Enjoying Ameritrash (Robo-Rally, Railroad Tycoon)

If last week was about excellent eurogames, this week we played some of our favorite "Ameritrash" (I actually dislike this term, but whatever)

We started with Robo-Rally. As usual, I chose a "short" course... "Chess" I think it was called. The board layout features a large double conveyor belt which surrounds an alternating grid of single spaced empty squares and single conveyor belts. 2 flags.

With 5 players, I didn't expect things to be too crowded (it is a course designed for 5-8 players). I feared interaction would be minimal. That didn't happen.

Right out of the gate, Shemp committed the mistake I normally make, he mistook his robot for a different one. Poor Twonky flew right off the edge of the board.... My path went smoothly, with one exception: By the end of the first turn I had been shot so many times my first register was locked! Trying desperately to get out of the line of fire didn't help. By the end of the second round I had four registers locked. I was on the double conveyor belt, and for the rest of the game I circled the other players, unable to get off (Having only a single register left open meant I was only being dealt one card, and it was a "turn left" card ON EVERY ROUND until the end of the game). Oh well, I find this game fun even as a spectator so there you go.

There was some good competition for the first flag. I beleive that Brian, Luch and Kozure all achieved it within a few phases of each other. Shemp wasn't too far behind. In the race for the second flag it looked like bharmer had it in the bag until a bad card draw left him spinning his wheels for a turn. Luch stepped in and bumped him off course... inadvertedly correcting bharmer's path and leading him to victory...

Well, such is life in Robo-rally.

Railroad tycoon came next. I decided to try a variant I had come up with which I felt might address a few of the minor complaints I have with the game... namely that the player to the left of the auction winner is often at a large advantage and that cards don't refresh with enough frequency. The variant is pretty simple: Players bid for turn order, not just first place (Over the course of the game, we settled on a method stolen from "For Sale!". Bid goes from player to player according to the previous round's turn order. Bid starts at $1000, and the first player to drop out goes last, second player goes 2nd last, etc. Half of your current bid goes to the bank, rounded up, when you withdraw). Also, a number of cards equal to the number of players is turned up every turn.

It took a bit of getting used to, but I think the turn order modification is a winner. It didn't make an enormous impact in the game, but I definitely felt that players were earning their advantages a bit better. One nice thing I hadn't anticipated: Since bid order is determined by last round's turn order, the player who went first is less likely to be able to lead again (since he/she bids first, the value of the bid will always be higher than the other players). It turned out to be a nice balancing mechanism.

The change in rate for revealing action cards also worked reasonably well, but it wasn't perfect. Having that many cards turn up every round certainly kept the game interesting by injecting good reasons to compete for turn order into the mix, but it also led to every card getting turned up before the end of the game. On one hand, this means that players can reliably count on all the major lines eventually coming out and plan accordingly, but on the other hand it begs the questions: "if all the major lines are going to be revealed anyway, why not just start with them all revealed"? and "Is the game better when everyone knows all the major lines will be revealed"?

In the end, I think I'd like to try the next game with a different rule for the cards: Split out all the major lines and reveal a number equal to the number of players. With the remaing cards, reveal a number of cards equal to the number of players minus 1. I think this would do a better job of keeping each game fresh (by alternating the available major routes), but keeping the auctions interesting throughout the game.

In this session, I had the tycoon card for building a western link. I decided to focus on a section of the east coast to start off and build a bit of income before heading west. Kozure and I wound up trying to carve our own little section of that area, but we coexisted reasonably well. Bharmer was further south, Luch went central and Shemp was all about Chicago.

Early on, things were looking good for me. I grabbed the hotels for New York and Chicago, and both were proving to be quite lucrative for me. Shemp, in particular, couldn't help but give me points on most turns. Unfortunately for me, all routes out of chicago were snapped up by Shemp and Kozure, leaving me with the unfortunate prospect of giving one of them points every turn when I built the western link. I did eventually head out there, and since I was raking in the cash it wasn't onerous to build the tracks and the western link to give me a lucrative 4 link run for Kansas City to Chicago via Kozure's link. OF course, since Shemp had tied up most of Chicago and had a very good network out of there, he actually profited more than I did from the western link... but I hoped that my lead was big enough to give me the win (and increasing my lead over 3 players seemed worth it, even if Shemp might catch up a little). That's when Kozure steady progression west paid off: he picked up a major line (washington - Chicago?) worth 10 points and a second (New York - Kansas + western Link) for 20. The lead I had evaporated. I should still have been within striking distance, though. Sadly, my delivery network went dry and I couldn't catch up! Very well played on his part!

A very fun evening. There is some chance we'll be playing next week, but in case we don't I wanted to wish anyone reading this a happy holiday and new year!

Gettin' better all the time (Taj Mahal, Maharaja)

What an excellent evening of gaming...

We started out with our second play of Taj Mahal. This type of game really benefits from a second game soon after the original learning game. In the first, I was pretty much lost on the strategy, in this game something clicked.

When I play strategy heavy games, I have a tendency to want to find an "angle". In other words, I try to identify the various paths to victory, pick one that doesn't seem too obvious, and see if I can stick to it. In games where I don't feel I can even competently assess the various strategies, I often will try something just to see how the game system reacts. One thing I've learned about Eurogames is that a winning strategy is often simply doing what the other players aren't... This week it worked for me (though it often doesn't!)

Last week, I couldn't get any synergy going with the goods or the palaces connecting. Worse, I couldn't get the cards to work for me. I figured I'd see what would happen if I sat back for a few rounds and just collect cards (there is a bonus card for any player who withdraws without playing anything). After 3 regions were scored, I found myself with an enormous hand of cards and two strong suits. With a more complete hand, I was able to identify the goals I was able to meet and then make them happen. After that, I was able to snowball my points by overpowering the others to win the regions which matched the goods I had while laying back and drawing cards when they didn't. I'm not sure what would happen if everyone tried this technique in the same game, but when only one player does it he/she seems to have a definite advantage. At least for this game, it worked for me and I won.

I was also able to notice some of the subtler strategies in the game now that things have had a bit of time to sink in:

1) If both you and another player have a noble chit (the princess, for example), and both of you are aiming to get the second one, let the other player get it first. In particular, don't get into a bidding war over it. Whoever gets it first is actually at a disadvantage because the second player can easily get their second chit the next round and steal it away, but the first player will have to take a number of rounds to get the two nobles again.
2) Focus on building one or two suits. This is probably obvious to pros of the game, but in our first session I was much more focused on picking cards with the symbols I wanted and it often left me unable to go the distance when I actually wanted something.
3) The princess is a good source of points, and placing palaces which connect can also help, but nothing can touch goods for scoring huge points.
4) Tying players in the symbols they are playing is important, If you're going for the elephant and have a choice of the second character it is tempting to play whatever one hasn't been played yet. However, the opposite might be more beneficial! The other player is forced to waste further cards or pull out with nothing. It prevents an easy win for the other player and can throw a wrench in their strategy without affecting yours. Last week, I saw Kozure wind up with 2-3 prizes on several occasions by tying just long enough for us to pull out and he'd keep the rest. He also creamed us that game.

It's only been two games but so far I'm really enjoying this one.

The second and final game for the evening was Maharaja. I haven't been overjoyed with this one in our first several games but I'm happy to say that this was by far the best game I've had. What changed? We put up a fight, for once.

Bharmer has a 100% win rate on this game, and we've played +/- 5 times (always 5 players)! He seemed to understand the layers of the game better than we did, and he would use that to his advantage every game (the most interesting thing being that he always seemed a step ahead of us, pushing a different mechanic every time just as we tried to replicate what he did in the LAST game unsuccessfully). How can one player in a five player game routinely score first in almost every region? We were all clearly spinning our wheels.Compound this with the fact that it's such an unforgiving game that a few mistakes early on can ruin your chances and the winner can be perfectly obvious several rounds before the end (in fact, the game can send players in a downwards spiral as lack of success translates to fewer funds which translates to further lack of success). It all added up to games which left me disappointed since the tension is lost when you know it's hopeless 40 minutes into a 2 hour game.

Right off the bat, things were pretty different in this game. Players were placing far fewer houses on the roads, and building in regions other than the one being scored. Competition for regions was much tighter. Role swapping and governor track alterations were being done with more effectiveness than before. Fewer people were choosing actions they couldn't do (*cough* building without houses available *cough*). With five more or less evenly matched players, the game suddenly sprang to life for me.

Ok. My first move was terrible. I sacrificed 1st place in the first region, getting only 4th in the process, and handed an advantage to Shemp (I altered the governor track, benefiting only him). After that, I wasn't doing too bad. Several turns in a row, I was sitting on nearly enough money to build 2 palaces, but I never quite managed to make it happen. Shemp, Kozure and Bharmer each had regions were they dominated and were trying to steer the governor track to their advantage. Unfortunately for Luch, he had a series of bad turns in the beginning which left him struggling until the end. This was the first game to make it to the 10th round, and just about all of us had the potential to win. In an ironic twist, the last region to be scored was inaccessible to us due to lack of built houses leading to it. I stood to gain since I was last in the turn order... but I was short on cash. I needed someone to pave the way for me and then I needed 2 extra gold to come my way (a player error or someone crossing my houses). Neither happened, so when bharmer did build a path to the region as the second last player, I wasn't able to capitalize on it. Bharmer won again, but it was close. I'd be willing to bet that he won't win the next one.

Anyway, it's been a while since we've played two heavier games in a single night, and it's been a while since I've been so engaged in all the games we've played. We went into overtime, but it was worth it.

Under the influence (Taj Mahal, Battlestar Galactica CCG)

Bharmer purchased the reprint of Taj Mahal recently, and Kozure picked up the Battlestar Galactica CCG. Obviously, we had to play them.

I personally played Taj Mahal a few times through the computer interface a few times prior to last night, but I didn't really understand the game. Having now played it using the proper rules, I have to say I'm very impressed.

