Bright Lights, Big City

New Week.
2 new games.

Joined by our honorary Wagster, JayWowser, we took on Kozure's new copy of Power Grid. This is a top 5 game which had a reputation for fiddly rules but tight and enjoyable gameplay. How did it fare? Well, first off, we played a 6 player game where half the players had played a basic game and the other had never played. For this reason, our first full game took quite a long time (over 3 hours). Still, it turned out to be quite good.

Most of the criticisms regarding fiddly rules are valid. There are 3 rounds, and the rules change in each successive one, every turn has a lot of steps, there are lots of little pieces which all do different things and finally the is a lot of "book-keeping" type activites which SOMEONE playing the game needs to remember (ex: power plants getting cycled in or out of the game, resources being put back into circulation, etc). I remember thinking that this was one of those games which would play in under 1/4 of the time if it was turned into a computer game.

That being said, the game's got a lot going for it. For all their complexity, the mechanics do two things very well: 1) They create the illusion of a changing economy, a fluctuating market in fuel sources. 2) The players who are trailing have advantages against the leaders to keep them in the game. It's not terribly elegant, but it works.

The basics are simple enough:

1)Each player bids on power plants until everyone has bought one or passed.
2)Fuel is purchased for the power plants
3)Players build connections between cities
4)Players burn fuel to produce energy to those cities in order to generate money

The winner is the player who, once the requisit number of power plants have been built by any player, manages to power the most cities (and if that results in a tie) the one with the most money.

There is honestly too much going on in the game to decribe succinctly, but a few items deserve to be noted:

1) The fuel economy is represented by a chart indicating the cost of different fuels. The larger the available quantity of fuel, the cheaper it is. Different fuels power different power plant (coal, oil, garbage and uranium). In the beginning, coal is plentiful and cheap, but if everyone buys coal power plants it gets snapped up pretty quick and becomes expensive. In contrast, since garbage and uranium are initially expensive players are tempted to avoid the plants which use them as fuel. This seems to lead to a few players who have easy access to the fuel when it becomes cheap. Of course, everyone wants the wind generators, since they provide power without the need to purchase any fuel! for all the interlocking systems of the game, there is one they DON'T have which would seem to be a natural: Players who invest in a technology early gain no advantage or discount on future power plants of the same type.

2) The board is made up of cities which are eligible to receive power plants. In each phase from 1 to 3, the players can only have as many cities as the number of the current phase. This has the interesting effect of making the board alternately constricted and open as the game goes from phase to phase. Since the progression from phase to phase occurs differently each game, players must be flexible and think ahead in order to avoid being boxed in for a few turns. To keep things constricted, a game with fewer players uses a smaller portion of the board.

Interesting note: In a classy move, the board ships with two maps on a two sided board, U.S. AND Germany!

3) The winning conditions are counter-intuitive at first. The game ends once SOMEONE builds his/her 14th power plant (in a 6 player game). At the end of that turn, the player who was able to power the most of his/ her plants in the cities wins. Therefore, if the player who built the 14th plant first only has enough fuel to power 3 cities, any other player who manages to power more than that will win. More typically, what seems to happen is that a few players manage to make it to 14, but not all of them have reserved enough fuel to power all of them. If there are ties, the most remaining money wins.

In our game, we quickly discovered that the board feels very full, very fast. Our starting cities where all very close and I feared that my proximity to Tili and Kozure might do me in pretty early. I banked on claiming about 5 cities in my area, but my first plan was to secure an escape route for future growth in Eastern Germany. Sadly, turn order didn't go my way and Tili blocked up the escape route right away. I slowly put plants in the 5 cities nearby and then, when phase 2 came up, started claiming the second spots in the territory of my neighbour to the south: Kozure. Little did I know that JayWowser had plans to snap up all but 3 of them in one turn! (He was clearly playing a boom and bust game, doing very little for several turns and then exploding with big purchases once in a while). Having been outbid on the eco-plants by Tili, I resorted to focusing on coal. I managed to build a trio of plants which could power 14 cities quite early, and that proved to be instrumental later on... As other where busy bidding on plants to get to 14 in the last few rounds, I was able to spend my second last round just buying fuel for the plants, and my last round doing nothing but building my last cities and powering them (putting me in a very favorable financial position compared to the others, who were spending big bucks bidding on power plants). Shemp managed to also build plants in 14 cities on that last turn, but I had much more money in hand, giving me the win.

