WAGS for beginners

There were two themes at play last night: Games which are good for beginners AND games which are "nearly new" (which is to say that they are new, but related to other games we have already played).

Games in question: Ticket to Ride:Europe, Carcassonne Princess and the Dragon and High Society.

Ticket to Ride:Europe was up first. When we played the original some time ago, I felt that it was a good game but I had very little urge to play it again. I could understand it's popularity... it's beautiful, it's pretty easy to understand and also fairly quick. On the other hand, game play was a little TOO simple, and it became clear fairly quickly that going for the long routes was the way to go strategically. When this new edition came out, I had heard that the game was pretty much the same but it had been tweaked to make it more tense and more strategic while maintaining the fun and simplicity.

Did it work?

Somewhat.

In most ways, I liked it better. For the curious, here's a break down of the changes:

Tickets: Players are dealt one long route and 3 short routes to start the game, rather than 4 pure randomly drawn cards. This levels the playing field, which is a good thing, because getting no long routes in the original would put that players at a serious disadvantage.

Routes: There are far more single routes. and far more short routes. This made it more important to grab the routes you needed as soon as you could. The larger number of short routes prevents players from winning the game by just hoarding cards and claiming the long routes.

Stations: Presumably to balance the newfound difficulty in claiming routes, stations were introduced. Their purpose is to allow a player to use a piece of track they failed to claim, BUT ONLY FOR PURPOSES OF CLAIMING TICKETS AT THE END. The cost for placing one is high... 4 victory points and a card for the first, 4 plus a pair for the second one and 4+ a triple for the last. Still, if it completes a lucrative ticket it's certainly worth it. A few of these were built during our game, and it's interesting how the dynamic of shorter single routes mixed with the stations affect the planning and blocking strategies in the game. I found myself on more than one occasion calculating how long I could leave certain destinations open based on whether there were two routes vs one, and whether I could afford a station there if I got beat to the punch.

Tunnels,: Any route highlighted by a black outline is a "tunnel". These routes are less predictable than normal routes... a player trying to claim one must have all the required cards and then draw 3 more. If any of the drawn cards match the colour of the route, that many more cards must be played or the player loses their turn and fail to claim the route.

Ferries (no Shemp, not Fairies): These are, predicably, water routes and are always gray. Normally, a gray route can use any colour, but a ferry REQUIRES that a certain number of locomotive cards be used. This raises the value of the locomotive (wild) cards and means they actually get drawn from the face up pile once in a while!

That pretty much sums up the changes. Overall, it felt more similar to the original than I expected. On one hand, Ferries and tunnels feel a little like "novelty"... not really significant strategic changes. One the other, the more restricted layout makes the competition more intense for the routes (but the stations keep it from being too easy to block your opponents). It's an overall improvement, but not a drastic one. I'll be looking forward to playing this one with people who aren't into heavy games (I'd still pick Pirate' Cove as my favorite Days of Wonder game, however... but this one IS more approachable). Luch wound up beating us all by a hair, through a combination of grabbing the longest route and fulfilling all his tickets. Two things sunk me to second: 1)I played my last move conservatively by going for the 6 segment tunnel when I had an excellent chance of completing the eight segment one, and 2) I drew a ticket late in the game which I didn't fulfill. Either one of those decisions, done differently, would have won me the game!

Two more observations (Shemp's, actually): First, the mechanics of the game mean that the board's change to shorter routes leads to a slightly longer game (the game ends once a player gets down to two or less trains, which takes longer when most turns involve placing only 2 or 3 trains). Second, the East half of the board, which is less congested than the west, seems like a better bet to go for (for that reason)It certainly worked for Luch, who was largely uncontested in that end while he quickly built his ridiculously long route. Hmmm. We'll have to try it againt to test that theory!

Carcassonne, the Princess and the Dragon, is the latest in the long list of expansions for this WAGS favorite. It transports the game to a place of magic and creatures (this is not necessarily somewhere most Carcassonne players wanted to go) In truth, the expansion should have read: Carcassonne "let's get the complacent Meeples off the board", as most of the mechanics revolve around doing just that.

