GWT: El Paso First Impressions - Friendly Ties Podcast

0:00 howdy Partners welcome to Friendly ties we're heading out to the Southwest because this is Great Western Trail El Paso not supped to laugh no notes 10 out of 10 10 out of 10 so we have covered Great Western Trail a fair amount on uh this podcast it's one of my favorite games uh also I know Anastasia's quite a fan and we've we've roped in Jonathan and and started convincing him that some of the the versions of Great Western Trail are worth the attention slowly dragging him in Y come to the universe come to the folds and El Paso is actually I think not even physically released but it is on beta on board game arena right now and we've been playing a fair amount so uh yeah we want to it's it's it's early days uh but I've already played something ridiculous like 25 games so yeah I have a poultry five plays I think which yeah I think I have about eight so yeah we this game kind of like uh enthralled me like we played it the first time and then I was just like I couldn't stop five games for John is a lot just to be clear that is like that is like you you full commit so we should probably like take care of the the elephant in the room right the like it says Great Western tra Western Trail yeah yeah is this like is it Great Western Trail like New Zealand etc etc

1:30 and like no no this is a a much faster streamlined game yeah it's quite different if you're familiar with like raw and raw dice game like I would say that it's something like that where it shares certainly a fair amount of DNA in terms of like there are Builders there are Engineers there are cowboys and you're using those to buy cows and take a train although that's pretty spur on this one um and build buildings and so like those those core things are there there's a loop in the game you know that you kind of repeat over and over again in fact I actually think that the El Paso board is the most honest version of what a Great Western Trail board should look like it's a true it's a true Loop and so it has all that stuff but the I think the strategy the focus like where the games yeah where the games like mechanical effort is is very different than the Great Western Trail series all all three of them yeah I mean like the last time we talked about these was the great Great Western Trail episode and like we kind of ended with great great Great Western Trail episode we ended talking about love that episode it was great we did but like and like I really like New Zealand but it was like had even more stuff it just so much stuff and then El Paso comes around and I don't even know how big the box is going to be I think it's going to be small because there's so much less like a quarter the stuff a quarter of the rules like significantly different which goes to what you're saying about like it's a different game that that has Great Western Trail Vibes to it but like it's

3:03 fast like I guess we should get that out of the way right at the very beginning uh we just the three of us played a three-player game where I AP like crazy and the game still took about 55 minutes so yeah yeah and I mean that is playing on board game arena so it does fire off faster it does a lot of Maintenance and deck shuffling for you and things like that yeah uh so it's it's tough to say what it'll be like in real life but I think it'll probably pretty similar yeah yeah I think this is this is definitely going to be in like well what I consider a filler you know which is an hourong game but it's definitely going to fill that I think that the raw raw dice game is such a perfect example it's funny I was you made me go back Nick I was thinking like Nations remember Nations the DI like kind of reminds me as that right there's there's any of those right where you have you have like very much the same feel of the game but you know what I think is so interesting is that you were just talking about New Zealand Jonathan and I I think that El Paso takes the best piece of Great Western Trail New Zealand which is the deck management and puts that into this game like and and and to me it it it it expounds like from from a design from like an evolutionary perspective like it expounds along that concept of the of of truly like the deck management but the deck management

4:34 being useful from a multitude of strategies I think in like a really really fun way and and obviously in a much lighter game that's in New Zealand you get the dog or the bird which gives you little benefits and then you get to immediately draw another card in this one your workers they are cards that go into your discard pile when you use them and then when you reshuffle your deck and you draw into those workers then you kind of like lay them out in front of you uh until you essentially cash them in to do some ability and all the worker cards have their normal ability on the board your Cowboys buy cows your Builders build buildings your engineers Drive the quote unquote train but they also have a secondary ability which is to discard them at any time for their benefit which is like move an extra space draw a dollar um spend some money to get a certificate and that's a really cool flexibility for those workers yeah yeah and the fact that they don't count has in your draw limit is huge like when you pull them out they just come out like Nick said and so it's it's it's such a fun way to like cycle through your deck and to pull them out of your deck I think it's really cool yeah absolutely I mean as you said when you discard them for their effects they go into your deck and when you use them they go into your deck so unlike you know the main Great Western Trails where they just hang out and they're kind of like a escalating power uh level here they come and go and so yeah you I I totally agree like paying attention to where your deck size is at is a big thing um there's a wild worker that