Luch spent, I think, the entire game in the "last player" turn order. This afforded him the opportunity to buy fuels first (making them cheaper), and build first (giving him a jump on prime locations). Unfortunatly, that strategy didn't pan out for him. Still, it seems that it could definitely work because the advantages are clearly there.

A few early notes on possible strategy:

1) The North West section of the Germany board, with many nearby cheap connections, really seems like the place to be.
2) Cycling your plants too many times gives diminishing returns. The plants are expensive, and cities progressively return less money (going from 1 to two cities gives a player 11 more electros, but going from 13 to 14 gives only 5 or so more).
3) Going last in the turn order can be a huge advantage, but it would likely have to be teamed up with a strategy of using coal or oil power plants (Because buying those first would always mean cheap fuel and cause other players to pay more). If the last place player is using eco plants or nuclear energy, his ability to go first isn't that useful, since he's not in competiton for fuel anyway.

Anyway, great game. Look forward to playing it again (I bet it will be much faster!)

Next up was Fairy Tale, a japanese card game brought to us my JayWowser.

I won't spend too much time describing this one... it's basically a set collecting game where players try to accumulate points by matching complementary cards, playing high scoring single cards and satisfying the condition on them or play cards which disrupt the other player's plans. The theme is that players are building a story, or something. The card art is quite nice in a Manga sort of way (although overly busy with symbols), but in the end the theme is quite thin... Which is okay because I though the game itself was really good.

The heart of the game is in the hand building... Each player is dealt 5 cards. They choose one and pass the rest to the left. Then they choose 1 card from the fours they were passed, and so on, until they have chosen five cards. Then they discard 2 cards and play the round with the remaining 3.

Players then choose 1 of their cards and reveal them simultaneously. Players check to see if any cards have global effects (such as the "Hunt" cards which immediately cancel any black cards just revealed, or the variety of cards which reveal or hide previously played cards). This continues until all three cards are played, and the whole thing (drafting of cards, etc) happens 4 times, for a toal of 12 cards layed.

At the end, each player counts up to see how many points they've made. Many cards are simply worth the amount printed on them. Others act as multipliers for themselves (if you have 1, it's worth 1 point. If you have 2, they are each worth 2. Etc) Others are "friends" of another card, and are worth 3 times as many of the "friend card" which you have managed to accumulate.

In the first of our two games, we didn't do too badly considering we didn't really grasp the way the cards worked just yet. Kozure won it, I think. The second game saw us all trying a few strategies, with the most impressive being Shemp's, who managed to get all but one of his baby dragons, resulting in 6x6 points=36. Unfortunately, as it turns out, that wasn't enought to win... My hand of "Friend" cards and individual points nudged slightly ahead of Kozure's version of the same.

All in all, a great filler game which only takes 20-30 mintues to play and was lots of fun. It's a shame it's such a hard one to find!

Anyway, JayWowser (if you are reading this) it was nice having you again, and we look forward to another!

Powergrid: 8.5
Fairy Tale:8

Karnage @ Karnak

The Scene: The temple of Amun at Karnak. Helmut and Aziz hid away in an inner compartment. Buchanan and McCormick were hidden in the shadows near the Great Hypostyle Hall, surveiling the approach to the temple.

All was quiet in the temple for several hours, but at 4:05 AM Stanley McCormick sensed something ominous, and whispered into the two-way radios.

"They've arrived." As soon as the shadowed figures were spotted, though, they were lost again, amid a wind, a rustling, and a flapping. McCormick believed that they had penetrated deep into the temple, to inner chambers hidden in darkness.

Tension continued mounting with little action until roughly 6:00 AM - at this point there was the sound of a vehicle, slamming, and then an entourage entered the temple, along with the first rays of light. Two cloaked figures, and 18 others, some burdened, and some apparently unburdened. They purposefully headed to the inner sanctum, and minutes later a small grouping headed back to the main entry, where the lead hooded figure loudly chanted an invocation. Wind whipped up, howling, resulting in a sandstorm that blackened the sky. There was more movement amongst the most recent arrivals, and 6 individuals were left on patrol, while the rest returned to the interior.

Buchanan agitated for immediate action, but the others vetoed that idea, preferring to wait for Noon, preferring to strike at the presumed climax of the ritual, and the presumed summoning of the Elder God Mun'Mut'Kunzu.

At 10:00 AM a slow procession began down the main axis of the temple. Stan and Sam kept tabs, and at one point Buchanan braved the sandstorm to loop around a sentry from the outside. He would later regret plunging into the sandstorm, as it seemed to result in repeated jamming of weapons later on, when he most needed them.