Let's see, the game adds a dragon which roams around the board eating Meeples and a princess which runs off with the Knights in the cities. A "Teleportation" devices allows a player to place their meeple at any legal space on the board (the rest of the group seemed off-put by these, but I felt it was perfectly reasonable as part of an expansion which seems to go out of it's way to leave partially completed cities and roads all around). Finally, the fairy protects the Meeple it accompanies from the dragon, and gives the last player to move it extra points in various ways (good luck points?). Bottom line: It's much harder to build large cities and long roads, and much harder to maintain farmers until the end.

Over the course of the game, I beleive everyone got knights stolen and meeples eaten. Lucky for me, a central farmer made it to the end and gave me a pile of points at the endgame. We had a running joke going with the dragon and fairy at one end of the board earning that part of town the title of "Flameborrough" (a bad double entendre which caused all of us, but Shemp in particular, to revert to the maturity level of a 12 year old and giggle)

Conclusion: the expansion is fun enough, but I don't think it will get much play time... due to it's lukewarm reception.

And High Society? I love it. Lot's of fun. One thing worth mentioning: We had a round were we all scored 0! That's pretty embarrassing. I almost called the Blog "Orange Bot: WAGS Nemesis", in honour of the orange non-player car which almost beat everyone else at the last game of Formula Motor Racing.

Ticket to Ride: Europe: 7.5
Carcassonne Princess and Dragon: 6

"Yarghh". "Halt". "Well, I never"

Three games tonight:

Pirate's Cove
Domaine
High Society

Pirate's Cove was fun as always. I pulled to an early lead by focusing most of my starting money on sails and sinking many enemies (most often Luch) before they got a shot off. I was getting unbeleivably lucky with my dice rolling, but then things starting going badly... I got blowed up a few times, and the game quickly became a two horse race between Kozure and Shemp. In the end, Shemp won by a large margin, and proceeded to claim that he thought he had figured out the best strategy for the game. After we were all done laughing that the game could be won through strategy, he stood his ground but then conceeded that he'd have to try it again to see if he was right. I consider that a challenge, matey.

Domain followed. We once again forgot the very imporant rule that cards can't be drawn from the chancery once the deck is completed, but otherwise this was (and felt) like the most satisfying session so far. the game is finally living up to it's potential as we learn to identify the Big Land Grab (tm) early enough to prevent it. In this case, kozure was being sneaky and tried to seal off a huge chunk of the board quite early on. Luch and I where skirmishing in the corner. Shemp, well, he wasn't "firing on all cylinders" shall we say (though I can't remember why). Lucky for us, Shemp noticed the BLG a few turns before it happend, and we all mobilized to prevent it from happening. Luckily for me, I was in a position to benefit the most. With a few well timed "traitor" cards, I managed to grab quite a few points at Kozure's expense. Luch started threatening my borders at the end, but it wasn't enough to cut my lead. I won.

My feelings for the game have definitely improved as we've played. With a group of similarly experienced players, this is a great game. With that in mind, I'll be changing my rating for this one to an 8.5.

Last up was High Society. We hadn't played this one before, but I had heard such good things about it I picked it up last time I was at a gamestore. What a great game! It's simple (5 minutes to explain), it's fast (20-25 minutes), and yet it's strategic and fun. Essentially, everyone plays "Nouvaux Riche"... recently wealthy people looking to boost their status by buying impressive things. It's a card game where every turn, an item worth 1 to 10 is turned up for bidding. Players bid clockwise until all but one drops out, and then that player adds the item to their collection. There are also "bad" cards which force the player to discard a previously purchased item, half their score, etc. In this case, players bid to NOT take the item. First player to pass gets it (but all money bid by all players is lost). There are four cards with red borders, once all 4 are revealed the game ends. The total value of aquired items determines the winner, but the catch is that the player with the least leftover money is immediately eliminated, regardless of the value of their purchases (They are the poorest, and therefore only worthy of ridicule)! Having to balance aquiring the most valuable pieces with the threat of instant elimination for being the poorest player at the end makes for very difficult decisions. The fact that no one knows when the game will end makes things even more interesting! We played three hands... I lost the first one by managing to forget the "poorest player" rule (which is particularly embarassing considering I am the one who taught the others how to play), but then rebounded and won the next by taking a chance on a very pricey last bid which put me over the top.

