We liked Container so much the first time, it was picked again this week, along with a game we haven't played in quite a while... Domaine.
Container
Our second session was quite different from the first. The biggest difference was the length... this one lasted 2.5 hours, which felt too long. The dynamics of the economy where different as well, though it's hard to describe what. I personally felt that I saw opportunities I missed the first time. For example, the advantage of buying from the factory store on your left revealed itself this game (freeing up space in the factory store encourages that player to produce more, and when they produce they pay a dollar to the player on their right). Similarly, it became apparent that a player can become blocked if they produce and store all they can, and then no one buys from them. Shemp found himself in this situation for quite a while, ultimately having to firesale his goods to get himself out of it. It was in intriguing situation, and it made me see that it would be possible for the game to choke if too many people miscalculated demand and then simultaneously started playing defensively.
Luch started out the game with a huge lead. He literally filled his section of the island with containers while we only had 1-3 of a single colour (so, you know, 0$ worth). Unfortunately for him, he couldn't capitalize on it. Although I don't know the exact reason, he couldn't finish the game as quickly as it looked like he was going to (it may be that he was saddled with debt... carrying as much as three shares at a time. And yes, we did figure out that the limit is supposed to be two, but since we started the game that way, and since other players had done the same, we finished it that way). Regardless, since he was SO far ahead with his goods, every other player had no incentive to finish the game until we could approach a similar stash. It took a long time, but ultimately myself and Kozure got a lot of goods to the central island. When the scores were tallied, it turned out to be unbelievably close: Me: 104, Luch 102, Kozure 101. Shemp, well, Shemp tried hard (kidding aside, he had a monstrous amount of cash in hand, but couldn't bring himself to bid the required amounts to get containers on the central island. He only netted 1$ from his containers there).
Still quite a good game, but if the next session lasts this long, I'll be removing some containers from the pool to make it shorter.
Domaine
Wow, it turns out I really suck at this game. Luch boxed-in one of my three castles a few turns into the game (in a move that happened to me in a previous game as well, apparently). I couldn't get anything going with my other to castles. Meanwhile, Shemp and Kozure were jockeying for first place, way ahead of me. Shemp had an impressive economic engine going, with three mines producing for him every round. Unfortunately, I was the kingmaker in my last move, either giving Kozure the win or Shemp, depending what I did. I played the move I was planning to make before I realized what was happening, and that meant Kozure won. Sorry Shemp!
Glad to get that one out again. There's a lot of game there in one hour. And we even managed to play it correctly!
Showing posts with label Domaine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Domaine. Show all posts
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Wow, That Was Quick
BEGIN GAMING SESSION SUMMARY
Played at Bharmer's. Domaine to start. Everyone knew rules. Ouch won. Played Tikal second. Everyone knew rules. Kozure won, via careful treasure-grabbing strategy. Many pyramids capped early at 5-6 point range. Ouch finished close second place with lots of capped pyramids. We still forget to place tiles sometimes. Must fix. Played Domaine again third - already there, everyone knew rules. Kozure won.
Lesson learned: you can play three medium to medium-heavy games in an evening if everyone already knows the rules.
END GAMING SESSION SUMMARY
Played at Bharmer's. Domaine to start. Everyone knew rules. Ouch won. Played Tikal second. Everyone knew rules. Kozure won, via careful treasure-grabbing strategy. Many pyramids capped early at 5-6 point range. Ouch finished close second place with lots of capped pyramids. We still forget to place tiles sometimes. Must fix. Played Domaine again third - already there, everyone knew rules. Kozure won.
Lesson learned: you can play three medium to medium-heavy games in an evening if everyone already knows the rules.
END GAMING SESSION SUMMARY
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Getting the red haired step children out to play (Pueblo, Domaine, Tower of Babel, Aladdin's Dragons, Carcassonne: The City)
A big pile of games played this week. Bharmer and Kozure couldn't join us, but JayWowzer rounded us out to a foursome. I chose a number of games which rarely get played in the group. Many don't get out often simply because they are four player, but most of them have oddities which make them "niche" games in my mind.
Prior to JayWowzer's arrival, we played a three player game of Pueblo. We had Shemp's wife choose the locations for the "Sacred Sites", and the resulting board was devilishly difficult. As usual, Luch displayed a knack for burying himself deep behind other player's pieces. He had quite a lead up to the end of the game. Unfortunately for him, in the last round he was forced to play two very costly pieces (he misplayed the block order, leaving him with 2 coloured ones to place last). Once the final score was calculated, the shaman saw more of Luch than he could handle... giving me an unlikely win (I still have a sneaking suspicion that we counted something incorrectly... Luch was REALLY well buried except on that one face). I really enjoy pulling this one out every once in a while... it's a nice change of pace.
Domaine was next. It had been a long time, and we always seem to play this one incorrectly. Still, it's a great game if you are in the mood fore some good, confrontational fun. However, as I've often mentioned, the game is pretty fragile... If everyone isn't paying attention, a player can inadvertently get a windfall. Unfortunately, this kind of happened. Luch and I didn't do what we needed to do to prevent JayWowzer from winning the game as he inherited a huge territory down the middle! Oh well, it's a part of the game to manipulate things to be in the right place at the right time, for all I know he might have orchestrated the whole thing! I thought I had a good shot until it happened, though.
