Greed.
Sweet, sweet greed.
How many games encourage players to amass large quantities of riches as a sign of victory? Of those, how many don't even bother with the trinkets and go for straight cash as the mark of success?
Lots.
The folks here at WAGS gathered around the table for an evening of unabashed money grabbing. We bookended the evening with games of Fantasy Business, and played Knizia's Royal Turf and the brand new "Ca$h n' GunS" in between. All three were new to us, and all three revolve around accumulating cash.
First, Fantasy Business. Cool theme: Players are the merchants who sell all those magic items and weapons the characters in fantasy rpgs run around buying. Format-wise, it's a simple card game. As players build up an inventory of items to sell, each must decide how much to sell those items for. It's pretty simple if you have a monopoly because you simply charge the most the market will bear. Things get more interesting when a number of players are selling the same thing... they have to come to an agreement on the selling price before they open the market. Once negotiations are complete, players are free to set their prices at any level they want! Customers vote with their wallets... whomever set their price the HIGHEST sells NONE of their goods. Whomever sets their price the LOWEST sees a huge rush of sales and get a bonus to their income beyond the selling price. Anyone in between simply get what they've asked for. There are 10 rounds of aquiring new wares to sell/ setting prices and selling the items for profit.
Most money wins.
This game is nearly as nasty as Intrige (quite a high bar for nastiness). With the right crowd, it's a lot of fun. With the wrong crowd, it could quite easily bomb and sensitive people could get hurt. A sample hand: Luch made an offer to Kozure to trade 2 of each other's commodities so that they would both wind up with monopolies in the end. Once the deal was done, he immediately followed that with a special card which allowed him to steal Kozure's cards right back! Lying is the norm and backstabbing is the strategy. If that sounds fine by you, you'll likely enjoy the game.
I sucked at the game. I thought is was quite a bit of fun, but I sucked. In our first game, I came in dead last by a large margin. In the second game, the gap was narrower, but I was still last. I was working pretty hard to scam and screw over the other players. I was pretty successful, but as much as it was fun (for me) to keep doing this, it was far too much far too early... No one really trusted me so I had to resort to small amounts of income for far too long. Next time, I'll have to try to play more honestly and make a few significant "shafts" when they matter. Shemp, on the other hand, has this one DOWN. Although both Luch and Kozure were in the running, he won both games.
Royal Turf is the horse racing game by Reiner Knizia. There are a number of horses, everyone places bets on them and they race.
Most money wins.
The game was fun, but it felt like a less strategic version of Formula De (and I only consider Formula De to be mildly strategic). I simply could NOT identify any kind of strategy in the game beyond the initial betting (each horse has statistics and starting positions which vary, so the betting has to be adjusted accordingly). Like I said, it was enjoyable, but it just didn't feel like a Knizia at all. Well, I won't comment any further because it turns out we were playing it wrong! We were picking a horse, and THEN rolling the die. In fact, the reverse is supposed to occur. What a difference! We'll have to try it again to see how well it plays. For the record, Kozure won this one.
Last up was Ca$h n' GunS. If you've seen a "Mexican Standoff" in a Tarantino movie you'll know what to expect in this game (think the scene in Reservoir Dogs where all the characters have guns pointed at each other, and then they all pull the trigger and kill each other simultaneously). A random pile of cash is placed at the center of the table. Each player has a toy gun and simultaneously everyone chooses a target. The players who find themselves facing down the barrel of a gun need to make a decision: stay put or duck like a coward. You see, the gun MIGHT not be loaded. Each player had to choose from a hand of 8 cards at the start of the round, and 5 of those are blanks! Those who didn't flinch find out if the gun(s) pointed at them were loaded. Anyone who didn't run or get shot gets to split the cash. There are 8 rounds, and therefore each "ammo" card will eventually get used up, so the fun in the game is in trying to outguess when your opponents are likely to load their guns, and who they might point the gun at. (there are mosre details, and 2 variants we didn't play, but that's the essence of it)
Most money wins.
This is a fun, silly game if you are not offended by the theme. After every "gun pointing" Luch would chime in with the same comment: "Interesting..."
One of these two plays was my single shining moment this evening. I won! Kozure was the victor in the other.
Had a great time as usual, and my greed is satiated (for the moment)
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Rules Misinterpretations That Can Have a Big Impact...
A quick post to indicate that a mistake was made in the explanation of "Royal Turf", played in the most recent session. Turns out that you roll the die first, and then you choose which horse to move. A re-reading of the rules made this clearer.
Ugh.
Pretty major effect on gameplay, especially for the "faster" horses like Earl Grey and Albino - and much more opportunity to screw over your opponents, especially with horseshoe rolls.
Improves the game quite a bit, probably.
Another rule that was missed is that the horse cards from each race are discarded, so they are not used in subsequent races. In this way, each horse is sure to eventually use all three horse card variants.
Funny how a few slight misinterpretations can have a big impact. I'd say "my bad", but I really hate that expression, so I'll just say "ooops."
Ugh.
