Simple, but unintuitive (In the Year of the Dragon, Paris Connection, Kingdom Builder x4, Die Bergun von Burgund, Innovation)

Over the past two weeks, we've had a chance to play quite a few games... sme old, and some new.

Two weeks ago, Bearbomb, Kozure, Shemp, Dale and I had a chance to play In the Year of the Dragon. I was kicking myself for forgetting to bring along the expansion(s) from the Alea Treasure Chest! Regardless, this is always a fun and challenging game. I spent the first half concentrating on maintaining the lead in the turn order track and getting my "end of round" points up (courtisan, double dragon tablet). Although I am convinced there are multiple valid strategies in the game, this is the one that appeals to me and so I tend to fall back on it. You need very little money since you don't have to worry about paying for actions, and so it saves you actions accumulating wealth. This also means that I typically struggle with the offering to the emperor, but as long as I can take a turn to get to three huan it's not too painful. Although in the last third I lost the battle for turn order I did manage to conserve the lead in points for the win. One thing that seems to be essential, though, is to pick a couple of events to essentially disregard. If you are stuck with the pack always trying to build up against the event that is coming up next you will find yourself blocked out or paying.

We also played Paris Connection. There seems to be an endless variation of train themed stock manipulation games, which range the gamut from light to very heavy. It constantly surprises me that a new one can come along and still explore a new way to approach the topic. PAris Connection is a very light and fast game, which manages top play up to 6 in 30-45 minutes. There are similarities to Wabash Cannonball/ Chicago Express, but this is the more streamlined design. On a turn, you play up to 5 trains to the board or draw 1-2 trains from the supply. As the train routes develop, they touch areas that increase the worth of that colour. The trains a player has is therefore both the number of stocks a player has in a given company and the vehicle through which they can increase the value of a line. In other words, every time you play a train you are shrinking your shares in that same line. It's tricky. It leads to players dumping trains of a colour they don't want to perform well by extending the line to places that are worthless. It means that the best way to make money is for someone else to expand a line you are keeping shares in. As with many games like this, it means that you are best off trying to figure out what other players want, and investing in that, rather than trying to boost the value yourself. Anyway, as light as it is, the unusual thought process required to play the game means that I can't really see non-gamers enjoying it much. For me, I liked it.

We ended the night with two games of Kingdom Builder. This game came with a lot of hype, since it's from the designer of Dominion, but also a lot of backlash since it's pretty different. In fact, I'd say it gets most of it's flack because it's both quite simple and quite unintuitive, an unusual mix (I know I just said that about Paris Connection, I guess I mean it's unusual outside of the stock game genre).

There are a number of boards, from which 4 are selected at random, and a number of victory condition cards from which 3 are selected at random. Players take turns drawing 1 card and placing three pieces on that type of terrain. The victory condition cards say things like "units next to a mountain gain 1 VP", or "gain 1 VP for each connection between a city or special site". This means that you are trying to accomplish different things with your pieces each game, which is a simple change but it's interesting how different it makes each game feel. The biggest trick is the placement rule... the one card you play determines the terrain type you can play on, but you have to play on terrain adjacent to pieces you've already played if possible. That means that if you played earlier pieces next to many types of terrain the card you draw will largely determine what you can do. On the other hand, if you play your pieces in such a way that you are next to very few types of terrain there is a good chance that you will draw a card showing terrain you aren't adjacent to, allowing you to play ANYWHERE on the board on the correct type of terrain. In addition to that, each board comes shows a different special location (or two) that gives a player a special power if they place a token adjacent to it. The special powers allow a player to move pieces in special ways, build on water hexes, skip spaces during placement, etc. It all adds together to a very engaging, yet simple game. And boy is it fast! 30-40 minutes for 3-4 players. We've since played 2 more times and I enjoyed it just as much.

Let's start with the biggest similarity with Dominion... there is a lot of variability built into the game, but it's all defined at the time of setup. After that, there is neither randomness nor cardplay from decks of cards. I find this refreshing because these days it seems like many games are going that route (Summoner Wars, A Few Acres of Snow, Mage Knight, Kings of Tokyo, Yomi, etc). I guess a second similarity would be a complete and utter absence of theme. Even the title is beyond generic!