Tower of Babel saw it's first play in some time. Always an enigma, I like to give this one a shot once in a while. There is no game in my collection which eludes me as much as this one... I understand the mechanics, but I don't understand the strategy. After last night, I came to the conclusion that it's a fragile game in a lot of ways: 1) the tendency is to hoard cards and complete works on your own. Once that starts, the game gets boring real fast because everyone is just waiting for their turn to build their monument (and the ultimate winner is probably determined by the player who is lucky enough to draw the needed cards first.) 2) Since the bidding strategy isn't obvious, many players are making bad bids. This has the compounding effect of making a "well played" bid irrelevant, since there is usually a better (i.e. poorly played) one available. Anticipating what others might do becomes basically impossible. 3) the bonus cards just don't work very well. Some are significantly better than others (hmmm, would you like to exchange 5 cards or take a 2nd turn... I wonder). With all that, I'm still going to keep giving it chances until it clicks or someone offers me something for it in trade. It's certainly not bad, and it's short for an area control/ bidding type game. We'll see. I spent the game trying to accumulate purple chips, 2nd/3rd placement points on temples and scorned auction points. I was feeling pretty good about my prospects and in fact I thought I won the game... until Luch pulled out 2 of his bonus cards which gave it to him!
As I was returning Aladdin's Dragons to JayWowzer, we played a farewell session. As with many bidding games, it takes a while to get familiar with the relative values of items and enjoyment of the game increases with repeated play. I played my worst game so far (coming in last with 5 artifacts, while Luch had 7), but I won't hold that against it. One aspect of the game which revealed itself to me this game: go for spells early AND USE THEM,,, as the game progresses, they become nearly impossible to play! I was also surprised to see that very few players had to pass over artifacts this game due to insufficient funds. By contrast, it was quite commonplace in our first few games.
Last, but not least, was Carcassonne: The City. I don't often play this since I actually prefer the base game (particularly with the first two expansions), but it's still quite good. I stumbled across a pretty lucrative tower guard when I started the second round, so I eventually tried to maximize that by placing the notable buildings in his view (ignoring most other scoring methods). If I had thought of it earlier, it probably would have worked out better. As it was, I managed a decent 2nd place to Luch.
Well, this was definitely Luch's night. Out of 5 games, he won 3 (and nearly won a 4th).
Prior to JayWowzer's arrival, we played a three player game of Pueblo. We had Shemp's wife choose the locations for the "Sacred Sites", and the resulting board was devilishly difficult. As usual, Luch displayed a knack for burying himself deep behind other player's pieces. He had quite a lead up to the end of the game. Unfortunately for him, in the last round he was forced to play two very costly pieces (he misplayed the block order, leaving him with 2 coloured ones to place last). Once the final score was calculated, the shaman saw more of Luch than he could handle... giving me an unlikely win (I still have a sneaking suspicion that we counted something incorrectly... Luch was REALLY well buried except on that one face). I really enjoy pulling this one out every once in a while... it's a nice change of pace.
Domaine was next. It had been a long time, and we always seem to play this one incorrectly. Still, it's a great game if you are in the mood fore some good, confrontational fun. However, as I've often mentioned, the game is pretty fragile... If everyone isn't paying attention, a player can inadvertently get a windfall. Unfortunately, this kind of happened. Luch and I didn't do what we needed to do to prevent JayWowzer from winning the game as he inherited a huge territory down the middle! Oh well, it's a part of the game to manipulate things to be in the right place at the right time, for all I know he might have orchestrated the whole thing! I thought I had a good shot until it happened, though.
Tower of Babel saw it's first play in some time. Always an enigma, I like to give this one a shot once in a while. There is no game in my collection which eludes me as much as this one... I understand the mechanics, but I don't understand the strategy. After last night, I came to the conclusion that it's a fragile game in a lot of ways: 1) the tendency is to hoard cards and complete works on your own. Once that starts, the game gets boring real fast because everyone is just waiting for their turn to build their monument (and the ultimate winner is probably determined by the player who is lucky enough to draw the needed cards first.) 2) Since the bidding strategy isn't obvious, many players are making bad bids. This has the compounding effect of making a "well played" bid irrelevant, since there is usually a better (i.e. poorly played) one available. Anticipating what others might do becomes basically impossible. 3) the bonus cards just don't work very well. Some are significantly better than others (hmmm, would you like to exchange 5 cards or take a 2nd turn... I wonder). With all that, I'm still going to keep giving it chances until it clicks or someone offers me something for it in trade. It's certainly not bad, and it's short for an area control/ bidding type game. We'll see. I spent the game trying to accumulate purple chips, 2nd/3rd placement points on temples and scorned auction points. I was feeling pretty good about my prospects and in fact I thought I won the game... until Luch pulled out 2 of his bonus cards which gave it to him!
As I was returning Aladdin's Dragons to JayWowzer, we played a farewell session. As with many bidding games, it takes a while to get familiar with the relative values of items and enjoyment of the game increases with repeated play. I played my worst game so far (coming in last with 5 artifacts, while Luch had 7), but I won't hold that against it. One aspect of the game which revealed itself to me this game: go for spells early AND USE THEM,,, as the game progresses, they become nearly impossible to play! I was also surprised to see that very few players had to pass over artifacts this game due to insufficient funds. By contrast, it was quite commonplace in our first few games.
Last, but not least, was Carcassonne: The City. I don't often play this since I actually prefer the base game (particularly with the first two expansions), but it's still quite good. I stumbled across a pretty lucrative tower guard when I started the second round, so I eventually tried to maximize that by placing the notable buildings in his view (ignoring most other scoring methods). If I had thought of it earlier, it probably would have worked out better. As it was, I managed a decent 2nd place to Luch.
