Yokohama Roll & Write | Solo Playthrough & Review

[@avardamir]

I tried to post questions on BGG forum but did not get any reply. What if the row of the chosen dice is already full? The rules say you cab modify the dice (I assume modify up or down by only 1 value until you come to available row). And for example, if the chosen dice is 4, but full, can I modify it to row 5? And then adjacent row is 6 and 3?

[@CardboardEast]

That’s a good question! It’s never happened to me though, so I’ve never had to deal with that situation 🤷‍♂️

[@jamesroy007]

Why you could circle the employee anywhere you want in Phase 3?

[@CardboardEast]

Thanks for watching. You circle employees equal to the value shown on the card you chose in phase 2. But there are restrictions. 1. If the row matches the die number, you circle 1-2 employees. 2. If the row does not match the die number you chose, you circle 0-1 employees. 3. All circled employees in step 2 (above) must be adjacent to another circled employee. Adjacency means it is the leftmost available circle & touches another circled employee above or below. Hope that helps!

[@jonsolmundson1550]

​@@CardboardEast Was giving this a shot last night, and with the English rules provided on BGG I don't see the requirement for adjacencies to "touch another circled employee above or below". The rules say you must draw circles in adjacent rows "either up or down" - but don't indicate a requirement beyond that. It just seems that you have to snake the employees from your dice number to wherever else you want them. So, say if you roll a 4 with 5 employees on the card, and you want one employee in 0, you'll need to place one employee each at 4, 3, 2, 1 and 0 to achieve that. No skipping rows in between. The Employee bonus doesn't stipulate a requirement for following adjacency rules, so I think you can actually put those bonus boys anywhere. All that said, I haven't yet tried to have a go at the Japanese rules with my dictionary, so perhaps I'm missing a clarification in the original.

[@CardboardEast]

@@jonsolmundson1550 I agree that it’s a bit vague there. The gave examples of other things but not this core mechanic, which is slightly disappointing. The translation was posted by the artist of the game. I think the problem is the lack of clarity in the original rules and not the fault of the translation. For a core mechanic like this, there should have been a pictured example.

[@avardamir]

Hi, I am stil t confused with allocating the employee part. I get the idea that you can only fill employees in a row with matching dice AND/OR adjacent rows (top or bottom) from the matching area. So if for example the dice I choose is 4, you can only fill employee on 3-5. If you can fill on any row, the rules should not mention it as adjacent row, more like "allocate 1-2 employees to matching area, otherwise 0-1 employee" What is weirder is that they even mention 0 (or range 1-2), why would you want to allocate only 1 circle if you can get a max of 2? My understanding is that you may spend 1 value of employee to draw 0-2 circle in matching area. So if you have 2 value employees, I could spend both to draw up to 4 of the matching area. But if I draw on adjacent area (directly top or bottom row of the matching area), I only get to draw a max number of 2 circles. Confusing.

[@stealthyshiroean]

So a few things. First and foremost, Asian American here representing! Also, I live in Asia too lol. But coincidentally enough, I live in Japan. Anyway, so my questions. I'm assuming you probably don't have the answer to this since you don't have the original Yokohama in your collection, but you wouldn't happen to know where I could find a copy (English preferable but Japanese is okay)? I've been searching around. Can't find any on Amazon Japan and there is one on Amazon.com but it's for about 300 bucks or something. And Japanese boardgame stores isn't really a thing where I live. Would more than likely have to take a trip to a big city for that. Really want the original Yokohama but it looks like I'll probably need to settle for Roll and Write or Duel since I can find that on Amazon Japan. As far as Yokohama Roll and Write goes. Thanks for the in depth playthrough and review (got yourself a sub!). The game itself seems a bit confusing. The boardgame theme really pulls me in though because I'm greatly interested in Meiji Japan. That being said, I'm like you and would like a bit more competitiveness in my game if I were to play something like that. The 'start player' token is a good option but is there some sort of variant to allow for techs to be pulled off the table? Or would that be disruptive to the flow? I'm guessing maybe it would be if you had more than two players. Perhaps if you were to increase the number of techs to the number of players.

[@CardboardEast]

All of those are good ideas! (but need to be play tested to see if they're great) Thanks for the sub! Actually, the original shouldn't be too hard to find. At least, getting a Chinese version has always been easy for me. I've been holding out for the KS version; however, I think I may just go for the Japanese by now. I usually point people to amazon.jp, but there should also be 2nd hand copies on BGG as well. If you're really craving the game, I could help you locate a Chinese copy and send that out to you. All the components should be in Chinese (which is odd thematically) but I believe the game is language independent except for the tech cards. But the rulebooks are all online and you could always sleeve the cards with translations in the sleeve ;) (just hit me up through my website's contact page) happy hunting! and keep gaming ;)

[@stealthyshiroean]

@@CardboardEast Thanks for your help! Actually, I took one more look on Amazon.com and actually found one. Have to pay the $20 shipping but hey, still got it and for under a hundred bucks so that's a win in my book. Gonna take a month to get here but my birthday is beginning of July anyway so happy birthday to me haha. Maybe one day I'll get the Japanese copy for the original version but my Japanese definitely isn't good enough and I figured it'd be a little annoying. The translations with sleeves is a good idea though! Hadn't thought about that.

[@avardamir]

I am not sure I am following about pulling tech off the table. What does that mean? Playing the game without techs?

[@stealthyshiroean]

@@avardamir To be completely honest, I'm not sure what I meant anymore without rewatching the video lol