Man Factory (Imperial)

Stuart Mackenzie: Well, it's a well known fact, Sonny Jim, that there's a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.
Tony Giardino: So who's in this Pentavirate?
Stuart Mackenzie: The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, and Colonel Sanders before he went tits up. Oh, I hated the Colonel with 'is wee beady eyes, and that smug look on his face. "Oh, you're gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!"
Charlie Mackenzie: Dad, how can you hate "The Colonel"?
Stuart Mackenzie: Because he puts an addictive chemical in his chicken that makes ya crave it fortnightly, smartass!

"So I Married an Axe Murderer"

Imperial. Evil... eeeeevil. This game puts you in the position of everything I hate about modern capitalism; profiting from the misery of war and the machinations of power.

That said... I'm hooked. Obviously this game got a lot of press around its release and has steadily built up a fairly large and somewhat dedicated fanbase. I had actually been avoiding it, for two primary reasons: I hate the board colours (far too bright for a game from this period and of this tone) and I really dislike the underlying concept... basically playing the Krupps, Simon Camerons, Andrew J. Mays, Donald Rumsfelds, KBRs and Blackwaters of the world - war profiteers.

So, how on earth could one have fun playing someone who is essentially on the same moral level as orphanage foreclosers, ambulance-chasing lawyers and people who sell bread for $10 a loaf after a hurricane? Well, the easy answer is that you do exactly what these people do in real life - you disconnect yourself from the misery that your actions are causing. Essentially, you become evil personified... and as long as you're not actually hurting anyone, it's kinda fun to play the bad guy.

The mechanics have been described in more detail and with better effect elsewhere, but the gist of it is that you use Antike's roundel mechanic to control the timing of a number of actions including investing (which amounts to getting money), manoeuvring (moving military units around on the map), building factories, producing (factories create one unit apiece), importing (buying military units without having to produce them) and taxation (getting money and also changing the "credit" status of a nation). There is also a sort of "sub-round" when you have the investor card during the invest round, which allows the player with the card (and players without controlling interest in countries) to buy bonds.

As an overly simplified way of describing it, there is a very basic Antike/Diplomacy 1:1 combat wargame with a fairly interesting investing game overlay - you're basically investing in countries which are successful militarily or economically, with the goal of having the most "stock" (bonds in the game) in the most successful "brand" - er... country. The twist is the strategy is two-faced - you can actually intentionally sink a county you control by plundering its coffers in anticipation of it being taken over by others.

There is a deep, deep strategy in this game. I can see it taking a dozen or more plays to fully appreciate it, and the strategy would change for each number of players as well.

On the downside, there is a (well-documented) possibility of a player (or in the case of five or six players, more than one player) sitting several cycles around the roundel out. I experienced it first hand last night. I was almost actionless for about 30 minutes (not exactly bored, just not actively buying or controlling anything) and by the end I was not having as much fun as I would have liked. In addition, for optimum play, you ideally need a lot of time to make your move. Thus, Imperial is a good candidate for an egg-timer (when playing in the temporal confines of a three to four hour games night). Analysis paralysis is a near and present danger for this puppy.

Overall I quite like this one and may end up adding it to my collection if I can get a good deal.

In last night's game, France, Germany and Great Britain became the major powers, with Austria-Hungary, Russia and everyone's favourite whipping boy Italy bringing up the rear.

With Jaywozer heavily invested in Great Britain, Ouch doing his best impression of the Kaiser in Germany and Agent Easy taking a long term as the (accursed) French, it was left to Bharmer and I to pick up the scraps of Russia and Austria-Hungary. There was a fair amount of movement of ownership and not a few cases where Ouch owned two or even three different nations. I made the mistake of being ousted from Austria-Hungary in the mid-game, which left me largely without cash or options for a good part of the game. Despite this, I managed a close fourth place. Scores were, I believe, Agent Easy 118, Jaywowzer 115, Ouch 108, Kozure 93 and Bharmer 70-something.

"Evil will triumph, because good is dumb."

Spaceballs

All eyes on Asia (Civilization)

We played part 2 of our game of Civilization.