Well, this was definitely Luch's night. Out of 5 games, he won 3 (and nearly won a 4th).
Labels:
Aladdin's Dragons,
Carcassonne: The City,
Domaine,
Pueblo,
Session,
Tower of Babel
Friday, November 04, 2005
Tikal, the Domaine of Paranoia!
This Wednesday, Luch decided to pick Domaine and Tikal. I brought along "Paranoia, Mandatory *Bonus Fun* Card game", a fairly recent acquisition, as filler.
Domaine has been a staple in our group for some time. Initially, I was put off by the big land grab at the end which was always determining the winner. With a few plays, this simply became part of the strategy... try to keep other players from getting such a windfall, while trying to line one up for yourself. The other issue I had was that we never got the rules right. Even after several plays, the rule which prohibits using the chancery after all face down cards have been drawn kept getting forgotten! This session was the first where we played 100% correctly.
I started out with my usual strategy... aim to capture as many mines as possible. One of my initial placements, right in the middle of the board, was adjacent to 3 different mines. I was able to take them quite early and had plentiful income for the whole game because of them. The other players weren't far behind (typically 2 apiece), however, so the advantage wasn't that great. I wound up with a really good shot at getting a large chunk of land, but didn't draw the cards I needed to close it up. That, and the other players noticed it in time to make sure they weren't helping! I did eventually get a large chunk of land out of it, but by then it had been cut nearly in half by the others. Meanwhile, as Shemp, Kozure and Luch built fairly powerful kingdoms across the board no one noticed the end run Kozure was planning on. Before we could react, he closed of a large chunk and won the game. Another fun session of Domaine!
Next was Tikal. It was Shemp's first go at the game, and after a brief rules explanation we off exploring! I started pouring explorers onto the board, thinking that I it would give me an advantage over time to be out early (this is normally a good strategy in El Grande). I combined this with a plan to set up "corridors" and base camps at choke points to give me near exclusive access to sections of the board. Unfortunately, each and every one of these decisions turned out to be bad ones! The mass of of explorers at the beginning of the game haunted me because it's very difficult to maintain a majority there since it's so wide open and accessible to everyone. To make things worse, they are low value temples which require a significant investment to improve. As things developed, the map did have many corridors, making movement quite difficult for everyone. I managed to get base camps far enough down those corridors to get me there faster than other players could, but Shemp (drawer of all volcanoes this game), kept laying them in ways which effectively reduced those corridors to dead ends. My explorers had a very difficult time to get anywhere. The others had much more effective strategies of reaching and holding harder to access temples. In the end, Kozure had his pieces well distributed at many otherwise abandoned mid level temples and ran away with the victory (Shemp, in his first playing, came in second closely followed by myself and Luch in a tie for last). A wonderful game!
Last was Paranoia. This is a new game by Mongoose Publishing. I didn't really know what to expect, because there weren't any reviews for it (even at BGG!). I mostly bought it because I really liked the old RPG.
This appears, at first glance, to be a fairly typical "Take That!" type game. The result is better than I expected, but I have a few reservations:
The world of Paranoia involves a "Brave New World" type future, with a computer in charge of keeping everyone happy. Unfortunately, the computer has been reprogrammed too many times and has now gone insane. It is now paranoid and thinks that "Commie Mutant Traitors" are everywhere. Problem is, they sort of are. In fact, each player is a mutant and part of a secret society. Second, the Computer wants everyone to be "Happy", by lethal force if it has to. You get the idea. For the purposes of the card game, most of this is unimportant, but it puts things in context (powers and secret societies are alluded to in card text, but don't directly come into play).
Players represent "Troubleshooters", citizens of Alpha Complex unfortunate enough to be charged with accomplishing impossible missions for the Computer. Each character has a security level, which determines how many hits they can take, how much treason they can commit before they are deemed "Traitors", and how many actions they can perform (i.e. the size of their hand). One player is the "Team Leader". He starts with a higher rank, which would be an advantage, but one of the best ways to improve your character is to kill the team leader and become one yourself, so it's pretty hard to stay alive. Incidentally, all players receive 6 clones, or "lives" in video game speak...
Each round, a "Mission" card is revealed. The card identifies what the characters are told to do by the Computer, what happens if they succeed and what happens if they fail. Players hold "Action Cards" which are dealt at the same time as the mission. These are the only cards they get for the entire mission! On a player's turn, they may play one card, either on the mission or another player. Each "Action Card" contains several boxes, each containing instructions for the cards effect depending on if it's directed to yourself, another troubleshooter or *gasp!* the mission. The mission ends once any player runs out of cards, once all characters but one have died, or once the mission is accomplished. At that point, survivors get their bonus or penalty depending on the success of the mission and any characters who have too many "Traitor" counters are executed.
Then, a new Mission is revealed and new "Action" cards are dealt to each player according to current security level.
Keep doing this until one player runs out of "Clone" tokens. At that point, the highest security level character wins.
I didn't have terribly high hopes for the game after reading the rules and examining the cards. Surprisingly, I had a very good time playing the game! This might be because the basics of the game are fairly simple (All card effects and missions boil down to just three things: gaining or taking away rank, traitor tokens and/ or wound tokens). The cards are funny, but more importantly the game play is funny... with characters framing other players, attacking each other, getting screwed by "out of turn" cards which cancel or redirect effects. The sense that most missions are hopeless, and that the best way out is to backstab your friends is well preserved. On top of that, the "Mission" cards and limited hand of cards seem to focus the play a little bit (In a game like "Chez Geek, there isn't much rhyme or reason to playing your turn... you just do stuff to other people and hope to get ahead). Once players match up what's in their hand with the results of potentially succeeding or failing the mission, each one will need to try something a little different to come out ahead (or alive).