The theme in Taj Mahal is extremely thin. It involves aquiring influence with different nobles in India, but has very little measurable impact on the game. The game reolves around a series of contests were players try to win the favour of the nobles, aquire goods and build palaces. Bottom line, this is a race to aquire points and there are many available paths to do so. Perhaps a more useful description would be to say that this game is what happens when Knizia mixes the board play of Web of Power with a reversed version of poker and adds a dash of Ra-type scoring.

It's a classic, and there's probably very little left to say about the game. I need to play it a few more times but on first inspection this could turn out to be one of my favorites.

1) This is a meaty strategy game. There seems to be a lot of potentials paths to victory (connecting palaces, focusing on goods, keeping the yellow noble, etc).
2) There is enough randomness to keep things interesting, but a player will rarely be at the mercy of bad luck.
3) There is very little downtime since individual decisions tend to be fairly small.

The biggest knock I can level against the game is that the myriad scoring options can make the game difficult to learn. Our first game made it obvious that if players focus too much on their own goals, they can make it easy for another player to walk off with lots of easy points (i.e. player 1 plays a card with a red and yellow noble. The other players fight over the elephants, handing player 1 easy majorities). Experience will likely solve this, but it's possible that it's too detrimental to bother and that this will turn out to be a real flaw.

I found the card management to be surprisingly difficult. Ultimately, the two biggest decisions you have to make every round is which suit to lead in and what two cards to take at the end of the round. Going for province tiles tends to be about stamina, since there seems to be so many elephants that getting out quick with a lead is very rare. I guess the trick is to try to accumulate long suits if this is your goal. The nobles are tricky because they don't seem to be equally worthwhile. Obviously leading with a dual noble card increases your chances of ducking out with a quick noble/ palace (and a good shot at picking up a bonus chit), but if you get matched you need to have enough in reserve to avoid getting absolutely nothing. This game seems to severely punish going for a goal (noble/ elephant/ etc) and failing, since all cards are spent regardless and replenishing your hand is hard to do. The palaces and road connecting doesn't seem to provide enough points to carry a player to victory, so I have to assume this is meant to supplement a lead rather than create it.

Kozure mopped the floor with us. He managed to both keep the yellow noble through much of the game AND win several fo the province tiles. Clearly, we weren't on our toes. Bharmer was not doing too badly, but Shemp, Luch and I were pretty far behind. It's a brain burner, but it's quite elegant and fast moving once you figure it out. I'm really looking forward to playing this again.

We finished the evening with a four player game of the Battlestar Galactica CCG. I'm a fan of the series, but I didn't even know about this game!

As far as CCGs go, it's quite good. Many of the common pitfalls are avoided: Each card plays multiple roles, so there is very little "resource clumping"... the frustration caused when a required resouce cards don't show up or show up too frequently (mana in Magic CCG is the prototypical example of this)magic CCG). They are also used as combat randomizers and to represent the threat of Cylon raiders.

Players go through the typical steps of accumulating resources, building up a team and duking it out. The last phase in each round involves fighting cylons as a group, which is kind of interesting. One mechanic, which involves placing cards ina staging area before they can be deployed doesn't really add up to much more than "tapping" and "untapping" (which we accidentally did several times instead)... but there is no doubt it better suits the theme.

As i said, it was pretty good. I still think I prefer Vampire, but CCGs have an inherent complexity level which I find I have less patience for than i used to (having to read, understand and consider the impact of each card and then having to keep track of the myriad cards played by other players on the table). Obviously, the only reason Vampire gets a pass on that one is because I played that one enough to know most of the cards by heart... not because it does any better on that count. also like Vampire, it seems to have the potential to run a bit longer than it should. What puts Vampire over the top for me is the multiplayer aspect... there are mechanics in Vampire (the predator/ prey relationship and the political system in particular) which give structure to the dynamics of the game and prevent free for all ganging up on the leader.

It was a pretty close game. Luch almost had an early win as his Zarek card gave him tons of points in a few rounds. Unfortunately for him, he was 1 point short of victory and was subsequently torn to shreds by the rest of us. Shemp, kozure and I hovered around the same level until we artifically declared a particular round the "last" round. Luch ended up playing kingmaker since he had one last ship to attack with and the opportunity to attack any of us with it... deciding the winner in the process (Shemp).

Thousands of free tacos (Maharaja, Puerto Rico, Formula:Motor Racing)

So Taco Bell has offered to give a lifetime of tacos to anyone who is willing to give the company their Playstation 3 (so they can give it to charity). It's an odd story, and not one that affects us (since we don't have one). Still, it inspired Luch, our dictator for the week, to sugeest tacos for the evening. Mmmmm. Tacos.

First game was Maharaja. From the get-go things were going poorly for me... I just couldn't manage to place higher than 4th or 5th, and therefore couldn't really build any palaces. Bharmer, on the other hand, is extremely good at it. Each game, he seems untouchable, but what is interesting is that he uses a different strategy each game. In the first, he was swapping characters all the time. In this one, he manipulated the nobles (?) track endlessly, and continuously built palaces one turn ahead of time (getting the central position with little competition). It's a little weird, but it seems that despite the fact that there is little variety in what actually happens on the board, the way to get there appears to have many options. I don't remember how Tili managed in her first game, but she was very good in her second game, narrowly losing the game to Brian by a single palace (and providing him with the only real competition that game).

My opinion on the game is wavering. There are good things going on, but it moves slowly and the ending can almost be predicted halfway throught he game. That may be because we are not good enough competition for bharmer! It does bother me that he manages first or second in almost every city, even in a 5 player game. Shouldn't that be difficult to do? What are we missing?

Anyway, congrats to Bharmer (and Tili). You are clearly very good at this game.

Next was Puerto Rico. Wow, it had been a long time since we've played. None of us have ever really played this extensively, so it remains a largely "off the cuff" experience (no rote strategies, here). Anyway, I started with an indigo and went straight into tobacco. I was hoping to focus on making money, so I bought the two markets and then added an office. I never did get to use the office (and didn't get much use out of the factory, either). Still, things were going okay. I was hoping to pick up 3 large buildings but bharmer bought one much earlier than I expected anyone to... sparking a rush to buy them. I managed 2.

When the scores were tallied, kozure and I finished quite close: his 52 to my 54.

It was fun to get that out again!

We finished up with Formula: Motor Racing. I'm really enjoying this game right now. Not much to say, except that we managed to beat the bots, and that's an achievement for us.

An evening of Deviance (Diamant, Zombies 4, El Grande, Quo Vadis?)

I thought it would be fun to play a number of games we've played many times before, but with house rules or official variants.

First up was Diamant. We played with a variant I found on BGG which suggested that caves with only 1 ruby in it be replaced with an idol worth 10. This turned out to be a great alternative to the base rules! The idol can't be split, so the only way to pick it up is to be the only one in the cave, or the only one leaving them. When one of these turns up, the tension regarding the otherwise simple stay or go mechanic is brought up a notch. I won the game by being lucky and picking up a couple of idols and lots of diamonds. Very enjoyable... I might never play with the base rules again.

Next was Zombies 4: the end. I didn't actually mean to play this with a variant, I just wanted to give it a spin since it didn't get to play it on Halloween. This is a very silly game which involves searching a forest which grows as the game goes on in search of an old cabin. Zombie dogs are everywhere and the idea is to cast a spell in the old cabin once it is found, in order to dispel the evil. I enjoyed the original Zombies as a funny, silly dicefest. i thought it was worth getting a copy when Kozure decided to sell his... though for variety I tried this standalone expansion set instead since it got good reviews. Sadly, we unwittingly introduced a variant I will term "The boring version of an already questionable game". In the standard rules, when a blank forest tile is brought up, up to 6 zombie dogs are meant to be placed on it. We didn't. Therefore, the only dogs on the board were those specifically called for on the "named" tiles... leaving a rather empty and boring forest for us to explore. Oh well, Luch eventually cast the spell in the old cabin and ended the curse. Good for him (and for us since it finally ended the game). i really didn't enjoy the session much. I think this is partly due to the incorrectly played rules, but I suspect that this is inferior to the original set (the cards didn't seem conducive to a fun game, anyway).

Next was El Grande. In an effort to try to reduce the amount of time between turns, I thought it would be interesting to split the player's actions into two phases. In other words, where a player normally takes an action card and then activates the card's power and/or places caballeros from the court to the board, in this vairant the player chooses one of these two things and then waits for it to come around again before executing his/her second action. The verdict? Suffice it to say that we played the last third of the game using the classic rules. Things didn't seem faster at all! It's quite possible that the major contributor to downtime int his game is analysis, so having two mini-turns simply introduced another round of "thinking". Also, splitting the two phases had the unfortunate effect of broadcasting your intentions to the other plays (the King, in particular, becomes much less usefull).

Last,but not least, was Quo Vadis?. I thought it would be interesting to introduce a set collecting element, so I took out all the chips valued above two and added the lillypads from Knizia'a children game "Leapin' Lilly Pads". We decided to score each lillypad as 1 point, each pair as 3 and each triple as 5. Though it seemed to add a certain amount of analysis paralysis to the game, it was pretty cool to see the tiles turn up and be worth different amounts to different people. This led to some creative deal-making, exactly as I had hoped! Sadly, the one aspect missing is variable income. Picking up a 3 is worth 3. Unlike in, say, Monopoly, the value of a token is pretty easy to measure (in monopoly, the present value must be considered against future potential income). Still, I'd say it was an improvement.

Drain You (Traders of Genoa, Formula: Motor Racing)

Two games this week.

Traders of Genoa

A five player game of Traders of Genoa tends to be a fairly draining affair. As this was Bharmer's first game, we explained the rules and got underway. After our last game, I had read a strategy article on BGG positing that a player who gets the most actions, even though he might be overbidding much of the time, is likely to win. I didn't quite beleive it, but I figured I'd give it a try...

Clearly this guy hadn't played with our group.

WAGS members are a skeptical bunch. You bid high, and everyone figures you want it because you're going to score big, so you get nothing.

