C’est du nouveau Wallace quoi. On reconnait que c’est lui et c’est bien plus joli qu’avant.
Ce plateau ne m’inspire pas du tout. 
Moi non plus.
Peut etre va til evolué d’ici laa sortie du jue.
Le theme a l’air sympa lui par contre.
Lord Kalbut dit:T'as déja vu une Logan avec un gyrophÂre... ?
VrooÛm vrooÛm tuuÛt tuuÛt !
[Hors sujet]
Je résiste pas Mr Lord Kalbut
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOHoW1MJ6XQ
Et hop Kulbuté
[/Hors sujet]
Le plateau m’inspire beaucoup
Ah ben c’est sur, c’est du wallace… 
!
Cette fois je l’ai direct en anglais sans passer par le portugais.
Pour les grincheux habituels, direct mp 
Le site :
http://spielportugal.blogspot.com/2009/ … eview.html
9/Fev/2009
Automobile - Preview
Intro - LeiriaCon 09
Martin told us that this game is probably his best one. That’s a risky statement from the man who created Age of Steam and Brass (among others) I thought to myself. But then again it worked very well as a teaser. At LeiriaCon, when Martin finally asked - “who wants to play Automobile”? - Me and a couple others right away raised our arms and yelled “me, me, me”!
The task wasn’t easy to Automobile. It would have to deserve my attention right from the beginning but once again I’ve recalled the chat I had with Martin Wallace on the night before and remembered the passion he demonstrated when he talked about the game. He actually talks about his games in a very passioned way but this one happened to be different because he believes that Automobile is a really special achievement.
Beggining the Revolution
First of all we are like entrepreneurs who want to make money by building car industries, researching and selling cars. We make these actions by using some of the abilities that real people actually had. I mean, we can be Ford or Chrysler or Durant or any other person that we want. Each player, in turn order can choose the ability of one of these personalities. This choice also determines the order in which players will use to complete the turn. Since this is a preview I will, with more accuracy, make a brief explanation of the rules and how the game works in general terms. The game plays in four turns and each turn is divided in several phases. Everything is very well explained in the board. I’m not sure if the board will suffer some changes but I guess it will remain almost as it is now. First of all players have to determine the demand. Every turn has a demand for each type of car (low, medium and high class cars). In some turns the highest tile value from each player would go for medium class cars’ demand, others low class cars’ demand. Players don’t know what this demand will be until the end of the turn because these demand tiles are kept secretly by each player (these tiles have values from 2 to 5 if I remember). So, the demand for a type of car is the sum of all of those (higher or lower values) tiles that players have.
After the demand is determined players will have now to choose one character. Characters have different abilities and they become important to each player in different phases of the game depending on strategies players follow. Sometimes is more important to have Kettering which gives players 3 research and development cubes, sometimes is important to get Howard because he is good for selling. The most important thing to remember is that all of these characters help players to achieve their objectives, either by selling first than others or by cutting losses or by giving us research and development cubes.
In this phase the kind of help we get from characters is very important but we shouldn’t minimize the importance of the playing order. If a player chooses Chrysler although he gets good benefits he also plays last which in this particular game is not a good thing. So, the balance between playing ahead and choosing characters is a thing to remember.
Making Decisions
After choosing characters players have 3 action rounds to do things. This is the core part of the turn and players, following character’s order may do one of these things: build a factory, produce cars, get research cubes, closedown a factory or put up to three distributors in the sell box.
I will try to explain these actions. First of all research cubes. One of the possible actions is to take 2 research cubes. What are they good for? As you may have noticed the board functions as a timeline of the automobile industry creation. Cars appear on the board in a clockwise order grid from oldest to newest also with different prices on them. These cars are also colour coded indicating their class. Purple cars are medium class, brown are low class cars (mass production) and yellow cars are high class cars. If a player wants to build a factory in the next available space in the car line, he has to pay one research cube meaning that he has to make some research in order to build that kind of car. If a player wants to build a car that is 2 spaces ahead, he has to pay 3 cubes (1 for the first space and 2 for the second space). So, this means that players don’t have to produce cars in order. Players can always produce modern cars, they don’t have to follow the timeline by the book. We can be inventive. And because the most modern cars sell better, this can be a good investment which is exactly what this game is all about, good investments.
The action of building a factory is as simple as that. We have to pick up an empty space on the car grid, pay research and development cubes if necessary (if a player builds a factory between two cars already being produced no cubes are necessary because technically the necessary technology has already been “discovered”) and also pay the money of the factory to the bank e.g. the Ford Model T factory costs $350. The maximum number of factories a player can have producing one model is 3.