Of course, it's got issues. 6 lives is probably too much, you can wind up with a hand of cards which aren't useful and the components aren't exactly world class (though the cards are a fairly thick plastic). The biggest problem, though, is the graphic design. All instructions are rendered in text. With so many potential applications of a card, and several cards in your hand, it's just too hard to know at a glance what you can do. The frustrating thing is, since the game is reduced to just a few concepts it would have been very easy to replace most of the text with easy to understand symbols. In fact, point form text would have been an improvement! ("+1 treason" is much easier to see that "Assign 1 treason token to any player"). I'm tempted to make paste ups for the cards before I play again.
We'll see how it stands up to repeated playing, but for now I'm pleasantly surprised.
Luch won the game, and we had lots of laughs. This is not a game to take seriously. It could have been done better, it could have been done worse, but what we got was a fairly clever and enjoyable game of "Screw yer Neighbour"
Paranoia:(provisional) 7
Domaine has been a staple in our group for some time. Initially, I was put off by the big land grab at the end which was always determining the winner. With a few plays, this simply became part of the strategy... try to keep other players from getting such a windfall, while trying to line one up for yourself. The other issue I had was that we never got the rules right. Even after several plays, the rule which prohibits using the chancery after all face down cards have been drawn kept getting forgotten! This session was the first where we played 100% correctly.
I started out with my usual strategy... aim to capture as many mines as possible. One of my initial placements, right in the middle of the board, was adjacent to 3 different mines. I was able to take them quite early and had plentiful income for the whole game because of them. The other players weren't far behind (typically 2 apiece), however, so the advantage wasn't that great. I wound up with a really good shot at getting a large chunk of land, but didn't draw the cards I needed to close it up. That, and the other players noticed it in time to make sure they weren't helping! I did eventually get a large chunk of land out of it, but by then it had been cut nearly in half by the others. Meanwhile, as Shemp, Kozure and Luch built fairly powerful kingdoms across the board no one noticed the end run Kozure was planning on. Before we could react, he closed of a large chunk and won the game. Another fun session of Domaine!
Next was Tikal. It was Shemp's first go at the game, and after a brief rules explanation we off exploring! I started pouring explorers onto the board, thinking that I it would give me an advantage over time to be out early (this is normally a good strategy in El Grande). I combined this with a plan to set up "corridors" and base camps at choke points to give me near exclusive access to sections of the board. Unfortunately, each and every one of these decisions turned out to be bad ones! The mass of of explorers at the beginning of the game haunted me because it's very difficult to maintain a majority there since it's so wide open and accessible to everyone. To make things worse, they are low value temples which require a significant investment to improve. As things developed, the map did have many corridors, making movement quite difficult for everyone. I managed to get base camps far enough down those corridors to get me there faster than other players could, but Shemp (drawer of all volcanoes this game), kept laying them in ways which effectively reduced those corridors to dead ends. My explorers had a very difficult time to get anywhere. The others had much more effective strategies of reaching and holding harder to access temples. In the end, Kozure had his pieces well distributed at many otherwise abandoned mid level temples and ran away with the victory (Shemp, in his first playing, came in second closely followed by myself and Luch in a tie for last). A wonderful game!
Last was Paranoia. This is a new game by Mongoose Publishing. I didn't really know what to expect, because there weren't any reviews for it (even at BGG!). I mostly bought it because I really liked the old RPG.
This appears, at first glance, to be a fairly typical "Take That!" type game. The result is better than I expected, but I have a few reservations:
The world of Paranoia involves a "Brave New World" type future, with a computer in charge of keeping everyone happy. Unfortunately, the computer has been reprogrammed too many times and has now gone insane. It is now paranoid and thinks that "Commie Mutant Traitors" are everywhere. Problem is, they sort of are. In fact, each player is a mutant and part of a secret society. Second, the Computer wants everyone to be "Happy", by lethal force if it has to. You get the idea. For the purposes of the card game, most of this is unimportant, but it puts things in context (powers and secret societies are alluded to in card text, but don't directly come into play).
Players represent "Troubleshooters", citizens of Alpha Complex unfortunate enough to be charged with accomplishing impossible missions for the Computer. Each character has a security level, which determines how many hits they can take, how much treason they can commit before they are deemed "Traitors", and how many actions they can perform (i.e. the size of their hand). One player is the "Team Leader". He starts with a higher rank, which would be an advantage, but one of the best ways to improve your character is to kill the team leader and become one yourself, so it's pretty hard to stay alive. Incidentally, all players receive 6 clones, or "lives" in video game speak...
Each round, a "Mission" card is revealed. The card identifies what the characters are told to do by the Computer, what happens if they succeed and what happens if they fail. Players hold "Action Cards" which are dealt at the same time as the mission. These are the only cards they get for the entire mission! On a player's turn, they may play one card, either on the mission or another player. Each "Action Card" contains several boxes, each containing instructions for the cards effect depending on if it's directed to yourself, another troubleshooter or *gasp!* the mission. The mission ends once any player runs out of cards, once all characters but one have died, or once the mission is accomplished. At that point, survivors get their bonus or penalty depending on the success of the mission and any characters who have too many "Traitor" counters are executed.
