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In which I realize something about Caylus

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12 Feb 2008 12:13 #2527 by dysjunct
The other night I was idly clicking through news reports on the (apparent) end of the writer's strike. The only TV show I currently bother to watch is The Office.

It struck me that, if Dwight Schrute played board games, Caylus would be his favorite game by far:

1. It's an minimal-luck efficiency exercise in which you get to show how much smarter you are than the other players.
2. The goal of the game is to become second-in-command.
3. It's an obscure game that no one has ever heard of, and even won an obscure award that was an offshoot of an obscure prize, so Dwight can use his knowledge of it to feel superior.
4. The food cubes are the color of the perfect food: the beet.
5. It features a petty bureaucrat (the provost) whose sole function in the game is to tell people what they can and cannot do.

I also think the odds are good that his maternal grandfather (the one who killed twenty enemy soldiers before being captured and spending the rest of WWII in an Allied prison camp) designed Juden Raus. That's just a theory though.

Ways to improve Caylus to make it even more of a Dwight-game:

1. Bear attacks.


One of these days when I have more free time I'll write up a hypothetical script to a "Boardgames With Schrute" video review.

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12 Feb 2008 23:13 #2589 by mikoyan
dysjunct wrote:

The other night I was idly clicking through news reports on the (apparent) end of the writer's strike. The only TV show I currently bother to watch is The Office.

It struck me that, if Dwight Schrute played board games, Caylus would be his favorite game by far:

1. It's an minimal-luck efficiency exercise in which you get to show how much smarter you are than the other players.
2. The goal of the game is to become second-in-command.
3. It's an obscure game that no one has ever heard of, and even won an obscure award that was an offshoot of an obscure prize, so Dwight can use his knowledge of it to feel superior.
4. The food cubes are the color of the perfect food: the beet.
5. It features a petty bureaucrat (the provost) whose sole function in the game is to tell people what they can and cannot do.

I also think the odds are good that his maternal grandfather (the one who killed twenty enemy soldiers before being captured and spending the rest of WWII in an Allied prison camp) designed Juden Raus. That's just a theory though.

Ways to improve Caylus to make it even more of a Dwight-game:

1. Bear attacks.


One of these days when I have more free time I'll write up a hypothetical script to a "Boardgames With Schrute" video review.

I think it is more of a communist game. You're building some useless building to prop up some dictator's ego. The provost is actually some Party Boss who doesn't really do anything useful but enforce the quotas that come down from the Kremlin. The Baliff represents those directives from the Kremlin. Promising to build parts of the castle but not actually doing it represents losing favor within the party. Too much and you take the train east. Going out first...You get paid whether you put in a full days work or not. The other saps who worked harder have to actually pay off other party bosses to do it.

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13 Feb 2008 03:10 #2617 by Schweig!
If Caylus was communist propaganda, it would display a governmental form more like Communist Utopia, that means first of all no king.

Caylus is Feudalism propaganda. You find that idea supported surprisingly often in democracies. Like having a benevolent leader bearing full executive, legislative and judiciary powers, and 10% taxation for every citizen.

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13 Feb 2008 03:56 #2619 by Lagduf
I was going to say that to my knowledge Caylus lacks any sort of bears.

Perhaps Dwight would play Agricola, but better yet, he would probably dismiss it as being a poorly designed game because you can't grow beets, nor can you sell beets on the side of the road.

Furthermore, don't you think Dwight would be drooling in anticipation over FFG's recently announced Battlestar Galactica game?

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13 Feb 2008 12:23 #2635 by mikelawson
Another show where boardgaming could fit in well would be The Big Bang Theory. They go after other parts of Geek Culture to poke fun at, why not boardgaming? Sheldon would be just scary as Turkey in Diplomacy. Okay, he's scary in a lot of other ways, too...

--Mike L.

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13 Feb 2008 23:20 #2716 by mikoyan
Not communist propaganda per se, but it feels more like communism than another system. In feudalism, you wouldn't have some dweeb stopping production, whereas in Communism you have the local party boss "interpreting" the party's directives.

I was going to say you can't bribe the provost, but I guess that's what paying the up to 3 gold represents.

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