Pretty major effect on gameplay, especially for the "faster" horses like Earl Grey and Albino - and much more opportunity to screw over your opponents, especially with horseshoe rolls.
Improves the game quite a bit, probably.
Another rule that was missed is that the horse cards from each race are discarded, so they are not used in subsequent races. In this way, each horse is sure to eventually use all three horse card variants.
Funny how a few slight misinterpretations can have a big impact. I'd say "my bad", but I really hate that expression, so I'll just say "ooops."
Thursday, February 16, 2006
Put down that cupcake and RACE! (Through the Desert x2, Formula De, RoboRally)
This week was all about racing:
We burned rubber on Formula De's SPA track.
We braved the homicidal factory in RoboRally's "Bloodbath Chess" course.
We, ummm, had our camels cross the sands of Sahara REALLY FAST (?) in Through the Desert.
Oh, and we ate my wife's yummy Valentine's Day cupcakes.
It all started with a quick game of TtD for three. Shemp let us know ahead of time that he hadn't been sleeping well for a few days. This, combined with the fact that his colourblindness made it nearly impossible for him to follow what what going on on the board led him to apologize in advance for his weak playing. I did win, but he managed 2nd place. Poor Kozure...
I think this one is sneaking into my top 10... simple rules, scales well to any number of players and never takes much more than 30 minutes. (Shame about the pastel camels, though). We later closed the night with another round with 4 players. Kozure used an interesting initial placement strategy where he grouped 3 camels in one corner. This gave him an easy way to block other players from cutting him off as he went for a very large land grab. He made up for his earlier defeat!
Formula De was the first "Main Course". I wanted to try the SPA course with the group... it has the reputation of being the best of the tracks. I have to say I quite enjoyed it! Quite often the decision regarding which gear to be in on any given turn was quite tough. The leader changed frequently throughout the game and the course was often choked at the corners. I started at the Pole Position (and consequently in last place with my 2nd car). I was very hard on my lead car and blew most of my tires and brakes by the middle of the course. I did have the lead, but my conservative play after that allowed both Shemp and Kozure to pass me. In the end, Kozure crossed the finish line first and 5th, with Shemp 2nd and 3rd. I manages 4th and 6th with Luch limping in 7th (he lost a car in the chicane).
In Roborally, the "Bloodbath Chess" map proved to be quite interactive and lively. I seem to have a habit of totally screwing up my first move and this game was no different. I died right away because I didn't notice a wall in my path. I was behind for the entire game, but I accumulated quite an interesting array of special abilities along the way (dual CPU, extra memory, brakes and rear firing lasers). They weren't enough... I came in third (and the only reason I wasn't fourth was that Luch lost his third life token by flying into a pit near the 4th flag).
Until next time, may none or your registers be programmed randomly
We burned rubber on Formula De's SPA track.
We braved the homicidal factory in RoboRally's "Bloodbath Chess" course.
We, ummm, had our camels cross the sands of Sahara REALLY FAST (?) in Through the Desert.
Oh, and we ate my wife's yummy Valentine's Day cupcakes.
It all started with a quick game of TtD for three. Shemp let us know ahead of time that he hadn't been sleeping well for a few days. This, combined with the fact that his colourblindness made it nearly impossible for him to follow what what going on on the board led him to apologize in advance for his weak playing. I did win, but he managed 2nd place. Poor Kozure...
I think this one is sneaking into my top 10... simple rules, scales well to any number of players and never takes much more than 30 minutes. (Shame about the pastel camels, though). We later closed the night with another round with 4 players. Kozure used an interesting initial placement strategy where he grouped 3 camels in one corner. This gave him an easy way to block other players from cutting him off as he went for a very large land grab. He made up for his earlier defeat!
Formula De was the first "Main Course". I wanted to try the SPA course with the group... it has the reputation of being the best of the tracks. I have to say I quite enjoyed it! Quite often the decision regarding which gear to be in on any given turn was quite tough. The leader changed frequently throughout the game and the course was often choked at the corners. I started at the Pole Position (and consequently in last place with my 2nd car). I was very hard on my lead car and blew most of my tires and brakes by the middle of the course. I did have the lead, but my conservative play after that allowed both Shemp and Kozure to pass me. In the end, Kozure crossed the finish line first and 5th, with Shemp 2nd and 3rd. I manages 4th and 6th with Luch limping in 7th (he lost a car in the chicane).
In Roborally, the "Bloodbath Chess" map proved to be quite interactive and lively. I seem to have a habit of totally screwing up my first move and this game was no different. I died right away because I didn't notice a wall in my path. I was behind for the entire game, but I accumulated quite an interesting array of special abilities along the way (dual CPU, extra memory, brakes and rear firing lasers). They weren't enough... I came in third (and the only reason I wasn't fourth was that Luch lost his third life token by flying into a pit near the 4th flag).
Until next time, may none or your registers be programmed randomly
Labels:
Formula De,
Robo-Rally,
Session,
Through the Desert
Thursday, February 09, 2006
It takes a village... (Diamant, Tikal x2, Antike, Saboteur)
Quite a crowd at "Chez Kozure" this week.
