It was Kozure's pick this week and he selected a 20 year old Avalon Hill game called Guerilla. As we waited around for the group to be ready to start. we also had a chance to play a two player game of my new copy of Alien Frontiers.
Alien Frontiers
The Boardgame industry appears to have gone through a slump recently as far as interesting new games are concerned. This time last year I would have struggled to name 5 new games that interested me, and for most of this year the situation was the same (this explains why we have actually been playing our back catalogue recently!). Suddenly, though, a number of games are being released which have picked my interest. One of these was Alien Frontiers.
Alien Frontiers is a dice rolling and placing game similar to "To Court the King" or (apparently) "Kingsburg". Each player is given 8 colony tokens and must attempt to make as many VPs as possible, mostly by placing colonies on the planet. On a turn, players roll the dice they have (their "ships") and place the dice according to the space they are trying to activate. For example, it's possible to gather ore or fuel, to learn an alien technology, etc. Learning the alien techs allows players to manipulate their dice, and gaining dominance in an area gives game changing bonuses as well.
To Court the King ultimately fell flat for me, but so far Alien Frontiers has been quite fun. Dice allocation games are not my favorite, but this one I have enjoyed. At first, I felt the game was fun but lacked a certain dynamic necessary to push it over the top. Now, I've played a few more games with my son and we are starting to use the second type of action available on the alien tech cards: when players discard it and a player can move colonies around, exchange, them, etc. Suddenly the game becomes much more interactive and interesting. A fun game, and unique in my collection.
Guerrilla
This is a card game attempting to recreate guerrilla warfare between government and rebels. Unlike many wargame recreations, Guerilla features a couple of game mechanics which makes for a very interesting game without relying on the theme. Before getting into the specifics of the game, it's important to understand at it's heart this is a simple game that involves playing cards that represent government or rebel units to your tableau and using them to attack other players. It's also necessary to understand that all players may control units from both sides and that a player's actual loyalties are secret. There are three possible loyalties: To the government, to the rebels and to no one (meaning that you benefit from having the war and therefore want neither to gain a clear advantage). The mechanic which really makes the game is that as players conduct attacks on other players, the winner of the battle scores points AND the faction of the winning units score the same amount of points. This is important because at the end of the game, if your faction isn't leading (or if the spread in points is too large if you are the mercenaries) your points are HALVED. This means that you will sometimes plan attacks that fail simply so that the faction you want to win gains points. Aside from the units, there are various buildings which grant special powers and VPs to the owner, cards that can be played for "take that" style effects (cutting off supply, assassinations, air raids, etc). The cards are thematic without being overly complex, and the rebels and government factions get different cards which each give them their own feel. It's a well executed combat/ take that style game which is made much more interesting by it's innovative scoring system (not bad for a 20 year old game!).
My main complaints are 1) it's way to long for what it is. The deck should definitely be pruned before we play next. 2) Once you start falling behind, it's hard to get back in... and kinda boring as you watch the others do stuff while you wait. Solving #1 also happens to alleviate #2 so it's not that big of a deal to get over these issues.
As mentioned above, despite my strong start as the government I was beaten down and never really made it back. Some assassinations, cut supplies and a few bad die rolls took me out of contention about midway through the game and I floundered afterwards, knowing it was impossible for me to be a contender. I can point to many errors I made, however, so I'm not blaming the game for my poor showing. I'm sure our next session will be even more fun now that we understand how it works.
Vive la révolution!
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Thursday, November 11, 2010
The deal is done (I'm the Boss! x2, Santiago)
The are two categories of games that get shelved almost immediately when our numbers dwindle to 3 players: Multiplayer conflict games and negotiation games. With Bharmer joining us in recent weeks, we've had a chance to fix that and play a couple of sessions of Warrior Knights. This week Shemp once again took advantage of the foursome and selected I'm the Boss! and Santiago.
I'm the Boss!
