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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dante's Inferno: Overlong, fiddly and boring.

Zombies!!!: Overlong and wastes the theme.

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

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

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

Ugly but Lovable Games

• Glory to Rome
• Galaxy Trucker
• Ideology

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

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

Just Plain Ugly Games

• Blue Moon City

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

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

Off to India (Maharaja, Taj Mahal)

Just as fast as Bharmer returns... he is gone.

But before he left, he dictated we play two games he felt hadn't been on the table recently enough: Maharaja and Taj Mahal.

Maharajah

We played another session of "the game Bharmer always wins" and, well, he won. We did our best to stop him, though... in fact I'd say we did a much better job of spreading out and working the whole board than we usually do (as opposed to collectively going from one scoring city to another). There were lots of people who struck out on their own to claim the central palaces in non-scoring cities while manipulating the maharaja track to maximize the scoring opportunities. Still, Bharmer managed to always be in the right place at the right time: Always grabbing the cheap third place scoring when it was available, always sneaking in to get first or second when it really mattered, always somehow ahead of the pack in palace construction. Luch did manage to give him some competition by keeping up with the palaces, but when Bharmer finished the game by building his last two Luch was nowhere near ready to do the same.

This type of game is normally right up my alley, but I simply can't wrap my head around it to find a winning strategy. I certainly see the possibilities, but not fast enough. I'm starting to feel like there would be a way to succeed at Maharajah that would be primarily based on denying other players their actions, but I'm just guessing.

Taj Mahal

This is a game that I often win at, but it seems that tonight was not going to be my night. I started out decently enough, but seriously floundered in the end. If memory serves, I didn't do anything at all in the last 2-3 palaces!

I prefer Taj with 4 players, and this week's game cemented that for me. One less player makes the game shorter, and players are much less likely to get completely shafted in the auctions.

I think Shemp won the game, with Kozure just a few points behind (but it's pretty fuzzy in my head, so I could be wildly off on that)

This is a "Hot" scene, with... "Heat"... and ... "Chemistry" (Maharaja, Taj Mahal, Yspahan) 8237

Games set in the Middle-East, played in a very hot apartment.

Maharaja

We've played Maharaja many times. My opinion on the game has swayed, but one thing that has remained constant is that Bharmer always wins. He is always very much in control, always a few steps ahead. I was determined to make this evening the exception...

Out of the gate, I had the lowest character so I went first (we dealt these randomly... more on that later). I of course went to the next scoring area and secured a majority by claiming the center palace. With money in hand, I proceeded to the next scoring area (though I also accelerated the return of the first scoring area by advancing the character track). As the game went on, I was awash with money and doing very well. On my final turn, I placed two palaces and ended the game with a comfortable lead.

Here's the thing: this game got me thinking, and I'm pretty sure that the player who goes first in the first turn usually wins. The money earned in the easy majority on the first scoring round makes the rest of the game significantly easier. Unless we are collectively doing something wrong, it seems very difficult to catch up once you've fallen behind. I'm not sure why it's taken so long for me to notice it, but it seems rather mandatory to bid for starting order in the future! There's probably a way to take a loss on the fist round and secure a majority on the next scoring, but all it takes is a single person messing with the track to kill that strategy. Anyway, I had fun but I suspect that those who weren't in the running didn't enjoy it much.

Taj Mahal

We played our first four player of this wonderful game. Not much to tell, but I has a great time as always. Easily one of my favorite games (funny, too, because this is one I normally win but Luch beat me by a point). Kozure, who vowed to make this the "time he played Taj Mahal and didn't suck at it" was doing quite well for the majority of the game, but fell back in the last few rounds. Oh well!

Yspahan

We finished off with a three player of Yspahan. In my second outing, I tried to go for cards rather than the camel track. I was monumentally lucky by pulling the exact card I wanted the first time I drew (I gathered lots of gold and then immediately drew the card that lets you build a building ignoring the cost of the camels). I built the one that gives me a bonus cube every time I placed in a disctrict. Wow, that's a powerful ability to have from the beginning! That, combined with a very lucky die roll for 4 souks in the most expensive disctrict on the last round combined to give me a decisive win. It's actually a little boring when exceptional good luck gives you a win over your opponents, but it's a short game and it's too early to tell whether this sort of thing happens often. I still like it.