Then, a new Mission is revealed and new "Action" cards are dealt to each player according to current security level.
Keep doing this until one player runs out of "Clone" tokens. At that point, the highest security level character wins.
I didn't have terribly high hopes for the game after reading the rules and examining the cards. Surprisingly, I had a very good time playing the game! This might be because the basics of the game are fairly simple (All card effects and missions boil down to just three things: gaining or taking away rank, traitor tokens and/ or wound tokens). The cards are funny, but more importantly the game play is funny... with characters framing other players, attacking each other, getting screwed by "out of turn" cards which cancel or redirect effects. The sense that most missions are hopeless, and that the best way out is to backstab your friends is well preserved. On top of that, the "Mission" cards and limited hand of cards seem to focus the play a little bit (In a game like "Chez Geek, there isn't much rhyme or reason to playing your turn... you just do stuff to other people and hope to get ahead). Once players match up what's in their hand with the results of potentially succeeding or failing the mission, each one will need to try something a little different to come out ahead (or alive).
Of course, it's got issues. 6 lives is probably too much, you can wind up with a hand of cards which aren't useful and the components aren't exactly world class (though the cards are a fairly thick plastic). The biggest problem, though, is the graphic design. All instructions are rendered in text. With so many potential applications of a card, and several cards in your hand, it's just too hard to know at a glance what you can do. The frustrating thing is, since the game is reduced to just a few concepts it would have been very easy to replace most of the text with easy to understand symbols. In fact, point form text would have been an improvement! ("+1 treason" is much easier to see that "Assign 1 treason token to any player"). I'm tempted to make paste ups for the cards before I play again.
We'll see how it stands up to repeated playing, but for now I'm pleasantly surprised.
Luch won the game, and we had lots of laughs. This is not a game to take seriously. It could have been done better, it could have been done worse, but what we got was a fairly clever and enjoyable game of "Screw yer Neighbour"
Paranoia:(provisional) 7
Labels:
Area Control,
Card Games,
Domaine,
Paranoia,
Session,
Tikal
Thursday, April 21, 2005
"Yarghh". "Halt". "Well, I never"
Three games tonight:
Pirate's Cove
Domaine
High Society
Pirate's Cove was fun as always. I pulled to an early lead by focusing most of my starting money on sails and sinking many enemies (most often Luch) before they got a shot off. I was getting unbeleivably lucky with my dice rolling, but then things starting going badly... I got blowed up a few times, and the game quickly became a two horse race between Kozure and Shemp. In the end, Shemp won by a large margin, and proceeded to claim that he thought he had figured out the best strategy for the game. After we were all done laughing that the game could be won through strategy, he stood his ground but then conceeded that he'd have to try it again to see if he was right. I consider that a challenge, matey.
Domain followed. We once again forgot the very imporant rule that cards can't be drawn from the chancery once the deck is completed, but otherwise this was (and felt) like the most satisfying session so far. the game is finally living up to it's potential as we learn to identify the Big Land Grab (tm) early enough to prevent it. In this case, kozure was being sneaky and tried to seal off a huge chunk of the board quite early on. Luch and I where skirmishing in the corner. Shemp, well, he wasn't "firing on all cylinders" shall we say (though I can't remember why). Lucky for us, Shemp noticed the BLG a few turns before it happend, and we all mobilized to prevent it from happening. Luckily for me, I was in a position to benefit the most. With a few well timed "traitor" cards, I managed to grab quite a few points at Kozure's expense. Luch started threatening my borders at the end, but it wasn't enough to cut my lead. I won.
My feelings for the game have definitely improved as we've played. With a group of similarly experienced players, this is a great game. With that in mind, I'll be changing my rating for this one to an 8.5.
Last up was High Society. We hadn't played this one before, but I had heard such good things about it I picked it up last time I was at a gamestore. What a great game! It's simple (5 minutes to explain), it's fast (20-25 minutes), and yet it's strategic and fun. Essentially, everyone plays "Nouvaux Riche"... recently wealthy people looking to boost their status by buying impressive things. It's a card game where every turn, an item worth 1 to 10 is turned up for bidding. Players bid clockwise until all but one drops out, and then that player adds the item to their collection. There are also "bad" cards which force the player to discard a previously purchased item, half their score, etc. In this case, players bid to NOT take the item. First player to pass gets it (but all money bid by all players is lost). There are four cards with red borders, once all 4 are revealed the game ends. The total value of aquired items determines the winner, but the catch is that the player with the least leftover money is immediately eliminated, regardless of the value of their purchases (They are the poorest, and therefore only worthy of ridicule)! Having to balance aquiring the most valuable pieces with the threat of instant elimination for being the poorest player at the end makes for very difficult decisions. The fact that no one knows when the game will end makes things even more interesting! We played three hands... I lost the first one by managing to forget the "poorest player" rule (which is particularly embarassing considering I am the one who taught the others how to play), but then rebounded and won the next by taking a chance on a very pricey last bid which put me over the top.
I REALLY liked this game. In my opinion, this is probably "The Ultimate Filler Game"... Rating 8.5
Pirate's Cove
Domaine
High Society
Pirate's Cove was fun as always. I pulled to an early lead by focusing most of my starting money on sails and sinking many enemies (most often Luch) before they got a shot off. I was getting unbeleivably lucky with my dice rolling, but then things starting going badly... I got blowed up a few times, and the game quickly became a two horse race between Kozure and Shemp. In the end, Shemp won by a large margin, and proceeded to claim that he thought he had figured out the best strategy for the game. After we were all done laughing that the game could be won through strategy, he stood his ground but then conceeded that he'd have to try it again to see if he was right. I consider that a challenge, matey.