Anyway, that nitpick aside, I really enjoyed the game. It won't be as influential as Dominion, but I think I actually prefer it. It feels a little like advanced Through the Desert, with variable victory conditions and board. Good stuff.

An evening with Stephen Feld (Macao, In the Year of the Dragon, Jungle Speed x2)

This is a couple of weeks late, but we've moved recently and I haven't had the time to write. This week we had Bharmer back, making it a foursome.

As Kozure mentioned in his recent post, we played Macao, In the Year of the Dragon and Jungle Speed. I wanted to play both Feld games because I really admire him as a designer, depsite his inability to choose compelling themes. The combination of strategy, interesting mechanisms and ... pain, have produced two games I like very much (I haven't tried any of his other designs).

Macao

Kozure was determined to improve on his past showings in this game, and early on it looked like he would achieve his goal with a win. He had a commanding lead, but as is customary with this game Shemp came from behind and stole the win (this time, beating Kozure by a single point). I don't exactly understand how a game like this can be so dominated by a single player, but so far Shemp's record stands at 100% after +/- 5 plays. Bharmer had just learned the game and therefore came in last, but this is the kind of game where that is expected. Not sure how to explain my poor showing, though!

In the Year of the Dragon

Finally got this second game by Stephan Feld to the table. Another great title, but significantly more compact in it's playtime. This is the epitome of a great euro in my book: short play time, high strategy, low luck. Feld has a hard time coming up with compelling themes, but the gameplay is top notch. I won this one by keeping my end of turn points high and making sure to dominate the fireworks points. For some reason, I tend to do very well at this one contrary to my winless streak at Macao.

Jungle Speed

I had hoped to play Pandemic as the last game of the evening. We didn't have time, and I'll admit I was disappointed at first. That is, I was disappointed until Kozure suggest we play Jungle Speed. We played twice and had a blast as usual. What a fun game.

Undefeated

Well, Shemp pulled off another come-from-behind win in Macao, which makes it 5 wins for 5 plays for him. 100%. Undefeated.

Impressive... most impressive.

We also played In the Year of the Dragon (Easy won) and Jungle Speed (Bharmer and Easy won one each).

I had to content myself with two (close) second place finishes in the non-filler games.

Which brings me to the interesting question... which games are we, as members of this group, good at?

There are many games which I enjoy but I'm not necessarily good at. Power Grid, for example, I usually come in the middle of the pack (used to be middle-high end, but recent plays have left me lower than usual). Conversely, one of the games which I almost put in the "will not play willingly" category, Phoenicia, I actually had my own personal highest win rate for. What does it say about me that the game I win most often I happen to dislike? Fortunately, (or maybe unfortunately for my win record), Phoenicia has been traded away.

I think I've got a reasonably good win rate at Railroad Tycoon. I enjoy it, which usually assists in getting me to play better. I'm also usually pretty decent at Tikal.

As mentioned in previous entries, when El Grande was introduced to the group, I had a fairly high win ratio. Over time, that edge has been lost and now I'm frequently middling.

Shemp, as mentioned, is trending high wins at Macao.

This weekend, at TABSCON, I had the opportunity to play Race for the Galaxy with two people who play it a lot. I was creamed. Seriously creamed, twice in a row. Point spreads of something like 70 or 80 to my 30-ish. I felt like... well, I'd use some sports analogy here but I don't know sports teams well enough... the Nigerian Woman's Hockey Team up against Canada... or Canada's soccer team up against Spain. I thought I was not bad at RftG, but either I just had two seriously bad runs of luck, or those guys are super-geniuses. Now, granted, we were playing with two expansions, one of which I hadn't played before, but I was not in the running here.

One nice thing about going to places like TABSCON, it exposes you to playing skill levels outside your "regular" group. Generally I've found, much to my satisfaction, I do pretty well against other groups, save in games where it's obvious they play a particular game a lot.

I think it's clear, if you're a regular reader, that I'm not a "play only for the win" kinda guy. I try to win, for sure, but for me, it's the social atmosphere, friendly competition and sense of thematic engagement that draws me to board gaming.