After I had been nearly wiped off the board by a plague last time, I laid low. Shemp and Bharmer fought a series of battles, and Kozure and Luch did the same. Unable to construct a meaningful trade or army, I did the only thing I could: I bought tech. Over the course of the evening, I bought every technology I could afford. In the end, I had acquired most of the available wonders and and many military technologies.

A couple of things:

1) Kozure rolled a 3 on a critical roll in a critical battle. Luch then rolled a 2.
2) Shemp's rolling absolutely sucked. He lost several battles he should have won.
3) Luch was a money-making engine. He chased Kozure out of the U.S., and Kozure suffered heavy losses during the battle.

As the evening came to a close, I was making a lot of money off of my investments. I also was way ahead on points (approx 35. Luch was next with 20). Unfortunately for me, I have both a large lead and a tiny army. All eyes are now on the Easylanders in Asia, and elimination is the goal. The next session should be bloody.

Civilization: The Rulings

The rules for Sid Meier's Civilization: The Boardgame are notoriously unclear on many topics. I thought I'd spend some time trying to find "official" answers to rules issues, and failing that, provide links or background to unofficial answers. Where neither official nor unofficial answers exist, I wanted to record our own gaming group "ruling". Part of the problem with this is that the old Eagle Games forum on SMC:TB, which contained many official rulings from the designers, went down with the crash of Eagle Games. There is actually a new Eagle Games forum, but it has only a few scant questions. I'm trying to use the Wayback Machine to recover what I can. Otherwise, I'm taking cues from the Civ forums at BGG.

Issues that came up last night:

Q:Are units exhaustible?

A: No. If a player builds more units than are available in the game, find some way of marking or indicating additional units.

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/314732

Q: Do you have to pay current era prices for units/improvments/techs from previous eras?

A: No, for units you pay that era's price, but you may only purchase the "best" of that era.

For improvements, you pay the price of the era it dates from.

For techs, you pay half price (and get any associated Wonders, as usual).

You get the "royalty" payment appropriate to the era it comes from.

Question found in archived Wayback Machine forums: "Q: If you go into a new Epoch are you alowed to buy old Units from old epochs? At which price? and how much licence you have to pay?

A: Yes; see p. 24 Purchasing Military Units. Players may always purchase the "best" unit, of each type (e.g. infantry) from each era. The price of the unit depends on the era it is from, as does the fee received by the owner of that technology." Source: - TFK - official Eagle Answers - culled from Wayback Machine.

Also: http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/34017

Q: Can a fleet stop another fleet from moving through or unloading units into a space?

A: "Armies loaded on ships are not allowed to disembark if the fleet they are being transported on has been stopped after moving one or more spaces."* SMC:tBG Rules Version 2.0

*This is actually from the Standard (not advanced rules) but is such a standard convention in most wargames of this scale and complexity that it can be assumed that Eagle just forgot to include this rule in the Advanced section.

This actually didn't come up as an issue this time, but may next session, given the number of amphibious landings about to take place. Units which are "stopped" can be land or sea (but land or sea units cannot stop air units).

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/32471

I'm certain there were some other rules issues. Post them here as comments and I'll append them.

OTHER CRITICISM

A guy at BGG took the time to collect and organize criticisms levelled at the game. I figure if we ever bother to play this game again, we agree on a set of revisions that address the issues mentioned in this thread:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/64795

(reproduced here in part for the very lazy, but the link above has in-depth descriptions of the problems mentioned )

1) random exploration markers at start, luck factor
2) bookkeeping / tracking production
3) combat too slow, tedious, random, bad mechanic
4) shared tech tree
5) only one of each happy & production improvement
6) no vps for techs
7) takes too long to play
8) no government
9) runaway leader dynamic
10) resource trading is too complicated / confusing / time consuming
11) city improvements become obsolete
12) city improvements aren't worth their cost
13) hyperexpansion strategy
14) plague too harsh in later eras
15) tech tree problems - ancient->middle too profitable, currency not purchased

As I walk along the valley of death... (Civilization)

So, Shemp is back.