The procession was headed by a cloaked figure (presumed to be O'Brien), followed by four torch bearing cultists, two bearing the stone artifact, and six bearing a restrained figure on some sort of board. By 11:52, they arrived in the area just in front of the inner chamber, and it became apparent that a sacrifice was to take place. A human sacrifice. Buchanan and McCormick were watching, Helmut and Aziz were readying to do their part to stop this from happening.
McCormick slipped away to ready his weapons.

At 11:52 AM things went to Hell.

A stumble, a stubbed toe, and an oath by McCormick drew attention, and subsequent gunfire. Chaos erupted, and Fearg chanted. McCormick threw himself to the ground at the feet of the cultists, drawing gunfire. Buchanan attempted a distraction, and joined in the gunplay himself. Helmut von X realized his attention was needed, and moved to the main hall. Fearg chanted. McCormick let double shotguns blaze. Buchanan cursed his luck and bled. Helmut loosed some arrows. Fearg chanted. McCormick was grabbed by four cultists, and was presented to Fearg. Fearg chanted. Helmut dodged. Buchanan fired scavenged rifles. Fearg chanted and Stanley McCormick foresaw that he was going to die.

At 11:53 AM things were the darkest.

Buchanan’s rifles jammed. Stanley, despite his brute strength, was immobilized. But Helmut's arrows made their mark, while Fearg chanted. Buchanan's shots once again hit their marks. The cultist's numbers were reduced to those holding McCormick. Fearg chanted, and raised his ceremonial dagger. Helmut drew his katana, and dispatched McCormick’s captors. Fearg brought his dagger sweeping down to McCormick’s heart. Stanley McCormick, finally, dodged.

At 11:54 all that was left of the cult was Fearg O'Brien, and piles of meat. Fearg took several rifle shots without blinking, but finally was forced to break his chant. The demon took a couple of last swipes, transformed to a serpent, and was tossed aside. Aziz joined the other three adventurers in the main room, and they caught their breath. McCormick opened himself to the Supernatural, attempting to get a fix on O'Brien.

He didn't get a fix on O'Brien. But he did get one on DeKoonig!

The Vampire and minions materialized and thanked our bleeding protagonists for "dealing with" O'Brien. DeKoonig offered the honour of being a first meal in his forthcoming Vampire Kingdom.

At 11:55, dawn had not yet arrived.


(previously)

Bloggiversary!

One Year of WAGS on the Interweb!!!

Yeah, US!!!

That's all.

Common, Rare and Strange

A pseudo-“bye” night; the vagaries of child-raising combined with Tili’s urgent need to complete a deadline made it necessary to play at Kozure’s place two weeks in a row. As it was technically Shane’s pick, he selected Settlers of Catan and Robo Rally, two games which are well known to the group and very commonly played by euro-gamers.

Kicking the evening off with Settlers of Catan, it was nice to play a game which was familiar and simple. Very little thought needed to be given to the mechanics of play; we could then focus on the strategy itself. Strangely, the number “5” came up several turns in a row, with more common numbers like “6” and “8” being given a miss. Kozure jumped into an early lead, but Hapi caught up quickly, wresting the longest road card away from him a few turns after gaining it. Shemp toiled in relative banishment for much of the game, but pulled off an excellent come-back in the last few turns.

The kill-the-leader strategy was in full effect, with the thief being judiciously assigned several times to one of Kozure’s key territories. Easy and Hapi shared the brick monopoly, but careful road and settlement placement allowed Kozure to trade and amass enough resource cards to accomplish the 2:1 ore and 4:1 trades he often found necessary due to the occasional wood and brick shortages. Hapi scored a few times with the usually rare “2” resource roll, and Easy blocked an early effort by Kozure to corner both Hapi and Easy in one area of the map, but Kozure eventually overwhelmed the market and built his way to victory, winning with the longest road, three cities and two settlements.

Left with a mitt full of resource cards at several points (especially Kozure), all the players reflected on the rareness of the thief roll (at critical points) and the boom/bust nature of the economy, which resulted in an uneven pacing of the game – long periods of no building, followed by windfalls of resources and frantic construction. A strange game.

Settlers of Catan is the equivalent of a Harvey’s burger for me; not subtle or complex, easy to digest, not really hard to swallow, nor challenging, but relatively satisfying nonetheless. It therefore falls on the other end of the brain-burn scale for me from, say, El Grande or Tigris and Euphrates, which, despite being fun in themselves, cannot be taken lightly.

