Carnegie

Paul and Todd become 19th-century tycoons, balancing business growth and philanthropy in Carnegie by Xavier Georges and published by Quined Games! Give us a listen!

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
[music]

(00:20):
Welcome to replayable, wherewe go into depth on our favorite
tabletop games that keep uscoming back again and again.
I'm the Start Player Todd,and today I am joined by Paul
For our 29th episode,we will be discussing the
popular industrial revolutionera game Carnegie.
It was designed by Xavier Georgesand released by Quinnet Games in 2022.

(00:41):
Are you ready to crushyour competition, i.e. me?
I'm ready to be a philanthropist.
Oh, that sounds so niceand generous of you, right?
But first, I have to get themoney, so yes, I'll crush you.
[laughs]
Carnegie is a boardgame for one to four
players, inspired by the life ofAndrew Carnegie, as you might expect.
Players manage a company,and in so doing, have

(01:03):
to construct a network,invest in technology,
and then engage in philanthropy tobecome the most successful business magnet.
The game is played over 20 roundsusing a unique action selection mechanism.
The goal is to balancebusiness growth with charitable
contributions gainingthe most points from both.
So, what are the necessary ingredientsfor an industry-themed game, do you think?

(01:25):
Oh, wow. Well, growth would be number one.
OK.
I'm wondering if a map isneeded, or even if money is needed.
Honestly, I haven'tgiven this much thought.
I think you need a map.
I mean, if I thinkabout other games that
utilize it, and you canalways find exceptions,
but I feel like a map isusually involved, if not always.

(01:48):
And yeah, money.
I think money is important.
And supply chain.
I think for an industry-themedgame, I would really
want some kind of logisticalor supply chain mechanism.
OK.
So supply chain mechanism.
In Carnegie, we'renot really harvesting or
acquiring base-levelgoods and refining them.

(02:10):
We're not, but we are growing our income.
Yeah, that's true.
Like through the R&D andthen through those little sliders.
And you could say that theworkers or employees you
send on missions when they return to thecompany, that's a supply chain mechanism.
Yeah, OK.
I like it.
So let's talk about money.
Does this have the worstmoney in a game ever?

(02:31):
I mean, it's a step up from monopoly money.
True.
True.
OK.
So there is one worse.
It's not paper money.
It's little cardboardcounters, which I don't know.
I've played the game so many times.
I don't even think about it anymore.
All right.
But I mean, obviously poker chipsor iron clays, those are S tier, right?

(02:52):
I mean, if money is goingto be public information.
Yeah, I think the thing about this game isyou're never going to have over 25, right?
You're going to fluctuate betweenlike five and 25 money in hand.
And that's probably why they made thedecision to make them cardboard counters.
OK.
Interesting.
Now, 25, because that's the costof your fifth philanthropic project.

(03:16):
Right.
And generally you're not evengoing to get close to that until
the end of the game whenyour income is close to 15 plus.
Right.
OK.
I would agree with that.
You know, at the time of thisrecording, which is towards the
end of May in 2024, this gameis ranked pretty highly, right?
It's overall it's number103 on board game geek.

(03:37):
And it is the 69th ranked strategy game.
Why do you think it is so popular?
What does it do well?
Yeah, I think it does a lot of things well.
It's certainly a strategy game.
It's it's a gamers game.
It's very fine tuned.
I was reading that it was putout on beta on board game
arena for players to playbefore it was ever printed.

(04:00):
Oh, they made a lot of design changes,such as the initial draft of departments.
That's that's a new design based on someof the play data they collected on BGA.
So I think it's verypolished in how it
interweaves the fourdifferent kinds of actions,
human resources, management,construction, research and development.

(04:22):
So right, you know, youhave to human resources is
assigning employees toyour different departments.
And then management is settingup that supply chain we talked about.
So you can get incomefrom different regions.
Construction is how you grow your companyby doing these projects all over the board.
And additionally, how you can gaina lot of points at the end of the game.

(04:43):
And that R&D unlocks yourability to do construction and
your ability to get those specialone time income bonuses.
And they all interweavetogether very well, agreed.
And human resources was interesting becauseit's not just staffing your offices,
but you have a certain numberof movement points to get your

(05:04):
workers from the lobby to thedifferent locations in the building.
And I thought that was a pretty interestingpuzzle because you start recognizing that
some of the office locations are soremote that if you were to build there,
you might send someonethere and then just leave them
and be one of those places thatyou would never want them to go back.
Right. Or never sendsomebody there and you just

(05:25):
build that departmentfor the prestige of it.
Or never send somebody there.
Right. Exactly.
The deputy department.
Or you build the elevator,which allows you to
basically create a secondlobby in your building, right?
Right.
The second lobby is the way to do that.
But the game only has 20 turns, right?
Oh, usually there's just not enoughtime to make use of that second lobby,

(05:49):
especially at this deepcost of two extra cubes.
Is that what it costs toget that one in there?
Yeah. It's whatever the normaldepartment costs plus two more cubes.
Because it's a new lobby.
And is that exactly?
Is that like the bottom row of buildings?
I mean, are there more than onethat has such an added cost to it?
Or is that the only one?
No. Lobby is the only onewith an additional cube cost.