At the beginning, with no particulr goal in mind other than bidding high on the actions which became available in the hopes of securing an action every turn, things were looking grim. "I'll bid 20 on the post office" was met with "Easy is going for a messages strategy, don't let him". On the next player's turn, "I'll bid 20 on the cathedral". Predictably, "Easy is going for an ownership marker strategy, don't let him". (that last example isn't entirely fair... I almost always go for an ownership marker strategy, even when I don't start off that way. They were right to be suspicious). Either way, in the first go around the table, I only got one action.

I kept trying, though. As the game wore on, I stayed agressive and went out of my way to outbid other players in order to secure turns for myself. I think they eventually decided I was digging my own grave, because they did eventually start accepting my offers. If I hadn't actually BEEN digging my own grave, things would have been looking up. I spent too much of my earnings, and only managed a third place finish. I think that in the end Shemp managed the strategy I was trying more effectively. He bid high when it mattered, but not every time. He also had a very interesting stretch where he collected the goods we didn't want in high numbers. At the time, it seemed he was standing still, but in the end he was able to accomplish more in his final turns than we did. Bharmer showed a knack for this game... in his first outing he managed a close second place through a solid and straightforward small/ large order + messages strategy.

Someone noted that ToG has a tendency to "peter out" near the end. Not sure what it is, but we all have a tendency to "peak" a little early... fulfilling all our orders, etc, a little too early and not having enough time to start the process again. I"m sure there's some ineffiviency on our parts here. Better planning would probably solve this, but why does it seem to happen everytime?

We capped things off with a game of Formula: Motor Racing. Not a whole lot to say about this, except that it continues to be very enjoyable, fluffy entertainment. I tend to laugh more playing this than many of the supposed "humourous" games, so that's good. Luch wiped the floor with us, which is actually a nice change from consistently loosing to the non-player cars.

You did your part, little 50 year old boy (Mall of Horror, Betrayal at House on the Hill)

Another Halloween has come and gone, and with it another session of horror themed games.

It's the first time in a month and a half for all five of us to be playing at the same time. The honour of the first game went to Mall of Horror, an impulse Hallowe'en buy on Kozure's part. I was excited to play it, because the concept is pretty interesting...

Mall of Horror

Mall of Horror is a rather innovative take on the zombie boardgame genre. Every player controls 3 characters who are trapped in a mall. There are five stores where the characters can barricade themselves, and a parking lot which is extremely dangerous but where valuable equipment can be found. Every round, zombies arrive and try to break into the stores. As long as the characters outnumber the zombies, they are safe... but the zombies keep coming and numerical superiority doesn't last forever. If characters find themselves outnumbered, somebody will die. This is where the true colours of the game reveal themselves... Rather than resort to combat, players must VOTE to pick the victim! Loser gets eaten (I'm guessing this is meant to simulate the characters pushing someone to the front). When the game ends, the winner is the player who has the most valuable characters left in the game.

So, basically, this is Survivor: Zombie edition. It's quite a fun game.

There are a number of additional details which enrich the gaming experience:

1) The three characters are not equal. There is a "hot babe" worth 7 points at the end of the game, a "tough guy" worth 5 and a "guy with a gun" worth 3. The girl has no special ability, other than being worth the most. The tough guy counts as two characters when determining if the zombies can break a barricade. The guy with the gun gets two votes when determining who gets sacked (because he's got a gun, which makes him convincing).

2) Every round, each player must secretely choose a destination for one of their characters. Staying in place is NOT an option. This creates very interesting dynamics because a location which was safe last round (because the characters outnumbered the zombies) can suddenly become deadly if a few characters leave. Also, there is a maximum number of characters in each location, which causes a lot of tension as areas become overriden with Zombies and the remaining available spaces in other stores are full. If a player chooses a destination which ultimately cannot accomodate a character, it winds up in the parking lot. Ouch.

3) One player is voted "Head of Security" each round. Normally, players don't know where the zombies will arrive every round. A newly elected head of security has a big advantage because he/she gets to see, through his short-circuit cameras, where the zombies will be going and he/she can act accordingly.

4) The parking lot is very dangerous because every single zombie in the area eats a victim (i.e. they don't need to outnumber the victims). The reason characters would go there is that the parking lot is home to life-saving equipment, such as guns and barricading materials. In game terms, any survivors vote one player to draw 3 cards. That player chooses one, then MUST give a second card to another player and then discard the third. Ass-kissing typically ensues.

The game manages to create a very interesting atmosphere of tension and desperation as the zombies start piling on the board and the player's characters start dwindling. Negotiating skills are put to the test. Promises for future consideration and "watching each other's backs" can mean the difference between making it to the end and... not. If I were to fault the game it would be that in the absence of any real currency, the creativity of negotiations is somewhat limited. Also, player elimination could easily force a player to watch from the sidelines early on... a potential problem in a game of this length (1-1.5 hours). This is easily the best zombie game I've played, and the game mechanics capture the theme very well. Despite this, the game is more in the "Intrigue" and "Quo Vadis?" camp of cut-throat negotation games. Less nasty than Intrigue, but still nasty.

Shemp ran away with the game, teaming up with Kozure early on and generally out-maneuvering and out-negotiating the rest of us throughout the game. He backstabbed Kozure at just the right time, knocking him out of contention for the lead. Bharmer was nearly eliminated early on. Luch and I did our best, but we couldn't change the pecking order. Interestingly, on the last round it became clear how fragile any lead in the game can be... Shemp found himself with his two remaining characters in the parking lot on the last round. There were two zombies there. He had a "hide" card which allowed one of his characters to survive, but if he hadn't he would have been wiped off the board and out of contention. Fortunatly for him, he had prepared for such an event and was holding onto that card for quite some time. Kozure did finish second, and the rest of us lost all our characters.

We finished off the evening with our yearly game of Betrayal at House on the Hill. The scenario which came up saw me, as a little girl, be the traitor. The story goes that the house is alive and likes to feed on humans. In return for eternal youth, I led the other players here as a sacrifice. Every round, the other player's character could potentially age dramatically. I simply needed to wait and let them die fo old age, or get directly involved and "help move things along". Meanwhile, the other players were running around and trying to cast spells in various rooms of the house in order to remove the enchantment and save themselves. Predictably, the old priest died quickly. The dynamite I lobbed at the little boy helped me eliminate him (though he had aged to his 50s by then, and had successfully cast 1 or 2 spells... leading to the blog entry's title). Shortly thereafter, the woman also succumbed to old age. Only the jock remained, and he had hardly aged at all due to exceptional rolling on Shemp's part. Just as I thought to myself that things were looking good for me, the dumb thug stumbled across the last room they needed to find and succesfully cast the final spell. I lost.

It's a stupid game, but I enjoy it. The variety of the scenarios continues to impress.

Hi

I haven't been posting things lately because I haven't been attending game night. I'll post the games played for the last few weeks once I know what they are.

In the meantime, if you are a regular reader, why don't you leave a comment and say hi ? I'm really curious to know who reads this other than us.

The LUCH factor (Quo Vadis? x2, PowerGrid: Italy)

Some games have a lot of luck, and others do not. However, some would argue that the actions of other players is a form of luck in and of itself, regardless of the game played. I have always agreed with that idea, but last night really brought it home.

Luch, a member of WAGS, has always been a bit of a wildcard. He plays to win, but "winning" sometimes involves achieving goals which the rest of us don't understand. Maybe it's entertainment value, maybe it's blocking a particular player, maybe it's winning in the traditional sense (i.e. according to the rules of the games). We never really know what he's planning at any given time.

It's pretty interesting. I only mention it because the game of PowerGrid had a pretty surprising moment. More on that later.

The evening started with 2 sessions of Quo Vadis? With 5 players, the game started to show it's true potential. The board was quite constrained... we came to realize that there are exactly enough spots for each player to have two politicians in the low committees. Getting on the board after the second round was pretty tough! Quite a few deals brokered during the game involved simply trading votes for openings in committees. Surprisingly, the laurels seemed to take a back seat to movement on the board. Blocking committees, scratching each other's back in order to get into the senate, etc, seemed to be the prime motivators.

In our first game, I tried to crowd the 5 seat low committee in the hope of getting a good amount of bribes and "vote laurels" from other players as they went through. Along the way, I pushed up a loner to the central committee so that he could use Ceasar's favour to enter the senate. It was working out, but the Ceasar marker was moved just before I could use it. As that committee filled in, I had to give up on that route. I worked up the left side of the board with JayWowzer's help, and just as the game seemed about to end, I made a very risky deal with Shemp to have him vote me to the senate for the hefty price of 10 laurels. The move would freeze Kozure out of the senate entirely, and he seemed to have a fair bit of laurels so I went for it. I won over Shemp by 3. Close.

In our second game, Shemp seemed in control from the beginning. He absolutely dominated the 5 person low committee (4 politicians!) at one point. He, too, was blocked out of the central committee for a time until he and Kozure traded favours to vote each other into the senate. JayWowzer had sneakily amassed quite a few laurels himself, so I really had no idea who would win (other than the fact that it wouldn't be me). JayWowzer and Shemp wound up tied! Jaywowzer had entered the senate first, so he won the tie-breaker.

Quo Vadis? has turned out to be a pretty good game. I'm pretty sure there is opportunity here for good, fast and creative negotiation fun. It still doesn't capture the level of "Wheeling and Dealing" that we used to do in our Monopoly sessions back in the day, though. For all the faults of that game, I still haven't come across a negotiation game which had as much opportunity for creative deal making (I've tried Traders of Genoa, bohnanza, Intrige, and many others). In fact, I'm curious if introducing a set collecting mechanic in Quo Vadis would help to give the laurels different valuations for different people. Maybe the laurels come in colours and their value increases if mulitples of a colour are owned at the endgame? That might be fun to try.