JayWowzer just couldn't bear the California heat so a mere two weeks after his last visit, we had him in our midst once again. Shamus, having recently humbled us in his first ever evening of german games, thought enough of them to come back... and this time with his girlfriend, Robin!
So, with Shemp out house hunting we had 7 people together. What to play?
We started out with Diamant. Nice, easy fun and fast. In the 3rd cave, Robin found herself all alone and still feeling brave enough to keep going deeper. It paid off in a big way and she left us in the dust (somewhere between 20-30 gems collected in that cave alone). Didn't help that the next two caves were over before they started...
Next Luch requested we play Tikal. We had two copies, so after the explanations we split off and got started. I played with JayWowzer and Luch. It was a great game... competition was tight throughout. I was obscenely lucky and made a triple out of the first 3 treasures I drew. Assuming it would be all downhill from there, I opted to stay out from treasure collecting for the rest of the game (hoping to gain an advantage by not using up valuable action points taking/ trading treasures later on). I made 2 surprise "swoops", taking ownership of high value temples (a 7 and a 10) out from under the other player's noses, but it was too early... I lost a lot of workers in the process and I would need them later on. In the end, I couldn't keep control of enough other temples and JayWowzer's superior mobility and accumulated treasure beat us out in the last few rounds.
The others were still going strong (it was a learning game, after all). Kozure joined us and we moved on to Antike. JayWowzer was kind enough to bring it along so we could give it a spin. I'm sure glad he did! I like the idea of civilization type games, but they are really hard to pull off... Too long, not balanced, fiddly, etc. A truly brilliant civ. game would incorporate war, politics, religion, technological advancements and negotiations in a game which lasted less than 4 hours. Antike is NOT that game, but it IS lots of fun.
Antike is a game set in the ancient mediteranean. Each player starts with a set of three regions, each of which produces a different good (marble, Iron, Gold). Over the course of the game, players race to accumulate a set number of victory points.
The path to that goal is surprisingly clean and simple...
1) Expanding your empire increases your production. Every 5th region under a player's control is worth a VP.
2) GOLD can be accumulated and spent on technological advancements (the wheel, currency, etc). Any player who purchases an advancement gets it's benefit, but the FIRST player to purchase each advancement gets a VP.
3) MARBLE can be spent on building temples. Temples have the direct effect of increasing production and defenses in a region. Every THIRD temple nets a VP.
4) IRON can be spent on building armies (boats or land armies). Occupying 7 ocean hexes nets a VP. Destroying a temple nets a VP.
Actions are selected in a somewhat novel way: The top right corner of the board shows a wheel with each possible action on it (generate marble, build a temple, etc). On a turn, a player can move their marker around the wheel up to 3 spaces and carries out that action (moves beyond 3 spaces are possible at a cost). The wheel is set up in such a way that producing a given resource always leaves a player 1 step too far from the action where it would be spent. It works well and it results in a game which moves remarkably quickly. How many civilization themed games can claim that 4 players take their turns in 2-3 minutes TOTAL?
I started out as Greece. I had a fair number of gold producing regions nearby, so I decided to skip the empire building race and focus on purchasing technological advancements. I took over 4 of those gold regions and built 3 temples on them. I maxed out all the advancements (being the first to buy 5 of the 8). By the end of the game, I was producing 13 gold! Kozure, Luch and JayWowzer had accumulated quite the large empires, armed with a number of armies and fleets. I was VERY nervous that Kozure was going to attack my rather small and fragile territory. One more turn and I think the tide would have turned... As it was I finished the game by expanding to my 10th territory and purchasing 3 temples in quick succession. It was an entirely bloodless game!
In future sessions, I'd never get away with it.
Anyway, Antike manages to incorporate empire building, war and technological advancement in a very elegant and streamlined package which features virtually zero downtime and a very rapid 1.5 hour playtime. If I could find it locally, I'd surely buy it. Chris Farrell has criticized this game on his blog. I can't say I agree with him here. I quite like it.
We finished up with Saboteur. I bought this game, along with Diamant, specifically for our New Year's Eve party... thinking that a nice light game which could accomodate a large group would be a hit (and wanting an alternative to party games, though we would ultimately play those as well). It didn't go over too well.
In Saboteur, players assume the roles of dwarves digging mining tunnels trying to get to 3 different spots which MIGHT contain treasure. The twist is that one or more players MIGHT be traitors! They win if the dwarves finish the game without finding the treasure. It's a card game, and on a turn a player simply plays a card and then draws to replace. The card might be a section of tunnel or a "hazard" card which prevents another player from functioning until they play the appropriate "fix" card (this works exactly like the "hazard/ safety" mechanic from Mille Bornes). Obviously, the traitors try to inconspicuously lead the tunnel in the wrong direction, etc, because the moment they are discovered the hazards start to pile up quick.
