You Sank my Battleship! (Midway:Avalon Hill)

Is it just me, or are wargames making a comeback?

So many blogs I've been reading seem to be focussing on them lately, I can't help but think that their popularity is slowly resurfacing. Personally, I haven't ever played them, but I am curious. I was therefore fairly excited when Kozure suggested that we play Avalon Hill's early 90s wargame "Midway". This particular battle involved the Japanese trying to take control of the island of Midway for use in the war. The Americans were defending. He introduced it as a game specifically designed to appeal to less "hardcore" players... a good thing since we were complete newbies. Note: It's supposed to be a 2 player game, but we played it 4 player by forming teams.

First reaction: Hmmm. Lots of tiny cardboard pieces. Very low production quality. Poor graphic design. Not a good start. Still, it's an older game, and a wargame at that. I was willing to get past it.

There are three gameboards. 2 are identical maps of the waters directly surrounding the island of Midway. Similarly to Battleship, players each secretly set up their pieces on the board, with some constraints (A gamescreen showing turn order and game modifiers keeps each player's board hidden from the other). The third board shows a magnified view of a section of water, for use during battles. Many counters make up the carriers, battleships and airplanes (though I bet it's a very small number by wargame standards).

Kozure and I played the Japanese, leaving Luch and Shemp as the Americans.

The bulk of the first few turns involves each player sending out planes to "scout" the ocean, trying to pinpoint the location of the enemy. Once located, fighter planes, Dive Bombers, etc can swoop in and attack the carriers. The game takes place over 4 "days" (approximately 20 turns) and victory is determined using VPs gained by sinking opponent's ships. The searching and sneaking part I enjoyed, the combat...not so much.

It became immediately clear that the Americans had far superior reconaisance capabilities. They swept the board looking for us, and we could only go so long before they did. Scout planes seemed to outnumber ours 4 to 1! Still, we made some headway before they cought us. We managed to have our inferior forces sink some of the American boats, without getting hit too hard in return. When we called the game, we were ahead in VPs, giving us a technical win. I'm sure that the tide would have swung the way of the Americans had we continued to the end, however (we were simply too outnumbered... made worse by the fact that we lost many planes to get what we did).

Impressions: For wargamers, this may indeed be light fare. For eurogamers (... me anyway), the fiddliness and lack of polish took it's toll. My biggest problem with he game was the constant shuffling around of the tiny stacks of cardboard from one map to another. I didn't like that I needed to do it, and I liked even less that it didn't seem like the location of tokens on the enlarged board mattered much. To compound the problem of shuffling pieces around, the fact that the "home location" of the tokens isn't always indicated makes it easy to misplace parts between turns.

Disclaimer: We didn't finish the game, and surely many potential events didn't happen. Any of those things could have explained the necessity of some of the design decisions I am questioning. Also, right to the end of our game, I wasn't clear on how our goal was supposed to play out (was the battle at Midway, had we reached it, going to be the same kind of sea battle we had been doing the whole time? Would we win automatically if we reached it? Would the enlarge map be used differently in such a ship to ship combat?

I think that a modern redesign of the game could yield a very fun, and much faster, version of the game. For instance:

1) Revamp the graphic layout of the tokens, reducing their number and making them somewhat larger if necessary. Each should now have symbols to represent the purpose of the stats.
2) The 4 step turn order was not terribly useful, but waiting on each other for each step took a fair amount of time. Since both teams are operating in secret, it would be much faster to simply call 1 phase "upkeep", then handle searches according to initiative (and combat if necessary).
3) The balance of the d10 rolls seemed wrong. When the game hangs so much on whether you've matched, doubled or tripled a result, it seems odd that this die is used. You don't need to roll particularly well to triple a 1, but a 10 is an entirely different story. The roll is entirely secondary to the bonuses. Now that I think about it... that's proabbly the point (though it's not how I percieved it as I was playing)
4) In practice, the action on the enlarged board was fairly repetitive. Carriers were always placed for maximum coverage by other ships, and they were almost always the target of attacks. There is therefore very little difference between this and having just one token representing the entire fleet and adding a bonus to represent the remaining firepower of the fleet. As the fleet is damaged, the coverage bonus would dwindle (representing the loss of those allied ships defending the carrier). The enlarged board could be eliminated entirely! This would reduce the game to two boards, a dividing screen and the tokens representing the fleets (the tokens representing individual planes and ships would be eliminated). Markers for "scouted areas" would make nice additions. I bet that game could be played in under an hour.

Now, I know that the multitude of counters (and the particular stats of each chit) is part of the attraction for wargamers. Clearly, that's not who I'd be aiming for here.

Anyway... I enjoyed trying one of these types of games, even if it didn't turn out to be my cup of tea. Did it dampen my enthusiasm to try out other wargames? No. Rather, I would say that it added "focus" to my search. Having read the rules to a few "block" games, I think that they might do exactly what I enjoyed about this game, while avoiding much of what I didn't. Besides, they are interesting as history lessons if nothing else.

Conspiracy. Intrige. Paranoia.

3 games. I think the "theme" is clear. Italian Sausages, clearly a "suspicious" food, provided sustenance.

In attendance: Easy, Kozure, Luch, Shemp, Sonja.

Kozure hadn't yet arrived, so we started with Conspiracy (a 4 player game). We settled into our roles (I was Paris, Shemp was Tokyo, Luch was Washington and Sonja, new to the game, flexed her command of the German language as Berlin).

Brief recap: Conspiracy is a game where each player represents a major power who wants to reclaim a secret briefcase located at the center of the board. 12 spies (each with a terrible pun for a name), occupy the board... but they aren't controlled by particular players. Instead, the players are given $10 000 to "bribe" the spies to do their bidding. Since bribing is secret, no one ever really knows which spy is working for who until someone tries to make a move someone else doesn't want. And since additional bribes can be made throughout the game, loyalties shift.

As is often the case in this game, the likely winner changed several times over the course of the game. There aren't many "steps" between the center of the board and a player's home base (3 being the shortest route, I think), so it's not uncommon for the briefcase to move a single square and have everyone suddenly realize that a particular player is suddenly in a position to win.

My memory is hazy (as always), but I beleive I blew "Peking Tom"'s cover fairly early on... a character several players had invested heavily into. With "Miss Behavin'" nearby I tried a quick snatch and grab of the suitcase towards Paris but was intercepted. Soon after, Shemp looked like a threat as a series of characters under his sway gathered near Tokyo and seemed unstoppable. Through cooperation, we managed to get it out... and into Sonja's territory. She was within one move of winning, but it was not to be.... Luch, who's initial large investment in "Rock Bottom" seemed to be going to waste (since NO ONE was moving him anywhere), was pleasantly surprised to see that character suddenly find himself with the case 2 squares from his base. We had no way of stopping him.

Next up was Intrige. This was our first game with 5 players (Kozure had arrived by now), and the dynamics are quite different with an odd number of players! In a 4 player game, 2 pairs of players usually end up helping each other (using the term loosely!). With 5 players, things aren't quite as even, and "Friendships" (again, used loosely) come and go much faster. Backs were stabbed all around, and I can't think of any particular alliances which lasted more than a turn or two (Though my France saw a lot of Shemp's American employees, and vice versa, until the final few turns). Shemp had the unfortunate luck of being deemed the leader early on and was hopelessly shut out for the 2nd half of the game because of it. Sonja and I managed to accumulate quite a bit of wealth as things went on, but I ended the game with a very tiny lead for the win.

Last up was was Paranoia, Mandatory "Bonus Fun" Card game. I was pleasantly surprised last time as this seemed to be a decent game, for a "Take That" system. I liked that the "missions" focused the card play rather than letting it be a free for all. I liked that each player had objectives which would naturally lead to backstabbing, chaos and "general hilarity". It seemed to work, and we laughed a lot, so I was happy with the purchase (despite some of the obvious shortcomings concerning graphic design and play length issues). Having played it a second time, though, I'm not so sure. For whatever reason,things weren't "clicking". We kept forgetting the fiddly rules about discarding treason counters for exposing/killing traitors. We missplayed the way characters are meant to come back to the game after they get killed. etc, etc. I looked through the ruledbook too many times for a game of this "weight". Also, I had more hands filled with cards I couldn't use than last time. All these things contributed to a hand that wasn't much fun. I hope to try it again, with a cheat sheet at my side, but it's not likely to get many more chances if it goes like that again.

The same... but different.

Ahhh, two well loved games... but each with a twist making them feel "new" again.

Puerto Rico was first up. I've had the expansion for quite a while, but never felt like I knew the base game well enough to give it a try. Dictator Luch was tired of waiting, and so we threw it in. What do you know? It was pretty good.

Playing Puerto Rico without knowing the buildings was a strange and daunting feeling. Now I know (again) what it's like learning this game from scratch... pretty intimidating. The new additions were not all included, as the rules call for a "draft" of the buildings to start. Essentially, if the base game had 2 buildings which cost 3 dubloons, then the game with expansion is limited to the same (etc, etc). This ensures that some of the balance is maintained.

The new buildings have a broad range of effects.

Some explore new variations on old ideas (like the one that behaves like a factory, but gives bonuses to multiples of the SAME good)

Some bring new but straightforward concepts (like the forest plantations, which give discounts to buildings without needing to be manned and without the limits of quarries but take much more effort to aquire)

Others offer very strange ideas (like the black market which allows you to get discounts by trading in workers, victory points or goods... or the Union Hall which gives you victory points for pairs of goods before they are shipped... or the guest house, which allows up to 2 workers to reside until the player decides he/she wants them to be moved to somewhere else (a very powerful way to avoid having to wait for the mayor phase to occupy buildings or plantations))

Tili joined us for the game, giving us a full complement of players. I chose to try a "Corn Strategy" bolstered by the new Union Hall and the Guest House. In the rush to place the new buildings, I completely forgot to make sure the Wharf was available! Normally, focussing on corn and not getting a Wharf is deadly but (lucky for me) it didn't go too badly. We all suffered from "New" shock... we're not used to playing 5 players, and the new buildings threw us. This basically ensured we all played equally poorly, and spent most of the game just "trying stuff" (in fact, Shemp mentioned on many occasions that he couldn't formulate a strategy). Shemp and (to a lesser extent) Kozure tried to accumulate Forests. Tili played a straight game, but frequently found herself at the wrong end of the trader or captain, losing valuable opportunities. Luch got good mileage out of his aqueduct. I managed to accumulate many VPs through the Union Hall and shipping. The Guest House allowed me to man the corn fields as soon as I aquired them. I ultimately won the game, though it's only by luck since we were all shooting in the dark and I happened to pick a combination which worked well.