Robo Rally, Richard Garfield’s fun little work, was similarly odd. Though off to an early lead again, Kozure found himself stymied by luck and fellow players on the second flag. A more jammed than usual first flag resulted in several comical results, with Shemp pulling a C3PO as he blindly navigated through a sea of dangers – pits, conveyors and fellow robots – to touch the flag despite his damage and the dangers and clawed his way back into the running after some initial set-backs. A series of battles around the second flag resulted in Kozure’s demise, which, combined with his problems in noticing key wall segments behind other players’ pieces earlier in the game, resulted in his last-place finish. Shemp flew past the other players and pulled off the win, with Easy and Hapi taking second and third place respectively.

In both games, Shemp came from behind to finish very respectably (second and first). As his stats prove, he's no pushover.

Robo Rally is a fun little game, but it depends heavily on players being able to select their actions quickly. The tendency is to over think. Strangely -and more than once- Shemp’s accidental selection of cards did not result in his death, though it usually proves fatal. I think a potential variant for the next session of this game is to auction off a set number of option cards (Princes of Florence or Power Grid style) with an arbitrary amount of cash (say, 10 electros from Power Grid), with each player being permitted a maximum of three options. Another potential variant is a timed planning phase, in which a set limit of time is permitted for planning (egg timer or digital countdown stopwatch). Unplanned registers are filled randomly from the player’s hand. It would be frantic, but would add a new twist to the game.

A fun evening with WAGS. Are there any other kinds?

RECONAISSANCE REPORT FROM ZZ PLURAL ALPHA BEGINS

Supreme Overlord Gazak-Thul XXIV,

I have completed my reconnaissance of the puny meatling squatter camps located in sector ZZ plural Alpha. It is a pathetic, squabbling world of carbon-based, bipedal monkey things with a strange fascination with mammary protrusions. In particular, I was amused to discover a small group of three of them playing simulations of their attempts to fend off invasion. Hah… should we choose to destroy them, rest assured there would be no cardboard counters or randomized plastic cubes involved! GAAAGH GAAGH GAAAGH GAAAGH! *snort*

Their first nonsensical simulation was called “They’ve Invaded Pleasantville”, a hypothetical invasion set in the bucolic country-side bumpkin town of what they call “America” from fifty of their orbital periods ago. It is a poorly decorated game, with a bare minimum of attention given to artwork or style. It depicts the effort of a “Sub-Commander Zebulon” (wouldn’t Planetary Tyrant Zebulon from sector GK epsilon be amused!) who is taking over the monkey-people of the town of Pleasantville using implants which render them slave-like zombies. One of the monkeys takes the lofty role of Zebulon, while the other smelly hominids (well, usually one other hominid, but this play-through was modified for three competitors, instead of the usual two) play the wretched inhabitants of the town who are alerted to the invasion. In a careful game of hidden control and randomized movement, the Zebulon simulator must try to take over as many inhabitants as possible before 12 turns pass, while the human simulators must convince other sceptical townspeople of their cause, converse with potentially converted “uncontrolled” townspeople and capture implanted humans to interrogate or remove their implants. Combat and influence are handled by charts which related to comparative odds, an ancient and primitive method typically called “Combat Result Tables, or CRTs” by other ape-man simulation enthusiasts. There are also tables of “Die Roll Modifiers, or DRMs”, though they are not called as such. I am lead to understand that these CRTs and DRMs are primitive even by Earthling standards, especially in comparison to more modern hominid simulations (though still primitive when set beside our own HolOlfactoryMoist-o-Rama Simulatrons). Using a simplistic but effective method of counter substitution, the Zebulon player conceals which townspeople are under the control of his superior forces. He must then carefully move both implanted and non-implanted uncontrolled townspeople to deceive his opponent(s) about which townspeople are actually under his control. There are other aspects of the game, but to delve further would take up entirely too many chronopulses. Victory is sustained for the Earthling-side player if he discovers and kills the immobile (heh, not unlike our own chubby-wubby Zebulon, eh?) Sub-commander Zebulon or if he maintains control of at least half of the influence value of human townspeople by the end of the twelfth turn. If these conditions are not met, the obviously more deserving Alien simulator is victorious.

