We Hates it, My Precious... We HATES it.

In the blog entry below this one, Agent Easy mentions some games which he indicates that I dislike. I should clarify that I don't really dislike Carcassonne; I just don't feel it offers much challenge, strategically or tactically, once you've played it often enough. I started this post as a comment in response to that post, but I realized it could be of more value as an actual entry.

Since challenge is part of the fun for me in boardgaming, I don't specifically choose Carcassonne when picking for WAGS; however, I will definitely hold onto it for playing with my kids as they grow up. Once they're past... I dunno... eight or so, I'll probably trade it or give it to a relative's family with school-age children.

I can't really think of any games that I hate off-hand.

What I can do is list games which I don't look forward to playing, but often enjoy while actually playing (I'll call them "Daunting Games"), and then games which I neither look forward to and don't particularly enjoy ("Onerous Games").

I should be very clear that just because I list a game as "Daunting", doesn't mean that I hate it, just that I tend not to want to pick it personally, especially for WAGS. Sometimes they are actually games that I feel I should play (because they are good games or because they would improve my strategic abilities) but just don't feel like playing.

Daunting Games (Don't Look Forward to, Do enjoy playing - generally)

• El Grande
• Tigris and Euphrates
• Age of Steam
• Paths of Glory
• Advanced Squad Leader
• Dungeon Twister
• OCS-series wargames (eg. Burma)
• Diplomacy
• Empire of the Sun
  

Onerous Games (Don't Look Forward To, Don't Enjoy Playing - generally)

• Yinsh (... and Dvonn, and other abstracts in this line) - too abstract
  
• Maharajah - can't seem to win against Bharmer. (I kid... but I don't like this game)
  
• Bohnanza - random, tedious, negotiation-heavy
  
• Atlantic Star - dry, theme is badly suited and counter-intuitive
  
• Phoenicia - major run-away leader issues
  
• Kill Doctor Lucky - kill the leader, almost exclusively
  
• Naval Battles - kill the leader, almost exclusively
  
• 1856 - complex, fiddly, overlong
  
• Aladdin's Dragons - random, some cards overpowered to the point of game-breaking
  
• Blue Moon City - ugly, strange theme. actually a decent game, but theme and appearance kill it for me.
  
• Mille Bornes - random, overlong, kill the leader issues.
  
• Fluxx - generally, not enough game, not enough challenge, kill the leader issues
  
• Air War - way too fiddly/complex for the sort of action it purports to try to evoke.
  
• EastFront - strategically too much to consider
  
• Space Alert - random, too easily foiled, crew feel like moronic automatons
  

Note to Agent Easy: I know you don't take it personally that I dislike a number of games that you own - the only real contributing factor is that you own a lot of games and I'm bound to dislike some of them.

Looking through the worst ranked games at BGG, I can't really find too many I would refuse to play with their age group (for example, though I wouldn't play Candyland or Hungry Hungry Hippos with adults, I wouldn't mind playing it with kids)

Some games I just won't play willingly for one reason or another:

Doctor Who: CCG, which I don't really hate... more just feel sorry for. It's just baaaad. Bad art, bad mechanics, bad gameplay.

Lone Wolf and Cub: This game is random, too tough at times and too easy at others, and downright broken in combat. I dislike it additionally because its theme is one I particularly like and they went and made a crappy game of it.

Dante's Inferno: Overlong, fiddly and boring.

Zombies!!!: Overlong and wastes the theme.

Chainsaw Warrior: Overlong, virtually no significant decisions, too difficult. Feels futile.

Mastermind: I have no interest in playing this game. For some reason, the logic of it (simple as I understand it to be) goes off like a bomb in my head and leaves me with frustration headache. One day I will sit down and figure out why I have so much trouble with it... bad mental wiring for that sort of thinking, I guess.

Finally, there is one special "dislike" category that is pretty specific, games which I enjoy playing but really dislike the artwork. For lack of a more precise term, I call them "Ugly but Lovable Games".