Gettin' better all the time (Taj Mahal, Maharaja)

What an excellent evening of gaming...

We started out with our second play of Taj Mahal. This type of game really benefits from a second game soon after the original learning game. In the first, I was pretty much lost on the strategy, in this game something clicked.

When I play strategy heavy games, I have a tendency to want to find an "angle". In other words, I try to identify the various paths to victory, pick one that doesn't seem too obvious, and see if I can stick to it. In games where I don't feel I can even competently assess the various strategies, I often will try something just to see how the game system reacts. One thing I've learned about Eurogames is that a winning strategy is often simply doing what the other players aren't... This week it worked for me (though it often doesn't!)

Last week, I couldn't get any synergy going with the goods or the palaces connecting. Worse, I couldn't get the cards to work for me. I figured I'd see what would happen if I sat back for a few rounds and just collect cards (there is a bonus card for any player who withdraws without playing anything). After 3 regions were scored, I found myself with an enormous hand of cards and two strong suits. With a more complete hand, I was able to identify the goals I was able to meet and then make them happen. After that, I was able to snowball my points by overpowering the others to win the regions which matched the goods I had while laying back and drawing cards when they didn't. I'm not sure what would happen if everyone tried this technique in the same game, but when only one player does it he/she seems to have a definite advantage. At least for this game, it worked for me and I won.

I was also able to notice some of the subtler strategies in the game now that things have had a bit of time to sink in:

1) If both you and another player have a noble chit (the princess, for example), and both of you are aiming to get the second one, let the other player get it first. In particular, don't get into a bidding war over it. Whoever gets it first is actually at a disadvantage because the second player can easily get their second chit the next round and steal it away, but the first player will have to take a number of rounds to get the two nobles again.
2) Focus on building one or two suits. This is probably obvious to pros of the game, but in our first session I was much more focused on picking cards with the symbols I wanted and it often left me unable to go the distance when I actually wanted something.
3) The princess is a good source of points, and placing palaces which connect can also help, but nothing can touch goods for scoring huge points.
4) Tying players in the symbols they are playing is important, If you're going for the elephant and have a choice of the second character it is tempting to play whatever one hasn't been played yet. However, the opposite might be more beneficial! The other player is forced to waste further cards or pull out with nothing. It prevents an easy win for the other player and can throw a wrench in their strategy without affecting yours. Last week, I saw Kozure wind up with 2-3 prizes on several occasions by tying just long enough for us to pull out and he'd keep the rest. He also creamed us that game.

It's only been two games but so far I'm really enjoying this one.

The second and final game for the evening was Maharaja. I haven't been overjoyed with this one in our first several games but I'm happy to say that this was by far the best game I've had. What changed? We put up a fight, for once.

Bharmer has a 100% win rate on this game, and we've played +/- 5 times (always 5 players)! He seemed to understand the layers of the game better than we did, and he would use that to his advantage every game (the most interesting thing being that he always seemed a step ahead of us, pushing a different mechanic every time just as we tried to replicate what he did in the LAST game unsuccessfully). How can one player in a five player game routinely score first in almost every region? We were all clearly spinning our wheels.Compound this with the fact that it's such an unforgiving game that a few mistakes early on can ruin your chances and the winner can be perfectly obvious several rounds before the end (in fact, the game can send players in a downwards spiral as lack of success translates to fewer funds which translates to further lack of success). It all added up to games which left me disappointed since the tension is lost when you know it's hopeless 40 minutes into a 2 hour game.

Right off the bat, things were pretty different in this game. Players were placing far fewer houses on the roads, and building in regions other than the one being scored. Competition for regions was much tighter. Role swapping and governor track alterations were being done with more effectiveness than before. Fewer people were choosing actions they couldn't do (*cough* building without houses available *cough*). With five more or less evenly matched players, the game suddenly sprang to life for me.

