For our halloween session of WAGS, I was able to choose the games. I felt it was a good opportunity to explore a serious phobia many of us have... the fear of being TRAPPED.
1) You are trapped in a strange place, and hideous monsters are trying to kill you. Mall of Horror.
2) You are trapped in a deadly factory, and surrounded by insane machinery and robots programmed by buffoons. RoboRally.
3) You are trapped in a life that is going from bad to worse, and that's on a good day. Funny Friends.
Okay, so the game choices were a bit tongue in cheek, but whatever.
Mall of Horror
Luch took control of the parking lot early on and held it with an iron grasp. He accumulated enough weaponry to take out all the zombies that came along. Meanwhile, the rest of us jockeyed for safe haven as the zombies accumulated ominously at the doors of the shops. Shemp, in a disastrous turn halfway through, lost all his characters and played the rest of the game as the designated zombie placer. When it was down to four survivors, Kozure and Luch tied because their hot chicks survived. Luch had, of course, more cards in hand and won on the tie-breaker.
Side note: Bharmer announced that he got married recently (and, apparently, very stealthily). Luch gave him an equipment card he drew from the parking lot as a wedding present. Just wanted to point out that that present came from ALL of us.
RoboRally
We played the scenario called "Ball Lightning". It's a relatively short 1 board/ 4 flag scenario but the trick is that all cards MUST be programmed within 30 seconds (one turn of the sand timer) or cards are programmed at random. That's a very short period of time to plan, and everyone's execution suffered for it. Of course, RoboRally is funniest when plans don't go as they should, so I enjoyed myself as usual. The only problem is that I had specifically chosen it because it was listed as "short" in the scenario book, but unfortunately it took 1.5 hours. Going where you needed to go with so little time to plan was quite difficult, never mind the inherent chaos created by having 5 robots on the same playing field.
I laboriously made it to the first flag and then barely made it to the second flag before 10pm hit (in the real world) and we decided to pack up so we could play our last game. By then, it was clear that Luch was going to win... he was two spaces away from his fourth and final flag. Shemp just barely made it to 1. It was chaotic, hellish and funny. Exactly as I had hoped.
Funny Friends
It's been a long time since we've played this at WAGS. JayWowzer joined us to make it a sixsome(?) and we set about leading really pathetic lives together. For those keeping score. Luch, Chris and I where men; Shemp, Bharmer and JayWowzer were women.
I started out finding the church and becoming sad nobody loved me. Then, I fell in love on a school trip and I promptly cheated on her. The poetry I started writing led me to become an Elvis impersonator. Some may argue that that was the high point of my miserable life, because the later part saw one of my condoms break leading me into fatherhood and a relationship with Shemp that I tried REPEATEDLY to get out of (I cheated through a one night stand with Bharmer, turned to drugs, consented when Bharmer wanted me once again and eventually turned to drugs because alcohol wasn't enough to dull the pain of being in a secure marriage with Shemp.
When Kozure ended the game, I had just started a cult.
Other lives lead:
Kozure was a drinker, an eater, a frequenter of roadhouses and a workaholic. All that changed when he had a vision of St. Mary, joined the loser club and became an alcoholic. Lucky for him, he caught a bridal bouquet, met "Kevin" at a drive-in movie and became happily married, and a freak. (Is it obvious he won the game?)
Bharmer was a freak in puberty and had no friends. He eventually discovered BSW (online gaming site), became so fat he resorted to liposuction and then became a game designer (obviously, that was when I swooned and consented to sleep with him).
JayWowzer was in an accident as a youth, and turned to drugs, drinking, religion and crash diets to deal with the pain. Despite becoming a certified addict, his parties and church meetings allowed him to establish the large circle of friends he always dreamed of.
Luch's life was rather incoherent. He dabbled in the black market, bullied and got a girl pregnant before selling his body to science, getting into fights and being a male sperm raider(!). All this allowed him to quit smoking, write his memoirs and become a millionaire.
Some may say that Shemp's life was defined by him (her) starting a commune and checking into a looney bin, but I would argue he (she) existed primarily to keep me married and use me for sex in order to first achieve the common goal of being a sex maniac.
...
