacks, the game immediately ends and scores are totalled as follows:
Players score 1 point for each tile in their HAND. 2 points for each tile in their face down SUPPLY. And 1 point for each Micropul in a CLOSED GROUP that they have claimed.

Open vs Closed groups:
As I mentioned, a group is one or more interconnected Micropul of the same color. Interconnected means adjacent orthagonally (not diagonally) to each other. A group is OPEN if it can still be added to. It is CLOSED if it cannot be added to because all the elements of the group are surrounded.

So that's it. I guess there's a rule about what happens if both players end up with a stone on the same group (carcassonne style). In that case nobody scores the group. Since it's a 2 player game it's the same as saying that both players score it. Technically if you end up with 2 stones on the same group you don't score that either, but that's a really unusual situation, and frankly a rule I think the game could do without.

- Seth

I have to agree wtih Hedge-O-Matic here. I hadn't really given thought to the quality of the review itself, but Hedge is right- it's hardly a review at all.

I had some discussion through this forum with hpox about his game and the theme, and frankly, this game has as much theme as some of the Euro board games... Ra being a good example.

I think Hedge hit the nail on the head when he mentioned the reviewer not understanding his friend's explanation of the rules rather than the rules themselves. Many people are terrible at teaching games, and even some that aren't terrible at it are still no substitute for actually reading the rules oneself. I know the first few times I played Puerto Rico we played with face up VPs because that's what my friends thought the rule was. We also played Settlers to 12 points, and a different group played Princes of Florence with open money holdings. The point is, it really feels like the reviewer didn't give the game a fair shake, abstract or not.

To make a long story short, noone should let this review taint their opinion of Micropul without trying it themselves.

- Seth