I love the production on this (especially the colour coordination) and it was an entertaining playthrough. I recently bought the big box version of the game and it's really good.
So clever yall wore dresses, jewelry and nails matching your token colors, making it super easy for folks to follow the action, even in the overhead view just seeing hands. I'm thinking of getting this game now. Lastly someone should have made a Coffee grinding pun.
At 16:51 you CAN use the Tavern action to take a ruby from the Coffee House. It can come from any of the 3 ruby tracks. Great video by the way, I enjoyed watching 3 different strategies explored from the start. I think in Istanbul you can have a starting strategy but the game evolves as you play and you need to be flexible so even if you start with an intended strategy, you'll find yourself going on alternate routes because it's what the game demands, as we saw in this playthrough. Coffee was pretty strong in this game because of the layout but there are almost always things you can do to counter other players which is why Istanbul is more interesting toe than most Euro games.
Thanks for watching and commenting! We also appreciate the clarification; though we are pretty sure Jackie would not have considered taking the ruby from the coffee house even if she knew she could lol.
5 years late but McKenzie is gorgeous! Love board games and honestly seeing you 3 ladies demo board games is really enjoyable. You all three have such great on camera personalities 😊
I really like this series and I like the idea of illustrating different strategies. But I would say maybe walk through the idea behind the strategy and why is it supposed to be viable. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for your words of encouragement and suggestion! We learned so much from our first season based on the feedback and if we do a season 2, an extended recap segment would be added to each play-through.
Obviously you MUST abuse backtracking to minimize wasting time at the fountain. My fav strat is to camp out near the Police station and just abuse my family member ( don’t take that out of context ) to save time crossing the board. Ya, you give enemies free money, but you save soooooo much time.
Thanks for watching and I totally agree! It's against my principle to use the fountain spot 🤣and the family member (aka the drunk uncle lol) is super useful for those far away spots.
My one problem with Istanbul is that it is way to easy to just buy Rubies and there are so many that you are probably going to win if you are first to it. (Haven't played with the expansion, might fix this for all I know)
Thank you for watching! Yes, if only one player buys all the rubies then that player would probably win. That's why it's important to do some necessary blocking and hate-buying when the time is right lol. All the expansions make the map larger and add another way to earn rubies thus provide more balance and variations.
At 14:45 the red player played the post office in a wrong way. Is it allowed to discard a card and then draw it again in the same round like the red player did with the “+ 2 coffee card”?
Thanks for watching! On page 5 of the base game instruction regarding bonus cards... you can play any number of bonus cards on your turn and discard the played cards face up on the Caravansary. When you are at the Caravansary, you can take them from the top of the face-up discard pile (base game instruction page 6). So it is legal for the red player to spent the card, discard the card, then pick it back up on the same turn.
You went until 6 rubies ? I thought 6 rubies was only for the 2 players game. With 3 or more players I think you only need to collect 5 rubies. (Note: maybe the moka extension changes this, but I doubt it).
Whenever you collect an assistant by just walking to the place, you are not allowed to use the action of this place. Atleast, that's how we play it. Otherwise you could just jump between two places all time (like tea house and wainwright or black market and sultan's palace), block it 50 % of the time for others (who don't want to pay you) and rush towards winning the game. It does not explicitily tell you this rule in the script, but it says you may use the action of a place, whenever you're leaving an assistant.
The rulebook does not state that if you are picking up an assistant you may not perform the action. Picking up/dropping off assistants happens in the movement phase and taking the action happens in the action phase (seperated by encounter phase) so they do not seem to correlated. To us, figuring out how to maximize the efficiency of one's route so they never have to visit the fountain for a wasted turn is part of the puzzle of Istanbul. We do agree that sometime it can be a bit frustration when a player just bounce between a couple of locations the entire game so we would make sure that when we setup the tiles we'd separate these possible combo locations so that there are at least 3 spaces between them.
I think you are wrong. You can play the action when you leave an assistant OR when you pick up an assistant. This is explicit in the rules. There is no doubt about it. Going back and forth between places is a huge part of the game. If you go to the fountain, it usually means you are wasting a turn and you didn't plan your route perfectly. Sometimes you have to go to the fountain, but you should try to avoid it, as it is usually better to do something else. By the way, just jumping between the same 2 places all the time will not work. But it is great when you can go to a first place, perform the action, go to another place, and come back to the first place to perform the action again.
Thanks for watching! Coffee isn't necessarily broken if more players choose the same strategic approach. It also depends on the location of the tiles. Red player was able to find an efficient route to drop off/pick up assistants and make the most out of the bonus card she started with.
@@ShowMeHowToWin thats precisely why it feels broken. It requires others to stop you or take the same approach. It doesnt seem strategic either. You are repeating the same steps over and over.
I love the production on this (especially the colour coordination) and it was an entertaining playthrough. I recently bought the big box version of the game and it's really good.
Thank you for watching! We hope you'll enjoy our other videos as well.
For how much did you get it ?
So clever yall wore dresses, jewelry and nails matching your token colors, making it super easy for folks to follow the action, even in the overhead view just seeing hands. I'm thinking of getting this game now. Lastly someone should have made a Coffee grinding pun.