I'll be the first to admit that Funny Friends doesn't really work as well as it could mechanically, but it's not bad and we all laughed a lot while playing. Other groups I've played this with have loved it, so even though it's not full of strategery I still am happy to play it once in a while.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
It's O.K. father Joseph, it's the next world that matters (Last Night on Earth: The Zombie game x2, Pandemic)
I have to admit, if you had told me last year that it would take until now to play Last Night on Earth again, I would have been surprised. It's not the type of game that we usually play, but what it's trying to do it does it well. I'm glad Shemp was in the Halloween spirit and chose it this week.
We chose to play the online scenario "We have to go back!". It's an unusual setup that requires all 6 boards, where the heroes need to go into a village to look for two bio-canisters that are required to cure the zombie plague.
Shemp and Luch started as the zombies while Kozure played Father Joseph and Billy and I played Sheriff Anderson and Jake Cartwright.
Things didn't start off well as both Luch and Shemp rolled the maximum number of starting zombies AND they started with an "overrun" token on on of the buildings that potentially had a biocanister (overrun buildings can't be entered). We set about searching the other potential sites. Lucky for us, they were elsewhere and we managed to both find and escape with the two before sundown. I don't exactly recall, but I think we managed to do it without any casualties.
The game went quite quickly, so we played again. This time, Kozure and I played the zombies, Luch was Johnny and Becky and Shemp was Jenny and Sally.
As the zombies, we didn't start with nearly as many zombies as the Luch and Shemp did but we did have one major advantage... when we played the heroes THEY MOVED FASTER THAN THE ZOMBIES DID. It was very bizarre, but Luch and Shemp had the slowest moving heroes I've ever seen. Rolling higher than 1 or 2 was exceptional, it seemed. Oh, and then it rained, so they moved slower still. The zombies didn't shamble once, but they did manage to surround and then chomp on the heroes quite frequently. Becky ran around with an infection of some sort that would make her a zombie if she got hit again, and then Johnny and becky bit the dust and became zombie heroes. There was some fancy maneuvering on the part of team "Go Girl!", with a highly successful dynamite explosion being particularly effective, but ultimately they ran out of time and lost. Shemp was visibly perturbed when Luch's replacement hero Jake Cartwright spent a long time searching for items just as time was running out, but Jake did come out swinging and nearly saved the day (it came down to one roll against my zombie, and I got a 6). The zombies did not go hungry. There was no cure.
We closed the evening with a game of Pandemic. We decided that the black cubes were areas of zombie infestation, and that we were now witnessing on a macro scale the effect of the zombie plague we had just battled in Last Night on Earth (the micro scale).
We played at medium difficulty (5 epidemic cards) despite the fact that Shemp hadn't played before. We worked together pretty well, and things seemed very doable for most of the game. Our biggest problem was that we didn't have the medic, but I was playing the logistics character and discovered that the ability to move other players on my turn was very valuable indeed.
The early scares were zombie infestations, but yellow fever was equally problematic. A few turns in, scarlett fever showed up in spades throughout asia and much of our resources were consumed putting out that fire. We had discovered two of the cures, and had what we needed to cure the last two if the game could just get to me one last time (Luch had cure #3, and I had cure #4). As is often the case in Pandemic, the we ran out of time just before we could wrap it up. A final epidemic in Johannesburg finished us off.
Apparently, zombies should not have been our primary concern.
We chose to play the online scenario "We have to go back!". It's an unusual setup that requires all 6 boards, where the heroes need to go into a village to look for two bio-canisters that are required to cure the zombie plague.
Shemp and Luch started as the zombies while Kozure played Father Joseph and Billy and I played Sheriff Anderson and Jake Cartwright.
Things didn't start off well as both Luch and Shemp rolled the maximum number of starting zombies AND they started with an "overrun" token on on of the buildings that potentially had a biocanister (overrun buildings can't be entered). We set about searching the other potential sites. Lucky for us, they were elsewhere and we managed to both find and escape with the two before sundown. I don't exactly recall, but I think we managed to do it without any casualties.
The game went quite quickly, so we played again. This time, Kozure and I played the zombies, Luch was Johnny and Becky and Shemp was Jenny and Sally.