Ok. My first move was terrible. I sacrificed 1st place in the first region, getting only 4th in the process, and handed an advantage to Shemp (I altered the governor track, benefiting only him). After that, I wasn't doing too bad. Several turns in a row, I was sitting on nearly enough money to build 2 palaces, but I never quite managed to make it happen. Shemp, Kozure and Bharmer each had regions were they dominated and were trying to steer the governor track to their advantage. Unfortunately for Luch, he had a series of bad turns in the beginning which left him struggling until the end. This was the first game to make it to the 10th round, and just about all of us had the potential to win. In an ironic twist, the last region to be scored was inaccessible to us due to lack of built houses leading to it. I stood to gain since I was last in the turn order... but I was short on cash. I needed someone to pave the way for me and then I needed 2 extra gold to come my way (a player error or someone crossing my houses). Neither happened, so when bharmer did build a path to the region as the second last player, I wasn't able to capitalize on it. Bharmer won again, but it was close. I'd be willing to bet that he won't win the next one.

Anyway, it's been a while since we've played two heavier games in a single night, and it's been a while since I've been so engaged in all the games we've played. We went into overtime, but it was worth it.

Thousands of free tacos (Maharaja, Puerto Rico, Formula:Motor Racing)

So Taco Bell has offered to give a lifetime of tacos to anyone who is willing to give the company their Playstation 3 (so they can give it to charity). It's an odd story, and not one that affects us (since we don't have one). Still, it inspired Luch, our dictator for the week, to sugeest tacos for the evening. Mmmmm. Tacos.

First game was Maharaja. From the get-go things were going poorly for me... I just couldn't manage to place higher than 4th or 5th, and therefore couldn't really build any palaces. Bharmer, on the other hand, is extremely good at it. Each game, he seems untouchable, but what is interesting is that he uses a different strategy each game. In the first, he was swapping characters all the time. In this one, he manipulated the nobles (?) track endlessly, and continuously built palaces one turn ahead of time (getting the central position with little competition). It's a little weird, but it seems that despite the fact that there is little variety in what actually happens on the board, the way to get there appears to have many options. I don't remember how Tili managed in her first game, but she was very good in her second game, narrowly losing the game to Brian by a single palace (and providing him with the only real competition that game).

My opinion on the game is wavering. There are good things going on, but it moves slowly and the ending can almost be predicted halfway throught he game. That may be because we are not good enough competition for bharmer! It does bother me that he manages first or second in almost every city, even in a 5 player game. Shouldn't that be difficult to do? What are we missing?

Anyway, congrats to Bharmer (and Tili). You are clearly very good at this game.

Next was Puerto Rico. Wow, it had been a long time since we've played. None of us have ever really played this extensively, so it remains a largely "off the cuff" experience (no rote strategies, here). Anyway, I started with an indigo and went straight into tobacco. I was hoping to focus on making money, so I bought the two markets and then added an office. I never did get to use the office (and didn't get much use out of the factory, either). Still, things were going okay. I was hoping to pick up 3 large buildings but bharmer bought one much earlier than I expected anyone to... sparking a rush to buy them. I managed 2.

When the scores were tallied, kozure and I finished quite close: his 52 to my 54.

It was fun to get that out again!

We finished up with Formula: Motor Racing. I'm really enjoying this game right now. Not much to say, except that we managed to beat the bots, and that's an achievement for us.

Having a Breakthrough day (Maharaja, Conquest of the Empire)

From Shemp:

Having a Breakthrough Day: I've had a total recalibration of my mind, you know. I mean, it's like, I've been banging my head against this 19th century type, um, what? Thought mode? Construct? Human construct? Well, the wall doesn't exist. It's not there, you know. I mean, they tell you, look for the light at the end of the tunnel. Well, there is no tunnel. There's just no structure. The underlying order is chaos.

-From the film Slacker.

I can't do a full post right now, but last night was a breakthrough night! After roughly two and a half years, our little gaming group finally killed a leader! We identified the person out front, banded together, and TOOK THEM DOWN. It was beautiful. Petty differences were set aside. Screwage was minimized. Victory points were graciously shared amongst the alliance.

We've grown as gamers. I commend Kozure and Luch on their fine, fine work.

There is no tunnel.

From Easy:

A breakthough, indeed.

First things first... This night we played two games. The first was Maharaja and the second was Conquest of the Empire. The breakthrough in question occurred during Conquest of the Empire.