But sometimes... sometimes... I just want that first place finish, dang it!

Hey WAGsters (or readers), what are the games that you're good at?

A few bad years (Entdecker, In the Year of the Dragon x2)

On Wednesday, June10th, it was Luch's pick and we played Entdecker and In the Year of the Dragon (twice).

Entdecker

The Entdecker session was interesting because despite a setup which didn't particularly seem to promote really large islands, we ended up with essentially just two land masses across the entire board. It was a tooth and nail battle between Luch and I for the really big island with two +5 and one +10 marker in it. Ultimately, I won the island but lost the game to Kozure, who won the second (smaller) island and then wasted no time putting scouts on the native track. Luch and I only completed the big island near the end of the game, so our scouts were tied up for far too long. He beat me by one point!

It was a fun enough session, but it confirmed my earlier feeling that this game is just too long, and too much like other games that scratch the same itch in less time. I'd be happy to play it again, but my copy will be going into the trade pile.

In the Year of the Dragon

The original idea was to play one session of ItYotD and then play Mexica, but since Luch had only played In the Year of the Dragon once before, after we completed the first session he decided he wanted to play again to try to improve his understanding of the mechanics. As a group, we've played +/-5 times, so Kozure and I were substantially more experienced... and in this game that helps.

In the first game, I stayed in front of the people track and the flexibility that afforded me gave me a win. I went for a Big Building strategy, building five temples and housing many workers in the process. This is something I don't normally do, as I normally prefer to keep two or three temples max., to make rice shortages easier to bear, and make my points with dragon tablets and courtisans.Of course, one of the nice things about this game is the multiple paths to victory, s trying a new one was fun.

Speaking of trying different paths, in the second game I was determined to try to make points primarily through the scholars. I've said I would try that before and strayed, and I did it again this time. For some reason, I can't take my eyes off all the incoming disasters long enough to make this strategy work. I fell behind on the people track halfway through the game and so I could never choose the scholar action to take advantage of the scholars I had aquired. I lost the second game in distant last.

Lesson learned... do not fall behind in the people track!

Excellent game. I'll make the scholar strategy work someday!...

Excess vs. Restraint (Glory to Rome x2, In the Year of the Dragon)

Kozure hates having to pick games when it's just three players. This was one of those nights (It was just me, Kozure and Shemp).

Glory to Rome

Shemp hadn't particularly enjoyed this when he was introduced to him in October, so I can't imagine he approached this session with much enthusiasm. Luckily, with a bit of experience under his belt the game's interaction appeared to "click" this time and I think he became a fan.

Our first game saw Shemp attempt to build the forum and face the same fate that befell Kozure when he tried that many moons ago... Kozure and I collectively froze the supply of merchants and patrons in the pool. Unfortunately, he appeared to be in the lead in points as well, so we were a little stymied on the best way to steal the victory. He had a viscious combination going (I don't recall it exactly, but I believe it had to do with using the power of the client he was placing into his clientelle, whch activate half a dozen cards as well). I completed a few quick buildings, hid a bit of treasure in the vault and then completed the catacombs to end the game. I had focussed on getting rubble and wood into the vault, gambling that I'd get easy majorities since no one else would bother. Not only did that not happen, the 1 value material meant my haul there was particularly low. I came in last, while Shemp actually did win.

We played again, though this time I fared much better. This time it was I who built the killer combos (though I nearly didn't get the chance... Kozure nearly ended the game early while he had the lead. I did something one round before he was going to do it that prevented it from happening, but I don't remember what). I had a building, the gate, which allowed my unfinished marble buildings to use their function. Marble buildings are amongst the most powerful, so this is quite an advantage! I then started 2 important marble buildings: One that made my merchant clients into wilds (Ludus Magna), one that allowed me to play multiple cards out of my hand to "follow" the lead role multiple times (Palace). I also had a completed concrete building (The storeroom) which allowed all my clients to act as labourers if I wanted.