As the zombies, we didn't start with nearly as many zombies as the Luch and Shemp did but we did have one major advantage... when we played the heroes THEY MOVED FASTER THAN THE ZOMBIES DID. It was very bizarre, but Luch and Shemp had the slowest moving heroes I've ever seen. Rolling higher than 1 or 2 was exceptional, it seemed. Oh, and then it rained, so they moved slower still. The zombies didn't shamble once, but they did manage to surround and then chomp on the heroes quite frequently. Becky ran around with an infection of some sort that would make her a zombie if she got hit again, and then Johnny and becky bit the dust and became zombie heroes. There was some fancy maneuvering on the part of team "Go Girl!", with a highly successful dynamite explosion being particularly effective, but ultimately they ran out of time and lost. Shemp was visibly perturbed when Luch's replacement hero Jake Cartwright spent a long time searching for items just as time was running out, but Jake did come out swinging and nearly saved the day (it came down to one roll against my zombie, and I got a 6). The zombies did not go hungry. There was no cure.
We closed the evening with a game of Pandemic. We decided that the black cubes were areas of zombie infestation, and that we were now witnessing on a macro scale the effect of the zombie plague we had just battled in Last Night on Earth (the micro scale).
We played at medium difficulty (5 epidemic cards) despite the fact that Shemp hadn't played before. We worked together pretty well, and things seemed very doable for most of the game. Our biggest problem was that we didn't have the medic, but I was playing the logistics character and discovered that the ability to move other players on my turn was very valuable indeed.
The early scares were zombie infestations, but yellow fever was equally problematic. A few turns in, scarlett fever showed up in spades throughout asia and much of our resources were consumed putting out that fire. We had discovered two of the cures, and had what we needed to cure the last two if the game could just get to me one last time (Luch had cure #3, and I had cure #4). As is often the case in Pandemic, the we ran out of time just before we could wrap it up. A final epidemic in Johannesburg finished us off.
Apparently, zombies should not have been our primary concern.
Monday, October 20, 2008
No. We weren't mooning you. (Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear!)
Kozure and I got together for some extra-WAGSial affairs and played a recent wargame called Conflict of Heroes: Awakening the Bear!.
It interested me because of three main reasons:
#1 It was said to be simple, without being simplistic.
#2 It played 1-4 players
#3 Scenarios are short (1-2 hours)
In wargames, those three characteristics are hard to find in one system. Add the fact that it is a very nice package (large counters, mounted maps, very nice box art) and I was sold.
Note: Over at BGG, this is the wargame equivalent of Agricola at the moment (in other words, the hype machine is in overdrive, and it has shot up the charts to become the #1 wargame almost instantly). Considering I was somewhat disappointed in Agricola, how did CoH fare? Happily, much better.
I won't get into the details of the system, but I think I'd describe it as a wargame design with the discipline of a euro design. The designer has clearly spent enormous effort trying to make a clean, easy playing game system that still manages to give players a fun, immersive and interesting tactical experience.
Each player has a number of units under their command (interestingly, this first set only includes German and Russian units). The game system revolves around a point system which successfully creates a very fluid environment (similar to Tikal, where 10 points are spent doing a variety of actions, COH gives each unit 7 points). The stroke of genius, in my opinion, is the inclusion of "Command" points which are a central reserve that can be used as the player sees fit (to add to fire power, to activate units that are already spent, to organize separate units into an organized group, etc). This simulates a lot of leadership, planning, luck, etc that would often be modeled by a number of additional rules, but with little to no complexity. Opponents each take one small action at a time, keeping downtime to a minimum.
The second stroke of genius is the way damage is represented. If a unit is hit, it is either eliminated or it draws a token and place it on the unit. If a unit with a token is hit again, it is eliminated. The great part is that the tokens have a variety of effects, such as "panic", "pinned", "suppressed", etc. These are kept hidden, and affect the unit in ways you would expect (slow/ eliminate movement, hamper fire, etc). Thing is, you don't know what happened to the enemy you just fired at. The fog of war it creates is interesting, and again there are nearly zero rules required for all this.
There are also cards in some scenarios which further add to the strategy and fog of war for the game. All in all, it's very difficult to fall back on "gamey" tactics like waiting for opponent's units to be used so you can run past them with impunity. Sure, you can try it, but your opponent might use its Command reserve points to jostle a spent unit back to action, or a card might get played which allows some sort of counter-measure you hadn't anticipated. It works very well.