PowerGrid, using the super cool Italy map, was next. For those out there who know PowerGrid but haven't yet played on the expansion maps, let me just say this: This board changes the game considerably (France, in comparison, seemed pretty tame. We haven't played it, however) The north is literally choked with extremely inexpensive connections. The south is sparsely populated and expensive to build on. The dynamic this creates is pretty predictable... fierce competition in the north, overflow to the south. The only change to the game other than the map is a greater scarcity of starting resources and slightly different "restocking" rates.

Sicily was out of play, making the south unviable as a starting location. All bunched up in the north, it looked like it was going to be quite a fight. I thought it was interesting that with so many connection fees set at 2 or 3 the cost of jumping cities was negligeable. Having been surrounded immediately in my starting position, I thought it would be most useful to establish beachheads in a few directions a few cities away (for future expansion) rather than snap up the closer ones which would ultimately leave me with few/no options in a couple of rounds. I headed south first, since there wasn't going to be as much competition there (and because it put me close to a double city). I had to leap Kozure to get there. Kozure didn't like that. It seemed I inadvertedly robbed him of his turn (he only had enough money to get to the city I built on, so he had to pass).

Improved my prospects and screwed over a competitor. This was going well.

Before long, we were approaching "step 2". Everyone had exactly 6 cities, and just about everthing north of Rome was purchased. Shemp and I were the only ones with a presence in the south, and Shemp had no incentive to build because he had gone green and would accumulate money faster than I if we just sat and waited. I figured I would be forced to take a hit and buy an expensive connection to get myself to 7, breaking the logjam. For whatever reason, Kozure thought otherwise and leaped over me and built up the 3 remaining cities in the south (it was quite expensive to do). That was a lucky break for me, since I could save the money and build 2nd cities in the north next round. I passed.

I was going second, with only Luch before me. I had a fair bit of cash. My power plants had power, and resources in reserve for the next round (which I was sure would be the last if I couldn't end it now). I just needed to see if Luch would build anything, but he had not been particularly aggressive to this point, so I figured I was safe.

Remember I said he was unpredictable?

Luch had been saving money, apparently, and no one noticed. On his turn, he decided to spend it all in order to block me from winning. He built 10 cities (going from 6 to 16) in as many spots as he could to make it impossible for me to finish. He subsequently removed a few when he realized that this would end the game and he could only power 8 cities, but the fact remains that the board went from empty to nearly full in a flash and all by a player who wasn't planning on winning! I responded by building 5 cities were I could. JayWowzer and Kozure put a few down. Shemp passed on building, maybe in protest, I don't know. All told, we went from 30 to 55 houses in one round. It was really cool and very surprising. In retrospect, it doesn't sound like much, but at the time I was just staring at Luch placing houses on the board and thinking "OMG, when is he going to STOP?"

Still in Step 2, we all knew we were going into our last round. It came down to Shemp and I. He built to 15, and had enough fuel to power all of them. I had a capacity of 16, but couldn't muster enough cash to build that many. With 15 plants of my own on the table, it came down to money... and I had 3 dollars more that he did! Close. Again.

That was easily the most fun I've had playing Power Grid. The Italy map was a blast to play on since it was so unique (however, I think in the long run it might get stale faster than the original boards exactly because the experience is so unique. Gameplay might wind up being a little too constrained to stay interesting. Time will tell, I suppose). Ironically, Shannon Appelcline recently posted that games which are overtly mathematical (as PowerGrid is) suffer to a certain extent when players with different perspectives play together since the calculation-type players will likely win over those playing "with their gut". My track record with PowerGrid is pretty good... is my winning streak due to the fact that I'm taking more time to do the math? Is it unfair that others play by instinct and I spend time adding up all the values to make sure I buy only the cheapest connections, or strictly the resources I can afford? Am I the only one who does that? Am I taking too long as a result? It would be ironic that one of my main complaints about the game is that it's too calculational and it turned out that no else but me was bothering to do all this constant (and somewhat unpleasant) adding.

Anyway, like I said, it was quite a bit of fun. Thanks to JayWowzer for brigning the expansion!

3 Players. 3 Games. (Quo Vadis? x2, Antike, Carcassonne x2)

It was just Shemp, luch and I this Wednesday. I picked Antike and Quo Vadis? since they were recent acquisitions... though I wasn't at all sure that either would work well at that number.

Quo Vadis?

Quo Vadis? is a pure negotiation game from Reiner Knizia... not his usual style of game. Roman politicians are vying for election into the senate, and only sharp negotiation and good positional strategy can get them there.

The board is a rather bland depiction of a series of committees, each between 1 and 5 "seats" large. Players have a series of politicians, which they must place in low committees in the hopes of getting promoted into higher ones... ultimately leading to the senate. Along the path to the higher committees, "laurel" tokens are acquired by politicians. The winner is the player who has the most laurels at once the senate is full, so long as that player has at least one politician in the senate.

The meat of the game lies in getting your politicians promoted. The only way for anyone to move ahead is to be voted up, so either that player must already have a majority in the committee or he/she must convince others to vote in their favour. Laurel tokens can be used as a bribe, promises to vote another player's politician up in a different committee can be made, or any other arrangement that can be conceived of can be proposed. As an additional sweetener, anyone who votes for another player gets a free laurel.

The result is a very quick game of negotiation and positional strategy which I found quite engaging despite the fact that it's quite likely to be much better at 4 or 5 players than it was at 3.

We played two rounds. In the both games, Shemp displayed much better negotiation skills than ours and won. Not only did he manage to gain the upper hand in most of the deals, but he did an excellent job of situating himself in chains of committees which ensured him good pathways to the top (not to mention getting many of those "free laurels" by being at the right place at the right time and lending a vote to another player). The deals never got terribly creative (most involved simple laurel payments or promises of votes), but I'm looking forward to seeing how a full group plays out.

Antike

This was our first play of Antike at 3. I've got the second edition, which lowered the winning conditions from 12 to 10 for three players. I'm glad that rule got changed, because getting to 10 seemed about right (it would otherwise grind to a halt as all players armed up for some sort of enormous temple bashing escapade).

We played on the english board, and I started near the center with Luch at the West and Shemp in the South-East. I tried to get boats out and a few temples early on. It always seemed that Luch and Shemp were ahead of me, as both were sending masses of boats and troops out while I seemed to accomplish little. Luch was crowding my areas pretty quickly, and I was forced to abandon my aim to get 2 points in ships early... . After getting my first 7 sea zones, I started focusing on marble and temple building. Shemp's empire was vast and pretty much unchallenged, with a few temples well guarded at the back. It became clear at the end of the game that Luch was going to win on a particular round by building the last temple he needed. I tried to fan out my boats in order to finally get to 14 sea zones and score my last point but didn't succeed. Shemp was nearly resigned to a loss, since he was down 2 points, when he realized he had he was able to knock out two temples I had built previously. He did exactly that and snatched victory from under Luch's nose.

I thought three player Antike was quite good (using the 2nd edition rules). The board is definitely more open, but there was still no time to waste in grabbing the VPs... I felt continuously under the gun to be efficient and grab what I needed as soon as I could. As in our previous sessions, combat didn't play a major role until the very end of the game. Turns go by extremely quickly, and the game continues to fulfill it's promise to deliver a satisfying civilization building experience in approximately 1 1/2 hours.

We finished up the evening with two quick games of Carcasssonne. Base Carc can easily be played in 15 minutes if players draw their tiles ahead of time, and is quite enjoyable this way. Not much to say except that the second game probably had the fewest completed cities that I've ever seen (three?). I won both games, denying Shemp the clean sweep for the evening.

Have we met before? (Vegas showdown, Wildlife)

Kozure purchased two new games recently, so we gathered Wednesday night and gave them a spin... both were strikingly reminiscent of other games we've already played while also being good enough to stand on their own.

Vegas Showdown

The first game was Vegas Showdown, a recent Avalon Hill title which got some pretty good reviews at BGG. The board, bits and title suggest that gambling is involved, but in fact there is none. Players are actually building casinos piece by piece, trying to earn victory points along the way. In practice, the game is essentially a cross between Princes of Florence and Amun-Re (but with a few elements which introduce chaos which is more akin to an american game). From PoF, the game borrows a grided map which players must fill with various "rooms" in a puzzle like fashion and from Amun-Re Vegas Showdown borrows the peculiar auction mechanism (for purchasing the "rooms"). Luckily, where the game falls down on originality it makes up in delivery... the game works and there is enough new in the mechanics that it stands on it's own. The biggest change is a deck of cards which is drawn from every time a "Room" is purchased. Each card will force an event, such as a monetary bonus for each "slots" room in your hotel, etc. Once the effect is applied, a symbol on the card determines which type of "room" will fill the empty space on the auction block. Since the game ends when one of the three types of rooms is exhausted, the result is a variable endgame which added a nice level of tension in our session. Other minor, but well received changes include: a "renovate" action which allows a player to replan their casino at the cost of a turn; a mechanic which reduces the price of items which aren't purchased at their existing price; a progression tree which prevents a player from building a premium room before purchasing the basic version (like the technology tree in Civilization); lastly, the casino layout is divided into three portions (the hotel, middle and restaurant) and points are awarded for certain layouts of rooms.

In our game, Kozure had the winning casino. His lead was padded by an event card which gave him an enormous amount of points for restaurants, but even without it he had enough to win. Shemp was aggressive in trying to connect the hotel portion of his casino to the restaurant, and Luch was the king of slots. JayWowzer and I had very similar casinos, but I made a critical error midway through the game and purchased a "premium" room I couldn't place since I didn't have the require "basic" room. I spent too long trying to get that back on the board and missed out on the income I would have earned if I had been able to place it. Ooops.

Vegas Showdown walks a fine line. It's heavy enough to require a certain amount of forward planning, money management and tactics, but the random events can swing the result in fairly significant ways. Despite my poor showing (tied for last), I enjoyed the game and would look forward to playing it again soon. Oh yeah, I just wanted to mention that the player mats are made of the same flimsy paper Avalon Hill used for the RoboRally mats. It's really too bad, because it really cheapens the overall appearance of the game.