6:05 could count for all these things and you can discard them for two bucks and the engineers can discard for one and I I mentioned that granularity because there have been many times in this game where I'm looking at my deck and I've got like three cards on the top I'm about to do a cash in so I'm going to draw a big new hand and I have like two engineers and a wild worker sitting in front of me I'm I'm about to reshuffle my deck so do I discard them for one plus one plus two or $4 doll throw them into the discard pile Shuffle the deck up and potentially get them out again or do I hold on to them because I have them because then it's like guaranteed I have them for another thing so essentially do I roll the dice have some guaranteed money and then potentially get them back out of the deck earlier I I think that's a really interesting decision and you have nothing like that in the other Great Western Trails I think yeah there's a lot more pushier luck with the the deck kind of stuff and when you're choosing to discard your workers and everything and the fact that there's the wild worker and the way that the workers come out essentially you know inconsistently as opposed to like having them in a structured Tableau yeah it means that um this game I think is a lot friendlier to hybrid strategies or kind of like trying different stuff along the board um letting you kind of respond more tactically which I think is a big part of the reason why JN likes this I'd say the best probably of any Great Western Trail iteration focuses on that responsiveness that like in the in the spur of the moment decision- making rather than I'm going to play this this game and that for you yeah yeah well also like if you say okay I'm going to go heavy builder for example yeah you use them

7:37 and then you might loop around and then have no Builders and you're like where are all my Builders they're stuck in my deck because I used them last time well I guess I'm not building this loop I feel like the game really incentivizes you to do a version of what you were just saying Nick which is like do multiple strategies if you're familiar you know at all with any of the great restant Trails you know as Nick was just saying like you you do tend to sit down especially with the OG and pick your pick the thing you're going to do right and so if you're familiar with you know those you know I'm going to build I'm going to Cowboy I'm going to I'm going to engineer I think it's really fun to to start thinking into those hybrid strategies to start thinking I'm going to do I'm going to need to do two of these and maybe right like it's it's not even a need it's like it incentivizes you to be like okay I'm going to go just enough into cowboys so I'm going to have some cows going to get better deliveries then I'm going to Pivot over into buildings and then how useful that I had the Cowboys because those cowboys I could also discard them to move farther like it just it the fact that every worker does another thing means that it's never any worker that you have is useful to you so it's not like it never feels bad to be like man I have three Engineers I better get a fourth engineer because that's you know I I need to have more it's like no maybe you do kind of want to diversify because it gives you more options more things you can do my favorite and best games of this have been ones where I've had just a ridiculous amount of all types of workers and just been able to kind of

9:09 like combo them into different little pieces and never really went too high in any single one because I'm just like okay I'm G to I'm going to get just enough here and just enough here and do this and there are objectives and bonus tiles and all sorts of like other little things that kind of happen and it's just if I had a word for this game it's just like it's just like it's fun it's just fun like think there's always something to do when things that kind of like pop off back at you so you're taking a lot of luck and a lot of these Core Concepts that we already know and love from the previous games if you like the previous games and then just kind of like kind of always giving you something to do with them so it just removes a lot of the pain and suffering let's put it that way uh from I think some of the previous games so this game has a much smaller board than Great Western Trail and you know like the other one you stop but the end and you cash your cows in and get stuff for it but one another big difference you know this is it's hard not to compare is that every time you cash in in El Paso you get a cow uh a cmon tall a two value cow worth nothing and seals come come come back I'm actually kind of curious uh for Nick's specific take on this because you've played El Paso like 25 times and you've played Great Western Trail a million times because in El Paso it essentially it almost feels like a counter pressure to like just zipping around the board cuz every time you do it you get this mediocre cow and it it bloats your deck like the faster you go the more bloated your deck is going to be whereas in the

10:40 original games that was not the case and it seemed like maybe zipping around is a really good thing and um I don't know do you how how does that struck you when you've been playing it Nick I like it I think it's good um I like that it you know it says hey if you just whip around you're just gonna have a bunch of these cows in your deck I like that it gives you another problem to solve I think also I I have a suspicion that you know as the game goes on you get more and more workers and without adding additional cards to the deck it could be that people just kind of like flopped out their whole deck at once and it sort of was like required from a mathematical perspective to make the game not like explode yeah that that very well could be or like yeah it it lowers the odds that all your workers are just right next to each other yeah the other thing that's really significant about the deliveries is that you always you always get $5 whereas in the other Great Western games you get money based on how strong your delivery is and in both games you get rewarded for having good deliveries but in Great Western Trail it's a portion like a small portion of your scoring whereas I would say El Paso is a lot more focused on those deliveries it says look you're always getting the same amount of money your engine isn't changing based on your delivery but the reward system that you're getting which you're unlocking on your board and um the victory points that you'll get at the end of the game do I think much much more reward having good deliveries in this game and I think thematically that's a win that like the cattle driving part of the game and having that like diverse hand array and

12:11 some other ways to support the delivery of components of it um shines again a spotlight on like this being an important mechanism in the game yeah yeah but I do like that everything about this game I think is is is pretty well tuned and balanced to kind of like give you a good thing and then like like like for example the cim talls that you get right you were saying okay they they're not a great cow but they're still a two cow they don't give you any points but they're still a two so in some ways they're still better than the one cows in your deck right so everything it's like you're bloating your deck but it they are making you know they are slightly better cows so it's also you know promoting those deliveries or to your point Nick it it I does feel like the game is that true Loop right like you want to you want to do as much as you can and deliver and kind of keep a Tempo going and there is I think it is a more tactical game there's a little bit of a racing you know you got to keep your deliveries up to kind of stay on speed but I found it interesting that the amount of points that you're able to get elsewhere from the game like are not so dramatically less or more than the amount of points you're able to get from delivering and it's actually kind of hard to get points from your delivering until you kind of get to that second level of delivering so maybe if you go super deep into them sure but but I do think it's pretty well balanced in that way like I even in the last game that we played now this didn't help me at the end because luck did not go my way but I kind of held a balance of like I could actually get more points from the loop