This was our second game of Maharaja, and I for one was determined not to make the same mistakes I made in our first session (which ultimately allowed Bharmer to walk away with the win). Tili joined us in place of Kozure, so she was in the unfortunate position of being the only new player! I did pretty well for myself. I was winning a good number of income by sticking with the #1 role, zooming to the next scoring city and securing a majority (or strong 2nd place). More importantly, I was consistently building a palace every turn. Unfortunately, I had to skip a round and Bharmer didn't. He won again! Shemp was trying a strategy which can work very well in other area majority games... go for the easy 3rd place points in lots of cities. Didn't work for him, but that doesn't mean it couldn't work in the future.

I like the game. It seems complex at first, but once you get used to it the whole thing is quite streamlined and smooth. I think I enjoy it about as much as I do Puerto Rico or Power Grid. They are all interesting and enjoyable, but neither are huge hits with me for whatever reason. Like Power Grid, Maharaja is ultimately a race between all the players to get to a predefined goal... and in both games I feel like my options are a little bit "railroaded" or "constrained" by that fact. To put it another way: In games like these, everything boils down the efficiency with which you reach that predetermined goal. by way of contrast, games which use victory points can be much more open ended and offer several different ways to play the game.

Next up was Conquest of the Empire.

The initial spread of forces was interesting. Bharmer had 3 of his 4 starting influence tokens in italia. My influence started just to the South and West of there. Since the other three were scatterred around the rest of the board, it became clear that it would be mutually advantageous to myself and Bharmer to cooperate. I cozied up to him for a second place in Italia, and spread out to grab nearby neutral influence tokens. Bharmer, unfortunately, felt so much pressure to keep his lead in italia that he was somewhat paralysed and couldn't really break out of there. While the other players skirmished and jockeyed for influence and position elsewhere on the board, I had grabbed a lucrative empire. By the end of the 2nd season, I had a huge lead. I had also snagged 4 Army Training cards (!!!), so I wasn't really an attractive target, either. With zero chaos to my name, things were looking good.

Then it happened. This is when the breakthrough occurred. This is how we learned that There Is No Tunnel: The other three players decided to work toghether to take me down (not surprising). Then, they actually worked effectively towards that goal (extremely surprising. Unprecendented, even). Remember, Luch was in that group. It boggles the mind.

Anyway, the next two seasons saw bharmer and I as allies against the world. I didn't have enough money to work my way into a different alliance, though I REALLY wished I could have. Systematically, they raised and sent armies to the locations where I had influence. In many cases, I was spread too thin to defend myself adequately, so I started losing ground immediately (though I was satisfied that I managed to keep just about all of my influence long enough to score the 3rd campaign season, even though my armies had been mowed down). Other than a few token representatives in italia, I had only two major forces left: One just south of Spain, and the other which threatened Kozure in Numidia. Despite this, moving into the 4th season I still had high hopes that my lead was enough. Unfortunately, in order to survive the onslaught, I had begun special taxing and raising armies quite a lot... my chaos was quite high.

In the last season, Shemp snuck into italia and converted all my influence in many of my old powerbases in the surrounding areas. Luch built an enormous army and knocked me out of a few regions. I poured my reasonably large and highly trained army out of Italia through a back route into Spain since it was not as well defended after Luch's advance. Unfortunately, it didn't go as well as planned, and I was forced to retreat. I made a mistake and went south, where Luch and Kozure successfully kept me pinned until the end of the game (Kozure had quite a fleet. He used one to block my exit though Afrika and the others to destroy any triremes I built before I could use them). Only my campaign to boot out Kozure in Numidia was a success. As my last action, I took Bharmer's advice and bounced Luch out of first place in Egypt (it didn't net me any points, but it did reduce his score).

When the dust settled, the scores became incredibly tight. Prior to taking chaos into account, I was ahead of Shemp and Luch by one point. However, since I had the most chaos, and Luch the second most, it ended with me and Luch tied for second... and Shemp all alone in the lead!

So, lesson learned... don't make yourself a huge target early in the game (duh). Either way, the whole experience of having a lead, becoming the target, seeing all the forces mobilize against me and all the big battles we had... well, it was a lot of fun and quite exciting. I think I did about as well as I could have, other than my big mistake retreating south instead of north from Spain (and maybe putting a bit more effort in swinging the alliances). I look forward to playing again!