Wildlife

A new Kramer title, which I'd never even heard of, was the second game of the evening. The setting is a small island where a variety of creatures attempt to become the dominant species. Each player plays a specific creature, from crocodile to eagle to human. The island is divided into several types of terrain, and each creature has different levels of ability in each terrain (for example, humans can migrate and expand into plains, but get no actions in deserts). Over the course of the game, players will have several opportunities to improve the lot of their creature type: expand territory, increase their abilties, aquire special powers, etc.

When regions are completely filled with creatures they are scored according to majorities, but every 3rd such scoring a "general scoring" occurs where quite a few other factors are taken into account (such as largest continuous chain of creatures, most advanced creatures, creatures with the most food, etc). As you may have already surmised, this game has more than a passing resemblance to another of Kramer's games: El Grande. However, where El Grande has chaos, Wildlife has bite. In this game, it's perfectly common for another player to come eat your creatures, to steal your card, etc.There is a level of direct competition here which is quite uncommon in german games. The expansion of territory, the conflict and the advancements opportunities for creature skills lend a "civilization" type feel to the game.

I played the humans. I started out in two corners of the board, not really knowing how to play the game. I was quickly threatened by Kozure's mammoths in both my starting areas. This, combined with a hand of cards completely devoid of the types I needed, forced me to play a game of opportunism rather than strategy. I was in last place while Luch's bears, Shemp's crocodiles and, particularly, JayWowzer's eagles were taking commanding leads. Lucky for me, I stumbled into a way to bring me back into contention: I was focussing on securing presences in a variety of territories (a common and generally successful strategy in area control games) while aggressively growing continuous chains of control. When the first "general" scoring occurred, we came to realize that chains were enormous sources of points (the largest chain is worth 10 points, whereas a monopoly in a region is only worth 5). In my case, I had two chains which netted me 1st AND a tie for 2nd longest chain (15 points, I beleive). I was suddenly back in the ballgame. As the game progressed, Shemp and Luch were locked in continuous back and forth struggles in the water, forest and desert zones, hurting both their chances. JayWowzer looked untouchable with a large lead and no obvious weakness on the board. In the end, my continuing success with chains and 2nd or 3rd place points in a variety of regions vaulted me towards the lead! As the final points were tallied, JayWowzer and I ended in a tie...
and so it came to pass that humans and eagles became the dominant species on earth.

Wildlife, like Vegas Showdown before it, turned out to be quite a bit heavier than expected. There are SO MANY options to consider on your turn that analysis paralysis can easily occur. Luckily, downtime is minimized through a clever auction mechanic which forces every player to auction one of their actions every turn (giving each player the opportunity to get actions on other player's turns!). In the end, Wildlife is a meaty game which seems like a cross between Civilization and El Grande... not a bad thing at all. for whatever reason, it didn't stand out for me though. Like Knizia's Tower of Babel, which also blends a number of disparate mechanics into one game, Wildlife is missing the "hook" which somehow distinguishes it from the pack and makes the whole thing click as more than the sum of it's parts (though I think I liked Wildlife more than Tower of Babel, but then again ToB is a much shorter game).

The art of the deal (Traders of Genoa, Ra)

A few returning favorites, this week.

Traders of Genoa saw it's first tabletime in quite a while. We were only four (Shemp, Kozure, Luch and myself). We all knew what we were doing, and it was pretty clear from the get-go that no one was going to be a pushover this time around. If you wanted something, you needed to make it worthwhile... or the acting player would end the turn. This is not new, of course, but it seemed like it was hapening a whole lot more often than it had in the past (and it started in the first round!). The game went long, but I found it to be extremely interesting. I wanted to try again the strategy I attempted unsuccessfully last time: collect 1:1 actions and convert them to privileges before that pile ran out. I spent the first few rounds collecting whatever goods came my way for cheap so I could trade them later on (1:1 trade markers aren't typically hot items in our group, either). I then traded 3 or 4 of them for privileges, bringing my total to 8. Obviously, with that number in hand, it was very hard to convince anyone to sell me theirs at any price, but unfortunately I did not have any big runs. I did eventually get 2 additional ones from Shemp, which fit in quite nicely and helped me out quite a bit in the end (side note: I almost didn't take one of them, because I mistakenly thought it didn't work very well with my cards!).

I had resisted playing the ownership marker game until the last few rounds (for whatever reason, I seem to gravitate to privileges and ownership markers every game!) By then I had concluded that Shemp was likely winning, so I picked up a number of them and started displacing his off the board (he had quite a few). Shemp immediately mentioned I might have handed Luch the victory by doing so, and I suddenly felt he might have been right. Then again, Kozure WAS fulfilling quite a number of large orders... maybe HE was winning. All I knew was that I mustered only a single large order and a single small order, so my privileges would have to carry me. I didn't think it was likely, though.

I did win. By 30 ducats. The ownership markers were the difference!

Next up was RA. We played two rounds, and both wound up being rather odd in their own way:

1) The first game, I went short. I always find that the more players there are, the more important it is to snag whatever you can and get out fast. With 4, the strategy is borderline, but I went with it anyway. I was often out before some players had played a single bid! The odd thing was that in the first round, the era lasted a LOOOONG time after I was done. The way things played out, the 2nd and 3rd era looked to be choked with RAs, so even though it burned me in the first round I stuck with my strategy. It worked for me, too... The horde of RAs which came out afterwards left Shemp, Luch and Kozure unable to aquire the temples or floods they were trying to collect and I reached the end in first place on the strength of my pharoahs and the gold+civ points I grabbed when I could.

2) The second game, I lost the pharoah struggle early. the other three seemed to be making a point of gathering them, so I decided to leave that alone and concentrate on rivers, civs or monuments. However, right up to the end of the game, virtually no monuments were drawn! It almost seems mathematically impossible that 3 eras could go by with so few monuments pulled, but there it was. I managed to get 7 different ones, and a mid sized river going, but it wasn't enough to stop Shemp, who won by 3 points.

... good times.

Oh where, oh where, could our little count be ? (Fury of Dracula)

Kozure, Shemp and I played our 2nd game of Fury of Dracula Wednesday night. I was Dracula once again, but unfortunately I wouldn't enjoy the same success I did last time...

The hunters started out spread across the board. Mina was the only hunter in Eastern Europe, so I thought I'd start there (in Sarajevo, I beleive). Lucky for me, Mina quickly picked up a piece of equipment she felt another Lord Godalming should have, and promptly exited the east to go give it to him. This ultimately allowed me free reign on my half of the board as the hunters systematically swept the west. It was looking liek a cake-walk for a while, but then disaster struck... Mina had returned to the east and was beginning to search there. She was two cities away from a vampire which would mature as soon as her turn ended. I felt confident. To my horror, Mina rode some fast horses to the site of Dracula's young vampire and destroyed it in broad daylight.

This was an enormous stroke of good luck for the hunters. Until that point, they had not even found my trail. There was about a dozen destinations Mina COULD have searched that turn, and any of them COULD have been on my trail. I still don't really understand why Shemp felt the need to play that card when all the cities surrounding Mina were equally viable targets, but it turned out to be very useful for them, indeed (Shemp must have some sort of spidey sense).

I had been delt a big blow, but somehow I still felt pretty good. I hadn't sufferred a single point of damage, hadn't been forced to resort to a voyage by sea, and they still couldn't really know where I was. I tried a bold move and attempted to slip right between the oncoming Dr. Seward and Van Helsing as they headed east and I headed west. It was a bad gamble, as Van Helsing found me rather quickly. In the dark of night, I chose to teach him a lesson and attacked rather than try to escape. Van Helsing was almost killed, but he escape my wrath before I could finish the deed. Day had dawned, Van Helsing had healed himself, and I decided to head north rather than push my luck further.

The hunters spent quite a bit of time clearing my trail. They did not want to chance any maturing vampires! Sadly, I was ddrawing none, so they didn't have much to fear. They then drew the card which allows Dracula to teleport to any destination, so I went to Spain and made a Dark Call. I now had 3 young vampires I could sire, and therefore a new lease on life. Beef, some guy I left behind in central Europe with a shotgun and a knife, gave the Dr. a tougher fight than he expected (see the post titled "Beef...STAKE" by Kozure). The hunters where hot on my trail, though, and a few lucky guesses* brought them quickly onto my path. Combat wasn't going so well for me anymore, and a heavily armed Dr. Seward knocked me around a fair bit (I stupidly tried to fight back, taking heavy damage before I escaped).

I was down to 5 life. I tried to get away from my predators. Mina found me and played Heroic Leap. I rolled a 5.

I lost.

Well, once more I quite enjoyed the game. Playing as Dracula is quite exciting, as close calls and interesting twists of fate are fairly common in the game. There is a fair amount of luck involved in the draw of cards, and the roll of the dice in combat but I haven't yet felt like anything I was doing was pointless or anything. On the hunter's side, things might be a little different. Having now played with three, I think this is the ideal number of players. With two hunters apiece, decision making is quicker and if Dracula manages to incapacitate a hunter for a few turns (though fog or bats, for example) the player can still participate through his 2nd one. It's still long, and it's still complicated, but it's fun and you wind up with a much more interesting story arc than most german games provide.

Beef... STAKE. (Fury of Dracula)

Me not know why funny man in black cape ask me to attack English bloke. He give me knife and gun-thingy and say "You vill vait here in ambush for Dr. Seward. Vhen he arrives on the east road, prewent him from pursuing me."

Beef always remember exactly what people tell him. Beef not always understand good what they say, but Beef always remember. Me not know what 'prewent' or 'pursuing' mean. But me find good bush. Funny man have sharp pointy teeth and look at Beef funny, but Beef obey him anyway. Beef like funny man's big doggies and funny flying mousies.