So, essentially, I was sweeping all the materials in the pool and then using my three craftsmen and my two wilds (the merchants) to build lots of stuff. Heck, just having those two wilds and being able to "think" every turn and still act twice was incredibly powerful. Every time I play this gam, I'm tempted to say that a different card is too powerful, and this time I feel that way about the gate (incomplete marble buildings still give their power). I imagine that we are just scratching the surface with the crazy combos... I would expect that experienced players set up some pretty ridiculous chains of events.

Anyway, I won.

In the Year of the Dragon
We *almost* played a third game of Glory to Rome, but Kozure elected to play this instead (ok, I suggested it). I followed a path I typically avoid: building up my number of palaces and trying to hold on to a large number of workers. Unfortunately, I didn't manage to get the food I needed in time on two occasions and it really hurt my chances. Still, I did okay with the rest and I was keeping pace on the military track (unlike last game). With Shemp and Kozure being equally aggressive in military and VPs, it was a very competitive game to the very end. In the final tally, Shemp's large roster of buddhas gave him the lead over my large clientele. He won.

As an aside, Shemp purchased a dragon tile in the eighth month. I mentioned that it would only give him four points, but he purchased it anyway. You'll never guess how many points he beat me by...

(four)

Two "Dumbs" don't make a "Smart" (Zombie Fluxyx, Space Alert x3, In the Year of the Dragon)

Taste is a funny thing.

Obviously, everyone has their preferences. When it comes to games, I personally enjoy a pretty broad spectrum of types of games: Strategy, thematic, silly, wargames, party, light/ heavy...

and...

cooperative/ competitive

With the exception of Lord of the Rings, the cooperative genre is relatively young. LOTR has been a polarizing game for us, as it has been in the larger gaming world. I love it, Kozure, Bharmer and Luch like it well enough (I think), and Shemp hates it. Now that cooperative and semi-cooperative games have become fashionable, it seems that we've had a chance to determine how the group *really* feels about the genre. Reactions have been mixed, but generally speaking I'd say it's not been terribly successful.

We've played LOTR, Shadows over Camelot, Pandemic, Battlestar Galactica and, this week, Space Alert (I've also played Red November, though not with WAGS). Of these, Pandemic has been the most successful at pleasing everybody. LOTR and Battlestar Galactica was well liked by approximately half the group, Shadows over Camelot I got rid of because after a few plays I lost all interest.

Shemp summed his feelings rather well when he mentioned that in most games he looks forward to the interaction of the various play styles of each player. The gameplay of cooperative games ultimately revolves around efficiently managing incoming crisis, which in turn largely defines the kind of reaction you can take. For this reason they are more about sharing a common experience, muting individual play style and eliminating a certain type of player interaction. It's worth noting that Shemp is also not a big fan of non-cooperative games that have little interaction, for much the same reason (Race for the Galaxy and Agricola have been two recent examples).

Still, because it's so peculiar, I had no idea how the group would react to Space Alert... it turns out the answer was "meh" from Shemp and Kozure (the jury is still out on Bharmer or Luch's reaction since they weren't around).

Me? I really liked it.

Space Alert

Space Alert is a cooperative game that places the players in the unfortunate role of a hapless crew tasked with the responsibility of defending a spaceship, the Sitting Duck, for 10 minutes while it maps an uncharted sector of space. It's worth mentioning that he setting is nicely integrated into the rule book, which is quite humorous and reminds me of old "Paranoia" material. To defend the ship, the players have a number of laser cannons, rockets, battlebots and shields. However, the guns and shields need power, and managing and distributing power is crucial to ensure that *heaven forbid* the shields run out and the guns fail to fire.

The "gimmick" is that the game literally lasts 10 minutes... players listen to a CD which informs players of the various threats that appear (and when). It also tells players when the different phases start and end, etc. During that time, players must program their character's actions RoboRally style (a combination of "move around the ship" and "push this button" instructions) in an attempt to counter the threats and prevent them from destroying the ship. The problem is that the time limit, the cards dealt, the logistics required to make things work and the inherently inefficient nature of oral communication makes this a rather chaotic and difficult endeavor. After the 10 minutes are up, the programmed cards are revealed one by one to see what really happened, and to discover if the crew succeeded... or if the ship has been destroyed.

