Scholars of the South Tigris - Straight Up Solo with John LaRuffa

[@bookaddict777]

Thanks for showing off the play of this one, John. I am looking forward to giving it a try!

[@JohnLaRuffa]

It’s such a fun game to play!

[@4815matt]

Thank you for the review, I'm eager to play solo once my game arrives. I noticed a few errors during your playthrough. Firstly, retiring translators can only be retired under the first four main actions on the left of the player board (the ones with the brown background). Also, during the rest phase, a scroll will only be placed in the Hall of Wisdom with if no scrolls are in a guild's column. Therefore, during the AI's rest phase, the scroll that you placed in the Hall of Wisdom would have been discarded instead. Hope these help.

[@JohnLaRuffa]

Thank you for the two clarifications! I appreciate it!

[@realdealastrology9]

Happy Thanksgiving, John! And thanks for this review. With these trilogies, I'm waiting until they all come out and then I'll get the best one out of the bunch. For West Kingdom, Paladins is the best (for me). Can't wait to see what the best of this trilogy will be.

[@JohnLaRuffa]

Happy thanksgiving. This one is a little better than Wayfarers, but I like that one a lot as well.

[@FamilyMcManus]

Your high praise combined with a good bot and heavy weight of the game convinced me to buy it. I will take your advice and print off the player aid from BGG. I'll wait until my pre-order for the Nucleum expansion comes in before I release this from hold. In the meantime, I'll play some more Viscounts and get Wayfarers back to the table. Looks like I did manage to beat the Townsfolk and "Upgrade" AIs on Wayfarers but I'm going to need a full rules refresh. Some games don't stick with me, while others, like Anachrony, Lisboa or On Mars, I could start playing almost immediately after a year away from them.

[@JohnLaRuffa]

That is quite a feat to beat the solo in Wayfarers. Good work!

[@klaus3856]

I had a hard time learning the solo as well. I had to throw away my first ten games due to a big error (I wasn’t taking the track bump every time I interacted with a scroll)

[@JohnLaRuffa]

Yep. That makes a huge difference!

[@wsiegel9539]

I really love this game and also had a hard time figuring out how the Bot translates the scrolls. Money and Gold can be tight. When you need a scroll but don't have the silver to transfer it or not enough gold to translate it. Then you have to look to the research track or scholars ... can I get the needed gold or silver there or should I rest? Do I have the workers or dice I need? So many decisions to consider, but so much fun. Worth the time invested.

[@JohnLaRuffa]

I am having a great time with it as well. Lots of great choices!

[@CarlosGonzalez-vp2ms]

Which you prefer, Viscounts or Scholars?

[@JohnLaRuffa]

Scholars! Scholars is probably in my top 5 favorite games ever!

[@CarlosGonzalez-vp2ms]

oh, nice, and your top 5 are????@@JohnLaRuffa

[@JohnLaRuffa]

@CarlosGonzalez-vp2ms tough to hem them in definitively.

[@boriskirov3953]

glad you are liking this one - this was a big surprise for me, after my disappointment with Wayfarers 😁

[@JohnLaRuffa]

I think this is probably a better game than Wayfarers but I like that one a lot as well.