He asked that we play Civilization (the new Sid Meier version, not the game from the 80s). The last time we played it was October of 2004... but of course it took three entire evenings so I suppose it's not a huge surprise we haven't played it more often.

We setup, crossed our fingers that the starting setup wouldn't leave us with the barren world the of last game, and got going. I specifically avoided North America in order to make the game different from the last one. Remembering Luch's mantra "What the @#$@! do I care, I'm in Asia", the Easylanders set up camp there with both my units. Lucky for me, no one else did. There was:

The Bharmerons in Africa
The Shempezuelans in Australia and Europe.
The Luch in North America
The Kozurians in South America

I had a vast array of exploration tokens available to me... things were looking good.

Well, it didn't last. The first token I discovered was a plague, destroying a scout and a soldier. I then managed to explore approximately 15 tiles and only find four resources. Still, my initial draw of Reading/ Writing along with a series of similarly intellectual advancements earned me 3 wonders and a seminal discovery. I was falling behind Luch's money machine (and Kozure wasn't far behind), but things were okay. Shemp, who was having a similarly difficult time finding resources, took advantage of a weakness in Bharmer's territories and took over a key region (or two?) which wound up having a significant impact on his standing in the game.

We entered the medieval age and got about half way through before we had to stop for the day. On my last turn, I explored one of the two remaining tokens and found yet another plague. The rules state that the effect of the tile grows with each passing era, so in the medieval age it kills all units in the original region AND all surrounding regions. Sadly for me, that was where all my units were (save two soldiers and a man-at-arms). Ouch.

When we tallied the points to see how we were doing, I came out significantly ahead on the strength of my wonders, cities and the seminal discovery. With virtually no units left on the board, I expect that to change soon. My saving grace may well be that there is very little compelling reason to come take what's left of my civ, since there was never very much there!

Anyway, Sid Meier's Civilization wasn't one of my favorite games before, and it still isn't. The designers have, in my opinion, been extremely clever about reducing an almost impossibly complex video game into a boardgame. The number of components, while large by boardgame standards, is quite modest considering how much theme is captured. In fact, the growth of civilizations, the technology tree, the little improvements and new choices that pop up as different advancements are discovered and (most surprisingly), the ebb and flow of the importance of things, is all present and the system essentially works.

Even though we're only half-way through our 2nd game, we've still managed to log approximately 12 hours... Part of my problems with the game are that despite attempts at simplification, there is still too much going on. Thankfully, our group is pretty decent about avoiding ridiculous amounts of analysis paralysis, but purchasing decisions/ movement decisions/ technology choice decisions/ trading phase/ etc, leads to a lot of down time. In our four hours of play, I essentially flipped 15 tokens and purchased some units and cards. To be fair, others had a lot more going on so they were more actively trading and maneuvering than I was. Luckily, the experience of going through several ages with infant civilizations is engrossing enough that the time mostly feels like it passes quickly. Also, familiarity with the cards and rules should eliminate much of the downtime and complexity (this session felt much more fluid than our last game, for example... even though the last game was four years ago!). Therefore, although I wish something could have been done to make it better, it's not bad. Considering what it's trying to accomplish, rules elegance and little downtime are pretty hard goals to achieve.

Without a doubt, the biggest problem is the random setup. The difficulty here, though, is that it's a pretty serious dealbreaker. I understand why the designer wanted a discovery aspect. I actually like what it does for the game. But seriously, I think just about anyone could have designed a better balance of starting tiles. As much as it's a bummer to find a patch of desert instead of an oil field, or to find an ancient civilization and get run out by a barbarian, it's okay to have these types of events if they are relatively infrequent... or if drawing them blind isn't a requirement of the game. Problem is, if our two sessions are anything to go by there are a lot of bad tiles and the result of an 8 hour game is largely determined by their initial placement. The plague tile rule that wipes out adjacent regions is absolutely ridiculous for obvious reasons. There HAD to be a better way to handle this. Reading on BGG, it appears that most people who continue to play the game have decided to lay the tiles out face up at the start of the game. I think I'd probably prefer this variant, though it's kind of a shame that the exploration aspect would be lost.