Thankfully, the game is designed to ease players into the chaos through several introductory scenarios that gradually introduce the various functions of the ship, and the rules of the game. The first two we played were only 7 minutes long, asking us to program 7 actions in that time. In both cases, 3 threats appeared. Guns and shields are in play, but none of the other subsystems are. We did alright: We lived through the first scenario and narrowly failed he second.

Our last play was also an introductory one, but slightly more advanced. Rockets are introduced. We discover that the ship has a screen saver which needs to be toggled frequently to avoid interruptions to other important subsystems (like, umm, lasers). Advanced threats are now placed in the mix. Damage is no longer represented by generic cubes, instead replaced by chits that identify damage to specific components of the ship (which, of course, means that they will malfunction). Oh, and we now have 10 minutes to program 13 actions.

We got pasted.

Please keep in mind that because we were only 3 players, we had to control an "android" which is essentially a fourth player that we all share in programming (we named it "Luch"). Since we were not particularly skilled in programming our own actions, managing an extra player was difficult.

We screwed up many times. On one occasion, I screwed up twice and they ended up cancelling each other into a good move (though we still came to the conclusion that two dumbs don't make a smart). Other times, we weren't so lucky.

When I play the game, I find the planning period to be tremendously fun. I like attempting to coordinate a number of actions under the time pressure. I like that I never really have a sense that I know what's going on (for example, because I haven't had a chance to read the descriptions of the incoming threats). I like that I'm planning with other players to accomplish specific tasks, but that I'm not sure it will work out even if the plan itself is solid (this could happen either because a player miss-programmed their actions, because a part of the ship took damage and part of our plan becomes impossible due to malfunctioning equipment, etc). It follows that since I like the planning phase due in part to the unpredictability, I like witnessing how the actions play out (just as in RoboRally). I feel satisfaction when the plan (or dumb luck, or more likely a combination of both) comes together, and I find it funny when things screw up.

When it's over, whether we win or not I immediately want to play again and try to do better. It's very nice that the game ramps up the difficulty over time, because it keeps the game challenging and frantic.

Anyway, as I said Shemp and Kozure weren't wowed by it. They found that the programming cards too often limited your actions, that too often you just couldn't do anything coherent with what you had. I suppose their is nothing stopping us from introducing a variant where players get more cards every phase, or maybe that each player starts the game with a preconstructed deck of actions

Zombie Fluxx

I had never played a fluxx game before, but it sounded novel, silly, short and easy to play so I thought I'd take a chance on it. Fluxx games are all similar in that they start with just a few simple rules (draw a card then play a card) and no goal. Over the course of the game, as cards get played, new rules get added and goals are introduced. For example, you mighy play a card which says :"New rule: Draw 3 cards instead of 1". From then on, all players draw the new amount of cards. Similarly, if a Goal card is played a winning condition is added to the game... for example "The first player with 3 zombies wins". Only one goal card can be in play at a time, though, so the goal will change over the course of the game. The game therefore goes on until a combination of cards played lines up with the goal on the table.

I purchased the Zombie version because it seemed more fun to me, but now I wonder whether the theme might turn off the type of people I'd be likely to play this with. I think Shemp and Kozure thought it was... fine. Shemp's wife, Hilaria, doesn't often play games with us but did play a hand of this. Not sure what she thought of it (though I didn't get a sense she was a big fan). I thought it was decent, and can definitely see enjoying it over beer when looking to just kill time.

In the Year of the Dragon

We haven't played this in a while, and that's really a shame because I truly enjoy this game. It's definitely my favorite new pure euro that I've played in quite a long time. In the past I've done quite well at the game, but this time I struggled to keep up on the people track so the early lead I got in VPs was quickly eroded. Kozure, who managed to stay well in the lead on the person track throughout the game saw his strategy pay off about 3/4s of the way through the game... surpassing me and winning with a convincing lead.

Great game.

Games concerning the absence of food (Corn - The Civgame, In the Year of the Dragon)

This week the group indulged me by agreeing to play my prototype, "Corn - The Civgame". I constantly dabble in creating games, but rarely get anywhere with them. My last attempt, Corn-22, was not particularly good. I had high hopes that this one would be better...