Next was Power Grid. Again, we've played this before but always on the Germany map, so we decided to try the USA. The South West was randomly determined to be out of play (hurricanes?). I placed in the far East, thinking no one else would follow suit since it was so heavily constricted from the "out of play" areas, but to my dismay Luch and Shemp both set up camp on the mid east. This left Kozure with the entire West half to play with (which is expensive at the Rockies, but it was quite an advantage none the less). Sure enough, as the game progressed the three of us in the East where fighting for every scrap of free space, and Kozure slowly absorbed the rest. Both Shemp and Luch eventually branched off into that half, taking 2nd and 3rd stations in western cities, but I was hopelessly stuck behind masses of unavailable conduit. Lucky for me, I always had JUST ENOUGH to do what I needed. I often had to overspend, but at least it was possible. At the end, Kozure made a critical mistake and only realized it too late (he forgot that in the 3rd phase he could buy powerplants from both rows, and instead purchased a lower capacity plant). I seriously lucked out and was able to buy the "50" power plant (a "green" plant which powers 6) uncontested late in the game which vaulted me back in contention. Shemp and I were both within striking distance and both went for the kill by going to 17 cities with the ability to power it all. It came down to cash... and Shemp had 1 DOLLAR MORE THAN ME.

1 dollar.

!!!!!!!!!!!!

So I lost a photo finish, but it was fun!

Power Grid is a very good game, and clearly a favorite in our group. It's not a personal top 10, though, and I'm hard pressed to figure out why. The only thing I can think of is that the game feels more like a "race" than anything else. Everyone is jockying for position, trying to make it to the finish line first (giving ground to the leader during the game where it is strategically effective), but it can feel a little like multiplayer solitaire. Other than indirect conflict, such as blocking a route of purchasing fuel another player needs, everyone kind of goes their own way (and the tight money supply pretty much ensures that making a move which doesn't benefit you just to "screw yr Neighbour" is pretty risky and rare). The most important part of the game, in my mind, is manipulating player order to try to stay in last place as long as possible... but EVERYONE is following that strategy, so again it's kind of a race. Funny, because Princes of Florence has the very same criticism: "there is little competition, it's essentially a multiplayer solitaire race to see who scores more", yet it's one of my favorites. All I can say is that in PoF, there are far fewer moving parts, the system is more elegant and the game is shorter. Different people will have different opinions, but that's mine.

One last note: Am I the only one who finds the mid game power plants basically useless? Every game, we just wait for them to cycle through until we get to the good ones. Not a huge criticism, but something I have been feeling is a bit "odd" in the game design.

Anyway, while Power Grid is not in my top 10, it's in my top 20, so I don't want to make it sound like I don't like it (and games right into the top 30 are ones I love to play).

Just thinking out loud...

Ideology + Unexploded Cow

The theme this week was "Fanaticism!!!"

The games were "Ideology" and "Unexploded Cow". Food was "anything HOT or EXTREME"

I'll let you all decide how well those work toghether.

First up was Ideology, the game of world domination which went over quite well the last time we played. The cast of characters included "Capitalist Easy", "Imperialist Shemp", "Communist Luch" and "Fascist Kozure".

A few comments, now that we've come back to it:

1)The starting powers and penalties add nice flavour to each player's opinion without making things complicated. I had previously complained that only the communists had real "character". I take that back... the other positions are possibly more subtle but they each seem to work.
2)The phase order, which also initially bothered me (because I felt it could have been simplified) has revealed itself to be very important. The game forces players to commit their scarce resources (the cards in their hands) first to themselves, then to neutral countries, then to opponent's countries (hostile takeovers). It's important because cards are not worth too much if unplayed, so a player must constantly ask him/herself whether it's "safe" to spend cards early when the temptation to expand to new countries is just around the corner, and when the threat of hostile take-over looms at the end of the turn. Had things gone the other way around, players would simply use up what they needed to defend their country and/or expand, and then spend the rest on developing themselves just before the turn ended.

In this session, we all feared the communists for their "iron curtain" ability (essentially, any attempts to influence communist countries are erased at the end of the turn unless the country in question is fully wrested from their control that turn). Poor Luch had a very hard time getting a hold of new territory as we all made a concerted effort to keep him from getting anything. The Fascists pulled out to an early lead through slow and steady internal and external gains. The Imperialists made the most of their ability to easily control small neutral countries and snatched quite a few of them. I, as the capitalists, tried to place my military influence on as many neutral countries as possible (due to my restriction from playing them once the coutries where owned, as they require me to declare war). I did fairly well this way, though I was pulling the rear with the coomunists for much of the game. As the Imperialists threatened to end the game, I surged forward by developping Weapons of Mass Destruction and grabbing two small countries. Alas, the Imperialists also made big gains and despite the efforts of the Fascists and Communists to stop us we ended on a tie. Ties are broken by the player with the most advancements, and that was Shemp.

It was a very fun game!

My only complaint is that the end game is still a little too "kill the leader" for my tastes. There are very few restrictions for attacking a player, and points are public knowledge, so I'm afraid that games could degenerate into "he's almost winning, let's attack him until he's down. Now someone else is almost winning, let's take him down, etc". Our last few turns were spent doing this, but it didn't last long... not sure whether getting better at the gaem would improve or aggravate the issue.

Next up was "Unexploded Cow". It's an amusing and simple game which we've played before, so I won't spend too much time on it. Luch had a good time playing cows just to stampede them into other player's fields (forcing them to pay him the value of the cows). Shemp had a pretty impressive run of cows which were set up to blow his entire field if activated. I focused on getting the high city cards, which I managed to do, but I was so far behind on cash that the endgame bonus was far too little too late. Mad bomber Shemp carried the game with a narrow win over Stampeder Luch (but a huge lead over me, and Kozure too I think)

Perfect 10

I thought it would be fun, now having played a hell of a lot of different games together, to share our top 10 games as of today. A year from now, if we are still doing this, I'll ask again to see if anything has changed.

I'll start.

Easy:

1. Ra
2. El Grande
3. Princes of Florence
4. Tikal
5. Lord of the Rings
6. Duel of Ages
7. Robo-Rally
8. Carcassonne
9. Tigris & Euphrates
10. Jyhad CCG

Top 11-20 (in no particular order)

Puerto Rico, Traders of Genoa, Power Grid, Modern Art, For Sale!, Ticket to Ride, Domaine, Intrige, Pueblo, Pirate's Cove

Special Mention: Deadwood/ Witch trial (They are not a great games, but they are the only "humourous" games which, for whatever reason, really work for me)
Heirs to the throne: Through the Desert, China (I think these are both top 20 games, but I haven't played them enough yet)

(wow, we've played so many great games! I can think of several which narrowly miss the list, such as Conspiracy, Blokus, Memoir '44, High Society, Bohnanza, Tower of babel, Way Out West, etc)

Luch:

Top 5 (no particular order)
RA
EL GRANDE
TIKAL
DOMAINE
PUERTO RICO

Top 6-10 (no particular order)
POWER GRID
CARCASSONNE
TIGRIS & EUPHRATES
TRADERS OF GENOA
BOHNANZA

Kozure

Top 10

1. Puerto Rico
2. Power Grid
3. Tikal
4. Pirate's Cove
5. Star Trek: Tactical Combat Simulator
6. Theophrastus
7. Twilight Imperium / Civilization
8. Firepower
9. Memoir '44 / Battle Cry
10. Ra

Top 11-15

11. Ticket to Ride Europe
12. Way out West
13. Princes of Florence
14. War of the Ring
15. Traders of Genoa
16. El Grande
17. Lost Cities
18. Hera & Zeus
19. High Society
20. Tigris and Euphrates

All Hail the Idiot King!

This week's directive from the dictator was interesting:

1. Venue is chzczo?~?~
2. Games is Conspiracy, traders of genoa, and some fillery thing or stuff.
3. me brain no work gud.
4. food~! TBD
5. Snazx bring
6. didn' t i tel you AD cance3lled last wk/
?

idoitkingS

Among other things, Shemp acknowledges existence of (and enthusiasm for) food. More importantly, he declared himself "The Idiot King".

Sadly, I managed to mess up half of the only lucid thing he said... In packing my bag of games for the evening, I got too caught up trying to choose "fillery" games and forgot Conspiracy. The rule of Shemp was denied (or, as he rebutted, "differently realized"). Oh well.

I arrived a little early, so after chatting a little Kozure, Tili and I started a 3 way game of For Sale! until the others arrived. They hadn't played before, but as you can imagine they caught on quickly. Baby Boy was along as spectator, and I think all 3.5 of us enjoyed it.

As Shemp and Luch arrived, we cleared the table and got ready for Traders of Genoa. Shemp reaffirmed that he was the Idiot King, and explained that doing other people's paperwork was slowly making him unable to think. He's right... the only thing that sucks more than paperwork is OTHER PEOPLE's paperwork.

4 player Traders of Genoa. Wow. CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP. And a little stingy besides. Deals, probably 75% of them, never exceeded $5. Sharing in the benefits of the action (i.e. splitting the 2 goods), was just about the only common method used to sweetent he pot beyond that. Offering $15 or more for an action virtually ensured you WOULDN'T get it (a suspicious lot, we are). Shemp and Kozure traded privileges, I concentrated on fulfilling orders and dominating the ownership markers and Luch routinely sacrificed cash by ending turns early to deny players any actions. I've done the ownership marker strategy before, but on the other hand I don't think I normally do well at this game, so I'm not sure why I keep trying it. Lucky for me, it worked out this time... I RAKED in cash from my markers and also managed many orders of all types, and won the game just a touch ahead of Kozure (who himself had a fantastic run of large orders and privileges). It was a good game.

