2 Knizias (Tigris and Euphrates, Modern Art)

We played a couple of excellent Knizias which rarely seem to get table time this week: Tigris and Euphrates and ModernArt.

It was Bharmer's pick, and he chose these classics which he had never played before. Shemp was not in attendance this week.

Tigris and Euphrates

Tigris and Euphrates is a game I've played pretty much constantly online at BGG since I was introduced to it 2 years ago (which probably translates to +/- 20 games). The rest of the group, however, have only played (at most) a handful of times. I should have crushed them, right? Yeah, no.

Bharmer, very early on, committed a very common newbie mistake: he built a monument he couldn't defend (of course, it's a common newbie mistake for a reason... when you first learn this game, you mostly just want to see how things tick, and building a monument is an important part of that initial understanding of the game). Since I was in the best position to take advantage of this, I swept in and grabbed it. I actually scored a few points in external conflict on the way, so it was even better than it could have been. Yet again, I had an unfair advantage, which should have made winning the game easy. Clearly, despite my experience I'm not that good at this game. Over the course of the game, a large monument laden Western empire grew quite powerful (and attracted many leaders). The East saw smaller northern and southern civilizations develop, fragment and morph into three smaller territories after a series of bloody external conflicts.

It was an exciting game. Despite a general unfamiliarity with the game, players didn't keep to themselves (often a problem with less experienced players). As the tile bag dwindled, I was really struggling to catch up in blue. I took a gamble on an exterior conflict against Luch which didn't pan out, leaving me further behind. I did manage to hook up to a blue monument, but it seemed like it would be my lsat turn. Despite all my advantages, my score wasn't giving me much confidence. Surprisingly, I did get one last turn as the tile bag was passed back to me with a single tile in it! I snagged 2 more blues that round, putting me back in the running.

Final scores put me and Kozure in a tie for the win. We had to go to our third least colour to break it... I won. That was close! Bharmer continues to prove that he's exceptionally quick at picking up games by playing very well in his first time out.

Modern Art

Modern Art is a game we don't play nearly often enough. 4 players is, in my opinion, the best number for the game (3 is not satisfying, 5 is too chaotic). Modern Art has the odd quality of being a game that is easy to play, but hard to "get". Strategy is not evident. Understanding the economics of each individual sale is simple enough, but manipulating the market to your advantage is harder. If an artist is already on the table, is it to your advantage to play another card by the same artist and bring in more interested buyers, or is it better to bring in a new artist and devalue the other player's investments? The answer involves many factors, including the amounts the other players have committed to the purchases, how many more are on the table, what is in your hand, etc. Like Tower of Babel, I play this game and enjoy it, but never feel like we are catching on to the strategy.

Again, bharmer played very well for his first time. There were no blown deals or gross overpayments. He actually spent a couple seasons without buying any paintings at all (deciding to maximize sales instead). It didn't work for him, but it was interesting.

Scores were unbelievably close. Luch won the game with 520, Kozure came in second with 514, and I came third with 510 (those numbers are approximate). It was good to get play that again.

Here's to revisiting older games! And Knizias.

El Grande, Bohnanza, China, Modern Art

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

El Grande:

I love, love, love this game.

I can't quite explain it.

I love that the mechanics are both clever and elegant.

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

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

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

When I play this game, I feel very engaged.

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

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

... but enough about me!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sauron. Tough.

This week saw an edition of WAGS dedicated to the German master designer Reiner Knizia (He is responsible for some of my favorite games, particularly Tigris & Euphrates). The games for the evening were Lord of the Rings (With Sauron expansion), and Modern Art

In keeping with the german theme, we had delicious sausage with sauerkraut(less related, but still close, were mushroom and cabbage filled perogies)!!!

First up was Sauron. Some of the group had experience with the base game (as well as Friends and Foes), but Shemp in particular hadn't really played. Even to those familiar with the original, this was the first time we had played this particular expansion. Still, despite the warning in the rules (and Kozure's pleading), I went ahead and included all the bad tiles in our first go around... Of ocurse, I was later nominated to play Sauron, so that worked out just fine.