(06:11):
Got it.
Okay.
The other departmentshave costs of money to
basically train or standup people in those
departments, but younever do that with the lobby.
Right.I'm thinking about when you set them up,
when you set up the displayof tiles, like at the bottom,
and I think the elevator or thesecond lobby is one of them,
there is one tile in eachof the four categories.
So the four action types, you know, thereare offices that align to each of them,

(06:34):
but there's one that hasa different colored border.
Yeah. It's kind of purple andit signifies a persistent effect.
Yeah.
Oh, is that what it does?
So it's not an extra cost.
It's just a persistent effect.
Right. Like one of them is, Ithink, called communications.
And every time you do a donation, it'scheaper for you for the rest of the game.
Yes, it is.

(06:55):
Right.
Another one is a researchdevelopment writer,
where every time youincrease your transportation,
it's cheaper for therest of the game.
Yes.
And then the final one isan HR helper, I think, or no.
Right. Where if youbuild the office, you get to
automatically staff it froma worker in your lobby.
Yeah.

(07:15):
Okay, I was worried that therewas an asterisk on our last game.
If those persistent offices hadadditional costs associated with them,
because I know that I hadat least two of those, right?
I had the one for R&D being cheaperin the regions and also the HR one.
And I don't rememberpaying extra for those,
but neither one ofthose was an extra lobby.

(07:37):
Let me pull up the rulebook just to make sure.
It's okay. It doesn't changewhere I finished the game.
So don't worry about it.
Okay. So like we talkedabout, there's the new lobby,
which is the HR building,property management,
which is the departmentyou used exceptionally
well last time, right, isa management building.

(07:58):
Whenever you build adepartment, because you build
new departments duringthe management action,
that's when propertymanagement triggers and
allows you to movesomebody there for free.
Okay.
All right.
And then the D persistent effectis called telegraph operators,
which makes your researching of transportationcheaper for the rest of the game.
I love that the name isactually period appropriate to

(08:22):
write telegraph operators,because that was a thing.
All right. So let's talk aboutthat action selection mechanism.
So the way that you evenbuild the grid, right, the
matrix of how the actions are goingto progress, that's variable, right?
And what I mean is the order inwhich the regions get selected.
Right. I think I don'tremember the count, but

(08:44):
there's like seven tileswith front and back.
And you have picked four of them.
So it's supposed to be completely random.
How many of each regionis going to be on the map?
It could be as few as twoand as many as five, I believe.
Wow. How many times a particularregion gets an income phase?
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Okay.
And then so you select those fourtiles in the sides and you stack them up,

(09:07):
and then you bracket themwith the action selections, right?
And we've gone throughand named them off already.
And then when it's yourturn, you get to basically
place a gear on the one that you are selecting,and then everyone gets to follow you.
It's not like, say, racefor the galaxy where
the person who selectsit gets a privilege.

(09:29):
You just get the benefitof going first, that round.
Then everyone gets to follow you.
And then when you'redone, you move its counter
forward so that thenumber of times that action
gets selected theoreticallyis capped at five.
Although at the end of the game,you can choose to use it again.
You'll just have to advance another marker.
The next one down, one spaceas the game comes to conclusion.

(09:49):
Right. It's not really capped, butevery action has five incomes assigned.
And then if you take thataction more than five times,
you're stealing an incomefrom another action on the board.
And when you do that, you get theincome based on the one you stole or...
Right. Right.
So if you've completedall of the HR actions,
then the next time youtake HR, you're going

(10:11):
to trigger a move ofthe management marker.
Right. Which does the income,that's the next step under management.
Right.
So how do you like that setup andthat action selection mechanism?
Because as far as I can recall, I'venever seen anything like it in a game.
It took some time to get used to it.
I mean, I think that is the centralaspect of playing the game well,

(10:31):
is predicting when and in what orderthe incomes are going to be taken.
Because to actually make income,you need to have one of your employees
in the region of theincome that you're taking.
So if somebody takes anaction, let's say in the West,
and you don't have any employees in theWest, wah wah, you don't get an income.

(10:55):
So I really like how the game forcesplayers to... Let me back up a second.
The game is very headsdown for the most part.
You're just making your own company.
There are races to befirst to build somewhere.
There's certainly a race tobe first to take a juicy donation.

(11:16):
Right.
But this mechanic of onlyallowing you to take income,
if you have prepared an employee in theplace where the next action is being taken,
makes you look up and try and predictwhat all of your opponents are going to do.
So you can get the rightemployees in the right place.
Because certainly forthe first half of the game,

(11:38):
you don't have enoughemployees to go around.
You have to make some hard decisionsabout which regions to put them in agreed.
In fact, when you said thisgame was very heads down,
I was going to say,but a big part of it is
understanding whereyour opponents want to go,
and then hopefully getting someoneinto that region just ahead of them.
So that you can havethat opportunity for income.

(11:59):
Yeah, I guess it's more I could saythe rest of the game is heads down.
But the whole action selectiondetermining where income comes from
forces everybody to playheads up if they want to do well.
Right.
And it also means you can't justplay this game while the first time.
It's going to take a fewplays before you get it.
Well, yeah, and I think I'm still waiting.

(12:20):
And we've had several attempts,or I've had several attempts.
You understood it well,I think, to begin with.
And then you justcontinued to dominate until
at least a let, untilmaybe the last two plays.
Well, you know, let's talk abouthow we got this game into our group.
It was a secret Santa gift.
I had no clue this game even existed.

