Additional ideas i had about alternate options for the coop and barn.
1. Remove the coop and barn from the game. You can buy chikens and cows. Add an "upgrade coop and barn" for 2 wood and 10 gold to allow you to buy ducks, goats, etc.
2. Every time you reveal a new season card, roll the animal dice and store the produced tiles on the barn and coop. Up to 4 recources can be stored this way. When taking the "collect from animals" action, you can collect the stored tiles.
3. When you buy the barn you het a free cow, when you buy the coop you get a free chicken
4. See my idea above, halve the cost for coop and barn.
2. Every time you reveal a new season card, roll the animal dice and store the produced tiles on the barn and coop. Up to 4 recources can be stored this way. When taking the "collect from animals" action, you can collect the stored tiles.
Number 2 could be enabled by buying the coop or barn. So you could buy something like upto 1 chicken and 1 cow without a building and roll for them like normal, but buying the barn or coop lets that type store produce for collection. Maybe just roll 1 animal die x buildings per morning/season so it can build up over time, or 2 dice for each building separately and only animal types of that building produce there. When you go to collect produce you can take stored resources to remove a dice from the roll up to 3. So you could take a stored egg and still roll 2 animal dice to see if you find extra, or take 2 stored eggs and a stored wool and not roll at all. Maximum can still apply like 4 suggested or maybe 3 (or 4) in each building. Any skills that double produce or reroll only apply to rolls on the collect produce action.
Achieved: 9.5/10 success!
*I won't say why until the end, but I played blind to the Grandpa Goals until I had completed the Community Centre bundles. Also I chose my profession upgrades as if I was playing multiplayer (as in I was stuck as a Fisher and got to choose from 2 revealed from the Fisher deck). I managed to keep a good variety of crops, forageables and fish to get 4 friends and 8 hearts built up, and was filling up the field with crops most seasons with money flowing well.
Several Joja tiles came out but they were mostly for things I didn't know if I needed! The Mine got a bit blocked off, Museum donating too, and hearts from friending Villagers got bottlenecked. Seed shortage was a pain though and I spent my last heart to remove it. Not knowing all my goals I was mostly interested in getting friendships, hearts and coins. I befriended Leah, Willy, Abigail and Sam along the way; marrying Leah and only losing Jodi due to her being part of a one-off event. Leah and Sam's gifts came in handy and I took all 8 hearts to the community centre, revealed them all at once and completed half of them, all in a single action!
Even though I'd caught a Legendary Fish and gifted it to someone or sold it or something, I had an item that counted as one! And my flow of heart, forageable and coins got those done! Soon later I used Sam's gift to complete the ore bundle, paid the resources with a resource item card and a wood, and next in a single turn built the coop, bought a chicken and petted it, so the next turn came the quality egg! Having a spouse really helped I think.
Revealing the Grandpa Goals in Winter was a bit late to prepare for! But I already had the friends, and upgrading the fishing pole and buying a second chicken only took gold that I had; and 2 end of turn actions. Finding and donating 2 artifacts/minerals in 2 turns, even with a spouse, proved too much though. First we both went to the mines where I took the 1 Mine Action during a player's turn liberally and considered my wife separate! I was able to get a Geode and smash it for a Mineral! However, the spouse not being able to forage had me stuck on the final turn. I sent her to waste her time and I wasted an action of my own fishing before chancing on a forageable on the way to the museum to donate but only another forageable! I could have mined and hoped to smash out another, leaving the wife to donate, but I then remembered the Joja token meant I had to spend both actions to donate. I was damned!
So I took back my fishing action and forage to at least donate the 1 mineral and it was over. All in all pretty good since I casually continued the game while experimenting with a scripted TS workshop version. Yes that's why I had restricted view of the Grandpa Goals! I have the physical board but I plan to play my first multiplayer game hopefully tomorrow with the help of the internet. The scripted version we'll be using seemed to force profession choice before the setup so I was checking there were ways to setup in the correct order which there was. :)
Sorry for going a little off-topic here, but I very much enjoy having discussions on game mechanics and if we're posting logs to potentially analyse later, might as well lay out some common ground.
Players: 2 (for the first time at last!)
kailo (me) - Fishing profession, Fishing rod tool.
mizu - Mining profession, Pickaxe tool.
Season Deck: Shuffled from full deck
Pet: Meow
I'm going to be brief in describing this session since it was a couple weeks ago. We were lucky getting the Legendary Fish we needed and were very lucky on items in general. It seemed to take ages to start revealing bundles and I had very bad luck with dice rolls which probably caused us issues. We didn't get the mines goal luckily but we also didn't get the buildings goal which syncs well with raising animals.