Since we haven't really played the original at a WAGS session, I'm going to start with my impressions of that. This is a game which really took me by surprise when I first played it. It's cooperative (all players work toghether to beat the game), which is highly unusual. It's a very abstract representation of the story. The boards are really attractive, and the corruption track is very appealing to me, but I was skeptical that all the "theme" provided by these things might be undermined by such an abstracted system. After playing a few times I feel that this game is not only very good, but actually accomplishes many things few games manage to do. I'll start with a complaint: the game is loaded with a few too many bits (cards of various functions, multiple boards, various tokens and minis, "money", the Ring, etc) and rules to go with each one. This gives the game a very "fiddly" feeling which I don't normally associate with Knizia's games. It also takes up a lot of space, with many distinct piles all over the place.

In a nutshell, aach player takes on the role of a hobbit, and collectively they work together to journey to Mount Doom to destroy the ring, without being killed, discovered by Sauron or corrupted by the Ring. A series of boards represent the various steps in the storyline, and markers on those boards identify the progress of the hobbits in various "main" and "Sub" missions. A track down the side of each board describes the nasty events which could occur in that scenario if the hobbits are unlucky and/or take too long. Players must randomly select tiles to see if the good or bad tracks advance, and then play cards out of their hands to help move things in the direction they want things to go. Money, represented as shields, can be accumulated to purchase "Gandalf" cards at any time, providing much needed reinforcements. The Ring can be put on to advance on a particular track without activating the spaces... at the cost of possible corruption. Resources representing firends and items can be picked up here and there to help the hobbits along. All the while, a "corruption" track starts with the hobbits at one end and Sauron on the other. If the ringbearer ever meets Sauron, the game ends. It's a very difficult quest, which basically boils down to management of a hand of cards and resources on the table (with an eye towards the bad things on the horizon and a strategy to overcome eahc scenario). Another interesting aspect is that the game plays solo quite well, and goes right up to 5 players (with very different strategies at each number).
This is the only game I've ever played which successfully conveyes a sense of desperation and a need for effective cooperation. It manages to create tension from the very beginning (It would have been very unfortunate if the first three boards were easy and/or irrelevant and things only got interesting at the end). When I play, I get a sense of how difficult the quest really is in the books. By the time I've crossed Moria, I often feel like there is no possible way I can make it. Still, there are many opportunties for reinforcements as the game progresses and if you play smart it is possible to finish successfully.

The Sauron expansion brings a whole new level of challenge. The players are no longer working together against the mechanics of the game. A player takes on the role of Sauron and can pay attention to the discussions and actions of the players and react to their weaknesses as they become apparent. The game also introduces a new threat on the corruption track... a Nazgul token which races towards the Ringbearer, and then races back to Mordor. If this happens before the end of the scenario, the game ends. Last, but not least, are a large number of new "Bad" tiles to throw into the mix to make the game even harder (the flipside of adding the extra tiles is that a player is no longer forced to accept the tile they draw... they can reject it and draw again. Unfortunately, they must take the second tile).
I REALLY liked the expansion. Playing Sauron is not easy, as opportunites are limited (he acts in a limited way at the beginning of each players turn. He only plays in his full capacity when players must roll the die... something they will work very hard never to have to do). It is very difficult to have the Nazgul reach the hobbits and return to Mordor in the course of one scenario (however, knowing what I know now, I would try to save that for the end when the hobbits are much closer. Seems obvious now!). On the other hand, I think that Sauron is likely to win most games, and the goal would be to see HOW FAR THE HOBBITS CAN GET (for score keeping, the Hobbit's score might be the space they were when they died, and Sauron's score would be 60-the highest hobbit's score, assuming "60" is the highest possible score. It might also be appropriate to shift his one way or the other to account for the relative difficulty of disposing of the players early... maybe 80-the highest hobbit's score, for example.) The additional black tiles make the game even harder than it normally would be. The new odds for getting a "good" tile drop from 50% to 20%, but in return the hobbits get to control their fate somewhat. While the net effect is certainly not in the hobbit's favour, I think that the choices make the system more balanced than it seems. Kozure, Shemp and Luch seemed very discouraged by the difficulty, however, so I think next time we'll try without them (personally, since I would be playing for a score rather than to "beat" the game, I would prefer to play WITH the extra tiles since I enjoy the added level of decision making, and the less predetermined series of events... but I can definitely see the other point of view).