Does anyone else feel that the latitude for deal making isn't as wide as it should be? It might be a result of our frugal attitudes, but i'd love to think of a way to find different angles for negotiating (Shemp and Kozure were making interesting trades with their privileges, though). Shemp also introduced the notion of "future consideration", something he once had good success with in Monopoly. In a way, I think the miniscule value of most goods, compared with the undefined value of the action cards and the perceived enormous value of ownership markers and privilege cards makes them hard to trade for one another. It occurs to me now that a clever trade might be to offer a card for which you don't have the appropriate good(s) but the acting player does. Thoughts?

The Idiot King's next proclamation was that he was hoping that others would make game choices for him, and then make it seem like it was his decision all along. So, we reminded him he wanted to play RA.

The first time I played this game, I loved it. That was way back in April, in Jay Wowzer's inaugural session. Others were more lukewarm, but I actively sought after it and eagerly anticipated Uberplay's re-release so I could buy a copy for myself. In the meantime, I taught myself the BSW interface in order to play online. I then enlisted Luch, and I think he now shares my enthusiasm for the game. Lately, Kozure and Tili have joined us occasionally online and, again, I think they really like it (they certainly both showed a knack for the game, beating both me and Luch one most of the games they've played against us).

So... Shemp was the last frontier.

First, a few notes on the new version. I'm working from memory, but I beleive the board and tiles are roughly 30% bigger than the original. That's not a change I appreciate, because the tiles take up room to sort in front of you in addition to the larger board (and creating a player mat to help new players will be challenging unless 11"x17" paper is used). Since there is no advantage to having them larger, the inconvenience is annoying, slight as it is. The new bag is a nice touch, though it barely fits all the tiles. The tiles which remain as players go from one epoch to another are marked with a small red "X", which is nice (but wouldn't the reverse have been more intuitive?). The board has a summary of the scoring and tile distribution, which is also nice (though, again, it could have been done more intuitively... for example, the distribution for the river tile is marked 25/12(2). THis denotes 25 rivers, 12 floods and 2 droughts, but that's not explained anywhere) To make matters worse (and this is a little unbeleivable), the board isn't represented, explained or even talked about in the entire rule book! This will be confusing to new players for sure.

All in all, the reprint is very good but not great (I'm talking component quality, gameplay is identical to the original). It's still very attractive, because the pieces are all of very high quality, but a few design issues could have been done better. To be honest, though, I'm just glad to own it.

The 5 player game started well for me. I managed quite a few points with a good Civilization set, some gold and a God tile. The others were locked in a pharoah war... I thought I might have an advantage not competing in it. Unfortunately, I couldn't get any river or monument strategy working and I ended the game with essentially the same set I had at the end of round 1. I think my familiarity with the game hurt me, though... New players are far more likely to let the pot grow to 7-8 tiles than experienced ones, so my strategy of "get in, grab what you can and get out" which normally works well with 5 players worked against me (my meager aquisitions would have lost me the game under any circumstances, but with this group the disparaty was shameful!!!). Shemp played very well for a first timer, appearing to be the leader for the first few rounds before being passed by Tili and Luch. In the end, Luch garnered many points for multiple monument sets... beating out Tili's impressive reign of Pharoahs and HUGE river.

I think Shemp liked it too.

We finished off with a few more rounds of For Sale! Lots of laughing and groaning. Kozure decided he sucked at the game. I can't remember who won, but it was a nice way to finish off the evening.

Attack of the middle weight Euros!

Six, count 'em... SIX (6) games played last night.

We focused on 3 middle weight games: Through the Desert, China and Tower of Babel.
I call a game "middle weight" when the rules are relatively simple, playtime is relatively short but there is still a depth of strategy to the game.

For context:
Light = For Sale! (very light), Caracassonne, Ticket to Ride (this is borderline)
Middle Weight = Settlers of Catan, Modern Art, Ra
Heavy = Tigris and Euphrates, El Grande, Puerto Rico

It's arbitrary, but it works for me.

Anyway, Through the Desert was first up. It was new to everyone, and I was really looking forward to it. First reaction (I bet you can't guess!)... Pastel camels... hmmm. Why did they have to be pastel? The colours blend in anything but bright light, and for Shemp (or resident colour blind player) a few were nearly impossible to tell apart. Not sure if they were trying to maintain a "bleached" look to keep in theme with the whole desert thing, but I wish they were easier to tell apart. The rest of the components are decent but unspectacular (plastic palm trees, thick chips for water holes and score markers)

The game is quite simple. Everyone has 5 starting camels on the board, one of each colour. on a turn, two camels are placed to extend on of their existing "caravans" (or lines of camels). Points are scored for crossing water holes, connecting to oasis or enclosing areas. End game points are scored for longest caravans of each colour. Other than a few placement restrictions (such as not being allowed to place a camel of a certain colour adjacent to another player's camels of the same colour), that's it. Game ends once all camels of one colour are placed.

In our first learning game, we stumbled along semi-randomly trying to figure out what to do. AS with many Knizia games (and german games in general), there is always far more things you WANT to do than you CAN do. Should I snatch the 3 point waterholes sitting right in front of my pink camel, or connect to the oasis before I get blocked? I went for water holes and oasis at first, but I did secure a medium sized piece of the desert. Kozure was unfortunately cheated as I forgot to mention that enclosed areas could not have any other camels in it. Luch ran away with the victory by successfully doing just about everything... getting long caravans, connecting to point sources and securing areas! Our second game was more thoughfully played. I managed to grab a corner of the board from under Kozure's nose. Luch's enormous green caravan didn't help him too much, and Shemp was still confounded by the colours. Despite not connecting to very many oasis, my long caravans and waterhole chits managed to give me a narrow 2nd place. Kozure won the game by 3 points (a very sneaky land grab near the end won him the game!).

China came next. I had played this at BSW as Web of Power, and liked it for being a nice straightforward strategy game. It's been called El Grande light, and I can understand the comparison, though it's pretty thin (it's area control...on a map...that's about it). Gameplay is pretty simple: Play 1 or 2 cards into a province of China. Place that number of houses or advisors. When the province is full, score it. At the end of the game, check if any player has a majority (or a tie for majority) in neighboring provinces for bonus points. Connected series of 4 or more houses are worth points too. (Game ends once the deck has been run through twice). The trickiest thing about the rules is the odd scoring for majority of houses... 1st place player gets points equal to the number of houses in the province. 2nd place gets points equal to the number of houses the 1st player has. etc, etc. This has a great impact on the strategy (in a province with 8 spaces, if 6 are controlled by red, and 1 by blue, red would get 7 points and blue would get 6. While there is little/no benefit for either player to fill the last space, a third player could swoop in and tie for 2nd with one house and swiftly pick up 6 points as well). Since the game moves so quickly, and opportunities disappear faster than you can react to them all, it's important not to overbuild unless you need to do so to block.

For an area control game, it goes incredibly fast. There are important decisions to be made, but not too much information to take in, so decisions can be made quickly. In the first game, I confined myself to the southern provinces and concentrated on establishing a network of advisors, and won. However, we discovered that Shemp and Kozure were playing under the impression that ties didn't count as a majority, so that hindered them. In the second, I tried to go for 2nd or 3rd place in as many provinces as possible but didn't succeed very well. Luch successfully grabbed a few house and advisor majorities, giving him the win. It's clear that advisors, used properly, are very powerful. I wonder whether the advanced game, wich introduces a monument which doubles the points from one province, is an attempt to balance that. Either way, I suspect that future games will see us being more aggressive in preventing advisor majorities.

I liked this version of the game, but a few comparisons to Web of Power are in order.
While the 3-4 player board is a bit more constricted, the 4-5 player board (which we used) is WIDE open. In contrast, Web of Power has a very "slanted" distribution of connections, alliances (and, I think, card distribution). I think this means that China is easier to jump into right away, but I bet Web of Power has more inherent flavour (i.e. taking control of France necessitates playing a different game plan than going for Italy, for example). I'm not good enough at WofP to know that for sure, but it's my impression. 2nd, scoring provinces once they are complete seems to weaken the building strategy somewhat (in WofP, the provinces are scored both times the deck is exhausted... meaning they are scored twice versus the "Advisor" and "Road" scorings which only happen once). Again, I can't be sure but I think I the older version might have been more balanced. In the end, though, these are minor criticisms. The game was very well received and does what it is trying to do very well!

Last was 2 additional plays of Tower of Babel. Our first game left me feeling a bit puzzled and dissapointed. While I can't say that I have warmed to the appearance of the game, the gamePLAY has gotten much better. I still find it difficult to process all the ramifications of my bids: bidding high places me on the board if I get accepted, and gives me victory points if I don't, but it allows the "building" player an easy chip, a bonus card and he can keep many of his cards. Bidding low increases my chances of getting on the board for 2nd or 3rd place points, but the building player will get the majority and the bulk of the benefit. Even more difficult is the "trader"... sometimes it's best used to "sour" an offer you don't want the other player to accept, other times it's a shrewd way to trade away a majority for a chip you might need for a set. I don't think I'm doing any worse than any other players, but I often only realise the impact of my offer AFTER it's been revealed and the opponent has chosen. Similarly, making an educated decision on which "wonders" to build, and when, is eluding me somewhat.

In my mind, I keep making comparisons to Domaine: The game WANTS to be broken, I think. Just as Domaine leads to a win by "large land grab" unless players actively play to stop it, Tower of Babel encourages players to hoard cards until they can build on their own and to offer as many cards as possible at every auction to get easy victory points. I'm not sure what the best way to fight these strategies! I suppose a that all things being equal, the player who acts quickly and makes smart collaborations to build could build a lead that way. It also seems that one ways to defeat a player who constantly offers a large number of cards for every bid might be to actually accept them... he is then stripped of using them again and winds up with very little scoring power until he rebuilds his hand. Anyway, not sure. I can't quite wrap my head around it.