13:42 than I could delivering so I'm going to let Jonathan go finish the game by delivering and I'm going to just try and pick up my points now my deck didn't give me what I needed I didn't get those points I lost whatever I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel like I I completely agree with Nick that I feel like delivering is a central mechanic to the game but I find it interesting that it isn't I used to feel in Great West TR if you didn't deliver and get massive points from it like you weren't going to win I think I like that it doesn't feel like all the points come from delivering but it does feel really important in terms of what it unlocks and what you can get from it I see yeah and you know going back to the loop and the speed and everything and the sealls I more I think about it the more I think all this stuff is connected you couldn't just throw things away to move faster in Great Western Trail like you could upgrade your speed once in the game but then you could definitely plot things out like okay I'll go here then I'll go here then I'll go there you know three four 3 four Etc but here I mean Nick you were just telling us like two days ago that you had a a loop where you looped two turns in a row because you ditched like four Cowboys or something like that right I did a one I did a onlap delivery yeah like I just like delivered Boop delivered yeah it wouldn't surprise me if the seol thing came in because of that as well because of the mechanic of the Cowboys letting you just supercharge around the board like that that that's almost like maybe a little bit of a break there yeah yeah I think that's probably true and and that you know this is another thing that I think is different from the other GWT games is

15:13 that the board structure um disincentivizes people from placing buildings in blocking spots they cost more money to slow down your Loop to go around the board yes and also they did a away with taxes and everything like that so other people playing buildings is not as painful as it was in the other games which is I will say a a limiting interaction component in this game this is a more solitire game than the other ones are definitely I felt that even tonight first that this was the first like I think true live play we've had we played a couple of live plays where we weren't like you know talking with each other but I even felt tonight I was like expecting it to feel more more interaction in person and I was like no you know I'm still like it is a pretty multiplayer solitire game and that's we were playing on BGA we we've we've noted that and everything it's going to feel different at the table and all that jazz but I do think that there the main point of interaction in this game is that racing component that we're talking about you know our the game end timer is the number of deliveries not dissimilar to the other Great Western Trails but making sure that you stay on Pace with that or you're watching for that or keeping up with that because this is not a long game like it it it it is over before you think it is and so I think that that's really where you're going to get your main point of interaction yeah yeah we were just playing uh tonight and I I looked down I'm like okay I finally

16:44 got my stuff not like done I was like okay I felt like I like rided my ship and I looked over and the game was almost over I did win it worked out well for me but it was definitely one of those like oh what excuse me this might be my last cash in I I thought we were in the middle of the game I was just having such a good time because it took like yeah 55 minutes or so well you know it's funny what you were just saying Nick about your one Loop delivery and we haven't we haven't quite touched on yet the buildings in this game and and I I think for me this is probably one of the the greatest improvements over Great Western Trail if for only the fact that I have interacted with buildings more in El Paso than I ever interacted with them in Great Western Trail and that's even though I play Great West Trail a lot I feel like in this game the buildings are there's less of them I have just felt like it's been easier to parse and I've been like cool here are the buildings let me work with these and they're communal everything in this game is kind of communal but it is the buildings in this game most of them are the are or several of them are jumpy buildings that's what I'm going to call them that is the technical term So speaking of moving it's not the technical term speaking of moving around the track like I did a game last week where I had like a three jump building onto a one jump building onto a delivery and so like I did the same thing as you Nick where I did a one Loop delivery but like with my like Cowboys and the jumpies and I was

18:15 just like man this feels good like it just like it didn't doesn't this is one of those games where it it doesn't even matter like for me if I'm winning it just matters if I executed my engine my plan my whatever the buildings in general are a lot more focused on that acceleration component and sort of like here's an additional thing you get from this building but keep it moving along um I think in large Parts I keep the game moving along right exactly yeah has that purpose now one thing you said just a bit ago nick uh you commented that on the loop that the most expensive building spots are the ones uh where you would slow things down like it cost three extra dollars to go onto this spot and it just makes everybody's Loop a little bit bigger versus some free spots that are off to the side and I've played this game five times now and what I've started to notice uh blatantly is is there's like half of the building spots I've never seen built on and you you've played this like 25 times n so that's why I'm kind of curious to lean on your experience there but like yeah they are three cost spots and and I always think about them but money is so tight in this game usually until like the last third to quarter that I just can't afford it like I even oftentimes can't afford the one money to go onto another spot but in particular those three spots and I like I really I agree with Anastasia like hopping from building to building just having these massive turns can be a lot of fun um but I I just I keep finding myself constructing on the same positions and going for kind of the same