(12:41):
Right.
And so some eruditeperson who understands your
gaming taste had thisone selected for you.
Right.
I took it home.
I could not.
Usually, all I have todo is read the rules and I
understand how to playor watch a YouTube video.
Right.
I did that and I wasstill scratching my head.
So I played the solo game twice.

(13:04):
And then I brought it over to Al'shouse and the three of us played.
And I think at the end of thatgame, it finally clicked for me.
Got it.
And yeah, I've been doing well ever since.
Yeah.
And that one was funnybecause so it was gifted to
you as part of our group'ssecret Santa exchange.

(13:25):
And it was totallyunderneath the group's radar.
We hadn't talked about it, but I had seen,I mean, your Santa had seen that, you know,
it was doing well and ithit all the right buttons.
And then like the day that we were going tobe getting together and doing the exchange,
Greg posts to our Slack, hey,have you guys heard of Carnegie?

(13:45):
And I'm just like, Greg,what are you doing?
And I think Dave, who they'veknown because I had talked about it.
I remember.
Yeah, I talked it overwith Dave and Dave's like,
oh, don't worry, you'll be ableto play it whenever you want.
And I was like, Dave, what are you doing?
Which made me think that he was Santa.
Yeah.
He was knowledgeable of Santa's activities.

(14:07):
So yeah, that's how it came into our group.
And then I remember, soyou mentioned playing it at Al's.
And I think I had thesame reaction that
you must have duringyour solo plays, right?
It definitely wasn't clicking.
But I was fascinated by the idea ofthose slide out tabs and how through R&D,
you could slide oneout to the next step and

(14:29):
then get a new discthat you would use during
the construction phaseto add a network node
out there in the reach or of thetype specified by the slide out tab.
So you have homes,cash, industry, and bridges.
And they may have more elegant namesthan what the icons make me think of.

(14:51):
Yeah, it is housing, commerce.
Oh, there you go.
Industry.
I think I got that one.
Okay, good, good, good.
And finally, public infrastructure.
Yeah, no shot on that.
Okay.
But it was interesting that, you know,oh, gee, I want to get a token in New York

(15:12):
because I needed to getthe maximum network value.
But the only one that's left isbridges, I mean, public infrastructure.
And it's also, that was also likethe most expensive tab to research.
Yes, by far, because it givesyou points every income, right?
Whereas the other stuff onlygives you money or cubes.
Or I think the thirdlevel of housing is one

(15:33):
way to add moreemployees to your company.
Right.
Yeah, getting dudes,which I seem to recall
is also one of thebenefits of advancing your
e-transportationtechnology in the east, right?
Right.
And that was anotherinteresting thing about it
was that the transportationbonuses don't stack.

(15:56):
So there was somethingto be said for moving
the transportation tothe level that you wanted
that benefit and thenperhaps, you know, getting
a couple of incomes thatbenefited from that like
getting more workers beforeyou researched beyond.
Yeah.
And if you got to earningpoints too soon, that
on paper might soundgood because now you're
going to get points,but now you're also not

(16:18):
building up yourinfrastructure fast enough.
Right.
Which I think makes it more interesting.
Like it's another decisionyou have to make.
Right.
You know, the more we talk about it,the more I'm starting to like this game.
I got much closer to understandingit, I should say, which got it.
We've played it enoughthat I do understand it.
And yet I still have notbeen able to completely

(16:40):
execute a winningstrategy in this game.
Well, yeah, I think that's the major failingof this game is that there is no luck.
There's minimal chaos.
Well, we'll get to it.
Only what people want to put into it.
And so it is so highly skill based that ifsomebody is ahead of everyone else on the

(17:01):
curve, then they're prettymuch going to win every time.
Yeah.
No, I agree with that.
So with that in mind, I mean,the skill thing, absolutely.
But as you approach getting started,is there a preferred way to get started?
Like, should I always invest to initial,you know, out of my initial movement?
Should I always put two more guys in R&Dand get out to a fast R&D start so that I

(17:23):
start sliding those tabs outand increasing my revenue?
Or is there a better start?
What do you think?
I think it depends.
If we're talking about thefirst player, that's one thing.
But what's interesting is theyset the pace for everybody else.
Because the second player looks atwhat the first player did and thinks, okay,
this probably meansthey're going to take action X.
So I'm going to move myguys to take advantage of that.
And then the thirdplayer thinks, okay, they're

(17:45):
probably going totake these two actions.
What do I want to do?
Right.
And so it's a waterfall.
It's really interesting.
So as the fourth player,you just have to react.
But as the first player, I always putat least one person on construction.
I think the way to winthis game is to get income.

(18:05):
And that means getting as many discson the map as possible as fast as you can.
Right.
But when you construct,that means that worker
leaves the office andgoes out into the field,
into that region so that youcan place a disc in that region.
And you're going to select the disc basedon the type of node you're going to occupy,
whether it be commerce, industry,what have you infrastructure.

(18:27):
Now you've got to move aworker back to that office.
So is that a priority for you onall subsequent HR selections?
All the time.
All the time.
So yeah, I guess I think youguys asked me how I win so much.
I think the actual requestwas tell us how to beat you.
But yes, same thing.
I see. And so I triedto specify, in general,

(18:49):
the things I try to dothat work out for me.
So one is starting withthe right department.
Since I started using BG stats, Irecord everybody starting departments.
And I find that supply chain,the one that lets you buy
cubes for money is usuallythe department of the winner.