Well, first of all, this one isn't supposed to be goofy. It's a fairly rules-heavy civilization builder. I wanted to make a game that combined exploration, technological advancement, war and politics that didn't need a huge board, 8 hour playing time or millions of little bits. Also, setup time bothers me, so I made quick setup a goal.

I'll get this out of the way up front: It wasn't very well received. Despite this, I was happy with the experiment. Beyond the problems which came up due to unresolved rules, unpredicted combinations, etc, a few things were working against a pleasant first run-through:

- It's got lots of rules, and I didn't explain them particularly well.
- The playing pieces were very poor. To small, too light, not particularly user-friendly.
- Critical play-aids were missing. This is probably the biggest mistake I made. The missing list of buildings was the worst offender.

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the turn order/ action selection mechanism (it's not perfect, though: earlier versions restricted the the number of cards players were dealt, and I added to that substantially for the playtest. In retrospect, it was too many). I felt that the exploration was working and the development was working reasonably well. We didn't play long enough for the different player's civilizations to butt heads, or for the political aspect of the game to really take off, but at the very least I was able to get a sense of certain things that need to be worked out. Though no one will know this but me, the balance of resource production vs. building costs has improved substantially over previous solo playtests.

I hope that the group will be willing to try it again, and I'm really hoping that we can have a conversation here about thoughts on what worked and what didn't.

A few changes I need to make before it gets played again:
- It used to be a requirement that a port be built in order to embark onto water (at a lake or river). When I eliminated it, I didn't realize it made bridges obsolete (since it is quicker and cheaper to gain the water transportation technology and cross wherever you want). I will be reintroducing ports. Also, I was counting on certain landscape features (lakes, rivers and mountains) to provide natural boundaries that would define the regions in the game. However, under those rules Wonders found in water exist in BETWEEN regions, and therefore couldn't belong to anyone. I think the only solution in this case is to remove the ability to discover Wonders in water hexes. Also, I will have to require that Wonders not be discovered on river hexes, just to overcome a placement issue (placing the wonders obscures the rivers, and there's no simple way to eliminate that). It's not an unreasonable limitation, so I'll just choose the simple route. Lastly, I will be requiring the presence of cubes on resources to have them produce. This will eliminate ownership questions and, conversely, allow others to come and use them if they are crafty.

When Kozure arrived, we put away the prototype and played In the Year of the Dragon. I tried to see if the war parades could be put to good use (get ahead in the people track by putting on parades and then choose the powerful older workers without being forced to fall back in the turn order). It seemed to be working pretty well, and then THE BAD MOVE happened.

In the month the droughts was upon us, I had the first move. In a fit of idiocy, I forgot I had no rice and instead chose to BUILD A THIRD PALACE. The drought happened, I lost 3 people and the palace I had just built. Ugggh.

I figure I bounced back pretty well. I had a good lead until then, and ended tied for second with Kozure. Bharmer cruised past us to victory on the strength of 5 palaces and many people working in them.

I'm still quite happy with this one. It feels rather malleable in the sense that there always seems to be several ways you COULD go. While planning for the upcoming disaster is the main driver for the game, building a good monthly points engine, staying ahead in the person track and going for straight points are all viable and important at different parts of the game. Good stuff.

Déja vu (In the Year of the Dragon, Race for the Galaxy, The Kaiser's Pirates)

Last week, we liked the new games so much, we wanted to play them again! (remember, we have game attention deficit disorder. This is big for us).

As an aside, this year is turning out to be very different for me for new games. 2007 was a year that brought a series of very good "niche" games into my collection. Last Night on Earth, Jungle Speed, Dungeon Twister, Nexus Ops, Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage, etc, are all games that I really enjoyed for what they are. They're fun, they have a place in my collection for the variety that they bring, but in the end my true love is heavier strategy games (i.e. El Grande, Taj Mahal, Princes of Florence, etc). I didn't play a single game of that type in 2007 that really did it for me. Even Blue Moon City, which is a very good strategy game by all accounts, is at most a middleweight. In contrast, we aren't even in the third month of 2008 and we've already played Perikles, In the Year of the Dragon and Race for the Galaxy... three games that I consider to be excellent gamer's games. I couldn't be happier.