19:46 combos even though there is some differences with the buildings I personally wish there was less jumpy in the game to cause more decisions of like do I go A or B as opposed to like ABC ABC um but even on top that I I don't know have you seen people build on those three cost spots I want to see it happen yeah I mean there's there's a tactical decision about like slowing other players down for doing that and it depends on what the setup of the game is I think there's a certain level of nuance there that requires just a lot more plays understanding of like what other people are going to be doing and paying attention to what other folks are doing which is like not something I would do in the first few times I I would be playing a game and honestly having played it now a bunch of times there's a lot of times where it's like okay it's not going to slow you down really significantly so I'm going to do exactly what you just said John the same spots over and over again they're obviously the best spots right like in terms of they're cheap exactly um but they still you know maybe work with my Loop or whatever um this does kind of segue a bit into like the the buildings in general are okay but also are one of my biggest criticism areas in the game so there's there's two things that I don't love about the buildings one is the communal nature of it is a neat idea there are two buildings of every type that are available the problem is that if the two of you build a building that I want to build then I actually just can't do that anymore in this game and so the game uh even as early as turn one

21:18 right the person in like third fourth seed or whatever might not be able to build the thing that they wanted to build because the other players did now there are alternate options of course other things that you can do but Anastasia said there are not really that many buildings so from a building perspective like you might just say okay well I'm not really focusing on the building strategy this game and you can play the whole game and build no buildings and and have that be a viable strategy so I'm not saying that it's essential but you you might just not get to play with a certain aspect by no choice of your own um the other thing that I don't like is that I think one of the buildings in particular is not balanced and like I I know that it's like really a dangerous thing to get inter say you don't think your game is balanc PR good at these games I've played this game 25 times and I'm convinced that this one building both theoretically on paper and in practice is just not okay can I guess what it is can I guess it's number two right the level two building number two a is what it is the objective in move building yeah the one that that lets you buy the uh the bonus tiles is it's too easy to build it's too cheap for what it does I think it is game warping and I'm honestly really surprised that I mean it could be like a perception thing but I I don't think so I've really tried to play around it I've tried to play other things without it all my highest scores have been to it all my losses have been to it like it's it's it's really uh it's a it's pretty game warping yeah I won

22:49 tonight and I leaned into it so just for like a little bit of context on the specific building it lets you purchase a bonus tile there's a bunch of bonus tiles in this game and they give you a variety of things victory points money uh call stuff out of your deck permanent certifications making your cashins better and yeah this one building just says go onto it spend two money and then get one of these bonuses which frequently give you money uh which could be even more money than you just spend and then you get to move your cowboy again and yeah it's like in this game like very first turn I built it uh right next to the train and then I hit it every single time I did I mean I didn't win by a mile but I did win with this and I think I've won every time I have leaned into this building and I like it's super powerful and it was really fun the first time I played it I was like this is so cool and then now that I've seen it like two or three times since then I'm like I wish it was a decision you know that's why like I wish it didn't have the jump or something on there like it just it's an auto thing like well spend two bucks to probably get two bucks back and get some points yeah I mean it's it's it's really interesting to to to focus on that building because it kind of speaks exactly to what Jonathan was saying and obviously what you're saying Nick which is like this particular building there are like it's a spot at the top of the track or the top of the loop and there's a spot right before the delivery that are like the two best spots to put it in because obviously you can you know immediately jump on it and then jump onto the building when you know you're going to have money at the top of your Loop or you can use it at the end of your Loop to just Auto use it and then

24:20 deliver so there's just like some obvious uses of it that like I've seen in almost every play my last few plays though it has been interesting because because of what we talked about the communal board you know if I played it three or four players the other two players have taken it and that means that I obviously am not going to take it and so I kind of when that hit me in one of my last games I was like okay like what am I going to do right and it kind of forced me into building the level one building which ended up being pretty strong for me more than I expected and then building upgrading that into the level three building gave me a worker and then suddenly that was one of the games I was referencing earlier where I had all these workers because I kept hitting that I was like getting two workers per Loop and I was like oh my gosh this is awesome and so it did push me to do other things I honestly can't remember if I won that game but I actually think that the fact that I can't remember if I won that game and it's still like one of my favorite memories playing the game speaks to the fun of what I was doing despite the building this is not me arguing that the building is not imbalanced I think I do think that it is really strong and it's there and but I do think that it does create if you're going to play this game a lot interesting opportunities to challenge yourself around it or to do other things with it and I like to think that there's maybe more to be done but man getting being able to buy those bonus tiles and then there are so many objectives that pay you back for those tiles and those

