Wow was Friday an epic day of gaming.

It started off with me paying a visit to Diego to play the latest instalment in the Portal Games Imperial Settlers universe, Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North(EotN).

It just so happens that EotN is also the third game from Portal to the engine building mechanic.

51st State was their first entry in this series. Having learnt from that they then bought out Imperial Settlers, which then fed back into 51st State to become 51st State: Complete Master Set. Each instalment is different than the previous with various mechanical tweaks.

51st State uses a common deck for all players, faction boards, and an end of game triggered by a player reaching 25 victory points. Whilst Imperial Settlers has a common deck and individual faction decks, faction boards and takes place over 5 rounds. EotN uses faction decks only, does away with the faction board, adds an action selection mechanic, back to the 25 point end of game trigger and removes the production phase. There are other differences but this covers the main ones.

On paper I should love EotN. However after playing this engine builder, although enjoyable, I was also left a little disappointed.

Now I’m not going to be one of those posters on social media that claims the game is broken. I don’t think it is. I just think that one major design decision left me feeling a bit unsatisfied after playing the game, and potentially frustrated during the game. I’d love to have a discussion with Ignacy about his thinking behind it.

The bit that left me feeling that way was the removal of the production phase, and replacing it with a harvest action. For me it felt like a part of this engine I had built was virtually worthless. I get that you don’t lose your resources between rounds. But the harvest action only produces from one card. Hardly a replacement.

I also got the feeling from the two player game that there might be poor match ups between the clans. It certainly felt that way.

I think my order of preference of play is Imperial Settlers, 51st State followed by EotN.

Friday evening saw the return of the Friday Night Gaming for Fenland Gamers after a brief hiatus.

I’m only going to talk about our learning game of Mangrovia, and that will be briefly. I don’t really feel I can say how much I enjoyed the game until we play it properly!

There was one rule that we got wrong that would have made a major impact on the game. Sadly Jonathan didn’t remember it until what was going to be the final round.

Basically what happened was I was the first player and it stayed that way the whole game, as I just hogged the first player spot. Which allowed me first choice of the cards from the trade row, and to control which land types could be built on each round.

There are elements that I like. But I really shouldn’t make a decision based on a misplay.

But it was a great evening gaming at The Luxe. Who as always are fantastic hosts.

Games Played: Imperial Settlers: Empires of the North, D-Day Dice Pocket, Patchwork Doodle, Mangrovia