Ziggurat of Ur and Artisan district

[jjgllg]

Everything else seems quite understandable in the edifice, but these two questions remain.

What does the "extra participation token" from Ur actually get you? quick thinking it would double the points benefit if an edifice is completed. However, as far as i count, that does not seem to be the case. Neither it makes possible to finish an edifice more easily, because the extra token does not count for the completion. So far i have never been able to find any actual points benefits from the tokens available with Ur, and scoring is very low overall no matter what you do with it. So far it just seems to be a very weak wonder especially on the night side. Anyone know more about this and got some decent results playing Ur?

Artisan district: It took me quite some time to figure out how other edifices work, but the artisan district seems very weird. What do you actually need to have to score points with it? i think i got points once, having all three gray cards. But how about the browns? do you need one of each single, one of each dual or one on each double? maybe all of these work. However i dont think i have ever seen anyone score points from the browns no matter what combination they have.

I would be very happy if someone could help. All respect, have fun everyone.

[swibat]

It's actually simple but counterintuitive.

Artisans is the points for ressources right? You need a pair of brown and grey to get 2 pts. So 4 for 2 of each, 6 for 3 of each. 6 for an age 1 project seems appealing but 6 resources cards all over the place is a lot. Coordination is tough. Besides, you'll likely play some in age 2 which is always a bit weaker. I think this project is quite bad. Especially since protection is so easy at 4+ players (just play the tavern, take your gold, keep it while loosing the card!).

Ur extra token means you virtually participate outside of the participation tokens, period. On the other hand, a successful project rewards the players IMMEDIATELY and not later. Same with the penalties. Permanent rewards only count at the end of the game, which is the case in the artisan example. But 40% of the different rewards (I said before "nearly every" which is wrong, oopsie) are only immediate : the direct "points" ones which are in fact military tokens, thus immediate, and the gold ones. So in the case of Ur, getting one of these tokens retroactively can be frustrating. 4 scenarios :
1) You build before (or simultaneous to) a success. That's the best case. You just get the reward, possibly twice if you also participated.
2) You build before a failure. You are protected, like when you participate. If you also participate, it does nothing more, just gold lost. Bummer. Try to avoid that for endangered projects.
3) You build after a success. If permanent reward, you get it. Points for wonder stages or brown/grey pairs in age 1, ressource discounts or blue collection in age 2, colors collection or guild doubled in age 3, shields in age 1 or 3, yes. Military token or gold in any age, no. In any of those cases, your late build does nothing. Oops.
4) You build after a failure. That's a catastrophy if you didn't participate in time (which is likely). You were punished and that can't be undone. Hence, you get nothing, even nothing squared. One useless token in addition to the penalty. Ouch.

I agree that Ur night is often trash. Too vulnerable to other people's decisions. No other first stage can be destroyed this way. The only way it wins is with a lot of help from the whole table. Plus the costs are kind of a mess (early stone AND glass, really? Both are end game things for the most part !) and make it way too slow.
Ur day, however, is pretty solid. It needs to pay attention and to react. When you arrive at second stage, you can guess pretty well what happens with each project. You can adjust, play safe (token from age 1 or preferably age 2), or risky (early age 3 token, which is an aggressive bet). Interesting choice. You can also decide to ignore a project while being protected against the most dangerous penalty. You can do a lot of things. In addition, the cost is very manageable AND compatible with red (early ore & some wood investment) and green (strong papyrus) strategies. Sweet. I recommend day side in almost every case.

[swibat]

After a bit of theory crafting (I'm preparing a very long post about this expansion, but without saying too much about the wonders so I might as well talk about Ur here), I can think of some rare cases where Ur night is to be considered. Mainly, you need to be very confident in being able to speed up your wonder build, and you need to be SURE that the projects are good for everyone no matter how well you do.

One ideal example comes to mind. You are between Alexandria and Gizah. Gold project in age 1 (solid and easy), Resource project in age 2 (people love these even when they are wrong, just like caravanserail), and the military token project from age 3 (any player squeezed between reds, which happens pretty much always, gets up to 9 points from this one from discarding the defeats). In this setup, I would actually pick night and try to play heavy yellow. Speedrun first stage thanks to my neighbors, participate if people are nice and efficient, and only protect myself without participation if they are not. I'm also likely to throw 1 or 2 cards at the end of age 1 to be ready for everything. For the late victory points, I'd just adapt. Just do what no one else is doing. That might work.

[swibat]

For the day side, please check this one out!
https://boardgamearena.com/table?table=759702887

Very funny explosion at the end even though I looked so weak. Hidden points are very strong psychologically, I found. There were probably some slight mistakes, though.

[jjgllg]

Hello, just came to thank you, I did this before with more in my message but for some reason it does not seem that it ever made it here.

[jjgllg]

Hello, guess i figured it out mostly, i have a perfect example game as well, utilising both purposefully ignoring the edifice to get my opponents to waste money on unfinished edifice while myself being able to get perfect balance on resources and getting maximum edifice benefits, while playing ziggurat of Ur. 72 points is probably my best score using any of the new wonders in edifice, and winning margin of 19 points was nice too. Sure it helped that some opponents could not play well, but still i did a perfect round myself with what opportunities i had.

Age 1 i played my favourite, tavern, and purposely failed the edifice, thus getting the tavern removed, but still having the 5 money which helps a lot.
Only way this could damage my score would be playing for the lighthouse later but i was not expecting on playing that and even then it would cost only 1+1 if i played it, well worth the early money advantage. I could the secure the 2nd edifice on first turn on age 2 from a weak starting hand, destroying green in the process. Now i had perfect resource balance overall, while still having health amount of money to carry on. Extra token for age 3, technically a 5 points turn on age 2, and later on age 3, just pure bonus for another 5 that i didn't even need to win.
Potential damage on failing the edifice on purpose on that game was 5 points for one of the players on age 1, and less for someone else. Very cost efficient way to harm your opponents early in the game.

Here is a replay of that game if anyone is interested: https://boardgamearena.com/gamereview?table=762867163

I also saw some interesting approaches on other games, very lucky edifice table for the ziggurat night scoring someone another 73 so the night side is not always doomed to fail. Someone scored 72 with Giza, completely ignoring red and other general strategy, losing all wars not even trying, but maximizing edifice scoring, for a commanding victory over both dominating green and dominating red players, so this really opens new perspectives on playing efficiently of your chances.

[swibat]

That absolute protection from the tavern is indeed funny. No other armor card can do that well.
Tavern in Edifice is heavely reinforced no matter what, but if Artisan's is there, then it's just the best age 1 card, period.

It doesn't exist in 3 players. One of the many reasons why 3 players is awesomely balanced in Edifice.

5 players project failure is rare (so few tokens), interesting. Gg, hopefully we battle soon.

Ur night, I was harsh before. I now think it's unstable. Hit or miss. But even more so than Babylon which has more options. Still dislike it : I like safe bets in this game.