25:54 bonus tiles almost always help your delivery that just it really that is that is some strong stuff fortunately you could just not play with it you know you could flip the building over and go with the other one like this may be a little early to say it but like I'm totally buying this game I think this game is super cool I'm going to show a lot of people and I fully I fully expect that I might frequently to most of the time flip that building over to just not have that one in the game not not necessarily even because I think uh like oh it's you're you're definitely going to win I mean I think it's strong I just think it's uninteresting like it was fun the first time and now it's just like it's it's warping to the point where I'm like am I really not going to take this really awesome thing I guess I'm taking the awesome thing again like I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm sugared out man yeah I mean the whole thing might work or even be even be bad if it was like a cost one extra dollar to activate its ability or something like that you know like I I don't think that the concept of it is inherently a problem I just yeah actually from what I've seen it just it seems a little bit too undercosted as yeah yeah like even $3 instead of two because somehow I've like always just managed to have the money so like there there there are some interesting play in that that could be found but I think that you know I want to point out that like your first few plays exploring this game also if you play it two you can both take it and then go have a party with it right so like and that can just be what you do um I think your first few plays you're going to you're going to love exploring

27:25 with it and you're not even going to notice the overpower it's just going to be like okay let's know like explore and do all that and if you're going to play this game 10 times then yeah like now you're going to play it like all of us like where I'm going to be like I mean I was almost mad that I took it tonight cuz I was like I don't really want to like I I want to I want to go play and do other things G exactly what you said it's like I don't even care that it's good it's just like I want to be I want to do want to I want to do different things I you know but you did end up taking one nice thing I did end up taking it but one nice thing about this game is that there is a lot of different ways to play it there's a lot of variety in that setup of the loop the way the buildings come out we had a really weird flop tonight yeah honestly so that was like that changes the way of the game you I do think there is still some intentionality you pick an objective at the beginning of the game we haven't mentioned that but that almost immediately kind of makes you you don't have to complete it but in this game there's like no penalty for not completing objectives but and the points are really good on them too and the points are really good on them they're great you know and like that's what I was saying earlier with like deliveries are kind of the equivalent like you're even some of the best deliveries only give you two four points right and your objectives can be three four five points so there's yeah for things that you've already done yeah for things you're already doing right so there there is there is something just like really fun so like I know we're just talking about this building and all of those pieces whatever but there is something really fun about all the different ways that

28:55 you can play this game so I find myself often sitting down and being like what do I want to explore today like which way do I want to go like you know do I want tell me yeah what is the map telling me what what what is my initial hand telling me it still has the thing where you can start anywhere on the loop just like the other Great Western tra games so it's like today I started and did like an immediate nine delivery and the nine delivery happens to give you a free worker and I was like this is fire like you know and so like whatever it is that you're doing there's just so much more going on than just like oh hey there's there's this one super building like you know it might still be there but I might not even want to touch buildings this game yeah yeah that's that's very true so this might be a little bit deep in the podcast to bring this up but but I'm curious about what you all think about the theoretical concept of somebody never having played Great Western Trail before and you know because like we it's so hard not to compare and like we've done a ton of comparing we've talked about what this game does as well but we've all played a lot of Great Western Trail I'm also trying to like lots of people haven't played these games at all before and they might be coming into this completely new and I I think it might be interesting to to consider like what would this game be like for somebody who who has never played these before like maybe they played Dominion or Ascension so they like understand the concept of deck building in general that that lens seems interesting to me I mean it's so hard obviously yeah no I think it's I think it's a cool question it people are going to call this Great Western Trail light and they're right it is I already

30:27 have multiple times but it's not it's not a light game I don't think that like this is this isn't a Gateway that you go from Ticket to Ride or um you know something like that straight into this I think that's that's a little bit of a leap uh for for I would I would guess for for people I don't think it's like that they couldn't engage with it it's just that there's like a number of different systems every building has different rules about how they work there's you know four different auxiliary actions you have to understand the rules for all these Wern Pi Pi know workers do helps really get into the into the game play Super quickly um I don't think this this game's incredibly easy to load up even with its numerous differences if you have played one of the great Wern SK games I didn't even read the rules the first time we played it until like halfway through I just was like oh I get it and learned it as we win yeah and if you haven't played Great Western Trail but you are a gamer you're going to be able to learn the rules of this game much more accessibly and much more speedily than you would any Great Western Trail game by like a fair margin I think it's definitely a great intro if you were like how do I get my friends to play Great Western Trail you put this in front of them first and if they hate it then you know you're not going further yeah that's actually an interesting point like a litmus test slash uh like

31:59 stepping stone it's a stepping stone yeah yeah almost more so than even some of the other games we've talked about like um teranova and teram mystica I mean I get it's like I mean maybe it's similar to that but this this really I think dials things down a lot or distills it down into those Concepts like if they're intrigued by the loop like you know you've got them right like you've LED them and I'm been waiting allot to say that and I guess like just thinking about the uh the audience the you that's listening to us audre good anybody who's listening to the friendly High podcast will like this is not going to be an intimidating uh rules teach for that yeah but I also think that this game probably because I I don't know what for for myself but I think this game could be a lot of a very engaging experience for people who have no experience with these other ones I wish we had shown it to somebody the problem is everybody we play with has played great w Great Western sale but you know what though like I I I truly believe first of all I believe if you bounced off Great Western Trail like like frankly like Jonathan like I think or if one of the other iterations like particularly New Zealand like kind of brought you back or you really like some of those mechanics like I I think this is you're going to like this game I think this is if you like the core of great Wern Trail but there were elements of it that you know even some of the and other taxes and other things like or the