The first scenario involves a couple of units converging on a central crossroad. The russians are defending a supply route, I believe. It's a good scenario to learn the basics of the system, but otherwise I don't see myself coming back to it very often.
Kozure capitalized on his superior knowledge of squad level combat and took me out. I don't think I eliminated a single one of his units!
The second scenario introduces hidden units, cards and group actions. It involves the germans trying to take a bunker and spot a section of road behind it. THIS scenario was a lot of fun.
As the germans, I thought thing were stacked in my favour. The scenario had me set up on a road leading to the bunker. I had three sets of machine guns and riflemen, wereas the russians had few visible units. I knew two of his units were hidden, but I would deal with that later...
Kozure wins initiative and immediately fires on my frontmost units. They are all hit and go scurrying in the forest for cover. That didn't go well.
After rallying the units, I sent a small force to the right and a larger force to the left. I discover that a large stack of machine guns and riflemen puts out a hell of a lot of bullets. Kozure, surprised by the power of my attack, lost a unit fairly quickly. Unfortunately, my large stack of units walked right up to one of the hidden units and suffered badly at the hands of close combat. I did take them out, and I did manage to rally all but one of my units. Things were looking good. Kozure vacated the bunker, but chose to hide the units.
Things then started to go very badly for me. I came to realize how dangerous stacking units can be as I walked up to a second hidden unit (the former bunker force). I was destroyed. My last surviving unit had a "panicked" damage token on it, which lowers the front defensive rating but actually increases the rear defensive rating (I guess, in their panic, they spend a lot of time looking behind them). For this reason, it was in my best interest to put my rear towards Kozure's oncoming units. Kozure was puzzled by my move, and thought I was mooning him.
Simultaneously, the last hidden unit took out the smaller force I had sent out earlier.
I lost. I'll be more careful about those hidden units next time.
Anyway, the combination of cards, flexible point allocation and hidden damage tokens created an environment of uncertainty that I found quite exciting. The simplicity of the rules allowed us to spend more time playing, and less time looking up rules. Obviously, a certain amount of abstraction is inherent in a system that is this streamlined but I'll take playability over historical accuracy any day of the week. Great game, and exactly what I was looking for!
It interested me because of three main reasons:
#1 It was said to be simple, without being simplistic.
#2 It played 1-4 players
#3 Scenarios are short (1-2 hours)
In wargames, those three characteristics are hard to find in one system. Add the fact that it is a very nice package (large counters, mounted maps, very nice box art) and I was sold.
Note: Over at BGG, this is the wargame equivalent of Agricola at the moment (in other words, the hype machine is in overdrive, and it has shot up the charts to become the #1 wargame almost instantly). Considering I was somewhat disappointed in Agricola, how did CoH fare? Happily, much better.
I won't get into the details of the system, but I think I'd describe it as a wargame design with the discipline of a euro design. The designer has clearly spent enormous effort trying to make a clean, easy playing game system that still manages to give players a fun, immersive and interesting tactical experience.
Each player has a number of units under their command (interestingly, this first set only includes German and Russian units). The game system revolves around a point system which successfully creates a very fluid environment (similar to Tikal, where 10 points are spent doing a variety of actions, COH gives each unit 7 points). The stroke of genius, in my opinion, is the inclusion of "Command" points which are a central reserve that can be used as the player sees fit (to add to fire power, to activate units that are already spent, to organize separate units into an organized group, etc). This simulates a lot of leadership, planning, luck, etc that would often be modeled by a number of additional rules, but with little to no complexity. Opponents each take one small action at a time, keeping downtime to a minimum.
The second stroke of genius is the way damage is represented. If a unit is hit, it is either eliminated or it draws a token and place it on the unit. If a unit with a token is hit again, it is eliminated. The great part is that the tokens have a variety of effects, such as "panic", "pinned", "suppressed", etc. These are kept hidden, and affect the unit in ways you would expect (slow/ eliminate movement, hamper fire, etc). Thing is, you don't know what happened to the enemy you just fired at. The fog of war it creates is interesting, and again there are nearly zero rules required for all this.