(19:09):
And when it's not, it'soften purchasing, which
is the managementdepartment that sends an
employee out for threecubes or eight bucks.
Okay.
And so we already talkedabout predicting what
the actions are goingto be and setting your
employees up to be inthe right color or region.
And then again, get asmany discs out on the
board as you can, whichmeans you have to research

(19:30):
and you have to havecubes to put those discs out.
Right.
And so my focus early game iscertainly going to be build and R&D.
And then what I like to R&D initially ishousing to get to that third step so I can
start getting morepeople into my company
because that makes mydecisions much easier.

(19:51):
Right.
And I mean, most ofall, it allows you to have
more employees out in the fieldwaiting for those income phases.
You don't have to predict as much whenyou have a full company full of employees.
Right.
So to me, the hardparts of the game are
deciding when and ifto put a third guy into
the HR building for more movement,I was going to ask about that, right?

(20:14):
And then how often to use those managementactions that send people out into the field
because the managementaction is the easiest
way in the beginning to get cubesand money, most importantly cubes.
I think you only need money earlyto stand up people and departments.
So like the constructiondepartment, you have to pay
three bucks, I think, tostand up every employee.

(20:35):
So that's the only thingyou really need money for.
Right.
The first third of the game.
But also getting cubes is difficult unlessyou have supply chain, then it's easy.
So that's when you want to focus onmanagement if you're really cube short.
And yeah, I love when I can.
If I have the extraguy, I love to put a third

(20:56):
guy into the HR departmentbecause it guarantees
I can move three guys intothe construction department
and still have moves leftover to do other things.
I thought HR was going tobe the often neglected office.
But here you are sayingthat it was something
that you activelyconsider putting a third
guy into so you have enoughmovement points to get right.

(21:16):
It's a timing thing.
I want to put a thirdguy in their most games.
It's just about when I'm able to.
And it's usually somewherehalfway through the game.
Yeah, I think that's beneficial.
Now there is an office thatgives you even more HR points.
Do you find that to be veryuseful or not really nines enough?
Well, I think you're referring to theoffice titled training and partnerships.

(21:40):
And that building is really interestingbecause you have to choose when you use it,
whether you want to send itsemployee out to the field for eight bucks,
or you want to get theeight movement out of them.
Right.
So any of these, like there's also anR&D building called Advanced Research
that sends somebody out tothe field to get more research.

(22:02):
And so I think it'sreally interesting to have
the ability to put peopleout on the board during
HR and research becausenormally people cannot do that.
So if you get anapartment that allows you to
put somebody into thefield during the HR or the
research action, thatcan offset the tempo of

(22:24):
everybody else and maybeget the jump on taking
an income that nobodyelse can take, right?
They're like the overpoweredbirds and wingspan
that allow you to do something foranother environment outside of it.
So take eggs when you couldbe taking food, for example.
Yeah, that's one way to think about itbecause we haven't talked about that yet,

(22:44):
but one way to screw up everybodyis to play this game destructively,
where you take the action that hurtseverybody else more than it hurts you.
That's actually a greatconversation piece
is easier enough timeto play destructively.
You only have 20 actions.
I don't know the gamewell enough, honestly, but

(23:05):
I think the game can be played intwo different ways, kind of like brass.
Yeah, I think just likein brass, you can either
play this gamecooperatively or destructively.
And when I say destructively, I mean,take in an option that is not best for you,
right, but has the biggestdelta between your

(23:26):
benefit and whateverybody else benefits.
Another way to say is you play the gamemarginally where you're just comparing gains
of yourself versusothers, but you might not
grow as much or youcan play cooperatively
where you're only considering how much youget and excluding what other players get.
And so if you playcooperatively, you're going

(23:47):
to have games whereeverybody has five donations.
Everybody scores maxtransportation and just huge scores.
But if you playdestructively or marginally,
the winning scoremight be as low as 60.
It can really get out of control.
I'm reminded of you describing yourwife asking to play the farming game.
And that was a great,and you told her, OK,

(24:10):
we're going to play this supercooperatively as cooperatively as we can.
And even then, I think itwasn't enough by the end of it.
She's like, oh, yeah, Iremember why I hate this game.
Exactly.
It's just that it's farming.
She couldn't do all she wantedto do, even while I was healthier.
Right.
That's pretty funny.

(24:30):
So if we go back andwe've talked about the
departments and prioritiesand how those can shift.
Late game, you might movesomeone, a third person into HR.
Maybe you don't need as muchR&D as important as getting folks
into the field and gettingthose final notes on the board.
How does your department selection?
So when you're actually doing themanagement option and you're able to add

(24:53):
buildings or add officesto your building, how
does that affect yourgame strategy over time?
Honestly, very rarely.
I think after two orthree departments, you
have to start placing thedepartment so far away
that it almost doesn't matterwhich department you buy.
You're not going to use it.
The only reason youtake it, I think, is either for

(25:15):
the donation points or tosteal it from somebody else.
Unless you have builta new lobby or you have
taken property managementlike you did last game.
Right.
Then that changes the whole formula.
But I think for mostplayers, you're only going
to use two or threeadditional departments.