Among Royalty (Maharaja, Princes of Florence)

4 Players this week, and what's a WAGS session without a new game?

This week's newest aquisition is Maharaja: Palace building in India. Bharmer bought it this weekend and was eager to try it out.

Maharaja is a Kramer and Kiesling collaboration (the same team which brought us Tikal, Torres, Pueblo, Mexica, etc). The board depicts 7 walled cities interconnected by paths and small villages. Each player is trying to be the first to build 7 palaces.

Each player will enlist the help of a noble on the first turn (though nobles will change hands over the course of a game). The noble confers a special power to the player and determines turn order. On a turn, players must choose 2 actions on a wheel (similar to the wheels in El Grande). There is a wide range of actions, some of them affect the acting player (building houses/ palaces, earning gold), others might impact other players (such as changing the order that the Maharaja will visit the cities, or exchanging character cards with another player).

Some things I liked:
1) Players are building houses and palaces in the various cities in order to gain majorities, so that when the Maharaja visits it they are rewarded with money (which is, in turn, used to build houses and palaces). However, houses are 12x less expensive to build than palaces, yet are worth the same when counting majorities! This leads to a very interesting balancing act as players try to get their palaces on the board yet still win majorities.
2) In our group, turn seemed to go by quickly. I suspect that is because the actions are determined in advance and are quite specific. However, there is real possibility of analysis paralysis if a player tries to think through every possibility and permutation when actually choosing their actions. In the end, though, there is too much chaos in the system to actually have that level of control, so it's ultimately not worth doing anyway.
3) It's nice to play a game which doesn't rely on tallying up victory points.

Some things I liked less:
1) The chaos, after one play, seemed a little high to me. I found it a little frustrating to have to plan 2 actions ahead of time, only to find out (repeatedly) that the Maharaja wasn't were I expected him to be, or that I was no longer the character I started with. As I alluded to in an earlier point, I find this to be an odd combination with the amount of potential analysis in planning out your turn.
2) It seems very difficult to do anything to stop a leader. Other players can't be directly affected, other than stealing their character card, so I kind of watched Brian coast to victory 3 rounds ahead of the end of the game... unable to do anything about it. I guess the idea would be to work together and try to prevent that player from gaining the majorities needed to raise cash and build palaces... but I suspect that's pretty hard to actually do.
3) On the surface, it seemed like there was at least two strategies available for earning income: Gaining majorities inthe cities, and placing houses on the roads to collect tolls. At least in our game, the houses on the roads were far too easy to circumvent, and did not really earn their keep. If they weren't necessary in order to get anywhere, I suspect players would soon stop playing them at all. I wonder if this will eventually lead to a game of "chicken" as players wait and see who will make the sacrifice and useup their turn to build there.

In the end, I felt like I was playing a combination of El Grande and Aladdin's Dragons. The area majority mechanic occupied most of my thoughts during the game, but I found myself constantly trying to guess what other players might do, and what I had to do in order to avoid getting messed up. I's a weird combination of deep strategy and guesswork. I made the wrong decisions far more often than I should have!

I did notice that Bharmer made extensive use of the character card trading mechanic, and that he made a point of building a palace on all but one turn. I lost sight of the goal of the game early on (building palaces), focusing too much on gaining majorities. This was despite Bharmer's warning at the beginning of the game not to do that! He won quite easily, but I would expect much stiffer competition in a second game.

In the end, Maharaja strikes me as potentially a very good strategy game. It seems to be aiming for depth of strategy combined with enough chaos to keep it from being dry/ predictable. Time will tell if it succeeds!

We followed up with a game of Princes of Florence, which Bharmer hadn't played yet. In my mind, there is no game which so much about optimization of resources, and that's why I love it. It also means that it's nearly impossible for a new player to compete. I went for a "jester + lots of works" strategy, but I faltered and produced at least 1 work too few to win the game. Shemp, who isn't a huge fan of the game and often does poorly, used a very well balanced strategy of a little bit of everything and won the game! Bharmer? He did come in last, but not by much. It was quite a tight game, and I'd say he did really well.