33:30 heaviness I think this is going to be great for you I think there's a reason that I said that it was like a gamer's filler you know and I think you're right like our audience anyone listening to an hour of us Deep dive into a game probably is is is the perfect audience for this because this is going to be your kind of filler I don't know though I I I'm kind of inclined I I think Nick you're right that maybe you can't jump from Ticket to Ride to this but with the right kind of gamer I don't know for me I think this is on like a frage level I think that if you can kind of handle I this is a reference that not everyone might get but if you uh if you played fromage another recent release that is a game that you know has a lot of gamery things in it but is in but is light enough and engaging enough that I think it's gonna kind of tempt people in the thing that you know forage has that this doesn't have is you know the cheese theme I don't know if I don't know how much the El Paso theme is going to call non- gamers you bring them this yeah you need milk first before you make the cheese right can I just say I recently I follow an instagrammer who raises cows and um the other day she was talking about her breeds of cows and she was like one of them is a cimol and I was like what it's real believe it or not at a game convention I met a guy playing this game and he was like I was the consultant the cow consultant on this

35:01 game and I was like what are you talking about he's like well they put the wrong cows in the first edition and so I I talked with Alexander Fister and said you should contact me D like good on them now they have all the correct cows for the correct places oh my God oh my God I freaking love it I mean if I was comparing I know it's a recent one but like the more I think about it the more I'm seeing River of gold as being uh a comparison you we did a podcast on that a couple times ago in fact in that one I was like this is what I want a Great Western Trail to be uh you know kind of a blunt thing they it about the Rondell and uh and I think this is I I think El Paso is actually there but you know they both play about an hour and I think they're pretty similar complexity as well so I I think I I think this one might do well like I'm just thinking about like it hitting the greater gaming sphere I I hope it does but I I also think it could I do think one thing that'll work against it is kind of what Anastasia was saying that like the theme doesn't necessarily scream anything the map is kind of like really like Ruddy dirt looking like it's not it's not terribly beautiful it's table presence not popping uh same W Trail yeah yeah it's it's gonna have to lean on certainly it's its reputation as a game I think more than the uh than the beauty of it that makes sense yeah I will say that as a game I think I think of the things that's really cool about this that you may be even getting from listening to us talk about it you know as in depth as we

36:32 are is that for such a I'm going to say quote unquote light game like there is a lot here there's a lot of strategies there's a lot of depth there's a lot of there's a lot of meat it it trigger you know I always love a game that triggers a bunch of discussion you know in in our Discord and conversations that happen around it like it it hasn't triggered a lot of of interesting talk about strategies and pieces for you know a a what might not otherwise a level of gaming weight that might not otherwise trigger that much discussion yeah I mean part of that I think is because we played asynchronously I definitely had a couple moments like I I had won dog walk while it was like almost my turn and I spent the entire dog walk like mentally mapping out the different options I was going to do and I got to my car and it was my turn and I just like sat in my car I'm like taking my turn turn on my phone I'm like yes I did it I did the right thing we slowly dragging Jonathan into the asynchronous world here he's this is this is new for you but uh this one has has has has helped open the door I do think another good comparison for this is probably Pirates of marra Kaio if you liked Pirates of mar Kaio obviously another Alexander fer game like another maraio is to this you know is to Pirates Mar Kaio I think pretty similarly as Great Western Trail is to El Paso I in a lot of ways Pirates actually kind of became its own game even more so but I think you could you

38:03 know you could argue that that is also true here I actually feel more similarities uh probably because of the loop and the map and things but I think it's it's another example of two games that can really stand on their own and I have found for example Pirates marabo to be far more accessible to share with friends than marra Kaio so and for people who've never played marra Kaio like i' that game has really stood on its own I think in in the intervening months since I've had it yeah yeah I mean it being so quick has made it very easy also to play it a lot and I know like people might have noticed a little bit of like annoyance that I have with that one particular building and maybe I feel like the buildings are a little bit jumpier than I want like maybe I wish the game was like 15 to 20 minutes longer on average than it is and I feel like if there was less jumping buildings maybe it would but you can't really fault a game for being nice and quick so that you could put a lot of reps in and then start to feel like you've done the done similar things a couple of times and I don't want to like overstate the similarity as well because like I've played it five times and I know that when I get this game it it's going to be in my go to game night bag for probably like a month or two I think the tempo they do the a nice job with when the game ends like it it doesn't overstay its welcome and I think it could it could very easily overstay its welcome if it went all just a little bit longer so I think they hit the timing of it yeah yeah I think that it is one of those games just like I was saying with the depth that that really rewards you for more plays you know it is I was just saying tonight I played a