Shemp joined us, so we were able to see how In the Year of the Dragon and Race for the Galaxy played with four.

In the Year of the Dragon

This is turning out to be a great game. I can't really say whether it's harder or easier with more players, but so far I'd say it's a bit of a wash. On one hand, there are fewer actions in each group so in some ways it can actually be easier to get what you want even if you aren't first in turn order. On the other hand, if you are LAST in turn order, you have a choice between paying 3 yuan or picking the single action left over by the other players. So, going from three to four has made it easier to be in 2nd place, and harder to be in 4th. With five, I bet being 3rd, 4th and 5th will be a little miserable.

Although the game doesn't change dramatically because of the order of the disasters, it changes just enough to shake things up. Sure, you can't allow yourself to fall behind on the VP engine if you hope to win so you probably can't totally ignore palaces/ courtisans and dragons but the rest will have to be considered on a game by game basis.

I noticed a similarity to Maharaja in the sense that on a given turn, there's a good chance all players are eyeing the same one or two actions (due to the order of upcoming disasters). Just like that game, the player with turn order advantage can take the easy route and prepare for the events as they come. Players who are going later on in the turn will lose if they spend the whole game chasing the leader... they have to prepare for the events in a different order or look for an alternate approach to getting VPs.

Anyway, I picked up a dragon, a courtisan and a third palace early and managed to keep turn order advantage throughout much of the game. Scores were mostly tight, but near the end the spread got a bit wider. Unlike last game, I didn't forget about the endgame points so I managed to keep the win. Bharmer fell back on the turn order track and paid a heavy price for it (he became a fireworks specialist as, turn after turn, fireworks were the single left over action he was forced to pick). Shemp did very well for his first game... he came in a rather close second if my memory serves.

Race for the Galaxy

What a nice surprise this is turning out to be. Race manages to be virtually identical to San Juan on the surface and yet be a very different game experience. With four, San Juan was a bit dry for me (because just about all the actions are chosen every round... making most rounds pretty samey). In Race, many rounds a few of the players pick the same action so phases definitely do get skipped frequently. Also, the wide variety of cards available in the base set allows even further variety between games. There's enough going on that the simple game engine it's based on becomes a fast yet meaty game that manage to avoid most of the things I typically dislike about themed card games.

I can't remember the name of my starting planet this time (epsilon?), but there was a dose of military and consumption in the opening hand. I became fixated on building a particularly cool 6 building and therefore fell behind on the cards I was playing. Kozure, on the other hand, was a machine. When he ended the game (with twelve cards played) I was still at eight.

The Kaiser's Pirates

This was a new game purchased recently by Kozure. It's a card game about pirates and the merchant ships they raided. Players look after three pirate ships and three merchants, and try to make as many points as possible by having their pirates attack and sink other player's merchants. The actual gameplay is fairly reminiscent of others we've played. It's essentially a "take that" style game, with the good and the bad which comes with the territory. A bad hand can probably screw you over, and the free for all nature of attacks could probably make it hard for a player who gets picked on to compete. The game has a couple of good ideas which try to overcome the inherent randomness of card games... the most important of which is that each card has multiple functions ensuring that there is typically at least one useful way to use each card. I thought it was cool that each ship has it's strength represented by a mix of die types (1d6, 1d8 and 1d10, for ex.), highest single roll determines the value, so you can get an idea of the odds but you'll never really know until the bones are rolled. A variety of attack types and special abilities are represented by a similar system.

We only got through a partial hand, so I can't really say too much about it. On the surface, I'd say I liked it about as much as Zero!, Airwar: Pacific or Naval War... similar war themed card games we've played in the past.

Shiny and New (In the Year of the Dragon, Race for the Galaxy)

I've been pretty good about not buying new games lately, so when I went to Waterloo on business I took advantage of the occasion to drop by one of the best game stores in Ontario... J&J Cards. I walked out with In the Year of the Dragon and Race for the Galaxy...