Domain followed. We once again forgot the very imporant rule that cards can't be drawn from the chancery once the deck is completed, but otherwise this was (and felt) like the most satisfying session so far. the game is finally living up to it's potential as we learn to identify the Big Land Grab (tm) early enough to prevent it. In this case, kozure was being sneaky and tried to seal off a huge chunk of the board quite early on. Luch and I where skirmishing in the corner. Shemp, well, he wasn't "firing on all cylinders" shall we say (though I can't remember why). Lucky for us, Shemp noticed the BLG a few turns before it happend, and we all mobilized to prevent it from happening. Luckily for me, I was in a position to benefit the most. With a few well timed "traitor" cards, I managed to grab quite a few points at Kozure's expense. Luch started threatening my borders at the end, but it wasn't enough to cut my lead. I won.
My feelings for the game have definitely improved as we've played. With a group of similarly experienced players, this is a great game. With that in mind, I'll be changing my rating for this one to an 8.5.
Last up was High Society. We hadn't played this one before, but I had heard such good things about it I picked it up last time I was at a gamestore. What a great game! It's simple (5 minutes to explain), it's fast (20-25 minutes), and yet it's strategic and fun. Essentially, everyone plays "Nouvaux Riche"... recently wealthy people looking to boost their status by buying impressive things. It's a card game where every turn, an item worth 1 to 10 is turned up for bidding. Players bid clockwise until all but one drops out, and then that player adds the item to their collection. There are also "bad" cards which force the player to discard a previously purchased item, half their score, etc. In this case, players bid to NOT take the item. First player to pass gets it (but all money bid by all players is lost). There are four cards with red borders, once all 4 are revealed the game ends. The total value of aquired items determines the winner, but the catch is that the player with the least leftover money is immediately eliminated, regardless of the value of their purchases (They are the poorest, and therefore only worthy of ridicule)! Having to balance aquiring the most valuable pieces with the threat of instant elimination for being the poorest player at the end makes for very difficult decisions. The fact that no one knows when the game will end makes things even more interesting! We played three hands... I lost the first one by managing to forget the "poorest player" rule (which is particularly embarassing considering I am the one who taught the others how to play), but then rebounded and won the next by taking a chance on a very pricey last bid which put me over the top.
I REALLY liked this game. In my opinion, this is probably "The Ultimate Filler Game"... Rating 8.5
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Conquest-A-Go-Go
So, last night was an evening of TWO rounds of Domaine, a chaotic game of Tigris and Euphrates, nice wine, chocolate, and of course Easy's spectacular venison stew!
Things were interesting this week, as we had a chance to explore strategies in a couple of games that we had played before, but are far from having mastered. First up was Domaine - this time we got the rules closer to correct than ever before, only messing up the endgame rule that one can't draw from the chancery after the last card is gone from the draw pile. That's fairly minor, considering some of the flagrant errors that we have made in the past on this one.
First time around, we were all fairly aware of what was happening on the board, but it didn't quite prevent me from completing an L^3G, which is Shemp lingo for the Large Late Land Grab, typically the winning maneuver in one of our games of Domaine. Second time around, we were all wise to this, and Ogami pulled off a new winning strategy, employing a central starting location and judicious use of Treaties/Alliances to keep others with more firepower (like yours truly) from encroaching on his region. Other notable strategies this game were Kozure's second place effort (attempting to control one resource laden side of the board), my mostly-failed attempt at using one soldier laden region to roll over other players, and Easy's disasterous attempt to control a resource scarce side of the board.
After these efforts, we moved on to Tigris and Euphrates, for the first time in more than four months. We mostly had a good retention of the rules, but strategies were foggy indeed. Easy easily displayed the most Snucular/Sneakular tactic, by causing conflicts between two other players, disrupting both of their tactics. That kept me, personally, off-balance and reacting most of the game. Luckily, last night off-balance, reacting, and judicious timing of the end game were sufficient to give me a win with 8 victory points. Easy recieved 7, Kozure 6, and Ogami less than that.
Seems to me that we will need to play this one a little more frequently if we hope to get more respectable final scores happening - on the up side, though, we are all fairly evenly matched. Definitely competitive, and definitely fun.
And the dinner? Let's just say that it was definitely the classiest we have had on a WAGS night, and is unlikely to be matched anytime soon - special thanks to Easy for the meat and Mrs. Shemp for the wonderful selection of vino. 'Twas bellisimo!
Things were interesting this week, as we had a chance to explore strategies in a couple of games that we had played before, but are far from having mastered. First up was Domaine - this time we got the rules closer to correct than ever before, only messing up the endgame rule that one can't draw from the chancery after the last card is gone from the draw pile. That's fairly minor, considering some of the flagrant errors that we have made in the past on this one.
First time around, we were all fairly aware of what was happening on the board, but it didn't quite prevent me from completing an L^3G, which is Shemp lingo for the Large Late Land Grab, typically the winning maneuver in one of our games of Domaine. Second time around, we were all wise to this, and Ogami pulled off a new winning strategy, employing a central starting location and judicious use of Treaties/Alliances to keep others with more firepower (like yours truly) from encroaching on his region. Other notable strategies this game were Kozure's second place effort (attempting to control one resource laden side of the board), my mostly-failed attempt at using one soldier laden region to roll over other players, and Easy's disasterous attempt to control a resource scarce side of the board.