39:34 cish strategy I did some other stuff but I was trying to get you know the the go get the highest level of cow and I was commenting that I was like oh it's not as interesting as doing the buildings but maybe it wasn't as interesting because of the way I played it and it showed me that like I bloated my deck and then I was like man you know I wish I hadn't bloated my deck so much trying to do that okay well there's so many ways to trash cards like so it's it almost like it's one of those games that you finish and then it kind of challenges you to be like cool how could I do that again and do it a little bit better or you know last another game I played recently I realized I hadn't really done anything with the train like I'd played it you know five or six times at that point and I never really interacted with the train that much and I was like let's see what the train does and then I was like oh my God the train is so cool like when you get up on the train it gives you all this stuff and like that's really cool and it's it doesn't immediately present it S as being as cool as say the buildings or some other things that you know you might kind of just immediately gravitate to towards but then once you kind of look at it a little bit more closely you're like cool this is just another way to play so I think it's just it again going back to that game that just like you were saying doesn't overstate it's welcome and then rewards you for playing it more I could easily see finishing this game and then being like do you want to do that one again like I think it's that kind of game it does seem like you need to hybridize your strategy like I've also tried in one of my games to go like just cow like all cows big cows and I and that was my

41:06 worst game score-wise and also probably my least interesting game and in retrospect yeah I think you got to work some other things in work a little bit of building or a little bit of train or or a little bit of just like heavy worker strategy with like I don't think big worker is really a strategy in the original Great Western Trail but like it kind of is here like I played a game once where I just went crazy the workers with the help of some buildings and yeah I think you need to like dabble and kind of come up with a a color mixture as opposed to just going hard on one thing and I guess adapting I mean Nick you mentioned it's more tactical so like I think in that game where I was like I'm going to go really big into the cows that hamfisted attitude is is not going to really work there I think you have to kind of be like well okay well I didn't draw the right cow well instead of being like dang it I'm going to make this happen and be like okay well what am I going to do now like how we going to adjust I mean the workers are are points and they're obtuse about it too where it's just like every worker is these points they're all two points or maybe three if it's the wild whereas like in the other series they're like buy a lot of the same one to get rewarded for it and you're like okay I guess I'll really narrowly focused then I think that might be yeah a honing in on why I like Al Paso so much I mean the speed all that kind of stuff that's all good but my biggest complaint I think about Great Western Trail is that I always felt like the game was asking me to do just one thing heavily and here it feels like that's been inverted and that's the that's the brain space that I I much prefer is is is dabbling various things

42:36 while focusing more on one thing but um but still really wanting to do a whole bunch of other things at the same time yeah yeah I mean I I feel the same way I think I've made my thoughts pretty clear on this this isn't one of those things where I'm like oh Al Paso is going to replace you know Great Western Trail for me or actually Great Western Trail New Zealand is the one that that that I've held on to but it it's definitely going to go on the Shelf next to it because it's just an easier game to get out and play and and it's just it's like I said earlier in the podcast like it's just it's just fun like you're you're going through it and you're like oh am I is this going to happen and exchange tokens are in this game and so you're just like having a lot of fun being like drawing from your deck am I going to get what I need and somehow in several games I played there's been some moment where it's like oh everything worked out magically and that was fantastic there's also been many moments where like things like didn't work out and then then I'm like ah but it's for the most part throughout the game there's just continually been these moments where I feel like everything in this game is kind of tuned to like making you feel good as you're as you're playing it whether that is those buildings that are always giving you good stuff or there is workers that have multiple things that can do and just as you learn the system it it's such a satisfying feeling to be like oh my gosh I have 11 and I really want to deliver 12 oh I have a worker I have a builder and that Builder if I pay

44:07 to money which of course I have I get an extra certificate and then I can actually deliver for 12 like constantly feeling like you have what you need or you can go and pray to the luck gods and hope you get what you need and you know whatever that that works out for you or not there's just there's a lot of really feel-good moments here that make it really satisfying I love that like you just said John and and you said earlier in the podcast Nick that you know hybridizing your strategies doing a lot of things is really benefiting and I like a game that asks you to do something and then says okay what are you going to pair it with to do that best like I did go Harden cows but I needed to pair it with something else to execute it best based on the setup we have based on what you guys were doing based on the choices I made based on the luck I was getting and it just makes for a really fun soup every time so um yeah I've just had a lot of fun with this one and um really enjoyed it and I think that if you like Great Western Trail or even if you didn't like Great Western Trail I think you should check it out because uh I think it's pretty good it wouldn't surprise me if people who are really into Great Western Trail might bounce off this well I guess this a question for Nick who I think so I I actually really I do really do think so um you mentioned the exchange tokens they are as their absolute best in this game and that is because the deck drawing part of it is so important and that's going to lead to what I am going to say is probably my biggest critique of the game that I think some listeners are going to hear and say actually for me that's a