If a player has a factory of course he will want to produce cars with it. Here each player has to choose the amount of cars he wants to produce. The production table in the left part of the board shows how many cars a player has to produce (a minimum value) and the maximum allowed. For example if a player has 2 factories in a space producing purple cars (medium class cars) he must produce from 4 to 7 cars and pay $70 for each one produced of that particular model. A player can have different purple car models’ being produced (which is normal) and produce 4 cars of one of them and 7 of the other. It’s up to the player to decide the quantity of cars he wants to produce in which factory as long as the minimum and maximum values are respected. Cars after being produced are putted in stacks of the player’s colour inside the respective car box.
One of the most important things I’ve heard from Martin Wallace about this game was: “cut your losses”. “Get rid of those black cubes”, he said.
Black cubes are losses as you may have noticed by now. Every time a factory doesn’t sell a car it gets one black cube. Black cubes are very important because they cost you money during the game. For each black cube players have at the end of the turn a certain amount of money needs to be paid to the bank. The amount paid goes from $10 in the first turn for each black cube and $40 in the 4th turn. So, if a player has 10 black cubes at the end of the game, which is not that strange, he has to pay $400 in losses!
Also, factories suffer losses just by becoming obsolete. Even if a factory sells all cars produced it can suffer losses. The time line grid shows us which factory won’t suffer losses. The most modern factory of each type of car (low, medium and high classes) doesn’t suffer losses. The following factory gets one cube, the next one, 2 cubes and so on. Again, this is made for each kind of car. So, imagine that all places are occupied (with at least one factory on it) from spot one – Duryea – to spot 8 (the first high class car in the grid – National 40). This means that, at the end of the turn, National 40 won’t get any losses because it’s the furthest high class car being produced. Since it’s the only high class car being produced, no other yellow factory is involved. The low cost cars (brown) have in the first spot Ford T which doesn’t suffer losses either. The next one available of that class (low class) is Sears Autobuggy which gets one loss cube. Since there aren’t any more brown cars being produced, no more losses are associated to them. The medium class cars have with zero losses Thomas Flyer (again the first in the line), with one cube Maxwell Model L, two cubes, Franklin Model A, with 3 cubes Oldsmobile Curved Dash and finally with 4 loss cubes Duryea. The player who owes the factory producing Duryea has to pay 4 times $10 if in the first turn of the game, times $20 if in the second, times $30 if in the 3rd and times $40 if in the fourth. So, maybe, just maybe, it’s better to shut down this factory instead of having all this losses. That’s why players can make that decision as an action. Closing a factory is very often a good decision.
A good thing to do, besides closing your obsolete factories, is to sell all of your cars. Each car you don’t sell costs you one loss cube. Also, you don’t get money of it. It’s always a good thing to sell all your cars. To help you on that task you can put men doing that job for you. The option of putting distributors in the sell box helps you with that. Again, in the first turn only a few spaces are available for that, on the second turn a few more and so on. And these spaces are also limited for each class of car. So, here you also have to choose wisely the character from the beginning of the turn because if you need to sell cars with your distributors you have to make sure you play before the other players so that you still have free slots.
After players have completed all their actions, the turn continues first with the player who has chosen Howard selling 2 cars and then following the turn order, players use their distributors to sell. One distributor after another is placed on the left colour coded boxes of the type of car being sold. Also, for each distributor placed in the sell box and not used (e.g. If all the slots were already occupied) one loss cube is taken.
Another important decision is made in this phase. The executive decisions can or not be taken. Players may do nothing if they prefer. Again in turn order, players have the following decisions to make: close one factory (only one factory is available so after one player has chosen this option no other players can make it in this phase), by paying research cubes (the first one 2 cubes, second and third, one cube each) players can make one of their factories sell two cars in a row instead of just one (I’ll explain this better in the selling cars section). Players also have the possibility of selling cars at a lower price if they wich so because it can be a better deal. The thing is that if a player takes too many decisions in this phase he will probably be the last one to “pass” meaning that he will be the last player chosing a character for the next turn. Once again everything must be very well balanced.