(25:36):
So then, does that change the order inwhich you choose your charitable donations?
Like, should you rush toget the one that rewards
you for having, say,multiple R&D departments?
And then once you haveone of those, that gives you
the building path for thedepartments to try to take.
Yeah, I usually onlyspend early money on the

(25:59):
charitable donations forgetting to railroad level
transportation in all four regions,which everybody wants to do anyway.
Right.
Or the two points for everyhousing and commerce
project because that'spretty easy to get to 12 on.
Especially if you're putting threehousing out to grow your company.

(26:19):
Right.
You know, all the otherones, I would rather
save my money forbuilding up my economy,
getting additional constructionprojects out, paying to stand up people.
And then late game, startspending my money on donations.
So it can happen where you get like threedonations in the first half of the game.
Right.
And you just skip themall or you skip two of them.

(26:41):
Oof.
Because you know, you're goingto be guaranteed four at the end.
So I think most games I justplan on doing five donations.
One in the beginning andthen the four at the very end.
Oh my gosh, you just rocked my world.
I never thought about there werefour guaranteed ones at the end.
And you're only goingto get up to five usually.
Like you might get six, but because I wasalways buying those things when I could.

(27:05):
If I had the money and I figured I wouldjust worry about more money afterwards,
but I wanted to make sure I got theproject I most wanted in that moment.
Yeah.
I mean, when early game, you have to decidewhether you're taking money or cubes.
And cubes are just necessaryright to grow your company.
I was going to say that in our lastgame, I was making cubes easily.

(27:27):
And it was a result of which sides ofthe, you know, the slide outs I had chosen.
I think I had selectedthree B sides and an A side.
And so with little effort,I think I was making
two or three cubesevery time there was an
income, which meant Iwas swimming in cubes.
I was doing a good job ofanticipating the regions on that front.

(27:47):
Let's talk about the ability to choosewhich side of those slide out tabs.
And is there a preference?
Is there an actual starting strategy orare you just doing it for game variation?
Well, the B side has more discs on it.
The A side has less discs and more points.
And then the B side has more discs.
And then the ability to make terribledonations max out at 15 instead of 12.

(28:10):
And so just for themore discs, I always
pick the B side of eithercommerce or housing
because it's a low R&D wayto get more discs on the board.
Oh, see now that's justyour strategy right there.
Yeah, sometimes I pickthe B side on both housing
and commerce just becauseI want to have maximum
ability to get to small towns and smalltowns and then out to San Francisco.

(28:36):
Exactly.
Okay, we may need to get at least one moreplay of this so I can exploit all of these.
All of these nuggets ofinformation and wisdom.
All right, any others that we want toshare before we move on to the prompts?
No, I think we covered it.
Nice.
Well done us.
Okay, so then let's move on to the prompts.
Wait in complexity on BoardGame Geek Scale of one to five.

(28:59):
Again, no decimals here.
How would you rate thecomplexity of Carnegie?
So for me, I rated a three.
We talked about all their interlockingsystems and it's really hard to learn.
But I feel like once you learn all theseinterlocking systems, it makes sense.
What's the word we usedin the Donald X podcast?

(29:20):
Oh, it wasn't resonance.
Was it?
Yeah, I think it was.
You will say it is.
Let's go.
At least for me, itmakes sense that all of
these things lead to theother and tie together.
And the theme actually helpsthem make sense and helps
me remember what theymean and why they're there.

(29:41):
What I really wanted to say was thatthe theme informs how the design works.
And so it's even thoughthere's complexity that
the theme for me lowersthe complexity to a three.
Okay.
And I am on the opposite side of that.
Like it's not yetintuitive for me or it
doesn't resonate withme in that fashion yet.
So for me, I had it as a fourthat there's a lot to balance there.

(30:04):
And there is a good chance if you miss animportant observation like where the next
player is likely to gothat your engine can
stall and that happenedto me in our last game.
Like I was cruisingfor the first like two
thirds and then I gotto a point where where
I had sent workers wasmore concerned with
network building, but theyweren't generating income for me.

(30:28):
And suddenly I gotcaught up and I had a spell
where I was not really being productivewhile you and Greg were able to pull ahead.
Yeah, I vaguely recall,I think you missed
an income and thenyou caught us flat footed,
but we were able to use thebonus action disc, which in
a four player, everybodyhas it to do something else.
Right.
And that put us in aposition to make everybody

(30:49):
else flat or the othertwo players flat footed.
Right.
And when you said I caught you flat footed,it was only because I had used my token the
round before to do an HRaction and move my guys
so that I was set up to take whatever itwas, construction or something like that.
So then when I did it,you both were like, oh,
well, now we're goingto do HR with our tokens
and set up so that on your moves, you wereable to do the things you wanted to do.

(31:11):
And the rest of us were flat footed.
Yes.
And then there was Davewho was just flat footed.
Regardless of my turnfour, he had tried it now.
Right.
Okay.
So strategy, how muchopportunity is there for
strategy and long termplanning in this game?
What would you say there?
So I think it's a three.
You know, there's aton of strategy and your

(31:34):
early departments,your mission location,
your construction placements,your donations, they all matter hugely.
However, other playerscan and should get in your
way and force you topivot and change direction.
So if everybody'sfriendly, I guess in a
cooperative game, there'sa huge amount of strategy,

(31:54):
but the more other players get in yourway, the more tactical this game becomes.
Interesting.
Now I had it as a four.
I mean, going all theway back to the thing you
said about choosingwhich sides of the research
plot tabs to use, there's a lotof planning that can go into this.
And I'm going to leave it as a four, butI do recognize what you're saying that
in a game amongst equallyskilled people, you should also be

(32:17):
forcing someone to reactand not just stick to a strategy.
So for you, I canunderstand it being a three.
For me, it'll stay a four.
Yeah, you're not wrong.
I think it's terrible.
All right.
Well, here's one that we'reprobably going to agree upon.
And I'm going to go ahead and jump in luck.
How much do you think luck playsa factor, same scale of one to five?
And for me, it's just a flat out one.