Ugly but Lovable Games

• Glory to Rome
• Galaxy Trucker
• Ideology

I like playing these games but every time I do, I find myself wincing at the artwork or components. Glory to Rome is especially, especially painful to me as it is a really fun game otherwise.

Then there are games which are just... plain... ugly. Neither enjoyable (to me) nor attractive.

Just Plain Ugly Games

• Blue Moon City

Anyhow... there are movies (Pearl Harbour, Space Buddies) and TV shows (almost any reality show) which I hate, but I haven't actually played a board game that I hate. Probably because I've avoided playing games which I anticipated hating (most TV-themed board games).

We now return you to your regularly scheduled smiles-and-sunshine-filled WAGS postings.

Attack of the Weenie Hoards!!! (Hey! That's my Fish!, Liar's Dice, Bohnanza, Mama Mia!, Wheedle, Set, Jungle Speed)

Luch wanted to play lots of really short games. To that effect, we managed to play Hey! That's my Fish!, Liar's Dice, Bohnanza, Mama Mia!, Wheedle, Set, Jungle Speed. Surely, this is a record for most DIFFERENT games played in an evening, and maybe most games too.

Missing the cut were: Falling!, Cash n' Guns and Can't Stop.

Bohnanza

I learned that Kozure is not a big fan of Bohnanza. Myself, I like the game, though I agree that three rounds is too long. The biggest problem, though, is how deeply counter-intuitive some of the mechanics are. The cards cannot be sorted or moved in your hand (I'm looking at you, Bharmer!). The three phases in each round always take a read through of the rules to remember. Whatever, it's a fun game once it gets rolling. Luch won, which was not surprising because he was clearly the best at setting up trades in his favour (my favorite was when he refused to take a card Kozure was offering him until he agreed to give him both, knowing Kozure could not afford to keep both cards)

Mama Mia!

I cleaned up at this game. Apparently, it's hard to complete all your orders by the third round but I had all but one done in the second. Throughout, it seemed like everyone else was playing for my benefit (if I had an order for 3 olives and a pepperoni, the other players would play 3 olives leading to my turn, and I would complete the order). I don't expect to see luck like that again for a loooong time.

Wheedle

When I last played this game, I rocked. This time, not so much. Out of four rounds, I called three and made errors in all of them. My score at the end was -10. The others seemed to be doing quite well, so I apologize to all for repeatedly making potentially good hands redundant.

Set

Set seems to be a board game version of Wii's Big Brain Academy. Find patterns in a set of tiles before the other players do. The patterns have to be pretty specific, though: The image on each card has four characteristics (colour, shape, number and fill). To make a pattern, every characteristic has to be THE SAME or DIFFERENT on all three cards. It's pretty hard to do (and to explain), but Kozure was clearly much better at it than us. He CRUSHED us. Big Brain indeed.

Jungle Speed

This was a lot of fun when we last played with guest Wagster Sonja. I'm happy to say that it was just as much fun last night. There was a lot of laughter, twitchyness and bruised fingers to show for it. Once more, Kozure displayed his affinity for pattern recognition by winning 2 of the 3 games rather comfortably, with Luch winning the third. Me? On a couple of occasions I felt like I was on fire and doing really well. Then Kozure would win, and I would realize that I am old, slow and not good at pattern recognition. Sigh. Anyway, this is lots of fun and I hope it becomes a semi-regular evening closer. Back to the Big Brain Academy for me... I will avenge these losses!

The Pleasure Of The Shaft.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So to speak.

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

El Grande, Bohnanza, China, Modern Art

We played a rather random assortement of games this week. I'll be unavailable for WAGS gaming for about a month, so Shemp was nice enough to let me pick the games. I went for a few which we hadn't played in a long while.... El Grande, Modern Art and Bohnanza.

El Grande:

I love, love, love this game.

I can't quite explain it.

I love that the mechanics are both clever and elegant.

I love that the various systems work together to produce a game that is rich without being fussy (I'm looking at you Power Grid and Puerto Rico!!!)