There are also cards in some scenarios which further add to the strategy and fog of war for the game. All in all, it's very difficult to fall back on "gamey" tactics like waiting for opponent's units to be used so you can run past them with impunity. Sure, you can try it, but your opponent might use its Command reserve points to jostle a spent unit back to action, or a card might get played which allows some sort of counter-measure you hadn't anticipated. It works very well.
The first scenario involves a couple of units converging on a central crossroad. The russians are defending a supply route, I believe. It's a good scenario to learn the basics of the system, but otherwise I don't see myself coming back to it very often.
Kozure capitalized on his superior knowledge of squad level combat and took me out. I don't think I eliminated a single one of his units!
The second scenario introduces hidden units, cards and group actions. It involves the germans trying to take a bunker and spot a section of road behind it. THIS scenario was a lot of fun.
As the germans, I thought thing were stacked in my favour. The scenario had me set up on a road leading to the bunker. I had three sets of machine guns and riflemen, wereas the russians had few visible units. I knew two of his units were hidden, but I would deal with that later...
Kozure wins initiative and immediately fires on my frontmost units. They are all hit and go scurrying in the forest for cover. That didn't go well.
After rallying the units, I sent a small force to the right and a larger force to the left. I discover that a large stack of machine guns and riflemen puts out a hell of a lot of bullets. Kozure, surprised by the power of my attack, lost a unit fairly quickly. Unfortunately, my large stack of units walked right up to one of the hidden units and suffered badly at the hands of close combat. I did take them out, and I did manage to rally all but one of my units. Things were looking good. Kozure vacated the bunker, but chose to hide the units.
Things then started to go very badly for me. I came to realize how dangerous stacking units can be as I walked up to a second hidden unit (the former bunker force). I was destroyed. My last surviving unit had a "panicked" damage token on it, which lowers the front defensive rating but actually increases the rear defensive rating (I guess, in their panic, they spend a lot of time looking behind them). For this reason, it was in my best interest to put my rear towards Kozure's oncoming units. Kozure was puzzled by my move, and thought I was mooning him.
Simultaneously, the last hidden unit took out the smaller force I had sent out earlier.
I lost. I'll be more careful about those hidden units next time.
Anyway, the combination of cards, flexible point allocation and hidden damage tokens created an environment of uncertainty that I found quite exciting. The simplicity of the rules allowed us to spend more time playing, and less time looking up rules. Obviously, a certain amount of abstraction is inherent in a system that is this streamlined but I'll take playability over historical accuracy any day of the week. Great game, and exactly what I was looking for!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Hyperspace, baby! Yeah! (Jumpgate)
We were down to three this week (of note, Shemp couldn't attend because of an "explosion of insanity" at his place).
This will be very short, due to the fact that we only played a couple of rounds of a game Kozure has designed for a local contest. I'm not sure to what point the details are under NDA.
I WILL say it's called Jumpgate, and that it's a good game. Kozure has remarkable talent for designing games of this type, and always surprises with components that are better than homebrew prototypes should have.
Here's hoping our constructive criticism wasn't too hard on him, and that the game is a success in the competition!
This will be very short, due to the fact that we only played a couple of rounds of a game Kozure has designed for a local contest. I'm not sure to what point the details are under NDA.
I WILL say it's called Jumpgate, and that it's a good game. Kozure has remarkable talent for designing games of this type, and always surprises with components that are better than homebrew prototypes should have.
Here's hoping our constructive criticism wasn't too hard on him, and that the game is a success in the competition!
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The peasants are NOT happy (Glory to Rome, Shogun)
Bharmer ended his long WAGS absence by inviting us to his boss' place while he was house sitting. Unfortunately, Kozure strangely felt that a lecture by "some guy" (Umberto Eco) was a more worthwhile use of his time than gaming. Clearly, he's lost it.
JayWowzer almost attended as well. However, I told him we were playing Glory to Rome again and then he didn't come. Hmmm.
Glory to Rome
Shemp revealed to the group that somehow, through his various absences, he has managed to:
a) Play Race to the Galaxy only once
b) Never play San Juan
c) Never play Glory to Rome
I was kind of startled by that information. Funny how that can happen.