For anyone reading out there, it's worth mentioning that my opinion is not really shared by the group. Most of them really like the game, I think.

Anyway, playing this type of long civilization game has it's appeal. There is a depth of interaction, of integration of theme, of STORY, which can come out of such a game which is simply lost in most short games (RPGs do this better, but who has time for those anymore?!!!). Even though I'm griping, I'm glad we're playing it again.

Let's see if the Easylanders can pull themselves out of this predicament...

Railroaded (Railroad Tycoon: Rails of Europe, Hollywood Blockbuster)

We finally brought out the Railroad Tycoon expansion "Rails of Europe" a second time. Next, we played the carry-over game from last week... Hollywood Blockbuster. We were five players: Luch, Kozure, Bharmer, JayWowzer and myself.

Rails of Europe

With five players, Rails of Europe is a pretty crowded place. I drew the baron which wants a connection from Vienna to St. Petersburg, and get what was right there in the initial deal of railway operation cards? The Vienna Hotel. I bid quite high for first place and grabbed it, though a really lucrative collection of yellow cubes centered around Rome would have been the better move. JayWowzer grabbed that and milked it nearly to the end of the game! Meanwhile, Luch started in the North-east, Bharmer was set up in the West and Kozure was Center-North. By the end of the game, the railroad spaghetti was quite a sight. JayWowzer built a particularly convoluted track within the impossibly congested region around Paris. Anyway, Bharmer made the earliest major connection and made the most of his superior cash flow throughout the game. He finished in first place AND had the least shares, so he won by a fair margin. I came in a close second, until my 18 shares were taken into account. Still second, but no longer that close (I believe I was tied with JayWowzer).

Hollywood Blockbuster

With five players, Hollywood Blockbuster is a very different game. Movies are NOT easy to make. Whereas I completed 5 movies last game, I only managed 2 this time (though the others completed 3).

Last game, I felt that the way money moved around was a little strange. With 5, it is a lot strange. How do you deal with the fact that almost every auction goes for 8-10 contracts, but the person with that money moves around the table as the funds change hands. Make a big purchase, and it can take quite a while before you can afford to make your next one (with 5 players, and bidding typically going to 8, each person gets 2 contracts back per round). I found it hard to figure out when to go for a particular lot, because I could almost always use whatever was offered. So how do you decide? Do you just bid once you've regenerated your money? I don't know... it just felt strange and kind of pointless.

Anyway, my intuition was clearly in the toilet. I kept bidding way too high for lots which had one or two tiles I felt I needed (usually against Luch. Never bid against Luch). Then, I'd sit and watch as I rebuilt my funds to the magic 8 contracts. Also, I tried way too hard to get a movie made that was worse than Luch's Keanu Reeves vehicle. I spent lots of money trying to ultimately make 0 points (Luch outbid me on my one opportunity to finish the movie and get the award. It was still unfinished at the end of the game). JayWowzer killed us with a number of successful movies (including the multiple best movie award winning Forrest Gump directed by Woody Allen).

Anyway, I still thought it was okay, but I liked it less than I did with three (though that felt like too few). I'm guessing, therefore, that the sweetspot will be with 4.

Comparisons to RA feel even less valid after this second play. For one, RA suffers with more players because the lot changes too much between each player's actions. In HB, the board is set ahead of time and all players do is bid on them in sequence. It's all about preplanning rather than push your luck.

Thoughts on my game collection

It's hard to believe, but we've been holding weekly WAGS meetings since January of 2004 (and writing this blog since May of the same year). In that time, I've watched my game collection grow rather rapidly, to the point that it now equals Kozure's (who started out being the guy with all the games). BGG says I own 105, but that's not entirely accurate... many of those are expansions, kids games that don't really count, or generic games (Clue, Risk, Monopoly) that are in my closet, but I don't consider part of my modern games collection. Taking those out of consideration, the collection is about 60 games.

Anyway, I'm on vacation and I'm a geek and I have a few minutes to myself at the moment so I'm going to categorize my games for fun.

I'll be splitting these up into categories that are pretty arbitrary but make sense to me.