45:38 positive but I think the luck in this game is really really high uh the the impact of shuffling it's always about shuffling your good cards to the bottom of your deck the impact of shuffling an early cow purchase to the bottom of your deck making it difficult to get those big important early deliveries the importance or the the penalty of shuffling your workers to the bottom of your deck there's really a double penalty for this happening because suppose that you get a pretty unlucky Shuffle and you shuffled all four of your starting workers as the bottom four cards of your deck it's incredibly unlikely this will happen but just bear with me for this example then when you go through the second Loop of your deck you're not going to get to do any worker actions except for ones that you buy straight off the board and when you get to the bottom of the deck because the workers instantly replace as you draw them you trigger a deck reshuffle so you'll put those four workers into play trigger the deck reshuffle and then not have those workers in your deck the third time around something like that like you might not do it with four but if you do it with two or you do it with maybe just even your wild worker is so incredibly hampering and there's nothing you can do about it there's no way to fix it you can't go out of your way strategically the the way that the duck shuffles in this game is more penalizing than any other Great Western Trail game by like a fair margin interesting I guess the the thing that that makes that tolerable is its length like if if it really all goes

47:09 south well it at least it's quick at least the suffering will be over soon and it's it's it's not like you can't play the game then like you're going to be hampered you're going to be not as doing as as big things as your opponent but you'll still be able to interact you could still you know you could still make choices you're just going to be very far behind and I think that that aspect of it is just it's important to go in with the acknowledge that can happen yeah it is absolutely there and it does add I mean I think it adds an interesting element if you like this kind of thing at making choices about when are you going to draw from your deck and are you going to cause a reshuffle and what are you going to put in and all of those things and I've enjoyed that added puzzle but I do think it like you said Nick sometimes the luck is just it's not going to work and it's going to trigger something you're going to be taking it's just it's it's all going to go south and you're going to get stuck and then you're like ah like and not when it when it it's not that every action in this game is important but it does sort of feel like it is in a game that is so focused on Tempo that you just you kind of want to be able to do something with everything that you're doing and there going to be moments like that in a game that has quite a bit of luck uh especially compared to the original yeah I mean as somebody who's not an expert at the original there a lot of times playing that two to two and a half hour game where I'm just like oh my gosh my car luck but I you know we're different people right and so like like I said I think I asked the question but I also

48:40 agree I think with Nick that like a lot of people I think are G to be like I love Great Western Trail I'm going to get El Paso and be like what did they do to my boy but then there's people like me who don't own any Great Western Trails anymore and it will own this uh like I I will probably only play this like like compared in the Great Western Trail Pantheon I will probably never play Great Western Trail non El Paso again unless they come out with another one that changes my mind because this just works so well for me and I'm really glad they made it I'm glad that there is now officially a Great Western Trail that that gets me excited and gets me really wanting to get it to the table and uh I I think I think I was the target like people who a haven't played Great Western Trail or B bounced off of it for a variety of reasons totally um yeah overall I have been having a really fun time playing this game I definitely don't think it's going to be I I tend to be like get excited and go really deep on a game and so this isn't going to be that game for me I've you know play maybe 25 times is enough for he's not going to go really deep in it he's just going to play it 25 times and anytime we want to but he's not going to go trying to be number one rated on BGA you know like you know okay goals yeah John beating me tonight really ruined that uh I know I you should have done unscored man you know better that's like me playing John on Yukata and Vikings like an idiot and doing what was I thinking um the but so it's a it's a fun

50:12 game I think it's a it's a it's a neat system I think that this I I'd love to see more game designs use this like Shuffle components of your game into your deck um not as like as essentially like as a way of an evolution of the deck builder genre of something that doesn't just go into your hand and then like get used as a card that you play but instead like comes out and gets recycled as it's almost like a double deck in some ways and even though I just groused about the luck component of it I do think there's something very interesting about that I think that the the Dual worker use in this game is really really really satisfying it's not complicated and there's just a large number of times you're like I need one extra dollar engineer eat like let's go later it's like really it's really nice when you're like I can figure out how to use this guy because I was jammed up and they they really help you out so when you hit those nice strides when your deck is it doesn't even need to cooperate with you perfectly but when it's cooperating with you like at a normal statistical Vel curve reaction I guess I would say then the game feels like it really hums uh but there are definitely games where and and you know in in the number of games that I've played there's some where I'm just like this is a SLO and once I fall behind it becomes even more and now I just like have to execute and I I know I'm going to lose like I just I have to play for another 40 minutes and the first couple couple rounds have like

51:43 pretty much determined the rest of this game and that's not great I think that the balance issues in this game are going to ultimately hamper it from being a really great game for me but ultimately it might be the version of great Wern trail that I'm most likely to own because I actually would play this casually with other people it's easy to table and that's not true for the other games yeah yeah yeah it's I mean kudos to them for like you said like coming taking pieces of the design putting together a truly unique and and and separate game like to make something fresh that we could explore and that is frankly more accessible to a lot of different people and a great Gateway into like we talked about earlier you like if you like this and you're going to you're going to Loop them in you're going to you you might be able to get a few more great restaurant Trail lovers you out there yeah well I think that takes us to the end of Great Western Trail El Paso you might not have had the chance to play yet because it's really kind of only in this one thing but if you have leave us a comment or if you're really excited tell us what you're looking forward to or what maybe sparked your interest in this if you're listening to the podcast version you can head on over to YouTube uh to drop comments in the section there thanks everybody for listening it was great having you today is that your yea I love that

53:26 bro