In the first game, Shemp led for most of the game on the strength of his building strategy (and had enough sets of tiles to seal the win). For whatever reason, most of us spent much of the game with huge hands of cards... I think we were being too stingy to accept large offers of cards, wanting the majorities ourselves.

In the second, I tried to see if it was possible to compete without going for the matching tiles, and instead trying to score as many points as possible on the board. Aided in no small part by a "take a 2nd turn" card I completed a few monuments and placed in many others. I had NO points from the chips when the game ended (I only had 2), but the others weren't able to catch up so I won.

A final note: The graphic designers for this game need to be disciplined on two counts. 1) Bland Bland Bland! (I've said this before) 2) The illustrations for the bonus cards make no sense. I'm all for language independent cards, but at least make an effort for the symbols to match the effect. The "take a 2nd turn" card is unforgiveably missrepresented! (this is a fault of another recent knizia game with semi-random and language independent bonus cards... Amun Re)

I loved being able to get in so many games into one evening, I think these will come out a lot.

Through the Desert: 7.5 (really an 8, but knocked back for the colour issues)
China: 8
Tower of Babel: 8 (revised from 7)

Speak Not Of Tlaloc.

That was Luch's advice. Only, I think that we weren't actually talking about Tlaloc, but rather Mictlantecuhtli. Who it would be even a less good idea to speak of.

Why were we speaking of fleshless Aztec death gods? Well, because that kind of follows naturally from talking about scientists who had their faces ripped off, and scientists who have had their faces ripped off figure semi-prominently in DOOM: The Boardgame, which was the sole game during last night's session.

Kozure took the role of the adversary (or something; I'm likely screwing up the terminology here, somewhat)...

(The above fragment was recovered from writings regarding the evening of July 20th, 2005. Apparently, one should not speak of Tlaloc, Mictlantecuhtli, or DOOM, for this entry remains fragmentary; unfinished. Nothing further will be typed.)

Tikal, the Domaine of Paranoia!

This Wednesday, Luch decided to pick Domaine and Tikal. I brought along "Paranoia, Mandatory *Bonus Fun* Card game", a fairly recent acquisition, as filler.

Domaine has been a staple in our group for some time. Initially, I was put off by the big land grab at the end which was always determining the winner. With a few plays, this simply became part of the strategy... try to keep other players from getting such a windfall, while trying to line one up for yourself. The other issue I had was that we never got the rules right. Even after several plays, the rule which prohibits using the chancery after all face down cards have been drawn kept getting forgotten! This session was the first where we played 100% correctly.

I started out with my usual strategy... aim to capture as many mines as possible. One of my initial placements, right in the middle of the board, was adjacent to 3 different mines. I was able to take them quite early and had plentiful income for the whole game because of them. The other players weren't far behind (typically 2 apiece), however, so the advantage wasn't that great. I wound up with a really good shot at getting a large chunk of land, but didn't draw the cards I needed to close it up. That, and the other players noticed it in time to make sure they weren't helping! I did eventually get a large chunk of land out of it, but by then it had been cut nearly in half by the others. Meanwhile, as Shemp, Kozure and Luch built fairly powerful kingdoms across the board no one noticed the end run Kozure was planning on. Before we could react, he closed of a large chunk and won the game. Another fun session of Domaine!

Next was Tikal. It was Shemp's first go at the game, and after a brief rules explanation we off exploring! I started pouring explorers onto the board, thinking that I it would give me an advantage over time to be out early (this is normally a good strategy in El Grande). I combined this with a plan to set up "corridors" and base camps at choke points to give me near exclusive access to sections of the board. Unfortunately, each and every one of these decisions turned out to be bad ones! The mass of of explorers at the beginning of the game haunted me because it's very difficult to maintain a majority there since it's so wide open and accessible to everyone. To make things worse, they are low value temples which require a significant investment to improve. As things developed, the map did have many corridors, making movement quite difficult for everyone. I managed to get base camps far enough down those corridors to get me there faster than other players could, but Shemp (drawer of all volcanoes this game), kept laying them in ways which effectively reduced those corridors to dead ends. My explorers had a very difficult time to get anywhere. The others had much more effective strategies of reaching and holding harder to access temples. In the end, Kozure had his pieces well distributed at many otherwise abandoned mid level temples and ran away with the victory (Shemp, in his first playing, came in second closely followed by myself and Luch in a tie for last). A wonderful game!

Last was Paranoia. This is a new game by Mongoose Publishing. I didn't really know what to expect, because there weren't any reviews for it (even at BGG!). I mostly bought it because I really liked the old RPG.

This appears, at first glance, to be a fairly typical "Take That!" type game. The result is better than I expected, but I have a few reservations:

The world of Paranoia involves a "Brave New World" type future, with a computer in charge of keeping everyone happy. Unfortunately, the computer has been reprogrammed too many times and has now gone insane. It is now paranoid and thinks that "Commie Mutant Traitors" are everywhere. Problem is, they sort of are. In fact, each player is a mutant and part of a secret society. Second, the Computer wants everyone to be "Happy", by lethal force if it has to. You get the idea. For the purposes of the card game, most of this is unimportant, but it puts things in context (powers and secret societies are alluded to in card text, but don't directly come into play).

Players represent "Troubleshooters", citizens of Alpha Complex unfortunate enough to be charged with accomplishing impossible missions for the Computer. Each character has a security level, which determines how many hits they can take, how much treason they can commit before they are deemed "Traitors", and how many actions they can perform (i.e. the size of their hand). One player is the "Team Leader". He starts with a higher rank, which would be an advantage, but one of the best ways to improve your character is to kill the team leader and become one yourself, so it's pretty hard to stay alive. Incidentally, all players receive 6 clones, or "lives" in video game speak...

Each round, a "Mission" card is revealed. The card identifies what the characters are told to do by the Computer, what happens if they succeed and what happens if they fail. Players hold "Action Cards" which are dealt at the same time as the mission. These are the only cards they get for the entire mission! On a player's turn, they may play one card, either on the mission or another player. Each "Action Card" contains several boxes, each containing instructions for the cards effect depending on if it's directed to yourself, another troubleshooter or *gasp!* the mission. The mission ends once any player runs out of cards, once all characters but one have died, or once the mission is accomplished. At that point, survivors get their bonus or penalty depending on the success of the mission and any characters who have too many "Traitor" counters are executed.

Then, a new Mission is revealed and new "Action" cards are dealt to each player according to current security level.

Keep doing this until one player runs out of "Clone" tokens. At that point, the highest security level character wins.

I didn't have terribly high hopes for the game after reading the rules and examining the cards. Surprisingly, I had a very good time playing the game! This might be because the basics of the game are fairly simple (All card effects and missions boil down to just three things: gaining or taking away rank, traitor tokens and/ or wound tokens). The cards are funny, but more importantly the game play is funny... with characters framing other players, attacking each other, getting screwed by "out of turn" cards which cancel or redirect effects. The sense that most missions are hopeless, and that the best way out is to backstab your friends is well preserved. On top of that, the "Mission" cards and limited hand of cards seem to focus the play a little bit (In a game like "Chez Geek, there isn't much rhyme or reason to playing your turn... you just do stuff to other people and hope to get ahead). Once players match up what's in their hand with the results of potentially succeeding or failing the mission, each one will need to try something a little different to come out ahead (or alive).

Of course, it's got issues. 6 lives is probably too much, you can wind up with a hand of cards which aren't useful and the components aren't exactly world class (though the cards are a fairly thick plastic). The biggest problem, though, is the graphic design. All instructions are rendered in text. With so many potential applications of a card, and several cards in your hand, it's just too hard to know at a glance what you can do. The frustrating thing is, since the game is reduced to just a few concepts it would have been very easy to replace most of the text with easy to understand symbols. In fact, point form text would have been an improvement! ("+1 treason" is much easier to see that "Assign 1 treason token to any player"). I'm tempted to make paste ups for the cards before I play again.

We'll see how it stands up to repeated playing, but for now I'm pleasantly surprised.

Luch won the game, and we had lots of laughs. This is not a game to take seriously. It could have been done better, it could have been done worse, but what we got was a fairly clever and enjoyable game of "Screw yer Neighbour"

Paranoia:(provisional) 7

WAGS is for SCARY

Ah Holloween...

So long as many brains consumed, we are happy.

With this in mind, we reached for two All Hollows Eve favorites (?)... Betrayal at House on the Hill and Zombies!!!

We started out with Betrayal. After lowering the lights, putting on scary music and surrounding ourselves with as many black and orange snacks as we could think of, we delved into the madness which was: Invasion of the Firebats!!!!

As the priest, I had a mostly uneventful run searching the house. I would gain a point in something, only to lose it immediately in the same room. I had no equipment, no omens, nothing. The house was developing in quite a wide open fashion, but there was this one... long... dark corridor. It was there that Luch, as big, bumb "Ox", stumbled across the omen which triggered the haunt. Only, it wasn't him who went insane, it was I. An evil portal to HELL was opened in Luch's room, and Firebats started pouring through. He ran, as did the others. Craftily, the forces of good headed to the rooms which would allow them to exorcise the demons and close the gates. It took too long for me to find an effective weapon to attack them with, and the firebats couldn't come fast enough to prevent them from acheiving their goal. It was a victory for the forces of good.

In our second game, I switched my character to the professor. There was a little boy, a fortune teller (Madame Zostra!) and a jock. We searched the mansion and were suddenly confronted by... OURSELVES!!! Our evil twins singlemindedly pursued us until we were able to finally take them down with our "very sharp axe" and "Pulsating Spear of Power". I'm happy to note that I killed no less than 3 of the devils.