I REALLY liked this game. In my opinion, this is probably "The Ultimate Filler Game"... Rating 8.5

Just because you rub it doesn't mean something will happen...

So, we're still in Egypt.

Apparently, despite my earlier prediction, more things happen ON THE WAY to Egypt than IN EGYPT.

This week we resumed our monthly RPG "Beyond the Supernatural". We are approaching the climax of the adventure, which we have technically been on for 10 years (real time), but only because we resumed after 8 years of inactivity. As is often the case with grandiose story arcs, the ending feels like a really big deal. Unfortunately, because we are in a horror game system (which by definition means we are outclassed and helpless most of the time) and because we are particularly useless (the party consists of a gun happy, somewhat crazy psychic sensitive, an otherwise mundane genius, and a nega-psychic who mostly wants to arrest the psychic sensitive), we find oursleves at the end mostly stumped.

It's funny, because the one thing we SHOULD be good at is information gathering! We have a lore egghead, a psychic sensitive and a member of interpol, dammit! In the end, all our reconaissance abilities have lead us to the place we already knew we were going to, with an artifact we are only guessing how to use, and a plan to ... fight the bad guys when we get there. Now, I'll be the first to say that a good fight is usually more fun than endless research, but I expected more from us!

So this particular episode of the ghostbusters found the group split up, with bucannan staking out the ennemy's current hideout while Stan and Helmut drove out to meet some guy who could hopefully perform the ritual we need to perform at the "big dance which will bring upon us the end of the world". We were attacked by vampires, and then let go as they informed us through a vision that one of our so called ennemies actually shared some of our goals... to stop the ritual.

Shaken, and with a busted up rental car, we returned and assisted buccannen with his stake out. On Stan's shift, he witnessed the baddies leave their hotel and attempt to high tail it out of there. Of course, he acted rashly and ran out guns blazing. He was too late and they started getting away. This led to a high speed car chase where gunfire was exchanged and baddie vans were overturned and exploded. Hoping to have done enough damage to the crew, our heroes left the scene before things really got ugly.

Off we went to Karnak, with two days before the big day. We scoped out the site and came up with a plan. Helmut put his signalling mirrors to good use as a way for us to communicate with himself and the man who will perform the ritual for us (should they get into trouble, or should we be unable to prevent enemies from heading towards them). We layed rope traps to try to slow them down. Stan and buccanen split up and hid overnight to hopefully knock of the scouts where they are dispersed and work our way inwards and bust up the ritual.

Only next session will tell whether we manage to stop the end of the world, or indirectly cause it. I'm betting on the end of the world, considering our ability to do simple things like prevent our wallets from getting stolen.

(previously)

New

This week we celebrated the new.

We ate food we've never had before (Lamacun, which is turkish pizza which turns out to be both very cheap and pretty good).
We had snacks we've never eaten before (the latest sprite concoction, Dill Pickle Doritos).
We were introduced to Ian, Kozure and Tili's new baby boy
We played with people we've never had at WAGS before ("Agent Oral", a university friend, and "Jaywowzer", a new aquaintance I met through Boardgamegeek).
We played two new games (Witch Trial and Ra)

First off, I'd like to point out that Jaywowzer is a madman. And he is very dedicated to gaming. Despite a flight arriving in Toronto at 7:30pm, he made it to his hotel and found Kozure's place in less than 1:30 hours... we hadn't even made it through our first game! Nice that he came though, it was a pleasure meeting him and I look forward to having him come again!