I love that the choices are in some ways constrained, but that the ultimate result of a player's turn can still be very surprising. Despite the focus of the game, it feels very open ended.

I love that an otherwise static and simple landscape changes significantly according to the action cards available, the position of the King and the use of the Castillo.

When I play this game, I feel very engaged.

The only significant drawback, in my opinion, is the potential for analysis paralysis and the related downtime between turns. Some newer designs do more to keep decisions smaller and therefore keep things moving a little better (Power Grid and Puerto Rico both share this advantage). Small price to pay, however... I'd play this any day over those two.

(For the record, RA is my #1 game, not El Grande. I would say that technically I prefer El Grande as a game system and experience, but RA comes so close... and in a much shorter timespan, that I give it the edge. Going down to #3 and beyond, we would find games that I greatly enjoy but which are not nearly as good as these two, in my opinion)

... but enough about me!

This session of El Grande was a pretty good challenge. Shemp jumped to an early lead by scoring the "5" regions right after taking sole control of them. Kozure nipped at his heels for the first third of the game, focusing on the south and Catalonia. I spent too many resources on my home province, New Castille, but was nearly saved by having the opportunity to score it several times. Nearing the end, Luch had fallen behind but there was a three way race for first. Shemp capitalized on several 2nd and 3rd place points and snatched the lead in New Castille to seal the win.

We then switched gears and pulled out Bohnanza. I hadn't played since the first time Luch introduced it to us (a year ago?). We were hazy on the rules, but a quick refresher had us back on track. I tried to last the entire game without third field, and managed it easily enough. We only played through the deck once, as Kozure had to leave, but in the end Luch beat me by a point. I enjoyed it, but get the feeling a few more players would have helped.

With Kozure gone, we played China. I bought this game (along with RA and Through the Desert) in order to bolster my stock of good 3 player games. Ironically, I hadn't yet played it with 3! Matching my experience with Web of Power, the game plays very well at this number... probably at it's best in fact. The more players involved, the more you are just "reacting" to the situation on the board at the moment your turn comes up... too much changes from one round to the next to have much real strategy. With 3 there is some control and it's possible to see a plan come to fruition. We introduced the "fortifications" advanced rule (allows a player to add a black podium under a house which doubles the value of a long road and/or region score). Not a significant change by any means, I could take it or leave it. I'd still like to try this with the Web of Power rules someday, but I definitely had fun with this version as well. Luch set up some very nice majorities with his advisors and looked like a solid contender for the win early on. I managed a nice move where I funneled Shemp's house placement in such a way that I could place a 2nd advisor in a critical region and tie for majority... a move which would net me 8 points at the game's end. Still, Shemp layed his own network of advisor majorities and netted just enough points to squeak ahead with the win.

It seems that Shemp and area majorities go as well as Shemp and greed! (see previous post)

We finished off with a 3 player game of Modern Art. I knew this one was not supposed to be very good at this number, but I hadn't played it in so long I just wanted to get it on the table. We played with the dummy hand, just to spice things up. I enjoyed it well enough, but it's far more random than the game should be. In the first season Christine P ended with a majority with only 1 painting actually auctioned off by a player (the rest came from the dummy hand). I was the "happy" benefactor, but luckily I'm not that good at the game so it was no blowout (witness the double SEALED auction where I bid $75 000 only to discover that the next two bids where $6 000 and $2 000. Ummm, ooops) . I did eventually win, but it was anyone's guess right to the end. My mittfull of Karl Gitters in the final round, 2 of them double auctions, won me the game as the previously unplaced artist's paintings repeatedly found their way into my collection for a song.

As I said previously, I won't be participating for a month so odds are there won't be any blog posts for that time. See you in April!

Egypt, We Hardly Knew Ye...

After a somewhat prolonged hiatus (due in no small part to the birth of my new son), we made it back for the final(?) chapter of our Beyond the Supernatural RPG campaign. So, of course, the big question is: Did we prevent the destruction of Egypt? Of the world? Did the supernatural evils cross through the portal and enslave all of humanity?!!!