The problem on New Year's Eve was that it was simply impossible for the good dwarves to win! The deck routinely ran out before the they could get close to any of the possible destinations. A quick visit to BGG proved to be very confusing... opinions there seemed to be that there was no way for the TRAITORS to win.
How is that possible?
Well, after playing last night I can concur that with 4 players the good dwarves have it pretty easy. The only hand where the traitor came close to stopping the others was caused by me and JayWowzer being completely convinced Luch was the traitor, burying him under a constant barrage of hazards. At the last minute, it became clear we were dead wrong and Kozure was actually the traitor. We recovered and found the gold, but it was pretty lucky (and I have to commend Luch for taking the punishment without letting on we were mistaken... the game lives and dies on players being able to keep their secrets)
Bottom line: Played as-is, the number of players seems to frequently predetermine which side will win. In a 4 player game, a maximum of 1 out of 4 players will be a traitor. In a 7 player game, 3 out of 7 could be traitors. Percentage wise, that's a big difference. Perhaps adding a potential 2nd traitor to the mix in the 4 player game might allow a less predictable shift of power. We'll see. There are probably "ideal" numbers of players where the ratio of traitors and good dwarves is balanced (I'd guess 6 and 9). The good news is that I enjoyed the game much more than I did the first time. It's nothing special, but there aren't a huge number of decent 10 player games, so it will find it's place (and it's certainly fun enough for the occasional play with fewer people).
Oh, and at the next table Robin proved once again that the newcomer should never be underestimated. She won. They are a crafty couple, it seems.
Antike: 9
Saboteur: 6
JayWowzer just couldn't bear the California heat so a mere two weeks after his last visit, we had him in our midst once again. Shamus, having recently humbled us in his first ever evening of german games, thought enough of them to come back... and this time with his girlfriend, Robin!
So, with Shemp out house hunting we had 7 people together. What to play?
We started out with Diamant. Nice, easy fun and fast. In the 3rd cave, Robin found herself all alone and still feeling brave enough to keep going deeper. It paid off in a big way and she left us in the dust (somewhere between 20-30 gems collected in that cave alone). Didn't help that the next two caves were over before they started...
Next Luch requested we play Tikal. We had two copies, so after the explanations we split off and got started. I played with JayWowzer and Luch. It was a great game... competition was tight throughout. I was obscenely lucky and made a triple out of the first 3 treasures I drew. Assuming it would be all downhill from there, I opted to stay out from treasure collecting for the rest of the game (hoping to gain an advantage by not using up valuable action points taking/ trading treasures later on). I made 2 surprise "swoops", taking ownership of high value temples (a 7 and a 10) out from under the other player's noses, but it was too early... I lost a lot of workers in the process and I would need them later on. In the end, I couldn't keep control of enough other temples and JayWowzer's superior mobility and accumulated treasure beat us out in the last few rounds.
The others were still going strong (it was a learning game, after all). Kozure joined us and we moved on to Antike. JayWowzer was kind enough to bring it along so we could give it a spin. I'm sure glad he did! I like the idea of civilization type games, but they are really hard to pull off... Too long, not balanced, fiddly, etc. A truly brilliant civ. game would incorporate war, politics, religion, technological advancements and negotiations in a game which lasted less than 4 hours. Antike is NOT that game, but it IS lots of fun.
Antike is a game set in the ancient mediteranean. Each player starts with a set of three regions, each of which produces a different good (marble, Iron, Gold). Over the course of the game, players race to accumulate a set number of victory points.
The path to that goal is surprisingly clean and simple...
1) Expanding your empire increases your production. Every 5th region under a player's control is worth a VP.
2) GOLD can be accumulated and spent on technological advancements (the wheel, currency, etc). Any player who purchases an advancement gets it's benefit, but the FIRST player to purchase each advancement gets a VP.
3) MARBLE can be spent on building temples. Temples have the direct effect of increasing production and defenses in a region. Every THIRD temple nets a VP.
4) IRON can be spent on building armies (boats or land armies). Occupying 7 ocean hexes nets a VP. Destroying a temple nets a VP.
Actions are selected in a somewhat novel way: The top right corner of the board shows a wheel with each possible action on it (generate marble, build a temple, etc). On a turn, a player can move their marker around the wheel up to 3 spaces and carries out that action (moves beyond 3 spaces are possible at a cost). The wheel is set up in such a way that producing a given resource always leaves a player 1 step too far from the action where it would be spent. It works well and it results in a game which moves remarkably quickly. How many civilization themed games can claim that 4 players take their turns in 2-3 minutes TOTAL?
I started out as Greece. I had a fair number of gold producing regions nearby, so I decided to skip the empire building race and focus on purchasing technological advancements. I took over 4 of those gold regions and built 3 temples on them. I maxed out all the advancements (being the first to buy 5 of the 8). By the end of the game, I was producing 13 gold! Kozure, Luch and JayWowzer had accumulated quite the large empires, armed with a number of armies and fleets. I was VERY nervous that Kozure was going to attack my rather small and fragile territory. One more turn and I think the tide would have turned... As it was I finished the game by expanding to my 10th territory and purchasing 3 temples in quick succession. It was an entirely bloodless game!