In this event, apelings Hapi and Shemp quavered in their loafers and heels as the townspeople, while unworthy Kozure simulated Zebulon (rather poorly, I hasten to add). Kozure made critical errors in marshalling his forces early on, tipping his hand too soon as to which were alien-controlled and which were mere townspeople. Hapi and Shemp effectively gained recruits (though not helped much by the Bartender) and had a fair-sized posse by turn three. A few random movement rolls moved some of the implanted apes right into the clutches of the growing alerted town forces and Kozure was too foolish to simply ignore the optional random move. Although Kozure was recovering and getting more slaves by turn 7, a simplistic and unexpected method of interrogation by left-to-right, top-to-bottom elimination of Zebulon’s location revealed the Sub-Commander’s position far too early. A posse of angry townspeople descended on the supermarket, brushed aside the ineffective resistance put up by the only alien-controlled townspeople in the area (the Sheriff and the Check-out Girl) and lynched Zebulon in a most undignified manner. Overall, a feeble effort by the Kozure-player and a very effective and coordinated game by Hapi and Shemp. Of course, our forces would have simply Blasto-Rayed the whole town, leaving nothing but monkey ashes and melted malt shops. GAAAGH GAAGH GAAAGH GAAAGH! *snort*

The second pitiable simulation was a similar “Old School” game designed by the man-ape Tom Wham, originally for TSR, but repackaged for Steve Jackson games in a clumsy but cute “video-tape” box. The game is called “The Awful Green Things from Outer Space” and, while also meant for two monkeys, can be played by up to six or so with quick modifications. This game represents the struggle of a curiously non-hominid crew to fend off an infestation of “Awful Green Things” picked up as geological samples from a strange world. The crew of the Znutar, made up of four different sentient races and one kiwi bird-like mascot, once alerted to the presence of eggs, babies and adult Awful Green Things on their ship, must make use of various weapons like pool sticks, stun guns, welding torches, communications beamers, fuel tanks and even the packaged foodstuff “Zgwortz” to kill the invaders, or, if things become desperate, abandon the ship. It is a childishly simple game of area movement and dice-based combat – the only really distinctive feature is the random combat effects of the weapons, which can kill, stun, grow, shrink or fragment the aliens into multiple pieces (which can then grow themselves). I know if someone came at me with a high-frequency demodulating etha-net transponder/communications beamer, I wouldn’t be standing in the way, Garthoz be my witness! GAAAGH! *snort*

In this simulation, the puny earthlings forced the Shemp-ape to play the AGTs, while Hapi and Kozure split up the crew. Shemp made a valiant effort, but unfamiliarity with the game and some early bad random-cube roll breaks had him on the defensive for the majority of the play. Kozure and Hapi managed to contain and eliminate the AGT menace with a loss of only five crew members. Surprisingly, your humble servant found this game amusing and quick, despite its simple and dated pedigree. All of the monkeys flapped their ingestion holes and announced that they would enjoy playing both games again. The one known as Kozure wanted to play “The Awful Green Things from Outer Space” again immediately, but their self-imposed chronospan was insufficient to allow completion.

Instead, the meatlings opted to play a game called Zero!, a simulation of one of their laughably small-scale conflicts of 60 orbital periods ago. This game of airfoil-craft powered by piston-drive internal combustion engines was familiar to them already and play proceeded quickly. Kozure played against Shemp and Hapi. Man-ape Kozure pounced on Shemp early in the game, scoring a quick damage result, while Hapi and Kozure’s other element tangled below. The play went very well, as all players now seemed familiar with how to fly their simulated aircraft. After a whirling dogfight, Kozure’s “IJN” emerged victorious, having destroyed one opponent’s aircraft and damaged another, while the “USAF” played by Hapi and Shemp only managed to damage one Zero. Surprisingly, Kozure’s element of weak Oscars were unharmed.

The puny humans seemed pleased with their laughable simulations, even going so far as to permit one of their slug-like offspring to burble and drool in observation. There was much ingestion-hole flapping and intake of a disturbingly odorous food called “curry”, and also mention of an absent member named “Easy”. What a sorry and pitiable race, to find amusement in such primitive and inadequate diversions.

I conclude that this race is ripe for conquering, or should that prove to be more trouble than it’s worth, simple liquefaction for storage as a high-protein meal supplement. However, my most bilious Supreme Overlord, perhaps a few more orbital periods of study are merited to further document their pathetic paper and plastic simulation techniques. While meagre and positively archaic, there is a certain… charm… to their execution and use.

Yours ever obediently,

Scout-Captain Yup-Lodjaq
Reconnaissance Craft Halsaf the Trenchant
Invasion Force Grak Vanguard
Sector ZZ Plural Alpha

END COMMUNICATION