In the Year of the Dragon

I'm a sucker for a good strategy game, so when I heard that the Alea release was a good one I knew I'd eventually succumb to temptation.

First impressions weren't so good. There are a lot of pieces, and it takes a fair amount of sorting to set things up. Also, the whole thing is really bland looking. To top things off, the components are definitely lower quality than earlier games in the series (thinner counters, board warp). Oh well. Kozure in particular seemed put off by the presentation, and I could feel he wasn't particularly looking forward to playing it.

Luckily, the rules are short and the included player's aids are very helpful (though they have to be the tiniest ones I've ever seen... is that a 2 point font?)

So, we're in China and it's the Year of the Dragon. Each player needs to recruit the right workers in order to weather the hardships of the year ahead. Unfortunately for the players, it's going to be a brutal year.

Without getting into too much detail about the rules, each game round (one of twelve "months") consists of:
1) Choosing from a series of potential actions
2) Hiring a worker (which will make you more effective at various actions in the future)
3) Weather the calamities of the month.

A part of me was afraid that playing a game about surviving a series of disasters would be kind of... you know... depressing. Luckily, although the game is far from a cakewalk the process is engaging and fun. You see the year ahead right at the start of the game so you you try to hire the right people at the right times to succeed and prosper despite the hard times. the workers may not survive long, but whatever.

On a purely mechanical level, there's a couple of nice things going on. The choice of workers is the meat of the game, but turn order is almost as important. Wouldn't you know it, the better the worker, the less it helps you go first. It's a simple problem, but it works really well. Similarly, the way actions are split is very effective at forcing players to be flexible (which is an interesting problem when things get as tight as they do in this game). It feels like Princes of Florence with the passive aggressive tendencies of Puerto Rico.

In our first session, I tried to manage a small series of three buildings throughout the game, and tried to avoid going for cash at all costs (though I was in for a rude awakening when I discovered that the following month's event was a tribute of 4 Yuan to the emperor). I focused on getting victory points through dragons and scholars. For 99% of the game, things looked good for me. Unfortunately, the endgame bonus points for buddhas put Bharmer 2 points ahead for the win.

From the reactions at the end, I'd say it was well received. I wouldn't say it's exceptional or anything, but it was very good. Looking forward to playing again.

Race for the Galaxy
A while back, Puerto Rico was made into a card game called San Juan. I had hoped that it would bring the fun of the Puerto Rico game system while removing the fiddliness of the setup and some of the gameplay. It more or less worked. The loss of the shipping aspect of the game was a bit of a shame, but my biggest dissapointment was the loss of the player interation. In comparison to it's bigger brother, the card game was a bit muted (particularly with 4). It's a very good game, but not as much as I'd hoped for.

Then along comes another game by one of the designers of San Juan. In fact, it's more like another version of the same game. Rumour has it that it's quite a bit more complicated, but also more satisfying. Sounded good to me.

Race for the Galaxy shares much of the same rules as San Juan, but the devil is in the details. For example, roles are selected simultaneously and secretely instead of sequentially. That doesn't sound like a big deal, but it makes a big difference in gameplay because you spend a lot of time guessing and second guessing what the other players will pick (can I assume he'll pick settle so I don't have to?). This otherwise small detail made me feel much less like I was playing a multiplayer solitaire game than I often do with San Juan.

In a way, it feels like Race isn't so much adding to San Juan as stripping LESS from Puerto Rico. Shipping is back. Goods of various types are back (or, more specifically, they mean more than just picking up a different amount of cards). A few things are new, such as the concept of controlling worlds (through discovery or military conquest).

Anyway, the additional complexity is manageable and the game works well. The cards have an iconography which seems difficult at first, but I think it will likely become easy soon enough. As in San Juan, getting to know the cards is essential to really understanding the strategy, but in this case getting to know the cards and their combinations will take a while (and it's kind of fun anyway).

Bharmer built the fastest and won the game, but my New Spartan empire of military conquest and alien tech. came quite close despite having built much less. I feel like there's quite a bit to explore here... I'm looking forward to it.