I was determined not to let the vault bonuses elude me this game. Unfortunately, every one else felt the same. I built the building that let me take the merchant card from the deck instead of the pool, and figured this would work well if I could get a couple of merchants as clients. I then tried all game to do that, and failed miserably. Luch sat to my right, and he would scoop every merchant card from the pool before it would get to my turn (he was collecting stone and merchants). I wasn't doing badly, but it was far from a well oiled machine.
Luch built the forum, which gives an instant win if the player gets one of each client. Kozure tried this once before, but we blocked the pipeline by not allowing any merchants into the pool. Unfortunately, Luch had wisely picked up all the tricky clients before building the forum. All he needed was a laborer and a craftsman, and there was about eight of each in the pool already. We were powerless to stop him.
(well, Bharmer could have completed the Catacombs to end the game, though I don't think it would have given him the win so there wasn't much point).
Another fun session, and another that felt completely different from the others we've played. The variability of the game is impressive.
Shogun
We tried an advanced setup system along with the advanced board this time. While I like the way the advanced board makes the borders to the different regions less defined, the new setup routine felt like a step backwards. We were drawing two province cards and picking one, with the additional option of drawing a face down card if neither face up choice was any good. Honestly, with just two cards to pick from the setup was a crapshoot. I think at least three cards should be used for this system to yield anything much more coherent than a standard RISK setup.
In the west, Luch and I were at odds from the start. Meanwhile, Shemp and Bharmer coexisted somewhat more peacefully in the east. We were having rather significant battles pretty early on, and many were resulting in ties. In Shogun, when players tie, both players lose the region... a big blow to all involved. The odds are against ties happening. Then again, the odds are against most of the combat results for the evening.
Love or hate the cube tower, it does make things unpredictable. Also, the green peasant cubes add further uncertainty. It felt like the peasants were on a rampage, however. Odds meant very little. You could dump 8 cubes of your colour against 2 peasant cubes, and still lose the fight. The peasants were not happy.
I placed a large number of buildings early, and got a good lead to show for it at the end of the first year. Unfortunately, I went broke doing it, and never really managed to get out of that hole. I started losing important territories to Luch, and played much of the second year with only 6-7 territories (amazing how difficult it is to plan your actions when you don't have enough territory cards to pick them with!). I did win, but it was by a single point. A single extra round and I probably would have been left in the dust, considering how badly I was bleeding. Glad it didn't happen.
Is there an option to play three years in Shogun? I'm curious how that would change the game
JayWowzer almost attended as well. However, I told him we were playing Glory to Rome again and then he didn't come. Hmmm.
Glory to Rome
Shemp revealed to the group that somehow, through his various absences, he has managed to:
a) Play Race to the Galaxy only once
b) Never play San Juan
c) Never play Glory to Rome
I was kind of startled by that information. Funny how that can happen.
I was determined not to let the vault bonuses elude me this game. Unfortunately, every one else felt the same. I built the building that let me take the merchant card from the deck instead of the pool, and figured this would work well if I could get a couple of merchants as clients. I then tried all game to do that, and failed miserably. Luch sat to my right, and he would scoop every merchant card from the pool before it would get to my turn (he was collecting stone and merchants). I wasn't doing badly, but it was far from a well oiled machine.
Luch built the forum, which gives an instant win if the player gets one of each client. Kozure tried this once before, but we blocked the pipeline by not allowing any merchants into the pool. Unfortunately, Luch had wisely picked up all the tricky clients before building the forum. All he needed was a laborer and a craftsman, and there was about eight of each in the pool already. We were powerless to stop him.
(well, Bharmer could have completed the Catacombs to end the game, though I don't think it would have given him the win so there wasn't much point).
Another fun session, and another that felt completely different from the others we've played. The variability of the game is impressive.
Shogun
We tried an advanced setup system along with the advanced board this time. While I like the way the advanced board makes the borders to the different regions less defined, the new setup routine felt like a step backwards. We were drawing two province cards and picking one, with the additional option of drawing a face down card if neither face up choice was any good. Honestly, with just two cards to pick from the setup was a crapshoot. I think at least three cards should be used for this system to yield anything much more coherent than a standard RISK setup.
In the west, Luch and I were at odds from the start. Meanwhile, Shemp and Bharmer coexisted somewhat more peacefully in the east. We were having rather significant battles pretty early on, and many were resulting in ties. In Shogun, when players tie, both players lose the region... a big blow to all involved. The odds are against ties happening. Then again, the odds are against most of the combat results for the evening.