In future sessions, I'd never get away with it.
Anyway, Antike manages to incorporate empire building, war and technological advancement in a very elegant and streamlined package which features virtually zero downtime and a very rapid 1.5 hour playtime. If I could find it locally, I'd surely buy it. Chris Farrell has criticized this game on his blog. I can't say I agree with him here. I quite like it.
We finished up with Saboteur. I bought this game, along with Diamant, specifically for our New Year's Eve party... thinking that a nice light game which could accomodate a large group would be a hit (and wanting an alternative to party games, though we would ultimately play those as well). It didn't go over too well.
In Saboteur, players assume the roles of dwarves digging mining tunnels trying to get to 3 different spots which MIGHT contain treasure. The twist is that one or more players MIGHT be traitors! They win if the dwarves finish the game without finding the treasure. It's a card game, and on a turn a player simply plays a card and then draws to replace. The card might be a section of tunnel or a "hazard" card which prevents another player from functioning until they play the appropriate "fix" card (this works exactly like the "hazard/ safety" mechanic from Mille Bornes). Obviously, the traitors try to inconspicuously lead the tunnel in the wrong direction, etc, because the moment they are discovered the hazards start to pile up quick.
The problem on New Year's Eve was that it was simply impossible for the good dwarves to win! The deck routinely ran out before the they could get close to any of the possible destinations. A quick visit to BGG proved to be very confusing... opinions there seemed to be that there was no way for the TRAITORS to win.
How is that possible?
Well, after playing last night I can concur that with 4 players the good dwarves have it pretty easy. The only hand where the traitor came close to stopping the others was caused by me and JayWowzer being completely convinced Luch was the traitor, burying him under a constant barrage of hazards. At the last minute, it became clear we were dead wrong and Kozure was actually the traitor. We recovered and found the gold, but it was pretty lucky (and I have to commend Luch for taking the punishment without letting on we were mistaken... the game lives and dies on players being able to keep their secrets)
Bottom line: Played as-is, the number of players seems to frequently predetermine which side will win. In a 4 player game, a maximum of 1 out of 4 players will be a traitor. In a 7 player game, 3 out of 7 could be traitors. Percentage wise, that's a big difference. Perhaps adding a potential 2nd traitor to the mix in the 4 player game might allow a less predictable shift of power. We'll see. There are probably "ideal" numbers of players where the ratio of traitors and good dwarves is balanced (I'd guess 6 and 9). The good news is that I enjoyed the game much more than I did the first time. It's nothing special, but there aren't a huge number of decent 10 player games, so it will find it's place (and it's certainly fun enough for the occasional play with fewer people).
Oh, and at the next table Robin proved once again that the newcomer should never be underestimated. She won. They are a crafty couple, it seems.
Antike: 9
Saboteur: 6
"Never Try to Play a Player" - Tikal, Film-Noir Style
*cue mournful sax solo and distant police siren*
Ever get the feeling you were being played?
It was a cold and wintery night on the mean streets of Hogtown. There was a knock on the door, the sort of knock that makes a man put down his cheap scotch and flat soda and bother to answer it. They stood there, looking cold and lost - they looked like the sort of people that get eaten if they stay out too long after dark. I had seem him before - he went by the handle of Shamus - strangely, he wasn't a brother gumshoe. He had a slim gal with him, a nice looker, but you could tell she had some brains to rattle around behind that pretty face. I figured her for his moll. Shamus introduced her as "Ms. Potter", and you could hear him put enough "zee" on the Ms. to make it clear they weren't married.
I invited them in.
I had some of the boys in the back already fixing to start up on a game of Tikal, so I pointed the loving couple in the direction of our couch and broke out another copy of the old Mayan shellgame for my new guests to play. Tikal is like a pretty dame from a Sicilian crime family - nice to look at, but you'll find a couple slugs in your back if you let your guard down. Shamus I knew was a bit of a player - he'd run away with a train job a couple of weeks previous, but I chalked that one up to beginner's luck. Tikal was a good game to get to know a person; the real person, if you know what I mean. It's easy enough to suss out, I guess, but it's got more twists than a cheap dimestore licorice, and defeat tasted just as bitter.
Shamus and "Ms. Potter" looked like easy pickings. I laid out the rules and the situation and we got down to brass tacks. Early on, I thought I'd be sailing into the win easy-like. On the first couple of scoring round, I was ahead. I shoulda checked the rear view, though; "Ms. Potter" wasn't far behind. It got a little cut-throat - Shamus and Ms. Potter muscled in on one of my pyramids early on, and I gave Shamus the heave-ho on one that he'd worked up from a 4 pointer. On the second scoring round, I could hear the dogs nipping at my heels... well, if a dog looked like a pretty dame and came at you sideways from an alley with a Saturday Night Special. "Ms. Potter" caught up and passed me by a hair on the second round, and it was off to the races after that. All I was able to eat for the rest of the same was that dame's dust, and it didn't taste nearly as good as Tili's lasagne, or a decent scotch and soda, for that matter. No, defeat was dry as Mayan pottery dust in my mouth, baked in the hot Guatemalan sun.