Thanks for watching and noticing all the details
At 16:51 you CAN use the Tavern action to take a ruby from the Coffee House. It can come from any of the 3 ruby tracks. Great video by the way, I enjoyed watching 3 different strategies explored from the start. I think in Istanbul you can have a starting strategy but the game evolves as you play and you need to be flexible so even if you start with an intended strategy, you'll find yourself going on alternate routes because it's what the game demands, as we saw in this playthrough. Coffee was pretty strong in this game because of the layout but there are almost always things you can do to counter other players which is why Istanbul is more interesting toe than most Euro games.
Thanks for watching and commenting! We also appreciate the clarification; though we are pretty sure Jackie would not have considered taking the ruby from the coffee house even if she knew she could lol.
5 years late but McKenzie is gorgeous! Love board games and honestly seeing you 3 ladies demo board games is really enjoyable. You all three have such great on camera personalities 😊
Thanks for watching and the kind words! Yaaas MaKenzie is our beautiful lady in blue!
going to the fountain as your second move must be the most suboptimal move ever...
I really like this series and I like the idea of illustrating different strategies. But I would say maybe walk through the idea behind the strategy and why is it supposed to be viable. Keep up the great work!
Thank you for your words of encouragement and suggestion! We learned so much from our first season based on the feedback and if we do a season 2, an extended recap segment would be added to each play-through.
I love seeing new, well-produced, board game series. Well done!
Thank you for your words of encouragement and we really appreciate it!
The cool part of Istanbul is, that it's always exciting. The players are head 2 head most of the time. (as you can see at the end - 2 more times)
We totally agree! There are also so many strategies to take depending on what works at any moment. It's just the right length as well.
Great video! Istanbul is one of my most loved games!
Thank you for watching Chris!
next season I think you guys should play Yamatai. you'll enjoy it
Thank you for your suggestion! We'll add Yamatai to our list of potential games to play.
Love playing Istanbul! Thanks for your video, I wish I can find more girls to play game with. Will try the coffee extension soon
We wanted to introduce three strategies per game and adding the expansion helped us to acheive that goal. Hope you enjoy the expansion!
Obviously you MUST abuse backtracking to minimize wasting time at the fountain. My fav strat is to camp out near the Police station and just abuse my family member ( don’t take that out of context ) to save time crossing the board. Ya, you give enemies free money, but you save soooooo much time.
Thanks for watching and I totally agree! It's against my principle to use the fountain spot 🤣and the family member (aka the drunk uncle lol) is super useful for those far away spots.
My one problem with Istanbul is that it is way to easy to just buy Rubies and there are so many that you are probably going to win if you are first to it. (Haven't played with the expansion, might fix this for all I know)
Thank you for watching! Yes, if only one player buys all the rubies then that player would probably win. That's why it's important to do some necessary blocking and hate-buying when the time is right lol. All the expansions make the map larger and add another way to earn rubies thus provide more balance and variations.
At 14:45 the red player played the post office in a wrong way.
Is it allowed to discard a card and then draw it again in the same round like the red player did with the “+ 2 coffee card”?
Thanks for watching! On page 5 of the base game instruction regarding bonus cards... you can play any number of bonus cards on your turn and discard the played cards face up on the Caravansary. When you are at the Caravansary, you can take them from the top of the face-up discard pile (base game instruction page 6). So it is legal for the red player to spent the card, discard the card, then pick it back up on the same turn.
Full Metal Jackie all in red because she goes for Blood!!! GG
Not going to debate you here what-so-ever lol
I think this time it was red for rubies!
Could you play Coimbra next?
We will add that to our list of potential games to play. Thanks for the suggestion!
You went until 6 rubies ? I thought 6 rubies was only for the 2 players game. With 3 or more players I think you only need to collect 5 rubies. (Note: maybe the moka extension changes this, but I doubt it).
Either expansion requires you to play to 6 rubies no matter the player count.
Whenever you collect an assistant by just walking to the place, you are not allowed to use the action of this place. Atleast, that's how we play it. Otherwise you could just jump between two places all time (like tea house and wainwright or black market and sultan's palace), block it 50 % of the time for others (who don't want to pay you) and rush towards winning the game. It does not explicitily tell you this rule in the script, but it says you may use the action of a place, whenever you're leaving an assistant.
The rulebook does not state that if you are picking up an assistant you may not perform the action. Picking up/dropping off assistants happens in the movement phase and taking the action happens in the action phase (seperated by encounter phase) so they do not seem to correlated. To us, figuring out how to maximize the efficiency of one's route so they never have to visit the fountain for a wasted turn is part of the puzzle of Istanbul. We do agree that sometime it can be a bit frustration when a player just bounce between a couple of locations the entire game so we would make sure that when we setup the tiles we'd separate these possible combo locations so that there are at least 3 spaces between them.
I think you are wrong. You can play the action when you leave an assistant OR when you pick up an assistant. This is explicit in the rules. There is no doubt about it. Going back and forth between places is a huge part of the game. If you go to the fountain, it usually means you are wasting a turn and you didn't plan your route perfectly. Sometimes you have to go to the fountain, but you should try to avoid it, as it is usually better to do something else.
By the way, just jumping between the same 2 places all the time will not work. But it is great when you can go to a first place, perform the action, go to another place, and come back to the first place to perform the action again.
Coffee seems broken?
Thanks for watching! Coffee isn't necessarily broken if more players choose the same strategic approach. It also depends on the location of the tiles. Red player was able to find an efficient route to drop off/pick up assistants and make the most out of the bonus card she started with.
@@ShowMeHowToWin thats precisely why it feels broken. It requires others to stop you or take the same approach. It doesnt seem strategic either. You are repeating the same steps over and over.