Last year we played this and it didn't go over very well. I had since played a few games with another group, and had enjoyed it more. Figuring that just about anything is worth a second shot, Shemp Luch and Kozure agreed to pull it out again for the occasion. Luckily, it went over much better this time! It's still not a very good game, in the sense that it's poorly balanced, poorly documented and not nearly as scary as it wants to be. What it does do, however, is succesfully capture the goofy "b" horror movie experience. I still feel that the game doesn't really get going until "the Haunt", and the process of stopping, reading the book and finding the appropriate pieces for the scenario can really slow the momentum (in fact, I would attribute last year's poor reception largely to the delay caused by the scenario we played, "Bugs", which had a huge amount of counters to find and special rules to absorb). Still, I have to compliment the designers for finding so many different fresh experiences for each haunt. So far, no two I've played have been similar, and many have been quite original. This game isn't about thinking too much, it's just about having fun while you're on the ride.

Speaking about not thinking too much... thought requires a brain. Brains, well, they're meant for eating.

Next up was Zombies! I'm not sure if we've ever reviewed this here, but I won't bother. All you have to know is that you are in a city hopelessly surrounded by hordes of Zombies. Luckily, you have bullets. Unluckily, you have very few. Players are racing to rack up a number of kills (which vary by # of players), or find the helicopter pad and be the first to reach it. As everyone started on their killing spree, I headed for a corridor of zombies which I intended to take down for a quick body count. Unfortunately, the only body count to be had was mine... Others were more successful, with Luch emerging as the leader and Kozure not far behind. We all ganged up on Luch, which knocked him pretty hard and left him struggling to get to 20 (the goal for 4 players). Meanwhile, the Helipad was revealed and it became a two horse race (Me and Kozure) to get there before Luch got the last kills he needed. I held back my ace in the hole... a card which let me control another player's movement for a turn, until after Kozure cleared the path to the Helipad for me. I then played the card and dispatched 2 or 3 zombies to board the helicopter and win!

We played with some "quick play" rules we downloaded from Boardgamegeek. I'd say the game is significatly improved by them, as mauch of the useless and distracting dice rolling is eliminated in favour of fixed values (ex: at the end of your turn, choose 3 zombies to move 1 space). It was fun, many brains were eaten, and that's what matters.

See you next week.

We are the comic police, do not make us use farce

...or, more accurately, "We are the Karmic police, do not make use Force" (with a bad accent, the two sentences sound strangely similar)

The adventure continues for the most hapless trio to ever be in charge of saving the world... Stan McCormick (Psychic sensitive), Sam Buchanan (Nega-psychic) and Helmut von Stauffenberg auf Ulm (Genius)!

Our fearless gamemaster, Shemp, has given us the option of continuing the campaign we had just brought to a conclusion. We all thought that would be a great idea, but we wanted to change systems. He converted our characters from the mostly awful Paladium (Beyond the Supernatural, to be specific) to the Hero system, which he holds in much higher regard. To get our feet wet, we played a sample combat. The scenario was a brief flashback to an encounter which should have occurred in a plane of existence between the world we just saved (?) and the new world we "rifted" into.

As the scene opened, there was a large plain, the three of us, and (in the distance), three humanoids with really big helmets.

I can't remember their names, but they were funny enough that I hope Shemp chimes in with them for posterity. In addition to the funny names, they spoke in a funny accent, which had us misunderstanding many of their comments (se blog title). They were the Karmic Police, and they were here to have us settle our debt with "the force", or whatever. Armed with torn sleeves which gave us glimpses into a universe larger than ourselves (I am so insignificant!), "Cubes of Desolation" and invisible guns, they made for very interesting opponents.

Stanly rushed the leader, demanding to know where the temple they were just standing in had gone too. He was promptly attacked and responded with a quick (but effective) jab to the head. Sam started handling "Big Helmet #2" while Helmut fell prey to the cube of desolation. Soon after Stan knocked out his opponent and Sam crushed one of the cubes, the two remaining creatures regrouped with their fallen comrade and disappeared into nothingness. I have a feeling our debt isn't settled.

I'm happy to say that so far, the system looks promising. It's substantially heavier than what I would expect Shemp to choose, but I don't count that against it. The rules encourage "cinematic" combat, which means that it takes longer but is far more involving and satisfying than a random dicefest. Combat maneuvers are effective and affect future offensive and defensive positions, meaning that they actually get used as characters jockey to gain advantage in combat. It also means that there is more storytelling involved in the fighting, which is great. The fact that this system allows for meaningful character advancement is just icing on the cake...

My only (minor) complaint is with the initiative system. I don't find it very satisfying to act at the same time, every time. Not sure how to improve it without making things any more complicated than they are, but it would be nice.

With some time to spare, we pulled out "Tower of Babel", a recent Knizia release I just picked up. I wanted a few games which were relatively short, strategic and played well with 3-4 players (I also purchased China, and will pick up Ra when it's available). Other than some very positive comments by Chris Farrell at his blog, I didn't know much about it... I guess it was a bit of an impulse buy.

The idea is fairly straightforward: Players are cooperating to build the wonders of the world, each represented by three discs. It's an area majority and set collection game, but the method used to get tokens on the board is odd. On a turn, a player must either draw a card, or offer to build a section of a wonder (one of the three disks). If building is chosen, the disk will indicate a symbol and a number, which represents the number of matching cards which must be played in order for the player to successfully build it. If successful, a number of tokens equal to the value of the disc are placed on the wonder (the method to determine which player's tokens are placed will be described below). This is the crux of the "area majority" part of the game. The acting player normally takes the disc for end game scoring, forming the "set collecting" part of the game.

Of course, there is a Knizia twist:

A player will normally not have enough cards to satisfy the requirement of the disc. When the building action is announced, all other players simultaneously offer cards from their hand to "help" the acting player build the disc. Any, all or no offers can be accepted, but they must be accepted as offered. All players who's offer was accepted place tokens on the board for each card which was accepted, FOR ALL OTHER PLAYERS, A VICTORY POINT IS SCORED FOR EACH CARD OF THE APPROPRIATE COLOUR WHICH WAS OFFERED BUT REJECTED (bluffs are not scored). The majority of the decision making in the game happens here... An offer for lots of cards can help you conserve your own, but it will compromise your majority on the board. Rejecting the offer gives that player a lot of victory points. (A special card, the "Trader" adds another wrinkle: if offered along with other cards, the player is indicating that he/she wants the building disc rather than the tokens on the board as a reward for providing cards).

Wonders are scored "El Grande" Style (1st=points, 2nd= less points, etc, etc) when their third disc is "built". The points are on a sliding scale, however, so the first wonder to be built will be worth substantially less than the later ones. The game ends when all discs of one type have been built. Sets of discs (2 or more) are worth points at the end.

The fact that offers need to be accepted or rejected AS-IS makes the game, in my opinion. If I have three camels and try to build a 5 disc, and the other players offer 1, 1, and 4 camels... what do I do? I could accept 2 two singles and give the "4" player that many victory points, but retain the majority on the board (at the cost of giving away, in a best case scenario, easy third place points to those players). Alternatively, I could take the 4 and play only one card from my hand, preserving those cards to go after another camel disc on the board on my next turn, but giving up the majority on the wonder.

What if the trader is offered? Am I willing to give up the building disc? If i'm behind on the wonder area majority, it might be worth it.

The end result isn't bad at all, but is far from spectacular. It plays in the advertized time (+/- 45 minutes), offers continuous player interaction and offers various strategies worth pursuing. Unfortunately, the play itself feels a little awkward, the graphics are DULL, DULL, DULL, and the theme sets new standards for "pasted on". Also, the bonus cards a player gets for completing the third disc of a wonder feel fairly tacked on.

The session saw us all pursuing a fairly random agenda of wonder building and disc collecting. I tried to focus on picking up the white discs, and managed to get 4. The score was fairly even amongst us right to the end, and Shemp also managed to collect a set of 4, but a 5 point bonus card and a few points for unfinished works put me in the lead.

I wasn't blown away, but I didn't quite have a grasp of the possible strategies either. It's quite possible that this will get better with time (as has been said by others on the net), and the fact that it plays in such a short time pretty much ensures that it will come out again.

Tower of Babel: 7

Passive Aggressive vs. Aggressive Aggressive

"This just in… it seems a number of… creatures… have started menacing the U.S. and Southern Canada. Reports are scattered, but apparently there are… What? A giant gorilla, squid and a floating eyeball?"

Dave… is this for real?

"Okay, we're going to connect with our correspondent in Chicago to get a better idea of what's happening over there. Stan, can you hear me?"

"Yes, I can. Thank you. Carl, I have to say, I can't believe what I'm seeing. There's this giant ape just… wrecking… everything. It's about a half mile away from me. I'm hiding at the mouth of a parking garage and watching it swat the army jets out of the sky like flies. Oh, it looks like one of the rockets scored a hit! Wait a minute… IT'S A ROBOT INSIDE. Sparks are flying everywhere. It looks angry. OH MY GOD IT"S RUNNING TOWARDS US. GET…"

"…"

"…"

"Stan?"

"…umm, do we have anyone else? OK, Helmut. OK."

"Allo, I am here vith ze giant creatures. There is a big noise here, ze gorilla is literally MASHING the eyeball. Now he has the squid by the neck. Oooh, that wasn't pretty. Uh-Oh. It looks angry. OH MY GOD IT"S RUNNING TOWARDS US. GET…"

"…"

"…"

"Helmut?"

"Ughhh"

Okay, enough of that. This Wednesday we played Monsters Menace America and Tikal. (Sadly Shemp couldn't make it due to possible illness).

Monsters Menace America is a straight up aggression fest. Players take the role of large monsters inspired by B-Movies (as well as the role of a branch of the US Military). The goal is to "Stomp" as many sites as possible with your monster, accumulating strength and mutation powers along the way, until a point were a climactic battle occurs between all the monsters. Players also use their military units to attack other player's monsters in order to try to weaken them (the monsters can't attack each other until the final battle).