After the executive decisions, players will now reveal their demand tiles and the sum of them will determine the amount of cars of each type that will be sold. Now each factory starting from the beginning of the line (the newest car to the oldest) will sell one car and put it in the box that shows the amount of money that each one of these respective class cars are worth. In this phase factories in which players have made the executive decision of buying double selling for research cubes, will sell two cars at a time. I’ll try to explain with a simple example. The first 3 spaces are the only one considered in this example. The demand sum is 6. So, 6 medium class cars (purple cars) will be sold in this turn. Factory #1 (Duryea) has 1 car, factory #2 (Oldsmobile Curved Dash) has 4 cars but a double sell and factory #3 (Franklin Model A) has 3 cars. We know that there are 8 purple cars to sell and only demanding of 6 so 2 cars are not going to be sold. The first player to sell is #3 (the furthest in line) and puts one car in the purple box showing the $150. The second factory now places 2 cars (double selling) in the purple box too. The 1st factory puts one car in the box. Now it’s the 3rd factory turn again because there is still demand (6) and places one more car in the purple box, which is the fifth. The second factory can sell 2 cars but since there’s only one slot left it can only sell one car and put it in the purple box. By now, the demand is fulfilled and nobody can sell more cars. Factory number 3, the furthest in line, sold two of its 3 cars and gets one black cube for one loss. Factory number 2 sold 3 of its 4 cars and also gets one loss cube. Factory number 1 sold all its cars and gets no losses for that. Now, each player gets their money. Player owning factory number one, gets $150 because he sold one single car. Player owning factory number 2 gets $450 (3 times $150) and player owning factory number 3 gets $300 (2 times $150).
Now it’s time to everyone pay their losses. Each black cube costs the amount shown for the current turn (from $10 to $40).
After the fourth turn all players count their money, pay their losses and loans (if any - I didn’t talk about this earlier because it doesn’t count as an action and can be done at anytime. Players can take two loans of $500 each during the game) and also count the value of each factory he has on the board. The wealthiest player is the winner.
Final Ideas
I liked the game a lot. I’m not sure if this is the final version of it but I’m almost sure that it is. Maybe some minor changes in the rules will follow but I’m sure that the game is very close to its final version. I’m one of the biggest fans of Brass and I love economy games. In Automobile you really act as a business man who constantly have to make tough decisions and try to manage your money in the best possible way. I’m looking forward to its release.
Everything in this game makes sense, every single rule is very well implemented and the game play happens - although very difficult to master – to be quiet intuitive and once you’ve played a few turns, very straightforward. I loved it very much and I think that this game gathers not only the theme feeling of the automobile industry but also that challenging aspect that makes part of Wallace’s best games. I think that Automobile can very quickly become a consensual game in the board gaming community without losing its special Wallace feeling.
It should play best with 4 or 5 players and it takes about 2 hours.
Postado por soledade por volta da(s) 3:29 PM
C’est donc un jeu où tout le monde perd à la fin ou la Banque Fédérale fini par sauver tout le monde ?
Jusqu’à fin avril uniquement, abonnement dispo pour les 4 prochains jeux Treefrog: Automobile (juin), Last Train to Wensleydale (octobre), God’s Playground (octobre), et Gettysburg (début 2010).
40€ par jeu, port compris.
http://www.warfroggames.com/Subscription%20deal.html
Comme pour les précédents, seuls 1500 exemplaires par jeu seront produits.
Pour ceux qui voudraient se plaindre des prix, Martin précise que son prix de revient pour Automobile est pratiquement de 20€!
S’il devait vendre son jeu au multiplicateur standard x6…
J’ai pas compris le coup du “on économise 10 euros par jeux”.
Mais si j’ai tout suivi, on paie 160 euros pour avoir 4 jeux sur 1 an… C’est ça?
Heuhh dit:J'ai pas compris le coup du "on économise 10 euros par jeux".
Mais si j'ai tout suivi, on paie 160 euros pour avoir 4 jeux sur 1 an.... C'est ça?
C'est plus 5€ par jeu que 10€.
L'intérêt pour ceux que les 4 jeux intéressent est d'être sûr d'en disposer d'un exemplaire car les précédents jeux ont plutôt eu une diffusion limitée en france et sont épuisés (TT, Steel Driver) ou en passe de l'être (After The Flood).
1500 exemplaires seulement pour le monde entier, ça part vite!
Et le 2ième effet KissCool est de supporter financièrement Martin pour qu'il continue à produire des jeux...
7Tigers dit:C'est plus 5€ par jeu que 10€.
Yop j'ai rippé sur les 10$.
Bon sinon, c'est comme un abonnement à un magazine, sauf que c'est des jeux. Groumph...
Je suis plutôt content des 3 premiers (avec un gros + pour Tinners’ Trail), j’ai précommandé le 4ème mais sans vouloir polémiquer et à l’heure de peut-être sauter le pas pour le prochain lot, je me pose des questions sur la durabilité du système.
Comment créer, mettre au point et produire 4 jeux par an ? Pour Herr Doktor Knizia, ça ne pose pas de problèmes mais bon After the flood, c’est pas Topas, 13 ou PickPocket…
Quel est votre avis là-dessus ?