I had to hand the game over to Trixie... er... Tili, because the other game was done with and the boys were explaining the rules for Antike, but from what I heard, Ms. Potter cleaned up. Ms. Potter won by a good eleven points.
Nope. These kids weren't amateurs. They were players through and through. They'd be back; I could tell by the way they smiled that they knew an easy mark when they saw one. Shamus and his moll Ms. Potter: a couple of cool cucumbers who knew their way around a game of Tikal. I've played the game enough to know when I had been played, and I had been played like a Stradivarius violin; smooth and expert-like, with a clear finish.
*siren fades out, echoing in the street*
[To be honest, I couldn't figure out a way to fit the review of Antike into the film-noir themed session report above, so I'll just do it the old-fashioned way.]
Antike is that rarity of rarieties, the Civilization building game that doesn't go too far into detail (Sid Meier's Civilization) and doesn't gloss over details a little too much (Vinci). After a quick rules explanation by JayWowzer, we were good to go.
I have to say that the roundel-based turn and action selection method is pretty unique. I have to laugh a tiny bit at the concept of a game where gold and currency are two separate and quite distinctly differently used commodities, but that's pretty much my only quibble with the game (oh, and the cover box art. That needed work).
Antike uses a fairly standard area-movement based movement mechanic, but resource acquisition and building are handled in phases which exist as sectors on a roundel. The players place a marker on the action they took, and then can advance up to three sectors for free (or pay one currency unit per sector to advance more) and then take the action on the next section. There are four commodities - iron, marble, gold and currency. The first three can be mined from specific area-based cities - the second, currency, is a per turn income and can be used to substitute like a wild-card for any of the other three resources.
Victory is point based, and varies from 9 points in a 4 player game, up to something like 12 or 13 in a three player game. Players acquire points (one point each) by gaining 5 land areas (king), being the first to develop "know-how" in two steps of five (six?) different categories (scholar), having ships in 7 different sea areas (seafarer), building 3 temples (citizen), conquering a city with a temple (general).
There are basically two types of manoeuvrable units, a land-army (which look like militant meeples) and a fleet (which are cute galley-like things). Other markers and pieces include a white temple, which triples resource output from a city, cities, which are little round dics, and eight-sided tall pieces which are used for markers on the techology tracks and the above mentioned roundel (which governs action types). The components are well made of wood, all are distinct colours and all (with the possible exception of the angry meeple) seem suited to their use.
Combat is similar to the Vinci one-for-one exchange of mutual destruction, with a few modifiers thrown in for defensive know-how (monarchies and democracies defend themselves more effectively) and for temples.
I'm really quite impressed with the game, which combines a simple but clever method for managing resources and buying different types of units and improvements. Combat is simple, but evocative, and options for attacking from sea, land or both at once add a little uncertainty to the strategic scope. It is quite possible to win without attacking anyone, as Agent Easy admirably demonstrated during the game, but I think in future games closer attention will be paid to leaders to prevent a straighforward purchase of victory.
This one is a definite keeper. I'd rate it a 8.5, which might bump up to 9 in subsequent plays. It has the fantastic attribute of being playable in 60-90 minutes, which for this level of detail (medium-light, admittedly, but better than Vinci, for example) is really quite remarkable.
Agent Easy walked away with the win, with JayWowzer coming a close second; Hapi and I fell to distant fourth and third place respectively.
Ever get the feeling you were being played?
It was a cold and wintery night on the mean streets of Hogtown. There was a knock on the door, the sort of knock that makes a man put down his cheap scotch and flat soda and bother to answer it. They stood there, looking cold and lost - they looked like the sort of people that get eaten if they stay out too long after dark. I had seem him before - he went by the handle of Shamus - strangely, he wasn't a brother gumshoe. He had a slim gal with him, a nice looker, but you could tell she had some brains to rattle around behind that pretty face. I figured her for his moll. Shamus introduced her as "Ms. Potter", and you could hear him put enough "zee" on the Ms. to make it clear they weren't married.
I invited them in.
I had some of the boys in the back already fixing to start up on a game of Tikal, so I pointed the loving couple in the direction of our couch and broke out another copy of the old Mayan shellgame for my new guests to play. Tikal is like a pretty dame from a Sicilian crime family - nice to look at, but you'll find a couple slugs in your back if you let your guard down. Shamus I knew was a bit of a player - he'd run away with a train job a couple of weeks previous, but I chalked that one up to beginner's luck. Tikal was a good game to get to know a person; the real person, if you know what I mean. It's easy enough to suss out, I guess, but it's got more twists than a cheap dimestore licorice, and defeat tasted just as bitter.
