I got Dos Rios yesterday. I’m not too keen on Franz-Benno Delonge’s work (well, TransAmerica), but Dos Rios had such a neat idea in the river system that I just wanted to try it out. I’m not expecting too much, if it’s good I’m surprised positively. I’m afraid it might be too tactical and chaotic, but that remains to be seen. I do like forward planning and Dos Rios will offer very little of that… One thing it depends on greatly is the speed of the players: if I’m stuck with slow players, it’ll be pain. With swift players, it’ll probably be great fun.
And that’s a nasty thing in a game, really — how to review a game where one’s enjoyment is so much dependent on other players? But not all games have such problems, so I’ll just slap a disclaimer "great, if your gaming buddies are quick players or you have good patience".
Funny anecdote, though: the rulebook says Dos Rios is Delonge’s first major game release after Hellas, a small game in Kosmos two-player line. Yeah, nice, but what about TransAmerica? Even though I don’t like it, I still think it counts as a major game, being a Spiel des Jahres finalist and all that… But yeah, I think the key here is that TransAmerica is not a Kosmos game…
2 responses to “Dos Rios”
I’d recommend trying Dos Rios with three people, not more. Like a lot of other games where much can happen between player turns, having a smaller number of players allows for more effective planning & strategy.
That’s what I thought, yeah. Unless I can get some real fast players playing with me…