Short thoughts on 'In The Year of The Dragon'...

If the brutally cutthroat Age of Steam hooked up with Princes of Florence and its very limited actions and then had a really Euro baby that was delivered by the balls-against-the-wall Agricola, you'd probably get something like ITYOTD.  It's painful, viciously strategic, and pared down to its brutal agonizing essence.  I like it.  A LOT. 
In my second game I was nice and didn't starve two other players of rice which would have killed the majority of their people.  For that I lost to both of them.  Lesson learned.


TOTALLY UNRELATED SIDE NOTE:  Stephen Finn of Dr. Finn's Games is trying to get some honest feedback on the design of his upcoming game Merchant of Death.  And he's giving away a bunch of free copies of his great card game Biblios in a contest for anyone who responds.  Check it out here and help out a great indy game developer.