The game is simple fun. On the good side, the graphic presentation is quite good and the theme is captured quite well by the game. On the bad side, the rules of the game don't feel like their as good as they could have been. For example, it's odd that the creatures can't interact for most of the game. Also, for all the time they take up in the game in deployment, combat, movement and upkeep, the military units don't feel as useful or integrated as they need to be.

These are all relatively minor criticisms. If you are looking for another Puerto Rico, look elsewhere, but if you are looking for big monsters to go out and fight, it fits the bill. There is carnage. Players have fun. It's just not a very sophisticated game (they don't all have to be!)

Next was Tikal.

Tikal is a game I kept hearing about (along with it's cousins Torres, Java and Mexica) but despite the fact that Kramer designed them I never felt compelled to investigate… This is particularly odd considering that two of my favorite games (EL Grande and Princes of Florence) where designed by him. However, when Kozure mentioned he had bought it, I got very excited to play.

Tikal is game involving the discovery and exploration of ancient temples. Players send out teams of explorers into the jungle, hoping to claim the greatest of the discoveries for themselves. There is a distinct "Indiana Jones" feel to the theme.

The gameboard is a very attractive depiction of a jungle. The canopy of trees prevents players from seeing what is underneath, but in one corner a jeep and base camp indicates that the exploration has begun… 2 temples and an empty field have already been uncovered. The first order of any player's turn is to draw a tile to place on the board (the tile is designed to look like the canopy of trees has been cleared, revealing either an empty space, a temple or a treasure site). The remainder of the turn involves spending 10 action points on various potential… ummm… actions. Introducing a researcher at the base camp costs 1, for example. Other actions include moving the researchers, searching for treasure, delving into temples, etc. On occasion, a volcano turns up as the tile to be placed, and players must score their position. Points are awarded for temples which have been claimed, for unclaimed temples where a player has a majority and for treasures acquired. The game ends once all jungle tiles have been placed on the board and a final scoring takes place.

The result is an excellent, excellent game. It's not nearly as abstract as most German games, the play is strategic, and the theme is so accessible (and the rules so natural to the action), that I can't think of a medium weight game I would rather first introduce to new gamers. Carcassonne, High Society, For Sale!, Ticket to Ride, etc are all great gateway games but are decidedly "light". I much prefer this to Settlers of Catan, the medium weight "intro" game most would suggest.

The game does have one rather significant potential downfall… those 10 points can take a while to spend if you are not careful about analysis paralysis. On top of that, there isn't much to do when it's not your turn (I'm sure it's no coincidence, but these are also criticisms often leveled at El Grande and Princes of Florence). I'm perfectly happy to live with it as it is, however, because the number of points allows for some surprising comebacks and clever play. I think 3 players is probably the sweet spot for this one to keep downtime manageable (2 player might also be good, but I'm afraid that 4 player might drag).

I think my excitement for the game is partially due to a bit of Knizia overload. I REALLY enjoy those games, and have even purchased Tower of Babel recently because I think he is an amazing designer, but they have a very different feel than Kramer's games… Knizia games seem to revolve around a clever mechanic or two, with a theme applied (sometimes appropriate and well reflected by the system, sometimes not). Players must come to grips with the challenge and turn the system to their advantage against the other players. As much as they are intellectually challenging, the are a bit mechanical and often mathematical (the only Knizia game I find thematically engaging is LotR, although I consider that to be a huge achievement). Kramer's games avoid this… Elegance is found by tying theme to gameplay with innovative mechanics. The results can be abstract (Princes of Florence), Literal (Tikal) or in between (El Grande), but the results definitely have more "soul" than Knizia's games.

Not surprisingly, in my opinion the "Perfect" game (Ra) has been designed by the exact and calculating mind of Knizia, while the rest of the top 4… those I love playing but are each imperfect in one way or another, are all Kramers (El Grande, Princes of Florence and now Tikal).

For the record, as Konk in Monsters Menace America I CRUSHED Luch and Kozure, while Luch beat us both handily at Tikal.

Ratings:

Monsters Menace America: 6
Tikal: 9

Big is IN

Wednesday this week found us down a player once more, as Kozure was unable to attend. What works with three? Not too much in my collection, as it turns out. I didn't feel like Puerto Rico, and we had just played Robo-Rally (I am going to make it a point to make my next purchase 3 player friendly...) Anyway, I settled on a jumbo sized game of Carcassonne (with EVERY expansion included) to start out the evening. I have also had an itch to play Duel of Ages for quite a while now, so I was determined to make it work for three (DoA says it's a game for 2-16 players, but in fact the game consists strictly of two teams... a 3 player game would force 1 player to play twice as many characters as the others... far from ideal).

Started with Carc. I really like this game, because it's exactly as complex and strategic as you want to make it (sure, it's random... but it works for what it is) . With all expansions in, it's got quite a lot going on! We played with: "The River","The King and Scout", "The Count of Carcassonne", "Inns and Cathedrals", "Traders and Builders" and "The Princess and the Dragon" (As far as I know, that is every expansion available). Since we don't seem to get around to playing any one game really often, remembering all the rules for each expansion was a little daunting (particularly "The Count" and "The Princess and the Dragon"). What this mega game really pointed out, for me, is how well most of these expansions ratchet up the strategy just a little bit at a time. There are two, however, which are exceptions: The Count is fairly complex and fiddly in comparison to most, but luckily I like what it adds. The same can't be said for "The Prncess and the Dragon". The rules this adds are interesting in principle (various ways of getting meeples off the board, along with a method to get meeples into unfinished cities/roads/cloisters), but in practice it doesn't quite fit. I've said before that I felt this expansion would probably best be played on it's own, and this session backs that up. The fairy, in particular, is a pain to keep track of with so much going on. I'd love to try this mega-Carc again sometime soon, but without "The Princess and the Dragon", I think it would be much better.

For the record, I made an effort to go for goods and large cities (to snag the King). I did manage to get the majority in 2 of 3 goods, but unfortunately, Luch managed to beat me out for every large city or road I would try to build! In the end, he won by quite a large margin (I find that the more expansions we play with, the larger the spread in scores). This didn't seem to be Shemp's night... he had a hard time getting things going and came in last.

Next up was Duel of Ages.I checked out the official website and downloaded their 3-4 player variant rules (termed "Cutthroat Rules") and decided to give them a try. How did it go? Great! The rules add minor changes which effectively eliminate many of the problems inherent in any 3 player free for all battle game (two fight it out, and the third swoops in to win, or two gang up on the third, leaving that player no chance).

The changes are fairly simple: 2 players form a temporary alliance, and the third is termed the "Loner". The loner gets an additional character+ 2 equipment to start, but is otherwise at a disadvantage due to fewer characters compared to the alliance. The "Alliance" take their turn as though they were 1 team (i.e., they both move, then they both battle, then they both do challenges, etc). They are considered allies as far as special powers, combat and movement go. HOWEVER, the twist is that once a player manages to kill one of the Loner's characters, that player becomes the NEW Loner,drawing a new character+2 equipment at the start of his/ her next turn (the previous Loner joins forces with the third player in the Alliance). This interesting mechanic constantly shifts the forces of power, keeps the target moving to avoid kingmaker problems and creates interesting temporary alliances. There are also changes in the scoring which gives diminishing points for placing 1st or 2nd in the labyrinths.

We played a simple game, including only the basic labyrinths and no special keys. We used 5 characters apiece (4 might have been better). I started out as the Loner, and drew a competent mix of fast and powerful characters. I was fairly successful in completing challenges (drawing far too many mounts than I needed as rewards). In time, my Robin Hood was killed and Luch took over as loner. I did eventually get the title back (drawing the pile of WeeWaks for my trouble), and had a very successful finish with a score of 13-3-1 (or something like that).

Unfortunately, this session didn't feature too many really memorable moments. The game mostly involved each player making straight lines to their labyrinths, with a few combats along the way. Not sure why it didn't click, but I'm not going to blame the 3 player variant, as I'm quite happy with how that turned out.

All Hell Broke Loose

We gathered this week, visited once more by our friend JayWowser from California, for an ambitious attempt at playing both a "long" course of Robo-Rally and a session of Arkham Horror. Turns out, we were too ambitious, but just by a little.

This was JayWowser's first go at RoboRally. We had five players, and we chose a 2 board scenario from the "beginner's" courses. I have to hand it to the course designers in the new edition... the two we've tried so far have been real winners. The length is well represented in the description, the courses encourage good interaction and keeps leaders in check by forcing "double backs" in most (all?) cases.

We played with my "Pirate's Cove" variant. I have always felt that this game penalizes the players that are behind too harshly (they go back to their last save point AND start with damage!). It's hard enough to come back from a death and stay in the race, why make it harder? In this variant, players who suffer a setback are given a chance to bounce back by being given the option to come at full health or take two damage and draw an "option" card (similar to Pirate Cove's rules, giving pirates a choice of option cards when they are beaten in battle). I'll probably post this to BGG eventually.

I made a bee line towards the first flag and got there largely unopposed. In contrast, the other four were battling it out from the start. Kozure made a habit out of zapping Jaywowser. Meanwhile, Shemp took a few too many rides on the looped conveyor belts. I had made it to the 2nd flag as all hell broke loose at the first one. JayWowser, heavily damaged and with several locked registers, along with an otherwise healthy Kozure, was sent flying off the board by a charging Luch (Kozure almost immediately went over again). As I made my end run across the board back to the final flag, Shemp decided to give up the race and focus on taking me out. Kozure was terminally stuck in the crossfire of too many robots, and was eliminated from the game. Meanwhile, JayWowser and Luch headed for flag 2... holding out hope that Shemp would screw me over. I got shot up good on the way to the final flag, well enough to lock 3 of my registers before I could reach it. I tried valiantly to get there anyway, and I did make it to within one space twice, but I was never able to make it work. JayWowser snuck down the middle and claimed the victory as Luch was destroyed by Shemp close to the final flag.

All in all, a very chaotic and exciting race (well, maybe not exciting for Kozure). I really enjoy this game.