Love or hate the cube tower, it does make things unpredictable. Also, the green peasant cubes add further uncertainty. It felt like the peasants were on a rampage, however. Odds meant very little. You could dump 8 cubes of your colour against 2 peasant cubes, and still lose the fight. The peasants were not happy.
I placed a large number of buildings early, and got a good lead to show for it at the end of the first year. Unfortunately, I went broke doing it, and never really managed to get out of that hole. I started losing important territories to Luch, and played much of the second year with only 6-7 territories (amazing how difficult it is to plan your actions when you don't have enough territory cards to pick them with!). I did win, but it was by a single point. A single extra round and I probably would have been left in the dust, considering how badly I was bleeding. Glad it didn't happen.
Is there an option to play three years in Shogun? I'm curious how that would change the game
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Best Laid Plans of Mice and CONAN (Imperial, Power Grid... sorta)
When speaking of analysis paralysis in boardgames, the compliment must be paid to Ouch that he is the one least frequently affected.
We have a term in our group for choosing actions/moves with a minimum of thought; to act on instinct and gut feeling rather than belaboured machinations:
The term we use is "Conan Brain" or "Conan Play".
Like the loinclothed, bulgy barbarian of Ron E. Howard's creation, Conan brain-based play is direct, straightforward and accomplished with a minimum of fuss. It is often helped by an egg-timer.
This week, Ouch (as dictator) declared that we would attempt to play two games at once with Conan brain-style play. The games he chose were Power Grid and Imperial. I'll pause a moment for all the alarmed gasps from hardcore hobby gamers to die down.
The WAGSters Code (currently unwritten) demands that we try as gamely (pun intended) as possible to follow the dictat of the dictator. So, we gamely set up both Power Grid and Imperial adjacent to each other on the same table and gave it a shot.
We abandoned the concept after one turn. Neither game lends itself well to long pauses between turns - Power Grid in particular requires player interaction from every player in every phase. Imperial is only somewhat better, given the nature of the investor card and keeping track of bonds. We decided that this concept of simultaneous play, while interesting as a thought exercise, might be better conducted in practice with games that are more suitable - games that have long periods of downtime while one player decides actions and the others are doing nothing.
The idea of simultaneous play is not without merit. Certainly it would give our brains a good work out. We should attempt it again in the future with games that are famous for downtime - Tikal, perhaps, maybe paired with multi-player wargame like Shogun or Conquest of the Empire.
In any case, we played a relatively rapid game of Imperial. I did my best to think with Conan Brain. I had originally planned to try a three power strategy of trying to get Germany, England and Russia, but somewhere along the line I lost any chance of England and ended up with a bumper crop of Austria-Hungary and Russia.
Using both nations together to split up the Balkans, Greece and Turkey guarantees a huge development base, and their position on the map allows for simple, one front wars, unlike Germany, which often gets sandwiched between France and Russia (occasionally Italy) .
I made one attempt at taking over England but was promptly slapped down, so I shrugged and gobbled up Russian and Austria-Hungarian bonds like they were hotcakes. Ouch and Shemp seemed content to steal countries from each other, so aside from a pre-emptive invasion of Northern Italy (which they both held bonds for), I did very little but build up my two empires and snatch small snacking portions (Sweden, North Sea, Baltic) from England and Germany when I could.
By the time they noticed that I had two powerhouse empires which weren't constantly attacking each other and made a play for higher bonds to wrest control from me, I had enough capital to buy 50%+ of the available bonds in both nations and cement my control. I then made threatening overtures toward Germany (I had no German bond) and Italy, which kept things hopping on my warfronts, while simultaneously taxing and building factories as often as possible.
Although I had pulled fairly far ahead in the endgame both Ouch and Shemp made a creditable effort to catch up. I think the final scores were 181 for Kozure, ~155 for Shemp and ~120 (?) for Ouch. I ended the game with Russian pegging the 25 power point x5 spot, with a lot of nations still languishing in the x2 range.
Strangely, this ended up being almost the opposite of my intended "three separated nations with a smattering of other investments strategy".