(32:39):
There's no chaos in thegame other than which
offices get removedat the start of the game.
So this becomes afunction of do we describe
luck as being asbenefiting from a decision
or an incorrect decisionmade from another player?
Right.
I agree.
It's a one.
The only luck is the initialseating order after that.

(33:00):
It's all multiplayer decision making.
That's the chaos originis just multiplayer gaming.
Right.
Well, and then which offices getremoved at the start of the game?
Because that's true.
That changes things a little bit.
I think on our last game,the one that allows you to
buy cubes, that was one ofthe ones that got selected.
And so there was only one to be had, which.

(33:21):
Correct.
And because I was last, I got the only one.
Right.
You were last in turn order, so you got togo first in selection of the initial draft.
The initial draft.
Right.
Okay.
So theme, how much do you think thetheme has been integrated with this game?
Same scale.
For me, it's a two.
I think it's integrated well, andit helps me remember the rules.

(33:42):
But it's completely unimportant to thegameplay and something I never think about.
Right.
I had it as a three for two reasons.
The first one, like if wesay that it starts out at a one.
Okay. Plus one point forbuilding out your HQ building
and adding offices andhaving to use HR to staff them.
Okay.
That felt good.
That felt realistic and understandable.

(34:02):
And then the secondone being, I really did
feel like I was buildinga commercial empire
across the country and thenusing my wealth to be philanthropic.
Now the philanthropic projects,those are just Baldur Dash, right?
They really don't alignwith being charitable.
How many offices ofmanagement did I create?

(34:23):
It shouldn't be a charity.
But the idea that youwere donating money and
that became moreimpressive the more you gave,
which was based on howmany prior projects you had.
The the magic reason is thatyou're educating all those people.
You're employing it.
Oh, okay.
Sure.
That's a three.
So favorite player account.
What do you think it's best played at?

(34:43):
Like we talked about, it's always 20 turns.
And so I prefer playingthis at four players for
maximum uncertaintysince it is a luckless game.
Also, four players givesevery player the action
choice tile, which Ithink adds more chaos.
So that's my pick.
Okay.
That makes a lot of sense.
I had three, but it was onlyfor playing time considerations.

(35:05):
But I guess if you have the samenumber of turns, it's really, yeah.
So three player and20 turns, two people are
going to get seven first picksand one person's only getting it six.
One person's not getting an equal number.
Right.
So that one person is the only onewho receives the action choice tile.
Right.
Okay.
I'm going to come overto your side of the house.

(35:25):
I now think four is better.
Same number of turns either way.
So it's not like you're savingtime by having fewer players.
A little bit, but yeah.
A little bit in that the gamestate doesn't change as radically.
So you have you're more likely to pickup and not have to reevaluate as much.
But no, I agree.
I think four sounds better now.
So least favorite player account.
So sticking within the publishedrange, which on this game

(35:47):
was one to four, what didyou have as your least favorite?
Two player.
It's just a chess match.
There's pretty much no chaos.
Right.
I had the same thing.
So two player least favorite.
But then again, I haven't played it.
You know, you're theone that owns the game.
How's the single player?
How do you how do you enjoy that?
It's great for learning.
You know, you can play single player onBGA and it's a fun way to spend 30 minutes.

(36:08):
Okay.
So then actual playing time.
So boxes can lie and the playingtime on this one is 90 to 120.
So an hour and a half to two hours.
What do you think about that?
Is that an accurate assessment?
Yes.
Extremely accurate.
We have consistently been clockingour games at 30 minutes per player.
Yeah.
So I'm actually finding this tobe an interesting prompt for us.

(36:31):
The last few gamesthat we've discussed are
actually pretty closeto the published time.
So I don't want to say across the board.
I'm starting to get moreconfidence in the published times.
But right.
But compared to what Iused to think about it that, oh,
this only ever happenswith the play testers
who were experts inthe game and played it,
you know, 30, 40 timesbefore it ever was released.

(36:51):
I'm trying to feel like theseestimates are pretty good.
All right.
So there is an expansion to thisgame called departments and donations.
And this looks like it ismore than just a promo.
Do you know anything about it?
I mean, I don't believe I know nothing.
Yeah.
So it has four modules.
It has a notepad to customizeyour starting resources.

(37:12):
16 new departments.
So two of each and hasnew donations and then it has
some optional rules, whichOK, let's put it this way.
If someone listeningto the pod has a strong
feeling about it, let usknow in the comments.
But we're going to move along.
Most recognizable comparison.
What's the highest ranking gamethat reminds you of Carnegie?

(37:33):
There's not any really.
So honestly, I had topick clans of California.
OK.
Your network building.
You're making an economy.
There's production.
It's pretty recent.
It's pretty well liked.
So I thought there was like an obvious one.
So I think it's interestingthat you feel there really is it.