Next up was Arkham Horror. The guys had hyped this up for me, and my brief solo game seemed very intriguing, so I was looking forward to trying it out. We started at 8pm, giving us 3 hours for the game (assuming we finished up at our regular time). 4.5 hours later, we still hadn't finished, so we called it a night!

Our group was a solid mix of brains and brawn. All in all, I never really felt like we were in serious danger of failing (of course, Shemp as our own personal army clearing the streets, all the healing abilities we could ask for, and a well timed visit from the feds, helped a lot in this regard). When we quit, we were very close to successfully sealing all the gates we needed, so we packed up confident we would have won.

My reaction to the game itself is mixed. On one hand, there is a large number of very cool concepts and mechanics in the game. I appreciate the sheer variety of "stuff" it offers (characters, monsters, equipment, Great Old Ones, etc). I feel like there was an honest effort to capture a huge amount of the flavour of the mythos (the stories, the rpg, etc). But in the end... there is too much. A serious amount of editing should have taken place.

A (very) brief synopsis:

Each player takes on the role of an investigator from a particular walk of life (psychologist, student, doctor, private eye, etc). Each has different strengths and weaknesses. A Great Old One is randomly selected as the evil which is about to awake, and the game begins. Each turn, "mythos" events occur, clues are discovered around town and portals open up in unstable locations on the board (spitting out monsters in the process). It is up to the players to seal these "gates" before too many open, awakening the sleeping evil... (the bulk of the game involves working toghether to roam the streets, collect items and "clues", fighting creatures and sealing gates. They can win by sealing them all, but if the condition is met for the Great Old One to awaken before they can do that, everything stops and the group must collectively fights it).

What I liked:

There is a clever character stat system which allows players to adjust their skills every round, but every time they raise something, something else gets lowered (such as raising your "speed" reduces your "sneak"). It's a very elegant little touch which gives good flexibility to the characters to adapt to situations in a way that is balanced and simple. The monster movement system is also interesting; routes in black and/or white are traced on the board. Every time monster movement occurs, creature's who's symbols are called that turn move along the track they have been assigned to (ex: All "Star" cleatures move along the white path). It's a bit cumbursome to scan every creature each round for the symbols, but it's an original way to have a multitude of creatures move in an unpredictable way (and better than just rolling dice for all of them). Each location has a deck of cards which determine the types of encounters which will happen there (it's a little overwhelming to see all the decks of cards, and it doesn't result in as much variety of events as you'd expect, but it's a nice idea nonetheless). The whole "upkeep","Move/fight","Location Encounters","Mythos Event" systems works pretty well, despite some confusion regarding WHEN combats actually occur in certain circumstances, and despite the poor layout of the mythos cards themselves. Finally, I like the dynamics of gate opening: Each mythos card calls for a new gate in a location on the board. If it already has a gate, all open gates spit out monsters. If a gate has already been sealed there, the players are spared. This system accomplishes many things with simple and logical mechanics.

What I don't like:

The biggest problem is that the game is fairly long, but it feels like it should be going faster. The issue, in my mind, is that on top of the core rules there are a myriad of other, tiny rules which are individually simple and add flavour, but collectively just feel cumbursome. The "doom" counters (I think that's what they were called), which track the slow awakening of the Great Old One, kept getting forgotten. Money is bordeline unecessary. The terror level is an interesting concept (with residents of town and shops closing as it rises), but it doesn't add enough to be included. The creature "overflow" area is similar, unecessary clutter. Between the modifiers to the game from the Great Old One, the 3 types of Mythos cards, the character abilities and the myriad equipment and spells... it's hard to really be sure to apply all modifiers at a given time. While the "Sky" space adds an interesting element, "Lost in Time and Space" seems like a kludge solution to a problem they couldn't solve. There is a lot more, but the last one I'll mention is that the creatures have two flaws which bothered me: 1) the colour coding for special movement should have been replaced with text on the card (in fact, in some cases there is both!). 2) The double sided tokens meant that we were constantly flipping to see how hard something was to kill, how hard it was to sneak past, what symbol it was for movement purposes, etc.

In short: Simplify! Consolidate!

The fact that no one can agree on how some rules work is clearly a problem. The fact that the climax of the game, the encounter with the Great Old One, is one such situation, is pretty awful. I haven't yet had such an encounter, but considering that I don't understand how "fighting" such powerful creatures is in the spirit of the mythos, I'd probably like to see the whole process eliminated or re-worked.

It would be interesting to see if the game would work like this:

1) No money (simple draw three, choose 1 mechanic at the shops instead)
2) no blessings or curses
3) No terror level/ Overflow stack
4) Eliminate the trip to the outer planes. When a player wants to seal a gate, draw and resolve 1 card of the appropriate plane. If he/she survives, try to seal the gate immediately (or possibly the next turn)
5) Agree that combat always takes place in the movement phase, no matter what.
6) The Great Old One chosen determines the special conditions of the game (as usual), but if it awakens, the game ends. (B.T.W. An idea for a better way of keeping track of the doom track: Count out a # of gate markers equal the length of the doom track and return the others to the box. When the last one is placed, the Great Old One awakens and the game is over. When an Elder sign seals a gate, return it to the bottom of the stack. I haven't tested it, but it seems like it would work)

A few items that could have simplified the game, but couldn't be done now without going back to the drawing board:

1)Reduce the equipment cards to one stack (combining spells, unique items and common items).
2)Possibly eliminate the location card stacks (and go with a simpler streets=nothing, locations=printed text at the location, Mythos card=game events). Some of the flavour would be lost, but it would dramatically improve the pace of the game.

Summary: A VERY ambitious game. Succeeds in many ways, but fails in just as many. I enjoyed myself as always, but I don't think I'll be requesting it in the future.

Rating: 6

I Made a Math!

Luch's fancy this week were Puerto Rico and Princes of Florence, two excellent games (in my opinion). Sonja was playing with us again, and trying Puerto Rico out for the first time. Sadly, Kozure couldn't make it!

First things first: We decided to come clean about some of the mistitled roles in Puerto Rico. The Mayor? Since when is it a mayor's role to take "workers" off a boat and give them work. The "workers"... well that's pretty sketchy too. The theme of this game is pretty tasteless, but luckily it's a good game anyway! I had taught Sonja briefly before playing... so she wasn't going in completely blind. Luch and I were racing with the same strategy, harbor and wharf, but I managed to win. I tend to gravitate towards that style of play every game (Buy a market and coffee or tobacco early for income). Speaking of strategy tendencies... we talked a little about the fact that in every game we've played, Shemp has built a warehouse, and I've NEVER built one... kind of odd. I think Sonja liked it well enough, but I don't think she'll run out and buy it.

Next up was Princes of Florence. Shemp likes this game but historically does very poorly with it (last in every case, in fact). I encouraged him to play against his instincts, to see if that would help.... I'm not sure if that's what he actually did, but SOMETHING worked, because he would have won (!) the game if not for a bidding war with Luch on the last round (which he lost due to lack of funds, messing up his plan). His loss was my gain, as I narrowly snatched the victory. We had a good laugh as Sonja exclaimed she "Made a Math" as she completed a work.

This was my first time really going after the jesters (I don't think I've ever bought more than 1 per game before). The verdict? Of course, the experts are correct... they are really quite powerful. Suddenly, all the turn minimum became very easy to meet (I had 3). Still, Shemp's end run made it clear to me that the game has many avenues of strategy which can work, and the key to winning is open to any of them.

Does this change Shemp's opinion of the game? Sonja's? Both commented on the down time between turns, which can definitely be an issue when players aren't snappy. But it's a worthwhile experience in my mind, hope others agree (so I can keep playing it!)

Lastly, we played a couple of rounds of Sonja's favorite game: For Sale! This is a very simple and quick game which involves bidding on properties over several rounds in phase 1, and then selling them to prospective buyers in round 2. In my opinion, this game is excellent filler. It's fast and fun, and everyone is involved at all times until the end. There is a good balance of luck and strategy, which keeps everyone in the running but gives an edge to the player who puts his (her) mind to it. Although this feels similar in weight to High Society, I give this one the edge in the fun factor. Hmmm, I might have to get it eventually.

Random, Semi-Random and Un-Random (?)

An unusually abstract theme for Kozure this week: Degrees of randomness.

We played three games for the first time: Sid Sackson's "Can't Stop", Cheap Ass Games' "U.S. Patent #1" and Stefan Dorra's "Intrige". Each game is progressively less random than the last.

Can't Stop is a simple game which I would describe as "Yahtzee" Level fun. It's very random, but enjoyable for what it is. The theme is pasted on, but it ostensibly involves climbers going up a mountain. The first to reach the top of three peaks wins. The reality is that the game shows a spread of numbers from 2 to 12, distributed roughly (or exactly?) in columns according to the odds of rolling them (there are three 2s and 12s, four 3s and 11s, etc). On your turn, you roll 4 dice and pair them up into two totals and place a marker on those two numbers. You have a total of three markers to place... and therefore three numbers which can be advanced each turn. You can roll as often as you want, but if you ever roll the dice and wind up with a combination which doesn't let you advance a marker... you lose all your progress so far. Knowing when to pull out is the heart of the game (because when you pull out, you get to fix your markers at that spot on the column)

Most of us spent a few rounds pushing our luck too far and staying right at the bottom of the mountain for longer than we should have. Afterwards, we were more reasonable and the race was fairly close. Kozure did have the lead for much of the game, and in the end he won handily. A fun, light game.

Next up was U.S. Patent #1. The crux of this one is that players represent inventors who have created a machine for time travel, and they are racing through time to go back to the U.S. Patent office in order to file the very first patent ever (before the other players can). I won't get into the specifics of the mechanics, but essentially, each player has a Time Machine in need of 4 parts: A power source, a chassis, a weapon and a shield (... because clearly every time machine should have a weapon and a shield...). Once a player has that, he/she can go to the patent office in the 19th century and take a ticket to stand in line and wait to be called by the clerk (in plain english: when you get there, roll the dice. The result is the number of turns you have to wait to submit your patent). During the course of the game, players hop from one time period to another, stealing items from laboratories and buying items found at markets (in order to equip their time machines). Along the way, players can attack each others with their unholy contraptions in order to slow each other's progress.