So Beef wait in bush for English Doctor to come. When he arrive, Beef yell "Beef smash!" and attack him. Doctor look all not scared and shoot his big long gun at me, but Beef tricky and shoot him first. Bloke look surprised and bleed a little bit. Then Beef pull out knife (Beef like knife...s. They all shiny and pointy.) Doctor come at Beef again, but Beef quicker and stabby-stabby him in arm. Doctor look angry now and pull out pointy stick. Beef not think pointy stick make good weapon, but Beef attack anyway. Beef miss Bloke. Bloke miss Beef. Beef think this funny. Not know why Doctor not think funny.

Now Doctor take out knife again. Beef think this not good way for Doctor to help people, but funny man in cape say 'prewent', so Beef will 'prewent'.

Doctor get really angry and put knife right in Beef's head. This hurt not so much as Beef think, but Beef fall down. Doctor say:

"Poor misguided fool. This evil monster now employs imbeciles in his growing legions of unholy servants. I pray for your soul, sir."

Then Doctor leave all in hurry. Beef bleed a lot.

Hard to move with knife in head. Bleeding stop not too long. Beef hope funny man with cape get away from mean English Doctor. Doctor make Beef feel funny and bleedy.

Beef have had worse boo-boos. Someday, Beef will hurt Doctor back. For now, Beef lay down in comfy pile of leaves. Stupid Doctor.

[A game of "Fury of Dracula" lead to a victory by the hunters, but not before a certain "Man with Pistol and Knife" made more trouble than was expected for Dr. Seward over several rounds of combat. I'll leave to Shemp and Easy the details of the chase - I had to immortalize "Beef" in the blog for now]

Friedmann Friese Fest! (Power Grid, Funny Friends)

I suppose it's a bit much to call an evening with only two games played a "fest", but I'm going to anyway.

Power Grid

We pulled out the first olive box, Power Grid, and set up the USA board. We were four players (Bharmer, Shemp, Tili and myself), so 2 regions were excluded from play: randomly, the northern central and eastern regions were chosen. I was quite happy with this result, as both my previous games on this board were played on the northern half.

out of the gate, I chose the second lowest power plant, so I was second to place. Bharmer had set up camp near L.A., so I thought I'd try to grab a few cheap cities near the east... where the playable area narrowed (obviously, I was hoping to encourage other players to go elsewhere, leaving me the east coast). Sadly, Tili didn't bite. Despite the wide open west, she tried to box me in, leaving us both with a very constrained play area. Even worse, Shemp ended the first round of placement by grabbing the central portion of the board, drawing a line down the middle which saw me and Tili tight to one side, and Bharmer all alone on the other. By now, I felt that things already looked grim.

Fast forward a few turns, and I've purchased a really excellent power plant (it powers 4 cities with 1 coal or oil). I managed to expand very quickly to 7 cities by grabbing all the remaining empty cities in the east. This triggers step 2, which then allows me to start expanding into Tili and Shemp's cities they had been blocking me with. Meanwhile, Shemp has expanded his dividing line down the middle and begun working his way north west. Bharmer, free of any real competition but forced to expand through pricey real estate, grows slowly but steadily.

The power plant auction reaches a point where it stagnates. Nobody wants anything on offer, because they don't want to waste money on a plant which isn't going to take them to the end. This has happened before, but not normally for this long. It is apparent that the end of the game could well come before anyone is ready to power the 17 cities which are built.

On (what became) the last round, I bought a plant which brought my power capacity to 18 cities. Shemp, the other player who appeared ready to end the game, was only able to power 17. It came down to my finances: Could I actually BUY an 18th city? It turns out I could, and I won the game (though Shemp tried to buy up all the coal so that I couldn't actually power the cities, but there was just enough left for me to do it).

This turned out to be a very long, but very fun session of Power Grid. One of the things I really enjoy about this game is the palpable tension which results from trying to get your cities in place before other players get there. Manipulating turn order and pacing the purchase of power plants vs. expansion of your territory is extremely critical. On the other hand, if another player takes a city you really needed, there is enough flexibility in the system that mounting an alternate strategy is not impossible.

Funny Friends

Funny Friends is a game I bought because it sounded extremely unique: A humourous game with a real game system underneath! Many games are funny. Many games have solid gameplay. Few that I can think of have both (Robo-Rally?).

Anyway, players take on the roles of people going through life. It all starts in puberty and then progresses through a series of life shaping events. Amidst all this, players hope to guide their characters in the hopes of achieving a number of life goals. Every player has a board which tracks their weight, their intelligence, their friends, their ...ummm ....addictions, and their ...ahhh.... sexual history, etc, etc. Let's just say that the game possesses a very sarcastic and cynical view on life. If you are easily offended, skip this game.

The game progresses as a series of auctions. Every "Hand", a number of life event cards are turned up, and players bid on them. Many cards have requirements which must be met in order to bid on the card. Every life event transforms the character which does it to a certain extent. Successfully aquiring a card called "the cigarette after", for example, requires having a girlfirend/ boyfriend. Once aquired, the result is a bit of nicotine addiction and "having sex" with that girlfriend/boyfriend. Once you've reached a particular combination of statistics, you can "achieve a life goal". The first to achieve 5 life goals wins the game. This would ultimately add up to a game of competitive solitaire except for one thing: If the friend you bring along is another player, that player gets (suffers?) the effects of the card as well! This means that you can actively mess with other player's plans, and it injects a lot of metagame humour as well.

In our game (my fourth, the rest were playing for the first time), I found it interesting that the goals in our hands seemed to be shaping the lives of our characters in rather consistent ways. My character was bad news. His puberty was marked by drug use, theft, gossip, bullying, etc. Real life was no different. After being coerced into a relationship with Tili, I needed to get out to fill half of my life goals. A "Divorce" card came up, so I quickly married her so that I could divorce her one turn later! Tili turned out to be the sexpot of the group. I think she slept with just about all of us (and I think she was even dating a few of us). By the time she announced she was gay, it was obvious she was much more comfortable in that role when the sex was anonymous (all her real relationships were with guys. Of course, they were all failing, but that's another story). Kozure, however, was leading quite a reasonable life. The highlight of his adolescence occured when he made a best friend. Aww shucks. Shemp was having much more significant swings as time went on... being driven to drink and then going sober, etc, etc.

In the end, Tili managed to end her promiscuous ways by checking herself into a looney bin... winning her the game.

Some comments on the game:
1) The art in this game is FABULOUS. I think the game is worth owning just for the sake of laughing at the funny situations depicted on the cards. The theme carries very well, and it's quite funny to play the game if players take the time to reflect on the life story which is developing during the game.
2) The rulebook is quite weak. The way friends work is central to the game, yet is very difficult to figure out as written.*
3) I'm a little torn about the game system. On one hand, there is a real game there. You have to plan your course, manage your currency for the auctions, meddle in other player's plans, etc. Your decisions and your gameplay matter. On the downside, the rules are more fiddly than a game with this "theme" should be. Combined with the analysis paralysis which can come about as players try to absorb how the cards available for auction mesh with their life goals, the game can be slower paced than you'd like. This has the effect of creating early games where discovering the cards makes it funny, but dealing with the game rules and analyisis paralysis makes it clunky (while later games move much more efficiently, but the humour is more up to the players).
4) The "Make a Connection", the secure relationships and the "phone tokens" are all examples of rules which should have been better explained AND better streamlined.

*I've settled on the interpretation that friends which are REQUIRED to come along receive the effects of the card, but that NEW friends which are met as the result of a card do NOT. I tried it the other way (where new friends also get the effects of the card), but a number of odd situations came up, and we decided it was cleaner this way. Anyone care to chime in and tell us if we played it correctly?

Having played four times now, I can honestly say that I quite like the game, despite it's flaws. The game has stayed fun and engaging beyond the initial laughter of discovering the cards, which is not something I can say about too many humourous games (cheapass games, anyone?). The game system works, even though it could have been improved (In my third game with my first group of friends, people were clearly bidding each other up, taking people along on life events which were contrary to those people's goals, etc). All the while, we were still having a fun time poking fun at each other for having too much anonymous sex, too many ex lovers, etc. The first group I played it with LOVED it. WAGS seemed a little more subdued, but I think the reception was generally positive.

It's not an excellent game, but it's a good one. Combined with the unique theme, the experience becomes very good. As a change of pace, I highly recommend it.

How ugly did I make it?

Roman Holiday (Der Untergang von Pompeji, Conquest of the Empire)

Alongside a wonderful roman feast (marinaded meats, authentic sauces, dates, etc), we played Der Untergang von Pompeji and Conquest of the Empire.

Der Untergang von Pompeji

This is a weird one. A light game about escaping certain death at the hands of an erupting volcano. The idea is quite simple: The board depicts the city of Pompei, identifying major buildings and the gates out of the city. In phase A, players place their meeples in the buildings. In phase B (once the volcano explodes) try to have your meeples get out of the city before being burned alive!

The mechanics themselves are quite simple as well (other than some of the strange deck management). Phase A is all about setting yourself up for the big escape. I haven't played often enough to know all the strategies, but it seems that you want to accomplish two major things: Get as many meeples on the board as possible, and place them in buildings which provide speedy escape routes (there are "omen" cards which allow a player to arbitrarily remove a meeple from the board, which lends a "take that" aspect to this phase which discourages players from taking the very best spots, for fear of being targeted). In phase B, lava tiles are drawn from a bag, and placed according to the symbol on the tile (if it has a helmet in the bottom corner, then it must be placed onto to the "helmet" space). Once a lava tile of a particular symbol has been placed, the next tile with that symbol must be placed adjacent to it. If any poor meeples are on that space (or completely surrounded by lava), they are thrown into the volcano!!!

Anyway, I quite liked it. It's a bit grim as a theme, but it's abstract enough to be funny. Throwing meeples into the volcano is fun! As I said, it's light, but there is definite strategy in the initial placement and in the order that the meeples are evacuated. Lots of luck, too, but the balance felt right for the game (it's short, too. Maybe 30-45 minutes).