Wargames

Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage
Lock n' Load: Band of Heroes
Memoir '44
Napoleon
Rommel in the Desert
Wilderness War

*Notes: I'm quite happy with my wargame collection. There's an accessible one for casual players (Memoir), a couple of block games (Napoleon and Rommel), a couple of card driven wargames (Hannibal and WW) and a standard hex and counter game (L n' L). Considering I don't get to play these often, I don't think I'll be adding to this list anytime soon. However, through Kozure I do occasionally get to try a different system, which is always interesting. Currently, my favorite is Rommel, with Wilderness War in second place. I haven't yet finished a game of Hannibal, but although I like it I'm afraid that the game is a bit static.

Abstracts:

Dvonn
Ingenious
Blokus

*Notes: I'm not particularly drawn to abstracts. For example, my love of all things game has generally skipped over the likes of Chess and backgammon. Still, I have a few that I enjoy well enough. Dvonn is my favorite to play, but Ingenious is the most flexible for number of players (Blokus only plays well with four, imho). These are so simple to play, they are pretty popular... particularly Blokus.

Party Games:

Apples to Apples
Bang!
Diamant
Jungle Speed
Pitchcar Mini
Taboo
Things...
Time's Up

*Notes: I've included in this category any game where the experience of getting together with a larger group and just having silly fun is the primary objective (in other words, the is not strategery here). Of these, Jungle Speed is my hands down favorite (it's the only one I'd ever bring to a games night), but Things, Taboo and Time's Up are all great fun with the right crowd. Apples to Apples is a lot like Blokus for me... I like it because it's pleasant enough and easy to teach. Diamant and Pitchcar mini are also very good, but I like them less than the others.

Games that play well with 1:

Lord of the Rings
Pandemic
Agricola (not here yet, but pre-ordered specifically because it plays solo)

*Notes: Lord of the Rings is one of my favorite games. I enjoy playing it solo, and I've had good success with family and friends as well. Pandemic also seems like it would play well but I haven't tried a full game because I have a nagging feeling that once we get too good at the game it will get boring, so I'm reserving my plays for the group.

Games that play well with 2

Light:

Carcassonne
Citadels
HeroScape*
Star Wars: Epic Duels

Medium/ casual:

Blue Moon City
Carcassonne: The City
Last Night on Earth
Lord of the Rings
Lord of the Rings: The Confrontation*
Mr. Jack*
Race for the Galaxy
Glory to Rome
Through the Desert
Ticket to Ride (w/Switzerland map)

Heavy/ strategy:

Duel of Ages*
Dungeon Twister*
Entdecker
Fury of Dracula
Goa
Tikal
Tigris and Euphrates

*Notes: The asterisks indicate those that are primarily conceived as 2 player games.

Lots of my games work well with two players, but I rarely actually play 2 player games. My wife doesn't game, and although I occasionally hook up with Kozure outside of WAGS, it's usually to play wargames. When I do play, it's usually when an out of town friend is around or a member of the extended family is passing through. There are a lot of great games on the list. Given the choice, I'd likely pick Dungeon Twister if the other player is receptive to that sort of game. Otherwise, Carcassonne, Mr. Jack or LOTR: Confrontation are likely picks, although Nexus Ops will often come out with a certain crowd. TtR: Switzerland hasn't been played very often, but when I did I really liked how cut-throat it was.

Games that play well with 3:

Light:

Citadels
Carcassonne
Ticket to Ride

Medium/ casual:

Blue Moon City
Carcassonne (with expansions)
Carcassonne: The City
China
Hollywood Blockbuster
Last Night on Earth
Lord of the Rings
Ra
Race for the Galaxy
Settlers of Catan
Through the Desert
Nexus Ops
Glory to Rome

Heavy/ Strategy:

Antike
Entdecker
Fury of Dracula
Goa
In the Year of the Dragon
Perikles
Puerto Rico
Tikal


*Notes: My favorite 3 player game is RA. Still, for a category which used to be a real problem to fill there's a lot of good games in there. Blue Moon City, Entdecker, Settlers of Catan and Tikal are all 4 player games which I feel plays best with just 3. It seems that this category really favours the medium/ casual games category, though there are definitely some good heavy ones in here (Perikles, In the Year of the Dragon, Tikal and Goa, for example)

