Very initial thoughts on Chu Han
I played Chu Han for the first time last night1. I don’t love Tichu like many of my readers, but I respect it and suspect I play reasonable well (for someone who has only played a few dozen times). And I think it goes without saying that Chu Han — like any of Tom Lehmann’s games — is probably deeper than most people suspect. So even though I figured I might only play it a few times, it was an auto-buy.
And once or twice, I picked up my hand and said “Ah, here’s my plan.” But mostly I’m left wondering:
- Should I take a writ (to draw more cards) and possibly give my opponent more points to improve my chances of going out first?
- Does taking a writ actually improve my chances of going out first? (Or saving the hand, I had a late hand situation where I needed to take a writ to stop my opponent from going out and did a quick estimate on the odds of drawing a card to save the hand. But in the early game, it is likely to difficult to estimate)?
- In reality, the answer is going to be “it depends on the situation,” which leads to the question what are the factors it depends on, in what order?
Given the playtesters and ‘Special thanks to’ in the credits, some very good card players have been thinking about this for a while. Since quite a bit of what I am interested when playing games is exploring a system, I’m looking forward to this.
- My “No prototypes” rule strikes again! ︎
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