One of my few Black Friday purchases was the game Splendor I had learned of recently. It seems like it’ll be a good game night game for when we want something shorter and simpler than some of our games. We’ve often used Kings of Tokyo for that purpose, which is is shorter but less simple than Splendor.
I haven’t had a game night since buying the game, so tonight I decided to play a two player game as both players. I kind of like the solo playing of some of these strategy games because I can do it whenever I want, can take as long as I want (I’m known to be slow on my turns), don’t have the stress of multi-person gaming, and can test different strategies against each other and learn what works more quickly than waiting for the next game night.
The two player game threw in a little difficulty because three pieces of each gem are removed. That leaves four, which isn’t very much. Many second level cards can’t even be purchased without getting one or more other cards first.
The two strategies I pitted against each other were:
- collect first level cards first to build up purchasing capacity, and go for nobles
- shoot for only cards worth points
The first strategy won this game, though it was very close and depended somewhat on luck. If different cards had been flipped near the end or the other player had picked slightly different gems earlier, it might’ve won instead.
At the very end, when either could win with one card, I thought through both players options very carefully. The second player ended up reserving two card in a row to stop the first player from being able to buy the winning card, but first player kept getting more resources and options to win in one turn.