Wednesday 24 April 2013

Archipelago v2 Rules

For those interested, here is a link to a specially prepared version of the Archipelago Rules v2. Because, apparently, according to the confused and I just don't understand it tone of the designer, some people like, had confusion with the old rules ?

Never !

Rather amusingly within a few posts on the rules thread on bgg the designer then admitted that yes, a rule that had been left out of the rulebook was rather confusing and not at all straight forward as he had originally stated.

If you've tried looking at the official pdf of the version two rules on the Ludically site, you'll note they are painfully slow to read. Almost one might argue, unusable.

I've flattened the pdf and made it readable, the quality has suffered - I didn't bother making it picture perfect - but it now runs at a tickety boo pace.

Specially NoBoG Altered ArchipelagoRules_v2_flattened.pdf

Alternatively if you are a glutton for punishment you might like to try the official pdf

http://download.ludically.com/ArchipelagoSite/Archipelago.Rulebook.EN.web.pdf

but don't say I didn't warn you.

I look forward to future lectures on how many rules I personally got wrong.

There are, it must be noted still holes. Sea Inlets are now in the rules, but they still fail to address everything - for instance, can you place a worker down anywhere in the tile if you have an already existing worker on just one side of the inlet ? The implication is no. . . but there's the rub. It's implied. Not stated.

3 comments:

choral_composer said...

I'm attempting to teach this to my group tonight. Thanks for the update.

Mr Bond said...

Hope it went well, Peter. It's not the easiest game to get started.

Bork said...

Hope the v2 rules did you some good.

Personally I couldn't see much difference, but there were some clarifications and new examples, and the entire new bit about inslets was welcome ( you can't use population growth where meeples are separated by water... uh huh )

I think it can be useful for less experienced players if everyone is kind of aware of what all the VP goals are, and what the end game scenarios are. They are usually pretty easy as they follow a pattern, but if someone announces every few turns how close you are to an end game scenario ( which may or may not be in play ) and also what might be scoring VPs helps concentrate everyone on what they should be doing.