After these efforts, we moved on to Tigris and Euphrates, for the first time in more than four months. We mostly had a good retention of the rules, but strategies were foggy indeed. Easy easily displayed the most Snucular/Sneakular tactic, by causing conflicts between two other players, disrupting both of their tactics. That kept me, personally, off-balance and reacting most of the game. Luckily, last night off-balance, reacting, and judicious timing of the end game were sufficient to give me a win with 8 victory points. Easy recieved 7, Kozure 6, and Ogami less than that.
Seems to me that we will need to play this one a little more frequently if we hope to get more respectable final scores happening - on the up side, though, we are all fairly evenly matched. Definitely competitive, and definitely fun.
And the dinner? Let's just say that it was definitely the classiest we have had on a WAGS night, and is unlikely to be matched anytime soon - special thanks to Easy for the meat and Mrs. Shemp for the wonderful selection of vino. 'Twas bellisimo!
Thursday, August 19, 2004
My Castle is My Domain(e)
Note: When I wrote this, there was no evidence of Easy's blog. I pressed publish, and the Blogger website went into paroxyms of refreshing the same page over and over again. When it was finished, I saw my log posted. When I came back, I noted my blog was missing and now Easy's with a much earlier publish time, was present. I have no idea what happened. Here's my blog, for the record.
Well, what’s a games night without a theme? Well, a themeless games night, but beyond that, it’s boring and uninspired. Fortunately, we had Shemp to lend a thought to “Mediaeval” games night. The dinner lasagne didn’t quite fit in, but we had “hearty cheese fritos” to help out.
The night opened with Castle, the game aforementioned. With four players, the gameplay tilts over from the tactical side of things to a little more random in nature. Easy caught on quickly, but not quickly enough to deny Shemp the win.
We then switched to Domaine, which I thought had been reviewed before, but I can’t currently find any mention in our blog. Domaine is a game of expansion and territory enclosure, by one of our favourite game designers, Klaus Teuber. It allows two to four players, with slight modifications for two player play, and the theme is that you are lesser royalty (dukes or counts or what-have-you) trying to divide up the spoils of a kingdom before the king returns from a long journey. This theme makes a lot less sense than its original Germanic predecessor, Lowenherz, where they’re doing the dividing while the king is dying. That’s political correctness for you, I guess.
The board is a well drawn map of what looks like a fantasy kingdom – nine moveable large cardboard squares, arranged into a square with the castle at the centre – with each of the nine squares being divided into around eight to ten by eight to ten (can’t remember the exact number) 2 cm grid by light black lines. Terrain of plain, forest, mines (diamond, bronze, silver and gold), towns and a castle is indicated clearly and with fair quality.
The mechanic is very simple – each player executes one of two actions per turn – play a card by paying gold for it, which allows you to either: 1) erect walls to enclose a “domain”, 2) expand already enclosed domains, 3) place knights which protect your own domain and allow you to expand into others, 4) create alliances which stops either domain from expanding into each other, or 5) cause knights from other domains to “defect” into yours.
A second possible action is to sell a card to the chancery – a temporary holding area - for the second (smaller) value printed on the card – one of only two ways to gain money.
After performing one of the two actions, the player then draws from either the chancery or the draw pile to replenish his or her hand.
Players score points by enclosing forest, towns and the castle (1, 3 and 5 points). Additionally, players can supplement their income by enclosing mines, each type providing one gold piece at the beginning of a turn each. Enclosing three of one type of mine scores 5 points.
Victory is gained by points – either by reaching a maximum dictated by the number of players, or by having the most points when all possible cards have been played. Extra money also counts for points – the player with the most scores 5, the second wealthiest scores 3.
For our first game of Domaine, we misremembered (Bushism) some of the rules, forgetting proper rules for placement of knights and the very important rule of only taking one action per turn. Fortunately, this had the effect of speeding up the game.
I got pretty badly boxed in the first game, but wasn’t doing too badly when ????? leapt ahead into the lead for the win.
The second game, we corrected our misrememberings of the rules and played correctly. I was doing better this time around, but Easy took advantage of a really easy massive land grab late in the game and sealed the win. Domaine is interesting for the need to not only grow your own earnings, but also pay attention and smack down other players who might sneak their way into a massive inheritance.
This technique is henceforth christened “snuclear” or “snuculear” tactics, after Easy and Shemp’s strange, giddy exchange. “Snuclear” apparently involves really, really sneaky tactics, to the point of being nuclear sneaky. Apparently.
The evening was ended with a round of Castle, which started out with a huge siege engine vs. soldier battle and ended with a lot of people trying to kill-the-leader Easy, which didn’t help us in the end. Easy took us down, leaving the rest of us just steps from playing out.
?????'s Rules
Last Night, we played three different games:
Castles
Domaine ?R*
Domaine
*?????'s Rules
I was the only one who hadn't played castles, so I expected to get buried, but the game is pretty easy to pick up despite the large number of cards that you need to get to know (probably because it isn't THAT important to get to know all of them). Shemp got the first win, but we were all close. I was more successful on my second try, getting a squeaker of a win (thanks to a few helpful moves by my unsuspecting opponents). Overall, I thought it was a good game. Pretty light, but fun and seemingly quite replayable (and both games were really close, so the ending was exciting). I did find the concept strange, though: The game simulates a castle seige, complete with soldiers on the ramparts defending against seige engines. However, the actual gameplay doesn't have much to do with it. Players don't take sides, the outcome of the battle is irrelevant. It's just a story which unfolds as players play their cards. Not a problem, exactly... just strange.