Can't rightly say, actually.

What I CAN say, is that the horrible die rolling which plagued our characters last session was replaced this time with VERY good luck. When Stan tried to do something, it often actually worked (Highlight: He was trying to hack off a vampire's head with a hunting knife, it turned into a bat and tried to fly away, Stan bit it's head off before it could, and then spit it out at a startled nearby vampire). When Helmut rolled initiative, he often went first (to put this in context, I don't think he had EVER gone first before this night). When Sam fired his gun, he rolled a hell of a lot of 20s.

The session started out with the characters in dire straights. All three were terribly wounded. The vampires were corralling them in a side tunnel while deKoonig, the head vampire, went off to complete the ritual which would open the portal to the big demons from beyond. In a bold, risky and (most of all) desperate attempt Helmut and Sam attacked the vampire guards in order to create a distraction so that Stan could escape with Professor Aziz. Stan and the professor rushed to the site of the ritual in order for Aziz to conduct his own counter-ritual, presumably to either shut down the gate or capture the demon (we didn't know which). Stan did his best to keep the vampires away, but he was quite outmatched (and outwitted. Note to Stan: if you have only a small amount of holy water, don't risk it by holding your hand out and saying "I have holy water here"). Luckily, Sam and a surprisingly quick Helmut came to help as things were getting sticky. Helmut's fire bombs were proving very effective, and Stan was having some luck sawing heads of of the vampires. In a bit of awful luck, when Stan managed to drop the container of holy water directly into deKoonig's mouth, hoping to burn him up from within, deKoonig managed to swallow it completely unharmed!!! (he rolled a 20 on his poison save). Eventually, the creatures did get to the professor and killed him before he could finish the ritual. Helmut, using his genius ability in Lore, managed to complete the ritual on his own, just as the evil ritual was completing and the gate was opening.The heros were surrounded by a circle of white light as a result of Helmut's incantation, and they moved forward and collided this aura with the evil darkness which was spreading.

There was a blast. Then there was darkness.

Then there was a field, mushrooms, a strange man... and no Egypt.

Stan could sense that wherever he was, it was a place with far more magical energy than the Earth he knew. Whatever the outcome of the incident in Egypt, Stan, Sam and Helmut were no longer around to see it. This was a different place, and quite possibly a new beginning.

With a campaign 10 years in the making now at a close, we called it a night for the RPGing. I had a great time playing it, and I want to thank Shemp again for being the GM. Stan McCormick, Auto Mechanic and Ghost Hunter, will always be one of my favorite characters.

We still had about an hour before we had to go, so Luch pulled out his new copy of Bohnanza and we gave it a whirl.

Bohnanza is a card game about planting beans. Players have to plant the most profitable crops possible, and must trade with other players in order to maximize their opportunities. Once the deck of cards is run through three times, the game ends and the richest player wins. The game system is quite clever in a few ways:

1) Players can only plant two varieties of beans at one time (three later in the game). The goal is to collect as many of that card as possible since the payout increases the more cards are in the set. The problem is that the mechanic of the game forces players to plant the first card in their hand every round... if there's no room for the card in an existing patch, one of the them has to be uprooted and thrown away (whether it's worth money yet or not). The only way to get rid of a card from your hand that you don't want to plant is to trade it away. This mechanism leads to constant trade from all players and is very effective at keeping all players involved and interested at all times (no matter who's turn it is).

2) When crops are cashed in, a number of cards from that set are kept as money. This effectively reduces the number of cards of that variety as the game progresses. There are so many varieties that it's hard to keep track of them all, but knowing what's out there and what isn't is a big advantage when planning the crops to pursue.

Although the theme is quite silly, there is a certain level of skill needed to understand what to trade, how to plan ahead and when to negotiate. I thought it was quite a good game, but I don't think I'd ask my sister to play it. As it turns out, beginners luck was on my side and I managed a win, but the game was pretty close and it felt tight right to the end!

Rating:

Bohnanza: 7.5