On to the games... Witch Trial was first up. This is another Cheap Ass game from Kozure's seemingly endless collection of them. As with most of these games, the game is humourous and relies on players involvement to really work. In this case, you have the Salem witch trials as a theme. Players all play lawyers trying to get as rich as possible by trying or defending a series of suspects on various charges. It's a card game, with everyone managing a hand of cards representing suspects, charges, motions, evidence, etc. There is a series of face up cards on the table, and players must choose to either draw one, pair a suspect or charge from their hand with it's counterpart from the face up cards, or take a case to trial. A trial basically comes down to adding up the "suspicion level" of the accused with the "likelihood" of the charge to get a number from 1 to 12. Then players alternate adding evidence and motions to increase or decrease that number in their favour. Once all cards are played, the dice are rolled and the result is added to the total. If the result is over 12, the prosecution wins. We all got into it, making an effort to "present" our cases, reading the card texts and generally haming it up. Bluffing can be usefull, but the bulk of the strategy seemed to revolve around timing you cases such that no one is in a position to defend it properly (negotiation skills are also usefull if you want to make a plea bargain to split the settlement without getting a verdict). Also, since the defending lawyer always gets a minimum retainer whether he wins the case or not, it doesn't really hurt to do a lot of that, too (as long as you don't use up lots of otherwise good cards trying to defend a hopeless case). I won the game, but as with most first attempts at a game, it was entirely luck. It was pretty fun, and I think that the game mechanic is strong enough that this one would be fun for quite a few more plays (even moreso than unexploded cow, which I also liked).

Next up was Ra. Since this is only a 3-5 player game, we split out into two game groups (4 and 2). I played Ra with JayWowzer, Agent Oral and Luch, while shemp and kozure played "Lost cities".

Ra was excellent. I really enjoyed this one, and I'm really sad it's out of print. This is an auction game set in Egypt. Each player is trying to build the most impressive dynasty by accumulating the most pharoahs, the best civilizations, the most temples, etc. Over the course of three "epochs" (rounds), players take turns either drawing from the pile of tiles to add to the board, or to call an auction to see who gets to keep the tiles which have been drawn so far. There is a clever mechanism for the auctions, though: The players start the game with three "sun" markers with number on them (2-16, no two are the same). and a value 1 sun tile is placed on the board. Whenever an auction occurs, players can choose to offer up one of their numbered tiles for the lot, and the highest bid takes them. There are three tricks, though! 1) Because of the unique scoring mechanism, the same face up tiles will be worth differently to different players 2) disaster tiles can turn up which actually destroys existing tiles if you win the auction, and this can make an otherwise desirable lot much less attractive if you hold the type of tiles which will be destroyed, and 3) one you've won an auction, you have to trade in your sun tile and take the one present on the table. The sun tiles you take are the ones you'll use to bid in the auctions on the next epoch, so you have to carefully consider the tile you'll be aquiring as part of the auction when bidding. There are two other ways an auction can happen... if the board fills up or if a player draws a tile and gets a "Ra" tile, an auction is immediately called on whatever is on the table. Each "Epoch" ends once all players have used up their bids or once a preset number of "Ra" tiles turns up. This can lead to some real tension as players try to turn up the tiles they need to complete their sets, but debate whether they should just bite the bullet and bid on what's there so that the round doesn't end before they get the chance to aquire anything. the scoring seems a little finisky at first, there are a lot of case like "you get this many points if you have the most pharoahs, and you loose this many if you have the least" or "you get one point for each river tile, so long as you have at least one flood, otherwise they are wortless". Plus, some items are scored every round, others only at the end of the game. Some tiles are thrown out at the end of the round, others go to the end. Still, a logic quickly emerges and it soon becomes pretty smooth. A cheat sheet which Jaywowzer printed out from Boargamegeek really helped visually organizing the sets, their scoring, etc.
All in all, I found the game moved quickly, had a nice balance of randomness and looked great. I'd put it right up there with my favorites, if i could get my hands on a copy!

for the record, JayWowzer creamed us on the first go around, and in the second game (with Kozure and Shemp in, but with Agent Oral out playing Lost cities with Tili), Kozure beat me by a nose through a consistent lead in the pharoahs in each epoch. JayWowzer played chicken with Ra and lost on a couple of occasions in the second game, accounting for his loss.

Ratings:
Witch Trial : 7
Ra: 9

Catching up.

Please note that I've added comments to a couple of dormant threads, important mainly for Easy's rankings. They are:

1. Regarding our last Duel of Ages session.

2. Game rankings for Battle Cry and Unexploded Cow.

3. In the item immediately below this one.