As the theme prescribed, this is a game which has a healthy dose of randomness, but it also involves a certain amount of decision making and players can somewhat determine their fate. As with most Cheap Ass games, the idea is humourous, the gameplay is humorous, the components are cheap and the game play is so-so. I didn't feel that this one worked terribly well on a "mechanics" level, and it didn't seem to be as effective at being humorous either. The rest of the group liked this one better than I did, but I felt that there was a certain pointlessness to the whole thing. Not bad, but not great.

I spent too much time combing the libraries looking for the chassis which matched the huge power supply I scored by accident early in the game (it's not necessary to match them, but there are bonuses if you do so). Meanwhile, Luch and Shemp built less expensive Time Machines out of missmatched parts and headed for the patent office. I made a few attempts to stop the leaders with my big gun (which can shoot forward in time to disable vehicle upgrades), but failed. In the end, Luch made it first and wasn't seriously challenged... winning with Shemp hot on his heels.

Last up was Intrige. There is NO luck in this game, aside from what the players personalities and choices bring to it. I was looking forward to this one, because the rules and reputation suggested a deceptively simple game which could result in a strange and potentially harrowing experience... and it delivered. The rules are short and sweet: You have 8 relatives looking for work (4 professions, 2 relatives in each profession). you also have 4 jobs available for other player's relatives to fill. Since there are half as many jobs as there are relatives, many will be out of luck. On a player's turn, there are three phases: First, he collects income for any positions his relatives hold. The second phase is where it gets interesting... If there are any of the other player's relatives at his company looking for work, he must decide who to employ, and who to send to prison (prison= out of the game). In order to sway his decision, the other players involved can make compliments, promise future consideration, make threats, etc... and then finally, in turn order, those players make a bribe to the player. The acting player then TAKES ALL THE MONEY, and makes his decision. The decision regarding who to employ is COMPLETELY UP TO THE PLAYER. He is not bound by the player who made the biggest bribe, cut the best deal or offered the most compelling promises. He is not bound by anything he said during the negotiations. It's kinda evil, in fact. For the record, there are a couple of rules dictating that no two relatives of one profession can exist at each company (spurring yet more bribes and threats)and that a player HAS to offer a position if it's available and not contested. In the third phase, the player simply sends two of his remaining relatives to other player's companies. At the end of five rounds of placing relatives, collecting cash and resolving the hiring of employees, a final round of income takes place and the game ends. Most money wins.

Wow. What an interesting game. This is a very pure game of diplomacy and cut throat treachery. For this reason, I think this would be a definitive "Love or Hate" game, because many people would take this stuff personally and wind up hurt. If you can take your knife in the back and smile, then this game is for you. You have to pick up on the subtleties of each player's personality, read how current events can shape future ones and bribe players/ strategise the order of deployment of your relatives to suit. In our first session, Shemp and I made an early alliance which proved mutually lucrative, distancing ourselves from Luch and Kozure. About halfway through the game, Shemp kicked me out in favour of the others and I did the same. Kozure climbed back on top (by being the "Least hated" and therefore winding up with a lot of high positions). He made a PILE of money on the last few turns, while Shemp made very little and I made a medium amount. When the dollars were counted, my early winnings carried me through and I came in first by a few dollars. In the second game, Kozure and I started out down a similar path of mutual back-scratching that had helped me and Shemp in the first game. I planted my daggar firmly in Kozure's back just before his third turn, having made two rounds of high earnings, so that he wouldn't get the benefit of his second round of cash (I kicked him out of two positions on my board). My hopes of a second alliance with Shemp after that were shafted since he percieved me as the early leader and routinely passed me over for positions. I couldn't successfully repair relations with Kozure, and Luch had a firm alliance with Shemp, so I again had a poor showing in the second half. Shemp won the game with a convincing lead.

I thought about this one for several days after the fact.

Can't Stop: 7
U.S. Patent #1: 5
Intrige: 9

WAGS + Cards = Old School FUN!

We had a surprise request from Tili last week: Let's play cards. Not fancy Shmancy designer card games. Cards.

Always happy to indulge a craving, we gathered around the table for an evening of Hearts and Poker!

With 5 players, the character of Hearts changes a bit. It's very hard to shoot the moon, so it was rarely attempted (and never accomplished). Still, it was a fun bit of nostalgia (I used to play this a lot in high school).

Next up was Poker. We played for fun (Read: not for money) and took turns calling the game. While the others were mostly content calling standard poker variations (from the standard: This is how many cards you get, this is what's wild and this is how many times you get to drop cards to the fancier pre-set variations such as "Samurai" and "The King and his children" (I don't think I remembered that title quite right)). I did my best to come up with new, "exciting" and "original" variations such as "Squeeze the Weasel" and "Secrets of the Dead". Please note that the fact that the established variations worked much better than my homebrews is irrelevant. IRRELEVANT. We finished the night off with a few rounds of Texas Hold'em.

I love playing cards... I grew up playing 500, Kanasta, Hearts, Asshole, etc. Poker is not a game I have played very much, but it was a fun way to spend an evening. Texas Hold'Em, though, I just don't "get". To me, it just isn't very fun... I honestly don't understand how this became such a rage. They've eliminated card playing and replaced it with limited bluffing (the other versions have both... a much more interesting combination in my mind).

All in all, I had a great time. Tili should suggest games more often!

Shadows Over The Castillo

Well, no fancy first-person narratives this time, just straight reporting.

We were joined by the lovely and talented Sonja this week, who proved to be both an able teammate in Shadows Over Camelot and a cagey competitor in El Grande. Everyone seemed to get along famously and we're hoping she can join us again in the future.

Shadows Over Camelot began the evening. We have played and discussed the game here on the blog before, so I won't get into details about mechanics or components. SoC remains a somewhat so-so game for me, though I do look forward to playing it when it is brought out. I say "so-so" because I can't help feeling that the challenges are too many and the sense of accomplishment too little - much less than LotR. I enjoy SoC slightly more than LotR, but for different reasons.

This time, with five players, we thought that there might be the chance to accomplish more. We actually did, losing only 7 black swords to 5 white, and two of those black swords were flipped over white swords by the traitor, who managed to remain (mostly) undetected throughout the game. More on that later.

With all of us, including Sonja, knowing pretty much what had to be done, there was a lot more table talk about where to go and how to assign people. Also, people took more time to make sure they used their special powers effectively. Sonja was Sir Palomedes, Shemp was King Arthur, Hapi was Sir Kay, I was sir Percival. I believe Easy was Sir Gawain. Due to some cognitive dissonance, some of us kept moving the knight that was their traditional colour, but after a few rounds, we got straightened out.

I went immediately to the Black Knight quest, while Hapi beelined for the Grail, Shemp to Excalibur and Easy stuck around in the castle to draw extra cards.

We made a good dent in the grail quest early through a combination of removing desolation and despair cards with Merlin cards. We might have won it earlier but for a string of despair and desolation cards which seemed to come up in rapid succession. I managed to pull off the Black Knight joust, winning handily. Shemp attempted the Excalibur quest, but hadn't made much progress when he flipped over to the grail quest. We were slapped with a Mists of Avalon card and voted against stopping it (we would regret that later). I had moved over to the Saxon invasion while the rest alternated between the Picts and the Grail. Sonja and I fought off the Picts, and the others won the Grail quest with some teamwork, but in the meantime, the catapults were piling up and the Lancelot quest was lost. Someone (Hapi, I believe) had played the heroism card on the Grail quest, so we earned a whopping four white swords from its completion.

Around this time, Sonja played a card which she misread as revealing the traitor. In actuality, it said "reveal yourself if you ARE the traitor". Unfortunately, this caused Shemp to begin turning over his card. When someone pointed out that the card didn't say to reveal the traitor, Shemp quickly flipped his card face-down again. Sonja and Hapi missed this subtle hand motion, but both Easy and I noticed his slip. However, as this was an error, both of us decided independently to proceed as if we didn't know who the traitor was, though certainly we scruntinized Shemp's moves from then on for any excuse to believe that he was the traitor. Unfortunately Shemp was a cunning enough foe that neither of us felt that his actions were traitorous enough to warrant an accusation for the rest of the game.

Ignoring this accidental revelation, we continued playing, fighting off the Pict invasion and starting the Dragon Quest while simultaneously killing catapults. We were actually up to seven white swords and four black when a failed quest caused another black to be placed, ending the game. Because Shemp had gone undiscovered, two of our seven white swords were flipped to black.

In the end, the tally was 4 white swords for succeeding at the grail quest with heroism; 1 sword each for the Black Knight, Pict and Saxon Quests. (7 white)
Black swords came from failing the lancelot quest (2 black, due to "mists") and the Excalibur quest (2 or 3 black?). I can't remember which quest was failed that earned us the final game-ending black sword.

Once again, this game is challenging, but it's apparent that it's not all luck. Luck IS a major factor, but good teamwork, experience and skillful gameplay can help to mitigate. One thing that did happen this game is that poor Hapi got stuck on the grail quest for a major portion of the game - he was basically doing the same thing over and over every turn. Easy mentioned that this is an occasional complaint about the game in general.

El Grande with five players is also challenging - and a little too slow for my liking, but not bad. Sonja did excellently in picking up the game quickly and catching on to the ebb and flow of caballero placement. I managed to alter my strategy from a wargame-based "take and hold territory" strategy to the more sucessful "fluid placement and grab points whereever and whenever you can" strategy. This approach was much more successful for me this time, and I managed to earn first place as a result. All of our scores were higher than usual, which is promising, since I believe the tendency is to get lower scores with more players. Sonja finished with a respectable score, even more respectable for the fact that this was her first time playing, in a five-player game, with relatively experienced players, no less.

A very enjoyable evening, made even more enjoyable by a new and friendly face in the form of Sonja. (And everyone loves the Castillo).