Shemp purchased a shrink wrapped copy of I'm the Boss earlier this year but we haven't been able to get it to the table until today. I was curious if the game would be as much fun the second time around and I'm happy to say that it was. The game started with a bang as Bharmer and I made a deal before he had even selected the starting space (technically illegal, I now know). He placed the marker on a deal that needed exactly our two investors and he proclaimed that the deal was done before anyone could react. It was fun, and it set the tone for the next few deals, but it became somewhat boring after a while. We then made a house rule (or began respecting the game rules, possibly) and mandated that all cards needed to be on the table before the Boss could claim that a deal was done. The game then turned into the "flurry of cards and yelling" kind of bargaining we all remembered and it became fun again. I was particularly proud of landing a deal where I had no cards to contribute (the deal required two investors and I had neither, I offered one share to Shemp and Bharmer for their contribution and it was accepted). Good times.
We played two games, with Kozure sneakily pulling a win in the first game (seriously, no one thought he had that much money) and then me winning the second (but with Kozure once again coming a close second though no one saw it coming).
Santiago
We finished off the evening with Santiago. The highlight of the game was the turn where Bharmer was the overseer and there was little incentive for anyone to bribe him for anything in particular (there were open canals already). He was offered "a punch in the face", "yo ass" and something about his mother. We are normally a respectable group, but apparently we slipped a little there.
In the end, he had the last laugh because he won the game!
I'm the Boss!
Shemp purchased a shrink wrapped copy of I'm the Boss earlier this year but we haven't been able to get it to the table until today. I was curious if the game would be as much fun the second time around and I'm happy to say that it was. The game started with a bang as Bharmer and I made a deal before he had even selected the starting space (technically illegal, I now know). He placed the marker on a deal that needed exactly our two investors and he proclaimed that the deal was done before anyone could react. It was fun, and it set the tone for the next few deals, but it became somewhat boring after a while. We then made a house rule (or began respecting the game rules, possibly) and mandated that all cards needed to be on the table before the Boss could claim that a deal was done. The game then turned into the "flurry of cards and yelling" kind of bargaining we all remembered and it became fun again. I was particularly proud of landing a deal where I had no cards to contribute (the deal required two investors and I had neither, I offered one share to Shemp and Bharmer for their contribution and it was accepted). Good times.
We played two games, with Kozure sneakily pulling a win in the first game (seriously, no one thought he had that much money) and then me winning the second (but with Kozure once again coming a close second though no one saw it coming).
Santiago
We finished off the evening with Santiago. The highlight of the game was the turn where Bharmer was the overseer and there was little incentive for anyone to bribe him for anything in particular (there were open canals already). He was offered "a punch in the face", "yo ass" and something about his mother. We are normally a respectable group, but apparently we slipped a little there.
In the end, he had the last laugh because he won the game!
Thursday, November 04, 2010
God is jam, and the apostles are jelly! (Warrior Knights)
This week we played Warrior Knights for a second time. Since I didn't really give a very good overview of the game last week, I'll do a quick one now:
Warrior Knights is a very ambitious conquest game that attempts to weave many facets into a single game. In addition to the typical combat for territory, players must also consider religion, politics, mercenaries and expeditions!
On the surface, things seem very much like a RISK clone. There is a map with regions and some castles. Players place between 1 and 4 Knights on the board and start trying to expand their territory.
The structure of the game cleverly manages to reign in the complexity and makes the game play surprisingly simple. Players have 2 copies of 6 different cards in their hand, each representing an action they can take (gaining votes, gaining faith, moving units, hiring mercenaries, etc) . Each game turn, they must select 3 pairs of cards and put them in three different piles. After everyone has selected their three pairs of cards, "neutral actions" are added to each pile and each pile is then individually shuffled. Once this is done, the cards are resolved one by one. In other words, players know that they will get two actions in each "pile" but they don't know in what order they will come up.
