Opinion on Paris connection?
Thinking about picking this up... Any opinions on this one? I like options for high player count (6) but not sure how this game stacks up today
Posted Nov 30, 2016, 6:34 AM UTC
710
Love it. My major complain about the game is the setup. You have to use the bag to pick random trains at the start, and then sort all the remaining trains. Also, it's not blindcolor friendly.
But I've played it at 3, 4, 5 and 6, always a blast. Nice depth, simple rules, almost no downtime, and you almost never know who's winning before everyone reveal their scores.
3
I've only played it a few times, but I find that all of the major pluses of the game (ease of rules, short play length) are undone by the fact that setting up is so long and awkward. You have to first round up all the trains together and then secretly deal out a certain amount to each player. Then you have to resort the trains into their piles and then place them on their own board, each train going on its own square. Then you have to prop up a shield to hide your trains and you then can start. If I recall correctly, your decision on your turn is to either place up to 3 trains of a single company, take 2 trains into your stash and give one back or to take 1 train into your stash. Because there are so many companies and so many train amounts and player to keep track of, it can be overwhelming to follow everything in order to play good moves.
I prefer Chicago Express as it gives you that train bidding action that's done in a much more clearer way. I find sorting to be less of an issue here because the ratio of setup time to game time is a lot less than PC even though PC is the quicker game.
1
I really don't understand the setup complaints. Dump the trains in the middle of the board and have everyone sort them. It takes under a minute.
5
I'd say closer to 1.5 minutes but, yeah, it's not long at all.
4
Well the point isn't that the setup can't be short, but it's long when you consider how short of a game PC is. If it takes me 15 minutes to setup a 30 minute game, then roughly 33% of my time spent was to set the game up. If it takes me 15 minutes to setup a 60 minute game, only 20% of my time was used to set it up. (not saying PC takes 15 minutes to setup; it's an example)
1
Well, it takes us maybe 90 seconds to set up a game that takes between 10 and 30 minutes. So it's between 4.5% and 13%. It's not like it's hard... I really just don't get the argument here. Five Tribes is 45 to an hour an takes at least 5-6 minutes to set up. That's ~8-10%. You can spend hours setting up a Heroscape game that's over in ten minutes. It just seems like a weird way to measure something.
2
Well, it takes us maybe 90 seconds to set up a game
Right. And it's more setup than I would like for a game that is this short. It's not that Paris Connection is a bad game, but this aspect of the game puts PC down compared to another fast and deep playing game like Race for the Galaxy which is a lot easier to setup. They could be equally good games, but the sorting brings PC down a notch.
And for what it does, I like Chicago Express better. CE for me is easier to setup. You put the trains on their colors, put the shares on their colors, put a train at the start for each color and put the dev houses on the industrial cities and the rest on its spot. It's very clear and straightforward as you are putting things on their spot. With PC, you have to jingle the bag around and have everyone grab their (5?) trains secretly and then spill it on the center and then start sorting by color and place them in its own square.
As far as the gameplay goes, I find CE to be a lot more intuitive and straightforward than PC, which is important for new players. Auctioning is tricky in CE, I'll give you that, but I usually give advice and players do okay. I'll say things like: don't buy your own share at the beginning of the game because it won't generate you any more money. Or something like: when auctioning, the player with the most money has the most power. As far as building goes, it's very easy: advance a line if you are tied or have the most amount of shares in that company. Otherwise, tank a line if you are a minority. In PC, the game can really go in any direction. You may have a lot of shares in a company and therefore you will want to build with it. Then you'll notice that other people are going to take those shares as you make them more valuable. So then should you take those shares first and then start building? Or should you build, but avoid reaching any cities? People who don't get the game are going to try and simply move into Marseilles and end it without really learning anything. Then you have to do the entire setup and sorting again to play another quick game. Another criticism is that the scoring is tedious as the games forces you to track it all at the very end: "lets see, I got 3 blues and blues are worth 25 and then I got 4 browns which are worth 17 and then 6 reds that are worth 22...". In CE, you get one final pay out and you just compare your stack with everyone elses.
It's just really hard to find what role PC would have in my collection. It's a quick game, but you could simply play a game that is just as quick and doesn't have all the setup. It's easy to learn, but it's definitely not a gateway game like Splendor as the strategy is going to be opaque for new players to get.
I think both PC and CE are games that are hard to understand initially. They are both deep games that are about how to best play around the group you are with. PC's perceived advantage about playing time isn't really a selling point for me because people who prefer these types of games are used to playing lengthy sessions. So then if you compare PC straight up with CE, CE for me takes it because it's easier to understand what is going on as well as calculate points at the end. CE is also more elegant as money and shares are open whereas PC has you hide your stuff behind shields (though you could play with open hands, but I wonder if that would break the game).
So to clarify, I'm not saying PC is a bad game. It's probably a great game that requires strategy and finesse to succeed. It's just that apart from the playing time, it doesn't do anything necessarily better than CE and CE in my opinion is easier for people to "get" and calculate at the end. So what I'm saying is if I give CE a 99%, PE would be like a 95%. I just need a reason to get PC rather than to just play CE.
2
You don't have to put the trains on each squares, just on their own card. And yeah, it's annoying.
And just to correct the rules : Only two actions : place 1 to 5 trains of one color, or give back one train to take 1 or 2 from another color.
3
You don't have to square each train but it really helps to know how many of each stock has been taken at the beginning of the game. It makes a difference.
1
It's a solid game, fast-playing but deep enough to play multiple times at one sitting. It takes people a while to understand how to help themselves, hurt others, and benefit from fractional ownership - it may be simple, but it's a real train game.