(37:54):
I mean, there reallyisn't anyone exactly like it.
But for me, Power Grid comes fairly close,
where you're building outyour network and you're able
to block people by gettingahead of them in cities.
You're improving yourgeneration capabilities.
You're buying things toimprove your generation.
There just is a lot more calculation thatgets done in Power Grid than Carnegie.

(38:16):
Yeah, Power Grid is a great pick.
I don't know why Icompletely blanked on that.
Well, I did have a backup justin case you had seized on it.
Did you have a backup?
I was my backup was nuclear, but I reallydon't know if that game's them played it.
Got it.
So my backup was Barrage.
I thought that one had anovel take on network building
by building up the dams andcontrolling the flow of water.

(38:38):
Both games feel like theyare a new and novel take
on industry that I hadn'texperienced previously.
Got it.
And for what it's worth, Dave,who was unable to join us today,
had picked Hanzatutonicawith route building
in the idea of being in the rightplace when scoring was triggered.
So let's recognize Wolf Comparison.
What did you have for that?

(38:59):
So this is a very strongassociation for me.
The game is called Space Station Phoenix.
And I think of it as Carnegiewithout a map or shared actions.
Each player is building a spacestation, which they then have to man.
Much like your company in Carnegie.
Actions are only performedby the active player.

(39:22):
However, the gameSpace Station Phoenix has a
diplomacy bonus whereif you have invested in it,
you get to take actionswhen other people take
the action associatedwith your diplomacy bonus.
Right.
And so overall, Space StationPhoenix feels like a streamline version
of Carnegie in space to beat least Carnegie in space.

(39:47):
All right.
So it's a good thing Davewasn't here because that was
also his selection and hedidn't have a backup listed.
So two votes for SpaceStation Phoenix in absentia.
I went with for us whatturns to be an old chestnut
has worker placement, networkbuilding and movement points.
And that would be in on.
But I like Carnegie a lot more burn.
So house rules, do you have any ideason how you would improve the game?

(40:14):
I do not.
I think it is a finely tuned machine.
So one of the things I thought might beinteresting is the concept of tech trees.
So there is there are no prerequisites forthe order in which you construct buildings.
You could say that there is an order to the
transportation in eachof the regions, right?

(40:36):
So the regions have an orderin which you can build things,
but really it's just advancingalong that particular track.
I thought the game could be interesting ifthere was some combination of buildings
and perhaps regionaltechnologies that created tech trees.
Interesting.
Probably not going tohappen, but that's okay.
So if this game is being played at gamenight, what do you want to play afterwards?

(40:57):
What's the best double featuregame that goes along with it?
Well, I wrote this down a whileback, but for me, it would be you nod.
You know, like you said, it's Carnegie,
but you get to trade tea on a map withemployees, gifts, bribes and auctions.

(41:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
I chose Furnace. Forme, a lighter game and it
still has industrialistbuilding up a company.
Only this time you're managingresources and products,
but the industrial era vibe isdefinitely still there in Furnace.
True.
So what feature of the game still standsout to you and still will be in quotes
because you know, thisgame was released in 2022.

(41:38):
What has aged the best for you?
I'm not sure, but I have to shoutout to the sliding project devs.
I think they're kind of neat.
Yeah, that's what I had, right?
I love those slide uptabs that not only tell
you how far you'veprogressed down a track,
but they also controlyour resource generation.
I thought that was really well done.
So what feature of thegame now disappoints?

(42:00):
One may not have aged as well,and you can't say the entire game.
Yeah, if I had to put a finger on it,
I think it would be the timeline of how theactions define where incomes are taken.
You know, that's thecentral aspect of the game,
and it's the reason why people whodon't like the game just won't play again.

(42:21):
Right?
Okay.
For me, I think it's,I think it's the theme
in a way that I realized that Andrew Carnegiehimself was very much a philanthropist.
And while disguising theendgame bonuses as charitable
donations was clever,it just felt so pasted.
And I get a very puzzling feelingfrom that aspect of the game,

(42:45):
but I don't get a lotof excitement from it.
It's not like, oh, hey, how I get to scorea point for every guy I have stood up.
You know, it's like, okay, whatever.
So I prefer the, for somereason, and it's almost
the same mechanism if Istep back and think about it.
But if you think aboutthe awards and whatever
the other scoring thingis for terraforming Mars.

(43:08):
Oh, milestones?
Yeah, the awards and milestones.
If you think about it, those are close tothe same thing, especially the awards.
And yet those are more exciting probablybecause they have different names.
Well, I think the awardsare exciting because
they are an open question asto who's going to get them right.

(43:28):
These donations, you lock it downearly at its ears for the rest of the game.
Yeah, it's like a combination, right?
It's not really like the milestonesin terraforming Mars because those,
you can't attain untilyou have achieved them.
So these are open and the donationsare open ended like the awards,
but they are closed likethe milestones, right?

(43:50):
I can do a donation inCarnegie saying that I'm going to
have the most managementoffices by the end of the game.
I will be the only one who has it.
It's closed, but it's openended in that I still have to try
to maximize my score, get atleast 12 points out of it, right?
And then that createsa follow on discussion
of is that take us back toconstructive versus destructive play.