Shamus and "Ms. Potter" looked like easy pickings. I laid out the rules and the situation and we got down to brass tacks. Early on, I thought I'd be sailing into the win easy-like. On the first couple of scoring round, I was ahead. I shoulda checked the rear view, though; "Ms. Potter" wasn't far behind. It got a little cut-throat - Shamus and Ms. Potter muscled in on one of my pyramids early on, and I gave Shamus the heave-ho on one that he'd worked up from a 4 pointer. On the second scoring round, I could hear the dogs nipping at my heels... well, if a dog looked like a pretty dame and came at you sideways from an alley with a Saturday Night Special. "Ms. Potter" caught up and passed me by a hair on the second round, and it was off to the races after that. All I was able to eat for the rest of the same was that dame's dust, and it didn't taste nearly as good as Tili's lasagne, or a decent scotch and soda, for that matter. No, defeat was dry as Mayan pottery dust in my mouth, baked in the hot Guatemalan sun.
I had to hand the game over to Trixie... er... Tili, because the other game was done with and the boys were explaining the rules for Antike, but from what I heard, Ms. Potter cleaned up. Ms. Potter won by a good eleven points.
Nope. These kids weren't amateurs. They were players through and through. They'd be back; I could tell by the way they smiled that they knew an easy mark when they saw one. Shamus and his moll Ms. Potter: a couple of cool cucumbers who knew their way around a game of Tikal. I've played the game enough to know when I had been played, and I had been played like a Stradivarius violin; smooth and expert-like, with a clear finish.
*siren fades out, echoing in the street*
[To be honest, I couldn't figure out a way to fit the review of Antike into the film-noir themed session report above, so I'll just do it the old-fashioned way.]
Antike is that rarity of rarieties, the Civilization building game that doesn't go too far into detail (Sid Meier's Civilization) and doesn't gloss over details a little too much (Vinci). After a quick rules explanation by JayWowzer, we were good to go.
I have to say that the roundel-based turn and action selection method is pretty unique. I have to laugh a tiny bit at the concept of a game where gold and currency are two separate and quite distinctly differently used commodities, but that's pretty much my only quibble with the game (oh, and the cover box art. That needed work).
Antike uses a fairly standard area-movement based movement mechanic, but resource acquisition and building are handled in phases which exist as sectors on a roundel. The players place a marker on the action they took, and then can advance up to three sectors for free (or pay one currency unit per sector to advance more) and then take the action on the next section. There are four commodities - iron, marble, gold and currency. The first three can be mined from specific area-based cities - the second, currency, is a per turn income and can be used to substitute like a wild-card for any of the other three resources.
Victory is point based, and varies from 9 points in a 4 player game, up to something like 12 or 13 in a three player game. Players acquire points (one point each) by gaining 5 land areas (king), being the first to develop "know-how" in two steps of five (six?) different categories (scholar), having ships in 7 different sea areas (seafarer), building 3 temples (citizen), conquering a city with a temple (general).
There are basically two types of manoeuvrable units, a land-army (which look like militant meeples) and a fleet (which are cute galley-like things). Other markers and pieces include a white temple, which triples resource output from a city, cities, which are little round dics, and eight-sided tall pieces which are used for markers on the techology tracks and the above mentioned roundel (which governs action types). The components are well made of wood, all are distinct colours and all (with the possible exception of the angry meeple) seem suited to their use.
Combat is similar to the Vinci one-for-one exchange of mutual destruction, with a few modifiers thrown in for defensive know-how (monarchies and democracies defend themselves more effectively) and for temples.
I'm really quite impressed with the game, which combines a simple but clever method for managing resources and buying different types of units and improvements. Combat is simple, but evocative, and options for attacking from sea, land or both at once add a little uncertainty to the strategic scope. It is quite possible to win without attacking anyone, as Agent Easy admirably demonstrated during the game, but I think in future games closer attention will be paid to leaders to prevent a straighforward purchase of victory.
This one is a definite keeper. I'd rate it a 8.5, which might bump up to 9 in subsequent plays. It has the fantastic attribute of being playable in 60-90 minutes, which for this level of detail (medium-light, admittedly, but better than Vinci, for example) is really quite remarkable.
Agent Easy walked away with the win, with JayWowzer coming a close second; Hapi and I fell to distant fourth and third place respectively.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
I'm Billy from Interpol, I have salt on my zipper and I want a muffin membership (RPG, High Society x2)
This week marked the return of RPGing to WAGS.
With all three characters one the verge of death, wandering aimlessly in an unknown world they just RIFTED into, the session was understandibly dedicated to finding safe haven and rest.
The strange man from the trailer in the field gave us some salt and rations before we shoved off. After some discussion, we decided to head for the relatively near town of Wichen. On the way, we witnessed a floating ball of light scouring an open field (a probe? a Will'O Wisp?) and witnessed a massive battle between a giant cyclops, various werewolves and goblins and a giant robot.
