Let me introduce you to my favourite board game ever. I have several truly dear board games to my heart (some close contenders just to name a few would be Malacca and Citadels), but this one.. this one is such a Josie game. I mean, look at these pretty pretty trees. ^^
But don't let pretty pictures and the seemingly calm flow of the game fool you. If you read some other reviews of this game, you'll find a common theme - they all call the game mean. But don't get it twisted, this game is not mean, it's positively ruthless! And I love it! ^^
I guess it's exactly this juxtaposition of its seemingly beautiful and peaceful veneer with its actually brutally cold, calculating and snobbishly backstabbing nature that makes it such a Josie game.. ..yes, I said what I said, deal with it.. xD
Not that I need my brutally cold, calculating and snobbishly backstabbing shadow side in my everyday life, but it's nice to have a healthy outlet for it from time to time in a form of a game, and as a gentle reminder to others that I choose not to be like that, not that I don't have the capacity for it. It's this whole idea that you're only peaceful if you have the capacity to do harm AND choose NOT to, otherwise you're just harmless. Well, let it be known, a Josie is peaceful, not harmless, and if you have any doubts about that then I'm more than glad to play a game or Arboretum with you, but be forwarned - expect no mercy!
To even have a chance at beating Josie at this game you will need to know and fully understand the rules. This is not one of those, oh, let's just start playing and then we'll see what the rules are as we go along, oh, no, no, no, sure, you can foolishly stack some trees in pretty lines, but unbeknownst to you I've already won the game, and I know it too, and it hasn't even finished yet.
But, but what, how..? - You'll mumble, and I'll just reply, "I told you, you need to know and understand the rules! Ok, ok, I'll explain them again, but pay attention this time, especially that part about holding a 1 and an 8 on hand! But let's start from the top."
The Rules!
Ok, so you should have 7 cards in your hand. Your turn consists of 3 actions (always, none of them are skippable) 1. you draw two cards (from either the draw pile or someone's trash pile), 2. You plant one tree (only one), 3. You discard one of the cards from your hand in your personal trash pile (face up). So at the start and at the end of your turn you should always have 7 cards on hand.
You'll see how increasingly impossible either steps 2 or 3 or both are going to become as the game progresses. Anguish, is the word that comes to mind when you realize you have nothing to plant and nothing to relinquish. But we're jumping ahead of ourselves.
So what you do is you plant these tree 'paths'. A tree path is any 3+ card tree row that starts and ends with the same species of tree. The tree path needs to be in ascending order of card numbers, but they don't need to be consecutive. That is you can skip a number and plant, say, 1 3 8, but not 5 3 7. A tree path does NOT need to be single species, but it's advantageous if you have 4+ single species path as that counts as double the points. One and the same card can be counted in several different paths, but there is no point in making more than one path for one and the same species, beacuse you'll only be able to claim one path per species.
Game ends when the last card from the draw pile is picked up (and it's going to happen sooner than you think, that's why it's advantageous to rummage through peoples trash piles, even your own.. well, not rummage exactly, you can only orderly pick up the trees from the top of someone's trash pile), the person who picked it up finishes their turn (all three steps) and then the scoring begins.
Now listen very carefully, because understanding the scoring will make or break your game. Now if you don't pay attention you might presume that you'll automatically get the points from the path you've planted, but oh, no, you need to earn your rights to claim those points first!
To claim the right to score the points for the species of your path you'll need to have the highest sum total of that species in your hand as opposed other players. This is where the backstabbing comes into play, someone else might have noticed that you have an unhealthy obsession with a particular species of trees and have been secretly hoarding those cards in their hand all along, effectively prohibiting you from scoring your path.
And don't forget about 1 and 8.
If you have an 8 in your hand thinking that that's going to save you, come scoring time, but someone else has a 1 of your species in their hand, they effectively make that 8 of yours into a 0. Keep that in mind! I'd say it's safer to plant that 8, unless you know for sure that the 1 is accounted for.
Now let me break down the scoring for you and then we can look at some examples. So, you score - 1 point for each card in the path. 1 additional point for each card in the path IF the path is at least 4 cards long and ALL the cards are of the same species. 1 additional point if the path starts with a '1'. 2 additional points of the path ends with an '8'
So, given 'ideal conditions' that you'd be able to claim all of your paths (highly unlikely, but ok) in this scenario you'd score 8 points for a perfectly clean 4-card 'Pink tree' path (could as well have been longer you didn't need to stop at just 4, 4 is a minimum) +1 for '1' and +2 for an 8, so together 11 for the pink tree. Next up, willow, since it doesn't have any 1 or 8 bonuses, it's just 4 points for the willow path.' Now the Purple tree, yes, that is a completely valid path, four cards long +2 for an 8, that's a 6 for the Purple. So 21 points altogether.
Now this kind of setup leaves you quite vulnerable, someone would have held as many pink trees as they could seeing how that was your main focus, so I'd say - keep em guessing. My paths, albeit not that pretty, might look something more like this (just because I ALWAYS have a target on my back, no one is just casually going to allow Josie to nonchalantly plant single species paths, that's just not how life works, ya know.)
Which path is my main focus, nobody knows, probably not even me. Can I claim ALL of them at the end of the game, also probably not, but you sure as hell can count on the fact that I'll try my best only to end up whining that there is NOTHING TO PLANT OR DISCARD.. OH, THE TORTURE!
I'll let you in on how I play this game. To the best of my ability, I keep a running count of the sum of the cards (of a particular species) that I'm missing and just presume that one of the opponents is holding all of them. It might not be the case, but it keeps me grounded and aware of the worst-case scenario. Let's say in that six-card-long 1-8 willow path example that I'd have 7 4 and 3 on my hand, that means I have 14 on hand and it leaves with 2 5 and 6 unaccounted for, that makes it 13, I have more, so I'm safe and unless I discard any of my willows on hand, I already have the rights to claim that path.
It ends up being a lot of counting and re-counting and panicking that nothing's working out the way you had wanted, but still.. I love it!
So what do you say, shall we play another round?
~Josie~