Predictably, I won as Sauron. The hobbits did get all the way to Mordor, however, which means they were probably playing much better than I was.

Exhausted from the experience of Sauron, we moved on to Modern Art. I enjoyed it, as always, and even managed to pull a win (although slim, with Luch hot on my tail). As in Traders of Genoa, we are getting better at actually making money in this game. I still don't think I fully grasp how to swing the dynamics of the game in my favour as much as I could, but I'm learning! A fun game.

Ratings:
Lord of the Rings: 8.5
Lord of the Rings, Sauron Expansion: 8.5

Bid-O-Rama

Bidding Based Game Madness - last night's session consisted of a longish 5-player game of Traders of Genoa, 1.75 rounds of Modern Art, a meat lasagna, and some x-tra crispy garlic bread.

mmmmmm, garlic.

The Tili playing = Shemp winning hypothesis recieved some supporting evidence, but is still far from a foolproof predictor of results.

mmmmmmm, results.

Well, actually, results will follow shortly; first, a commentary on Traders of Genoa. I continue to be confounded by the ceaslessly shifting character of ToG. It seems to me each time we play has a vastly different 'feel' to it - they are all enjoyable, but pacing and results vary a lot. I have a feeling that this is intrinsic to the mechanics of the game - the part of the board that any given turn takes place in is random, and the fact that everyone's conflicting agendas are in play means that the course of a turn is chaotic without being random. I think that this game definitely hits the sweet spot of "Variable, but not too Random". For further reference to this point, see Kozure's post about The Perfect Game. I also think that, as the social interaction is a vital and large component of this game (The Perfect Game Point 7), the shifting players and their shifting moods lead to a fairly wide variation in the "feel" of each session.

This was Tili's first time playing ToG, and she was definitely the most accomplished first time player that has showed up in our corner of the universe - I don't remember dollar values, but each played earned far more than in times previous. Collectively, our game ending scores broke the bank, so it seems that we are learning the game. I was able to pull it out in the end, following a strategery* of accumulating priviledges and delivering messages (coupled with total stinginess) to get a final count of 840 Florins. I believe that Easy place second in this one, as he was an order filling machine.

We had planned on playing Domaine, but there wasn't enough time to do that, so instead we pulled out the Modern Art deck and Chips - Easy gave us a heads-up about the distribution of cards (less esteemed artists have the greater number of works available), and we were ready to go. (Not too much was different from the last time that we played. We all seemed to absorb the lesson that it is usually better to take someone else's money for a painting that you are selling, rather than try to purchase it yourself, and had a fun first round, where I managed to pull out a victory.

The second game was slightly truncated due to a general sleepyness, and resulted in an Easy victory for Easy. This was thanks in part to a critical math failure on my part, choosing a profit of 40 G's over a profit of 60 G's, and giving the 60 G's to Easy. I believe that the margin of victory was less than 20, but I'm not positive. If that's true, though, I messed up on the Double Fixed Price auction of Krypto's work big-time.

Overall: a fun night of bidding games.

Next Week: Conquest-o-rama! Domaine followed by Tigris and Euphrates. Back-up quick game is still under consideration. We should try to play Domain by the proper rules, this time, eh?

Betrayed by Bugs, Snakes and Bad Art

Last night, at a special Holloween edition of WAGS, we tried out two new games... Betrayal at House on the Hill and Modern Art.

To the tune of an eclectic (and sometimes only tenuously related to Holloween) playlist handpicked by Shemp, we gorged on the scariest food of all: Arby's, Twinkies and something... else (which was white and stretchy but otherwise unidentifiable). It is worth noting that Kozure's "Extreme Baked Potato" probably ranks as the single scariest part of the evening...