I'm liking Imperial more and more with each play. It may displace Power Grid and Tikal from my number 2 and 3 positions in my favourite Euro game rankings. I appreciate that the turn order is mutable but straightforward, and even the initial starting player is determined by bid. I also enjoy the limited wargame nature of the game combined with the economic aspect.
This also marked the first time I have destroyed a factory during an invasion of Italy. In this case, both my opponents several held bonds in Italy, while I only owned a 1 or a 2. As destruction of a factory can slow down the power point progress of a nation, it can be very useful to use against nations where you have no investment.
We have a term in our group for choosing actions/moves with a minimum of thought; to act on instinct and gut feeling rather than belaboured machinations:
The term we use is "Conan Brain" or "Conan Play".
Like the loinclothed, bulgy barbarian of Ron E. Howard's creation, Conan brain-based play is direct, straightforward and accomplished with a minimum of fuss. It is often helped by an egg-timer.
This week, Ouch (as dictator) declared that we would attempt to play two games at once with Conan brain-style play. The games he chose were Power Grid and Imperial. I'll pause a moment for all the alarmed gasps from hardcore hobby gamers to die down.
The WAGSters Code (currently unwritten) demands that we try as gamely (pun intended) as possible to follow the dictat of the dictator. So, we gamely set up both Power Grid and Imperial adjacent to each other on the same table and gave it a shot.
We abandoned the concept after one turn. Neither game lends itself well to long pauses between turns - Power Grid in particular requires player interaction from every player in every phase. Imperial is only somewhat better, given the nature of the investor card and keeping track of bonds. We decided that this concept of simultaneous play, while interesting as a thought exercise, might be better conducted in practice with games that are more suitable - games that have long periods of downtime while one player decides actions and the others are doing nothing.
The idea of simultaneous play is not without merit. Certainly it would give our brains a good work out. We should attempt it again in the future with games that are famous for downtime - Tikal, perhaps, maybe paired with multi-player wargame like Shogun or Conquest of the Empire.
In any case, we played a relatively rapid game of Imperial. I did my best to think with Conan Brain. I had originally planned to try a three power strategy of trying to get Germany, England and Russia, but somewhere along the line I lost any chance of England and ended up with a bumper crop of Austria-Hungary and Russia.
Using both nations together to split up the Balkans, Greece and Turkey guarantees a huge development base, and their position on the map allows for simple, one front wars, unlike Germany, which often gets sandwiched between France and Russia (occasionally Italy) .
I made one attempt at taking over England but was promptly slapped down, so I shrugged and gobbled up Russian and Austria-Hungarian bonds like they were hotcakes. Ouch and Shemp seemed content to steal countries from each other, so aside from a pre-emptive invasion of Northern Italy (which they both held bonds for), I did very little but build up my two empires and snatch small snacking portions (Sweden, North Sea, Baltic) from England and Germany when I could.
By the time they noticed that I had two powerhouse empires which weren't constantly attacking each other and made a play for higher bonds to wrest control from me, I had enough capital to buy 50%+ of the available bonds in both nations and cement my control. I then made threatening overtures toward Germany (I had no German bond) and Italy, which kept things hopping on my warfronts, while simultaneously taxing and building factories as often as possible.
Although I had pulled fairly far ahead in the endgame both Ouch and Shemp made a creditable effort to catch up. I think the final scores were 181 for Kozure, ~155 for Shemp and ~120 (?) for Ouch. I ended the game with Russian pegging the 25 power point x5 spot, with a lot of nations still languishing in the x2 range.
Strangely, this ended up being almost the opposite of my intended "three separated nations with a smattering of other investments strategy".
I'm liking Imperial more and more with each play. It may displace Power Grid and Tikal from my number 2 and 3 positions in my favourite Euro game rankings. I appreciate that the turn order is mutable but straightforward, and even the initial starting player is determined by bid. I also enjoy the limited wargame nature of the game combined with the economic aspect.
This also marked the first time I have destroyed a factory during an invasion of Italy. In this case, both my opponents several held bonds in Italy, while I only owned a 1 or a 2. As destruction of a factory can slow down the power point progress of a nation, it can be very useful to use against nations where you have no investment.
Labels:
Conan,
Egg Timers,
Imperial,
Novelty Play,
Power Grid,
Session,
Tikal
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