Games that play well with 4:

Light:

Star Wars: Epic Duels
Ticket to Ride
For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing

Medium/ casual:

Blue Moon City
Conspiracy
Last Night on Earth
Mission: Red Planet
Lord of the Rings
Ra
Race for the Galaxy
Through the Desert
Nexus Ops
Formula De
RoboRally
Glory to Rome
Hollywood Blockbuster

Heavy/ Strategy:

Antike
Duel of Ages
Entdecker
Goa
In the Year of the Dragon
Perikles
Puerto Rico
Princes of Florence
El Grande
Railroad Tycoon
Tigris & Euphrates
Traders of Genoa
Conquest of the Empire

*Notes: No shortage of good games here. 4 players is by far the easiest number to accommodate. It's pretty tough picking the best games in this category because there are so many great games here and the preference would likely depend on the situation. Conspiracy is probably the only game on the list that I would really prefer only playing with 4 (though I definitely prefer Tigris and Euphrates with 4 than with 2, and I'm starting to dislike playing it with 3). The game I most want to play at WAGS with 4 is Taj Mahal, but that isn't in my collection.

Games that play well with 5:

Light:

For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing
Ticket to Ride
Transamerica

Medium/ casual:

Hollywood Blockbuster
Lord of the Rings
Mission: Red Planet
Roborally
Through the Desert
Formula De
Last Night on Earth

Heavy/ strategy:

Antike
Beowulf: The Legend
Conquest of the Empire
El Grande
In the Year of the Dragon
Princes of Florence
Puerto Rico
Railroad Tycoon
Traders of Genoa

*Notes: Unsurprisingly, the collection starts to thin out at this point. Some of my absolute favorites, such as El Grande and Princes of Florence, play best with 5 so it's always great when we get a chance to play at this number. Beowulf, Formula De and Transamerica really only play well at 5 (or more, in the case of Transamerica and Formula De)

Games that play well with 6:

Light:

Citadels
For Sale
Formula: Motor Racing
Transamerica
Star Wars: Epic Duels

Medium/ casual:

Roborally
Formula De

Heavy:

Antike
Lord of the Rings (with Sauron Expansion)
Railroad Tycoon

*Notes: Very few games play with 6. Notable in this category is the reappearance of Citadels (I dislike Citadels for 4-5 players, due to the unfortunate effects the role selection mechanism has at that number. The player to the right of the king is kind of screwed). Also, Lord of the Rings moves from the medium category to the heavy category due to the inclusion of the Sauron expansion... a relatively brutal and taxing experience. Luckily, even though many games are dropping off the list, games like Transamerica, Roborally and Formula De are coming into their own.

Games that play well with 7,8:

Formula De
Citadels

So that's it. Some games, like Goa, In the Year of the Dragon and Puerto Rico, scale well across most (if not all) of their published number of players. LOTR is the champion of versatility by playing well from 1-6 players. Others, like El Grande or Princes of Florence, only play well within very narrow parameters. Some games, like Fury of Dracula, Duel of Ages, Dungeon Twister and most of my wargames I rarely get to play due to the time investment and/or specific type of players required, but I like them enough to keep anyway. Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, Nexus Ops and Blue Moon City have been the most frequently played games amongst my friends and family, while the Alea line (Ra, Princes of Florence, Traders of Genoa, Puerto Rico), Railroad Tycoon, Carcassonne and El Grande have seen the most longevity in our WAGS sessions. I get the sense that either Race for the Galaxy or Glory to Rome will stand the test of time and continue to get play years from now, but I can't yet decide which one.

Oh, and I'm still looking for a really good civ/war game that plays in a reasonable amount of time. Hopefully, someday I'll find one.

Whoa. Dude. The idol is... like... made of g o l d. (Puerto Rico, Glory to Rome x2, China, Hollywood Blockbuster)

It was me, Luch and Bharmer tonight.

I know games generally go quicker with fewer players, but I was surprised how many games we got in our short 4 hour window.