The first game, Betrayal at House on the Hill, had us all exploring a haunted house toghether. As each room is revealed, we would find items, witness unspeakable events and uncover terrible omens. Each omen revealed makes it progressively more likely that one of the players' character will go insane and betray the group (which is called "the haunting"). When that happens, the traitor reads a text which describes the nature of his insanity/ transformation, as well as his diabolical mission. Similarly, the remaining good players read a different text describing their objectives to get out of this mess.

Our first session saw Luch transform himself from a kid who feared nothing skeleton related, but was terrified by bugs, to... a... Bug Lord. Suddenly, giant insects filled the mansion and the rest of us were left scrambling trying to concoct a bug spray we could use to kill them all. Sadly, we didn't even come close. (Although, we had a very "movie" moment when Shemp came rushing down to rescue Kozure from a giant beetle with his very sharp axe, only to have it THUD into it's hide and then get eaten.)

Our second session had us exploring a house which was almost entirely basement. This time, Shemp turned on us by turning into a giant two headed snake. The rest of us where supposed to rush to cast a spell so we could destroy the heads before he got too big. Unfortunately, we forgot the rush part and pretty much just let him grow to full size. Obviously, he won (and I had the distinction of being the only character eaten alive that game).

All in all, this game was fun, but not as much as I had hoped. For some reason, most of these "exploration" games seem to have a problem with pacing. I had read that the first game would be the best, because you didn't know what to expect and the flavour text on the cards and rooms would be new. I didn't feel that way. Having to stop and read the text all the time ruined the momentum for me. In our second game, the first exploration phase went more quickly becasue we were breezing through most of the text, and I enjoyed it more. Once the haunting begins, we hear the only flavour text which matters... the transformation of the madman. This is when the real fun begins (although having to stop the game to absorb our goals and set up the board with the monsters also breaks up the pacing). In the two scenarios we played, I was impressed by how different the game felt due to the nature of the haunts. If they can be equally "fresh" across all 50 scenarios, I would be impressed. I look forward to experiencing more of them!

Next up was Modern Art. This is an older game by Reiner Knizia (Tigris and Euphrates) in which everyone plays art dealers, trying to make as much money by buying and selling paintings. The mechanics are nice and simple, yet there's enough variety and surprise to keep it interesting. Essentially, you put up a painting for auction and have everyone bid for it according to the auction type on the card (free auction, sealed auction, once around, fixed price or double lot). The winner of the auction pays the player who put it up (unless the auctioneer himself gets it, in which case he pays the bank). The game goes on for 4 seasons, and at the end of each season (concluded once any artist sells five paintings) the artists are ranked by popularity (most paintings sold). The top three are worth money and the others aren't. At his point, the players sell their all their purchased paintings back to the bank and hope they turned a profit. The trick is that which every passing season, a mechanism allows buyers to capitalize on an artist's earlier fame. In the end, the most money wins.

We played two games of Modern Art. As with any bidding game, the first go around is difficult because you really don't know what things are worth. Still, since the game has simple mechanics it didn't take us too long to get into it. We drastically overbid everything the first time, but in the end Kozure (House of Tokyo) came out ahead. The second game had us all bidding lower than our first game (but, still too high,I'm guessing). Lucky for me, I made a KILLING by banking on an artist who had placed first on the first two rounds. Everyone else thought there wouldn't be enough cards left to have him place highly again, but I had three in my hand. I payed next to nothing and he came in first for a third time. I won that one by a large margin!

Modern Art was lots of fun. It was quick, simple and still had us very involved. I could see quite a few different types of people liking this one, and I think it will come out quite a bit. I was thinking about the transactions last night on my way home. It occurred to me that when we look at an artist which is likely going to make, say $40 000 per painting that round, if we pay another player $37 000 for it then we make only $3000 while the seller made $37 000!!! (in other words, paying money to give another player a big lead). Seems obvious now, and maybe everybody but me figured this out last night, but considering this fact I'm surprised we weren't bidding closer to HALF of what a painting is worth rather than near it's total.

We'll see next time...

Betrayal at House on the Hill: 6
Modern Art: 8