I fared poorly. I didn't get enough meeples down, underestimating the importance of that phase in the game (also, Luch targeted me repeatedly with omen cards and volcano tiles... not sure why... anticipation of wanting to beat me at Conquest of the Empire, perhaps?). Bharmer managed to get a lot of Pompeians out early, and looked like a lock for the win. JayWowzer came from behind, though, and evacuated right until the bitter end. It was a two way tie, but Bharmer's death toll in the volcano exceeded JayWowzer's... so he lost.

Quite fun, look forward to playing that one again soon.

Conquest of the Empire

Another session of Conquest of the Empire. We wanted to play this again soon after the last game in order to cement our knowledge of the rules so that things would run faster in future sessions. Despite this, the game proceeded at a leisurely pace. Combined with a rather late start, we didn't get anywhere close to finishing!

In our last game, we messed up two important rules: 1) You can't start in Italia, and 2) You can't take two cards on a turn. As both those issues came up and shaped the game in important ways, it was good to clear that up.

I started spread out across the north. For the first time in three games, I had a presence east of Italia! Also, for the first time, I started with four distinct provinces. Kozure dexcribed last game how difficult this starting position can be, and I'm inclined to agree.

I spread out my forces, trying to maintain the influence tokens I started with. A skipped an opportunity to expand in order to grab the "assassin" card (flashes of losing my general in the first game going through my head). However, as it turns out I wasn't even close to being the leader, so I probably wouldn't have been a target anyway. Kozure and Luch split up Italia, and JayWowzer dominated the south. Kozure, well he had it tough at first. On two occasions I hurt him fairly badly (I stole some large vote cards, and assassinated his general out of unfounded fear he was going to attack me). Again, those moves were ill advised on my part because targeting Luch or Bharmer would have prevented more losses, and I never did get around to purchasing a political card so all those turns picking up votes were essentially wasted.

Two seasons in, we called it a night. Kozure and Luch tied for first, but Kozure held the tiebreaker (most influence). Bharmer was in the middle and JayWowzer and I tied for last. Oh well! Bharmer and JayWowzer expressed dissatisfaction with some aspects of the game... particularly that in several situations, there is nothing to do. I found that odd, because I always feel like there is way more that I want to do than the 2 actions allow! The biggest problem, I think, is that it's very easy to fall into a situation where there isn't enough time or funds to accomplish the things you want to do... so there is nothing left to do. I have to admit that this week, I put myself in that situation time and time again (I was constantly cash poor, and overspending the small income I had on troops. This left me unable to purchase the cards/ influence tokens I needed as they became available). I still quite like the game!

I'm curious if a few tweaks might streamline the experience. Special taxes, for example, don't seem well balanced. The maximum of 25 talents raised by special tax seems too low (particularly in light of how much chaos it costs). Also, it would be interesting to see what would happen if we went back to the original Struggle of Empire rules and allowed conversion of influence without spending an action (maybe do a similar thing with combat?). The political angle also looks like it could be improved... with so many votes in everyone's hand, it's hard to make those cards pay for themselves. Maybe players shouldn't start with votes? I don't know, just rambling.

All in all, a good night. I wish we could figure out how to accelerate Conquest of the Empire, but in the meantime we'll just have to make sure that we have enough time in the future.

The Pleasure Of The Shaft.

Surely the title of this entry will get us some more hits from Google!

But alas, it refers not to that which the depraved Google searcher searches for, but rather to screwing over another player when one does not stand to gain from that action. A pure shafting! Last week we played Monsters Menace America and Bohnanza, and more than one player experienced the Pleasure of the Shaft. In this case, 'tis better to give than to receive.

We've played both of theses games before, and have already recapped the basic rules of both Monsters Menace America and Bohnanaza. I won't rehash that here.

I will say that I LURVED MMA to pieces. The only way it could be better is if it was named Monster Menace: America! instead of Monsters Menace America. I love giant monsters, and the sillier the better. In this game, the monsters are very, very, giant; they are also very, very silly.

Our session this time was marred by a rules error - we failed to draw a "military enhancement" card whenever our army units defeated a monster in battle. If we had done this, I think that the game may have been prolonged, due to the increased incentive to attack and increased armed force effictiveness resulting in Stomps happening more slowly. I don't, however, think this really affected the fairness of the game, since we all were playing under the same rules, and it's unclear if a longer game would have helped any particular player.

As it was, Luch pulled off a spectacular come from behind victory, as his strategy of accquiring infamy over hit point increases paid off. His Giant Praying Mantis defeated the Giant Tentacled Eyeball, The Giant Toxic Pile, and The Giant Lizard That Isn't At All Like Godzilla in succession for the victory.

Afterwards I was discussing MMA with Easy, and he suggested that he thought the game would be improved with greater control over the military units. Between the raging Ukranian Festival and vomiting children I didn't get the chance to ask him to expand on that thought, but hopefully he will in the comments. I'd welcome any improvement, but MMA is damn fine as is!

Secondly, we played Bohnanza, with Bharmer being a first time player. This time we actually followed the rules, and removed the numerous Coffee Beans from the deck, as there were four players. I think things played a bit more smoothly as a result, and things were very close, with final scores of 19, 17, 16, and 15. I was able to pull out a victory due to the fact I was the only one willing to lower myself to planting Wax Beans, repeatedly. In fact, I was the only player to plant a low-value Wax Bean at all in the first round, gaining two consecutive four coin harvests. The strategy worked wonderfully this time, but I think that it was a singular occurance. Likely this gaming group will remember, and prevent giving anyone easy monopolies in the future.

Since both games played last week are a little bit fluffy, and a little bit light on strategy, several time actions were taken to harm other players which might not have been taken in a more rigourously designed game. I would sound a slight warning about playing these with a group of thin-skinned gamers - both (particularly MMA) lend themselves to a little bit of a "What the Hell, why not" approach, which often leads to a playering giving in to the Pleasure of the Shaft.

Which is not always something you want to see, no matter how much the shafter is enjoying themselves.

So to speak.

(I'm so glad this will only be the top entry briefly. So, so glad.)

I have no idea what happened (Monsters Menace America, other things)

I wasn't there, so I don't know what happened... except that Monsters Menace America was played. Shemp told me what they played afterwards, but I forget what he told me. I retain very little of what I am told.

Having a Breakthrough day (Maharaja, Conquest of the Empire)

From Shemp:

Having a Breakthrough Day: I've had a total recalibration of my mind, you know. I mean, it's like, I've been banging my head against this 19th century type, um, what? Thought mode? Construct? Human construct? Well, the wall doesn't exist. It's not there, you know. I mean, they tell you, look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, there is no tunnel. There's just no structure. The underlying order is chaos.

-From the film Slacker.

I can't do a full post right now, but last night was a breakthrough night! After roughly two and a half years, our little gaming group finally killed a leader! We identified the person out front, banded together, and TOOK THEM DOWN. It was beautiful. Petty differences were set aside. Screwage was minimized. Victory points were graciously shared amongst the alliance.

We've grown as gamers. I commend Kozure and Luch on their fine, fine work.

There is no tunnel.

From Easy:

A breakthough, indeed.

First things first... This night we played two games. The first was Maharaja and the second was Conquest of the Empire. The breakthrough in question occurred during Conquest of the Empire.

This was our second game of Maharaja, and I for one was determined not to make the same mistakes I made in our first session (which ultimately allowed Bharmer to walk away with the win). Tili joined us in place of Kozure, so she was in the unfortunate position of being the only new player! I did pretty well for myself. I was winning a good number of income by sticking with the #1 role, zooming to the next scoring city and securing a majority (or strong 2nd place). More importantly, I was consistently building a palace every turn. Unfortunately, I had to skip a round and Bharmer didn't. He won again! Shemp was trying a strategy which can work very well in other area majority games... go for the easy 3rd place points in lots of cities. Didn't work for him, but that doesn't mean it couldn't work in the future.

I like the game. It seems complex at first, but once you get used to it the whole thing is quite streamlined and smooth. I think I enjoy it about as much as I do Puerto Rico or Power Grid. They are all interesting and enjoyable, but neither are huge hits with me for whatever reason. Like Power Grid, Maharaja is ultimately a race between all the players to get to a predefined goal... and in both games I feel like my options are a little bit "railroaded" or "constrained" by that fact. To put it another way: In games like these, everything boils down the efficiency with which you reach that predetermined goal. by way of contrast, games which use victory points can be much more open ended and offer several different ways to play the game.

Next up was Conquest of the Empire.

The initial spread of forces was interesting. Bharmer had 3 of his 4 starting influence tokens in italia. My influence started just to the South and West of there. Since the other three were scatterred around the rest of the board, it became clear that it would be mutually advantageous to myself and Bharmer to cooperate. I cozied up to him for a second place in Italia, and spread out to grab nearby neutral influence tokens. Bharmer, unfortunately, felt so much pressure to keep his lead in italia that he was somewhat paralysed and couldn't really break out of there. While the other players skirmished and jockeyed for influence and position elsewhere on the board, I had grabbed a lucrative empire. By the end of the 2nd season, I had a huge lead. I had also snagged 4 Army Training cards (!!!), so I wasn't really an attractive target, either. With zero chaos to my name, things were looking good.

Then it happened. This is when the breakthrough occurred. This is how we learned that There Is No Tunnel: The other three players decided to work toghether to take me down (not surprising). Then, they actually worked effectively towards that goal (extremely surprising. Unprecendented, even). Remember, Luch was in that group. It boggles the mind.

Anyway, the next two seasons saw bharmer and I as allies against the world. I didn't have enough money to work my way into a different alliance, though I REALLY wished I could have. Systematically, they raised and sent armies to the locations where I had influence. In many cases, I was spread too thin to defend myself adequately, so I started losing ground immediately (though I was satisfied that I managed to keep just about all of my influence long enough to score the 3rd campaign season, even though my armies had been mowed down). Other than a few token representatives in italia, I had only two major forces left: One just south of Spain, and the other which threatened Kozure in Numidia. Despite this, moving into the 4th season I still had high hopes that my lead was enough. Unfortunately, in order to survive the onslaught, I had begun special taxing and raising armies quite a lot... my chaos was quite high.