Castles:7
Next up was Domaine. Klaus Teuber, fromt he two games I have played of his, seems to make fun games which also seem somehow arbitrary. I think that this quality came through last night as we accidentally played an entire game using incorrect rules...
err... I should say "????? Rules". We played that:
1: Every player had two moves per turn (should be 1)
2: The deserter simply took a knight from the board (the knight is supposed to be stolen)
3: Cards could continue to be drawn from the chancery after the deck ran out.
I'm pretty sure the were other "modifications", but the bottom line is that even though the game played differently, it wasn't broken. I don't imagine too many games could with
Castles
Domaine ?R*
Domaine
*?????'s Rules
I was the only one who hadn't played castles, so I expected to get buried, but the game is pretty easy to pick up despite the large number of cards that you need to get to know (probably because it isn't THAT important to get to know all of them). Shemp got the first win, but we were all close. I was more successful on my second try, getting a squeaker of a win (thanks to a few helpful moves by my unsuspecting opponents). Overall, I thought it was a good game. Pretty light, but fun and seemingly quite replayable (and both games were really close, so the ending was exciting). I did find the concept strange, though: The game simulates a castle seige, complete with soldiers on the ramparts defending against seige engines. However, the actual gameplay doesn't have much to do with it. Players don't take sides, the outcome of the battle is irrelevant. It's just a story which unfolds as players play their cards. Not a problem, exactly... just strange.
Castles:7
Next up was Domaine. Klaus Teuber, fromt he two games I have played of his, seems to make fun games which also seem somehow arbitrary. I think that this quality came through last night as we accidentally played an entire game using incorrect rules...
err... I should say "????? Rules". We played that:
1: Every player had two moves per turn (should be 1)
2: The deserter simply took a knight from the board (the knight is supposed to be stolen)
3: Cards could continue to be drawn from the chancery after the deck ran out.
I'm pretty sure the were other "modifications", but the bottom line is that even though the game played differently, it wasn't broken. I don't imagine too many games could with
Thursday, July 01, 2004
Dominating Carcasses
This week, we (yes, you heard right... WE. I actually made it this time) played a new game called Domaine. This is by the famed designer of Settlers of Catan, Klaus Teuber.
There are similarities: the guy likes random terrain, he likes soldiers which don't really fight (smacks of Canada, you might say), he likes home bases with minimum distances between them and finally, he likes resource hoarding. Still, in practice the similarities are only on the surface, and it all feels fresh and different enough that the game stands on it's own. Everyone tries to fence in little "domaines" and then expand them to include as many resources as possible (forests, towns and castles score points, mines supply money). Since everyone is competing for the same resources, soldiers are deployed to prevent being overrun (it's very simple formula: If you have more soldiers than the other player, you can grow your kingdom into the other's). The winner is the one who can score a set number of points first.
The scoring system is interesting: Your score is the total value of the resources you control, so if another player expands his kingdom and takes over a village you had previously controlled, that player gets the points AND YOU LOSE THEM.
Our first game was funny, because we were all learning and we discovered fairly early on that we all made some really dumb moves, and we were all paying for it. I would say we actually came close to "breaking" the system because we almost couldn't get anything going! In the end, it came down to a couple of really huge territories going to ?????, which won him the game.
Our second game was much better strategically, although I'm sure it will take many plays before we really get it down. In a tight contest, Shemp pulled a win with what would arguably be the oddest shaped territory we will likely ever see in the game.
To finish it off, we played two games of Carcassonne. The last game we played "Speedy Carcassone", giving very little thought to our moves and finishing it off in 15 minutes. The strangest thing: It was a lot of fun that way! I'm sure we'll be doing that again...
Oh yeah, and Shemp is 7h3 5uxx0r
Rating (Domaine):7
There are similarities: the guy likes random terrain, he likes soldiers which don't really fight (smacks of Canada, you might say), he likes home bases with minimum distances between them and finally, he likes resource hoarding. Still, in practice the similarities are only on the surface, and it all feels fresh and different enough that the game stands on it's own. Everyone tries to fence in little "domaines" and then expand them to include as many resources as possible (forests, towns and castles score points, mines supply money). Since everyone is competing for the same resources, soldiers are deployed to prevent being overrun (it's very simple formula: If you have more soldiers than the other player, you can grow your kingdom into the other's). The winner is the one who can score a set number of points first.
The scoring system is interesting: Your score is the total value of the resources you control, so if another player expands his kingdom and takes over a village you had previously controlled, that player gets the points AND YOU LOSE THEM.
Our first game was funny, because we were all learning and we discovered fairly early on that we all made some really dumb moves, and we were all paying for it. I would say we actually came close to "breaking" the system because we almost couldn't get anything going! In the end, it came down to a couple of really huge territories going to ?????, which won him the game.
Our second game was much better strategically, although I'm sure it will take many plays before we really get it down. In a tight contest, Shemp pulled a win with what would arguably be the oddest shaped territory we will likely ever see in the game.
To finish it off, we played two games of Carcassonne. The last game we played "Speedy Carcassone", giving very little thought to our moves and finishing it off in 15 minutes. The strangest thing: It was a lot of fun that way! I'm sure we'll be doing that again...
Oh yeah, and Shemp is 7h3 5uxx0r
Rating (Domaine):7
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