*Being my first time playing with more than 1 player and my friend's first time ever, I forgot that the bundle donations also needed scaling xPlayers until far too late. It's not on the cards like it is for grandpa goals so I think there's room for improvement there. The xPlayers symbol could be put on the bundle faces and on the backs with a heart symbol.
So we had a pseudo victory with one day to spare, but had we needed double of everything for the community centre, there was no way! With this game in mind and what I've seen in other people's games, I'm of the mind that 2 players is actually the hardest. You'd think it would be 1 or 4 but it's the mathematics of the scaling used which peaks the difficulty at 2 players, that's hard to explain.
With this game in mind and what I've seen in other people's games, I'm of the mind that 2 players is actually the hardest. You'd think it would be 1 or 4 but it's the mathematics of the scaling used which peaks the difficulty at 2 players, that's hard to explain.
Yep, 2 players is hard. I wouldn't necessarily say hardest, but suffice to say it's the one mode to keep me from generally taxing 5 gold/1 heart per player for removing a Joja tile (in 1p this is given, in 3p/4p the cost is far less trivial, but still manageable. 2p has some tough times even without that increase though).
I might try and log a 2p run with that ruleset later today (and try out the workshop you used while I'm at it)
It's really nicely scripted with only a couple things to look out for that shouldn't affect practiced players but could make a harder time for new players. One, the artifact/mineral tiles always come out artifact up which I hadn't noted, so my newbie playing partner didn't note they were for both. Two, it doesn't offer standard mode as a script, I separated out the standard cards as a local save to make that mode more accessible to myself each new game if wanted, but if it was there as standard I might have had a better time convincing a new player to start there.
Edit: There's also some bug reports in the discussions section that we didn't encounter as an issue. I don't know if they're still present. Could explain for instance why we got the same letter artifact in a row (someone saying it didn't randomise them).
Setup:
2 players; standard season cards (Wanted random, but seem to have messed that up during creation)
House rule: Removing Joja costs 5 gold or 1 heart per player
CC Bundles: Fall Foraging / Animals / Crab Pot / Chef / Six / Blacksmith
Grandpa's Goals: Catch Legendary Fish, Expand the Farm, Upgrade Starting Tools, Restore the Museum
Buildings: Coop, Barn, Well, Silo
Tools/professions:
P1: Fishing rod / Fishing
P2: Pickaxe / Foraging
Pet: Dog
Result: 10/10 by the end of week 14
Comments:
Picking the Fisher was a no-brainer due to Legendary fish & tool upgrades being two of Gramp's goals. The second player was much less clear; I chose the Forager with the Pickaxe to help getting artifacts/geodes. Not a combo to be seen often as these two roles cannot be intertwined well in general; thankfully this wasn't needed this game.
Barbed Hook off the week 1 season card with two Legendaries on the track already was an incredible boon. I risked losing the Glacierfish W1 because the fisher had no good follow-up after getting it (no watering possible due to the Crow snack) whereas the follow-up after getting the Crimsonfish was incredibly powerful. (Risking the Glacierfish W2 was unnecessary, though).
Afterwards, one of the weirdest games I've played ensued, with the first CC reveals not being thrilling (Pantry/Fish tank in particular) and the first Mine level being atrocious. Getting Dwarf early, I decided to let the Mines sit until I got off that floor and focused money and wood to get the Coop up. It took Dwarf until the end of Summer to get me off that floor, which was when professions turned the game on its head with Luremaster for Crab Pot access and the Charcoal Kiln for easy Ore and hearts. After luckily getting the Blacksmith bundle, it was smooth sailing from there (despite never having a single Stone until the last week of Fall).