When the neutral cards come up, different kinds of things can happen. An expedition to a far away land might be launched, and players have an opportunity to invest in it. A random event might be drawn from a deck (often assigned to a player by the current leader of the church). An opportunity might come up to reinforce the cities on the board or recover some casualties. etc, etc.
A third important mechanic is that one a card is used, it goes to one of three special discard stacks, either "taxation", "assembly" or "wages". When these discard stacks equal twice the number of players, they triggers special phases such as gaining money from your cities, having to pay your troops or having to gather at an assembly in order to vote on issues.
All together, there is a lot going on but the gameplay is not that complex (as long as at least one player knows how to handle the administration of the game). On the flipside, having so many different things going on at once means that each individual aspect of the game sees little development in a session. The game has a significant luck/ chaos factor to it (events can have a big impact, combat is decided by card draws, turn order is decided by card draws, the items to vote on at the assembly can favour one player more than another). Still, there are typically ways to mitigate the luck so it's up to the players to put the odds on their side.
Overall, I felt the game was quite engaging and fun. My biggest complaint would be that the last turn feels quite anticlimactic because there is very little worth doing except conquering yet only a fraction of the cards you have allow you to do that. Further, the limited development in the game means that if you are not close to winning there is very little that can be done to come back in the game.
In this session, Shemp and I managed to get into a spat before we had even placed all our pieces. I had placed at a port town near his fortress so he placed near mine. He attacked my knight on the first round and destroyed him and his army. In retribution, I attacked the town he was holding and won. Luckily for both of us we decided to put our differences behind us and try to focus on the two others that were benefiting from our combat.
As the religious leader for most of the game, I was able to direct several bad events to the players that displeased me. Before we had made our truce, I had Shemp declared a heretic (apparently because he said that God was made of jam) and then declared again (because he said the apostles were made of jelly). Shemp controlled the assembly for much of the game. Meanwhile, Kozure and Bharmer were accumulating influence faster than we could because they hadn't yet suffered any losses.
As the game drew to a close, we all decided that Kozure was going to win and tried to take him down. We hurt him, but not bad enough... Kozure won by a point.
If I had to compare Warrior Knights to another game we have played I would tend to pick Conquest of the Empire. The gameplay is quite different, but that game has also made an effort to incorporate events, politics and combat. Between the two, I'd say I prefer this one. The political aspect work much better, for one.
Anyway, looking forward to playing it again, hopefully not too far into the future!
Warrior Knights is a very ambitious conquest game that attempts to weave many facets into a single game. In addition to the typical combat for territory, players must also consider religion, politics, mercenaries and expeditions!
On the surface, things seem very much like a RISK clone. There is a map with regions and some castles. Players place between 1 and 4 Knights on the board and start trying to expand their territory.
The structure of the game cleverly manages to reign in the complexity and makes the game play surprisingly simple. Players have 2 copies of 6 different cards in their hand, each representing an action they can take (gaining votes, gaining faith, moving units, hiring mercenaries, etc) . Each game turn, they must select 3 pairs of cards and put them in three different piles. After everyone has selected their three pairs of cards, "neutral actions" are added to each pile and each pile is then individually shuffled. Once this is done, the cards are resolved one by one. In other words, players know that they will get two actions in each "pile" but they don't know in what order they will come up.
When the neutral cards come up, different kinds of things can happen. An expedition to a far away land might be launched, and players have an opportunity to invest in it. A random event might be drawn from a deck (often assigned to a player by the current leader of the church). An opportunity might come up to reinforce the cities on the board or recover some casualties. etc, etc.
A third important mechanic is that one a card is used, it goes to one of three special discard stacks, either "taxation", "assembly" or "wages". When these discard stacks equal twice the number of players, they triggers special phases such as gaining money from your cities, having to pay your troops or having to gather at an assembly in order to vote on issues.