_seb_ dit:Je suis plutôt content des 3 premiers (avec un gros + pour Tinners' Trail), j'ai précommandé le 4ème mais sans vouloir polémiquer et à l'heure de peut-être sauter le pas pour le prochain lot, je me pose des questions sur la durabilité du système.
Comment créer, mettre au point et produire 4 jeux par an ? Pour Herr Doktor Knizia, ça ne pose pas de problèmes mais bon After the flood, c'est pas Topas, 13 ou PickPocket...
Quel est votre avis là-dessus ?
Oui, je me pose la même question, et cela malgré toute mon admiration pour les jeux du maestro de Manchester, ainsi que pour sa capacité de création.
Bon, il me semble par exemple que Tinner's trail à 3 est beaucoup moins interessant qu'à 4 (config où ce jeu est excellent), et ce pour un problème de règlage. De même, j'aime beaucoup After the Flood (théme, mécanique générale, le fait que ce soit un jeu pour 3), mais les combats....enfin bref.
Steel driver ? une seule partie pour le moment....bien, mais demande encore quelques parties pour que je puisse vraiment me faire un avis digne de ce nom.
Enfin, je suis pour le moment un peu en attente encore sur la gamme Treefrog. Le Maestro s'est fixé un sacré objectif, et le risque, c'est d'avoir peut-être des jeux un peu moins testés que d'habitude, avec un poil d'inspiration en moins.
Wallace est pour moi un auteur génial, mais même un génie ne peut pas passer à coté de certaines épreuves imposées, comme celle de tester et retester, doser et redoser...et pour cela, je crois, il faut du temps et de la patience, et ne pas se sentir "tenu" par des délais.
Mais je fais partie de ceux qui attendent avec beaucoup d'impatience Automobiles....et les autres !
Pour info, Automobile version Treefrog (1500 exemplaires) sortira en juin et la réédittion Mayfair/Phanlanx du même jeu sortira pour Essen (octobre).
_seb_ dit:Comment créer, mettre au point et produire 4 jeux par an ? Pour Herr Doktor Knizia, ça ne pose pas de problèmes mais bon After the flood, c'est pas Topas, 13 ou PickPocket...
Quel est votre avis là-dessus ?
C'est tout le problème de la professionnalisation des auteurs. Quand on voit les effets que cela a eu sur la production de Knizia, on est en droit d'être super pessimiste.
MOz dit:_seb_ dit:Comment créer, mettre au point et produire 4 jeux par an ? Pour Herr Doktor Knizia, ça ne pose pas de problèmes mais bon After the flood, c'est pas Topas, 13 ou PickPocket...
Quel est votre avis là-dessus ?
C'est tout le problème de la professionnalisation des auteurs. Quand on voit les effets que cela a eu sur la production de Knizia, on est en droit d'être super pessimiste.
Oui, en effet, mais l'exemple de Knizia n'est peut-être pas le meilleur. Il me semble qu'il s'est lancé dans un peu tout et n'importe quoi, et que certains de ses jeux (je ne parle pas de T&E, Amun Re ou à la limite Ra et Modern Art) pourraient être fait par un autre que cela ne surprendrait personne. Chez Wallace, il y a une "empreinte" (qui semble un peu copiée maintenant) très forte de l'auteur dans ces productions passées et actuelles...
J'ai également noté que pour certains jeux sortis dernièrement (exemple : Confucius), j'ai parfois entendu dire ou lu "ça pourrait être un Wallace"...par contre, cela fait belle lurette que je n'ai pas entendu dire "Tiens, ça pourrait être un Knizia", tant le bon doktor a perdu son style dans ses diverses "dispersions".
Wallace semble quand même soucieux de garder un “style” marqué ;à où knizia avoue faire du jeu pour le fric.
Ca ne semble pas être le but de Wallace. Sa professionnalisation semble être là pour lui dégager aussi le temps nécessaire pour tester correctement ses jeux.
Quand tu vois les bijoux qu’il enchaine, j’ai l’impression qu’il teste de 8h du mat’ à 22h voire minuit tous les jours que dieu fait.
Il risque l’overdose mais je ne pense qu’il tombera dans le pur commercial.
Il y aura une version Mayfair (anglais), Phalanx (allemand) et Filosofia (francais) pour Essen 2009.
A priori, le plateau et les illustrations seront re-lookées pour cette édition.
Bonne journée,
Sophie
_seb_ dit:
Cela fait belle lurette que je n'ai pas entendu dire "Tiens, ça pourrait être un Knizia", tant le bon doktor a perdu son style dans ses diverses "dispersions".
http://www.boardgamenews.com/index.php/ ... knizia_do/