Week 1
Season card: Crow(G) (-Parsnip); Gift(-); Event (Visitor at the Farm(Willy)->P1 gets random Fishing upgrade->Barbed Hook); sell(-)
P1*: Beach()
P2: Farm()
P1:
Ocean fishing (H/H/J /S(Barbed Hook)): +Halibut, +Crimsonfish
=(+Horseradish*)=>Town
Pierre: -Crimsonfish, buy all Spring seeds (+6G -4G =5G)
EoT: Upgrade Training Rod -> Bamboo Rod (-5G = 0G)
P2:
Water crops
=(+Horseradish)=>Mountain
Lake fishing (H/J/S): +Bullhead
EoT: -
Week 2
Season card: Quality(Strawberry->*); sell(-)
Start: Bullhead / Crimsonfish / Halibut / Glacierfish / Lingcod
W1(after Ocean Fishing): Newspaper / Periwinkle(R) / Bullhead / Glacierfish / Lingcod
W1(after Lake fishing): Super Cucumber / Newspaper / Periwinkle(R) / Glacierfish / Lingcod
W3(after River fishing): Smallmouth Bass (L) / Super Cucumber / Newspaper / Periwinkle(R) / Lingcod
W4(after Fish move): Trash / Tuna / Smallmouth Bass (L) / Super Cucumber / Newspaper
W4(after Ocean Fishing): Snail(R) / Trash / Tuna / Smallmouth Bass (L) / Newspaper
W4(after Lake Fishing): Herring / Snail(R) / Trash / Tuna / Newspaper
W5(after Ocean fishing): Pufferfish / Snail(R) / Trash / Tuna / Newspaper
W6(after Fish move): Largemouth Bass / Red Mullet / Pufferfish / Snail(R) / Trash
W6(after Ocean fishing): Sunfish / Largemouth Bass / Red Mullet / Pufferfish / Snail(R)
W7(after Fish move): Sturgeon / Tiger Trout / Sunfish / Largemouth Bass / Red Mullet
W7(after River fishing): Red Snapper / Sturgeon / Tiger Trout / Largemouth Bass / Red Mullet
W8(after Lake fishing): Shrimp / Red Snapper / Sturgeon / Tiger Trout / Red Mullet
W9(after Ocean fishing): Broken CD / Chub / Sturgeon / Tiger Trout / Red Mullet
W10(after Lake fishing): Chest / Broken CD / Chub / Tiger Trout / Red Mullet
W11(after Fish move): Pike(R) / Rainbow Trout(L) / Chest / Broken CD / Chub
W11(after Lake fishing): Eel / Pike(R) / Rainbow Trout(L) / Chest / Broken CD
W12(after Fish move): Squid / Cockle / Eel / Pike(R) / Rainbow Trout(L)
W12(after Wild Bait): Dorado / Bream / Shad / Walleye / Octopus
W13(after River Fishing#1): Angler / Periwinkle / Dorado / Shad / Octopus
W13(after River Fishing#2): Perch / Angler / Periwinkle / Dorado / Octopus
As for the script: Definitely decent with a few nice QOL features over the script I'm using (additional trays for friends/money/active Joja tiles are very nice, as is the auto-roller for the dice), unfortunately still uses the first printing (would've loved a TTS workshop using the up-to-date printing). Main issue for me was that the script in part was not true to the original rules, maybe because of the Journey mode (e.g. destruction of crops on season's change, unlimited supply for all resources) as well as the fact that you couldn't spawn in a 5/10 gold coin (at least not that I figured it out). Nothing that cannot be fixed/played around, but a bit inconvenient in places (at least to me).
Then again, it seems an update dropped just today (yesterday evening on US time) , so maybe there will be some ironing out in the future.
As for the script: Definitely decent with a few nice QOL features over the script I'm using (additional trays for friends/money/active Joja tiles are very nice, as is the auto-roller for the dice), unfortunately still uses the first printing (would've loved a TTS workshop using the up-to-date printing). Main issue for me was that the script in part was not true to the original rules, maybe because of the Journey mode (e.g. destruction of crops on season's change, unlimited supply for all resources) as well as the fact that you couldn't spawn in a 5/10 gold coin (at least not that I figured it out). Nothing that cannot be fixed/played around, but a bit inconvenient in places (at least to me).
Then again, it seems an update dropped just today (yesterday evening on US time) , so maybe there will be some ironing out in the future.
I didn't notice crops destroying on season change (looking at the vod it looks like they survived for us, at least in non-journey mode). Edit: it looks like this has arrived with the update, hope it's fixed asap.
I did notice the coins though. I may add it as a suggestion if the update hasn't changed that yea.
The game seems to use the components I have in my copy, so I don't know yet what has been updated in the new physical version of the game.
A few things have changed in the second printing, the biggest ones being: Museum now gives 1 Heart per donated tile, some Villagers have been altered (including an ability switcheroo between Harvey, Abigail and Caroline (I believe?)) and the Mine Deck was revamped (to not have as many dead Levels). I've seen a full list of changes, but cannot remember where.
A few things have changed in the second printing, the biggest ones being: Museum now gives 1 Heart per donated tile, some Villagers have been altered (including an ability switcheroo between Harvey, Abigail and Caroline (I believe?)) and the Mine Deck was revamped (to not have as many dead Levels). I've seen a full list of changes, but cannot remember where.
Thanks. My physical copy manual include getting a heart for donating, but it's not on the board I just have to remember. For mines I suppose I could separate away a few dead levels from the stack. Friends will have to stay as they are for me.