In the last season, Shemp snuck into italia and converted all my influence in many of my old powerbases in the surrounding areas. Luch built an enormous army and knocked me out of a few regions. I poured my reasonably large and highly trained army out of Italia through a back route into Spain since it was not as well defended after Luch's advance. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as planned, and I was forced to retreat. I made a mistake and went south, where Luch and Kozure successfully kept me pinned until the end of the game (Kozure had quite a fleet. He used one to block my exit though Afrika and the others to destroy any triremes I built before I could use them). Only my campaign to boot out Kozure in Numidia was a success. As my last action, I took Bharmer's advice and bounced Luch out of first place in Egypt (it didn't net me any points, but it did reduce his score).

When the dust settled, the scores became incredibly tight. Prior to taking chaos into account, I was ahead of Shemp and Luch by one point. However, since I had the most chaos, and Luch the second most, it ended with me and Luch tied for second... and Shemp all alone in the lead!

So, lesson learned... don't make yourself a huge target early in the game (duh). Either way, the whole experience of having a lead, becoming the target, seeing all the forces mobilize against me and all the big battles we had... well, it was a lot of fun and quite exciting. I think I did about as well as I could have, other than my big mistake retreating south instead of north from Spain (and maybe putting a bit more effort in swinging the alliances). I look forward to playing again!

Having a Breakthrough Day.

Having a Breakthrough Day: I've had a total recalibration of my mind, you know. I mean, it's like, I've been banging my head against this 19th century type, um, what? Thought mode? Construct? Human construct? Well, the wall doesn't exist. It's not there, you know. I mean, they tell you, look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, there is no tunnel. There's just no structure. The underlying order is chaos.

-From the film Slacker.


I can't do a full post right now, but last night was a breakthrough night! After roughly two and a half years, our little gaming group finally killed a leader! We identified the person out front, banded together, and TOOK THEM DOWN. It was beautiful. Petty differences were set aside. Screwage was minimized. Victory points were graciously shared amongst the alliance.

We've grown as gamers. I commend Kozure and Luch on their fine, fine work.

There is no tunnel.

Getting the red haired step children out to play (Pueblo, Domaine, Tower of Babel, Aladdin's Dragons, Carcassonne: The City)

A big pile of games played this week. Bharmer and Kozure couldn't join us, but JayWowzer rounded us out to a foursome. I chose a number of games which rarely get played in the group. Many don't get out often simply because they are four player, but most of them have oddities which make them "niche" games in my mind.

Prior to JayWowzer's arrival, we played a three player game of Pueblo. We had Shemp's wife choose the locations for the "Sacred Sites", and the resulting board was devilishly difficult. As usual, Luch displayed a knack for burying himself deep behind other player's pieces. He had quite a lead up to the end of the game. Unfortunately for him, in the last round he was forced to play two very costly pieces (he misplayed the block order, leaving him with 2 coloured ones to place last). Once the final score was calculated, the shaman saw more of Luch than he could handle... giving me an unlikely win (I still have a sneaking suspicion that we counted something incorrectly... Luch was REALLY well buried except on that one face). I really enjoy pulling this one out every once in a while... it's a nice change of pace.

Domaine was next. It had been a long time, and we always seem to play this one incorrectly. Still, it's a great game if you are in the mood fore some good, confrontational fun. However, as I've often mentioned, the game is pretty fragile... If everyone isn't paying attention, a player can inadvertently get a windfall. Unfortunately, this kind of happened. Luch and I didn't do what we needed to do to prevent JayWowzer from winning the game as he inherited a huge territory down the middle! Oh well, it's a part of the game to manipulate things to be in the right place at the right time, for all I know he might have orchestrated the whole thing! I thought I had a good shot until it happened, though.

Tower of Babel saw it's first play in some time. Always an enigma, I like to give this one a shot once in a while. There is no game in my collection which eludes me as much as this one... I understand the mechanics, but I don't understand the strategy. After last night, I came to the conclusion that it's a fragile game in a lot of ways: 1) the tendency is to hoard cards and complete works on your own. Once that starts, the game gets boring real fast because everyone is just waiting for their turn to build their monument (and the ultimate winner is probably determined by the player who is lucky enough to draw the needed cards first.) 2) Since the bidding strategy isn't obvious, many players are making bad bids. This has the compounding effect of making a "well played" bid irrelevant, since there is usually a better (i.e. poorly played) one available. Anticipating what others might do becomes basically impossible. 3) the bonus cards just don't work very well. Some are significantly better than others (hmmm, would you like to exchange 5 cards or take a 2nd turn... I wonder). With all that, I'm still going to keep giving it chances until it clicks or someone offers me something for it in trade. It's certainly not bad, and it's short for an area control/ bidding type game. We'll see. I spent the game trying to accumulate purple chips, 2nd/3rd placement points on temples and scorned auction points. I was feeling pretty good about my prospects and in fact I thought I won the game... until Luch pulled out 2 of his bonus cards which gave it to him!

As I was returning Aladdin's Dragons to JayWowzer, we played a farewell session. As with many bidding games, it takes a while to get familiar with the relative values of items and enjoyment of the game increases with repeated play. I played my worst game so far (coming in last with 5 artifacts, while Luch had 7), but I won't hold that against it. One aspect of the game which revealed itself to me this game: go for spells early AND USE THEM,,, as the game progresses, they become nearly impossible to play! I was also surprised to see that very few players had to pass over artifacts this game due to insufficient funds. By contrast, it was quite commonplace in our first few games.

Last, but not least, was Carcassonne: The City. I don't often play this since I actually prefer the base game (particularly with the first two expansions), but it's still quite good. I stumbled across a pretty lucrative tower guard when I started the second round, so I eventually tried to maximize that by placing the notable buildings in his view (ignoring most other scoring methods). If I had thought of it earlier, it probably would have worked out better. As it was, I managed a decent 2nd place to Luch.

Well, this was definitely Luch's night. Out of 5 games, he won 3 (and nearly won a 4th).

Among Royalty (Maharaja, Princes of Florence)

4 Players this week, and what's a WAGS session without a new game?

This week's newest aquisition is Maharaja: Palace building in India. Bharmer bought it this weekend and was eager to try it out.

Maharaja is a Kramer and Kiesling collaboration (the same team which brought us Tikal, Torres, Pueblo, Mexica, etc). The board depicts 7 walled cities interconnected by paths and small villages. Each player is trying to be the first to build 7 palaces.

Each player will enlist the help of a noble on the first turn (though nobles will change hands over the course of a game). The noble confers a special power to the player and determines turn order. On a turn, players must choose 2 actions on a wheel (similar to the wheels in El Grande). There is a wide range of actions, some of them affect the acting player (building houses/ palaces, earning gold), others might impact other players (such as changing the order that the Maharaja will visit the cities, or exchanging character cards with another player).

Some things I liked:
1) Players are building houses and palaces in the various cities in order to gain majorities, so that when the Maharaja visits it they are rewarded with money (which is, in turn, used to build houses and palaces). However, houses are 12x less expensive to build than palaces, yet are worth the same when counting majorities! This leads to a very interesting balancing act as players try to get their palaces on the board yet still win majorities.
2) In our group, turn seemed to go by quickly. I suspect that is because the actions are determined in advance and are quite specific. However, there is real possibility of analysis paralysis if a player tries to think through every possibility and permutation when actually choosing their actions. In the end, though, there is too much chaos in the system to actually have that level of control, so it's ultimately not worth doing anyway.
3) It's nice to play a game which doesn't rely on tallying up victory points.

Some things I liked less:
1) The chaos, after one play, seemed a little high to me. I found it a little frustrating to have to plan 2 actions ahead of time, only to find out (repeatedly) that the Maharaja wasn't were I expected him to be, or that I was no longer the character I started with. As I alluded to in an earlier point, I find this to be an odd combination with the amount of potential analysis in planning out your turn.
2) It seems very difficult to do anything to stop a leader. Other players can't be directly affected, other than stealing their character card, so I kind of watched Brian coast to victory 3 rounds ahead of the end of the game... unable to do anything about it. I guess the idea would be to work together and try to prevent that player from gaining the majorities needed to raise cash and build palaces... but I suspect that's pretty hard to actually do.
3) On the surface, it seemed like there was at least two strategies available for earning income: Gaining majorities inthe cities, and placing houses on the roads to collect tolls. At least in our game, the houses on the roads were far too easy to circumvent, and did not really earn their keep. If they weren't necessary in order to get anywhere, I suspect players would soon stop playing them at all. I wonder if this will eventually lead to a game of "chicken" as players wait and see who will make the sacrifice and useup their turn to build there.

In the end, I felt like I was playing a combination of El Grande and Aladdin's Dragons. The area majority mechanic occupied most of my thoughts during the game, but I found myself constantly trying to guess what other players might do, and what I had to do in order to avoid getting messed up. I's a weird combination of deep strategy and guesswork. I made the wrong decisions far more often than I should have!

I did notice that Bharmer made extensive use of the character card trading mechanic, and that he made a point of building a palace on all but one turn. I lost sight of the goal of the game early on (building palaces), focusing too much on gaining majorities. This was despite Bharmer's warning at the beginning of the game not to do that! He won quite easily, but I would expect much stiffer competition in a second game.

In the end, Maharaja strikes me as potentially a very good strategy game. It seems to be aiming for depth of strategy combined with enough chaos to keep it from being dry/ predictable. Time will tell if it succeeds!

We followed up with a game of Princes of Florence, which Bharmer hadn't played yet. In my mind, there is no game which so much about optimization of resources, and that's why I love it. It also means that it's nearly impossible for a new player to compete. I went for a "jester + lots of works" strategy, but I faltered and produced at least 1 work too few to win the game. Shemp, who isn't a huge fan of the game and often does poorly, used a very well balanced strategy of a little bit of everything and won the game! Bharmer? He did come in last, but not by much. It was quite a tight game, and I'd say he did really well.