All together, there is a lot going on but the gameplay is not that complex (as long as at least one player knows how to handle the administration of the game). On the flipside, having so many different things going on at once means that each individual aspect of the game sees little development in a session. The game has a significant luck/ chaos factor to it (events can have a big impact, combat is decided by card draws, turn order is decided by card draws, the items to vote on at the assembly can favour one player more than another). Still, there are typically ways to mitigate the luck so it's up to the players to put the odds on their side.
Overall, I felt the game was quite engaging and fun. My biggest complaint would be that the last turn feels quite anticlimactic because there is very little worth doing except conquering yet only a fraction of the cards you have allow you to do that. Further, the limited development in the game means that if you are not close to winning there is very little that can be done to come back in the game.
In this session, Shemp and I managed to get into a spat before we had even placed all our pieces. I had placed at a port town near his fortress so he placed near mine. He attacked my knight on the first round and destroyed him and his army. In retribution, I attacked the town he was holding and won. Luckily for both of us we decided to put our differences behind us and try to focus on the two others that were benefiting from our combat.
As the religious leader for most of the game, I was able to direct several bad events to the players that displeased me. Before we had made our truce, I had Shemp declared a heretic (apparently because he said that God was made of jam) and then declared again (because he said the apostles were made of jelly). Shemp controlled the assembly for much of the game. Meanwhile, Kozure and Bharmer were accumulating influence faster than we could because they hadn't yet suffered any losses.
As the game drew to a close, we all decided that Kozure was going to win and tried to take him down. We hurt him, but not bad enough... Kozure won by a point.
If I had to compare Warrior Knights to another game we have played I would tend to pick Conquest of the Empire. The gameplay is quite different, but that game has also made an effort to incorporate events, politics and combat. Between the two, I'd say I prefer this one. The political aspect work much better, for one.
Anyway, looking forward to playing it again, hopefully not too far into the future!
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Kenigets (Warrior Knights)
Last week we played Warrior Knights for the first time. This is a game I received in a math trade, and a stellar example of what I look for in such a trade: lose a game you don't like for a game you are interested in but would never buy. Warrior Knights was too long and opinion is too divided for me to spend money on it, but a trade was perfect.
We are playing again tomorrow evening, so I will wait until the next post to go into detail but I will say this: Warrior Knights is an extremely ambitious design. It mixes RISK like conquest with religion, politics, negotiation, drafting armies, events, exploration, and I'm sure I'm missing a few. The obvious downfall of this design direction is that there can be too little of any one thing to feel satisfying. In our first play, I'd characterize my opinion as mixed. It does everything more successfully than I expected, but there is a sense that some aspects of the game feel underdeveloped (not in a game design sense, but in a game development sense... though I suppose one leads into the other). There is significant chaos in the game, but some design choices help to minimize it's impact. All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic that this game will find a permanent place in my collection.
In this session, Bharmer started with all four of his knights, whereas Kozure and Shemp had three and I only played two. All approaches seemed feasible, and in the end Kozure and I were tied for influence and Kozure won on the tiebreaker.
We are playing again tomorrow evening, so I will wait until the next post to go into detail but I will say this: Warrior Knights is an extremely ambitious design. It mixes RISK like conquest with religion, politics, negotiation, drafting armies, events, exploration, and I'm sure I'm missing a few. The obvious downfall of this design direction is that there can be too little of any one thing to feel satisfying. In our first play, I'd characterize my opinion as mixed. It does everything more successfully than I expected, but there is a sense that some aspects of the game feel underdeveloped (not in a game design sense, but in a game development sense... though I suppose one leads into the other). There is significant chaos in the game, but some design choices help to minimize it's impact. All in all, I'm cautiously optimistic that this game will find a permanent place in my collection.
In this session, Bharmer started with all four of his knights, whereas Kozure and Shemp had three and I only played two. All approaches seemed feasible, and in the end Kozure and I were tied for influence and Kozure won on the tiebreaker.
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