(44:11):
Is anyone going to tryto jump in ahead of time
and prevent me fromgetting a management office?
Hard to say.
So did this game replace a previous game?
No, no, this game was a surprise.
Okay.
Well, yes, it was a surprise.
Wasn't on anyone'sradar except for Santa's
and Greg's the day thatwe did the exchange.

(44:34):
I would say that for us, it replacedRussian railroads for a while,
although given a choicetoday, I would definitely
go back and play Russianrailroads at Carnegie.
So has this game since been replaced?
And if so, by what?
For me, very much so.
Space Station Phoenixhas replaced Carnegie.
Yeah.
I would agree with that.
And at the time that I wentthrough and prepared this list,

(44:57):
I would say that Carnegie wasstill pretty new and nothing had
really taken its spot with KutnaOra still waiting in the wings.
Now that we've played Kutna Ora, I don'tthink that it occupies the same space.
That would not have replaced Carnegie,
but I thought they made for agood double feature night last week.
So soundtrack.

(45:17):
What music would you want tolisten to while playing Carnegie?
Yeah, I don't know.
I would just honestly,I would just listen
to classical music, maybesome Haydn or Bach.
I don't really have a strongsoundtrack association.
I'll let you take this one.
Well, mine was also pretty vanilla.
I just said pretty much anythingby George Gershwin, right?

(45:39):
Summertime, Rhapsodyin Blue, any one of those,
just put on a Gershwinsoundtrack and let it roll.
It would work for me.
A better curve.
There it is.
So rating on board game geeks scale of nowone to ten, how would you rate Carnegie?
I still haven't rated it at a seven.
Okay.
And on board game geeks list, that is good.

(46:02):
Usually willing to play.
And I had it down one notch.
I had it as a six, which accordingto board game geek means okay.
I'll play it if I'm in the mood.
I have my own take on the ratings.
And for me, a six is it's above average.
I'll play if I'm in the right mood.
It could be better game ifplayed with the right group.
I think if everyone was enjoyingit, it could be a better experience.

(46:26):
Yeah, honestly, I might lower my rating.
Are you going to join me at six?
Eventually, I think I will.
Okay.
All right.
But let's take a stepback because that's where
we are now afterseveral plays of this game.
What was its high point for you?
Was it always a seven?
Was it ever higher than a sevenwhen you were first experiencing it?

(46:49):
No, it was not.
I guess what I'm trying tosay is what is the duration
of enjoyment from thisgame before it fizzles?
Yeah, I mean, you'releading the witness here.
I am.
But I mean, I already told you this.
I really, really like this gamethe first few times I played it.

(47:11):
And then I still liked it thenext several times I played it.
But after about 10 games and the fact thatI think Space Station Phoenix replaces it,
I just don't really see myselfplaying Carnegie anymore.
Right.
So 10 games, that should be a new metric.
I'm not ready to add it to a prompt,but like, what is the number of games,

(47:32):
a number of playsyou're going to get out of
a game before it fallsout of your rotation?
Yeah, that's a great questionbecause I mean, a lot of people I know
through board game geek neverget the 10 plays of the game.
Right.
Yeah, it's so very true.
When there are so many gamesout there, especially if you have,
you know, a group of friends, sothe library is larger than your own.

(47:58):
And several candidatescan be brought to each night.
It can be hard for games to havestaying power in that kind of environment.
Very true.
What about you?
So I had it as a sex, as I said.
And however many gamesdoes it have for staying power?
Let's see.
I would agree with that.
I don't have the solo games that you have.
So I've played it six or seven times now.

(48:19):
And I still feel likethere's one or two left.
You know, I've yet to win the game.
So I think when I finally,it finally gels with me.
And I feel like I'veunderstood it, solved it.
Yeah, at least understood it well once.
I'd be willing to set it aside.
So I still want to get it to thetable, you know, once or twice more.
Just to just to see what it feels liketo have everything working in concert.

(48:40):
But unfortunately for me,at least according to my
logged plays, I'm actuallygetting worse at the game.
So the first three times we played, Iwas like second, second, second to you.
And then I had like athree, four, three finish
on the last three orfour or last three games.
I'm not getting any better with it.
Which means is the game replayable?

(49:00):
Our final question leading the witness,as you say, is Carnegie replayable?
For me it was, but not anymore.
Yeah, so it's a nuanced question.
And I think it'sinteresting that, you know,
we've gotten to a placenow where this game
was really replayablewhen we were starting.
And we were excitedto bring it to the table.
And then it ran its course.

(49:23):
And like I said, I wouldgo back and play it again.
But I'm certainly not going to suggest it.
It's an interesting story arc for Carnegie.
For us, yep, within our group, absolutely.
All right, any parting thoughtsabout this game before we move on?
Just to give space station Phoenix a try.
So the next game we're goingto be doing, no, I'm kidding.

(49:47):
All right, so that'll be thefinal action that we select.
And we know we'vecompletely filled the charitable
projects board, which weactually did on the last game.
That was amazing.
Yeah, that's unusual, isn't it?
It is, Terry.
Yeah, so for our nextepisode, we'll take a
look at a classic thatoften gets overlooked.
So thanks for being available today.

(50:07):
Glad we were able to get throughthis and looking forward to the next one.
Yeah, what is it?
Do you want to signoff and then I'll tell you.
Yeah, thank you forlistening to replayable.
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(50:31):
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[Music]