Skirting around the fight, we found oursleves stuck on one side of a giant river. Behind us, the pounding of footsteps made it obvious that the robot had survived the fight and was heading our way. Lucky for us, it was heavily damaged and collapsed before it reached us. Upon closer inspection, the robot was being "driven" by a human inside! After treating the human, we discovered many things:
We were actually in a parallel or future version of the US. The river was the Mississipi. The human was part of an army patrol who's duty was to scour the "Magic Zone" we were in. The army came from Chitown in the North, a centre of the "Confederation". The Confederation was intolerant of anything magical, paranormal, or "different" in any way. As we hadn't let on that I was a Psychic Sensitive, and since we look outwardly normal, he agreed to take us to a nearby settlement. He also told us that Devil's Gate, a city across the river which cast a large glow even from a distance, was a center for all things magical and was therefore an enemy. We also discovered that the Federation employed "Psi-Units", groups specially trained to identify supernaturals... not a good sign for Stan.
At the small town, we encountered a "doctor" who seemed to be a cybernetic implant surgeon (and a shady one at that). He shot us up with some type of drug which would promote healing, but we were still in rough shape.
It was at this point that we found out that the "Walker in the East" was tearing up nearby villages looking for whoever was responsible for killing the "Walker in the West". Problem was, that was us (it was an accident... a chunk of the temple we blew up in our native world RIFTED with us and crushed him). We still don't really know what a "Walker" is, but it's apparently aligned with the Devil's Gate, so it's likely to be plenty "supernatural".
We stopped since it was getting late and an encounter with the Walker would likely take a while. Shemp commented on how he was surprised that we were so restrained. He shouldn't have been! We were so close to dying we couldn't risk any sort of combat, much less in a world we don't understand against opponents which are several magnitudes more powerful.
For posterity, had Stan been feeling better he would likely have "borrowed" the robot armor vehicle and raced north to the city with Sam and Helmut. I bet that would have led to a confrontation with the Walker much sooner, probably right after the battle with the rest of the army units waiting nearby...
Now that we're getting a feeling for the dynamics of the place, and were not in complete dire straights health wise, I suspect the next session will involve far more pyrotechnics.
(We killed the last 20 minutes with 2 hands of High Society. Kozure won the first and Shemp won the second)
...and no, I'm not going to explain the blog title. It's an amalgamation of missunderstood sentences and poorly conceived plans which somehow came together in a sentence which had us all laughing late in the evening.
With all three characters one the verge of death, wandering aimlessly in an unknown world they just RIFTED into, the session was understandibly dedicated to finding safe haven and rest.
The strange man from the trailer in the field gave us some salt and rations before we shoved off. After some discussion, we decided to head for the relatively near town of Wichen. On the way, we witnessed a floating ball of light scouring an open field (a probe? a Will'O Wisp?) and witnessed a massive battle between a giant cyclops, various werewolves and goblins and a giant robot.
Skirting around the fight, we found oursleves stuck on one side of a giant river. Behind us, the pounding of footsteps made it obvious that the robot had survived the fight and was heading our way. Lucky for us, it was heavily damaged and collapsed before it reached us. Upon closer inspection, the robot was being "driven" by a human inside! After treating the human, we discovered many things:
We were actually in a parallel or future version of the US. The river was the Mississipi. The human was part of an army patrol who's duty was to scour the "Magic Zone" we were in. The army came from Chitown in the North, a centre of the "Confederation". The Confederation was intolerant of anything magical, paranormal, or "different" in any way. As we hadn't let on that I was a Psychic Sensitive, and since we look outwardly normal, he agreed to take us to a nearby settlement. He also told us that Devil's Gate, a city across the river which cast a large glow even from a distance, was a center for all things magical and was therefore an enemy. We also discovered that the Federation employed "Psi-Units", groups specially trained to identify supernaturals... not a good sign for Stan.
At the small town, we encountered a "doctor" who seemed to be a cybernetic implant surgeon (and a shady one at that). He shot us up with some type of drug which would promote healing, but we were still in rough shape.
It was at this point that we found out that the "Walker in the East" was tearing up nearby villages looking for whoever was responsible for killing the "Walker in the West". Problem was, that was us (it was an accident... a chunk of the temple we blew up in our native world RIFTED with us and crushed him). We still don't really know what a "Walker" is, but it's apparently aligned with the Devil's Gate, so it's likely to be plenty "supernatural".
We stopped since it was getting late and an encounter with the Walker would likely take a while. Shemp commented on how he was surprised that we were so restrained. He shouldn't have been! We were so close to dying we couldn't risk any sort of combat, much less in a world we don't understand against opponents which are several magnitudes more powerful.
For posterity, had Stan been feeling better he would likely have "borrowed" the robot armor vehicle and raced north to the city with Sam and Helmut. I bet that would have led to a confrontation with the Walker much sooner, probably right after the battle with the rest of the army units waiting nearby...
Now that we're getting a feeling for the dynamics of the place, and were not in complete dire straights health wise, I suspect the next session will involve far more pyrotechnics.
(We killed the last 20 minutes with 2 hands of High Society. Kozure won the first and Shemp won the second)
...and no, I'm not going to explain the blog title. It's an amalgamation of missunderstood sentences and poorly conceived plans which somehow came together in a sentence which had us all laughing late in the evening.
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