Puerto Rico

The #1 game on BGG continues to pop up once in a while. I started with corn, decided I’d go for coffee, then got stuck with tobacco. I then decided to buy a factory and collect sugar and indigo for the set! I didn’t gain much from shipping, but the money I was making from the factory allowed me to buy two large buildings and win the game. Bharmer did manage quite a bit of shipping, but didn’t get as many points from buildings.

Glory to Rome

We were able to play two more hands of Glory to Rome, and I’m happy to say that it’s turning out to be a great game. One thing we all just came to understand is that the game can end very abruptly when a powerful combo of buildings gets built. The thing is, since GtR features an abnormally high number of such powerful buildings and combos, you really have to watch what’s going on.

In our first game, we were once again just sort of building buildings to see what they do. I came across a building called the scriptorium which allowed me to complete any building I wanted with just a single marble. That’s very powerful. In no time, I completed a series of random buildings I had started, one of which was the colosseum… a building that ends the game. Since no one had used their vaults, I knew I had won.

It all happened pretty abruptly.

Bharmer mentioned he didn’t feel very satisfied by the game, so he chose to have us play it again.

This time, things went rather differently. Luch built a building (the name escapes me), that allows the player to use the powers of his unbuilt buildings as though they were completed. He then started a virtual city of foundations and became so flush with special abilities it was probably impossible to keep track of them. I was keeping up with the joneses on the building front, but simultaneously stashing material in the vault. Near the end, Luch started completing buildings but most of his potential went unrealized, as the last in town site was chosen and the game ended. Since I was the only player to have played in the vault, I received a couple of bonus chits, and those six points gave me the win (though it was otherwise very close).

Now that we’ve played three times, I can definitely say that I really enjoy it. The games play out very differently each time due to the huge impacts the cards can have. The end can show up out of nowhere, and games can vary wildly in length depending on what triggers the end of the game, but it’s a card game so I don’t put it in the same context as most boardgames. I’m enjoying having to make the most of the cards I’ve got, and seeing how all the powers work together.
I think as a group we tend to undervalue the vault, but I’m pretty confident there’s a successfully strategy that counters that method as well.

China

What can be said about playing China? Luch often wins, and this week was no exception. He simply knows how to get those advisor connections going. He was ahead by the equivalent of a third of our score.

Hollywood Blockbuster

Amazingly, we still had time for another game. I pulled out my latest math trade acquisition, Hollywood Blockbuster, and we gave it a whirl.
I had read it was similar to RA. That actually scared me a little, because if there is something I dislike, it’s when game A resembles game B too much in my collection. Those fears were unfounded, as HB feels like a very different game.

Over four rounds, players try to auction sets of actors, special effects, directors, music and cinematography of various quality to try to complete the movies they have on deck. A particular movie might require a main actor, a cinematographer, and two composers. Once a player has won enough auctions to have a chip placed on each of these spaces, he/she adds up all the stars on the various items they’ve collected and the movie is scored.
Various awards are given for first film in a given genre, best film of the quarter, best direction, etc. There is even an award for worst movie, so there is actually some benefit in trying to make a really bad movie. The whole process is quite straightforward and I think the theme would actually appeal to a lot of people that aren’t normally gamers. (I’ll let you know after I try to get my sister to play). Although the continuous auctions create a definite parallel with RA, the simpler collection conditions and the lack of Sun Tile constraint and disasters makes this feel much more approachable (though RA is the better gamer’s game). The most serious flaw HB has is a result of patent law... Sadly, all the movies and actors in the game are “satires” or “caricatures” of real world movies and actors. Although the drawings themselves are pretty good for the most part, the “funny” names of famous people and movies are kind of lame. Personally, I prefer to just refer to everybody by their real names.
Anyway, over the course of the game I made Forrest Gump directed by Tarantino and staring Tom Cruise which won Best Picture. Then, Raiders of the Lost Ark staring Keanu Reeves managed to come in as the worst movie ever. Imagine that.
I liked it. Redistributing all the money you paid to win an auction to other players is a strange thing, but it seems to work. All in all, I’m happy with the game.